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!