You Drive Me Crazy!

Tuesday, my mom, my cousin, and I loaded up my little Dodge Neon and headed up the 101 en route for Sacramento. The plan was originally to be just me and my mom, but my cousin is staying with us for a little while and so she came along as well. Our first stop was at Montaña de Oro State Park outside of Morro Bay. The coast was gorgeous and it was a great stop for lunch. After driving past Morro Rock, we continued up Hwy 1 (only stopping at Elephant Seal Beach) until we reached Limekiln State Park to camp for the night. We did a little exploring around the camp ground (we did a little hiking around the campsite) before it got too cold.

After going to bed at 7pm (thank God for Tylenol PM!!!), we all got up and headed out around 9am. We made it up to Monterey Bay close to noon. One of our co-workers' parents live up in Monterey and they are members of the aquarium. So , long story short, we got to go to the aquarium for free which was pretty sweet! After a couple hours at the aquarium, we drove up to Elk Grove to visit the Burgs. We were going to leave the next day, but after Shelly invited us to spend the night with her out on the Delta, we couldn't resist. The Delta was really nice and it was nice to just hang out around a campfire for the evening (by the way, campfires are my favorite!!!)

Friday morning we loaded up the car once again and headed the rest of the way up through Sacramento to my Tia Irma's house. We hung out most of the day and then went to Ryan's graduation. Right now I am sitting at the house getting ready to take a nap before his graduation dinner. We are going to drive back tomorrow morning (I think we are planning on leaving at 3:30am) so I should be back for church, but we will see how things go... Feel free to check out some of the far too many photos I have taken. Please pray that the rest of this trip goes well. I have been having some trouble with my ears and stuff which has been leaving me feeling pretty nauseous and with terrible migraines. I am going to the doctor's again this week to see what's up with them, but until then, I am just trying to hold out until then...

What Is Going On?

Ok, I know it's been awhile since I have blogged (with the exception of the last post), but I have good reasons. Things have been super busy with work ending and summer starting and helping out at Forest Home and babysitting... It's been crazy, but let's see if I can't catch you up on what's going on...

Last weekend (I mean two weekends ago... not yesterday's weekend but the weekend before that) was my last weekend working for the summer. The kids graduated on Thursday and they all went home (some to stay for the summer and some only for a couple weeks before returning for summer camp). The weekend was kinda stressful as most of the kids were all ready to be done. We did our normal Santa Barbara State Street trip to end out the year. Weekends were fun and I am looking forward to working them again next year (but I am super pumped to have them off for the summer... too bad there is not Community...). So, graduation is always a fun time for the kids and for the teachers. I really like our graduations because they are not too long and they give out a ton of really fun awards. The best part, I have to admit, about graduation is shopping through lost and found after the kids leave. There wasn't as much stuff as last year, but I did find some cool things (well, some of them weren't actually lost and found but I had fun taking pictures of them...).

Monday I hosted again at Forest Home. This group was a little strange because they had already been at camp for a couple of days and I was taking over for the other host... It was just weird coming in on an already established group... Youth group ended this week which is sad, but just in time for me to be way busy.

Friday I went over to watch my boys for the weekend. Mason has made so much progress (he is walking, signing, sort of communicating - without words -) and Caden is a giant! There is seriously like a 7 lb difference between the two of them. But watching them was fun and I am hoping to do it a couple more weekends this summer.

On a more future note, tomorrow I am heading out on a road-trip with my mom and my cousin. We are working our way up to Sacramento to visit my tia and my cousin (he is graduating this Friday). We don't have any really set plans other than we are driving up the 1 and stopping at a campsite for the night around Monterey. We were able to score a couple of free tickets to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which I am super excited about!!! We might stop and a friend's house on the other side of Sacramento for another night and finally end up at my tia's house maybe around Thursday (in case you aren't familiar with the lay-out of California, driving straight through to my tia's house would maybe take 6 hours, but we wanted to make a trip out of it so we are stopping here and there along the way). I am really excited to get to spend some quality time with mi madre this week! I am going to try and barge back Saturday night so I should be at church on Sunday...

I have already started a ton of planning and scheduling for summer camp. Our meetings start on the 16th, but I will probably start really working hard around the 9th... I know it sounds pretty busy, but I love this time of the year... I love having crazy schedules but still making things work... So, yeah... that's what's going on...

To Barge (v.)

To Barge - verb - orig: Ojai
a combination of two words, Charge and Barn... To charge to a distant location for no apparent reason other than having a fun like a barn or barnacle.

Last week Amber Carlson and I decided it would be fun to barge up to the closest Sonic. She had never been to Sonic before and we both had the day off (well, she had the day off... I have everyday off...) so we figured, what better day than today to go for a nice two hour drive up the 33. The 33 was beautiful! Everything was super green and the wild flowers are all blooming. Two hours and 5 counties (yes, we drove through 5 counties...) later, we arrived at the sketchiest area in the middle of Bakersfield, CA right across the street from Happy Mart... I know this sounds super pointless and random, but that's what barges are all about... It was great getting to know Amber better and it was a great addition to my small but growing list of random road-trips...