Scuba Lessons

We have decided to take scuba lessons to become certified scuba divers!

We just had our second pool session tonight and it is going really well. Besides being able to breathe and swim underwater, we have to learn different techniques. For instance, we had to take off our mask while under water and just sit there for a few moments. It was a little freaky to me, because the air bubbles from my regulator felt like they wanted to go up my nose. We also had to see what it felt like to run out of air and have to grab onto our buddy's secondary air to be able to get air. I haven't completely freaked out and surfaced yet, even though I feel like I want to sometimes.

I just hope I can keep up this confidence when it comes to diving in the ocean. San Diego has colder water and less visibility than most of the tropical areas. Our first ocean dive is June 9, so that will be the moment I know if I can do this diving thing. Of course, Mike isn't nervous at all. He is one of the bravest people I know!

Birthday Surprise

Happy Birthday Theresa!!! Actually, it was the 22nd, but we’ve been a little busy so the birthday blog prints today. I had an extra special birthday dinner planned for Theresa as I really wanted this 29ish birthday to the best yet. I couldn’t decide on whether to take her to George’s on the Cove which is a great restaurant overlooking the La Jolla cove or to take her to Morton’s…a really nice steak place downtown. I had a third option in mind but I didn’t think we would be able to get a table since I forgot to call a week in advance as recommended. Thankfully, after deciding to try our luck at this restaurant, the hostess was able to squeeze us in and got us a quaint little table in the corner. There was even a choir of sorts that serenaded Theresa with a happy birthday song. Great service but the food was surprisingly not as good as the Zagots reviews.

After our fine dinning experience we decided to catch a show….the Padres won 5-1.

Next, we took a little stroll to Hillcrest where I had previously baked and stored two different kinds of cakes (Ivoire Imperial a vanilla bean soaked pound cake as well as a Giandui cake which is a rum laced chocolate little number.) If you’re interested in purchasing one of these cakes check out www.extraordinarydesserts.com.

All and all she had a great day!

Mother's Day and The Baby Elephant

We were able to celebrate Mother's Day with Mike's mom, she was out here for a quick visit. We took her out to breakfast at one of our old favorite places and walked around the La Jolla Cove, as we do anytime we are in La Jolla. We then went to the Wild Animal Park in search of the baby elephant...We found the baby pink-backed Pelicans along the way. We walked past them on the way in and on the way out and the mother Pelican had not moved at all.

Punga and mother, Simba

Punga, born 3/11/07

There's no sound, but it's a cute video.

Sailing

We met some new friends recently and one of the guys has a sailing license. So, we all went sailing on Sat. Mike even sailed for a while and did a pretty good job after we did a few donuts in the ocean. We are all talking about taking a weekend trip to Catalina Island next time.

Matt and Tiffany - they have lived in San Diego for a while and are getting married this Aug. A neat couple that has already traveled around the world once and plan to go again after the wedding. Another couple, Greg and Jan, went along also. They just moved here from New York.

Captain Mike

Stagecoach - Indio, CA

Over the past weekend, we drove out to Indio (about 2 and 1/2 hours) to go to a country music festival, Stagecoach . It was the first year for the festival. For those of you that don't know, I'm a HUGE George Strait fan. We usually go see him every year in Las Vegas, but when I heard about Stagecoach and the opportunity to see him and other favorites, we sold our Vegas tickets.

We decided to camp out there instead of getting a room, so that we could be right there and not have to worry about traffic everyday. We were able to go in and out, which helped on Saturday, so we could change in the afternoon. The desert is hot during the day, but once the sun goes down, it can get a little cold.

Well, it wasn't really camping; it was just pitching your tent amongst hundreds of other people. You couldn't even have a campfire! I've had my fill of porta-potties for a while!!

There were 4 stages at the festival. One of the stages was under a large covered area and had bluegrass bands. We spent a lot of time in that tent hiding from the sun listening to some cool bands. 2 of my favorites were Abigail Washburn and The Grascals. If you like bluegrass, check out their websites for samples.

The Grascals have a more traditional sound. Abigail is very unique, she has an awesome voice. She lived in China for a while, so she has incorporated her knowledge of the language into some bluegrass music (Listen to "Song of the Traveling Daughter") and it sounds really cool!

Bela Fleck (from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones) was also with Abigail playing in her quartet. I first heard of Bela Fleck from him traveling with the Dave Matthews Band, who I used to see in concert a lot.

The Grascals

Saturday, we saw Willie Nelson, Alan Jackson, and the one and only George Strait. The were all fabulous! For George's oncore, we moved up front to watch him closer. A lot of people had left for some reason.

Willie

Alan Jackson

George

We don't know if we'll go next year, it might be back to Vegas, but we had tons of fun. We are back home catching up on sleep since we didn't get much while there.