Research

I haven't been blogging.  I haven't even been blog reading.

But, our life has still been going along really well, in spite of that.

Pretty much exactly a month ago, 

Scott & I got to go on a local getaway for our 8 year anniversary.

We are seriously grateful that we got to get out for a whole night & day.

It was sweet!

We went to the Dream Inn, which was super hip.

This was our morning view, off the balcony. 

No fog for us.  Evening or morning.

Our time was pretty much a research trip.  And super fun.

We researched each other & together.

Teachers in service day.  Is that what you call it?

I have also spent the last month being irritated & doing minimal research 

on this iphone photo issue.

We are hugging the elephant seal sculpture at Long Marine labs.

And, we took the photo on the iphone, in the vertical position. 

I uploaded it to my computer & it is on my computer in the vertical position.

I upload it onto blogger...  horizontal.

ARGH!  

I have given up.  

And I am postin them here to show you all that we are not smart enough for an iphone.

But, while at Long Marine, we studied up on all the ocean learning there, 

so we could bring our kids & teach them all we learned.  

We petted Swell Sharks, saw little baby ones wriggling around in their egg sacks,

watched quick moving Sunflower sea stars (they just keep growing more and more arms!).

These labs are small.  But, the signage is great & educational & 

the docents are very engaging as well.

{We brought them out 2 weeks later, 

after they were daily asking us when they could go and pet the sharks, too.}

sorry about the flash & the strong reflection.  hard to see, but this is the shark petting tank.

Back to our teacher's research day...
We took a birding walk, hunting for Black-Chinned Hummingbirds.
When we finally gave up on seeing the elusive hummingbird,
we did spot two hummingbirds above us.
But, they moved on too quickly for us to see what they looked like.
It was exciting nonetheless.  I had never thought I would go birding, prior to turning 65.
Now I have.  And, I liked it.  Mostly because of my birding partner.

We ended our outing with the Santa Cruz Food Tour.
People, this was SO fun.
I love good food.  And I like walks.
So, a walking food tour of downtown sounded great to me.
But, once the tour was underway we learned it was much more than that.
We got a really fun history lesson of the city.
We learned about the handsome Victorian homes of the 1800's;
about their builders & the home owners.
We learned about Mission Santa Cruz,
and visited the only original structure still standing.
We learned about the railway that came to downtown
(and how they had to stop outside of the downtown area
and hitch the train to a team of horses,
to take it all the way to the coast without disturbing the residents & merchants.)
Our tour guide was great.  And now we love Santa Cruz more.
We highly recommend this tour to locals and to visitors.

Exploring together was a blast.  We are grateful!