We’ve been sharing our room

with these two love birds

they like to kiss

here’s what happens with too much kissing

last night we went for a walk and found the home they are building for us… it’s in the background

this is the view we’d get every night- two beautiful sights:

here is the sunset. God is a good painter.
This is my breakfast the next day. I love bed and breakfast places.

Went for a bike ride. Started at the Ritz just up hwy 1, ended up finding the St. Regis along the way.

Got the bellhop to take our pic since we were the trash that rolled in on our bikes instead of the benz people kept getting the valet to take.

Then I posed and added my name to the statue of my dear friend Mr. Dana

We went back to the room and watched sail boats

Took a nap and dreamed of boats

Woke up and went to dinner through the concierge and ended up having dessert paid for by the Blue Lantern Inn and dinner on my folks. Sweet place for sweet price!

Worked off dinner by walking with my lovely wife to get her starbucks. This is a fabulous new outfit that I bought her.
Then back to the room.

24 hours in pictures.

Good Night.

My wife and I are celebrating 14 years of marriage on a 3 day getaway.

Shannon’s mom came down to see TJ’s graduation and said she’d stay with the boys. Gary landed a job with the state in town so he got to come too. So she and Gary are kicking it for 3 days with them and we bounced.

Last December my wife leaked to Sarah Merk at Christmas that we loved this place we went to once before on a recommendation. As a result, my adult leaders pooled their resources and hooked us up with a sweet gift certificate that has covered almost our full stay for 2 nights. I owe you all!!!

Our day started with lunch at panera and some shopping for an outfit I promised my wife for her Mother’s Day gift. Now we’re in Dana Point at the Blue Lantern Inn. A sweet place with a sweet view. Here’s the one from our balcony.

Below is a collage of the inn.

Click the picture to expand it. Here’s what you’ll see.

Top Row: our car loaded with bikes to ride, the inn (our room is the top balcony on the left)
Middle Row: the afternoon complimentary wine and food for “tea time”
Bottom Row: the huge tub every room comes with, our room complete with fire place not pictured.

That’s all the details I can post. Now we’re walking to dinner a few blocks away.

I did not know my palms had a flower. I definitely did not know my grass did. This post is sponsored by the colors of yellow and green. God evidently likes them.

Today was the promotion from 5th grade for our oldest son, TJ. I hate graduation ceremonies and even skipped my own college grad ceremony, but I will say this one was nice. The things that were said were genuine and not drawn out. The teachers and our principal seem to genuinely love these kids and their jobs. It was cool to see our son finish this season of his life well.

During the promotion, TJ was given 3 things that were unique to our son:

1. He received the student of the year award that he received from the Mason’s about a month ago, but this time in front of his peers. That was sweet.
2. He received a gold award from the state for getting an A- or better GPA in 4th and 5th grade and scoring at least in the 85th percentile on a state test in either math or reading comprehension. So proud of him. I didn’t know this was coming.
3. He was given a chance to share with the parents and students that he had made good on his campaign promise to help his school turn their trash into cash as a school treasurer. This year, every day TJ went first to the janitor’s closet to take out the recycling cans and put them in the lunch area before going to class. Then every day, before going home he’d return them to the janitor’s closet. Then every Friday Shannon brought home the recycling from a week of school with TJ. It then went to the bed of my truck and then to the recycling center with he and I and occasionally the rest of the fam too. In all, TJ recycled $200 out of the trash. He gave the school a new microphone and all 600 kids got a “ice cream push up” for dessert on campus one day. So proud of him.

Afterwards, we were all going to lunch to celebrate and TJ wanted seafood. We eventually decided on Joe’s Crab Shack in Pacific Beach. He and I shared a big ol steam pot of shrimp and crab and such.

We then capped the day off by doing the last bit of recycling= another $27 for the school and $108 we had collected through our church for Uganda this summer.

Here’s a pic I snapped of our boys at lunch. If you look close you can see that jake’s hand is on TJ’s shoulder. I love these 3 boys. I love it even more when the “brothers” look out for each other. I hope and pray they grow up to be the good friends they are now.

Here’s a collage of TJ’s day. (Bottom far right is TJ with the principal, Mrs. Kehoe. Next one in is TJ with his 5th grade teacher, Ms. Yamaguchi) Oh.. and I’m the balding dad- my hair is leaving me rapidly these days. I’m gonna shave it all off soon.

When I was in college, Michael Jordan was like Jesus with a basketball. Dude could fly, walk on water, and do no wrong it seemed. Kobe seems to me to be the Jordan of today.

I say this out of a lot of sports ignorance- something that has increased greatly since leaving college. Today, I follow pretty much no sports and have virtually lost all interest in being a sports fan cuz I suck so bad at following them. I know hardly anyone’s name and very little about stats. I have a hard enough time memorizing the names and life stats of the students in my ministry, much less those of famous athletes I’ll never meet. My brain is just too stupid to keep it all sorted out and I feel guilty trying.

That being confessed, I still love to watch and attend and play most sports. I coach and play soccer. I love football season- especially monday nights. I was super bummed that Big Brown didn’t win the triple crown, something I would love to witness a horse do someday. I can’t wait for the summer olympics. I enjoy a good baseball game- even if only for an excuse to buy a stupidly expensive hotdog and sit in the stands with friends. I want to go to a nascar race someday. I’d really like to do one of those see how fast you can drive and spin a car around race car driving classes. I think that would be a huge rush…. I could go on.

But the inspiration of this post is Kobe- the crown jewel of the LA Lakers from what I can tell in my brief stint of following loosely the NBA finals.

Well a friend of mine has a college ministry blog and he posted this video of Kobe off of his website. Oh it’s crazy and I’ve watched it like 20 times. I still can’t figure out if it’s real. I’m officially duped.