Vacation Part 1

We left Wednesday night, drove through L.A. when it was dark....bummer....and arrived in San Diego around 9pm.  Our nerves were a bit shot as Chloe cried for about two hours towards the end of the trip.  She was tired and very cranky.  But we arrived at a cute hotel located right on the beach so that helped with our mood.  We could hear the waves crashing from our bedroom.  Unfortunately the location wasn't exactly right.....aparently the area in front of our hotel was a prime location for many homeless men.  It was a bit congested at times, but the beach was stunning and it didn't feel right to complain about anything.  We were still pretty lucky to be staying so close to the beach.  About a mile to the left of our hotel was the spot where we should have stayed.  But all in all, we were very pleased with our stay.  On Thursday we went exploring and spent the afternoon on the beach.  Dan got to surf again, which was great!  He rented a surf board and wet suit for the afternoon, although I was a little nervous because he surfed by himself.  But we were able to watch him from the beach.  In the evening we went to a seafood restaurant that came highly recommended...but we wouldn't recommend it.  Not so good.  But some Coldstone Creamery lifted everyone's spirits after our dinner.  Friday morning Dan and I took turns running along the beach and exploring more of the area.  Stunning!  Once we were showered and packed we took the kids to a restaurant on the beach for breakfast.  Dan ordered this Acaii blend something or other that was fabulous.  It had granola, honey and bananas on it.  Yum!  We did some more exploring and drove to L.A. to our hotel at Disneyland.  Now we are here, pleasantly surprised with our room and getting ready to find a dinner place.  I think we will be eating at Bubba Gump's Shrimp.  The girls will swim a bit in the heated outdoor pool and we will settle in for the evening. Saturday and Sunday will be full of Disneyland activities.

 Our blue eyed girl....

 Surfer Dan striking a pose....

 Jumping the waves in the cold, cold water.  I had on jeans and a sweatshirt....

 Trying to catch that perfect wave.....

 View of the beach in front of our hotel.....

Exploring Point Loma....

 Chloe slept through the whole experience at Point Loma....

 Catching a quick kiss with Chloe in the middle asleep (Mya took this picture of us)....

 View of San Diego and the airport....



Vacation Finally!

Last night we had a wonderful evening enjoying Philipino food. A nurse that Dan works with invited our whole family to her house for dinner. The food was wonderful and the fellowship great. She has tons of energy and was so good with the girls. The best part was that she collects Beanie Babies and had hundreds of them for the girls to play with. They took all of them out of the boxes and arranged them all over the living room. They were entertained for hours and it made for a much more relaxing evening for mommy and daddy. But the best part was going home with leftover dinner...lots of it!

In one day we leave for vacation! Dan doesn't work on the weekends, but he hasn't had a vacation day during the week for almost 8 months now. So it will be nice to have him around for a couple days during the week. We leave on Wednesday when he gets home for work. We will drive to San Diego and stay at the beach for 2 days. Then on Friday we will head to Disneyland. We will spend Saturday and Sunday there and drive home Sunday night. We are super excited for this trip. Thanks to Christmas money from family we are able to take this trip stress free. Thank you all! Be looking for lots of pictures coming up. Stay tuned!

Good Morning

Do I really need to explain this photo?  This is what we woke up to this morning...and yes, those are toilet plungers.

Moving On

Well, it is time to call together some prayer warriors. We are starting the process of choosing our next location. We have options in San Diego but a new one popped up in a town called Salinas, which is North close to Monterey. Dan will be talking with his recruiter tonight to work through some details. We should be making a decision soon! Our plans can change like the wind as we never know which contracts are available until it is time to actually make a decision. Though we have had our heart set on San Diego, we could easily end up going somewhere else. The contract amount, location, housing, and type of job all have to fall into place. We will keep you all posted!

Road Trip to the Sea

I have to admit that we are getting better at travelling.  I am getting really good at finding hotels for us when we take trips.  I know the websites to use and I have learned to discern what is helpful/not helpful with the hotel reviews on some websites.  It is getting easier and this time we landed at a very pleasant hotel.  We decided to take a quick trip to the east coast to drive a famous road called Big Sur.  It is a 100 mile stretch of road that goes right along the coast. We left Friday when Dan got home from work and drove to Monterey.  We stayed the night there and left early in the morning to start the drive on the coast.  All I have to say about this trip is…..road trips are awesome!  The scenery was magnificent, the company excellent and breathing fresh ocean air all day felt so healthy.  We were in the car a lot, but we made quite a few stops along the way.  We took over 200 pictures today.  We saw the coast, big waves, beaches, elephant seals, whale sightings, foothills, wine country and ate an amazing lunch at a café right on the ocean.  We sat outside to eat our lunch…in the sunshine.  California in December has its perks!   I am posting our top pictures from the trip in order of our day.  We don’t claim to be photographers in any way…we just have a really great camera. 

We stopped at a large foothill with a trail.  We took turns climbing it to see the coast from the view at the top.  These are pictures from the top.

Here is proof that we were actually there!

At one point in the drive we went inland a bit and found an adorable rest stop/campsite by a beautiful river.

And then we went back to the coast again.

These photos were taken at our lunch spot.

We tried our hand at taking some artsy shots of each other.

There is a particular beach along the coastal drive that houses elephant seals.  There were hundreds of them laying in the sand.  It was a sight that I will never forget.

And finally, our last stop, was at a beach.  We were clothed for the cooler weather and not expecting the water to be warmer. Mya got in the ocean with all of her clothes on and Sara dug in the sand with her clothes on.  Dan was wishing he had a surfboard and a bathing suit. Needless to say we went home with just a little bit of sand in the car.