We’ve had quite a new experience for our labor day weekend. Yesterday we drove up to Anaheim and met Dawn & Josh, and today the girls ran the Disneyland 1/2 Marathon! We spent the night at D&J’s, because even leaving from Long Beach, we had to wake up at 3:30, to leave the house by 4:00, to get to the park by 4:30, to start running by 6:10. Josh and I took up a place along the fence at Mile 2, and once we saw the girls, raced to mile 7 in the car. We got to mile 7 about a minute before Erin did, and then raced again to mile 11. We saw Erin at mile 11, and then raced back to the finish. We like to think that we got a workout in too. I’m guessing the girls might argue with that. The whole thing was over for them long before 10am! Throughout the race, we got SMS updates for their pace times. It was fun! Dawn finished 8100th out of 10,849 and Erin finished 4648th. Not bad for a preggers and a first-timer!

The parentals came down for a weekend and brought my (newly pregnant!) sister & brother-in-law along. On Sunday we went to La Jolla Cove for a day of snorkeling which brought back a ton of memories for my dad. He used to go to the Cove every summer when he was a kid. It felt pretty weird not having the scuba equipment but it was fun. We brought the camera and got some really awesome pictures.

It started out like any other Tuesday… Dylan and I began our walk to lunch down the street and through the valley on the trail we usually take to Chipotle. When what did we see, but this snake in the grass! It was an exciting find. Looks like we spotted us a San Diego Gopher Snake.

We went diving this morning at La Jolla Shores. It was my first time at the shores this year. The water was pretty warm on the surface 63 but much colder, 51 at the 75′ depth to which we sank. We saw some cool things I’ve never seen before: the coolest thing was a Spanish Shawl. We also saw lots of sea hares, a sea anemone, a weird tube thingy, and a feisty crab. Enjoy the pictures from our camera with cool underwater case!

I just found this original unaired 24 pilot from 1994. It’s pretty funny, if you’re nerdy.

For anyone who is wondering how we’re doing, we’re fine. We were evacuated from our house Monday morning, so we grabbed some of our belongings and drove up north to The O.C. We spent Monday night at a hotel in Newport Beach. Tuesday we drove back down to my in-laws’ house in San Marcos, which, compared to our house, was relatively safe and relatively smoke free. We just heard that they lifted the mandatory evacuation ban on our house so we’ll be returning soon. Erin and I are both telecommuting today from San Marcos.

The holidays are long gone by now… they flew by! I just thought I'd give a recap of our holiday travels:

• December 10th: TierraNet Party
• December 16th: D&D down for a weekend visit & D&J & T&G over for Filippis for dinner
• December 17th: Quiz nite
• December 20th: Dinner with Jason and Sarah from the O.C. / Atlanta
• December 22nd: Dinner in San Marcos
• December 23rd: Lunch in Temecula with the family at Ponte (what a beautiful day)
• December 23rd: Take Marvin to the airport
• December 24th: Anaheim lunch, San Marcos dinner
• December 25th: yay! cool didgeridoo! Dinner back in San Marcos
• December 31st: Fun night @ B&J's
• January 1st: pick marvin up from the airport

Phew! I'd say the new car is officially worn in by now