10th Anniversary Vacation Photos

Yes folks, we had a blast. And now we are back home taking care of our four kids, and last weekend, we kept our friends' three girls for three days to boot! So, I haven't gotten to sit down and share some of the highlights of our trip with you. We haven't even gotten to post the photos we wish we could just yet. So, for now, here are the links to the albums I have posted on Facebook. So far.

PHOTOS
Self-Portraits
Sunset on the Coast
Marine Wildlife
Apple-Related Photos

More to come! :-)

All Things Together

I’m writing this from 30,000 feet. We have a perfectly clear, sunny day for our return flight home. The view is majestic. It never ends. I never get tired of it. In fact, in between these sentences, I keep glancing over to make sure I don’t miss anything.

So far we have crossed three states, and the Rocky Mountains are well within view. The features below that would be so impressive when viewed from the ground are reduced to small bumps and lines.

Still pretty impressive.

The theme of the week for me seems to have been how everything works together. All that God has made is impressive enough on its own merit, but then when you consider how it all works together, all the more astounding.

I am seeing some of that from this 6-mile-high vantage point. The mountains very noticeably channel water from their tops to the surrounding area at the bottom. You can see “veins” where the water travels. On the more desert regions, the “arms” of the tributaries spread far out into the flat areas below the mountains. I can’t fully put it into words, but from up here, I can just see more clearly how everything works together.

This week as we paid several visits to the Pacific coast, we just kept marveling at the waves. They just never stopped. They were beautiful, and powerful all by themselves. But to see how they were bringing in the kelp for the birds and insects to eat, as well as cleaning out other things, like old shells. And it never stops. Wave after wave after wave. Constantly renewing itself.

The birds and otters were fun to watch too. They enjoyed the surf as much as we do. They would face into a wave, then duck down under it and come up on the other side. (Presumably to get some food, as well as to avoid a serious thrashing if they stayed above the water!)

We also found out this week that Pacific Grove is called Butterfly Village, USA. (Or something like that...) Monarch butterflies winter there. The big cool orange ones. They fly down from Canada each year and spend the winter in Pacific Grove’s warmer climate. Now, the problem is, those particular butterflies can’t have any idea how to get there. They are the fourth generation of butterflies that left Pacific Grove the previous summer. The generation that travels to Pacific Grove lives 8 months, so they can make the long journey, and survive the winter. The others only live for 6 weeks. So there are 3 generations born up north that live 6 weeks, and the fourth then travels back to Pacific Grove. But how do they know where to go? The question was posed on an information board in the Monarch Habitat and simply answered, “We don’t know.” We have ideas, but we really don’t know.

Everything just seems to work together.

All week I kept thinking of the verse in Colossians that says that Jesus holds all things together. All of this makes a lot of sense when you just accept that verse at face value. An amazing Creator made all of this stuff to work together, and he continues to make it work togehter. Incredible.

We had such a great time seeing it happen right before our eyes this week. God is so amazing, and his creation is just one small testament to that.

Fisherman's Wharf - Monterey Style

Tonight we decided to go for a walk down Fisherman's Wharf in downtown Monterey. It's only about a 10 minute drive from our place. Lots of little shops, and lots of FOOD (which we needed NONE of!) and, lots of SEALS.

Seriously. Lots of seals. Making lots of noise. There were also otters, sea gulls, pelicans, and a few other random animals. I guess they like it there. :-) We just stayed and watched them for a while... I couldn't believe how much noise they were making!!

We strolled the wharf for a while after watching the live National Geographic episode. There were lots of little souvenir shops, so we went through their aisles, finding all sorts of treasures our kids would like. We picked up a few, but decided to be a bit more selective. We'll probably come back for a few more, but we'll shop around a bit first.

There were also free samples from several of the little restaurants. That was interesting. We tried a nice little clam chowder one, and then we got a dessert sample from a little candy shop. Pretty neat place. :-)

It really was a nice birthday for Jen. I'm glad I got so spend all of it with her.

We came back home around 8pm or so and caught the end of the World Series. Jen fell asleep though, not too long after we started watching, and missed the last few innings. :-) She woke up for the bottom of the ninth.

Can't believe we still have most of a week left! More fun to come tomorrow!

A Lunch Meeting, And The Bills Won

We headed out the door at 12:45pm, knowing that Character's Sports Bar was not too far from where we were staying. I had seen on the map where we needed to go, and was confident we could find it.

That confidence was misplaced.

When we got to where I thought we needed to turn, the road that was supposed to be there was not!. I improvised, and ended up in a maze of one-way city streets, going in circles. Argh. It wasn't really a problem, except that we did not want to be late for kickoff.

Well, we finally found the place, and in time for kickoff, but then found out that the parking spaces out front were 24-minute parking spaces. Off we went to find a parking garage two blocks away. Double argh.

