July on fly

July

O Canada!
Remember how Erica won the showcase showdown on The Price is Right? Well, how could you forget! One of the prizes was a trip to Ottawa Canada and she took me, how lucky am I !?!

In DC we went to the Eastern Market and ate some awesome Italian food at Acqua Al 2 which we learned is a restaurant in Florence and there is also one in San Diego. It was so hot and muggy that we decided some time indoors would be a nice relief, so we went and saw the movie Brave in 3D. We also wondered around the Mall where there was some kind of sustainable faire/event with colleges demonstrating different tools/techniques/lifestyles for sustainable living.

In Ottawa we had an awesome room overlooking the city. We spent most of our time walking around and touring local historic sites. We had two tours of Parliament, as well as the Peace Tower in the main block. We also went to The Currency Museum Bank of Canada, National Gallery of Canada, The Royal Canadian Mint, walked along the Rideau Canal, watched a few boats travel through the historic locks (portions of it since the whole trip is 2 hours through all 6 locks),  watched the Parliament light show Mosaika, did a double -decker bus tour, toured Rideau Hall where the Governor General resides and works, saw the changing of the guard, walked past the Prime Minister's estate peering in the fence line to catch a glimpse of anything, went to a Latin night club and danced, wandered the Byward Market many times buying fresh fruit and other wares, visited the Ornamental Gardens, got massages, and spent some time by the pool at our hotel. I'm sure we did other stuff that I'm forgetting, but that's a good enough list for now.

I pretty much travel for food. If I can go somewhere and try something totally unique or just an excellent variety or recipe I will. So it's no wonder that I have just as many pictures of food as I do of "sights". For me, food is the one sight I can't get enough of!

ESRI
I have the opportunity to go to a wonderful conference for a whole week in San Diego, not too shabby eh! It's pretty much the only training I get to go to so I take full advantage of the technical workshops and hands-on demos. Here are some pictures of the people I hung with and the random sights and food. My flight was at 6:00am out of Monterey, so I got to see the sun rise over a blanket of fog/clouds which was pretty awesome.

Flock of Seagulls
"And I ran, ran so far away, I just ran, I ran all night and day, I couldn't get away" from the plane fast enough to make the drive up to Santa Cruz for a free concert featuring Animotion and Flock of Seagulls! Animotion was the opening set, which was pretty entertaining. It was a good night!  You can see the horrible ugly gray clouds in the second picture, that's Monterey/Marina...big difference in weather from sunny Santa Cruz...so weird since we share the bay!

Dad's Birthday Weekend
We celebrated my Dad's birthday a few days early. We went to Boomers and mini golfed...at least until we were flooded out. We also rode the Karts around until the park closed. Lots of fun!

Almost all caught up!

June in the afternoon

June

D.C.
As promised, here are the pictures from the end of the road trip in D.C. This was the first time Brad and I had been there at the same time. It was raining and warm the first day but we still had fun. We saw the Federal bureau or Printing and Engraving, Postal Museum, the Capitol, Library of Congress, American History Museum, Natural History Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

We also saw this guy walk into and use the women's restroom near Washington Monument.

One place I always try to go while I'm in DC is Georgetown cupcakes. YUM! I also have an obsession with Deli/Bakeries, especially French or Italian inspired, so we found a cute little deli/bakery to eat lunch.

Rodeo Weekend
One of the best event to kick off the summer! I look forward to the Livermore rodeo every year, it's a tradition!

Betcha didn't know cowboys can cartwheel...off bulls!

or that bulls come back for revenge...

or that a 4 year old can sleep through the hootin'n'hollerin, clapping, cow wrestling, music playing craziness of a rodeo! He's so cute with his little wranglers!

or that everyone drinks out of and knows the words to "red solo cup" and sings in unison when prompted by the rodeo clown.

All in all, it was a good day at the rodeo, even if the cowboys couldn't stay on their bulls/horses or rope the cows/calves in the numbers that they usually do.

