Extreme California Weather: Take 2.

My poor little blog! It's almost the end of the month and I've barely written anything at all. School has kept me equal parts busy and exhausted this past month and while I think about blogging nearly every single day, I can never muster up the energy to make it happen.

It has been determined that I should no longer visit California outside of the warm, sunny, predictable, summer months. Steven and I took a road trip over spring break and the weather was nothing short of atrocious. Torrential downpours, wind, freezing temperatures (no joke, as in 39 degrees), hail storm, tornado warnings, mudslides, thunderstorms... I'm not exaggerating. It was crazy. The good thing about it was that it ensured that we stayed indoors and made the most of our time. We visited with friends, played cards, ate lots of yummy food, and even made a little time to relax. How about that?

We left home Monday morning, after Easter. Since Steven didn't get off work until 8am we decided it wouldn't really be reasonable to try to drive all of the way into California the first day. We didn't want to be dropping in on any friends at eleven o'clock at night. So we decided to stop in Oregon. On the way down we met up with Joy at Olive Garden for a really fun lunch and then drove over a mountain pass that neither of us had ever travelled before.

It was really fun to be off the "beaten path" that is I-5 for a little while. We drove by Detroit Lake and the Detroit Dam and then made our way high up into the mountains where there were still many feet of snow. On the other side we drove through an adorable little down called Sisters. I really want to stop there sometime. It was like Winthrop but a bit bigger and -- dare I say it? -- I think maybe even a little cuter - gasp! But we all know Winthrop has a special place in my heart so don't read too much into this. I think Sisters was where we drove by one of the nicest looking fire stations I've ever seen. Wish I had gotten a picture.

First stop: The Pines Resort in Sun River. This was the first time we've used our timeshare and we were pleasantly surprised. I mean, we expected it to be nice, we certainly paid enough for nice, but this was really, really nice and spacious and clean and in such a beautiful area and right near to the little Sun River Village with a nice (and reasonably priced) market and everything! We had a one bedroom place with a king sized bed and TV in the bedroom, wall bed in the living room, deck, gas fireplace, full kitchen, and a huge bathroom. The moment we walked in the door we were wishing we had planned to stay all week. Check it out.

Steven kept that fireplace on the whole time! Even when I was way too warm and kind of done with it. It's just really fun to have one and I think he wanted to make the most of it.

Biggest bathtub I've ever seen in my life. I want one. The jets were nice too.

We enjoyed both the hot tub and the bathtub and spent the evening relaxing by the fire.

Day two we left Sun River bright and early for a long drive down into Visalia, CA. We were lucky enough to have a bit of sunshine on this drive. After many many hours of saying "isn't it nice to have some different scenery? Isn't it so fun to drive somewhere new?" we were actually very excited to be back on the familiar interstate -- haha! I guess it made us feel like we were really making progress.

We drove through Sacramento just in time to stop for happy hour at the Melting Pot :) They were celebrating international cheese fondue day (you suppose they made that up?) and they were doing free cheese fondue for two all week long. Of course, our meal wasn't entirely free... we ended up getting drinks, cheese fondue, a salad, and even a little chocolate fondue. It was a really fun little date.

We spent the night in Visalia visiting Soundtrack, a friend from Steven's camp days. She and her new husband (they've only been married a couple of months) have a beautiful home! They're like real grown ups.

Day 3 -- a nice short drive up to Mariposa. One of our favorite parts of the roadtrip. We love love love visiting the Solanos -- Chad's grandparents :) They are so sweet and so much fun and just such a great reminder about what's important in life. It's always a relaxing and thoughtful time up there.

**let me just comment right now that typing up this blog post is SO MUCH MORE FUN than the school work I'm supposed to be doing... it's true**

We laid around most of the day: visiting, playing cards, eating yummy food, and watching our Blue Planet DVDs. Judy showed Steven how to make really yummy shrimp in the oven (he was maybe a bit too liberal with that tobasco sauce... he went through a lot of water at dinner time) and we made an apple crisp for dessert.

