A Short Visit with Stephen

Nikki had a 5 day weekend this past weekend.  St. Lucy's always takes Valentine's Day off.  Sister Helen couldn't take the barrage of deliveries for the girls from both boys and parents.  So she made it a holiday.  Well then the deliveries started coming on the 13th.  So guess what?  Yep they get that day off too!  Gotta love her.  So that gave us Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Plus both girls were off on Monday for President's Day.  We decided to take advantage of it and pull Ali out of school on Friday and head up the coast.  We wanted to tour some colleges along the way and get in a visit with Stephen.

We left Friday morning and arrived at Cal State Channel Islands for our 11am tour.  The school was very nice.  Bill really liked it, and I think both girls did as well.  The one downfall is they don't have any sports programs.  They have club sports though so it's still a consideration.

From there, we headed into Santa Barbara for lunch.  We walked awhile on State Street and had a great pizza lunch.  Then it was time to jump back in the car for a long stretch.  Our next stop was Monterey.  We arrived, checked into our hotel and headed to dinner.  I'd made a reservation since it was Valentine's Day and we weren't sure what kind of crowds would be there.  I picked a place called Lalapalooza.  It had good reviews and it was in the little downtown and not near Fisherman's Wharf so I thought we'd be okay.  It was a great choice.  Not crowded, good meal and we walked from the hotel.

The next morning, we had another 11am tour.  This one at Cal State Monterey Bay.  This is the school that has been great about communicating with Nikki about soccer.  They've seen her play a few times and have told her they like what they see.  Unfortunately she's had several girls tell her not to go there.  They've said it's all concrete and super ugly since it's an old Army base (Fort Ord).  Needless to say, I'm glad I forced her to check it out.  She and Ali both loved it.  It's near the beach, has bigger dorm rooms and is really spread out over a large area.  Plus it helped that we had an awesome tour guide.  

This was the new library.  Many of the buildings had been converted from the Army base.  But the new buildings have been built using 80% recycled materials from the base.  It was really neat to hear the history of some of the buildings.

After our tour, we stopped and had lunch near the water.  There were a bunch of seals out on the dock so we watched them awhile too.  From there, we headed to UC Santa Cruz.  Nikki really wanted to check out their campus, but I wasn't able to set up a tour.  They only do weekday tours and were closed on Monday due to the holiday.  So we had planned to just do a walking tour.  But by the time we arrived and saw what hill the campus was on, we decided a driving tour would be just fine.  It's a pretty campus, but is much harder to get into.  So Nikki is going to keep it on her list of "maybes".  

From there we headed to Santa Clara.  We knew we wouldn't see Stephen until morning, so we just had a nice dinner and shopped around at Santana Row.  We stayed at the hotel right on Santana Row this time.  I'd seen it before and had thought it'd be a fun place to stay.  It was perfect.

The next morning, we picked Stephen up and headed into San Francisco.  He had kept the day open for us.  So we went into town and ate at Gotts Roadside.  Yes we'd planned our entire day around that meal.  It consisted of hamburgers, fries and shakes for $110!  Although I got the ahi burger, and it was delicious.  Then we walked down to Pier 39 and did lots of people watching.  Of course we had to stop by and see all of the seals there too.

The visit seemed way too fast, but I did get to ask him all of the questions I'd been wanting to ask.  I am just so proud of how hard he's working and the direction he wants to go.  He is loving everything they're doing in ROTC and is working really hard to earn a scholarship.  He showed me the two badges he's earned already.  One was for scoring 290 on the PT test and the other was for German Armed Forces Military Proficiency.  Now he just needs the uniform to be able to put them on!  It sounds like school is going okay and polo is too.  Although he thinks his time is limited for playing polo.  He sees  how busy school and ROTC get junior year and is concerned.  We told him to take it one year at a time and see how it goes.

Monday morning we woke up early.  Stephen forgot to give me a form he needed me to take to the bank for signatures and was leaving at 7:30 to work in a VA hospital.

Then we had breakfast at Stephen's favorite breakfast place, Bill's Cafe.  It was a yummy way to begin our long ride home.  I did enjoy the beautiful blossoms on the trees along the way, although felt really bad about all of the bees that splattered on our windshield!

Overall it was a very successful trip for both college tours and visiting Stephen.  Hopefully he'll be able to come home for spring break.  Otherwise we won't have him back here until the END of summer.  Boo!!

