November 2007

I'm off the entire week of Thanksgiving, which allows me time to travel some and see family. After leaving Santa Cruz, I headed to Tim's, which is a perfect stopover on my way to Mom & Dad's. Then on Tuesday I headed for Redding. Rick had to work Mon - Wed this week, but flew up to Medford on Wednesday evening, where I picked him up. We spent the night in Medford which gave us Thanksgiving morning with Fred and his friend, Marie. She is a real sweetie! For Thanksgiving dinner, we were at my parents. Then we flew home on Friday afternoon. Here are a few pictures from our holiday.

November 2007

We flew for Corban's 4th birthday on November 17th - his party was on the 18th. Rick had to fly home that night, but I stayed and then on Monday afternoon I drove up to Tim & Linda's.

November 9-12 2007

Becky turned 30, so since I had a 3 day weekend, I flew up to spend time with her family. Life is very busy with three young active boys, so our gift was a night away for Becky & Sean. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them and the boys. Of course, I spent time with Ali too :-)

Kauai

On October 20th, Rick & I flew over to Kauai to celebrate our 35th anniversary. This was our first time visiting this island and we definitely plan to go back!! It sooooo beautiful there.











Here are some of the highlights of our trip:

• On Sunday we went to church at the Calvary Chapel in Kapaa and explored the the area around our timeshare at Kapaa Shores a little. The slow pace of life there is very refreshing. The highest speed limit is 50 and near schools is 15. There is really only one main highway on the island and there is no helmet law for motorcycles, which seemed very strange to us. And chickens & roosters are EVERYWHERE - a byproduct of hurricane Iniki.
  

• Monday morning at about 4:30 a.m we were awaken to a phone call call from our neighbor asking us if we had a cat carrier, where our important papers were, and had we heard about the fire. No, we hadn't heard about the fire, so we turned on CNN, but mostly it was talking about the fires in Malibu. The good news was that we saw an amazingly beautiful sunrise. Our unit was on the bottom floor and we could walk directly out onto the lawn which led to the ocean. In the afternoon, we drove north all the way to end of the highway to Haena State Park, stopping at the Kilauea Point Lighthouse and Hanalei Bay on the way.
• Our good friends, Jessica & Jake took care of our home by evacuating with our cat, some important papers, and pictures; we are so thankful to them. It was surreal watching the news...because the news didn't mention much about San Diego county at first and then suddenly it looked like the entire San Diego county was going to burn down!! Though it would have been a bummer to return and find ourselves homeless, we figured there was nothing we could do AND it's all just stuff anyway, so we figured we just evacuated farther than most :-) and we continued to enjoy our vacation! The evacuation of Fallbrook ended on Thursday.

• On Tuesday we took an hour helicopter ride around the island - it was awesome. We got a great discount on the ride, but had to listen to a timeshare presentation in order to get it, which was ok because they also fed us lunch. That timeshare was in Poipu. After lunch we drove around that part of the island some.

• On Wednesday we drove around the island to a few waterfalls and even hiked down to Kipu Falls. It was at these falls that we really wished we'd brought our suits because there was a great place to jump in. Rick ended up jumping anyway......he had a blast and his shorts dried pretty quickly. On the other hand I got a bunch of bug bites, while we were there. This was the day that we toured the Kauai Coffee Company in Kalaheo.

• Thursday morning we took a kayak trip up the Wailua River. There were 6 kayaks plus our guide "Hollywood". He was very knowledgeable about the plants, animals, and Hawaiian history. We rowed the kayaks up the river about two miles and then beached the kayaks and hiked about 1 1/2 miles to the beautifully amazing Koholalele Falls (Secret Falls - yea right!). We had lunch there and enjoyed in the water before hiking back out.

• We began Friday with breakfast at the Gaylord's Restaurant on the Kilohana Plantation Estate. After breakfast, we took a carriage ride around the estate. The driver, Christine, shared more Hawaiian history with us and the clydesdale pulling the carriage was Levi. Then we drove to end of the highway on the west side of the island all the way up to Barking Sands Beach. The road off the highway to the beach was dirt and bumpy. It took us about 1/2 hour to drive 5 miles, but once we arrived at the beach, we thought it was well worth the drive - the beach is incredible. On the way back we stopped in Waimea to eat. However, as we started to head back to our condo, the oil light came on and we discovered a huge puddle of oil :-( It actually was a blessing that we stopped to eat because otherwise we might have been stuck at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. As it was, we had to wait about 2 1/2 hours for the tow truck to arrive to pick our car and give us another car for the remainder of our trip.

• Saturday was our last day on Kauai and since our flight didn't leave until 9:30 p.m., we packed our stuff (we ended up having to get another bag to fit all of our stuff in - and we really didn't buy that many souviners!) We sat at watched the sun set near the Spouting Horn - a fitting way to end a wonderful trip.

• We arrived at LAX early Sunday morning - gotta love those "red eyes." Our home was still standing when we arrived home......it was a little smokey and there was soot and ashes in and around the house, but that's it.
  

Motorcycle ride Sept 07

On September 30, 2007, we went on a fundraiser motorcycle ride for Heart. It was a poker run, which we'd never done before. The biggest difference, for us, was that all riders go at their own pace rather than escorted in a group. We rode from Oceanside up to Rainbow and ended in San Marcos. At each stop, you draw a card and at the end of the ride, the best hand wins. We rode with our friends, Bill & Dotty. I ended up with 2 pairs (2's and jacks). It's great to have fun riding and also help riase money for a good cause.

Harrelson boys birthdays

Rick & I flew up to Seattle on September 14th to help celebrate the Harrelson boys birthdays:

• Lucas - 4
• Micah - 3
• Ethan - 1

They grow up sooo fast - it's fun to watch.
This was the first time we were able to be there for a birthday party! We had so much fun!
There was a scavenger hunt in the backyard ...... goodies all over!! And we had a balloon toss too.

Motorcycle ride

In the last few months we have started riding regularly with some friends.......so here are a few pictures from our ride on Sunday September 2, 2007. It a really nice group of people and we've really been enjoying our rides. We

met Dotty & Bill Metcalf (friends from church) and Cliff & Peggy Myers in Fallbrook around 9:00 since it was such a warm day and headed to Ram onia and then headed back to the coast. We had lunch at a seafood restaurant near the beach in Ocean Beach. Then we headed home back up the coast.