Vacation Recap Part 2

I first want to recap the very stressful events that lead up to my departure. After school on Thursday, I was making my plans for Friday and Monday. I pretty much had figured out what the kids were going to do; I just had to make the copies and write up the plans. My kids get off the bus around 3:45'ish and I have to leave school no later than 3:20 to make it safely home in time. I head to the copier with stacks of stuff (it's already after 3:00), throw it all in there, get it started, and then run back to my room to tidy some things up. I go back to get my copies, and wouldn't you know it, THE COPIER BROKE! Not just jammed...broke beyond my skill with only two assignments left to go. I started stressing out at this point...

To make a long story short, I stuffed stuff in my friends' mailboxes, sent them texts, and ran out the door at 3:30!!! This gives me little room to get home on time.

So, I'm just minutes from reaching my house, when I hit a road block. Old 74 was completely shut down around CVS (bomb scare...in Clermont County???). Now, I'm really freaking out because surely the girls are home sitting on the porch (my directions for them if I'm not there when they get off) by now, so I call Ray who is in San Diego and tell him to text our neighbor across the street to see if someone at his house could collect the girls. I had to make a huge loop that took an extra 10 minutes to get home.

Now it's 4:00 and Mike (Ray's brother) was coming any minute to get the girls. Luckily, we were already packed. After they left (bringing a little tear to my eye), I hopped in the car to go get Margaret (who was leaving for New York at 8:10). What should have been a 5 minute drive took 35 minutes thanks to the bomb scare. I am now biting all my fingernails off!!!

Any way, I make it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, but my stomach never really settled down until my plane touched down around 10:00 their time (around 1:00 our time).

Ray picked me up and we sat at a little bar on the resort drinking and chatting until late in the night (I was up for almost 24 hours that day!)

The next morning we ate breakfast on the resort. This is our view from our table. You are looking at Mission Bay.

They had like a little fish pond directly to the right of the camera. Ray was fascinated by this guy. He thought it was a sting ray...I think it was some kind of shark...

Then, we casually walked around the bay part of the resort.

Then, Ray gave me a tour of parts of the resort.

Remember my previous post...here is one of those fire pits in the daylight...

This bird flew into my picture just as I was getting ready to snap it...

We decided to rent some bikes to tour the bay area. Everywhere we went were paved bike paths, or the road was wide enough to accomodate both cars and bikes. I didn't take any pictures of the neighborhoods we went through (now wish I had), but it was hard to ride the bike and use my camera at the same time. I probably should have bought a smaller one to take with me...note to self!

We rode to the Boardwalk that travels down the coast...It was full of people riding bikes, walking, jogging. People were playing on the beach, hanging out. It was just like you see in the movies!

At one point we stopped our bikes and ventured into the Pacific ocean. FREEZING cold it is!!

This is the same day and the same spot where Ray dropped his phone into the water. I have a video I'll post a little later...

After about 4 hours, we rode back to the resort and grabbed some lunch...same place where we ate breakfast.

We took a nap by the pool, took a dip in the hot tub, and then headed back to our room (with separate entrances front and back) to figure out what to do next.

We decided to go downtown to catch a Padres game. It was getting dark when we got there, plus we were running late thanks to traffic, so I don't have any pictures of downtown San Diego :-(

But the stadium is sooo cool. They have an old building built right into the stadium itself.

And the back side is open so people can sit on the lawn and watch the game.

This building doesn't really lean in real life! ;-) There are people on the covered roof watching the game.

Then we went home and went to bed. I was soooo stuffed from the pretzel and pizza and beer and cracker jacks plus wiped out from four hours of bike riding in the sun, that as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out. But what an amazing day I had. It was so peaceful and relaxing and enjoyable. Ray and I had time to talk and to enjoy each other as husband and wife rather than as mom and dad.

Loved every single minute of this day!!

Father-Daughter Pics

I know I still need to share another vacation update, but I wanted to share these pictures I took of Ray, Hannah, and Emily yesterday. Snapfish has their products on sale for 50% off, so I thought maybe I could take some pictures and order Ray a new mousepad or a mug or something like that for Father's Day. It was a very frustrating shoot with Ray constantly complaining about possible ticks from the high grass and the girls freaking out about us being somewhere "vacant." Plus, the sun, which had been shining nonstop ALL day decided to go behind some clouds and stay there. I didn't take many pictures, so here are a few I kind of liked:

I did learn something from this...that I need to read up on posing ideas. Ray is such a stick in the mud and he did the same thing for each picture. And, I need to remember to do more than just one type of shot. I only did full body pictures. Why I didn't take any close-ups is beyond me. And, they are not exactly the most playful kind of pictures I had in mind, but at least I have some and it's always a learning process.

Yippee Skippee!

