Christmas Pictures In February

BOO!

Yes I am back bloggers..

This is going to be short and sweet.  These are extremely belated pictures from my excellent and warm trip home for the holidays.

It was just getting cold in NY so I decided it was time to jet off to San Diego for a real winter Christmas.

I can tell you it was the best present I could have gotten!

I lied a little bit..This picture is from Thanksgiving.  I had two dinners and this was from our first dinner at a Czech friends house. Such a beautiful view.

My handsome not so little brother and me!

Ok here are the Christmas photos..

The weather was so beautiful so on Christmas Eve Pavel and I took a walk at Torrey Pines Beach.  I had a new camera so I used Pavel as my muse and had fun experimenting with it.

I really love this shot.  It was so endearing to me.  Father and son fishing on the beach, I don't know why it touched me so much but I really loved this photo!

Pavel climbing the rocks

He made it to the other side without getting soaked! And check out that wave..

Czech tradition calls for the big dinner to be on Christmas Eve and not on Christmas Day.  This was right before dinner testing the camera angle.

Small traditional Czech dinner with Pilsner, Champagne and Fernet.

My favorite part...the FOOD! Super traditional, potato and bread dumplings, sauerkraut, cabbage, spinach and duck.  It was so good my mouth waters thinking about it.  Děkuji za večeři Jana a Tata!

Kitty went to Indiana to be with her Mom so it was just the 4 of us.

The next morning I went to my Mom's to celebrate the holiday.  Beautiful tree. 

Dalilah enjoying her raw hide candy cane i bought them for Christmas.

Coco's favorite part was all the bags and wrapping paper.  He was just laying and rolling around in it for hours. 

My Hercules..

I got to see Kitty only for about a day but we managed to get one family pictures!!

Ok two..

:)

Another Drive Across Country & Pit Stop: TX

Well we did it again..My 4th time driving across country and Charlie's 5th.  It's so funny because every time we do it we say "we are never doing this again!" and yet...  This time we added a different dynamic by bringing along our dog.  It really wasn't much of a hassle other then worrying about if he was comfortable and cool (at least as much as he could be).

We decided we would try to do the drive in two 24 hours days and doing a few day stop in TX at Charlie's sister's house.  Well we must not be as young as we were when we did this before because it was a LOT harder then we remember it being!  We did do the straight drive though, stopping to eat and let Johnson run around some rest stops and what not.  At about 4:30 or 5 we were starting to loose it and decided to pull over at a rest stop and try to sleep...or so we thought.  I almost fell asleep immediately (neither of us were comfortable going to sleep while the other was driving) but as soon as that AC turned of Johnson began with the incessant panting.  Really making it difficult to sleep, so Charlie walked him around a bit and I slept for maybe twenty minutes.  Then he had a second wind and decided to drive.  He made it three hours before needing to switch.  Long story short we made it to Spring, TX (Once you cross into TX on the West by Juarez it is easily a 12 hour drive to the opposite side which is where is Jess lives).  By the time we got there it was probably 2 or 3pm and we had been up about 30 hours and believe it or not we actually stayed up! The kids were so excited so we didn't have the heart to just crash even though we could have slept right next to Pebbles (her dog) and been out like babies.  We made it to dinner at Papasito's (yum, worth staying up for) and after a 36 hour day went to bed around 8pm and slept for about 14 hours.  It was soooo good! The next few days were filled with pool sessions, good food and playtime.

Colt was loving this! 

And of course since Colt had a turn Olivia had to get her's in too. 

But she had a little more trouble balancing..

I love that she used his head..

Oh boy do these kids love their Uncle Chuck!

A little bit of Ipad play and TV time. 

These two had an opportunity to become friends.  Johnson took some time to warm up i think still coming down from nerves on the drive but Pebbles was so excited to have him around.  Towards the end of the trip they would play and it was pretty cute. 

We attempted a FaceTime with Grandma and Hannah one night and oh man was that a challenge.  Everyone is everywhere except in front of the IPad and then the are holding it and doing 360's with the screen.  Finally the smart Mom Jess just said I will hold it while you sit and talk..

Trying to get all three posing and looking at the camera for a picture.

This one was pretty good!

Sleepy dog pals. 

Ellie Bellie

These two were really good together and played a lot with each other! Didn't see this so much in NY so it was cute to catch them running off and playing something together. 

On our last night Jess brought out a bunch of Johnson baby pictures and we all just about died..Charlie and I decided that we were going to need a new puppy soon..hahaha..

It was sad to leave but we needed to finish the trip.  On our way to TX we were both worried a little bit about Johnson overheating so from TX to NY we kept 2 full ziploc bags of ice for him to lay down and within minutes he was passed out..Pretty cute. 

We ended up stopping at a motel in Tennessee and it was a good call. We got into NY late in the evening but Johnson was so stinking excited to see Kathy it was adorable.  He was jumping all around in circles and wouldn't stop licking her. 

That's it for now.  We've made it to NY and will see what happens next..

Quick night camping.

When visiting friends in Huntington Beach on our last weekend there before our big move, on a whim we decided to book one night of camping at San Onofre beach during the week.  We met Kyle and Matt a little after noon and brought a few longboards, wood, tents, and a cooler of necessities.

The weather was a little overcast and the waves were small but no one was discouraged.  We took the trek down the cliffs to the ocean and it turned out to be a lot of fun.  We were almost the only ones on the beach and in the water!  I didn't plan on surfing but the waves were so small and the water was so warm it was perfect for me.  Kyle happened to have an awesome phone case that is waterproof so of course we took that out and took videos.  I haven't had a video of me on a wave since high school i think so this was so cool for me (despite the minuscule size :)! This was also one of the few times I was actually surfing without a leash.  We had loads of fun.

We only had a few pictures and a couple of videos but I wanted to share them.


Needless to say they had these signs at every campsite and you could run up each one and eventually get to the cliffs where you can check the waves. We didn't obey the "stay back"..

After you run up those trails you get to a clearing kind of like this where you can see the ocean.  This was actually on our way walking down the trail. 

Boys & Boards

Here are a couple of videos of all of us surfing!