Thoughts...

I've been thinking today about a lot of things both past and present.

Today is the 8th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States. So much has changed in the past eight years. So much to reflect on about that day. It has become one of those days that will always stand out in your memory, along with the day John F. Kennedy was shot; the day your children were born; the day your parents/grandparents/family member died; the day man landed on the moon; and now where you were and what you were doing on September 11, 2001. God bless the families of everyone affected on that day.

A year ago today, Mike and I flew to California for his interview with a hard drive company. I tagged along to see if I even liked California, because if I didn't like it, there was no reason to continue pursuing a job offer with said hard drive company. Well, since we're living in southern California now, you can safely assume that I liked California. It's not a permanent move, so we are treating it as an adventure for a couple of years. Sort of like moving to another country where you enjoy learning what they have to offer, but you know you'll always move back home. Same for us. We own a house in Tennessee and that's where we are going to end up in the next few years or so.

Today, I am missing our annual "Mother/Daughters Weekend" at a bed & breakfast in Tennessee. This will be the second one that I've missed. I really wish I could be there for the weekend with my Mom, sisters and niece. We always have so much fun. *sigh* I'm sure that I'll be hearing from them thru out the weekend though and I will be calling them, too!

So there has been much on my mind today. It has been a good day for reminiscing.

Aquarium of the Pacific and Whale Watching

Over Labor Day weekend, Mike and I decided that we would stay close to home and spend time together. We did, however, make a short trip over to Long Beach (about 40 miles from here) to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific. Once we arrived, we stood in line waiting to get our tickets. At first we couldn't figure out why it would take so long just to get tickets to get into the Aquarium... then it was our turn! There are so many different things to do at the Aquarium! You can take "Behind the Scenes" tours; "Feed the Animals" tours; "Whale Watching" tours; and just your regular, everyday entrance fee! Mike surprised me with a Whale Watching tour and then the Aquarium tour.

The Whale Watching tour was leaving within a half hour of us getting our tickets, so we wandered over to the wharf that the boat was leaving from. I was surprised to see how many people were going to be in line for the tour... then we found out that there were two tours: one for whales (that we were on) and a harbor tour.

Then we were off! We cruised thru the harbor and out into the deep water of the coast of California! What blue water that is! We sat on the top of the catamaran boat and really enjoyed the breeze that was coming in off the ocean. The sun was shining, the breeze was cool and the dolphin joined us almost as soon as we hit the open water! We saw common dolphin, Risso's dolphins, sea lions, mola mola sunfish, and then- we saw the "steam" of a whale coming to the surface to breathe! How can you say AWESOME with your mouth hanging open?!

The blue whale is the largest mammal on earth. And when you see one, you realize just how small 5'4" really is! Yes, I'm 5'4" and it's small! Blue whales get up to 85 feet long and the boat we were on was 65 feet long. Amazing to say the least!

Mike took the photographs of the whales as I was too short to shot over everyone standing in front of me. I guess there is an advantage to being 6 foot tall... Mike got some really good photos and I'm glad he was able to get them.

After the whale watching tour was over, we walked across the street to eat lunch at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. Mike had fish; I had a burger! I did, however, get the flashing souvenir cup with a cute little shrimp on it to take home!

The Aquarium of the Pacific is a great place to go visit. As every family in Orange County with children under the age of 10 was doing! It was a zoo with kids running everywhere and me trying to take photos with heads bumping my elbows at every turn. OK, I got a couple, but not very many clear photos! It was fun to see the littlest of the visitors when they saw the clown fish display yell out, "Momma! Look! It's Nemo and Dory!" You can't beat that kind of cute.

Anyway, I had a wonderful time dispite the sunburn and windburn.

Awful Quiet Around Here!

Fly Boy went back to Tennessee for college last Friday. It was a sad day to see him go. I cried most of the way home from the airport, but finally realized that it's good that he's learning to be on his own and have to make decisions for himself. But the "Mom" in me has a much harder time accepting this!

Then, on Sunday, Mike had a business trip to Boston. He won't be home until Thursday. I took him and another guy he works with to the airport over in Orange County early on Sunday a.m. Even with the alarm not going off, waking up late, the guy being late getting to our house and then the drive over, we were still there in plenty of time for them to make it thru security and then sit at the gate.

It has been really quiet in the house since they are both gone now. I've listened to my mp3s, watched TV, watched some game drives on the computer, played with FB, updated some webpages, done the laundry, ran the dishwasher (its only me), and cleaned the house...but its still pretty quiet in the house. At night I leave the TV on for background noise. At one point, the TV volumn went down for about a minute and I woke up wondering why I woke up!

I'm enjoying, don't get me wrong, but it will be nice when he's back home again. I miss him.

Summer's Almost Over!

School is almost ready to start, Fly Boy has finished his school shopping and is ready for his junior year of college, and Fly Boy will be leaving for Tennessee on Friday. Summer is almost over. I'll miss Fly Boy.

