Fishing and Visitors

Jeremy and I gave fishing a try this past weekend. Granted, we only went to a reservoir close by so we haven't hit the true mountain streams yet. That may be this weekend's adventure. Anyway, the photo above is representative of the success we had.......or lack there of. It was fun through.

We also had visitors again. It's a good thing we bought a house with extra bedrooms because they have been used multiple times this summer. I think this was our 5th set of house guests. We could almost run a bed and breakfast at this rate. Anyway, my cousin Amy and her 3 kids, Trey, Megan and Claire stopped for a night while driving from Sedona, AZ to Greenfield, IA to visit her dad (and my uncle) Ted. We went to the indoor "kiddie" swimming pool, complete with a hot tub, climbing thing, lazy river, and come rope/log contraption. After feeding the kids it was off to bed. Trey was delighted with all the He-Man Toys that were Jeremy's growing up. He thought they were the coolest thing ever (hence the photo above) and all the kids were fascinated by the basement. Living in AZ this was the first basement they had seen. So to be "underground" to them was great! Jeremy missed the visit since he was in Panama on work. So Amy is yet to meet him which means we'll have to meet up again.

The last photo is of Amy. I made sure I had a bottle of wine chilling for her arrival. Traveling across country with 3 little kids would drive one to request a glass of something. Nothing like pizza and wine......I'm sure they go together somewhere.

We'll post again next week.

Chicago

Sorry for such a delay in our posting here. However, better late than never!

It's been busy around our place. I was in Chicago for a girls weekend with some friends from college. It was a hoot and I don't know the last time I laughed that hard for that long. The trip started off shaky and almost was a "no-go" for me when my flight was cancelled on Thursday. So, thanks to frequent flier miles I re-routed to go through Moline, IL (yep, I stopped by home for 4 hours) then drove to the suburbs of Chicago to meet up with my friends Carrie and Melissa. We rode the train downtown, went to a Cubs game (which they won), Visited Navy Pier and took a Segway tour of the city. I even sat next to someone famous on the "L" after the game; his name is Jeff ? but he sang the 7th inning stretch and is in movies such as Daddy Daycare, WallE, Rocker and some comedy show. I was the nerd who didn't know who he was until everyone else started making a big ordeal out of it.....then I felt obligated to ask for a photo like a crazy woman. (I posted the photo above, maybe you know him) It was a great weekend and I needed a nap when returning home! However, there was no time for that.

24 hours after returning from my Chicago trip I hopped on another plane and headed to Seattle for our summer Sales Meeting. It was like any other meeting, rather boring.....but, we took a tour of the city on "The Duck." The Duck can tours the city by land and water. It was a new experience being in a car/boat in one. Good times. I returned home on Thursday.

Jeremy throughout it all was hanging out at work and home and "doggie-sitting." Sounds like he survived just fine. This weekend he saw the new Batman movie and went golfing. Overall, it's going well. He's off to Panama in a week. Nothing like spending an entire day of travel to spend one day working on site then turn around an travel an entire day. Sounds like fun, huh?!

Sorry our life isn't more exciting right now......the most exciting thing we have is a broken sprinkler system which makes our yard look like a true desert!

Shoe

Sadie chewed my favorite shoe........dogs!

Newport Beach, CA

First, let's clear the dog situation up for everyone. Sadie was released from "doggie hospital" on Saturday and allowed to come home with medicine which we are instructed to wear latex gloves when administering....it's potent. She's doing well and is a completely different dog now.

Our weekend consisted of traveling to CA for Ware Malcomb's Summer Picnic (Jeremy's company). We had a very nice time and found it to be rather relaxing. Instead of staying at the hotel by the airport we stayed at a Bed & Breakfast (B&B) down off the Newport Pier. The photos we've posted are the view from our room, the fish market and one from the beach. Right next to the B&B was a donut shop. We stopped at this place both morning because they were homemade donuts and we all know that the fresh ones rock! We went to the fish market.

The fish market truly was fresh fish every day. The "boats" (by far the smallest on the ocean I've ever seen) would come in starting at 6 AM and continued to until 9 AM. It was priceless, the locals were waiting in line, the place was seriously packed, the entire time. The prices were great! Heck, I'll include a few photos of the market.

Check out the Newport Pier. I've heard of people fishing off a pier but these people were packed in like sardines. It was nuts and very few were catching fish. I'm surprised no one hooked another person. For the people that did catch fish, they were the size of a sardine....that's like a miniature perch.

The picnic was nice and held on Huntington Beach. It's a nice beach but I must admit if you have a choice to go to a beach in CA, MN, KS or FL, I really don't think it matters. A beach is a beach, they all have sand and you end up bringing half of it home without trying because it's stuck to everything. However, when on Huntington Beach you'll notice one view shows a beautiful ocean filled with fishing boats and the other view (behind you) is a oil refinery. Who says you can't go on vacation and gain an education at the same time! Funny though, with CA having an oil refinery I'm surprised they never set up a deal to have cheaper gas.......it was $4.56/gallon....that's regular!

Have a great week