Hello, Monday {La Jolla Caves}

It's Monday & the sun is shining, and it was a lovely, windy weekend. But clouds and rain and chilly temps are due tomorrow, so winter -- even just our California winter -- isn't over yet.

(I don't know why I'm always giving you the weather report, except that my moods are easily swayed by what's going on in the sky. Are you the same?)

On Saturday, the husband and I were both a little restless, both a little bummed out by various trivial things -- an intense, draining work week for him, and for me, the irritation of some flaky behavior by people who (I assumed) should know better. Lack of common courtesy  gets me all fired up.  Also, our Friday night date plans fell through. Also, the husband's bid to buy Comic-Con tickets for us fell through -- they sold out in 10 minutes online, and he was shut out.

None of these events were terrible or life-altering or even all that bad; just an accumulation of the little blah & pissy moments of a long week. We needed a change of scenery & some fresh air.

 An hour's drive southwest took us to the seaside town of La Jolla, just north of San Diego. Our destination was a little shell shop that chiefly exists to sell tickets down into a sea-side cave.

145 steps...steep steps! Steep steps that become wet steps, about 2/3 of the way down.  It was very dark and old and dank and woody. 

Old, 1/2 working light fixture. 

Down, down we went. (Sometimes pausing to let others come back up.) I told the husband that it felt like we were on the set of "The Goonies."

And then, we were at the bottom, at the mouth of the cave.  There goes a kayaker. (Doesn't that opening look like a woman's profile?)

The water comes rushing in. The waves weren't that big, but it was scary to think how high they must get during a storm. 

Tucker always gets grumpy at the idea of leaving the house (and all of his electronic toys), but then gets so animated and excited when we're discovering something new. It was a fun little day trip. Now, it's back to the work week.

Hello, Monday holiday. Except that I'll be spending a few hours with my Odyssey team here at the house today, working on our skit. Regional competition is only 2 weeks away, and they are so not ready.

So Hello, stressful week. Odyssey is supposed to be completely kid-directed and I'm only there to guide them along. The rules state that I'm not supposed to provide ideas or help or even too many opinions. This is incredibly hard to do with 4 children who are not uh, the most motivated bunch. To put it mildly. 

But come back on Wednesday & I'll have more pictures of our La Jolla trip, after we climbed up out of the cave and into the sunshine of another perfect day.  I will likely need that reminder of ocean and fresh air and freedom to remind me that there is an end to the tunnel, and that the steep, uphill climb will all be worth it in the end. 

Riiiight.

Linking up with Lisa Leonard for Hello, Mondays.