We managed to sneak in one more low tide on the first day of the month (Saturday) and then celebrated Ukrainian Easter with a nice morning brunch. I think my favorite parts were the beets, horseradish and (or course) the homemade paska (thank you Ayano, Diane, and Aunt Elsie – teamwork yeah!).

We then stocked up on some food because we went for our second vaccination on Cinco de Mayo (5th). And like our on our last trip coming back from the hospital (an hour away), we stopped at Lago Santa Margarita Park for a walk around the lake. This time we were awarded with seeing a bunch of baby chicks going out for a swim with their mother. I have to admit that they were so cute that I ended up taking A LOT of pictures of them swimming around us along the edge of the lake. There were even a bunch of baby turtles… so who can resist not taking pictures of both of them together!

The next few days we were in no shape to go out or even get out of bed. We both had chills and high fevers until the 8th. It reminded me of The Bourne Legacy where Aaron Cross is viralled out in the Philippines. Man was I thirsty after! Anyway, when everything passed we just had to celebrate… and since we couldn’t go to a restaurant, we decided to buy some caviar with some decent Vodka and have a ‘Russian Fest’!

The following week we felt much better and flew off to Naples Florida for a week.

The purpose? House Hunting.

Unfortunately there is a nation wide shortage of new homes and the build out is a least 1½-2 years… if we’re lucky. Plus with all the bidding wars going on, prices just seemed outrageous and a lot can happen in 2 years. I also heard about people being on a waiting list for over a year after signing the contract and the developer came back to tell them that the price of the house went up 20-30% even under contract (with a small clause hidden amongst hundreds of pages allowing them to do that). Now that’s an eye opener. So rather than getting totally depressed, we switched gears to ‘short vacations mode’ and enjoyed getting down Marco’s Island most mornings for a walk along the beach or a swim in the ocean.

I brought the GoPro down and the first day out in the ocean I decided not to bring it. Of course that would be the day when we were a ways out that a pod of dolphins swam right up and around us. Ayano was first scared that it was a sharp, but instantly saw their happy smiles as they dove right under us. It was such a great experience and the next day (and every day afterwards) I made sure I had the GoPro with us in the water. But, you guessed it… they never came back $*#&$@.

Still I got some good shots of a pelicans diving in for fish all around us and the water temperature was beautiful!

Okay a week later we were back home and back to reality. So we started looking at a new home sight in Washington state (again). But we just couldn’t justify the cost to finding anything that is better than where we live now. So the search continues. In the meantime we will just keeping enjoying Yorba Linda and the surrounding area.

The month finished off with my brother’s 35th wedding anniversary, a super moon, and another few days of low tides at Newport Beach which resulted in me finally retiring my running shoes. Boo hoo!