M+B=E2O2

Out to Sea

***I took over 800 photos on this trip- so many opportuinties!  I have narrowed it down to the bare minimum to tell our story, but there are still quite a few!! (around 60 or so)***

My father-in-law has had the privilege of working on the water, patrolling the Channel Islands for the last 27 years.  As his time with Fish & Game comes to an and, he gave his family an opportunity to "ride along" and see a "day in the life".  And what a day it was!  My cousin and her family had happened to pick this weekend to come for a visit, a stop over on their way to Disney for their girls first trip there.  Happily they were not only up for a side trip, they were thrilled for the opportunity.

The objective of the day was to make it out to The Painted Cave on Santa Cruz Island.  In all my years of sailing these local waters and weekend trips to Santa Cruz I have never had an opportunity to  see this spectacular cave.  It is the the longest sea cave in the world and quite possibly the largest.

We left Ventura Harbor around 9 am Sunday morning.  The first spot you are guaranteed to see some wildlife is the whistle buoy just outside the harbor.  It is nearly always full of sea lions.  They are really fun to see so close up, the kids like to "talk" to them, barking and waving as we circled the buoy. 

They always seem so relaxed piled on top of one another!

 I love the way they crank their heads back to look at you upside down. This guy kept peeking at us, chin held high.

 

As we left the sea lions behind it was not long before we saw the next bit  of wild life- dolphins!  Uncle Pat is doing his part in making sure we don't lose any kids off the back of the open ended boat!

This first group of dolphins were not particularly playful, but they did jump around a bit for us.

It is always fun to watch them swim in front of the boat- they are sooooo fast!

There is a very exclusive club that is on my Bucket List to join.  It is the All Eight Club Channel Islands.  To join you must have been on each of the 8 islands off the coast of California.  Photos or whitnesses are your proof.  I have been on 4 of the 8.  This is Ben's "proof" of making it on to Santa Cruz Island. 

Olivia had to take a break from the day's activities on her Nina's (godmother) lap.

She missed out on the shark sighting! 

We also ran into a number of sea lion parties.  Amazing that these big guys can jump out of the water so well!

Our first look at the Painted Cave.

Here is a picture of another large vessel (similar in size to the one we were on) for some perspective on just how big the cave is. 

Lt. Gampy is a very skilled boat Captian.  He backed his boat into the cave, and not just a little bit!

 Can you see why they call it a "painted" cave?

Next we got to go deeper into the cave on the skiff. 

The seas were very calm on this trip, a bounus when heading into the mouth of a sea cave!

More "painting" on the walls.

It was soooooooooooo dark in the cave.  We didn't have good flashlights, the spotlights on the boat were not working so we only had little tiny flashlight.  Made it hard to take photos, it was a struggle to trick the camera into setting off the flash (don't know how to manually set it off) and trying to let the shutter stay open  is not really an option in a moving raft!

Here is a look at what the walls looked like close up. It looked like a soft sea creature of some sort, but it was not at all soft!  Smooth hard rocks.

 

 

In the very back of the cave is a shelf full of sea lions.  These photos show more than we could see with our own eyes it was so dang dark.  We had to get sooooo close to these guys in order to get close enough to shine the little tiny flash light on them so that my camera could pick up on the light and fire off the flash. 

I

This photo really surprised me.  I used a program to lighten it up, in the untouched photo the entire left hand side is pitch black.  I had no idea that the cave went back farther still.

They were not entirely thrilled that we were invading their cave. 

Once we were lined up with the exit, Lt. Gampy put the pedal to the metal and we flew out of the cave!

We left the Painted Cave and much to our suprise the trip was not over.  Because the weather was so perfect, we continued up the coast of Santa Cuz, passed the island of Santa Rosa and headed for San Miguel.  Both Santa Rosa and San Miguel are on my list of islands that I still need to land on, but being so close to them was such a treat.  Actually this was the first time I had ever even laid eyes on San Miguel.  On our way out, we got our next wildlife treat....

THAR SHE BLOWS!

Yet another first for this salty old sailor, a humpback whale!!! I have only ever seen the Califonia Gray whale and I have been fortunate to see many of them in my life.  Seeing a humpback was so amazing.  We followed the pair for a few minutes.  They soon got tired of us and bid thier farewell . One of the two even gave us a little wave.

Um, excuse me Mr. Whale, you've got somethingon your.....

...oh never mind, Have a great day!

On to San Miguel - Cuyler Harbor here we come!

High speed "fly bys" on the skiff were thouroughly enjoyed by all!

Wish I could have got their faces too!

 

The Elephant Seals welcomed us.

(Yet another wild creature we could tick off for the trip)!

Hello there!

The one at the top of the photo was  tossing sand on his back.

A young male.  This guy is still small apparently.

If you have ever seen Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) you will recognize these trees.  They were planted here for the movie. 

