The sun sets on this vacation! in Vacations 2015

Note: Written early this morning, saved as a draft so I could finish it when I got home).

It’s 5:49 a.m. and I’m ready to go. Michael and I agreed we’d each get up around 6:00 with a goal of hitting the road to go home, by 7:00. Whenever we are on vacation, when it’s the day to go home, we just want to get out of here and do it. We could have had breakfast and sat out on the deck getting a last hour or two watching the waves come in, but we don’t know how to relax when we know we have to get up and go soon. And if we have to go home, well, we just want to get there.

Anyway I slept really well and woke up right before 5:00 a.m. feeling wide awake, so here I am, ready to go. Showered, make up on, dressed, all my stuff packed, linens stripped off the bed and placed in the laundry room as requested by the owners. Last night we cleaned out the refrigerator and took out all the trash.

I don’t have much time to write, because Michael will get up any minute and then I’ll be distracted. I don’t write well when I’m distracted (which assumes I write well when I’m not distracted!). But I couldn’t resist writing one more entry from my table here at the beach house, watching and listening to the waves. I’m pretty sure I will just save this entry as “private” and finish it up tonight when I’m at home.

It was a really good week. I’d love to stay longer but since I can’t, I’m ready to go home. The craziness for the month of May is just beginning. I heard from my kitchen project manager yesterday – they’ve pulled up all the floors and he warned me to be careful because the base floor is rough. The kitchen cabinet has been sent out for repairs. He said the flooring is scheduled to be one on Tuesday and the counter tops next Saturday. So we’re moving along! Meanwhile I have nine work days left before we head for Iceland. I hardly feel ready for that at all. Then when we get home, the very next day, I go get Josie. It all feels a little bit overwhelming right now but I know all I have to do is take one day at a time.

We went out to dinner on Thursday night to Ona for an early birthday celebration for Michael, seeing as how I’m leaving for Iceland on his actual birthday. Ona is our favorite restaurant here and it did not disappoint. The oyster shooters are just fabulous. We each had a fancy cocktail which definitely gave us a bit of a buzz to get the evening started. The food was fabulous, as always. I had the Mixed Grill of Oregon Seafood, and Michael had the sole. Here is a picture of our fancy drinks:

And the oyster shooters. I don’t know what was in the cocktail sauce in the shooter but it sure was good.

SATURDAY LATE AFTERNOON:

Home now. Exhausted, of course. But it hasn’t been a bad day. We hit a LOT of traffic in various places on the way home but we didn’t make bad time. We were really surprised though, how bad the traffic was all through our local area. I guess with it being a Saturday, and Mother’s Day weekend, and a gorgeous day, everyone is out. Gah. I wish they’d all stay home when I’m trying to get somewhere!

I’m out on the balcony now. It’s really warm outside. I’m enjoying sitting at my new painted table, with my umbrella up. I have some laundry going and I’ve mostly unpacked but things still feel very disorganized. Well I can only do so much in one day, right?

My head is spinning with things I want to write about. I’ll have to just save most of it. I took some videos of the ocean, and pictures of the beach house that I’d like to share, but they will wait until another day when I’m struggling to come up with something to write about. Meanwhile I’ll try to finish out an official vacation entry.

Friday was a bit of a lost day for us. Neither of us was feeling great. I don’t know if we overdid it the night before at Michael’s birthday celebration dinner, or what. We did each have an exotic, strong fancy cocktail but it usually takes more than that to do us in. We just both felt listless and low energy. I hated “wasting” our last day like that but, it is what it is. Rather, it was what it was. We sat out on the deck and watched the waves and just talked. We were rewarded by seeing some whales offshore. We ordered dinner from our favorite restaurant, Luna Sea. Remember I said it’s a little hole in the wall that most people wouldn’t think of for a nice dinner, but it was the best meal we’d had all week? Here is what it looks like.

Told ya!
After dinner we started cleaning things up – packing up all the personal items we had scattered throughout the house during the course of the week, including the two gifts I’d bought for myself. Then we watched the sunset – “the sun setting on our vacation” is what we called it. It didn’t let us down.

This is how we saw it when we were still inside, cleaning up . We rushed out onto the deck to enjoy it more fully, but this picture really ended up being the best one.

I spent several afternoons doing my Paint by Number out on the deck. Honestly, that brought me so much pleasure, I could do it every day. I’d actually like to be working on it here on my balcony right now, but I’m being pulled in too many different directions to focus on it.

When I got home, my house was a mess. I knew they had started tearing up the floors and that the kitchen cabinet had been hauled out for repairs. There is dust on EVERYTHING. On the one hand, it’s pointless to try to clean right now but on the other hand, you can’t just walk through piles of dust on your hall floor or see thick dust on your living room end table and coffee table when you (I) have to live here. At least the work is started. I’ll share pictures soon.

In other much more exciting news, remember when I wrote about Addison starting his swim lessons a week ago? He had 6 lessons in all, and he totally cried all the way through the first two. Even if a child nearby splashed water on his face, he cried. Well, look how it ended up by the end of the classes!

So, I could keep rambling or I can just call this an entry and be done with it. Which right now, sounds pretty good to me. I’d like to go get a shower, and keep reading “Wild”, the book I stumbled across at the beach house and have been enjoying. Coincidentally, my friend Koop has a daughter who is currently hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and she’s keeping a fabulous blog. Reading her blog and this book at the same time makes both of them very real.

I’m done for now. More to come. Seriously. Love you guys. Ciao!