Sabbatical Trip Post #5

We are back in Oregeon! And back to the cloudy skys - although we are happy to be in our home state, we will definitely miss the sunny skys.

For those that were praying for safe travels, thank you so much. The long day on Friday was 14 hrs. The boys did wonderful - we started at 3:45 am so that helped them sleep the first 4 hrs. All along the CA coast, the driving was good and Jason was able to relax a bit, but as soon as we got to OR, the winds picked up and we were right on the coast line, so the driving was very slow and very difficult for Jason, but again he did great. We even drove over the Golden Gate Bridge - admitantly, that was not teh best decision and we are very glad we were there at 6am. But it was fun. We were relived to get to the other side though!

We are staying in Florence, which is home to the Oregon Dunes, so there are dune buggies and ATV's starting on the dunes behind us at 6am and going till late night, but it is cool. Jason and Ethan rented ATV's yesterday and had a good time playing around. Today we are going to go crabbing - we'll see how the crabs like the 'seafood delight' cat food and the chicken legs we bought them.

Below are some pics from Monterey and from yesterday with Ethan and Jason on ATV's. The simulator pics are us driving in a convoy in Iraq. The shooting range is all simulated as well, it was pretty sweet. The pics of the boys are at the Monterey aquarium and Ethan playing super heros with his cousin Justin. I have also included some beach pics and some action photos of Jason looking for his wedding ring in Santa Cruz. The one of Jacob in the trailer is funny to me, he is finding all these funny positions to hang out in.

Sabbatical Trip Post #4 - Trip Bummers

Well, today I decided I finally have to post a bummer. But first let me start off with the past few days. We are in Monterey, CA and have really enjoyed it. The weather has been great - a bit chilly, but really nice. And we have been so blessed to spend time with Jason's sister Lisa and her family - Mark, Justin (5 yrs) and Brody (10 mo). WE have gone to great dinners and had the priveledge of Mark cooking for us (he is a chef). Lisa works at the Presido (army training place) and she showed us the simulator shooting range and the simulator convoy area - amazing technology for training our troops. We also went with Lisa and the boys to the Monterey Aquarium and had a great time. Even Jacob went crazy and loved the touch pools and things for little people.

Tomorrow we are up at 3am to drive to Florence for our last stop on the trip. We are waking up early to avoid the San Fran trafic and to capitolize on some sleeping time for the boys since we will have about a 12 hr day.

OK, so now for the bummers. We have had a few hicupps along the way, but so far we have been able to get over them pretty easily. God has definitely been watching over us.
1) The hitch we had installed to put our bike rack on the back of the trailer came unwelded from the trailer bumper - luckily it didn't come completely off before we noticed it, the bikes were just sagging. So, we had to put the rack in George and put the bikes in Harry when we travel. No biggie
2) Jason accidentally hit a truck when he was parking Harry in a really tight spot in Avala beach - all that happened amazingly enough is the license place got tore off so he got some new plastic plugs and put the plate back on.
3) We have leared that Harry is just WAY too long for George to pull safely - Jason has done an amazing job of being attentive and on super-point as we drive. A few times the winds and passing vechicles have sent us 3-4 feet across the road. We deciede to take Hwy 101 back for our long trip tomorrow to avoid so many cars and the high winds we experienced on I-5

But the bummer of all bummers that we cannot easily fix is that Jason decided to 'donate' his wedding ring to the waves of Santa Cruz today:( So for a $500 reward, if you want to do some treasure hunting on Santa Cruz beach let us know. The ring just washed off his finger when a wave hit him. He tried to dig in the sand and waves for almost 2 hrs, but wasnt' able to find it. To those that know Jason's ring, it was his 'crown' and was of course very special to him (not to mention it was a bit more pricy than the average mens ring!). So we are both sad, but things like this happen, so we'll file an insurance claim when we get home and see what we can do I guess.

Even with the bummers, we are having an amazing time and have been so blessed to have this wonderful family time together and see our beautiful country.

