Check Marks For My Resolutions List

I have seen the ocean. Jeff and I flew to California during some of his vacation time. Our friend Misha stayed at our house with her kids and watched them. I have a feeling we didn't pay her enough to watch our three kids, plus her two kids, all under 6 for three days, but I knew my kids were in excellent hands and so the trip was relaxing and peaceful. 

We went to Catalina island and spent our

whole trip there. Here is a picture of the ferry.

(I had never been on a motorized boat and it was

on my unofficial list of things to do). 

First view of the island from the ferry.

Seriously, this was the first thing I did. 

Look at that green grass. We haven't even 

seen grass since Christmas. Oh I can't wait 

for spring in Wisconsin. 

Riding tandem bikes. Also on my unofficial 

list of things to do. I asked the guy who was

renting them if there were any tricks to riding

a tandem bike and he said that after the bike 

ride they offered couple counseling. They 

totally need to. Sitting in the back you don't 

have any steering abilities. I like to steer. And 

you also have no braking abilities. I like to brake 

going down hills. Jeff doesn't. I found this out the 

scary way. 

Our hotel room. Right across the street from the bay.

Jeff wanted to go para-sailing. So here we are

on the boat waiting our turn. The guys that ran the boat

were totally crazy. Seriously Bro. They were the 

stereotypical California beach bums. Oh and one more

note. Shoes should not be optional on a boat. One

of the guys who was going para-sailing took his off

and it smelled so bad. I thought I was going to throw-up. 

Going up.

600 feet above the water. It was actually 

really peaceful up there. 

It was really nice to get away for awhile, I hoped that it would be a little warmer than it was, I walked around feeling cold the whole time. 60 sounds warm, but it wasn't. 

My favorite parts of our trip:

1. Waking up early and walking to a non-touristy spot to watch the sunrise. While we were watching, a group of dolphins swam in front of us. 

2. Climbing on the rocks looking for tide pools and shells.

3. Seeing the pelicans dive into the water and grab fish. Totally cool. 

4. Playing arcade games and eating a really great pizza. 

5. The people we sat next to on the ferry. I love talking to different people.  

My Least favorite parts of our trip: 

1. Paying for the taxi ride from our hotel to the ferry, and then the ferry to the airport. 60 dollars each time. Ridiculous. 

2. Paying for parking at the airport. 19 dollars a day. Also ridiculous. 

3. Paying the tolls on the drive to the Chicago airport. There were four of them. 

4. The stinky feet guy. 

5. The two people behind us on the plane who talked the entire flight. Which left at midnight California time and got to Chicago at 5:50 central time. This was the only sleep we were going to get and we wanted to sleep.