May 29, 2005
Morgan and I spent last week in Escondido, CA vacationing with my family.
Caren and Ethan didn't make the trip since Ethan had Tomatus from 8-12 each
day and he couldn't miss any sessions. He also had speech therapy after that
and then an afternoon session of ABA with Bridges after that so he and Caren
were booked almost the whole week. This must have tortured Caren to not be
able to decorate our new home.
Morgan and I left our home at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday the 21st to meet dad in
Clovis at 8:00. After a couple of stops at McDonald's we arrived at about
8:15. Dad was ready and raring to go of course. It's funny- we're not
supposed to check into the flats until 4pm but every year dad leaves early
enough to arrive at about 2pm. I tried, as usual, to talk him into leaving a
little later but couldn't get him to budge. Morgan actually fell asleep for
a while which is very rare. She has so much energy she usually talks an
entire drive. She was pretty excited about a new water slide that has been
built at the Welk Resort. As usual, I started getting h
er excited about it a
few weeks prior. Many nights while putting her to bed I'd talk about the
upcoming vacation. We'd speculate about what the slide would be like and how
much time we'd spend there. We usually ended our plans deciding to spend the
entire week at the pool and slide.
My main goal was to relax the entire week. I had originally decided not to
go since we just moved into our new home 3 days prior and hadn't yet even
got all our belongings from storage. I spent most of my time with Morgan and
Paige at the pools. They both had floaties, goggles and some pool rings.
Morgan's big accomplishments for the week were to swim to the bottom of the
3.5' section of the pool and retrieve pool rings. She also learned to do 3
summersaults in one breath under water. I'd guess she went down the slide 45
times. Paige's main accomplishments were to touch the bottom of the 2.5'
section which she did once while I was watching. She's fairly timid so this
was a big accomplishment.
Me, Angie and Kala took Morgan and Paige to Disneyland on Wednesday. I was surprised at the rides they rode- Materhorn, ToonTown Rollercoaster, Teacups, Dumbo, Star Tours, ... Morgan wanted to know if we really went into outer space on the Star Tours.
I went on a hike on Friday with Tim and Pam Wood. They're always so fun and
energetic and positive. I would like to be like them; have that great
attitude. How do you get or create or nurture that? maybe I'll email tim and
ask. But it's probably one of those questions you can't answer because he
doesn't know any other way to be so has no way of explaining how to change
or relate it to another way of thinking. I'll write anyway. So anywho, we
went for a 2 mile hike around a nearby lake and it turned into an 8 mile
hike after we couldn't find our way out. We forgot the map in the car. I
don't think it would have helped anyway since it wasn't very accurate. I
ended up with a little blister since I wasn't' wearing good shoes and a bit
of a burn. We laid out by the pool later that day while watching Morgan and
Paige and I completed my burn. I got pretty red on my back and shoulders. But
it only lasted a few days.
The drive back was easy. Morgan was very patient this trip. Usually she
starts really missing Caren during the drive home and starts crying and
whining. But she didn't do so very much. Just after I dropped off Bob in
Clovis I got a driving ticket for not wearing a seat belt. That law really
ticks me off. All other driving violations are intended to protect others
but this law is meant to protect ourselves from ourselves. Stupid. I think
lawmakers ... whatever, it's a good idea to promote it, but not to make
people pay for non-compliance. I asked the officer about that and he thought
for a moment and speculated that "maybe it's because if you're not wearing
your seatbelt and you get in a wreck you might become a projectile and hurt
someone." No joke, he actually said that.
Oh well. It was a nice trip and I'm glad to be home. Time to start building shelves, emptying boxes and moving items from storage.
-rob
