Dana Point Sport Fishing

A group of us has had a groupon to go sport fishing at Dana Point for a while so last Sunday we finally made the reservations and went! Kevin came down to join us and we left the dock around 12:45pm. What they failed to mention on the phone when we were making our reservations was that there was a "Kids Clinic" that would be on our boat. We were a little discouraged at first but we posted up at a spot on the front of the boat and everything turned out fine! The kids turned out to be pretty entertaining until they started to catch more fish then us..

Niki was pretty camera happy in the beginning :) That's why there are some shots where we seemed unprepared..I was happy that she did take the pictures though because everyone else is so bad about recording stuff like this!

We had a good time on the boat, had some good food and drinks BUT due to the fact that we had red tide here last week, it really hurt our fishing. I did catch one fish that was maaaybe 6 inches and looked like a rock fish. Most of what we were catching was mackerel. Kevin did really good and got 5-6. Charlie caught a few, Miguel caught one and i think my cousin caught one too. There wasn't a lot of biting going on. It was a great to cruise around on the boat though! The weather was beautiful and we all got nice tans. After our adventure we topped off fishing with dinner at Joe's Crab Shack (it only seemed appropriate). We all wanted fish but since none of us caught anything worth eating we had to get our fix some where!










And if any of you are still worried about how Johnson is adjusting just look at these pictures..They should put your worries to ease..If anything I SHOULD be the one worried..

5 Years And Eggplant Parmesan

Well on September 29th Charlie and I celebrated 5 years of our relationship. We are both just blown away out how time is flying. And surprised how happy we still are together :)

Kathy recently sent us Grandma Psillo's Eggplant Parm recipe and that has always been one of my favorite dishes so we had to make it as soon as possible. Unfortunately on the actual day of our anniversary I was on a juice fast SO we cooked it the next day instead :) We exchanged some gifts on our anniversary and had a relaxing evening together. I got Charlie the latest surf DVD he had been talking about, surf magazine, and a book on CD. He got me a shakeweight which i was very excited about (corny and tacky but still fun) and a target giftcard. He did good :) The next night we made bruschetta and eggplant parmesan which turned out EXCELLENT! I was so impressed with ourselves. He did most of the cooking though :) i just helped with the preparation.

We started our dinner with a delightful appetizer, bruschetta, this is the first time we have tried to make it but it is soo good! We probably could have eaten just that for dinner..with rojo vino of course :)



Here are some pictures of Charlie frying our eggplant! He is a pretty good chef and although doesn't do it too much, enjoys cooking!





And then our finished product..






I couldn't be more grateful to have him in my life. I appreciate so much of the things he does for me, most of the time he doesn't realize just how good he is. I love you Charles Michael Psillos and can't wait for our next anniversary :)

Also, Thank you Grandma Psillos for the recipe's!!!!!

"Conan" and our trip to LA

My friends are huge fans of the late night show "Conan." He has been around for a while, The Tonight Show and then recently (with much controversy) he started his own show. Although he has been around a while we never watch any of those late night shows, especially since we haven't had cable for about a year ( WHICH BY THE WAY!!! Charlie and I just got! He wanted to watch football..) so we were really out of touch with the TV world. Any who, our friends signed up to try and win tickets and a few months low and behold we won four tickets! We went last Thursday, took the day off of school and Charlie was able to get the day off and headed up to Burbank to watch the live recording of the show! We werent sure what to expect and if it would be a pain to get there but it was actually really easy and well organized. We even hit no LA traffic and got there early!




So Niki and Miguel came up the night before to play sequence and make dinner! It was great fun as usual. Oh yes and I did dye my hair purple, but dont fret it is only semi permanent :)

The next morning we had a lot of fun getting ready. I forgot what it was like getting ready with a girlfriend and not a boy! I love my Charlie but he won't let me do his hair (sometimes) or put make up on him ;)




We only took pictures of going up, none of us thought to take any while we were there, nearby the studio or anything. Plus you couldn't bring out your cell phones on the studios so this is all we got!

Charlie took that picture of me and Niki and said something that obviously sort of pissed me off, something along the lines of "your smiling too hard" and as I started to roll my eyes he shot the picture but he loved it so I kept it.





After we went to the film studio we went to the Chinese Theatre and saw all the kooks dressed up in costumes who hassle the tourist and take pictures with them for money. Probably would have been some great shots but we didn't get any. For dinner we went to Planet Hollywood and paid a fortune for burgers and atmosphere!! It was still fun but THAT was a one time deal for all of us.

Homecoming Greetings

This is a little video snipit of charlie coming home from work and johnson greeting him. Johnson seems to be enjoying his retirement in California. It is hard to tell who is happier to see whom? BTW Charlie's hair is so long..

