Beach Day!

Travis and I finally hit the beach this last Saturday for the first time since we have moved here, thats over a year! We drove down to San Clemente T Street Beach and enjoyed a perfect day at the beach. Here are some pictures:

It was actually a pretty crowded day at the beach. I know it doesn't look like it was a very nice, it was a bit overcast, but the sun still poked its head out every once in a while and it ended up being a beautiful day!

Here is Travis working on his tan!

Here we are right over we got out of the water. I thought it was freezing, but once you get in, you kinda get used to it. I had forgotten how much fun and at the same time, terrifying swimming in the ocean was. Hopefully this won't be last the visit to the beach this summer!

18th of July 2007 -- Busy Day

Let me first start out by saying how relieved I am to be done with yesterday.

Yesterday morning I had an interview at my work to become the Head Swimming Coach, which for Ashley and I is just icing on the cake. We are not going to get to excited about this, because it really does not matter. We would love it if it happened, but we will not be devastated if it does not.

After the interview, I proceeded with the rest of my summer school classes until about 3:40 in the pm when Ashley and I made our way down to the second interview of the day at Loyola Marymount University. This was in regards to my acceptance into the Master's Program in Education. We almost did not make it up to LA in time, but everything went really well and I have been accepted into the program starting this Fall.

When we got back into town, we celebrated and ended up crash landing at home really late, only to wake up this morning at an unrealistic hour to come back to work.

Like I said, I am glad everything went well, and that I am still breathing to tell about it.

Thanks again for your support.

Head Swim Coach Interview ...

Good morning all!

Just wanted to give a quick update on how my interview went this morning. There were 5 people present at the interview and they each asked about 3 - 4 questions, but "the kid" answered all of them without skipping a beat, thanks to the man upstairs who answered a silent sincere prayer, and the prayers of many who were and are rooting for me.

I asked them when I should know what decision they have made, and they said that in about a week they will have ironed out all of the wrinkles in the process and would have a decision for me either way.

Many thanks again to everyone who has supported me in this endeavor.

Hollerings!

P.S. This is a picture of the team from last year. ~130 kids

4th of July -- Disney Style

For the 4th of July this year, we decided to spend the day at the happiest place on Earth... Disneyland. We expected there to be roughly a billion people there, but it turned out to be just fine, probably only a million.

As far as 4th of July celebrations go, there are a couple of places that I have been that are tough to top. Washington D.C., the nation's capital, what more can I say. Provo, UT -- as tiny as a town can be, this place knows how to throw down an awesome parade, etc. And probably the only place where no matter where you go on that day, you are still welcome sans shoes. Third, Mesa, AZ -- If you happen to be near the AZ Temple, you'll have a good show from just about anywhere. Next, and probably the king of the firework shows has got to be the small mountain town of Silverton, CO. Big ups to Dusty Gurr and his family for taking me one year to their awesome cabin and to the raddest water fight/drudge match west of the Mississippi. (The mountains are so close to one another that the sounds have no where to escape to.) I will never forget Silverton on the 4th, ever.

Now, I have never been in California for the 4th of July and had no idea what to expect, but let me just tell you something about a daily routine at Disneyland:

Everynight Disneyland has the Fantasmic Light show on Tom Sayer's Island, followed by the Parade of a Million Dreams down Main Street, only to be followed by the choreographed firework show performed to theme music for each attraction at the park. The latter lasts about 25 minutes, so as you can imagine, their firework show for the 4th was unrealistically long, and extremely well done.

Ashley and I got as Christmas presents annual passes that do not have any blackout dates, and we really wanted to get "our" money's worth, so we have been fairly regularly since last December. Our goal is to go on every single ride at least once, no matter how stupid the ride is, nor for how little a person. The truth is that we are still no where near reaching this goal, but our spirits are high. It truly is the "2nd" happiest place on Earth.

Here are some pictures from that day. NOTE: I ironically enough was feeling queasy that morning, so I did not go on any of the twisty--turny type rides...but I did a killer job of handling the camera.

Hope you like:

This is at Disney's California Adventure -- You can imagine how fun this ride is...

This is also at California Adventure, infront of the man made lake that has actual tides, high and low, and used to be known as one of Disneyland's parking lots.

This is for the new Finding Nemo ride where you board a mini submarine boat and ride through this coral reef that they built. The best part are the Seagulls that move every now and then, chanting "Mine, mine...mine". It's hilarious.

We had a great time on the 4th, and look forward to hopefully visiting many other places on 4th's to come. SO, if you have had a particularly good experience over this holiday, share with the rest of us your's.

Europe Trip - Barcelona (Day 6-7)

We finally made it to our final destination, Barcelona! This city was so huge that it didn't feel like we had anytime at all here. We took a bus tour around the city on the first day and we picked out a couple of the things that we really wanted to see. We were exhausted by this time so we wanted to take it easy. Here are some pictures of our last days on our trip:

This was our first stop, Parque Guell which is this amazing park designed by Antoni Gaudi. He is the featured artist of Barcelona and almost everywhere you go, you see things that he has done. This is one of the sections of the park, very interesting!
I took a picture of this because for all of you fans of America's Next Top Model, this is where Melrose and Caridee had their final showdown runway show!