That's when we met him.

As we were walking out of the garage, in a bit of a hurry to get back to the Bills game that was now two blocks away, we passed a man sitting on the cement planter next to us. When we passed he said, "Can you guys help me out? I'm kinda hungry. I just need some food." I was intrigued by the request (he didn't ask for money, that I remember) and so I said, very spontaneously, "Well, we're headed up to a sports bar right now?" As I said it, I sorta invited him by gesturing.

To my surprise, he got up, and sort of gestured back, making sure I meant it, and I did. So, he followed us up to the restaurant.

We got to know Darren as we went. First names, then where he was from, and how he got to Monterey, CA. We sat down at a table and continued to talk. We don't have a lot of money, but we had saved some up for a little splurging for our 10th anniversary trip—and we got to share some with a homeless man named Darren.

He has a sad story of lots of broken family relationships. He has slight learning disabilities, and told us a crazy story about waiting for five years for social security benefits or something. Not sure the details, really, but I could tell what we have that he doesn't are the generous and loving family relationships, as well as close friends.

He stayed for the meal, and then thanked us again and took off. Not exactly how we had planned to spend lunch watching the Bills, but we were glad we could share.

The rest of the afternoon was a bit quieter (except for a rowdy table behind us) with only the occasional outburst from me and/or Jen when the Bills did something good. (It wasn't that often, so it really was kind of quiet.) :-)

The Bills did win, so that was awesome! JP Losman got into the game due to an injury to Trent Edwards. That should make for some crazy off-the-field drama this week. That's pretty annoying, but, that's just how it is.

We came back to our place and listened to the Bills post-game interviews, and got to talk with our kids (about the Bills game and more!) and then headed out for the rest of the afternoon/evening at the Fisherman's Wharf back in Monterey.

You never know what's going to happen when you head out the door. Today, we got to see the Bills win (as we hoped) and we also got to share a meal with Darren.

Very cool.

Morning Football??

This morning we slept in a bit later. Remember yesterday? Our first day on Pacific Daylight Time? Today instead of getting up at 6:30, we managed to sleep till about 7:15. :-)

We did try to just relax in bed for a while, but that didn't work. Instead, since it was Jen's birthday, I offered to bring her breakfast in bed. She accepted.

Breakfast consisted of a bowl of raisin bran, some orange/mango juice, a piece of toast, and a couple giant slices of a California navel orange. We looked for some NFL football pre-game stuff while we ate. (I had some tea in my new Apple mug as well...) :-)

It was really weird watching NFL football at 10am. Especially after waking up at 7am. :-)

(We're definitely still adjusting to the time zone...)

It was also very strange to watch football games without eating lunch or some afternoon snack. I mean... you gotta eat when there's football on, right?? We did not. We watched the two games that were on out here (the Miami/NYGiants game that was live from London, England, and the Oakland/Tennessee game) and then reheated last night's pizza for an early lunch at 11:30am.

Jen got some calls from family for her birthday, and we had a nice leisurely morning, getting ready to head out to catch the Bills game at a local sports bar.

It was a nice, relaxing, birthday morning. :-)

My Jen

Today is my Jen's birthday. I have known her for more than half of her life now. I have never loved her more.

I love that this birthday came during an entire week of life devoted to just being together. We are out here, 3000 miles from our life, just enjoying each other, and some of the things we like to do together. She is more relaxed than she has been in a long time, and it's been fun to celebrate her not just for today, but really for this entire eight day vacation!

She is more special to me than I can possibly put into words. I am so grateful to God for the gift he has given me in her. We certainly are very different people, but there is no one I love more or would rather share my life with. I trust her with me, and I'm pretty sure that's mutual.

Today she is one year older. One more year that we have lived together. I am thankful for what we have already shared, and looking forward to all that we have remaining.

Hopefully I'll get to celebrate birthday #66 and #99 with Jen. Maybe even #133? :-)

I love you, Jen. Happy birthday. :-)

Pacific Ocean

We took a stroll up to the Pacific Ocean tonight. It's only a few blocks from our house. (Although I think that beach is technically Monterey Bay, it's close enough!) There's a beach called "Lover's Point" at the end of our road. I thought that was rather appropriate for our 10th anniversary trip. :-)

It was a beautiful view, and nice to just leisurely walk to, around, and back from the waterfront. We saw some seals on the rocks near the beach. Lots of maritime birds. (Seagulls, pelicans, etc.) And I saw a pretty amazing starfish, too. (Of course, whenever we get the cable for our camera, I'll be posting some of these photos!!)

