Mama I'm comin home.....

Early tomorrow morning(and I mean early, like we're leaving at 4 am early) we'll be heading out from California to spend Christmas with the Family on the east coast. Should make for a great time. We've got our fingers crossed that we make it with all the ice and snow that we've been hearing about lately.

Let the insanity begin!

Here we go, the next couple of weeks and possibly months should be fairly insane. Not only is work starting to take off but we were just pre-approved for a home loan. For everyone who hasn't gone through this yet, I'll explain a little. So, when you register with Lendingtree every lender within a two state radius either calls or emails you. You then get to sort through all the messages and emails and get back to everyone. With every conversation you learn more about mortgage rates, buying down loans, points, re-financing, and a lot more that I never thought I would know so much about. We'll after speaking with what felt like the population of Wasilla, I submitted our info and got pre-approved. That means we can pretty much do what Chris does best, shop!.....except this time it's for a house. Once we find the place that we love, we'll go back, fill out even more paperwork, sign more lines than a college application, and really get into debt. What's funny, is this is candidly referred to as "good" debt, although, that goes against pretty much everything I've ever learned about owing money. Ready, set.......

the only time i'll get psycho is when you don't get out.....

Most of you know that Phish has announced that they will be returning to the stage at the mothership in Hampton VA this March. When the announcement was made I immediately signed up for the mail order only to get nothing. I figured, "oh well, there's always ticketmaster" and so I waited to tickets to go on sale and there I was, that Saturday morning at 7 am pacific, trying to get tickets online and over the phone. No Dice, I got skunked. For the first time, me and most of my friends will not be attending a run of Phish shows....until now. I was emailed this post on craigslist and I've contacted this girl. I'll be staying with her, enjoying fried chicken and watching a 65 in T.V. Goodbye California, hello hampton!


http://norfolk.craigslist.org/tix/940024842.html

Send lawyers, guns and money

An absolute free for all. That's the only way I can describe driving through the US/Mexican boarder and down the Baja Peninsula. If you haven't ever done this drive, then you'll never understand. As soon as you pass through the boarder, which there is no regulation going into Mexico, you enter another world. There are shanty's tucked into the hillside just waiting for the next rainstorm or mudslide so they can slide or fall downhill to become boarder front properties. There are about 30 unfinished hotels along the water just waiting for someone to come along and finish or knock them down. The streets are swarming with dogs looking for food and people looking for money. It couldn't be more opposite of the city that lies just 5 miles north. Once through the boarder you navigate the poorly marked roads attempting to not make eye contact with anyone and avoid the insane drivers. If you manage to do this, then you're pretty much golden till after Rosarito where you start to hit tolls.

These tolls are nothing like the tolls we've all hit on America's finest toll roads(NJ Turnpike). They are the kind of tolls that you pay and hope the guy dressed like a Federale holding a machine gun waving down cars doesn't decide to stop you. After getting through this you hit the gem of a city Ensenda. If you're ever down there, you must get taco's from the stand below, they are hands down the BEST I've had. Seriously, the BEST!

So after crushing great tacos, we moved onto to Brian's cousins place in Punta san Jacinto. It's located about 50 yards from a great right point break known as shipwrecks. It's fittingly named as there is a huge rusted ship that was dragged aground right in the break. Easily avoidable it sets a great backdrop for fun surf. Dave, Brian and I spent three days in the water enjoying what little surf we had and the large amount of tequila and Tecate we bought. We spent the afternoons in the small town just up the road buying food at the market, watching a 10 year old work Dave over on a bundle of Cilantro only to get busted by her mom and have 1/2 his money returned, trying to buy meat from the grocery store and avoiding the crazy drivers.