It is always so great to see the once endangered Brown Pelican.(Tick off yet another wildlife sighting)

Did you know you can get dropped off on San Miguel and go hiking and camping.  Me thinks that this might be  the way to tick off a landing on San Mighel and cross off another island. 

Proof that I was in the harbor.

So was Ben.  :-)

The grown ups let their hairs blow in the wind!

The kids loved seeing us fly by!

Lt. Gampy taking our picture.  He is the original photographer of the family. 

This little guy was found when we brought up the anchor.

Ok, science time kids....time to try and ID this little guy.

Here is the traditional Lt. Gampy group photo.  There is not an occasion that passes with out one of these! Prince Island is in the background.

Goodbye beautiful Islands.  Time to head home.

Now these dolphins knew how to play, and they gave us such a show.  We had to have seen no less than 1000 on the way home.  Pod after pod, or maybe it was just one giant group, but there were an incredible amount of them.

WOW!

Not sure what this guy was doing- twisting?

 

So pretty...

Look a baby!

Perfect sunset....

Ventura Harbor welcomed us home.  A beautiful sight any time of day. 

Aunt Loretta's Amazing Cookies

This is actually from a couple months ago, but I've recently bought the necessary ingredients to make them again so I thought I'd share them with you all.....

 

 

I find it difficult to stop eating these cookies.  They are particularly delicious when they've been in the freezer (seriously!!) MMmmmmmm!

Excuse the dust

I am fiddling around with my template.  I don't like what I'm leaving it with, but I have spent too much time playing today.  I'll fix it up again later.  Probably when I do a real blog post.....

Someday

Someday I will blog again.

But not today.

Soon.

Really soon.

Because my life is interesting like that.

Big Bear Birthday Fun

We spent another 4 days in Big Bear.  This was our second trip up there, last year we went mid April.  There wasn't much snow that trip, but it was a peaceful & fun-filled and had us eager to return.  This time we really wanted to go when the mountains were snow filled so that the kids could really have a chance to *know* snow.  It ended up working out that we were able to go the weekend before my birthday- not a bad present!  We were able to leave Friday afternoon, however it was not quite early enough to miss LA traffic.  It got dark before we got to the bottom of the mountain, so we opted to just spend the night in San Bernadino, there were a few sections of 18 that had snow showers, and being non snow drivers it just seemed like a good idea.  The kids are always up for a hotel sleep over so they were happy to stop. We had dinner at Denny's and were seated next to two nuns.  My kids love to eat, so restaurants are not much of a chore for us.  They are well behaved more often than not which is nice.  As we were leaving the nuns stopped me and complemented our family.  It really just made my day.  (After 4 hours of driving in LA traffic with them- well- sometimes it is nice to see them through the eyes of others!) 

Saturday morning we hit up IHOP for breakfast then hit the road.  Olivia tends to get a little green after a while if the road is too curvy.

She asked for some sunglasses as we got further up the mountain.  I couldn't resist taking a picture of her.  Not too long after this shot we put the headphones on her and she fell asleep, thereby skipping out on motion sickness. (FYI if you didn't know, listing to music on headphones can help out). 

We had the privilege and honor of using my friend's family cabin for our stay, it was home away from home without a doubt.  More on that in a bit.  We got our stuff in the house, shoveled the icy snow off the driveway and had some lunch.  After lunch we went on a mission to find someplace to do some sledding.  We found a little spot with some little hills and had some fun.  The snow was soft enough to make some snowballs (if you look close at the photo in the top right corner of the collage you can see Owen throwing a snowball- Daddy and boys had a grand time having snowball fights!) 

Evan 's primary objective was trying to fall or crash, he is such a ham!  Olivia loved the sledding, as evident by the look on her face.  Emma made friends with a mom on the same little hill as us. She is the owner of the green and yellow inflatable Evan was using and the snowball makers that Emma is using.  She spent quite a bit of time making the snowballs, but she didn't throw any of them, she just wanted to make them! All and all the kids had a blast and could hardly wait to go to the "big" hills for some snow tubing!  Saturday night we ordered some pizza to be delivered and just had a quiet night in.

Sunday we had breakfast at the house then went to Church.  It was a beautiful, beautiful church, really lovely.  The service, however, left us missing our home parish!  By the time Mass was over it was lunch time and my parents had arrived for the day.  We had some lunch with them then Ben & I went and got some stuff we needed from the store while the kids hung out with Gramma & Poppa.  My Mom had also brought a dinner for us all so we got to enjoy another nice evening in. 

Monday we took the kids to "Snow Play".  It was next to empty which was awesome!  The kids had an absolute blast on the hills.  Evan and Olivia were required to ride with Ben or me, but they were ok with that and were just fearless.  We were there for 2-3 hours I'd say.  Even though they have that "magic carpet" lift it was still a lot of work!  The kids were hoping to go back Tuesday, but that was our departure day so it was just not in the cards for them.  I can't wait to have them try skiing or snow boarding! It has been years since I have done either and I look forward to getting a chance to go again.

