On any other day, you can’t get the kids up and moving to save your life, but this morning at 3:30 am, Patrick sprang out of bed and even the normally slow-to-rise Emily was up with a minimal amount of cajoling. They were excited beyond belief.

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Emily’s gone away to a 4-day summer camp with the Girl Scouts near Calaveras Big Tree. Here’s the email-letter she sent home. Before she left home, Emily made Lisa and I both write her a note and then kiss the paper below the note in a circle. This is the “paper” that she refers to (and that she’s holding in the photo.

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What an incredible day we had today! Two last-minute dives were an unexpected treat. Last night at dinner I realized that our flight was more than 24 hours away and I could dive again today. As for Lisa, she was dived out. Too bad: she missed a doozy.

As Lisa and the kids slept, Jojo the dolphin, a local regular, paid a surprise visit to

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Here are a few shot’s from our December vacation to Wickenburg, Arizona and a dude ranch which turned into a chilly vacation filled with food, golf and horseback riding.

We made the most of our trip to Arizona. Disappointing was the initial …

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Acapulco is beautiful! Pulling into the bay with the high cliffs on both sides of the ship was breathtaking. If you have the means, I highly recommend it (Buehler.) Our stay here was brief, but fun-filled. We disembarked (I’m learning nautical terms) at about 1:30 p.m. After making the mistake of walking to the Royal Plaza Hotel (We were told it was about a mile and a half, but it turned out to be about 3 and a half,) we spent the afternoon relaxing on a padded beach “couch” (for lack of a better word) on a crowded but beautiful beach.

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Our second full day at sea today, and you’d think we’d be bored. That’s not the case. The kids are enthralled with the pools and the waves in it that the ship makes when it rolls from side to side.

But Emily and Patrick’s favorite parts of this vacation so far were before we even got on the cruise ship. Patrick most enjoyed the airplane flight to San Diego. Emily’s favorite? Going to

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