The rest of June we celebrated Father's Day each with our own fathers. Brad was in Utah running the Ragnar and I was with my parents moving most of our stuff into our new house. We then spent the rest of June unpacking and getting situated. Then I left for D.C again for a visit with Erica and our trip to Canada.

Home Sweet Home

We finally hung some pictures up and have things a bit more organized, so here are a few more pictures of the inside of the house.

First we have the guest bathroom and guest bedroom.

Here's the living room from upstairs looking down and from the main level.

The hardwood area is supposed to be the dining room, but since we don't have a dining table yet, it's kind of just there not functioning as anything in particular. You can also see the front door, which basically separates the living room from dining room.

The master bedroom is nice and spacious. You can't see the armoire, but it's on the right wall next to where I took the picture. There's also a shower, vanity, toilet and large closet, but those aren't really important to show.

This is the hallway from the Master bedroom to the guest bedroom. Fun huh?

Last but not least...our Dave Matthews Band shrine...opps! I mean our family room that happens to appear as a shrine to DMB. 

The kitchen is kind of a mess today since I was baking this afternoon, so maybe another day I'll post pictures of the kitchen. Here's a picture of what I made...

Yum! Strawberry hand pies and some dough scraps with extra drippings, I think tonight dessert should come before dinner.

May is a time for play

I just can't seem to ever catch up despite my best efforts...

May

Mushrooms
It's like I can't make it a month or two without a random mushroom hunting trip. Found a few, it was exciting. I really need to look into more recipes to start using our stock pile of dried mushrooms.

Lighthouse
Did you know there was a "SUPER MOON" the first weekend of May? We did, and we took full advantage of it by going on a moonlit tour of the Point Sur lighthouse. It was pretty cool. I think lighthouses in general are pretty neat especially the history surrounding the structures and the keepers that lived there. I would highly recommend the lighthouse tour to anyone in the area, it's worth it.

Mother's Day
We went to my parent's house and spent the weekend with my Mom. We saw The Avengers and went out to dinner. Had a good time just talking and hanging out. We also got a whole family picture which hasn't happened in quite some time. It's not the best picture, but maybe we'll get another opportunity soon.

Garden
We haven't really been doing the garden thing as much as we did last year. But we have had a few things sprout this year. Our strawberry plants came back on their own as well as our garlic. AND, back a few months we had planted a few potatoes which had started sprouting and they actually grew into plants and produced new potatoes. Yum!

Goodbye Erica
One of my very best friends, who also happens to be a coworker is leaving Monterey for a job in Washington D.C.! Doesn't she know how FAR that is from here??? Needless to say I was/am distraught over her decision to leave and be closer to her family. Yes, it's selfish of me, but she's my family now too, she's practically been adopted into my family at holidays and random gatherings through the year. We will ALL miss her! We had a going away party at her apartment and at work.

Road Trip
One good thing (if I can be so bold to say there's a good thing) about Erica leaving, was we got to go on one awesome cross-country road trip! We covered 15 states in 9 days! I have never spent so much time in a car in my life! We didn't stop much but we certainly saw a lot. We both visited family along the way which was fun to see/meet relatives we haven't seen in a long time. We hit a few snow storms, went to a hot spring, saw Mount Rushmore, visited Notre Dame and a myriad of other places. The whole trip there were only three major casualties, my sunglasses snapped in half a couple days into it, I hit a bird while driving somewhere across Wyoming or Minnesota one of those states we just drove through and didn't really stop, and when we finally made it to Pennsylvania we were on the hunt for Amish when a construction truck decided to release some cargo and put a nice big chip in the windshield. I tried my first tri-tater in PA, it was good, pretty much a large triangular tater-tot. We took quite a few pictures, far too many to put here, but here's a smattering of my favorites.

In one of the grandest and sweetest/romantic gestures Brad has made during our marriage he flew across the country to meet me in DC and spent a couple days exploring the City. I'll leave those picture for the next post since that was technically June by then.