On Sunday we got up early to find some waves, paddled out into the water, and surfed for about 2 hours. Then we packed up the place, locked everything and made our way back up north. Luckily we were only stopped at one of the check points, at which time, I had to get out of the car and let a Mexican military man look through the car with his machine gun in hand. Definitely not a nerve calming situation. We pressed on north, stopped again for more delicious tacos....did I mention they were good?.....and got to the boarder traffic line. We managed to cut the line pretty well by acting like stupid gringos and there we sat. The line leaving Mexico is hilarious, there are ton's of people selling the most ridiculous things. We saw everything while waiting on the line, tiny guitars, regular sized guitars, Churros(which we got), terrible ice cream(which Dave got), 8 year olds juggling, 4 year old's begging, people selling tiny plastic babies, people selling giant jesus statues....Everything that is a waste of money is available there for only a few pesos. It only took us an hour and a half for us to get through the boarder, no problems, and we got Dave to the airport. All in all, it was an amazing time. We were very sketched out by the head on collision we saw, loved the food and surfing. I'd definitely head back there, but be very careful doing so. Here are a bunch of photos

All of the required ingredients for a great Mexican adventure


Can't go to Mexico and not get a wrestling mask!


Our hacienda


The Ship....notice the lack of waves?


Dave trying to bargain with the ocean like it's selling him cilantro





Brian trying on a pancho


Past and Present employers


It's on the left as you enter Ensenada. Look for the giant red Taco stand, it's worth it!

Am I really this hippy?

My modeling career is back in full swing. At Jack's Surfboards we all pitch in and do whatever is necessary. Plus, it's a hell of a ego boost to get to "model" for the site. So the other day when our usual wetsuit model didn't fit into some of the suits, I jumped at the chance to famous, again. I've been working hard to eat better and look better all year, especially before our wedding back in June. So putting on a wetsuit was no biggie. Now that I've seen the pictures, maybe I should think twice about wearing skin tight items on for the site.

They both had a poop!

Now that Chris and I are both working full time, the dogs aren't getting the 24 hour attention they were grew accustomed to while I was retired. It was for this reason that we sought out a dog walker. I'm definitely from the school of thought that the dogs are absolutely fine for the amount of time we are gone, but of course, we want only the best for Yeti, so a dog walker it was. After a rigorous screening process(we interviewed one person and were filling out paperwork after 10 mintues) we had our walker. Her name is Sam and she comes Monday-Wednesday and takes them for a 20 minute walk then writes a note recapping exactly what happened on the walk. It's down to every last detail, I'm almost sure that most tax laws are written with as much detail. We hear about everything, how they behaved, any animals that crossed their paths, who went to the bathroom, packages that arrived, that we forgot to pay her, how far they went, which way they went, the angle of the sun from the earth while they walked, how many steps they took, the exact amount of hair's Wilson shed, etc. It's truly amazing and I have to say, it's great to know what happened.

If you live in our area and are looking for a dog walker, I couldn't recommend a better person to hire. Sam is awesome!!! We are going to help her out with her website so she can drive a little more traffic and maybe get some more business from it. Check her out at:

Samantha Mears Pet Sitting Service

This post never happened.....

"Now is the time" is what was said to me about 1/2 way through my conversation today about buying a house. "You need to start saving big time and move on something quickly." That's great news, we've been talking about buying a house for a while and have been looking a little lately. Talking is really all we've really done about it. But after talking about houses and saving money today, there is one thing that we won't be talking about ever, this weekend. This weekend never happened. We never dropped the dogs off for a test night at the dog camp, we never got in the car and drove to Venice Beach for the night, we never went out for a nice dinner, we never saw the L.A. Clippers staying at our hotel, we definitely have never seen so much accepted rollerblading and you're not even really reading this. Here are some pictures from a place that we're not even sure exists.....



Not L.A. off in the distance

Relentless Seven

Wednesday night we headed back down to the Belly Up for Relentless Seven. It's Ben Harper's latest band that he's been touring with for the past month. We were really psyched to be on the list for this sold out show. It was great, the place was packed and I was really happy to not be feeling so sick this time. Here are some pictures from the show.

View from the VIP section.....it pays to know people




We learned something interesting about the SoCal crowd this night, apparently no-one here drinks PBR at Bars. About 5 times I was stopped by someone saying "whoa, they sell those here" or "that's so awesome your drinking that." Someone's got to class this place up!


If you get the chance, I highly recommend these guys. It was a lot of fun!

A lot of Turkey's don't make it through Thanksgiving....

This is so funny that I needed to get it up here. Enjoy!