2008 - June Recap

Man I need to finish up this recap business and blog in real time, not so far behind.

June 2008 Recap

In June I started my new job as a Nurse Extern in the Neuro ICU at Good Sam hospital. What a heck of an opportunity. I went in thinking it would just be a tool to get me ready to be a real nurse come December. Little did I know that I would enjoy working with adults and be seriously considering hiring on with this unit once I graduate. I thought I had my mind set on pediatrics or neonatal. The good thing about nursing is that there are lots of options out there and you never have to be stuck in one place for long if you aren't enjoying it. Sorry no pictures of the new job, it's technically illegal, patient privacy and all. But I have some really good stories if you are ever bored!

Onto the pictures. I got a call from my dad one day and he said that he had tree'd a bear just outside of my grandma's house. He was frustrated because his camera's all had dead batteries. Well the bear was freaked out long enough that the camera's were able to get a charge and my dad was able to snap a few of these. I think all in all the bear was up in a tree for over a few hours.

Can you see his mouth open? Looking scary huh? By the way... my dad doesn't have a telephoto lens for his camera, so he was able to get this close with a standard lens!

I think he was getting tired of hanging out in the tree, what do you think?
Kinda looks cute and cuddly here, huh?

That's him finally escaping. It was a pretty exciting day for my dad to tree a bear!
My dad said the bear found his way around like he knew the place. I guess when my dad feeds the cats, a few more critters partake as well!

This was a funny scene on the freeway one day... It was some type of styrofoam packaging that was blowing around as the cars whizzed by and it got caught on this car. They soon pulled over and when we passed them, the people in the car were cracking up, and so was I!

In May we received the Stimulus check from our taxes. One of the things we did with that check was buy a new camera lens for me to play with. What fun! This lens lets you play with your depth of field or focus, it's quite fun! We decided to BBQ one evening and the light was still nice so I started to play around.

Notice the skewers are in focus and Tom is out of focus, that's considered a short depth of field, pretty cool!

In this shot, only the second skewer is focused. Are you hungry yet? Those skewers were super yummy. I love grilling!

And my hubby was being a good sport so I snapped a few of him too! Isn't he handsome!

Toward the end of June, my friend Jacki and I decided to take a few days and go to San Diego to do some scuba diving . I'd heard great things about La Jolla Cove and and the marine preserve that is surrounding it thanks to the Scrips Institute. The first day we got there we checked in to our hotel and then found our way to the beach. The first thing Jacki saw when she got out of the car and looked towards the ocean was this ...

Seals and Sea Lions have taken over this man made cove and they are protected there.

Both Jacki and I love Seals/Sea Lions, so this was really exciting for us.

This is a view from the other side of the cove where there is a water break/walkway. We didn't go too far or stay for long because we were getting wet.

We walked around quite a bit more and watched the sun set. I love the ocean and the sunsets are amazing!

There were a lot of photographers out using the beautiful light to capture precious memories. There was a model that appeared to be getting photos taken for her portfolio, and then there was some type of James Bond-esque type of commercial being filmed and then at least 2 families getting their photo's taken. I tried to get Jacki to be my model and practice, but then my camera started overexposing every shot and I couldn't figure out what was wrong, I was scared I broke it, but it seems okay now. Maybe it had performance anxiety around all those other big fancy cameras the real photographers were toting around?!?!?

I was able to get a few pictures, and luckily I had my other point and shoot camera with me!

The second day we were in La Jolla, we were going to scuba dive, but Jacki forgot her regulator and I forgot my certification card. So we were pretty much out of luck. Plus the scuba shop pretty much tried to scare us out of diving on our own saying it was a pretty tricky entry and a bunch of other hoop-la that we later found out was a bunch of crap. In the mean time we decided we wanted to do some thing in the water, so we booked an early morning kayak cave tour. We showed up bright and early and found that we were the only ones booked so it was more of a private tour. Our guide was a little tired and grumpy, but we worked our charms on him, and by the middle of the tour he was joking around and having a good time with us. It was a lot of fun. Even though I got the tippy boat in which I fell out of quite a few times. The guide was so jovial by the end of the trip, he admitted that my boat was the type that had a tendency to tip. I sarcastically let him know I appreciated that. He said that he didn't want to take that boat because how would it look if the guide couldn't even stay on his boat. Whatever! They just made fun of me the whole time. That guide gave us the low down on the cove and showed us where the good diving would be. While we were on the kayaks we saw leopard sharks, turtles , sea bass, Garibaldi's, and there was even a seal hanging around for a while.

We had such a good time that we decided to snorkel the same area. While snorkeling we didn't get to see quite as much as we saw while on the kayaks, but it was fun none the less. After snorkeling we laid out on the beach for a while and both fell asleep. We both got sunburned, but Jacki got it pretty bad... see the picture below.

Jacki wore her shorty wet suit for the majority of the day, hence her terrific tan/burn lines. I wore a full skin/rash guard, so I wasn't exposed for as long as she was. Man was she hurting! Poor Girl. Needless to say we stayed covered up and out of the sun as much as possible the rest of the trip.

We did swing by the Cabrillo National Monument Tide Pools, where another sea lion made an appearance. We love those little guys. They totally remind me of puppy dogs, so playful!

Notice the long pants, and believe me she was slathered in sunscreen!

Jacki and I at the tide pools.

On the road to/from San Diego, you drive through a town called Dateland. They grow and sell dates there, so we needed a pit stop and decided to check it out. I couldn't pass up a perfectly funny photo opportunity. Jacki was such a good sport, considering at this point it hurt to even have the sun touch her skin.