This was as close as we got to the beach in Barcelona. Our one regret from the trip is not making it into the water in spain. We just couldn't fit it in. :(
This is a really cool street that has a ton of shopping and it is so pretty with all of the trees that line the roads. It reminded me a lot of the Champs Elysees in Paris except the stores weren't as nice. It is called Las Ramblas.

Now this is one of the most interesting churches that you will ever see! It is called La Sagrada Familia and it has been in construction for over 150 years! It was also designed by Antoni Gaudi who didn't even get to live to see it finish. It should be done in like 2040 or something. We absolutely loved this so we took lots of pictures!

Here we are at the entrance. As you can see, they are still working on it.

We went back the next day after we stopped briefly on our city tour and we got to go inside. It was massive!

Scaffolding was everywhere, I kept wondering if I needed to wear a hard hat. Not really a sacred church like feel but it is definitely awe-inspiring when you think about all the work that has gone into building this. It is only privately funded and in order to finish they need to tear some buildings down next door!

Here we are at the top. It was so high up and Travis was totally freaking out. There was absolutely nothing there to prevent us from falling! Travis kept saying, "They added these bars as an afterthought!"

As we were walking down, they had all these enclaves that you could walk out on and they didn't feel secure at all. I wanted a picture and even though I am smiling, I am secretly freaking out!

In order to get down, we had to walk down this spiraling staircase. It only had a handrail on the one side. Again, can't you just hear Travis saying, "They added these bars as an afterthought!" Silly!

We had some time to kill before we had to meet the kids so we got off the metro and started walking. We found this other amazing street called Passeig de Gracias which reminded me of 5th ave in New York. This was where all the posh stores were. On this street, we found this really cool apartment building which was designed by...you guessed it, Antoni Gaudi!

This is our final picture! Our trip was over! Overall, we had so much fun with every minute we were alone and we are also so glad that we have at least 16 years until our kids are teenagers. Everyone arrived home safely and thats all the matters. :)

Thanks everyone for dealing with hearing about our trip. I had fun reliving all the good times, so it was as much for me as it was for you. Now travis and I will go back to our boring lives and we will try to keep you updated on that!

Until next year..... yeah right!

Europe Trip - Pont du Gard (Day 5)

continued on again......

On our long bus trip from Cannes to Barcelona we made one stop to this amazing Roman aquaduct called Pont du Gard built in 19 b.c. It was one of the coolest things that we had seen on this trip so far. Check it out!

Here I am on the path that leads up to the Pont du Gard. As you can see, it is massive!
Aparently, this tree is over 1000 years old!
This was used to carry water to the nearby city of Nimes which almost became the Vatican City.
So happy to see something so amazing!
This is us on the bridge that was built alongside the aquaduct. It was such a pretty setting and the river that ran underneath was so blue!
You can see that this thing was so big.

That was a nice little side trip on our way to Barcelona. The final leg of our trip is coming up!

Stay tuned!

Europe Trip - France (Day 4)

continued on from Day 3....

So, our hotel in France was in the city Cannes and was right on the beach, which was very nice. Cannes seemed like a pretty interesting city but our tour led us over to another city called Nice, which aparently is better. :) We had this amazing bus tour that took us around the entire city with this really nice lady as our tour guide. The rest of the day we just had free time where, of course, the kids created all sorts of mayhem but Travis and I had lots of fun. Here are some pictures:

Right smack dab in the middle of this French city is this beautiful Russian Cathedral. Totally random and out of place, but it was incredible looking.

Travis in front of one of many churches that we saw on this trip. This one was very cool because it had so much art on the walls and ceiling. And it was also right in the middle of some Roman ruins and a bunch of olive trees.

Right behind the same church from above was an old monastery. They had some beautiful gardens and it was set right on the top of a very large hill. The view was so pretty and I wish that this picture did it justice!

Here is an awesome view of the Nice coastline. At this point we were very close to where Elton John has a house, this is his view!

Travis and I never missed out on a great photo op!

This is our tour guide that led us around Nice. I think her name was Jacqueline.

Apparently, this place had the best gelato in all of Nice. Here Travis is enjoying some with the other two chaperones in our group, Silvano and Yolanda Villa. They were really nice and we would tour around with them whenever we could.

On our free time we visited the Museum of Contempory Art. We were so exhausted by the time we got there that all we wanted to do was sit and relax. So, we enjoyed the art but we really enjoyed this moment right here, just resting our feet.

Our tour guide told us this was the dark spot in all of Nice because of how ugly this building is behind Travis. They call it the "Blockhead" which is exactly what it is. This holds all of the offices for their city library. Definitely one of the strangest things I have ever seen.

Here I am on the beach in Nice. As you can see there is absolutely no sand, just large rocks!! It was a very windy day and so it was dangerous to get in the water but I really wanted to feel the water so I tried to get close with my bare feet. It took me five minutes just to walk over to the water, it hurt so bad to walk on the rocks!! I don't know how anyone enjoys to go to the beach in Nice!

So, that was pretty much our day. We were exhausted when we got home and we were definitely looking forward to spending all the next day driving in the bus. We had to travel from Cannes to Barcelona which was about 8 hours. Our feet needed some rest!

stay tuned for more......