All Dressed Up...

On Saturday evening, we went to a Halloween Costume Party at our friend's Doug & Jen's house (Doug sang in our wedding). Last year we won one of the costume awards, so we knew we had to go big this year. We decided what would be better than to go to Doug & Jen's party dressed up as Doug & Jen themselves (you have to dress up as a pair/couple). We really studied the details from clothing and shoes, to accesories, and even the key phrases that they both use. When we walked in Doug's face was priceless. It took him a minute to figure out what was going on, and then he loved it! He immediately yelled for Jen to come outside to see us! And what do you know, we were voted again for Most Creative! The night was fun with lots of fun costumes & friends to enjoy...

Here we are as Doug & Jen before heading to the party...


Here are Dan & Kristan (Marc Anthony & Cleopatra), Doug & Jen (Kermit & Miss Piggy), & us!

Here is Jeff & Doug

And finally the whole group...You can see there were many awesome costumes including: Transformers, A Rabbi & Nun, Brad & Angelina, The tortoise & The Hare, Col. Mustard & Ms. Scarlet (from the clue game), and many others! It is amazing what people think of...we had so much fun!

And we are glad that Doug and Jen enjoyed seeing us as themselves. You know "Imitation is the biggest form of flattery!" Hope you enjoyed the pictures, leave a comment if you have a minute!

Scenic Afternoon

On Saturday, my Dad and Susan came down for a fun afternoon. We enjoyed lunch overlooking the Dana Point harbor and then went to our favorite beach spot to enjoy the scenery and take some photos (with Jeff as the tour guide!). Below are a few photos from the afternoon. It was a beautiful day and the water was awesome shades of aqua! This was also one of the spots that our engagement photos were taken at. There really is no such thing as a bad photo at this spot!

San Clemente Sunset

Last night we joined our friends, Wes & Jessica, for dinner at Fisherman's on the San Clemente pier. We picked the perfect night. The weather was mild, the sunset was AMAZING! The clouds and colors were stunning. See a few of my favorite pictures below...

October Wet Set

Last weekend we ventured out to Wet Set! We invited Jeff's parents, my mom & jack, my brother Corey, and we had 5 dogs with us! It was an interesting weekend. The weather was cold and windy on Saturday, but thankfully Sunday was beautiful! I think everyone enjoyed themselves (it is hard not to out at Wet Set)! Here are some pictures to share our weekend:

Me and my mom - hanging out on the dock!

My mom and Jeff's mom chatting on the dock:

Me and Jeff relaxing with a nice beverage!

All of us playing boche ball (not sure if that is how you spell it):

The pugs sitting pretty for a picture (had to bribe them with some treats)

Gretel, Hanzel, Bear, Angel:

Jeff and I enjoying some fishing - even though none were biting!

All the dogs (including Barkley - the only non-pug of the group):

Jeff practicing his swing (ask him about his attempts to swing one handed with a drink in hand!)
My brother braving the cold water and wakeboarding - he did a fabulous job and was getting air by the end of the weekend.

The entire group!

Thanks to everyone for a fun weekend! We are sure to have more pictures from our fun events this weekend! Love ya!

Feeling Fall & Festive

Okay, well I have to admit it doesn't really feel like fall here. The weather is still HOTTER than ever! I am ready for Fall though....ready for for some crisp weather, maybe a little rain too! So, I thought I would make our blog page a little more "fallish"! I actually figured out how to create my own backgrounds for our page now, hence the beautiful fall leaves. It was definately a learning process, but I messed up several times and finally figured it out! I hope you enjoy!

Today was an interesting experience, one I have never had before. I was actually stuck in my car! Upon arriving at work my seat belt would not let me out. I tried everything I could think of and even had a few employees look at it, and finally had to wiggle out from underneath my seat belt. Long story short I ended up having to wiggle back into the seat belt to take my car to the dealership and they had to take my seat off and replace the entire buckle. I was happy it was under warranty, but it truly was an odd experience not being able to get out of my car and having to do crazy moves to get in an out of my seatbelt. I'm sure a few people enjoyed watching me from a far wondering what the heck I was doing!

Check back soon for pictures and updates from our weekend!

It is over...