After a long day of horrible weather (this was the day with most of the bad stuff including the mud slide on a section of freeway we had driven earlier that morning) we caught this gorgeous sunset from the deck.

It was quite cold but we managed to stay outside long enough to take a few pictures.

Self portrait numero uno -- actually, maybe the only one. We really didn't take all that many photos on this trip.

Day 4: Oakhurst :) Always a pleasure. We met up with another camp friend -- Cobalt -- for lunch at the Forks (burgers, milkshakes, and fries - oh my!), did a little shopping (cute little pineapple lamp for my desk at school from a thrift store, and a fun set of chopsticks from this random world imports store), stopped at Jamba for cribbage and smoothies, and then did a bit of grocery shopping before heading back to the house. We made salmon and rice for dinner and watched a movie called Tortilla Soup. We also found time to make a pan of scotcharoos and the next morning we made a batch of cookies. As usual with Steven/Steph travels -- lots of good food!

We started driving around lunch time on day 5 -- San Francisco bound. It was a beautiful drive. We drove through one big storm but it didn't last long. All of the lingering clouds made from some pretty incredible scenery.

First stop in SF was the taco truck. Steven just couldn't resist. He told me we were just getting a snack but we were both more than stuffed by the time we finished this gigantic burrito.

We had such a nice weekend visiting Paige! Friday night she and a couple of her friends took us to a poetry slam. It was actually really cool. I've never been into the whole poetry thing but these teenagers wrote and performed some pretty impressive pieces. Then we went out for ice cream at a place somewhat similar to Molly Moon's. Similar in the fact that they have weird stuff. Steven had a bourbon flavored ice cream with cornflakes in it and I had one scoop of coconut and one scoop of browned butter (I think, if I'm remembering correctly).

Saturday was a more perfectly sunny day than I would have imagined possible in the city of San Francisco. I didn't know it ever cleared up like that! We went on a nice walk up this big hill, played games, and just kind of took it easy. We were all glad for the low-key weekend and had another early night.

It is so strange how we can wake up in Paige's world, drive hundreds of miles, and later that same day, fall asleep in our own bed. That always seems weird to me to be able to be in both of those places in just one day.

Steven and I were on the road by 7am Sunday morning, in Puyallup for dinner at Red Robin by 6:30 and back home by 8 where we managed to cut Steven's hair and take a quick shower before falling into bed. Speaking of cutting Steven's hair -- we've decided to rig some kind of contraption so that there is a vacuum hose hanging down from the ceiling just above his head that I can pull down and use to vacuum up all the hair with. I wrestled with the vacuum this time to try to get as much of the hair as possible before it fell onto him or the floor/chair and it worked really well in terms of clean up but wasn't so comfortable for me. The hose part maybe just isn't long enough and it's hard to coordinate one arm cutting hair and the other vacuuming it up. Anyhow --- My alarm went off at 4:45am the next morning and I've been living and breathing school ever since. Phew! Total whirlwind. Can't even believe it's been almost two weeks since our trip, it has gone by so quickly. I know the end of the school year will be here before I know it.

I hope I'll be able to blog about my teaching experiences sometime soon. I'd love to keep track of the fun things I'm doing. I have found and created so many activities just in these few short weeks and I need to find an efficient way to document it all before I forget everything. There are so many awesome teacher blogs out there (shout out to Ms. O'Brien who saved my tush when I was in a bind at school last week -- so thankful for her blog! http://ramblingsofa5thgradeteacher.blogspot.com/ ) and I really hope that someday I'll be a part of that.

Off to bed! Well, maybe a bit more school work first but the sooner I get to sleep the sooner I can leave and I get way more work done actually at school than I do at home.

'À bientôt'

(not really sure why I decided to go with the French there but it was the first valediction that came to mind  --  and yes, I did just look up the word "valediction." I was going to use "salutation" but I know that is a greeting and something that goes at the beginning so I had to look up the word for the ending.)