Oh, Yes I DID!

I think I mentioned a few posts back that my computer was on it's last leg, well she finally died a few nights ago (please bow your heads for a moment of silence), she kept giving me an error message or showing me the blue screen of death and would not do anything, so after coming to grips with her sudden passing and 5 years of service I replaced her, sad but true!  I was footloose and fancy free tonight after work cause Gracie was a daycare for the night and Best Buy was on my way home so I decided to stop in and see what they had for sale.  I was planning on getting another Dell, I loved mine and I seem to be pretty brand loyal so that only made sense, well that is until I sought advice from my Facebook friends.  I got varying responses, but most said go with the Mac, well folks my $$$$ tree is not blooming so that was not really an option, that is until I saw their financing option and it was a really good deal and I could do it.  So, I told them to wrap one up for me and I took it home!  I also bought the protection plan because it covers up to three computers and I now can take my old computer to the Geek Squad and have them fix it for free and sell it on Craigslist (a lot of people look to buy parts) or sell it to my sister for a reduced price (yes, i hear how selfish that sounds, but dude, I just dropped a lot of $$$ and I need to make a little back), cause rumor has it my nephew wants a computer, but I am not sure how the PC will fit in to their Mac household.  

Anyways, I am loving my new toy, I have always wanted to combine all of my Apple products, now I just need to figure it out!

Wedding #2 with a side of Drama!

So Wedding #2 happened this past Monday, yes on a Monday, you all are probably thinking who has a wedding on a Monday?  Geniuses have weddings on Monday’s, that’s who,  cause  you probably save a boatload of $$$$ and it being a holiday no one has to take a day off from work, so it is a freakin win win for everyone!  Anywho the wedding was held at Ponte Winery and it was beautiful, holy goodness of all things wedding, I want to get married there.  The afternoon started off a bit rocky, I wore the same dress I wore to my college graduation oh 10 years ago and let’s just say I do not remember it being tight and difficult to zip-up, let alone not allowing me room to breathe, but oh well I love the dress and that is what I was going to wear.  I arrived to the wedding and as soon as I got out of my car I immediately hear this annoying metal scrapping noise as I walk, well wouldn’t you know but the freaking rubber stub on the heel of my shoe came off, as in long gone, never to be seen again.  Ok, I can deal with the noise whatev’s, my bladder is the size of Texas so I run to the bathroom before everyone is seated and as I walk into the bathroom the bottom of my other shoe falls off and out of nowhere my shoe is now in two pieces, umm, no big deal, I use the bathroom and decided to go in search of some tape that I can use to put my shoe back together with.  As I am walking out of the bathroom the strap on my shoe breaks, oh gosh, we now have a problem, I can no longer walk in these shoes, what am I going to do??  I panic for a split second and remember hot diggity dog I have a pair of flip flops in my car, woohoo problem solved, I graciously walk to my car in bare feet, OMG, so tacky.  I venture back to the seating area, grab a glass or two of champagne and the wedding gets started.  The wedding ceremony is very nice, Lisa looked beautiful and Pete was crying, it was sweet.  The reception followed immediately after the ceremony and the wine started flowing right away as well, needless to say when in Rome do as the Romans and I did, we were at a winery therefore I needed to drink a lot of wine.  A lot of wine was consumed, dinner was served, cake was eaten, my white girl dance moves came out and as soon as I got home I passed out, so classy!  

Check out the flip flops, clearly I had not looked in the mirror either, my sweater  was a mess. 

Congrats Lisa & Pete!

Wedding #2: Lisa & Pete

This afternoon I will be attending wedding #2 out of 3 in Temecula for my friends Lisa & Pete.  Lisa and I met through the City of Huntington Beach's swim lesson program, I was a lifeguard and Lisa was our pool manager, we became good friends throughout the summers that we spent at the pools and beyond.  Together  we have been through the ups and downs of dating and I so happy for her that she is getting married. Pete is my back-up dog walker, I have mentioned once or twice on here that it has taken a village to raise Gracie, well Pete is an active member of that village and he walks Gracie on Monday and Wednesday nights when I am at paddling practice, I am really bummed that they will be moving soon and he will no longer be able to walk Gracie, so, yes, that means I am currently looking for another village member, if you are interested please let me know!  Anyways, CONGRATS to Lisa & Pete, I wish you the best!  

