Our Apartment

Well, we never got around to shooting a video of our new place in SF and after we cleaned house in preparation for my Aunt Karen & Uncle Irv's arrival, we decided to shoot a video.

Our Anniversary Trip

We had such an amazing first anniversary! After much planning, we were unable to load all of the camping gear on the motorcycle so we decided to do day trips to Marin from our apartment for the first half of the trip & then we headed down south along the coast for the rest of the week.


Saturday afternoon, Dec. 22nd we headed south to the LaRoccas, where the dogs would be spending their vacation with Scott, Michelle, their three kids, their dog & two cats. After spending the night with them and saying goodbye to the girls we headed back towards SF along highway one.

We stopped in Santa Cruz for lunch (such a cute town) and saw the beautiful Natural bridges.



On the way home, we stopped at a lighthouse (one of many for the trip).

Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday we took day trips into Marin. It is SO gorgeous there! We can't believe it's just right over the bridge. We rode along highway one & the panoramic highway. We relaxed in cafes, had lattes and read our books. We saw tons of deer, cows & vultures.

The first morning we stopped in Sausalito and saw a man balancing rocks!

Here is the view of SF from the Marin Headlands:

The Panoramic Highway:

Love this sign:

Josh surprised me on a porch swing in the cute town of Olema with my anniversary present (a matching wedding band)!!
Out at the lighthouse in Point Reyes:


The roads around Muir Woods:

Alpine Lake:

I almost started a stampede:

One of the cute, little cafes we hung out at:

Deer were everywhere!

On Friday we headed down to San Luis Obispo and spent the night there. On Saturday we headed down to Pismo Beach, had some amazing crepes & went to see the Monarch butterfly colony.


At first we did not notice all of the butterflies & it took looking through the telescope (as pictured below) for us to realize that those brown leaves are butterflies!


Then we headed down to Santa Barbara, drove through the hills & hung out on State Street. The next morning we woke up and drove around Lake Casitas.


We spent the night in the cute town of Cambria & had a fabulous dinner at Robin's. The next morning we went to Hearst Castle. Hearst used to refer to it as his ranch (trust us, this was no ranch).

Here is his indoor pool with inlaid gold tiles:

We saw the elephant seals! Check out their trucks! There was a lot of talking & some fighting too!

There were also quite a few newborn pups:

We had a fabulous lunch at Ragged Point Inn in Big Sur:

Big Sur:

We stayed at this awesome resort, Marina Dunes, where you needed to drive around in a golf cart (every guest got one) to preserve the dunes. They upgraded us to a suite & gave us a bottle of wine. We had an amazing dinner at Casanova, breakfast in bed & hour long massages!

Trip to the Wine Country

On Saturday we headed up to Sonoma with Danielle & Steve, who were visiting from San Diego. It was a beautiful, clear day. We stopped at the Golden Gate bridge and in Sausalito for brunch. Then we went to the Sonoma visitor center which had some cool modern art (like the blue plastic ball tree).



We hit some great wineries and found a fabulous Zinfandel at the Mayo family winery.

Our Visit to Carmel

This blog post is appearing three months later, but Josh's cousins just scanned the pictures to us (I dont know where our digital cameras were).

So back in July we went down to Carmel with the pups to visit Josh's first cousin Scott, his wife Michelle & their kids. We went to Cannery Row for wine tasting (yum). We went to Big Sur (breathtaking!!) & Pebble Peach (the 17 mile drive- beautiful!).

Here we're chilling at the Big Sur River Inn after a delicious lunch!

Here we are in front of the Bixby Creek Bridge on Highway 1 in Big Sur:

Here are Michelle, Scott & Josh on the 17 mile drive in Pebble Beach stopping to check out some deer:

If you come to visit for a little while, this is a must see stop (Pebble beach is about 3 hours & Big Sur is about 4 hours away).

Family Reunion in Atlanta

Well we are just the traveling fools :). This past weekend we went to Atlanta to visit my family. We celebrated Anna's Bat Mitzvah (she wrote a beautiful speech & everyone cried).


There are a lot of girls in my family (you could say thats an understatement). Here's a picture of the 13 cousins:


We also celebrated my Grandma & Grandpa's 63rd wedding anniversary! Here are my sisters, Kari & Nina, with our Grandpa & Josh:


Here is my Grandma (on the right) with my great Aunt Margie:


Saturday night at Alyssa & Marty's was a lot of fun because they have a lot of toys to play with...here are just a couple:


But of course the best was just hanging out all together. Josh & I stayed at my sister Nina & her boyfriend Max's apartment along with my new step sister Audrey & my sister Kari & her husband Ami.

Max is a big fan of threadless shirts too:

Here are Nina & Audrey:


Heres my Mom & Larry:

Josh & his biggest fan:


My favorite picture (Erin, Josh, Kaylin & Maya)

Staying in a Yurt

Last weekend for Josh's 30th birthday we traveled by plane, car & ferry to see Leigh & Deb in the middle of nowhere outside of Port Townsend which is way outside of Seattle. We had a blast!! They live in a yurt; yes, a yurt with a separate bathhouse and an outhouse (that is so Roman with the two toilettes next to each other facing the woods- its a 3 walled structure). Deb made us pizzas and we drank champagne and caught up. Saturday Leigh made us Belgium waffles with strawberries and homemade whipped cream, had a couple of lattes and headed into P.T. Had some beers and apps along the water and strolled around, went out for tapas for dinner & had a dance party on our return. Sunday we had eggs, potatoes & toast and headed out. Their yurt is cool and their cats are sweet. We got to hear the coyotes and about Leigh's encounter with a huge boy sized raccoon while we slept, but I didnt see any animals :( except for Raja & Igor!

Josh & Leigh trying to knock over some wooden pins.
The famous car shot!
Breakfast time in the yurt.
Hanging out in P.T.
Saying goodbye :(

Catch Up Time!

Well, things here have been pretty crazy! We moved downstairs in what should be our apartment, decided to look for a new apartment, found one (YAY) after many craig's list browsing nights, appointments and open houses.

Plus, I now have two nanny jobs to keep me busy for the summer. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I will be watching a 6 month old all day (she is SO cute) and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons and evenings I will be watching twin 3 year old boys.

We are off to High Sierra for the weekend (a music festival in Quincy, CA)!! We are psyched! http://www.highsierramusic.com/

We'll post more on our return...