Some random shots

I have this project in an Earth Science class where we are suppose to take sunset pictures and monitor the movement of the sun...Just a good excuse to take some pretty pictures and walk Johnson on the beach :)









Check ou that tongue!

SDG&E Power Outage

What a day it was yesterday!

I was in my last class of the day and really very excited it was almost over because it was about 100 degrees out and you are just sticking or sliding down your chairs. My school sent out an email on the 7th saying SDG&E asked them to cut back on using AC for fear of possible power outage. Well at 3:40pm five minutes before our class let out the power was OUT! It didn't seem like much of a big deal until you start trying to make calls and none of them are going through. Then as I was exiting the campus realizing it is rush hour and NONE of the traffic lights were working thats when I started to freak out a little bit. I was just above the gas E line to make matters more stressful..Finally I made it on to the freeway and it was a steady 30 miles all the way to my exit which is about 15 miles. It took me about 45-55 min's for what usually takes about half the time. Each exit has about a mile wait. I finally made it to my exit home and there are ambulances driving all around, 5 or 6 cops cars, and sirens for a solid hour/hour and half at least. Traffic was INSANE. I finally got off the exit and normally it is a 2 minute drive but it took me about 15. People were cursing and honking at each other to try and get through lights, people were blocking intersections, it was chaotic! Luckily i made it home and hopefully now I will be able to get to a gas station. All atms, restaurants, stores, gas stations, most of it was all closed. There were a few liquor stores open but it was all cash only...and we had no cash. We decided to go take a long walk outside on the beach because heck there wasn't much else to do! The streets were littered with people! It was actually great. Everyone was talking to one another, dogs were walking everywhere, people were playing guitar at the beach, working out, it was actually really pleasant. I was so stressed when I got home but as soon as we took that walk and were outside i was instantly calm. Maybe it was a good thing? Got everyone out of the house! So around 8pm sunset and it was so dark and quiet it was eerie. Luckily we did have gas so we made a big pot of soup and played sequence by candle light for about an hour and a half. It was again pretty peaceful and pleasant. My only complain was that it was so hot...It was hot outside and more hot with the candles..at around 9:10 we noticed a light in our kitchen and our fans popped on! I think everyone in Oceanside gave a screaming WooHoo and you could hear all the happy voices in the street :) That part was pretty neat.

They estimated 5 million people were affected.
1.4 million were out of power.
It last 6 or so hours.
3.2 million gallons of sewage were let out into a local lagoon (accidentally).
120,000 gallons of fuel and waste were let out (accidentally) from a fueling station.
All schools are closed today.
San Onofre went offline at about 3:40.
Arizona, Southern California and Mexico were affected.

It was an interesting experience. Made me think about how the East coast lost power for DAYS..
I am grateful we are all ok and that power is back on.

R.I.P. Izzy

Dear Izzy,

You were so old, wise, and stubborn.
Your curiosity and lust for life was evident in your resilience.
There will never be another dog quite like you.
You will live on in our memory as never giving up.
You will always be Johnson's favorite companion.
You lived a good life pup.
Despite what may have been said about your "resiliency," (to die..)
we will miss you and you were oh so loved!

Deans List

Thats right I made the Deans list! I found out a few weeks ago.. I have been M.I.A. on the blog because i forgot the password but I did get it recovered!

Anywho, yes close to a 4.0 and on the deans list I know..Pretty good right? I happily accepted starbucks giftcards and champagne for my achievements. ;)

I started my semester at school last week. I have 5 classes, upper division linguistics, general earth science (conceptual physics), earth science, political science, and math for teachers. This semester is going to be a challenge and hopefully I can remain in the deans good graces. HA! I was really daunting the this semester because I tend to be more of an artsy fartsy type of person but I have been pleasantly surprised and love all of my teachers so far. This school has given me such a positive outlook on continuing education which I really didn't have going to Mesa College. I didn't know if i would do well, like it, etc. But it has superseded all of my expectations and i am already thinking of going for a masters. In fact i wish i could have a job to just be in school. An intellect hah. But since I can't do that I will just take this day by day and enjoying my fortunate job as a student.

Charlie is so supportive and sweet! He always is telling me how smart I am and how good of a job I am doing. He can't really help me with much of the work but he always says he will if I need him and is always there to quiz me. I don't know how I got so lucky with him! We are going to be celebrating 5 years at the end of the month :)

Our baby..

is a big puppy named Johnson!