If you are interested check out their wedding blog created by yours truly! 

A Shout Out to............

the best MOM ever!  Yesterday was just the pits of a day, just stupid stuff happened at work all morning long and I was just DONE!  I grabbed my stuff and headed to lunch and called my Mom and just unleashed on her for close to 30 minutes, every bad word, bad saying, bad thought, bad everything came out of my mouth and she just listened, it was crazy!  Crazy Crazy Crazy, if the phone call had been recorded and heard by others I for sure would of been institutionalized and classified as 5150, it was that bad.  I managed to pull it all together and venture back to work and get through the day and then I met up with a friend and I ordered myself a big fat margarita and damn near licked the glass clean, it was that bad of a day and I needed to make sure that not one ounce on Tequila was left behind!  I felt much better afterward and I am now off until next Tuesday and free to do what ever the hell I want, yay for alcohol and vacation days.

What A Weekend!

Friday afternoon my DOCC peeps and I drove up to Santa Barbara for a nice weekend of paddling, sunshine and fun and boy howdy did we have a lot of sunshine, paddling and fun.  We pulled in to Santa Barbara right at dinner time so a bunch of us met up at the Santa Barbara Brewing Co. for dinner and cocktails, after dinner we strolled around for a little bit and then checked in to the oh so fancy Ramada Inn (insert sarcasm here) and spent and arm and a leg for about 8 hours of hotel usage, but oh well.  Saturday morning we headed to Leadbetter beach, such a great location for this race.  There was a nice grass area where we could set up camp for the day and we hung out there all day.  The weather was oh so perfect, the sun came up at 6:30am and it was out all day and not a cloud in the sky.  I raced in a coed boat again this week, SCORA changed the time of our race and we ended up starting with the open men, holy cow was that nuts and those open men are kinda mean (there was a lot of pushing and shoving at the start line, holy moly).  Our race lasted just under two hours and was just over 12 miles long. I attached my GoPro to the boat and set it to take pictures every minute, however next race I am going to set it to take pictures every 20-30 seconds, things were moving too fast and I missed a lot of the race by having it set every minute (oh well, live and learn).  After the race we loaded up all of our stuff, headed to downtown Santa Barbara, had dinner at this really good Italian place and stopped at Ben & Jerry's for a little ice cream before we all headed home.

Yep, camera is on!

Some of the craziness at the start line.

Rig Run Stats via the Garmin

This morning I went to pick up little Miss Trouble from camp, she was sent home with a bad dog note, turns out that they bought some new dog bowls for all of the campers and they had a rubber ring around the bottom of them to keep them from sliding on the floor, well little Miss Gracie did not like that and she very carefully chewed the rubber off of the bowl and ate some of it. We had a long talk about her behavior and by the picture below you can tell she feels bad about her actions.

After our chat about her behavior I let her lick my coffee cup, however she prefers to chew the cardboard, SMH!

Because I was not sore or tired enough I decided today was a good day to tackle a small home improvement project.  In the mornings the sun shines so bright into my room and heats it up so much I finally decided it was time to do something about it, cause you know I have only lived here eight and a half years, so whats the rush.  I went to Home Depot and bought some cheapy outdoor blinds to fix the problem and Super Dad came over and hung them up for me.  After they were hung the Super Parents and I went to dinner to our favorite Italian place Mangia Bene that is across the street from my place.  

Lets see how long it takes for the HOA to send me a nasty gram!

And last but not least, my computer has been acting up, I got the blue screen of death last week but by some miracle it came back to life and then today I got the always dreaded screen that says that the computer was unable to start up, but somehow it fixed itself.  Please Please send good thoughts to my computer I do not want to have to buy a new one anytime soon!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend, there is no race scheduled for next weekend, so for all of my nonpaddler readers you will not have to hear about the tales of DOCC for awhile, however I do have a novice story that will need to be shared so that it does not get lost in the archives of the DOCC Facebook page soon. And in case you were wondering wedding #2 of this wedding season is coming up on the 27th, congrats to Lisa & Pete, so be sure to check in on that.  Until then, I hope you all have a fabulous Monday, tomorrow is the first day of summer class registration at the BTRCC and if you are not a follower of  us on Facebook, please click here and "Like" us!

Road Trip - Rig Run Here We Come!

