A Friday Night Full of Sharks & Stingrays

In the city of Long Beach, on a cold fall Friday night, I got to enjoy the free Shark Lagoon at the Aquarium of the Pacific. It was a real treat to see the various kinds of sharks and stingrays from small to large. My favorite was the sawfish who's nose really looked like a saw! Lol! The stingrays took me back to a small island off the coast of Nicaragua called Little Corn. I spent my birthday there last year exploring the island and decided to take a boat ride out for a snorkeling trip. While snorkeling I saw an eagle ray stingray who appeared to be following me! Needless to say, I freaked out, took a couple of pictures, and swam back to the boat safely. The reason I freaked out was because I'd never seen a spotted stingray before and I didn't know their behavior patterns or if I was in danger until the boat captain educated me and I also googled it when I got home. I knew the regular gray stingrays weren't aggressive and they'll let you touch them as long as you don't mess with their tails. The close up of the black spotted eagle ray is a rushed photo of Little Corn's Spotty :-)

Enjoy the journey!

Chillin In Lake Arrowhead

It snowed last night in Lake Arrowhead!  There was already snow on the ground when I got here on Friday, but I was treated to a beautiful shower of snow late Saturday night.  Then I got a little concerned because I am not in a car that's snow ready nor do I have chains.  I'm hoping a snow plow comes by before I need to head back home in a of couple hours.

This weekend I got to sleep without waking up to an alarm clock, lounge around when I did get up, and I had absolutely nowhere to be and nothing to do!  Now that is what I call having a wonderful, relaxing weekend.  Just what I needed to come back ready to wrap up my year strong!

Enjoy the journey!

1st Cali Bike Tour with Robin's Crew!

Shoreline Park Lighthouse & Long Beach Museum of Art Bike Tour

What an afternoon of fun with Robin, Terri, Maribel and little Kiera! This is the start of something beautiful!!!

Prayers Answered

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray to God my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray to God my soul to take

For some reason the childhood prayer my mother taught me just came to mind and it felt good reminiscencing. :-) I'm not sure if it's correct, but for the most part that's how I remembered it.

As a child I had no real concept of God, Jesus, or prayers.  As a seasoned adult and Christian these have become very real to me and are an integral part of my life.  I am currently experiencing prayers being answered.  My longtime prayers being answered.  It's awesome when God shows out!  And it's amazing, and wonderful, and exciting, and scary all at the same time!  I've hesitated to run into it with all of me because it's been so long, how can it possibly be happening now?  For me?  Well, as I look around, there's only me standing in this position, so it must be for me.  Lol!  It's like things have been strategically placed, and all I have to do is reach out or look to the right, and everything I need is around me.  This is awesome and I refuse to walk in fear!  I just needed to remind myself that I have been prepared for this day and I plan to represent.

Enjoy the journey!

City Life!

I had a wonderful day! Partly because I worked from home (yay!), since Besty (my car) needed servicing, and the shop had to keep her all day. :-( She should be better now, I just need to pick her up. I dislike having to maintain my car, and this is just one more reason why I need a good, handy, helpful husband. :-) The main reason why my day was wonderful was because I got to go out for a bike ride at lunch! Now how cool is that on a work day? Especially on a beautiful, warm, sunny California day. Just lovely! This is what I'm talking about, the way of life I'm looking forward to transitioning into and enjoying on a daily basis. I'm ready to work in my city, near my home, where I can ride my bike to work, shopping, eating out, and playing. I already do 2 of the 4, now I'm ready to transform completely into a real green, sustainable lifestyle. I'm praying this will happen before 2010 ends and it's looking very possible with each passing day.

I went out for a ride for lunch to do some networking with the local resturants and attractions. I made it to about 6 restuarants and the Aquarium. I'll be getting 10-20% discounts at some of the restaurants, which is cool! Yay! And for some others I need to provide a letter about my company and the benefit for them partnering with me, and I guess they have to approve it. I need to follow up with the Aquarium because the Sales person wasn't available. I'll continue making my rounds of networking with the local businesses over the next couple weeks and anticipate having a hefty list of partners for my tours. Hopefully the more stronger relationships I build, I'll be able to get bigger discounts and some free services.

It felt soooo good being out and about in the afternoon in Long Beach! It was so beautiful, sunny, warm and the beach was just cool to ride along! I went home excited to finish up my work day so I could get back on my bike and enjoy some more of my day and the sunshine. I'd planned to do some more networking, but I just ended up riding to a print shop to inquire about printing t-shirt samples, and then headed to Belmont Shore to help out with the Biggest Losers weigh-ins. So far they have $46,000 in the prize pool and there is still 3 more weeks to go in the 12 week contest! Last year the prize was $5o,000, so it's looking like they may surpass that this year. Afterwards, I rolled back home with a smile on my face and a warm, joyful feeling in my spirit that I intend to hold on to. This is living and I plan to enjoy it all!

Enjoy the journey!

My 1st Long Beach Marathon Bike Tour!

The LBC!  I love my city!  Today I rode in my 1st Long Beach Marathon and it was fun!  I can't wait to hear the final count of participants.  They were expecting 25,000 runners and 3,000 cyclists.  They want to get the cyclists number up to 10,000 next year and I believe it will happen.

The bike tour route took me to places I hadn't experienced before in the city, which is good because I can incorporate them into my bike tours.  I was 15 minutes late to the starting line because I couldn't find the bike lock that I've only used once, and of course it was right next to my bike right.  Then I had to check my backpack because I was going to volunteer at the 3 mile water station after my ride and I needed dry clothes to change into.  Any hoots, I made it, but was behind all of the recreational riders which can be slow and dangerous.  I found a little middle-aged man who was rollin' and stayed behind him for a while.  I liked his maneuvering skills.  So he got me moving along through the pack.  Then I lost him and was rollin' on my own.  But I found another guy who was really rollin'!  I was hustling to keep up, but he got me through another group of cyclists.  Then he took off and I couldn't keep up and I'm glad I couldn't.  The next turn we made he ate it!  I would have been right behind him and probably would've fell over him or fell trying to avoid him.  His fall looked pretty bad, but he seemed to fall in control, if that makes sense.  I, on the other hand probably, would've wiped out several people in the process of going down!  Lol!  Thank God I couldn't hang with him.  He was able to recover quickly which leads me to believe he didn't get hurt to bad.  I hope he's ok.

After the tour I changed clothes and went to see how I could get back to the 3 mile water station. They were starting the 5K run, and the marathon runners were still on the route.  I couldn't get through to volunteer and I felt bad about that :-(  So, instead I watch the runners for a bit and headed out to get some crepes with strawberries on the way home.  We've had an overcast and light sprinkles all weekend, but I enjoyed my breakfast on the patio anyway.  It was delicious too!  Now since I've been up since 5:00am and I didn't get a good nights rest, I'm about to take a nap. Lol!

Enjoy the journey!