Right before we took Johnson out Kathy said "are you going to put pictures of him on your blog now like hes a kid" I laughed at the time but yes that is exactly what I am going to do :) I actually don't have many pictures of him because I haven't had a camera but I just got one so I will soon grace our blog with videos of our doggy.

He is doing great. He adjusted quickly I think. How can you not when he gets wet food everyday and can sleep in our bed (during the day at least, he snores to loud at night so i kick him out to the living room) AND go on the couch. It was nice that he came a few weeks before we started school and work because we were able to take him on walks, introduce him to neighbors etc. He is ok now when we leave and hasn't had one accident! He is doing fine and I think he is loosing weight from all the walks! He still eats a lot so no one worry about him loosing weight because we aren't feeding him..He has toys, dog bones, dental doggy sticks, rawhides and most of all charlie. He does fine when were gone, the little kids around love to play with him. He loves my moms two pugs and they chase each other for HOURS around in circles, i will have a video of that later. And because my mom is a healthy/vitamin nut for not only humans but dogs, Johnson is now on vitamins too..I know its sick how we spoil him..He goes on our weekend trips to our friends and parents. Tonight we are going to Huntington Beach to meet Kyle, Kevin and Kim's new dog.
Overall johnson is just a great dog and addition. Charlie and him get so equally excited to see each other, they hug, kiss, and johnson prance's around like a rabbit..



We are taking good care of your baby Jess :) Should we get a ticket for him when we come to Texas? ;)

"The Dad Life" Need a Laugh??

In light of upcoming Father's Day a friend posted this and I felt it was too good not to share. WATCH IT EVERYONE, it will make you laugh

Texas

We met Charlie's family in Texas for a nuclear mini reunion. It was great to see everyone. All the kids are getting so big! We had a chance to get to know Zeke and Colt a little better too. These are my personal pictures so it is the first batch. There will be more to come..

The lake was SO low this year! They hadn't had rain for 3 months. It was about 200 ft lower then the last time we were there. All of the guys were working on getting the deck level off of all the rocks!


We did catch some beautiful sunsets. The first day we were there it was pretty overcast and actually stormed a little. We saw an awesome lightening storm when we were fishing one evening. Don't have any pictures of it. I also need to mention Hannah and i were the only ones that caught fish!! (while charlie and i were there at least). I caught mine within the first few minutes of throwing the line out and it was about 7in. Of course i have no photographic evidence but I assure you its true. Hannah had hooked a big catfish ( i think) and i was trying to help her pull it up but it was so heavy it broke the line!


Of course we went on numerous boat rides and jet ski sessions. Whenever we went to the deck there would surely be a little rugrat who followed us out there. All of the kids loved hanging out on there, feeding the fish, watching everyone fish, trying to catch little fishy's in the net. They were all adorable. Thank goodness Hannah was there! She was so great and helpful with the kids, excellent Aunty.





I was so impressed with how calm, relaxed and smiley Zeke was. He had taken more then one nap on the boat and it was the cutest thing! He must have enjoyed the swaying and rocking because when we were on there he would be asleep in no time.




Psillos brothers felt it was a good idea to climb the roof of the dock and jump off. OF COURSE i missed the actual jump but the whole time they were doing it, it seemed sketchy BUT hey they survived and nothing was broken.




I was sort of disappointed in myself for not taking more pictures but my camera ran out of batteries and then I just started to depend on everyone else for them so this was all i got! I realllly slacked with charlies wakeboarding pictures but I got one good air and one mid fall so that is ok :)

We had a great time. Very short compared to last year but work duties call and charlie had to be back for work on Monday. Thanks again to the Williams for letting us stay there!

Easter

I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter! I have been procrastinating a great deal on this blog. I am in the last week of the semester and I have been really pre-occupied with that! On Easter we went to a Padres game at the beautiful PETCO park. Well luckily the park was really nice because they played horribly! Stinking Padres...They played against the Phillies. The game was dull but we had good company.



Although I have no actual garden space I have been exercising my green thumb lately. I have always enjoyed flowers and plants but recently I made it a total hobby and I have grown radish's and carrots! I have also grown herbs like chives, basil, and peppermint for home-made mojitos. I am trying to get strawberries and cucumbers going also..Let you know how that goes! Believe it or not it is simpler then you would think! We have great sunlight from our window so it has been a golden opportunity! I also have my regular decorative plants :) I have an aloe vera cactus which works better on any sunburn then store bought stuff. And my money trees are flourishing so that is a good sign. In spite of this being California these are the only plants I am growing people!!!! I recently bought a new camera so I took a few pictures of my babies. One day I hope to have a real garden! Possibly in Hawaii or Puerto Rico.... :D The last photo is of our front door/walkway!