Dragon Boat Festival, Day One

Day one of this year's Dragon Boat Races is behind us.  It is so nice sharing the experience with Joe this year.  In year's past he was there as my cheerleader but didn't have anything to do with the actual races.  We ended up not racing together, as I only raced in one race today.  I was supposed to do two but was feeling poorly so I pulled out of my last race.  No we are home and I am sore and sun burnt and contemplating an early bed time.  Round two tomorrow.

Women's race.  My only race of the day.

Drum leading the Chinese Dragons.  Sadly most of my pictures of them came out blurry.

Th crowd cheering the races on

Lisa's Visit Part Two Or the most picture heavy post ever

    This was the view from Lisa's hotel room.  No, I did not use the zoom.  That is actually how close the train tracks were.  Needless to say, she moved rooms after one night.

On Thursday we went to the OC Fair.  We were thinking that it wouldn't be crowded because opening weekend was over and it was a Wednesday.  Everyone else in Orange County must have thought the same thing because it was more crowded than I think I have ever seen it.

                                                              Wall to wall people

Cameron and Grace went on this ride. It went in a circle backwards and then this tent folded over you while you rode.  Not my cup of tea.  Cameron and Grace loved it.

                               Remember the pig that was pregnant last time?  She had her babies.

                                      All together now..........Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

                                     On Friday we went to the American Girl Doll store. 
                                        It was like the Mother ship was calling Grace            
                                                 home(love that quote from "Friends").

                             Pretty fountain at "The Grove" where American Girl Doll Place was

                            These kind of freaked me out.  Dolls that look just like you.
                                  One is fine.  But a  bunch of them together is freaky.

                                      The Hippie doll is my favorite.  I used to have that bike.

                                          
                                             Grace with her "twin" doll and matching outfits.

                                       Lisa, Grace and Cameron at American Girl Place. 
                                                          Cameron is displaying his
                                        displeasure of  the whole American Girl Doll experience.

                           On Saturday we met up with Stacey and the kids at Downtown Disney. 
                          Tony Hawk was there doing a  skateboarding demonstration.  It was gnarly.
                             (That's me trying to be cool.  I wasn't that impressed.
                             Although Tony is catching  some wicked air on that trick).

                                         Give me an "A".  For Cameron.  I don't know why.

Austin, Cameron and Ryleigh all had their pictures taken with their respective letters in the "California". Upon realizing that Grace had no letter on which to pose she said in her best drama filled voice "There's no "G" in California!!  Sob".  Heh.

Here we are compromising. "F" for friends!

C for Cameron

                                            A for Grace.  Again, I don't know why. Oh yeah.
                                                         There's an "A" in   Grace.

                                               The whole group(minus Joe).  C for Californians.

Somewhere in there we squeezed in a trip to Dave and Buster's.  Love how intent everyone is on driving their little cars around the tiny little track.  I think Cameron won.  Much to Uncle Joe's chagrin.

Grace's favorite game.  Doesn't she look like she is sittng at a slot machine?  Nice.  Way to go D & B's.

Black and White Wednesday

Lisa's Visit

Lisa and the kids have been visiting for the last 5 days and we squeezed a whole lot of fun into that short period of time.  There is so much to post that I'm going to have to split it into several posts.  On Wednesday DeAnn met us at the beach and took some pictures of Lisa and the kids(and dog), with a couple of me thrown in.  They really turned out great.  The weather was overcast and cold and the waves were huge.  It was kind of scary. The pictures turned out good regardless and you can't even tell that I was terrified the whole time that we were going to be swept away into the ocean to our deaths.  You probably think I am kidding but I am not. It was scary. 

                                                  I love the look on Grace's face in this one.

                                                  The ones of Grace came out so good.

                                                         Handsome Finn

The tide came in very quickly and we almost got stuck on the cliffs.  I tried to cross back over and a huge wave engulfed me and I got soaked.  Lisa crossed with Grace on her back, narrowly missing a huge wave and then DeAnn followed shorty after, when the set had gone back out.  It was at this point that I became very nervous.  I was shaking as I took these pictures.  Thankfully everyone made it safely across.

                                                       It  truly is a beautiful place though.
                                            Thanks DeAnn, for doing a fabulous job, as usual.

Day two coming tomorrow.

Not a Lotta

Going on, that is.

I snapped out of the blues but am still feeling blah. Thus no posts on this here blog.  I have one word to sum up my summer so far.

Booooorrrrrrring.  I guess boring can be good.  But it's also, well, boring.

We have not one trip planned this summer since we didn't go on our annual camping trip and nothing planned for the near future either.  I hate when I have nothing to look forward to.

Joe and I were talking about my upcoming 40th birthday(which is in exactly 6 months.  I don't want to talk about it).  He asked me if I wanted to do anything special.  I said No.  I want to forget it's happening.  He said he wanted to throw me a party but I laughed.  I don't even have ten friends that would show up if I had a birthday party.  So I told him I would like to go away somewhere, just the two of us.  We started talking about where I would like to go and I got all excited.  About a trip that is 6 months away.  I even started cleaning out my closet to find all my winter clothes.  It's 94 degrees right now.  I really need a life.


Here's another word that sums up my summer: Slow

We're slow at work.  Painfully slow.  Like, I might have to find a new job slow.  I'm so sick of the economy.  Who says it is getting better?  Where?  Not where I live.  I won't even go into how my husband still doesn't have a job.  Because it's boring for you and beyond frustrating for us.

I am slow moving.  My back still hurts.  I have not been cleared to  go  back to exercising yet. It is driving me crazy.  It has been 2 and a half weeks and I am going crazy.  Not exercising puts me in a foul mood.  The other day we went in the pool and I swam some laps and I can't believe how much better I felt.  We are going to continue to get in my exercise that way until I can start walking or biking again.  It has been too hot lately to do much of anything else anyway.

I did go to the fair with DeAnn on Friday, and that was fun.  We had a deep fried Klondike bar.  I was prepared for it to be really gross but oh my gosh it was so yummy.  Seriously yummy.

And Lisa and the kids are coming to visit for a few days next week, so that will be fun too. I know that will keep us crazy busy.  I already have Joe babysitting for a couple of nights so we can go out and have some girl time.  He is so wonderful about that.

Here are a few pictures I took at the Fair, before my camera battery died. (DeAnn took pity on me and gave me one of her old cameras since mine broke at Christmas and I have yet to be able to replace it)

We always have to have these fried potatoes.  The sign says you can buy them at Costco to make them at home. No thank you.  Once a year at the Fair is enough for me(and my stomach).

We always have to have the grilled corn too.  I don't know why these are so good.  I'm sure I could make them at home too but they taste so much better at the Fair.  I think it is the toppings they have there that make them so good.

Here are some of the other fried foods the Fair offered.  We didn't try any of these.

A Krispy Kreme BBQ'd chicken sandwich?  Uhhhhhh...........no thanks

This poor pig was due to give birth in 2 days.  She looked terribly uncomfortable.  I can't wait to go back and see if she had her piglets yet.  I'm a sucker for baby animals(and yes I do know what happens to them.  It's called denial and I am good at it.  :)

Ginormous sunflowers

The aforementioned deep fried Klondike Bar.  Dee-Lish.