After walking to Lover's Point, we drove less than a mile to the edge of the Monterey peninsula to see the sunset on the Pacific Ocean. It was getting pretty chilly at this point, so we sat on a bench overlooking the rocky Pacific for maybe 10 minutes or so, but then we got back inside our vehicle and watched from there. :-) I got lots of photos, a few of them are pretty cool (I hope!) with the big waves crashing against the rocks. Another amazing view.

After the beach, we were going to go back home but decided to go check out the Goodwill we had seen yesterday. We found a couple books and a nice Wheaton College t-shirt (where our niece is in her senior year). The Goodwill is in the center of Pacific Grove's business district, so we walked around a bit afterward and decided to get dinner at Papa John's pizza while we were there. Lots of interesting ethnic restaurants in this town. (And yes, we decided on Papa John's...) :-)

Following a really nice, quiet dinner together, we headed back to our vacation home and played a few rounds of Boggle before Jen retired for the evening. I'm doing a bit better getting on PDT I think... :-)

Oh, I forgot to mention our morning. We did head out to get groceries, which was fun. Found a place called Save Mart or something like that. It was a pretty cool grocery store. Funniest part was when one of the workers said, "Good morning" when passing by us, and both Jen and I thought, "It's not morning!!" But in fact it was well before 10:30am! We were still adjusting then for sure!!

We had a great lunch after we got back, and then Jen took a quick nap while I went to the coffee house around the corner and read some blogs while I sipped on a chai! Very nice.

Tomorrow is Jen's birthday! We're going to watch NFL football at 10am!! ha! And then we'll head out to a sports bar to watch the Bills/Jets game... followed by a trip back to San Jose to eat at Red Robin for her birthday! Should be a super fun day!

We are having such a great time! We miss our kids. Lots of things remind us of them. But this is just fantastic. Such a nice break for both of us, and we're thoroughly enjoying each other's company. Fantastic. :-)

More to come!!

PDT

So, we're three hours behind out here, did you know that? Cause... I do.

Last night we went to bed at 9:21pm... exhausted! And then, due to me using the decorative pillow instead of the real one most of the night, I kept waking up thinking it was time to be up. It wasn't. I really thought it was at one point, and I looked at the clock (which is on Pacific Daylight Time - PDT) and um, it was 3:35am. :-)

The next time I looked it was 3:55.

Not a great night of sleep. :-)

THEN, Jen and I woke up together at 6:30 or so! Ha! (If you know us... that's not our normal time of day...) :-) It was really, REALLY nice to just wake up though, and not have kids doing that for us. Or have to get up and get them breakfast.

We watched an episode of Monk at like 7am, when we just gave up on the idea of sleeping to a decent hour. Now we're getting ready to go get some groceries and some breakfast. We have a nice view of the Pacific ocean out our bedroom windows, too. Very nice!

More to come...

One Of The Craziest Days of My Life

I am pretty sure that this day that started at 2:30am PDT, and is just ending now at 9:12pm PDT has been one of the craziest in my life. Crazy good, but still crazy.

We finally got to Pacific Grove, where we are staying, just before the office closed at 9pm. We are exhausted!!! (Just check the previous entries today for all that has transpired on OCt 26, 2007!!

I gotta say, having Steve Jobs walk right in front of our vehicle is right near the top of craziest all time.

We got to the Apple Store, and got our two free t-shirts. We refrained (for now!) on Leopard, but had a great night. Then we found a neat little sports bar/grill that had some fantastic food—and it was in Campbell, CA! :-)

What a great day it has been. Seven more to go. I think we're going to sleeeeep tomorrow. A lot!

More to come...

Steve Jobs Sighting!

Holy cow! What amazing timing!!!

We took the short trip over to Cupertino while waiting for the Apple Store in San Jose to open tonight for the big Leopard party (where we plan to get two free t-shirts!) We weren't sure what we would find, but we had no idea we'd get so lucky :-)

As we finally pulled into Infinite Loop, I noticed a guy in jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. I said to Jen, "Who's that Steve Jobs guy??" I was just joking, until as we got closer I noticed - IT WAS STEVE JOBS!!! :-)

As we got to the main cross walk, Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ives were crossing, heading to their cars to go home! HA! Right in front of our car!! Hilarious.

Jen did not have the camera ready, so we didn't get a good close up, but we turned around and managed to get a quick shot of him getting into his car. I'll post here later. :-)

For now, battery is almost dead... we're gonna wait in line and get some t-shirts!! Whooohoooo!! :-)

Like Magic

We’re making our final approach (at least, pretty soon... I can feel us going lower) and even from the middle seat, the view is breathtaking. The mountains are amazing. Even the deserts are pretty amazing.

What I am most amazed by though is, having done this trip several times before on the ground, the fact that we can leave Buffalo at 8:30am and arrive in California around 3:00pm (EDT). The trip from Seattle to Rochester always takes us 5 days. Today, we did basically the same trip in just over 6 hours.