I put squirrel food out the very first day we arrived, but it took the squirrels a couple of days to figure it out.  The blue jay's found the peanuts right off though!  This little squirrel cracked me up, he finished off the seed in the other feeder first, one that didn't require him to put his head all the way in.  The kids got a real kick out of him sticking his head inside the bird feeder to pilfer food.  It was too cute and so much fun to watch.

The Home.  There is just not enough that I can say about the home we stayed at.  A few years ago my friend had mentioned that her family had a cabin in Big Bear and that should we ever want to use it to let her know.  I knew that a few other friends had used it and just raved, so when we had decided to use Ben's days off to go play in the snow I contacted my friend and as luck would have it the cabin was available.  The family does not rent the cabin out, it is just for family and friends of the family.  I can not tell you how honored I am to be included in her circle of friends.  When we arrived the kids were thrilled to find a few sleds in the garage and a small  pile of snow on the side of the driveway to slide down.   Let me just tell you about my favorite things.  First I have to say, it felt like we left our home only to come home.   There are knick knacks and photos, personal touches that clearly let you know you are in a loved place.  In the above photos are some of my very favorite things.  Cross stitch samplers done by my friend's mom.  The village that overlooks the kitchen, and of that my very favorite were the nuns coming out of the photography studio! The picture that was above the TV (bottom right corner). That picture just made me smile every time I looked at it.  I also just loved the arrangement of crosses that greeted you as you came up the stairs into the family room/dining room.  My favorite cross is the one singled out above.  I loved lighting all the candles each night, I don't do it enough at home and I now want to figure out just where I can put lots of candles to enjoy.  There were so many little details in the decor that just made the house so special, such a home.  Best of all, rather than take any payment to offset any costs to the family, they ask that if you have enjoyed your time that perhaps you'd like to like to make a donation to Habitat for Humanity.  We had the opportunity to spend time together in this amazing home and we get to help others achieve the dream of owning a home.  Nothing short of inspiring.  We have dreams of owning a cabin in Big Bear someday and I am more inspired now than ever.  What they have done, what they are doing is exactly what I would love to be able to do as well.

And finally my birthday.  We left Big Bear on my birthday.  Kind of sad in a way, but it was nice to come home to family.  I'm not really a cake fan, however I do love angel food cake with strawberries.  So that is what Ben got for me.  The gift of spending 3 days with my family in such an inspiring and beautiful place was the very best gift I could have received.  I am blessed with 4 beautiful children who inspire me to be a better person every day.  My husband is my best friend, I don't know  how I got so lucky.  I have a circle of friends that grows continuously. One thing Facebook has shown me is that good friends are always there- even if nearly 20 years has gone by since we last connected.  I love that. 

Getting Better

Emma is finally on the mend.  She still has a wicked cough though.  When we have left the house and gone public have have gotten a few "looks".  I'm confident she's not contagious, but the cough sounds so bad I understand the looks really.  Owen tried going to TKD today, but he only lasted 30 minutes or so.  He seems so much better, but I had a feeling he would have a tough time doing such hard work.  We've been keeping busy around the house though.  Below are a few pictures of our projects.

Emma working on her  "book".  This was taken 4 days into 6 days of the flu.  She lost 6 pounds, 7% of her total body weight during this bout. 

Olivia decides to get in on the book making.

"See right here mommy, I made this for you."

We got some acrylic paint on Saturday and did something with one of our collections.

Here's the crowd painting some rocks.

Olivia was quite serious about it.

I LOVE this one that Evan made for us! He was so careful with the placement of each dot.

Here is one of Emma's

another of Emma's

Here's a long shot of the group.  The polka dot one in front is Emma's - she liked Evan's idea.

Guess which one is mine...

Collections

 

Way back in the day (last week), we went to the beach in search of rocks for a project. (Which has not come to completion yet, thanks flu).  The kids love to collect things.  I haven't' quite figured out what to do with all of them yet.

We have

                                         our stick collection

                            our pine cone collection

                                our rock collection

                              more rocks in our collection

and shells, rocks and sticks recently collected at the beach.

As long as they don't want to collect spiders, I think I will be ok.

The First One Down

Evan with his "sock friend' on his ear.  I used to have (probably still do, just have no idea where) a lovely rice filled "pillow" that I used all the time when I was pregnant.  I draped it across my lower back as I slept.  I thought Evan would maybe feel a little bit better if he could apply warmth to his ear (nasty ear infection) but couldn't find my beloved rice pack so I improvised.  We have more lonely socks than we do pairs so I filled one up with rice and tied it in a knot.  As an afterthought I drew a face on it.  Evan loved it.  It didn't necessarily make his ear feel any better, but he loved having a warm friend. Antibiotics have done wonders and he is feeling sooooo much better.  Now we have to get the rest of the crowd feeling better.

This is his crystal that he made.  We have a green (or will it be blue?) one now.