catalina island

last thursday we went drove down to california to go to catalina island. we went with a couple of friends, and NO KIDS! i don't even remember the last time we had a weekend without the kids. thanks to mom and dad, and dan's parents for watching them. anywho here is a recap of our trip....

we drove all day thursday down to huntington beach where we stayed at the hilton across the street from the beach. it was pretty nice, except for the beds were double beds which made for a cozy night for our friends that went down with us since they weren't married. they weren't even dating or anything. they are both married but to other people. anywho, mike brought down his blender so he could make smoothies. i thought it was kinda weird that he wanted to pack his blender, but i sure enjoyed the smoothies for breakfast.

mike with his famous blender

well, it took us a little bit longer than we thought to get to the ferry in long beach, so we missed our 10:00 ferry to catalina island, and were put on the 12:15. alicia decided she needed to roll out some muscles in the middle of the terminal, until some guy made her move out of the main walkway. we had our bikes with us, so we went for a bike ride and found some lunch before returning to get on the ferry.

alica

dan and i in front of the catalina express ferry (dan is being extra safe by wearing his helmet).

avalon bay

when we got there, we rode our bikes to the hotel, checked in, then walked around the town. most of the transportation around town is done by golf cart, so we rented one and went for a tour of the town. we drove the course for the triathlon we would be doing the next day.

overlooking the harbor

that afternoon, we rode one lap of the bike course to get a feel for it. it was up a canyon, it wasn't real steep, but steep enough that it made me wish i had a granny gear on my bike to make it easier to pedal. then we rode the run course. all of this prep work made me nervous for the race because i am not too good with hills, and this was a pretty hilly course. anywho, the next morning we got over to where the race was going to start, set up our transition areas, and shimmied into our wetsuits. a little bit before the race was going to begin, mike realized that he had his wetsuit on backwards, and had to take it off, and put it on correctly. dan was in the second wave to start and i was in the last, so i sent dan off and hoped that he wouldn't drown. he did awesome though. so we swam in the ocean up one side of the dock, out to some bouys, then back to shore. then hopped on our bikes for a 3 lap course up the canyon and back down. while riding up the canyon i was wondering why i always think it is a good idea to sign up for these triathlons...i still haven't figured it out (it's kind of addicting), coming down the canyon was fun though. dan lapped me on the bike, and actually finished the whole thing before i even began the run. the run had a couple of long steep hills, so i ended up walking part of it. i still need to work on running a lot. anywho, i ended up with 8th place in my division, and dan with 13th in his (his was a lot tougher division than mine). our friends also did well.

after the race.

we had tickets for the 7:00 ferry that night, but decided to trade them for sunday morning. so since we had the afternoon, dan and i decided to go diving. we rented some gear, and went for a dive among the giant kelp forests. it was pretty cool. the deepest we went was about 70 feet. that's the deepest i've ever been. there were lots of fish, and of course the giant columns of kelp. it had taken us so long to get the gear and stuff so it was dark by the time we came out. we had lights and stuff, and there were plenty of other divers nearby, but i still get nervous in the dark so we surfaced.

we had cold stone ice cream for dinner, then went to a movie. the theater was way cool, the ceiling was dome shaped and there were murals painted all over. there was even an old organ right up near the front.

the next morning we packed our bags and got on our bikes to ride over and catch the ferry, when we found out that the winds were too strong so our boat was cancelled. we rode over to the dock anyway and changed our tickes for 2:00. well, that boat was cancelled too. so finally, about 3:00 we were advised that all of the ferries for the day had been cancelled, so we had to stay another night on the island. the hotel we were staying in gave us half off since we were stranded, so that was cool. that afternoon dan was able to go out to one of the sailboats with a guy we met the day before. he lives on his boat, and when he found out that was dan's dream he invited him to go and check out the boat. they took some kayaks out and dan hung out on the sailboat and swabbed the deck and stuff, while i went shopping.

dan and peter going out to the sailboat.

earlier that day we had seen the missionaries and found out that they had a group that meets at the bank at 4:00, so we went to the services where there was one other member besides us and the missionaries. i guess that area has only been open since january and they have had 13 baptisms, but all were spanish speaking and attended the 6:00 services. the services were about a half hour long. we sang a song, took the sacrament, the missionaries each shared a thought, and then we sang again and that was it. it was great. the missionaries invited us back to the spanish services, and asked me to share my testimony. we went back at 6:00, and there were a couple of families there that we were able to meet. we had the same services, but in spanish. they did have sunday school after that for about a half hour. it was pretty cool.

so the next morning we were finally able to get on our ferry. the seas still had some big swells, so they were handing out puke bags, and on the deck below us there were people taking turns puking into the garbage can. it was awesome. anywho, we made it back to the mainland, and drove all day and finally reached home at about midnight last night. we had a good time, and it was fun to get to know alicia and mike better. i went to pick up the girls this morning at my mom's house, and when i got there the girls looked at me, then went right back to doing whatever they were doing before. i asked annie if she missed me, she said "nope". well, at least it's nice to know i was missed while i was gone.