One Stop Shop

One of the many reasons we like living in the Bay Area is that we live so close to such a big city. San Francisco is like a tourist's buffet. There is no better example of this than our travels to the beautiful Golden Gate park this weekend. It is the Costco of all parks, a one stop shop! We were only at the park for approximately four hours but saw the following in that short amount of time. First we visited the De Young museum and discovered ancient african artifacts, early american furniture, sculptures, and modern art to name a few. (One of our favorites was the glass sculpture of a woman who when captured with light is illuminating; pictured below.) Next we went to the Japanese tea garden. It should be no surprise to anyone that we were too cheap to pay to go inside. We felt a picture in front of it would suffice.
On our way to the windmills, we couldnt help but stop and smell the roses, literally, the rose garden was beautiful. As Matt might try to claim, he wanted to see the windmill to honor his dutch heritage. The fact of the matter was that it was free and perhaps a good photo opportunity. We showed up just in time to watch this couple get married. Our day wouldnt be complete without a trip to the beach! A good 80% of the park is still unexplored. We cant blame you if you want to visit, our door is always open!

4th of July!!!

Matt and I had the opportunity to house sit for the wonderful woman I work for while she was out of town. It was perfect timing because Matt had two days off work and we dont have air conditioning to survive the 100 degree weather. We stayed 10 days and were able to celebrate the 4th as we should... with a barbeque, pool, fireworks, and family. Here are some pics of our weekend!Barbeque man with a Beard
Helens backyard and our paradise for the week.

A pic of the moon and stars before the big show.A dragonfly firework. We were excited (or should I say Matt was super excited)to take pictures of the fireworks with our new camera.

Weekend Without my Wife

This weekend marked the longest time I have ever been away from my wifey. Initially, I thought, if my wife is gone I get to lounge around and do whatever I want. It wasnt much later that I realized how different my life is without my wife. For example: the most complicated meal I prepared this past weekend was a tuna fish sandwich, followed closely by cereal. I realized how difficult it was to be motivated to wake up when you dont have that special someone to spend the rest of the day with. In addition, I got a flash back to what it is like to be single and go to church by yourself. How single people remain happy is impressive to me, after only three days without her. So you might think that I wallowed in my own pathetic lonliness this past weekend, but whether it was at the urging of my wife or not, I did receive company from Corinne's cousins, and my friends, Brandon and Marie Miller (as shown in the photo below). Our journey began with a car drive through Marin county toward the tip of Drakes Bay. While the picture captures some of the beauty of the surrounding area, it doesnt capture the 40 mph winds that threatened to rip the shirt off my back and carry me back to Lafayette.
Following our travels in that area and a quick stop along a beach, we made our way to the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. Its on trips like this to historical landmarks that foreigners seem to appreciate our beauty more than our own natives.

To finish up my weekend alone and anticipating my wifes arrival at the Oakland airport I made a quick stop to the Oakland temple (a.k.a. my wife's workplace).

Photo Shoot

Yesterday Matt and I drove down the road to Mt. Diablo State Park. It was a beautiful day so we got a little dressed up, and took some pictures with our new tripod from Matt's dad. (Thank you so much, we love it!) Here are some of our favorites. Click to enlarge.

Sunday Stroll

This morning was spent strolling the beautiful cities of Lafayette and Moraga. We love our little town, especially when we go to "our park" and swing on the tree swing. Today we brought the camera with us so Matt can try out some new techniques. Here are the updates.
Enjoying the swing.



Artistic

I look like a ghost
Grizzly Adams does have a beard
Serenity

Garden Growth

Just thought I would give a quick update on the growth of our garden. Not that it is exciting to anyone but me or Matthew, but it is exciting to me and Matthew so here are a few pics. The first two are of our one stalk of corn and our other veggies (we forgot what we planted where...I guess we will be surprised). The third is from a couple weeks ago. You can see the small little stalk just poking out.

The One for Victoria

Yesterday I went to a bridal shower for a great girl I visit teach. I had the chance to do some of the food so I decided to make a fruit pizza, these wonderful concoctions called cheesecake lollipops, and the traditional Miller punch. Browsing the internet looking for recipes I came across the blog of a woman from my ward back home. I told Matt I want to be like her. He asked why? and I said, "Because she is good at everything!" Really, she is. Piano, Cooking, Photography, Composing/recording music, you name it. Anyways, on her blog she had a recipe for a fruit pizza. I tried it, and it was the big hit of the bridal shower! I got so many compliments on it, and the orange glaze on top was just perfect. Thanks Victoria! I hope its ok that I share your recipe, because everyone asked for it.
Fruit before the storm. It just looked so pretty I had to take a picture. I wish I had a better picture. This doesnt do it justice. Cheesecake bites of heaven.

Oregon/Washington Expedition

One year!!!! We did it!!! Matthew and I have reached our one year anniversary and to celebrate we drove up to Oregon and Washington. We never realized how many trees there are in the North West until we drove 2,000 miles in 4 days. We left Saturday morning and reached Portland Saturday night, celebrated at Macaroni Grill and toured the city. Sunday we went to Multnomah falls and took hundreds of pictures of the beauty surrounding us. Then we drove up to Washington, and saw what it had to offer.... more trees! Our night finished in Portland at a Thai restaurant. Our favorite! While we were finishing up, Nick called from Texas! We were lucky enough to get to hear from him even though we werent at home in Southern California with my mom. He is doing great and sounding happy!! We went back to the hotel and had a toast with sparkling cider to many more years of love and friendship, and whatever the future has in store for us. Monday we drove up the coast of Oregon and were able to see the beautiful cliffs and a light house along the shoreline. We ended up in Chehalis, WA to say hi to Matt's family and enjoy some more trees. It was a great trip full of lots of driving, lots of trees, and lots of pictures!

Here are a few things we learned while on our trip:

90% of the population of Oregon is overweight. (Or so it seems) We think they should do a "Biggest Loser- Oregon"
The Lewis and Clark trail somehow encompasses every inch of Oregon and Washington. (Or so it seems)
No matter how short your destination is, you are bound to cross at least one bridge. If they were to charge a maximum toll of $0.25, we would be broke!
"Twilight" wasnt actually filmed in the small town of Forks, WA. It was filmed in Oregon.
Based off reasearch published by NASA, there are approximately 61 trees for every person in the world. For every person in Oregon, it is a different story, there are well over 3,000 per person.

Briones Drive

About a week ago, Matt and I went on a drive around our home. It was a rainy day and we had just received our camera in the mail. We were tired of being inside and anxious to try out the camera. Along the way we found some beautiful scenery and some farm animals.


Hundreds of cows scattered the hillside.

Ostriches lined the road.

I fell in love with a beautiful white dog.

The llamas were soaking wet.

And a beautiful black bird flew into our view of the hills.

All in all, it was a peaceful drive out in the "country".

New Camera!!!

Matthew's pride and joy is our new camera. The Cannon EOS 40D. Instead of reading a book at night, he reads the camera manual and trys out his newly aquired skills. He is pretty cute when he is excited. We were able to take it on our trip to Oregon and Washington so it has already had a lot of use.