Another fun day in Cali :) We toured wine country first, and stopped for a delicious lunch at a fun little spot in Sonoma:

Saw some little snowmen building a giant snowman, complete with an SF Giants cap :)
Hiding out with the snowmen:
Nice walk along the beach in Marin County:
Obligatory stop at Ghirardelli as we were passing through the city:
And of course we couldn't leave without splitting a sundae!
I was taking a close-up picture of the tree in Ghirardelli Square, and guess who popped into the picture?
Self-portrait in a Christmas ball :)
The city is beautiful when all of the buildings in the skyline are outlined in Christmas lights! I took this from the car as we were driving down Embarcadero on our way home...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We had a great time with Laura at the Cal vs. Huskies football game today, especially when the sun came out and we got a nice break from the drizzle:


See, there were even blue skies during part of the game:
And here we are this evening, out at a local pub (yes, that's a Pictionary board in front of us):

We miss you all and can't wait to see you for Christmas!!

Hi ya'll,

Scenes from Snowvember and my lovely snow day, just to gloat even a bit more.

Above is the scene from the bedroom window. The road's not covered yet, but I bet it'll be icy tonight. Temps are supposed to drop into the teens.

Backyard.


Poor Blueberry! All covered in snow.

Happy winter everyone!

UPDATE:

Here's what Blueberry looked like at 4PM, when I went out to clean her off for the night. The snow is sticking to the roads now! We probably have an inch or so, and are supposed to get 1-2 more overnight.

Here's a couple pictures of the cake Amanda made for the church's 40th Anniversary. It turned out really good!! Everyone at church loved it, and were impressed with Amanda's cake decorating skills!! Though I did help out a little!! ;)


The tables were decorated with potted chrysanthemums, so that's the flowers they wanted on the cake. The top layer was vanilla with chocolate chips, the second layer was all vanilla, and the bottom layer was chocolate. Yummm....

Ferry ride back to the states. Man, was the ride bumpy--but aren't we cute?!

Hi everyone!

A few pictures from our first day in Olympic National Park. Laura picked us right up from the airport and we drove down, across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, up to Port Angeles.


Laura was driving.


Pat hung on for dear life while we drove up to the top of Hurricane Ridge.


From the top you could see the peaks of the entire Olympic Mountain Range, including Mount Olympus. We hiked a trail that was a little off the beaten path, from nearby Obstruction Point towards Maiden Peak.


Despite the day being sunny and warm, there was snow along the trail.


Some of the trees looked like they were melting--we designated them the puddle trees.


A view of our trail as it snaked along the ridge. It was mostly secure, but some loose shale along the way made the long slide down the mountain somewhat intimidating. We went slowly.


The trail along the ridge.


A view of Badger Valley, kept guard by Tubby #1, a high alpine Olympic marmot that we found sunning himself along the way. He is perched on top of the rock outcropping in the foreground.


A view from our lunch spot.

We will post pictures from Day #2, Orca watching, once Pat has a chance to pull those pictures off of his camera.

Love you all!

I'm excited, the ornamental grass that we planted this Spring is "blooming". Seems funny to plant grass in the flower bed, but we really like it, and it gives some height to that area too!

Hi everyone--

Last weekend, Kris, Jeremy and I went out to the peninsula to relax and soak up some sun. The weather was a bit on the chilly side (upper 60s), but when the sun was out, it was lovely.

We camped next to a large, glacial lake named Lake Crescent. The water was crystal clear, and we got there in time the night before to catch sunset over the lake. This picture is from the next morning, with some low hanging clouds that cleared up just after breakfast.


The first day, we hiked in a few miles to fish along the Elwha, within Olympic Nat'l Park. The second day, we fished the Sol Duc--the bridge below is from the point where the North fork and South fork of the Sol Duc meet.

A hummingbird moth has been coming to our hanging basket outside the kitchen window. It's the first time I've seen one up close. He was very cooperative when I took these photos, you can even see his antennae curled up in the second picture.


He's soo cute!! Hopefully he keeps coming to visit! :)

Strawberry picking last weekend was a huge success--walked away with 12lb of ripe, organic, local berries at $1/lb ;-) Even though you can't tell in this picture, the local berries were super, deep red, and extra juicy. I may have a hard time going back to store-bought berries!



Gloria and I made some jam and canned about 5lbs each--made a dozen half pint containers. The color is just gorgeous--and I can't stop eating it.

Love you all! Glad everyone is home now and safe from all their travels.