Beach Day

Last weekend Nikki had a soccer tournament all weekend and her friend Sydney had her birthday at the beach on Saturday.  We were able to do both, but it wasn't the whole day at the beach we enjoy.  So we talked to Sydney's family and decided we'd all  meet at the beach the following Saturday.

That's exactly what we did!  We didn't get up early, nope we slept in first.  Then we picked up a few of Ali & Grace's friends and headed down to Huntington.  We got there about 11:30 and enjoyed the beautiful day until about 7:00.  After that, we headed over to the pier where we all had Ruby's Diner for dinner.  We rolled in about 10PM and were so happy to have gotten another day at the beach!

The Girls are Back!

So my girls came back into town yesterday afternoon, and I was excited!  The bus was dropping them off in Pasadena but I wanted to be there.  Stephen and I drove out and had lunch with Bill, did a little shopping and then drove over to the drop off point.  Unfortunately it was blazing hot and the bus was late.  Hmmm I guess they didn't account for 4th of July weekend travel?

Anyway they got back around 2:00, about a half hour behind schedule.  They said goodbyes to everyone on the bus and jumped in the cars.  For the last 48 hours we've gotten caught up on all of the great stories and adventures.  It sounded like another fabulous year at YSSC!  Nikki begged to go for an additional week at the end of July.  It's only for the older campers and it's all water sports.  We considered letting her go, but realized it overlaps our vacation.  Bummer!

I was so happy to have everyone sleeping in their own beds last night.  It just makes me feel like everything is right in the world!  Here's some pics from camp:

Weekend Recap

I haven't taken any photos lately.  Well I have, but I haven't downloaded them.  I took about 200 photos over the weekend of water polo.  Both of our girls are at camp.  It's hard to believe they only left last Sunday.  It feels like they've been gone a lot longer.  Here are some pics of what they're doing:

Yes it looks like they're having a great time.  I think the hardest part of them being gone is that I can't talk to them.  If I could hear their stories each day, it would be easier.  But I know they're having a great time and I'll have plenty of time to hear all of the stories when they come home on Friday.  These are life experiences that they'll never forget.  I'm so glad that Ali decided to go with Nikki this year.

So what did we do this weekend?  Stephen had water polo games at Servite on Thursday, and then a tournament in Corona Friday thru Sunday.  They took 5th place in the tournament and qualified for USCC, which was great.  Didn't get much running in over the weekend.  I did get four days in this week, so I guess that's fine.  Although I only got in 18 miles.  I'm trying to keep my minimum at 20, but what can I do?  Bill joined me for a run in Corona.  I'd done Map My Run and found a great 4.25 mile route from the high school Stephen was playing at.  That was Bill's longest run and he did great!  It's fun to have him to run with.  I enjoy running alone, but it's nice knowing he's right there too.

Last night after Stephen's second game we met The Filpi's for dinner at Gyu-Kaku.  It's a Japanese BBQ place where they bring the food to you raw and you have your own grill at each table.  You grill the food to your liking and eat it as it finishes.  We'd been before and really like it.  From there we went to the movies to see Bad Teacher.  

It was pretty funny, although I felt like we'd seen most of the funny parts in trailers.  Then because it was only 7:45 we decided we needed dessert.  We decided to find someplace we could get a drink and dessert.  So we headed over to The Heights.  We were looking for the drink because we'd talked several times about Buttery Nipples and how delicious they are. 

 I'm always up for something new so this was what we were after.  They were so good, we ended up ordering a second round!  I could drink full glasses of that stuff!  We had an early morning of water polo on Sunday so after that, we called it a night and headed home.

Today we went for bagels before heading out to polo.  As we were eating, in walked The Filpi's!  Too funny!  After Stephen's first game, one of his teammates invited us back to their house since they lived nearby.  So we headed over and had a delicious barbeque.  We hung out there for a few hours, eating and visiting before heading back for the second game.  My parents had come to both games, so we invited them to join us back at our house for dinner.  I'd planned to make shrimp tacos and with the girls gone, I knew we'd have enough.  It was a nice ending to a busy but fun weekend.  I'll be counting down the days until the girls come home on Friday.

Summer Slowdown??