Sabbatical Trip Post #3

Well, we made it to the coast of CA! We are in Availa Beach - near San Luis Obispbo - where Jason went to school. Yesterday we hung at teh beach and Jacob loved the sand and the waves, it was fun! The drive here went well. I think Jacob is getting a little tired of the car, but he is hanging on. Ethan is doing great as well and said he could do this forever!

Today we have a 2 hr drive to Monterey to spend time with Lisa - Jason's sister.

I finally got some pics to upload. If you don't want go through the whole slide show, you can click on the link at the bottom to 'see all slides' and you can see whatever you want. Enjoy!

Sabbatical Post #2

We've made it to Las Vegas - almost 1/2 way through our trip. After Lake of the Springs Campground, we went to Modesto to show Ethan where Jason grew up. We stayed at one of Jason's friends parents house and had a wonderful time visiting with them. They recently installed a pool so they boys enjoyed swimming late night and early morning in the 100+ heat.

After Modesto, we headed to Yosemite National Park. If you haven't had a chance to go there, I highly reccomend it as a must do! It is gorgeous and super fun. We enjoyed biking around the valley (Jacob in the trailer). There is paved bike paths over alot of the valley, so it was a great way to check it out. Our campground was right on the Merced River and Ethan enjoyed rafting down a man-made little canal in the river - I did some floating too which was fun. Jacob continued to enjoy getting really dirty all the time! We drove up to Glacier point to overlook the entire valley and we able to marvel at God's creation. On the way out of Yosemite, we drove through the East entrance and saw another beautiful side of Yosemite - massive granite boulder and fields and domes of the granite, so unique and amazing!

From Yosemite we went to Bishop, CA to visit Jason's Dad and Step-mom. They are camp hosts at a lake at 9000 ft - Sabrina Lake - for the summer. It was a great campground on a creek. They treated us to a great day on a pontoon boat on the lake to do some serious fishing. 3 fish were caught an 1 kept, but at the end of the day we could have all cared less on how many fish were caught. We had a great time in the boat. Jacob loved fishing and driving and walking around the boat. Ethan loved catching 2 of the 3 fish and driving the boat. Jacob even took a nap. The terrain around the lake and Bishop was different again, we have loved seeing it all.

This morning we headed to Las Vegas through Death Valley National Park - the terrain here was super varied again and we all understand why they call it Death Valley - 107 degrees and nothing around. We had a major pass to go over which made us a bit nervous in George (we finally named the Tahoe), but with only 1 stop we made up the 5000 ft elevation gain and then back down to -190 ft.

Tonight we are staying with my counsin Lindsay, enjoying good conversation and appreciating a real bed and laundry.

Sorry for no pics again - we will have a big post I promise after the Grand Canyon (0ur next stop).

Sabbatical Trip Post #1

We've made it to California. We are at a Thousand Trails camp just south of Chico, CA. We spent the day playing in the lake, watching Ethan do paddle boat races, doing bumper boats and swimming in the pool. Jacob loved playing in the lake and on the beach. He even liked the bumper boats - especially when he and Dad were hitting Mo & Ethan.

Before we came here, we were at Crater Lake, OR for 2 nights. We all loved it and thought it was beautiful. Unfortunately the boat dock was broken, so we couldn't go to the island. We did our first hike with Jacob in the back pack and that was an interesting experience - I didn't realize I needed to do more 'training' for our sabbatical! But we made it up the side of the crater. Jacob loved camping here - he was eating durt and was brown within 1 hr of arriving at the site. When he is in the trailer and anyone is outside, he gets mad - just wanting to go outside, it's cool to see him enjoying it so much

The drive has gone well - exept if you're George the Tahoe - he is not liking all the hills, so we are going to take him to Chevy tomorrow to make sure we're not abusing him too bad. He hasn't had any problems, we just want to make sure he doesn't have any! Jacob is doing well with the driving, but has had limited naps lately, so we're trying to have some consistency (however you do that traveling 3600 miles in 3 week, i haven't quite figured out yet!). Jason is doing the driving and has hit a few espresso stops, which we are documenting of course! The trailer is a bit squirly especially on the major highways so it isn't easy driving, he is doing great. He even drove it around Crater Lake counter clockwise - which was too scary for me - no guard rails and a major cliff about 1 ft away. I think was is nearly in tears the entire 5 miles of badness!

