Ahh... San Diego

Jeff and I went down to Carlsbad (30 min. north of San Diego) this last weekend for a Cloak & Corset planning meeting. (See the blog post here.)

We took Sara and Jeremiah down to Ocean Beach and Point Loma, spending time on the pier and taking a quick driving tour of the PLNU campus, our undergraduate alumni home. We hadn't been to the city in over 5 years! But oh, it still feels like home. Maybe someday we can move back...

We also ate dinner on Friday night at Corvette Diner on 5th Ave. What a blast!

OB Pier:

The tide coming in:

Looking North, view of Mission Bay and La Jolla:

Looking East along Newport Ave. in Ocean Beach:

We had a terrific weekend and can't wait to visit again.

Our 2008 Christmas

Jennifer and I drove up Wednesday evening to Sacramento to spend Christmas with my family. We stayed the night at my parents' house then drove to my sister's in Wilton for Christmas morning. (Wilton is a small rural town in southern Sacramento County.)

Altogether, there were 16 for gifts and dinner: my sister & her husband; their two girls and son-in-law; my mom and dad; older brother, his wife and 3 boys; younger brother and his wife; and Jen & me. It was especially good to see my younger brother, because we weren't expecting him to make the trip from Anaheim. But a friend was able to use an airline voucher for him, and the flight had a seat, so my sister-in-law (who was already in town visiting) picked him up Christmas Eve from the airport.

My sister loves to cater for parties, so you know the food was good: roast beef, ham, twice-baked potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, and plenty of dessert: banana cream pie, cheesecake, fudge, cookies and snowballs (a recipe from Jennifer's family of cream cheese & chocolate chips rolled in coconut). YUM! It makes me hungry just thinking about it again.

Another fine holiday spent with the family. I hope all of yours were good too.

Travelin' Bug Bites Again!

Remember the old saying that if your foot itches, you will soon go on a journey? Well, somebody must have put powder in our shoes, because Jennifer and I are both wanting to take another trip. We loved our trip to Florida in June and last year's travels to Vermont (again). But we must have bigger aspirations, because we finally applied for our passports.

A postcard came in the mail, advertising a passport fair on the weekend, where the post office would accept applications and take pictures. They usually do this anyway, but only for a few hours on Saturday morning. This time, though, they had full facilities available all day, so we braved what we knew would be a bigger than usual crowd and went in.

As it turned out, the crowd was not as big as we imagined: only about an hour's wait. So after showing our birth certificates, driver's licenses, and taking a couple of mug shots, we paid the fee and started the process. We were told that everything should be done by early December, which means if we really wanted to spend Christmas in London or Paris, we could.

It may be a while before we actually use them for foreign travel, but the point is to have them, then all we have to do is save a little money and we really can go anywhere. It's pretty exciting to be able to join the ranks of the world travelers.

The Secret Vacation Spot - Revealed!

For those who don't know where our travels took us on vacation, here are a few photo hints.




The view from our room:


Local foliage:


A side trip (?)


TA-DA!

If you can't guess from this photo, you don't know Jeff & Jen.



That's right! Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

We stayed in Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa.


Beautiful grounds too! We even took advantage of the Spa with Jeff receiving an 80 minute massage and Jen getting a great deluxe facial with a mini massage.

Most of you voted on our poll that we were going to Hawaii. Well, we've promised that trip to come when Jen's mom can come with us, so that particular vacation is still in the future.

We believe our friend Becky was the only one who voted for Disney World. (She was one of the first to vote so hers was easy to track.) Congrats on guessing correctly where we would most likely visit. Your prize: Nothing! Just enjoy the photos at our Flickr account.

Ginny Pig sent a postcard

GINNY PIG sent you a "Thinking of You" Postcard
Originally uploaded by sewgirljen

Greetings!

We sent an electronic postcard from our 'secret' vacation spot. See if you can guess where we are.

Jeff and Jennifer

Vacation Hint

Well, it's May 27th and we see no one has voted for Seattle and Lake Tahoe as places we could possibly go on vacation.
Some of you may not know that we honeymooned in Seattle (and Portland), and also that Jeff's stepfather co-owns a condo at Lake Tahoe good for the whole family's use.