To say it has been a busy week is an understatement!  It is finally Friday and time to hit the road for this weekends race, shouts of joy coming out of my mouth right now.  Originally, I was going to leave at 6pm, then it turned into 3pm and I am now I am leaving now, I cannot wait.  My bags are packed along with the GoPro so there should be some good photos to post on Sunday.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!

This weekends events click here 

Busy Busy Weekend Packed Full of FUN!

I'm just gonna start this post off by saying that this weekend was AWESOME and there is not one part of my body that is not sore as in it hurts to sit here on the couch and type this.  Friday started with some serious rest and relaxation with Gracie dropped off at camp and coffee time by myself but it did not last long enough and ended with my friend Kris Brown's wedding in Laguna Beach, the weather was perfect and her wedding was beautiful.  

Then it was off to San Diego bright and early (yes, we were there at 6:30am) thank goodness for my friends at Starbucks who open at 5am.  It was a perfect day at the beach good weather and great friends, it can't get much better than that!  We welcomed that novice to their first race of the season with gifts and lei's and wished them well on their first paddling adventure as they left the beach only to hear about how one of the boats got caught up on a turn buoy when they returned.  I paddled a coed boat as I mentioned here about how there was almost no race for me to paddle and boy howdy did we have fun! Ricki, Jill, Carlos, Phil, Hoover and I hopped in boat #5 and paddled three miles just to get to the start line, we had a decent start and we were off to the first turn, we had a pretty good turn according to me, but Ricki and Jill had another version of the story turn that I somehow missed, we paddled along, passing boats and doing awesome, we made another turn and started heading down swell, it was awesome, the best part of any race, you catch waves and fly!  Well, we were having so much fun and cruising along and out of nowhere we hulied (flipped), I am still not sure how that happened but it was such a disappointment cause we were on track to get a medal. Thankfully everyone was ok, as we started to collect all of our stuff that was now in the ocean and flip our boat back over, we kind  of struggled, I think we were all in shock of what happened.  We eventually had to flip our boat twice to help get all of the water out and in the process the chase boat came by to make sure we were all ok and wouldn't you know it but my good pal Steve Ayers (I have known him all my life, he used to wash my parents windows) was on the chase boat.  If anyone knows Steve he is one of the nicest people on earth and will help out anyone and everyone.  Steve jumped in the water swam to our boat and helped us get all of the water out and send us on our merry way.  We ended up passing a few more boats and finished the race more determined than ever to get a medal next week, I sure hope we get the chance to race again as a team.  A few race stats; paddled 13 miles, 2 hours and 7 minutes, averaged 6 mph with our fastest speed 14 mph (down swell right before we flipped) burned almost 1300 calories. 

Coming back in!

Telling our Huli story!

Hoover, Jill, Ricki, Me & Carlos!  Phil ran off before picture time!

Today I woke up to a very sore and bruised body from our huli yesterday and thankfully Gracie wanted to sleep in too.  It started to get hot in the hood so by noon we were ready for cooler weather so we headed to the parents house for a little Mother's Day fun!  My parents had Mari and Cole all weekend so I was anxious to get there and get some good quality time in with them, which of course meant we were in the pool all afternoon.  I took a few pics of the kids before I took the plunge.  

Mari actually did really well in the pool!  With a little pushing coaching she was able to kick on a kick board  and swim across the spa all by herself. 

Is that Cole's, I am 15 look?

There was a lot of splashing and squirt gun spraying going on!

After Grammy finally made us get out of the pool and into dry clothes we had dinner and dessert and what we like to call quiet time with the kids (two ipads and netflix = quiet time)!

There may of been a mini meltdown when they were told it was time to go home, cause you know it is never a good time to turn off the movie right when the princess gets to the castle.  And because I am the aunt I am allowed to laugh at the meltdown, Mari had very valid points and made it sound like her life was about to come to an end if she could not watch it.  $20 bucks says she was asleep in the car before the left the neighborhood.  I hope everyone had a great weekend, next weekend our race is in Santa Barbara and the GoPro is going with, check back in for more race fun.  

HaPpY bIrThDaY!