Well, it is finally that time where I can take a breath and relax a bit. For the last 12 years of my life I have been living in the "waterpark world schedule" - I dread summers and enjoy the school year time - usually quite opposite to many people around me (especially my teacher friends & family). When most people hear I run a waterpark they think it is the coolest job and immediately tell me what a fun job I have. Well, it is a fun job - but there is a lot more to it that most people think about. You won't be able to find me floating around the river, or sunbathing, or enjoying the slides - in fact I don't even think I have ridden all of the slides at my park. But they are right in the fact that a waterpark is a fun environment to work in (probably what has kept me going for 12 years) and it does have some unique advantages!

My job has 2 opposite extremes for me...I LOVE part of it and I HATE part of it. The work itself is enjoyable. I love training new employees, managing employees, making decisions, marketing, creating, making improvements to the park, managing the operating, and even dealing with the guests for the most part. It is truly a passion of mine and very rewarding. On the other hand, my job has a level of responsibility that I take very seriously that adds a tremendous amount of stress to my life during the summer - a level of responsibility that most people don't understand or can't relate to. I take responsibility for every single person's LIFE that comes into my park - which is over well over 100,000 guests. In the waterpark world this is an element of the unknown. I have to trust that my employees are trained enough to understand the seriousness of their job and will not take their eyes off of the water, and I have to understand that parents, counselors, and guardians (for the most part) do not understand the danger with water and rely on my staff to watch over their children. It is amazing how many parents are uneducated about drowing - that it only takes 30 seconds for a child to go unconscious and only 1 inch of water for a child to drown, not to mention dry drownings or delayed drownings. Parents blindly send their children to camp /daycare and the camp counselors (at a ratio of 1:10) have no intrest in watching their campers, but would rather sunbathe on the deck. This is the part of my job that seriously makes me reconsider my choice of profession every summer. I constantly ask myself, "Is it worth it to have so much responsibility for someone else's life". So much of how my life could be affected rests on the responsibility (or lack their of) of other people - my guards, my trainers, my supervisors, the parents, the children themselves. I know in my heart that God will not give me more than I can handle, but some days it feels like I am being pushed to my limits. It is a hard situation to deal with injuries, and not just the injury itself, but to deal with the fact that someone's "baby" has just been injured. I guess it is one thing to feel responsiblity for the well-being of your own child, but when the well-being of over 100,000 people is put on you it is extreme stress. It is the stress of not knowing what is going to happen next, will I be treating an injury, sending someone to the hospital on a backboard, will I be helping to pull a child out of the water unconscious, will I be performing AR / CPR on someone, will an adult suddenly have a heart attack at my facility, will an employee do something to hurt someone or themselves, will a guest decide to not follow the rules and seriously hurt themselves, will I have to call the parent of a child being airlifted to the hospital to tell them where their son is going, will I have to comfort a child whose brother was just sent to the hospital, will I have to wait 3 days to see if that child is going to be okay, will I receive a phone call on my day off that something has happened and I was not there, and if something did happen was it handled properly, and after something tramautic happens how are the employees mentally and emotionally.??? This is all a lot of pressure and part of it I put on myself because I know how things that happen at my facility can and will affect MY life for the rest of my life. I also know that part of the reason my facilities are so safe and do perform so well is because of this seriousness I have for my job - because I do care so much. I know that without me at the facility it would not be as safe or ran the way I do things, and by my efforts I save thousands of injuries and protect thousands of lifes...but I still ask myself "Is it worth it"? There is so much of it that is out of my control but in the end it is still my responsibility and will have an impact on my life...

So, as I sit here now with the 2008 season completed it feels good. Many of the above potential stresses were experienced this summer, but thankfully all seemed to work out well. I long for some relaxing normal months of less stress related work and planning for next season. To be asked the never ending question, "So, what do you do in the winter?" I can't say that I will always be able or willing to continue with the yearly summer stress that is involved with running a waterpark, but for now I know that the 2008 summer season was successful largely because of my efforts - for that I am proud!

For those of you who have never been to or seen my park - here are a few photos. Enjoy!

Leaving Comments just got easier!

Okay, so I made some changes to the comment options! I knew there had to be a way to make it simpler. Now you can comment without registering at all. Just click on the comments button below any post and type away. No need for an e-mail address or to set up a password! All I had to do was outsmart the computer settings :-) ! Well, hopefully you are enjoying our updates we would love to hear from you, and I think I just made that a whole lot easier! Lots of love!