So as a hint to where we are going on vacation, we just purchased new swimsuits and are thereby eliminating Seattle as a possible location. Seattle in June just doesn't seem like the place that demands new swim clothes. (Although we would love to visit the Pacific Northwest again. The Lion and the Rose B&B in Portland, Oregon was fabulous and our first experience at a bed and breakfast. Highly recommended.)

Now don't count out the other "non-swimsuit" places as we have very nice accommodations that have great amenities nearby that we will take full advantage of. "Pampered" is the word I'm thinking of (and that does not mean diapers!).

The States We've Seen

OK, so I'm feeling just detail-oriented enough to actually list the states we've visited. This will also tell you a bit about our history.

1992: Met in California; started dating in 1994
1995: Road trip to Arizona, New Mexico (where Jennifer is from), Colorado, Utah, and Nevada
1996: Married in October and honeymooned in Oregon and Washington; drove through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama two months later while moving to Florida
1997: Road trip to Georgia and South Carolina
1998: Road trip to North Carolina
1999: Moved back to California
2004: Drove through Oklahoma to see family in Missouri; also saw parts of Kansas and Arkansas
2006: Ten-year anniversary trip. Flew to Massachusetts, then drove and saw Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island
2007: Flew to St. Louis and drove into Illinois to see friends

That brings everyone up to date on the 28 states we have seen. We have taken other trips, of course, and both of us saw other states before we met, but I've only counted the travels that added new states as we saw them together. Jennifer has seen a total of 31 states, and I've seen 38 so far. Most of what's left is the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes area, northern Rockies, Appalachia, and Mid-Atlantic, plus Alaska and Hawaii. So we still have a ways to go, but we always have fun taking pictures of the "Welcome to..." signs on the state lines and buying souvenir magnets. Our refrigerator looks like an atlas!

Merry Month of May

Being the owners of our first house, we find there are lots of new things in our lives. We LOVE having our own washer & dryer (doing laundry right now, in fact) and a nice big backyard. I just finished cutting the grass, and I was reminded of the line in "The Shawshank Redemption" that said May was one fine month for working outdoors. It's true, although the weather in California is probably warmer than it is in Maine (where the movie is set).

We fondly remember our trip to New England in October 2006, and Maine had some of the best weather of all the states we visited. One day when we feel adventurous we will see that part of the country in winter. We know it's cold, colder than anything central California sees, but the idea of the snow-covered bridges and villages just seems so romantic to us. (That's fine, you say. Take your sub-zero temperatures and give me a warm sunny beach somewhere. One of the points of pride with us is that we go places most people don't guess. That's what is fun about that poll of ours. We will keep you guessing til the end.)

We are both looking forward to our vacations, trips, and so forth. It seems we try to visit at least one new state a year. We're up to 28 now, which works out to two states for each of the 14 years we've been together. (For our 10-year anniversary trip, we saw seven new states in 10 days!) But even though we're just over halfway there, it gets harder to find new ones and takes longer to get there; but we plan to see all fifty, as well as Europe. (Gotta get those passports!) This year I will add Pennsylvania when I visit Gettysburg in July. Our 'mystery' trip may add another state to our list, but we won't tell...at least not until we get back and show pictures.

Vacation anyone?

Jeff is counting down the days til school gets out (May 30th);
I'm biting my nails as I count down the days til the SDI Summer Ball (June 14th).

Jeff needs a vacation (although being a school teacher, the summer is a nice, long vacation time to look forward to). I will need a break after feverishly completing my 1876 Evening Gown before I plunge head-first into my Costume College classes to teach and costumes to make.
(Check out my Historical Sewing blog to see my progress.)

Therefore, the small part of me that is impromptu has decided we are going on a trip right after the ball.

Question is: where are we going? We've already decided - but can you guess??
Have fun in answering our poll!

P.S. With my C&C partner, Sara and her husband Jeremiah, and my good friend Becky (Sara's sister) travelling to England, and our other good friends Maegen and Charlie visiting Hawaii, the travelling bug has bitten, enticing us to discover someplace new (or old).