My little Gracie girl turns 5 today!  You know that saying "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"?  Well, lets just say that sooooo applies to the last five years of my life with little Miss Trouble.  Gracie has made me laugh, cry and shake my head and sometimes make me do all three at the same time.  I mean for real that damn dog freakin ate a dead mouse on Thursday, seriously two days before her fifth birthday she tries to kill herself with a potentially poisoned mouse.  As I stood on the corner with my coffee in my hand watching her eat the thing cause I was so grossed out I could not muster up the strength or courage to fight her and pull it out of her mouth with my bare hands, all I could think of is "how much is this gonna cost me?"  Its sad but true, Gracie has a $1000 limit, call me a bad pet parent but any vet bill over $1000 she will have solicit donations for.  If you follow me on instagram @ recgirlem you probably saw the picture of the nice big can of pumpkin that I fed her to help protect her from little mousy bones in her stomach. Anyways, back to the original reason for the most, it is her birthday, she is at camp having a blast with all of her K9 pals and I am off paddling for the day, but she has a cupcake waiting for her when she gets home!

Happy Birthday Trouble!!

Wedding #1 of 3 - Kris & Chad

Happy Wedding Day 

to my friend 

Kris and her husband Chad as of 7pm tonight, 

I can't wait to celebrate with you!

Check back on Sunday, for a complete weekend recap, cause it is shaping up to be a big one! 

And so It Begins!

This weekend is the first race of the season down in San Diego and the beginning of yet another fun Summer.  Things will be changing this year, last year we only had four/five mile races and this year we have ten/twelve mile races.  I am kind of the odd man out on our team due to my age (who knew at 34, I would still be needing a fake id to make me older?), so I was originally put on the sub list for other clubs, I was kind of bummed about that but soon realized that I would be meeting more people and making more friends with other clubs, so I figure it was not as bad as I originally thought.  Turns out lucky for me, there is a coed boat with DOCC that I can paddle with so now I am guaranteed a spot on a boat with our team and paddling coed is one of the best gigs one can get in my mind, it is so much fun and I am soooooo looking forward to Saturday.  

And to read about last years race click here!

Wish us luck! 

Hike, HO!

Must Watch Video's!

I'm not a huge youtube fan, but the other day a couple of my friends showed me these video's and seriously if you do not laugh there is something wrong with you!  I have watched them over and over and I laugh each and every time!

Better Late than Never!

Hey All,

You remember me? Erin, the blogger? The girl with lots of random stuff to say?  How has it been two weeks and 1 day since I last logged in to fill you in with what's been happening in my parts?  Apparently, I took an unplanned blogging break and no one told me either.  I spose if you all missed me so much that your lives depended on my posts you would of called, texted or sent up smoke signals demanding my return to this little place on the internet I call mine.  Well, I wish I had some really good story for my absence, but I don't so I won't even try to make one up.  

When I left you last my favorite nephew in the whole wide world turned eight, so not cool when you are the Auntie remembering the day he was born and how your whole world changed and your new goal in life was now to spoil him and his future siblings/cousins rotten.  Well, doing what I do best I took lots of pictures of his special day so he will not have a chance to forget it.  Here are a few of my favorites.......

I may of used blue tape (you know the kind for painting) vs. clear tape, cause I did not plan ahead and I was out.

Its hard to get them all to smile and look at the camera at the same time.

G & G and their little ducklings!

Don't they look adorable?  They then turned wild!!!

My sister made an awesome lasagna, I may of eaten my weight in it, boy howdy was it good!

We then had birthday pie, Cole got a little extra whip cream with his!

Happy Birthday Bud, we love you!

and for comparison sake here is Cole the day he was born.......

and last year........

                                       

After Cole's party was over, it was time to welcome the new novice to DOCC, actually I think the party was the night before Cole's but I cannot remember that far back.  We had a nice little partay at the Dana Point Yacht Club (sounds so fancy) for them, there was a great turn out and a lot of fun had by all.  Here is the best pic I could get of them........

And in between working, taking care of Gracie, paddling three days a week and trying to have some sort of social life (it was sooo awesome to see you Carrie), I managed to buy my plane tickets for Kona in August and a plane ticket up north for my friend Andy's wedding in June (have I mentioned I have three weddings to go to in the next 30 days, holy moly!) and participated in the Stand Up for Cure paddle in the Newport Back Bay with some friends, life has been really busy lately but a lot of fun, I cannot wait for the next few months of travel, paddling and friends!

I got me some ink, temporary ink that is!!!  This was so I could get free food!