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!!