California Vacation - Days 5 & 6 (San Francisco)

Jessica and I headed back down to San Francisco for the last couple nights of our vacation. Wednesday was our anniversary, so we decided to take a sunset cruise of San Francisco Bay. Sounds romantic, right? Well, considering that (1) our catamaran's dock was right next to some very stinky sea lions, (2) the fog obscured any view of the sun whatsoever and (3) we were accompanied on our trip by about 40 Australian students on a Contiki tour, it wasn't that bad. At least I got some cool shots of the Golden Gate Bridge when we passed under it.






Thursday, we took a tour of Alcatraz island. Not only is the prison facility and its very interesting, but the island provides some great views of the city.










We enjoyed our vacation very much, but we're both very happy to be back home in Waco.

California Vacation - Day 4

Jessica and I headed out to Bodega Bay this morning. Bodega Bay is located on the coast and was the setting for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. We had brunch at The Tides restaurant and watched sea lions play outside the window while eating. Then we drove up California State Route 1 for a little ways, stopping to take pictures along the way, before turning back inland.




The little holes covered some of the bluffs, and every once in a while one of these critters would pop his head out. We're still not sure what they are.







After turning back inland, we stopped and visited a winery. It was beautiful.

After leaving the winery, we got some homemade ice cream at Screamin' Mimi's in Sebastopol.

Finally, we ended the day with a round of mini golf. After all, what vacation is complete without a little putt-putt?

California Vacation - Day 3

Today, Jessica and I got up early for the 170-mile drive up Highway 101 to Humboldt Redwoods State Park to see some Coast Redwoods. The scenery along the drive was amazing.




These trees are huge. It was almost unreal to see them in person.


Jessica is helping here to provide some perspective. The center marker shows the size of the tree when the Magna Carta was issued in 1215. The second to last outer marker on the right was the size of the tree when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.


Here Jessica is getting ready to drive through an old Coast Redwood. Jessica did most of the scary mountainous driving during the northern-most part of the drive since I am a wimp. By the way, this tree is still mostly alive despite the tunnel through the middle.

California Vacation - Day 2

Jessica and I started the day by visiting Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Santa Rosa. Interestingly enough, it has the same name as our church back in Texas (must be a popular PCA church name). Afterward, we changed and headed out in our Dodge Charger to Point Reyes National Seashore on the Point Reyes Peninsula north of San Francisco.


We stopped at this quaint restaurant for lunch at a little town in the Reserve.

The main thing I wanted to see at the Reserve was the Point Reyes Lighthouse on the tip of peninsula. The only problem about visiting the lighthouse is that you have to park about half a mile from the lighthouse. The walkway is then along the top of the cliffs in the cold, wind, and fog. The last obstacle is stairway of over 300 steps down to the lighthouse on the tip of the cliff. Jessica decided she didn't want to try it, but I really wanted to see the lighthouse...and I paid for it. I felt like such a wimp after having to stop to rest and catch my breath on the way back to the car...But I got some great pictures and saw some amazing sights.



This has to be one of the most beautiful areas of the country. The rolling hills/mountains, the diverse vegetation...it's amazing. It's also interesting how you can drive 10 miles from the cost and the temperature raises about 10-15 degrees.



We ended our day by walking around downtown Petaluma. We then ate dinner at Cattlemen's Steakhouse in Petaluma, thanks to a gift certificate from Tony. I had steak and Alaskan King Crab; Jessica had steak and lobster tail. It was amazing.

California Vacation - Day 1

Jessica and I flew out of Austin this morning at 8:40 Texas time...making it to the gate just in time for boarding! (Who knew that many people got to the airport at 7:00? Not us!) We landed in San Francisco at 12:00 California time (2:00 Texas time) after a short stop in San Diego. We then caught a shuttle to Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge on the way.



After we picked up our rental car in Petaluma and checked into our hotel in Santa Rosa, we took a short drive over to Calistoga to see the Old Faithful Geyser of California (one of only three "old faithful" geysers in the world).




Note: It kind of pulses when it goes off, so its hard to time a good picture.

While we were there, we visited with some Tennessee Fainting Goats.



Afterward, we headed back to our hotel for some rest before Day 2.

Now you know I was gonna put some pics of the dogs on here

Crockett is almost 5 months old and the last time I took him to the vet he was 13 pounds. He's lost most of his sharp little puppy teeth and he's mostly housebroken. He goes this week to have his "man-surgery" or should I say "un-man surgery"? Frankly I'm glad. He hasn't displayed any man-like behaviors yet, but I'm not waiting around for him to start!

Sleeping like a Corgi.

Out in the backyard near our pink shed that the previous renters left. I'd like to have it torn down, but there's no telling what kind of critters live under there, and they might want to take up residence in our home if we destroy theirs!

Wrestling with Roxy. They do this ALL MORNING LONG. And when we eat. And when we try to watch tv.

More wrestling.

Sweet happy psycho-man. Those little teeth are sharp and painful!

On July 3rd we had a fajita party with our friends Doug and Katie and I made Crockett wear this jersey-thing. He hated it and acted very depressed until I took it off.

Taking a much-needed nap with Erik after a hard day studying the law for finals.

Stay tuned for pictures of California coming soon! (Not really soon, though!)

I owe, I owe, so off to work I go

Many people know I've been looking for a part time job to supplement my income as a Labor and Delivery nurse. Because of budget issues, the economy, and a brand new shiny hospital opening up 3 miles away from us and taking 40% of our patients, there is no such things as overtime anymore where I work. I've had my eye out for months looking for decent part time RN jobs, which is harder than you think. I got lucky with a home health agency based out of Killeen that has clients here in Waco. I've signed up to work two 8 hour shifts every other weekend. It's very part time, but the money's very good. I've never done home health before, and it's for a pediatric patient, so I'm not sure I'll like it. The good thing is, if I still don't like it in 6 months, I can quit. I still love my full time job (most days), but I only work 3 days a week. In this season of our lives where Erik is going to school and I'm the breadwinner and we have no children, it only makes sense that I work a little more. I am very thankful that I went through 3 years of pure hell-torture (nursing school) so that I could have a good job. I would encourage anyone who is thinking about being a nurse to just do it.

Prodigal Blogger

I don't think I've written any substantive blog posts for a while because I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm still a weight loss failure. I've lost 6 pounds total, one-third of my goal weight, and it doesn't feel like I'm ever going to lose any more. It doesn't help that I only put in about half the effort of keeping tabs on my points and exercising. I cannot exercise on days when I work, I just can't do it. I have to be at work at 6:45 in the am, work my butt off getting women delivered, and then come home at 7:30 pm. Wanna hear other excuses? I've got a bag full. Erik is in the midst of finals right now so basically I'm a single woman for the week and we're going on vacation here soon. I think we're going to invest in a fold up treadmill (Erik's idea) to put in my office so we can work out whenever. We'll see how that goes!

Preciousness-ity

Today Ethan sent me a letter (handwritten by a 5 year old, no less) that said, "Dear Jessica, I love you, I miss you." He put some of his preschool graduation pictures in there, too. Now doesn't that just melt your heart?