Incredible. Like magic.

Southwest Alphabet

Well, we made the next leg of the trip, but it feels like barely! We got to Chicago just after 9:15 maybe, local time, and had to get the flight to San Jose, CA at 9:55 local time. Seems like plenty of time right? Jen took a needed pregnancy bathroomo trip, and we headed through the airport to Gate B1 (all the way to the other end of the concourse!) only to find tthat the lines were already completely full!

This is my first time flying Southwest, and overall I would just give it an “average” rating.

Here’s why the lines matter. When you buy a ticket, you are not buying a seat. You get put into one of three groups. A, B, and C. Theoretically, the first people to arrive, get boarding passes in group A, then B, then C. That is also how they board the plane. Since it’s every man (or woman) for himself, you take what you get as far as seating.

We lucked out on the first flight, finding the last pair of seats together. Not so on this flight. Only middle seats left. Not to worry, I told Jen. I trusted in the goodness of humanity. Someone will move to the middle so that the pregnant lady can sit with her husband....

Not so. :-)

So, Jen is in the row behind me. I am squeezed between two guys... and it’s a four hour flight.

I don’t think we’re going to fly Southwest again. I want to buy seats, not try to “get lucky”.

So, we’ll see what the flight holds. I’m sad for Jen. She’ll have to try to get out to go to the bathroom a time or two! :-) We’ll see if we can work the system on the way back so we don’t have to do this on the return flight!

More to come....

The Window Seat

I forgot how amazing it is to fly. I think I probably felt that way as a kid when we would fly back and forth from Venezuela, and various trans-Atlantic flights. But I just forgot.

I am so glad I had a window seat!

The view is just amazing. To watch the things on the ground get smaller, and smaller. To eventually go above the clouds. And today, we went above two layers of clouds! First to 10,000 feet, and then to 38,000. Awe inspiring beauty. Big puffy clouds as far as you can see. Jen described it as an “ocean of clouds.”

The shadows of the higher altitude clouds on the lower ones are fun. The light blue sky fading into a darker blue as you look up. The small hole in the clouds allowing me to see the reflection of the sun off of the lake below. Amazing.

I’m really, really glad I got a window seat!

The Less-Safe Plane

We got to the airport around 6:30am, checked our baggage and got our boarding passes. Everything went pretty smoothly there, until we got to the line for boarding passengers. It was so long! After just a few moments, we were approached by a guy from TSA who handed us a yellow card. He asked us to give it to the security person when we got to the front of the line. (They were using it to time themselves.)

Not even a minute after we were handed that card, another airport security person approached us and said, “There’s an alternat check point, why don’t you go there.” So, we did. But I remembered that card we had just gotten so I asked, “Do you want me to give this to someone else in the line?” To which he replied, “No... you can bring it with you.”

At this point, it smelled a little fishy. :-) We ended up in a shorter line, which was just fine with me. And they ended up with a shorter time. Good for them.

Everything was going just fine until the weather changed in Florida.

See, the Southwest plane next to us was heading to Orlando, leaving at 7:30. BUT, just as we were about to board (at 7:30) they decided to switch planes. They announced later that the plane we were supposed to take was better equipped to handle bad weather. (That got a laugh from all of us who were switching to the “less safe” plane!) :-)

They swapped all the already loaded passengers from the original Orlando plane, as well as their luggage, and our luggage, and both flight crews... and the Orlando plane is finally leaving now at 8:25am. Too bad for them. :-)

So, we’re about 30 minutes late so far, but all is probably just fine. Our next flight leaves at 9:55 central time. (Or, 2.5 hours from now.)

One other interesting thing about Southwest is that there is no assigned seating. You don’t purchase a seat, just a ticket. So, you may or may not get to sit with whomever you are flying with. The way to assure that is to just get in line even before they start boarding, which we did. The problem was, we were at the front of the line for the first plane! So, when we switched, we were at the back!!

The first shall be last.

Thankfully, Jen & I did get to sit together. Found two seats at the back of the plane. That’s nice.

Here we go!

More to come...

And So It Begins

The alarm sounded at 5:30 this morning. But I think that was about the 20th time I had awaken since going to bed at 11:30 the night before. I think my mind had been active all night. I feel... tired.

But ready to go.

Our plane leaves at 8, so we're heading out in a few minutes. There is an overall feeling of excitement. I really can't even believe we get to do this!

However, I must admit, last night it felt wrong. As I was saying goodnight—and goodbye—to my kids, my heart was heavy. I'm not supposed to say goodbye to them for eight days??? It will be fine, but I told Jen last night, "I don't want to do this ever again." (And we haven't even left yet!!)

It'll be alright. I can't wait to have my wife to myself for 8 days.

More along the way...