School's out! Today was my official last day for the year!!! In celebration, I came home and took a nap!! Like over an hour nap!! I am so looking forward to the summer, to reading lots of books, doing things with my kiddos, getting back into shape, improving my photography skills, and redoing parts of our house, and chillin' with some friends!

But, before I sign off, I thought I would share another silhouette I took for my last class. I am thinking of maybe printing it large and adhering it to a canvas...

I had to take a picture that showed a connection, so I had them blow on a dandelion together.

My most favorite memory

I thought I would start my vacation recap with my most favorite memory of the whole trip: Saturday's fire on the beach.

I'm not sure I can really explain why this night means so much to me. Maybe it's because we can't exactly have this experience around here. Maybe it's because it was so peaceful listening to the little waves lap the beach. Maybe because the lights shining from the surrounding houses/buildings were just beautiful. Maybe it's because of the male/female ducks who waddled up to us. The male stood watch while the female ate the chicken we threw at them. Or maybe because it was just me and Ray. No one else. Just hanging out together. But no matter the reason, I loved, loved, loved this night.

Right outside our backdoor were these fire pits spread down the length of the beach. We spotted them the night before when we could smell that distinctive someone-has-a-fire-smell. Off-handedly I said, "Maybe we should do that tomorrow night." There was no response from Ray.

The next day, we were in the gift shop getting some directions and some maps, when we spotted a stack of firewood. Still, we didn't really think much of it. We drove to Coronado (more to come later), and parked right in front of a grocery store. We went inside to get something to drink, when we spotted more firewood, and that's when Ray said, "Hey, maybe on our way back, we can grab some pre-made food (like a whole chicken) and some beer and hang out on the beach tonight." Done. We were going to go downtown to a Mexican restaurant, but for some reason, this just sounded more enticing to me.

So, several hours later, we returned to the grocery store, bought a whole rotisserie chicken, some chips, beer, and firewood, and headed back to our room.

But it was still early, so we decided to take a dip in the hot tub. After an hour or so, it was getting dark, and we thought it might be good to stake our claim on a fire pit. There weren't too many burning the night before, so we weren't worried about getting one. Well, we thought wrong. Every single fire pit was taken. Ray was really bummed. He said, "It figures. We've been planning this all day..." I didn't realize how much he had been looking forward to this too. We saw one family with young kids whose fire was dying and we didn't see any extra wood laying around, so we kind of stalked them until they started cleaning up. That's when we pounced and snagged our pit. Poor Ray had to go back to our room and carry our food, beer, blanket, table, and other stuff back to our spot all by himself. But, man, was it worth it!! We sat there for a couple of hours just relaxing, eating, and chatting.

The ferry boat below had a prom going on...

Just a few somewhat edited pictures of our view (they would have been better with a tripod, but since I didn't check my luggage, I couldn't bring one).

So, that about sums up my most favorite memory of the trip...our last night there was peaceful, relaxing, and memorable.

OMG

Ray and I returned today from our FABULOUS trip to San Diego. I really can't put into words how AWESOME this trip was for me and Ray. I feel so connected to him, and even, dare I say it?, in love with him. It's funny how just one year ago (in July) I wrote how Ray and I were unconnected. That he doesn't really let me in. How time and effort changes things. I feel we are more connected now than we were way back when when we were young and in love. The trip was relaxing and rejuvenating. It was a breath of fresh air. I feel like the cobwebs have been swept away and I get to start the summer recharged. I can finish out the last 3 days of school excited rather than dragging. I will post more details and some pictures later, but I just wanted to pop in and say thanks to God (or the universe or whatever energy you believe in) for presenting us with this opportunity and that I will treasure the memories for always (sooo sappy, but truly exactly how I feel!)

Coming back

Wow. I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted an update. I blame part of that on the fact that my computer was just almost impossible to deal with. Doing anything on my computer took lots of time. Of course, now that I have a beautiful Macbook Pro (that I hug daily), that excuse has been eliminated.

I blame the other part on just the natural ebb and flow of my life. Sometimes I'm all about documenting and sharing my life, and then sometimes I'm just tired of doing so.

Plus, I think I lost focus. I have been trying to increase my photography skills (as you all know), and I think I just kinda forgot why I started taking pictures in the first place.

So, I think I'm back. Right now, Ray is high in the sky on his way to California (and I'm really sad he's not here), and I just watched the finale of Survivor without him, and now I'm heading off to bed. But, in just 4 days, I will be joining him in San Diego for some much needed time to be just us. And in 9 school days, I will be on summer break. Ebb and Flow.

So, before I head off to bed by myself, I thought I would share some recent pictures from this last class I took of Hannah and Emily (the ones at the start of this post...I haven't figured out how to move them while using my new computer!) But, I learned how to take silhouettes and had some fun doing them!