Tales of an Ambitious Slacker: Sunday Summary: Why I love California

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded

to stay out till sundown, for going out,

I found, was really going in.

~John Muir

Today is my last day of vacation. I am home, on my couch, blogging and watching Spanglish in the background. I slept in, had breakfast out with my family, then visited my friend who just recently had a baby and now here I am. We left on a Friday night so we had 2 weekend days, a full week, and this weekend. It's been 4 years since I have taken 9 days away like this and it has been amazing. Between having kids and the two different maternity leave sessions that went along with them, there just hasn't been a right opportunity. During this vacation we Accomplished Two Major Parent Things:

A different way to cope with my 3 year old's tantrums. We had so much fun each day that when it was time to "stop" having fun and go back to the condo or hotel for dinner and bed time, we experienced melt downs like no other. First we tried being patient. Fail. Then we tried having a parent trantrum. Needless to say, FAIL. Then we tried lots and lots of love and identifying with Duder by saying it was a bummer for us too, but food and sleep are necessary to have a good time again the next day and doesn't everyone want to have a good time tommorrow? This one was starting to work! It worked for about 4 days and we got an EPIC melt down yesterday leaving the beach. It last about 6 minutes and ended with him passed out in his carseat 2 minutes after pulling away from the beach. I am guessing someone needed a nap.
We told my almost 2 year that her "Pon" was Yucky. Pon short for Chupon which means pacifier in Spanish (didn't know you were getting a language lesson here did ya?). Yup, it was that easy. She was teething and got the customary snotty nose, which with a pacifier made for a not so cute rash around her mouth. I told her is was yucky and we were not going to have a Pon for "mimis" anymore. "Mimis" is how we say bed time. That's all it took and she was done!

Ok, so you are reading this to learn why I love California, not necessarily my parenting accomplishments, but these accomplishments are a result of our fantastic vacation in California! We live in Central California which means when I headed to Lake Tahoe for my birthday trip, it only took 2 hours to get there. So for this vacation we thought we'd head to the mountains again. On Friday July 29th we drove through Yosemite, over Tioga Pass to Mammoth Lakes California. About 4+ hours, TOTALLY worth it. If you want to see some pictures of our trip you can check out my post HERE. Did you know there is a Tioga Pass Run every September. It is 12.4 miles and the catch phrase on the poster is "Only 1 hill!" The elevation gain on the way up is over 3000 ft! Crazy! If you are wondering why Mammoth Lakes rings a bell, it might be because that is where Deena Kastor, Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi train there amongst other elite athletes. Checkout out the Run Mammoth Club site HERE, or if you are really into it, try looking up staying at Deena Kastor's place when visiting Mammoth by checking out Kastor's VBRO site HERE...a little out of our price range. While there are several well maintianed paths and trails in the mammoth area AND there are several routes mapped at the Run Mammoth web page, I decided to take my own running route home from a park on Old Mammoth Road to our condo. It would have been a great time to have had my Garmin, but alas, I didn't pack it for our trip. My two-mile route home turned into 5.8 with a 1000 ft elevation gain on the way up 7800 ft to 8800 ft after mapping on the Runner's World route program. I'll be honest and tell you I was really just hiking a lot there in the middle because I am not in hill running shape. Not this kind of hill shape at least and not at this elevation either. I hadn't run in two weeks before I went to mammoth and I ran half the number of days we were there which was refreshing. We drove home Thursday August 4th.

Friday August 5th we loaded up the car again for a "Duder Vacation" a vacation with just our 3 yr old Duder and our Bug (almost 2) at the in laws for the weekend. I want more children, my hubby doesn't, but I can see how difficult it is to give everyone there own special time and special attention with just two. I cried Thursday night thinking of leaving my daughter, but once we were on the coast I realized we could not have given the Duder this special trip with her in tow. On the flip side our Bug was getting very special treatment at the grandparents and enjoyed being the center of attention for a couple days too. Sorry no pix. We drove to Santa Cruz about 2.5 hours and had a great time eating junk food, riding rides at the BOARDWALK, playing in the ocean, getting a T-Rex tattoo and swimming in the hotel pool at 10:00PM, almost 2 hours after bed time!

Saturday we drove to Monterey to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we ran into some friends and had a great time wondering around together, having a yummy lunch and wrapping things up by playing at the beach before driving home. This is a picture after Duder's epic 6 minute melt down on the beach and through the parking lot. So why do I love California? Because living where we live puts us in a privileged position to travel relatively easily to some pretty terrific and scenic destination spots in the beautiful outdoors. The best part? Where I live 100 degree weather is common. Hot August nights is a complete understatement, but today our high is 85 degrees and just to be extra wonderful, our high this coming week is only supposed to be 91 degrees. It's pretty dreamy.

Why I Kick A$$: I had an amazing vacation despite some hiccups that would normally derail me. Looks like I am on my way to being a glass half full kind of gal.

Thankful Three