And of course blogger won't work for me to add pics, so I will have to do that another time - sorry!

We Made It!

Well, after working for over 7 years at Intel, both Jason and I have started our first sabbatical. What does that mean for those of you who don't live in Intel speak? It means we have a 8 week paid vacation!

To be honest, I'm a little scared as I contemplate what life will be like without work for 8 weeks. But I'm positive by the time I get to 2 weeks I will wonder why they don't give us 10 weeks!

So, you ask what will you be doing with your time? Well, that's not hard to fill.

As many know, we bought Harry our travel trailer a few months ago in anticipation of our sabbatical. So we will start Sunday by doing a 3 week road trip with both boys. We are going to visit yosemite, grand canyon, monterey, crater lake, florence....we estimate 3500 miles and over 70 hours of driving! We'll see how the boys do!

Then we will come home and Jason will finish his MBA and gradutate the first weekend of September.

Then Jason and I will be leaving the boys at home and heading to a resort just outside of Cancun, Mexico for 9 days.

Then we want to do some service projects in Portland.

Jason's last week will be spent cleaning the garage and planting trees and relaxing. I will be getting my program managers certification. Don't worry, I will have a week after that to have my last week of relaxation.

So, that's what we're up to. And I'm sitting here watching the opening ceremonies for the olympics, which is always my favorite time of the year - woohoo!

We Made It!

Well, after working for over 7 years at Intel, both Jason and I have started our first sabbatical. What does that mean for those of you who don't live in Intel speak? It means we have a 8 week paid vacation!

To be honest, I'm a little scared as I contemplate what life will be like without work for 8 weeks. But I'm positive by the time I get to 2 weeks I will wonder why they don't give us 10 weeks!

So, you ask what will you be doing with your time? Well, that's not hard to fill.

As many know, we bought Harry our travel trailer a few months ago in anticipation of our sabbatical. So we will start Sunday by doing a 3 week road trip with both boys. We are going to visit yosemite, grand canyon, monterey, crater lake, florence....we estimate 3500 miles and over 70 hours of driving! We'll see how the boys do!

Then we will come home and Jason will finish his MBA and gradutate the first weekend of September.

Then Jason and I will be leaving the boys at home and heading to a resort just outside of Cancun, Mexico for 9 days.

Then we want to do some service projects in Portland.

Jason's last week will be spent cleaning the garage and planting trees and relaxing. I will be getting my program managers certification. Don't worry, I will have a week after that to have my last week of relaxation.

So, that's what we're up to. And I'm sitting here watching the opening ceremonies for the olympics, which is always my favorite time of the year - woohoo!

Jacob's 1st B-Day Party

It was a few weeks ago, but the pictures are still cute! I meant to do this while I was in China for 2 weeks, but didn't get it done...obviously.

We had a 1st B-Day party for Jacob on July 12th. It was a baby pool party and he had many friends over to enjoy the pools. We had a great pool for the little ones, a bigger pool and a biggest pool, so everyone was happy. We even filled them with hot water to ensure fun!

I made a fish cake and a boat cake, which I must admit turned out pretty cool. My mom and I had a great time making them. Jacob even ate all his fish cake this time - we leared to entice him with cheese and to not put on icing!

Jacob also had his first kiss with his friend McKenzie Tracy - I was thinking he was going in for a big push and a bite, but he ended up with a big hug and a kiss. You can see me below trying to seperate them:) I think he really likes her. The other day we were playing and i was holding both of them, he started blushing and getting all embarassed, then broke out a big hug again. Gonna have to watch those two.