The past couple of months have consisted mostly of us traveling. In September, Paul had to go to Washington State to attend a conference, and so my parents came to San Diego and took a road trip with me and the kids. We went to LA (Hollywood and Santa Monica), and then from there we drove along the coast all the way to San Francisco (with a few stops along the way). After San Francisco we headed to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park to see the big trees. They were so amazing and made me feel so small! After almost 6 full days in the car, we headed back to San Diego and my parents left to go back home. The first weekend in October Paul had a three-day weekend so we took a road trip up to Mt. Whitney (the tallest mountain in the continental US), Death Valley National Park (which actually was pretty interesting to visit, despite the name), and also the Mojave Desert National Preserve (which wasn’t all that exciting, but going to “Hole in the Wall” at the south end was worth the drive through the Preserve). Two weeks after that we hopped on a military flight to Hawaii and spent 11 days island-hopping and sight-seeing. We started off on Oahu and saw the Pearl Harbor memorial, then we flew to Maui and drove the road to Hana and beyond. I never thought I could get tired of seeing waterfalls since they are usually my favorite thing to find when we travel, but after seeing at least 10 in one day I definitely got my fill. From Maui we flew to the big island of Hawaii and took a helicopter tour of the active volcano and lava river. Then we drove to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and spent a night at a military rest camp inside the park. The next day we drove around the rest of the island before flying back to Oahu the next morning.
The following morning we woke up to a phone call from someone at Paul’s work calling to see if our house was in danger of the fires. We didn’t know anything about the fires so Paul said “no” and we went back to sleep. A couple hours later one of our friends that lives just a few blocks away from us called to tell us they were getting ready to evacuate their house by packing all their important things into their vehicles. Needless to say we were a bit concerned at that point and started making phone calls to make sure our important stuff was out of our house. Three guys from our small group went to our house and loaded up our truck with our computer, pictures, and important papers and drove the truck to a safe area. We were so relieved when we knew our stuff was safe. We decided that since our stuff was out of our house there was really no reason to rush back home so we waited until Thursday to catch a military flight back to CA and didn’t actually get back to our house until Friday around noon. By then the fires by our house were out, the wind had shifted so most of the thick smoke was gone, and life in our area was starting to get back to normal. The fires ended up coming within 2-3 miles of our house, which is pretty crazy if you think about it. The mountain behind our house that we can see from our bedroom balcony is completely burned, and the fires came within ½ a mile of some of the people from our small group that live in a neighborhood adjacent to us (they had a mandatory evacuation, but our immediate neighborhood did not). The air is still very smoky in the morning, but by noon most of the smell goes away until the marine layer settles back in at night. We feel very fortunate to have such great friends here, and that we still have a place to live!
This weekend we are heading up to LA to participate in a Muddy Buddy race. Paul and I will be a team of two. I will start out biking and he will start out running. I will come to a transition station where I will leave the bike, complete an obstacle, and then start running. Paul will come to the transition station, complete the obstacle, and then grab the bike and start biking. We do this though five stations and then meet up just before the finish line where we have to crawl though a mud pit to complete the race. Another couple from our small group is also doing the race so we should have a great time!
We are heading to the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, and possibly Sedona around Thanksgiving, and then on to Phoenix to visit our friends that live there.
The end of November Paul will be attending SERE training for a couple weeks. SERE stands for Survive, Evade, Resist & Escape. He’s looking forward to it because one week of it is complete misery and he thrives on knowing that he can survive complete misery!
Baby Jacey is 4 months old now and just started rolling over a couple days ago. She is such a happy baby and so low maintenance. She didn’t sleep so well during our travels, but she went right back to sleeping 10 hours our second night back home (thank goodness!). Kade continues to grow up more and more everyday, and his learning curve just amazes me. He repeats just about everything we say now, so his vocabulary is multiplying exponentially. We can’t always understand what he is trying to tell us, but he is definitely trying to communicate all day long. His ornery streak seems to have finally subsided (at least for the moment) and he became very cuddly during our traveling so he is just so easy to love (and like) right now!
The following morning we woke up to a phone call from someone at Paul’s work calling to see if our house was in danger of the fires. We didn’t know anything about the fires so Paul said “no” and we went back to sleep. A couple hours later one of our friends that lives just a few blocks away from us called to tell us they were getting ready to evacuate their house by packing all their important things into their vehicles. Needless to say we were a bit concerned at that point and started making phone calls to make sure our important stuff was out of our house. Three guys from our small group went to our house and loaded up our truck with our computer, pictures, and important papers and drove the truck to a safe area. We were so relieved when we knew our stuff was safe. We decided that since our stuff was out of our house there was really no reason to rush back home so we waited until Thursday to catch a military flight back to CA and didn’t actually get back to our house until Friday around noon. By then the fires by our house were out, the wind had shifted so most of the thick smoke was gone, and life in our area was starting to get back to normal. The fires ended up coming within 2-3 miles of our house, which is pretty crazy if you think about it. The mountain behind our house that we can see from our bedroom balcony is completely burned, and the fires came within ½ a mile of some of the people from our small group that live in a neighborhood adjacent to us (they had a mandatory evacuation, but our immediate neighborhood did not). The air is still very smoky in the morning, but by noon most of the smell goes away until the marine layer settles back in at night. We feel very fortunate to have such great friends here, and that we still have a place to live!
This weekend we are heading up to LA to participate in a Muddy Buddy race. Paul and I will be a team of two. I will start out biking and he will start out running. I will come to a transition station where I will leave the bike, complete an obstacle, and then start running. Paul will come to the transition station, complete the obstacle, and then grab the bike and start biking. We do this though five stations and then meet up just before the finish line where we have to crawl though a mud pit to complete the race. Another couple from our small group is also doing the race so we should have a great time!
We are heading to the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, and possibly Sedona around Thanksgiving, and then on to Phoenix to visit our friends that live there.
The end of November Paul will be attending SERE training for a couple weeks. SERE stands for Survive, Evade, Resist & Escape. He’s looking forward to it because one week of it is complete misery and he thrives on knowing that he can survive complete misery!
Baby Jacey is 4 months old now and just started rolling over a couple days ago. She is such a happy baby and so low maintenance. She didn’t sleep so well during our travels, but she went right back to sleeping 10 hours our second night back home (thank goodness!). Kade continues to grow up more and more everyday, and his learning curve just amazes me. He repeats just about everything we say now, so his vocabulary is multiplying exponentially. We can’t always understand what he is trying to tell us, but he is definitely trying to communicate all day long. His ornery streak seems to have finally subsided (at least for the moment) and he became very cuddly during our traveling so he is just so easy to love (and like) right now!
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