Where is it?  It seems that our summer slowdowns are over.  All those years I refused to put the kids in summer school or camps or otherwise fill their days.  Now I'm so glad I did.  We had lots of lazy days of summer.  Lots of days we could pick up and go to the beach or hang by the pool.  This summer we are so busy.  Our diving board broke on Memorial weekend when we'd had friends over.  We had it fixed the following week, and not one person has jumped on it since then!  So sad.  No beach days, no pool days, (ok we're by the pool a lot but it's watching Stephen play water polo) no laziness.

Instead Stephen is in the water 7 hours a day for water polo.  When he's not in the pool, he's eating or sleeping.  Nikki had high school soccer camp last week that left her exhausted and now is gone to sleep away camp.  That is one thing she has done the past 3 years.  She and her friend Kate have been going away to camp for 2 weeks.  It's just like when I was a kid.  They do all kinds of fun activities and really focus on letting them be kids.  The past two years they've gone to YSSC in Yosemite and have had a great time!  This year Ali decided to go as well.  She's only ten, so she was a bit nervous about being gone so long.  I can send letters and emails but don't get much back in return.  I think last year we got one letter from Nikki.  So we'll see.

I guess I could go to the beach by myself.  But I think I'd feel really guilty knowing Stephen was working so hard and not able to enjoy his summer.  What to do?  Oh I know...we'll carpet the house.  More on that later.

Our 5k Results!

The results have finally been posted!  We did great, for our first ever race!!  Bill and Ali stayed together while Nikki and I stayed together.  Bill finished 12th, but was disappointed.  So a week or so later, he followed my 3 mile run and timed himself.  He finished it in just over 28 minutes.  Now he knows he can do it!  The rest of us were happy just to have run it.  It was a great start and we're going to continue to look for fun races to enter.  Go Warnick's!!

1st time out in the boat

We had a free weekend so we decided to go out on the boat to practice.  We went up to Lake Silverwood on Saturday.  It was a beautiful day.  Nice and warm when we ran the 5k that morning so we thought we'd have great weather.  By the time we drove up there, the temperature was reading 59 degrees.  It was a little windy, but not too bad.  But boy was it cold, hence the sweats on all three kids!  We fished, had lunch, listened to music and really enjoyed each other's company.  Oh no, it didn't end there:

We borrowed some wet suits and the kids went for it.  Nikki was too cold to stay in long.  Ali braved the tube and even jumped in afterwards.  Stephen did the tube with both of the girls and then did the wakeboard!  He didn't think the water was too bad.  The air after he got out was another story.  All in all it was a great day spent with the family.

Boats...boats...boats

Yesterday Bill and I got to spend the day together.  He took the day off so that we could go to the boat show together.  We'd gone to Bert's to look at boats the weekend before.  We looked at Yamaha jet boats and figured we'd probably go that route.  They said most of their boats were out at the boat show.  Then a few people told Bill that you can get some good deals at the boat show so we decided to go check it out.

We had lunch together before heading in.  We ended up being there for nearly 7 hours!  Much longer than we'd expected.  We looked at the EbbTide deck boats first and found one we really liked.  We were pretty sold on it and figured that'd be what we got.  We went to sit down and talk it over for awhile and decided to go back and make it a done deal.  Along the way back over there, we stopped to look at some of the expensive branded boats.  We were surprised at the cost, in that it was lower than we'd thought.   Talking to the salespeople was good too as we were able to gather more information.  It was also good to really compare the boats.  Of course there were some things we liked better on one boat and other things we liked better on another.  We ended up looking at ShockWave, Essex and Chapparal.  Chapparal was out because they were located in Ventura and knew that'd be too much trouble for service.  ShockWave was in Ontario and was okay, but a smaller company.  We spoke with the owner there.  So it really came down to Essex or EbbTide.  After going between the two, we decided there were several reasons why the EbbTide was better for our family.  The bimini top was nicer and worked much better with the wakeboard tower.  The finishing touches just seemed better on the EbbTide as well.  And then there's the price tag, it was a good $25k less than the Essex.  So while Bill said it was like comparing the Ferrari to the Accord, we decided our first venture into boating should be with an Accord.

He is going to call today to put down a payment and we should be able to take delivery soon.  I think this will be a fun and exciting new way for our family to have some fun together.  Now to start researching what lakes to go to and where to stay!  I'll keep you posted.