After the ACC show we drove south to visit friends. We were planning on only staying one day but were having so much fun we decided to stay an extra day. The first day we went to the beach in Santa Cruz. I didn't believe it was actually going to be hot enough for me to want to go swimming so I left my bathing suit behind. That turned out to be a mistake because it was really hot.
First we got to see a sea lion being rescued. He was starving and weak but it was still neat to see him so close up, and know that the marine rescue people were going to help nurse him back to health and then release him. The boys had SO much fun playing in the ocean all day. There were even dolphins swimming back and forth and jumping out of the water pretty close to shore. It was pretty magical.
Of course the next day, I thought it would be nice again and really wanted to go play in the ocean. But no, the weather did not cooperate. We were hoping the fog would burn off later in the day but it didn't. It was only about 60 degrees out and the only people on the beach were wearing sweaters. The only people in the ocean were in wet suits, but we decided to jump in anyway. We were having so much fun playing in the water and body surfing that we didn't realize how cold we were until an hour later when I noticed our oldest son was shivering. That's when we decided to go and drove all the way back from Carmel to Santa Cruz with the heat on full blast.
We were planning on just going on one ride at the boardwalk, the huge old wooden roller coaster. It just happened to be dollar night so we stayed until they closed.
After the longest day of driving that included a detour to the Yo-Yo museum in Chico, and a detour to Yreka to drop Robbie off so he could go visit his dad and brothers, the boys and I pulled into our driveway at midnight.
It is so nice to be home! I've been in the studio making beads and getting ready for
Art in the High Desert. In the last year I've gone to Chicago, San Francisco, Lake Oswego, Tacoma and Seattle 3 times to participate in shows, so it is very nice to be able to participate in a show right down the street. I kinda feel like I'm still on vacation. Now if I could just find a way to stay home in the studio and have my work go directly to the people who want them......
It all started with a package on our doorstep when we came home one evening. It was a candle to burn every night to count down the days till Christmas. It was pretty fun to get a surprise package from mysterious elves. We had no idea the presents would keep coming, but they did! Every day for the last 12 days. The elves are pretty sneaky. We never saw them. We only heard them once on the second night. We heard a little noise outside but didn't really think much of it since we were not expecting the presents to keep coming. Later when we opened our door there was another package. This time it was two gigantic stockings. Sometimes we would come home to a package on the doorstep or wake up to one in the morning. Every time it made us smile and laugh. Thank you Christmas Elves, whoever you are. We've got some suspicions about who it could be, but really don't know. It looks like today, at 3:33 we get to find out!
