On the road again - SF to Oceanside, June 29, 2009

So - we're doing it again - driving to Akumal with the four beachmutts.

We started getting ready for the big adventure - have a house/pet sitter staying with Maya and Miska while we are gone (thanks Coby!) Took all four dogs to the vet together and got their health certificates and current rabies certs - thanks Dr. Dave! And then loaded up the CRV with all of the essentials, including a set of dishes for the condo (hey, c'mon, they're really cute and they are blue and green and yellow and have seashells, sailboats and nautical themes on them!) We were taking some stuff down to Oceanside for the girls too so the car was packed to the brim - poor Vina's head was only about a foot from the ceiling! No worries, it won't be that packed and full when we go to Mexico!

We left San Francisco on Monday, June 29th and drove to Oceanside, CA to spend three weeks at my brother, Rod's, house with his wife Nicky and their three daughters - Eliza, age 9, Isabelle, who will be 7 at the end of August, and Victoria, who is 18 months. We were niece-sitting while Rod's work was in shutdown. We had a great time and it went by wayyyyy too fast! There was a whole list of things that I wanted to do with the girls and places to go and we didn't get to half of them but that's they good part about vacations - when you leave you want to go back! We'll be stopping back in December on our way home. We spent our days playing with the dogs, who loved running around the yard and basking in the sun... and the girls and their friends and I spent a lot of time swimming in the pool... and shopping til we dropped at Target and Walmart... we even rescued a wayward lovebird that was flying around the yard, eating with the wild birds. We went to PetSmart, bought a cage, put some food in it, and he walked right in, sat right down and started eating and I just closed the door - he's been living happily ever after since! His name is Lucky Tweet and he is very sweet and loves to tweet at you when you whistle or talk to him. The girls spent a lot of time teaching the dogs tricks and doing training with them and of course, the dogs loved getting all of the extra love, attention and TREATS! This is their idea of Disneyland - the happiest place on Earth!