Vacation & update.

We are back from vacation. Edda is back at school and we are back to work. A few quick photos from the week:

A walk in the bay area with Jeremy’s high school friends Ben & Steve at Inspiration point:

We, by chance, rented a Chrysler Pacifica minivan, which is a plug-in hybrid. We had a good time charging a friends’ houses or finding different charging stations around – a period of time where Jeremy was trying to not use any gas and we were drafting behind semis to improve our range. Fun.

It was a very fancy Chrysler – it had lots of USB outlets, many many screens and a “fam cam” to look at all your passengers.

We met a bunch of Vince’s friends and hosted a burrito dinner. A pair ordered this enormous three pound burrito. The person holding the burrito is decked out in UCDavis gear because he works at the bookstore and these items are slightly mis-printed so he got them that day for free.

Jeremy reattempted his 1-hour-up-Mt-Diablo bike ride for the 3rd time in 4 years and basically got the same time as the last 2 times – 63-64 minutes. He tried many different approaches to training which included: losing weight, gaining weight & lifting, less structured training approach, more structured training approach, more volume, etc. etc. I thought he could gain the 3 minutes with better pacing and not with fitness, but he said this final time, he thought he paced pretty well (not going out too fast). I think he’s going to let this goal go…and turn to other things.

We drove to Ashland Oregon on the 13th and on the 14th, my 50th birthday, I woke to a beautiful day and a good mood and I ran a half marathon up and down the local mountain. 5000 ft of elevation gain and one of the best runs of my life. Gorgeous trail, only about 5 groups of people – so the entire wilderness almost to myself. We were lucky! Just a week ago, Ashland was smoky from the nearby wildfires and I was unsure I’d be able to do this run.

Our stay in Ashland was short, but beautiful. Our air BnB was nice and close to downtown so we could walk to all the cute shops.

Jeremy rode his bike the following morning.

And we left town having the most beautiful breakfast.

And then we drove to the outskirts of Portland to my mom’s home-cooked meal

We walked along the river.

And enjoyed a more elaborate, celebratory dinner for my 50th.

My mom in her natural environment – her garden.

Jeremy got to ride with an old friend of ours – Mike. He was on our first date (a long story).

We sent Vince home via plane on Saturday and we flew home on Sunday. It was a lovely week, I complimented Jeremy on the vacation planning logistics – it’s not easy to plan, book all the things and I thought the vacation was well-paced. But it was not without stresses, the main one being that on my birthday, a few hours after I finished running, we got an email from Edda’s new aftercare (where she had been for only four days, so, you know, I figured was still getting to know each other) saying that she wasn’t a good fit for them and that they were terminating services. So I spent a good deal of time afterwards, on the vacation, crying about this. I wished they had sent the email the next day, the day after my birthday, but how were they to know? All these years, I had thought Edda was too much trouble and too hard to take care of, but honestly, all the programs, all of Edda’s caregivers (well except for Tilli…these things have a long half-life in my memory), have all embraced her and reassured me about this – that she’s a “lovebug”. Until now! Anyways, I got home – yesterday was kind of terrible because I was weepy from the jet lag and then I had to deal with some aftermath of the aftercare stuff. But it’s mostly straightened out. The logistics, that is. No so much the heartache.

Lastly, I wanted to give a shout out to George, out dog sitter, who hung out with Elka all week and managed her poopyface behavior and OMG Elka looks so much more grown up after we got home. Like she went from a tween to a grown doggie. Thank you so much for taking such good care of Elka <3.