from tents, to spas...with love

We've been home a few days now, and while it does feel great to be home, we were actually not looking forward to coming back to Colorado. In fact, if we'd had the bus with us on our "camping" trip, we wouldn't have come back. We want to be back at the beach, we need to hear crashing waves and smell salty air. We yearn for shorts and flip flop weather. We so enjoyed our trip(much of which I still need to blog). I was originally planning on it being a tent camping trip, with numerous hikes....lots of hikes. The first week in it was feeling more like a always driving, fast food eating, searching for our next place to sleep, trip. After leaving Carlsbad Beach, we stayed in a hotel down in Imperial Beach, and then the next day drove back up near Carlsbad to go out to dinner with our new beach bum friend, Mark, and then were on the hunt again for the next place to rest. First thing we found after another long search was an expensive looking place in Del Mar. I gave in and shelled out the most I'd ever paid for a room. I was feeling bad....until I saw our room. It was so nice, and so comfortable...I'm thinking, I better enjoy this and quit worrying about the money. I've always said my ideal vacation would be spa like hotel rooms and eating out for every meal, at a sit down restaurant with waitresses, not paper wrapped through a window, so I better start appreciating this. Once I got over the fact that we weren't tent campiing and we didn't have a campfire to cook over and turn everything black, I really starting relaxing and enjoying myself more. I also never checked my email again. Hmmmmm.....

My Aunt Maggie and Uncle Bill live in Lakeside, just outside SD, so we planned on staying there our last night before heading back to Twenty Nine Palms for the deployment. We ended up staying there three days. They were so chill, really made us feel comfortable, and I could tell my Aunt really loved having family around. We had great conversations, and even better meals...holy cow, have I gained some weight. I did go on one hike while we were there though, to the gas station for a Pepsi. What?

Since it was raining daily, we weren't inspired to hit the beach or Sea World. We were inspired, however, with all the great tattoo artists, and while the kids would respectably stalk the peacocks in my Aunt's yard,

(Boys are such show offs).

Joey and I got inked.


Another turning point for me. I got my first tattoo when I was eighteen, and I got it in a spot that I knew my mother would never see it. Now eighteen years later, I got it where I can't really hide it, and hope my mom likes it.

I took the picture last year in Lake McConaughy of a daisy hugging itself, and it represents to me the need to quit being so hard on myself, and give myself a hug once in a while.