San Antonio Excursion

Tommy & I celebrated our 25th anniversary in June. Quite a milestone! We never made it away this summer, so we decided to take off a few days & go to San Antonio. We left Thursday after school & drove (dodged deer all the way down Highway 281). We stayed at the Grand Hyatt on the river walk.

Friday we went to Fredricksburg & looked around. I hadn't been there in years & it's a neat little town.

Saturday Cori & Will joined us. We went to pick up our packets for the San Antonio Rock & Roll Marathon that we were signed up to run the next day.

Sunday, we got up early to run (well......3 of US ran). Tommy was a great support team/photographer!

It was the first long run Cori had done & I was SO proud of her! We opted to run the relay & it was so exciting to see her run into the exchange area & get to have her hand off our baton to me. LOVED IT!

Fun family time......GREAT way to celebrate! Looking forward to the next 25 years!!

Another year begins...

Just got home from "Meet the Teacher" night at Acton Elementary. There is always anticipation in the air...nervousness, excitement, lots of emotions rolling around in everyone's mind. I think coming to school, seeing their name on the class list & looking around the classroom makes everyone a little more comfortable.

When I was a "younger" teacher, I remember at the beginning of the school year, "older" teachers would say, "I had that student's mom and/or dad when they were in school." I never said it, but I have to admit that I thought, "WOW!" Tonight I had THREE parents who were bringing their Kindergarten students say to me, "Do you remember me? I remember you from when I was in 5th grade." Does that make me one of the "older teachers" now? I'm afraid so!!!

This is always a fun time of year.....full of new beginnings & possibilities!! I wish I knew each of the parents personally so that I could assure them that we will love & nurture their babies while they're with us at Acton Elementary. I'm excited to teach at a school with a staff that really cares about each & every student that walks through the doors!

God bless all the students & teachers as we begin a new year!!

Last day...

We decided that we had only seen Napa on a rainy day, we'd go back today since the sun was shining.

We went past Napa to the Kuleton Winery. It was very remote at the TOP of a mountain. The setting and grounds were EXQUISITE. It is a place we would all highly recommend.









We had gotten sandwiches at a deli in Sausalito this AM and had this beautiful setting to enjoy our picnic.

It was a delightful way to spend the afternoon.

After a couple of stops on our way home, we made our way back and had a delicious seafood dinner at Scoma's on the water. Beautiful view...great food...fun company!!

Some time on the balcony at our hotel completed the trip. A fabulous way to spend a week.....

A good time was had by all!!!

Napa Valley

We woke to an overcast, rainy morning. The word around town was that it was the rainiest day in June since the 1800s. Apparently, it DOESN'T rain in June.....well, usually!

We drove to Napa Valley. The first stop was Oakville Grocery. The next stop was Rubicon. We went in & looked around the winery.

We had lunch at Hurleys with a distinguished guest. Becky & Ken had met a gentleman named Ben Franklin on a trip to SF last December. This 83 year old veteran was an intriguing dining companion.

The next stop was Del Dotto winery. We toured the wine cave.

We made a few shopping stops along the way home. A fabulous dinner at Cole's Chop House in Napa finished out the day.

San Francisco

I met LaVera at the airport in Oakland. We rode a shuttle to meet Ken & Becky at Inn Above Tide (BEAUTIFUL PLACE ON THE BAY!!), where we were staying. This is the view from the window of our room. It was OUTSTANDING!!!

We went to Angelino's for a bowl of soup, then headed to San Francisco. We went to Pier 39 & got on an open-air tour bus. It was cool & windy when we started the tour & continued to get colder & windier until is was almost unbearable. Our Russian tour guide proved to be very hard to understand. We did see lots of interesting sights, that included Telegraph Hill, Golden gate bridge, Lombardi (the crookedest street), Ghiradelli Square, Chinatown, Painted Ladies, San Francisco trolley cars, Alcatraz Island...just to name a few.



Becky did a fabulous job of chauffeuring us around the city, including driving us down the crooked Lombardi street. We headed back to Sausalito and sampled lots of good cheese at our hotel. Becky, LaVera & I drove to Tiburon that evening & saw lots of beautiful areas.

California

We spent the night in Crescent City, CA, woke up & headed south to the Redwood Forest. We hiked up South Fork Trail. On the trail we saw this banana slug (probably not the scientific name, but that's what we decided it was).
We stopped at "The Big Tree". From there we drove through Elk Meadow (aptly named)









to Fern Canyon. All we can say about this is "wow"!

We drove thru the Chandelier tree.








Highway 1 was next! The coastal view was amazing.









We stayed on the windy, narrow road until we got to Hwy 128, then we headed across to Hwy 101 again.

On that road we saw some beautiful vineyard country. We stopped in Santa Rosa for an In N Out burger.

It was downhill from there....the bay bridge coupled with night driving, construction all along the way & Oakland freeway traffic was HELLISH!!! If you need any further details about this portion of the trip, you will need to contact Nancie Sawyer, as I have tried to block those memories from my mind. We did make it to our hotel near the Oakland airport, so I guess all's well that ends well!!

Through OR to CA...

We took Cori to the Portland airport and put her on a flight that went to John Wayne airport in Orange County, CA then on to DFW. Having to come home early is the down-side to having a summer internship where you only get 5 days off.....BUT we're very thankful she got to join us!!

Nancie & I got on Hwy 26 to Canon Beach, OR. It was beautiful. We walked down the beach to the haystack rocks.








We had a good seafood lunch at Mo's on the beach. We got on Hwy 101 & drove down the coast. It was an incredible scenic drive!!

In North Bend, OR, as we drove across a bridge, we could see another bridge across from us that had a gap in the middle of it. We asked in town and learned that it was a railroad bridge. The middle section stays turned so that boats can pass through, but with an hour and a half's notice from the train, the mid-section rotates and makes the bridge passable. It hasn't been operational in years, but has recently been refurbished to begin being used in the next couple of months. Very cool!

When we got to the state line, we came to an agricultural inspection station. The officer asked us if we had any fruit with us. I told him we had an orange & a banana. He asked where they were from. I told him, "Oregon". He asked where we were going. We told him Oakland. This guy took his job very seriously. He carefully inspected the orange and declared, "The skin is pretty beat up. You'd better make sure you get it into a proper trash receptacle." He pointed out that since it was Sunkist orange, it might well have been grown in CA. As we drove on, through our laughter, these questions arose...

*are bananas not a high risk fruit?

*if we had been going to San Diego, would that be more of a problem?

*what is a "proper trash receptacle"?

*did your uncle get you this job?

*is the Sunkist label serve as a fruit passport across state lines?

*is this California's tax dollars at work?

THIS WAS THE FUNNIEST THING THAT HAPPENED TODAY!