Labor Day River Trip

Every Labor Day, our group of friends and families make a trip out to the river near Lake Havasu. We all camp out right on the water in our trailers and motor homes; spend the days boating, wakeboarding, tubing and adventuring into coves and sandbars; and the nights eating, roaming around with wild burros, and watching the stars from rafts on the water. Although it is hotter than Hates out there in the desert, it still a great time every year with virtually all my friends and their families! It's something we look forward to all year long, and I already can't wait to go back next year!

Our boat gang on Cody's boat 

Hanging out by Pirate's Cove

Pit stop at a freezing cold sandbar :) Just the way I like it in 100+ degree weather!

All my amigos

Mexican food night for dinner!

 

parked on the side of the canal by London bridge to cool off

 

 the Salm's boat

Cassie and Margeaux getting their dance on

the twins and me

the bow of Cody's smurf boat and London Bridge

Lindsey and me

 Courtney with our boat driver, Cody!

 

taking yet ANOTHER break to cool off....way too hot out!

Cody and me floating around the cove

our campsite at Black Meadow Landing

Back to school, back to school...

My long lasting summer is finally ending and it's time for me to continue on my 412 year plan to finishing school! This impacted nursing program dilemma in California can be VERY annoying, but luckily, this semester I have some pretty easy classes and hopefully it can end with a 4.0 to get my competition level up! :) I'm taking two upper division Spanish classes to finish up my minor, a psychology class and a statistics for nursing research class...doesn't sound too bad at all :) In fact, one of my Spanish teachers is giving us a challenge test this Thursday, and if we score a B or an A on the test, we can accept that as our final grade and never come back to class! That would be perfect for leaving me time to actually work and make money this semester at my new job working for the Kuhn family at Oceanside Transmission! Being a nanny for 4 years was nice, and it had it's fun moments, but working with people closer to my mental age is definitely a nice treat, haha :) This summer was great, and now it's time to get back to homework, studying, and applications all over again! I'm applying to a few Cal State schools such as San Bernardino, Stanislaus, East Bay, Bakersfield, and my own school, San Marcos, but from what it looks like with these state schools and nursing programs, that may not be as realistic. So, I am branching out and looking at a couple private schools in the area like Azusa Pacific and Loma Linda Universities. Azusa's program sounds great and they offer one that is accelerated and finishes in 2 years instead of the normal 3, and I would really love to get this ball rolling as soon as possible! We'll see how this all lays out pretty soon here!

Los Barriles, Baja California, Mexico

Last week I went with McKenzie and her family to a little town in the south side of Baja California, Mexico called Los Barriles. They have a close family friend who owns a house on the beach in that town, so they rent the house next door to visit. It's a really cute town mainly only visited by fisherman who come to stay for the season or competitions. The house has a beautiful view of the ocean with an empty beach for about 500 feet until the ocean. We went on a lot of quad rides to other small towns and to just look around or look at houses being built. They have the most DELICIOUS fit and fresh food, so we went out to dinner almost every night. We went down to Cabo San Lucas one day to do the whole "tourist thing" and get some souvenirs. It was a very relaxing trip and I loved it down there! Very nice and real people and a beautiful beach with warm water we laid in almost every day and night :)

 Casa Esperanza, the house we all stayed in

 Dinner at Campestre's with Mac's parents and her aunt

 A dingy on the beach...everyone leaves these laying along the beach to make early morning/ late afternoon trips out to their boats they anchor in the water

 Mac and me eating homemade nachos, tortilla chips, and salsas

 View from the porch as the sun goes down

Hanging out with the burros as they make their almost daily trip down to the beach

 Feeding the burros some watermelon and cantalope...and anything else we could find to convince them to stay longer! :)

Quad trip down the coast to visit a beautiful cove for snorkeling 

 Punta Pescadero is a small little resort about a 45-60 minute quad ride down the beach so we could use their pool and eat at the bar

McKenzie and me at the bar with her family at Punta Pescadero

Dinner again at Campestre's...the fish there was just SO good, we had to go back again!

 McKenzie's Aunt Kim and the Dorado she caught! We ate it that night for dinner and it was tasty :)

 Another leisurely quad ride around the beaches

 Snorkeling at the cove near Punto Pescadero...the water was so clear and we saw a lot of cool fish. Although, it was harder than we thought to actually get pictures of them

The family!

An altar on the beach

Lunch at Cabo Wabo downtown after a very hot day of souvenir shopping and site seeing

 the cemetary

The iguana man and iguana I ended up cuddling with :)

Summer Time is Beach Time!!

So far this summer, I've been lucky enough to have a lot of free time...which I've been spending traveling and going to beaches and pools with my friends. (Which is nice because it has been HOT here in San Diego this July). Thanks to my brother, Nicky, I now have a bike that I can ride around the area or to the beach if I'm feeling extra adventurous, which seems to be happening more and more often with these gas prices! :)

My friend and me preparing to do some tandem long boarding at Beacon's

Laying by my pool with one of my favorite new discoveries...StumbleUpon.com. Check it out! :)

An early morning wave watching session after the midnight premiere of the last Harry Potter movie....apparently neither of us could sleep, so we end up staying awake for nearly 2 days straight.  A new 39.5 hour record for me (that I plan on never attempting to beat!)

4th of July Weekend

After being out of town for such a long time, I had a lot of San Diego summer things to catch up on! The day before the 4th, we decided to make a last minute trip to the fair (on the busiest day of the season). But it was well worth the traffic and 45 minute shuttle ride to get our small fix of fair food, games, and rides. 

 My friend, Amanda with he newly won pet fish! :)

 View from the Ferris wheel...very crowded!

 View from the other side of the Ferris wheel...sunset on Dog Beach

 Only in America...deep fried everything!

The next day, we had a pool party at McKenzie's house for the holiday. Her pool is perfect for laying around in, especially during this hot weather! At the end of the day, we went to her Grandparents house on the lagoon and watched the LegoLand and La Costa fireworks from her house.

4th of July decoration shopping with McKenzie

Our festive swimwear

 Best pool floaty ever!

 A very blurry shot of the fireworks at LegoLand from McKenzie's grandparents house