Since he's been here, we've had a lot of fun, done a lot of things and really had a great time spending time with Fly Boy. The latest adventure we had with Fly Boy was taking him (and Mike) to Flight Deck, a place where you can go fly in a jet simulator and have dog fights in an F-16. Mike and Fly Boy really had a blast doing this!

We drove over to Anaheim to this place that a guy that works with Mike told him about. He was supposed to come and fly too, but ended up having other things to do around his own house. At Flight Deck, they put you into flight suits, give a 15 minute briefing on how to fly the F-16 and then give you a 15 minute free flying period before the Dog Fighting begins. I took my camera and got several shots of Mike and Fly Boy having fun.

When everything was said and done, Fly Boy won the Dog Fighting with 28 kills and only being killed 12 times. Yea, Fly Boy!

It sure is going to be a lot quieter around here when he leaves.

Fender Guitar Museum

Since Fly Boy is visiting with us for a couple of weeks, I decided to take him over and check out the Fender Musuem in Corona. It was (and wasn't) anything like I thought it would be like! It was rather cool in the fact that they have all these Fender guitars from various rock n roll muscians, but it was MUCH smaller than I had expected it to be!

It's a two story building, but the downstairs is where the museum is located. There is a fairly large lobby and from there, you can visit the two rooms of exhibits. One room is for the Fender guitars and the second room is for a visiting exhibit showing the life of Johnny Cash. The upstairs is used for offices and rooms for music lessons which they teach there to many of the kids in Corona. I just guessed from passing by the building that it was "all" museum. It's not!

The first room that houses the Fender guitars is really interesting in that they have many guitars owned by rock n roll artists and photos, letters, and other memoribilia from that artist. They have the guitars of Jeff Beck, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, etc. Really pretty neat! They also have the "voice box" that Peter Frampton used in his "Frampton Comes Live" album! There were two of them- one is in the Cleveland Rock n Roll Hall of Fame and the second one is here in Corona. There is also an exhibit showing how the Fender guitars are made.

The second room is an exhibit showcasing the life of Johnny Cash. I was astonished with all the things that they had in this exhibit! They have the very first pair of custom made boots that Johnny Cash ever bought! The man had HUGE feet!! Size 13D! There were also hand written lyrics to some of his songs and several of his gold and platinum albums. The photos were very interesting and one showed him as a very young man with Elvis! For some reason, I never put those two together, but they were!

I thought I was taking Fly Boy to the museum because he has an interest in music... and a Fender (acoustic) guitar, but I think I probably enjoyed it as much (if not more) than he did! Very cool day trip!

Photos!

Today I received the photos that I had uploaded to Snapfish of my vacation trip... I uploaded several hundred and I'm ordering copies in two segments. I got the 4th of July family reunion photos and the Grand Canyon photos back today... all I can say about the Grand Canyon photos is that I will be looking at them for quite some time! They turned out wonderful!

The family reunion photos, I got duplicates so I could send a set of them to Mom and Dad. They wouldn't know what to do with a photo CD that I sent to all my siblings! At least this way, they can look and have photos made if they want them and I don't have to pay for several sets of photos! Love digital photos!!!

Anyway, just wanted to say I got some of my photos today!

Cross Country Trip

Vacation time has come and gone and all I can say is: "Wow- what a trip!"

I left CA a couple of days after my birthday and drove to Tennessee. It took me two and a half days straight driving to arrive there, but it was OK. I spent the 4th of July in Tennessee with the family and friends. My older sister got married on the 4th and my parents celebrated their 58th anniversary on the 4th... along with it being my Mom's birthday on the 4th! That night, we went to Manchester to watch the fireworks, but that day we had a family reunion down in Normandy.

It was great spending time with family and I enjoyed taking photos while I was there... and taking photos on the way up there... and when I left there! More on that later!

As far as we know (and that's not much) there wasn't a family get together on the 4th for Mike's family. We took Michael and Melissa out to visit Emmett, but he wasn't feeling very well.

I spent five hours mowing our 3 front acres at the house. It was hot as all get out, but it was really not very bad spending that time on the lawn mower... sort of a decompression chamber for all the antics family members were up too. Could it be any worse?!

OK, so the return trip from TN was absolutely awesome! Mike's aunt, Bettie and her friend, Katherine drove back to CA with me. It took us 6 days to get here, but we stopped and did the tourist thing along the way. We visited the Cowboy Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City; went to the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo; Palo Duro Canyon south of Amarillo; spent the night in a haunted hotel in Las Vegas... New Mexico; visited the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert in Arizona; spent three days/two nights at the Grand Canyon; and then made a run for Corona!

Once we reached CA, we did the typical tourist stuff here, too. We did a tour of "the Stars Homes" and saw the Hollywood sign; there was a movie premiere going on (G Force by Disney); and the beach. We planned on going to the San Diego Animal Park, but the weather didn't cooperate with us... it was in the triple digits here! We did manage to get the shopping in though!

Well, all for now.