HAPPY BDAY KEITH!

For Keith's birthday we decided to drive down to Big Sur National Park which we had heard is one of the most beautiful places on earth. It was about a two and a half hour drive down the coast from our place. Since we left at 4:00 pm it was too dark to see much of the view on the way down. I had planned for us to stay at the Big Sur Lodge in the park, but once we arrived the cabins looked a little too much like Scout Camp accommodations and it felt a little creepy to be so secluded in the woods without even a TV to distract us. We decided to go get some food and then look for somewhere to stay. We drove down the coast and found Rocky Point Restaurant on Highway 1 between Carmel and Big Sur. It was a fantastic restaurant up on a cliff above the ocean. They had lights illuminating the cliffs and the surf below. It was really beautiful. I didn't know just how beautiful it really was until I saw it in the daylight the next day. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera into the restaurant, so the only pics I have are from Keith's phone.

I had the Ocean Salad. It was light on the lettuce and heavy on the shrimp, crab and prawns. I think I ate my body weight in seafood and didn't even eat half of it.
Keith ordered the crab salad sandwhich that came with the world's BEST french fries. So good!
For dessert we had hot chocolate. I thought about bringing in the birthday cake I'd brought in tupperware and having them put a candle in it, but that seemed a little silly. :) Check out the Rocky Point Restaurant's website for some awesome pictures. http://www.rocky-point.com/

After dinner we started our search for a place to stay. It turned into a bit of a nightmare. We drove up and down the coast looking for somewhere decent to sleep. We got a local newspaper and read about our options. We read about a nice place called Post Ranch Inn. It sounded really nice so we drove to check it out. When we pulled into the entrance we saw a guard in a guard booth. He asked us if we had a reservation and we said we didn't but wanted to check it out. He looked really confused, like no one had ever said that to him before. He was very polite and offered us a beverage (!) and gave us directions to registration. We knew we were out of our league at this point, but Keith went inside to ask about rates. When he came back he handed me a brochure and with pictures and a write-up about the resort. The room rates ranged from $1300 to $500 a night. Keith said the girl at the front desk offered him an "introductory price" of $395. Nice, but still 4 times what we wanted to pay. Keith said that as he was leaving he heard one of the girls at the front desk say to the other that "sometimes the name Inn confuses people". I guess that was the case with us. :)

We decided to try something that looked more "in our price range", but that didn't really work out too well either. We read about a place that wasn't far from the "Inn" that had TV and movie rentals available. A movie sounded nice, so we went there. This place had little individual cabins right off the road (by "right off the road" I mean, 10 feet off the road). It looked a little iffy, but we decided we could handle it since we were so tired. Keith paid for a room and we went inside. Our "cabin" had paper-thin walls and it was colder inside than it was outside. I looked, but there was no heater. Across from the foot of the bed was what looked like an old style iron stove. When you opened the front panel you could see a fake fire inside; not the kind with fake wood with a propane flame, it was a picture of a fire on plastic sheet! Keith turned it on and the picture lit up and there was a fake crackling sound. We waited but no heat came out. It was just for visual effect! Unbelievable. :) Because of the lack of heat, no TV (I guess you rent it with the DVDs?) and the presence of ants, we got our money back and continued our search.

Keith suggested that we try and find a place back in Carmel (about 20 minutes back up the road). I am so glad he did. We found the Best Western Carmel Mission Inn and it was like heaven after the places we had seen earlier. The price was perfect and it was super nice. This was the turning point for the trip. We slept really well and were ready for some serious fun.

Big Sur Coastline

Now this is my kind of January! I don't think Keith has ever had a birthday party on the beach before.
This is the beautiful coastline in Carmel, CA. It was the perfect day.
This is the view from Highway 1 between Carmel and Big Sur. It was so pretty we had to stop and take some pictures. In fact, we took 171 pictures on our 2 day trip! :)

We really wanted to visit the Point Sur Lighthouse. It is way out from the coastline with an amazing view of the ocean and the perfect spot for whale watching.

Unfortunatley they only do tours on Saturdays and Sundays, so we didn't get to go. Next time we visit we'll be sure to go on the 3 hour tour.

Pfeiffer Falls

Keith and I went on a small hike to Pfeiffer Falls in the Big Sur state park. The redwood forest scenery was stunning.
This photo is a little blurry, but it gives a good perspective on how massive the redwood trees can be.This is a picture from the top of the hike looking over the National Park.

Pfeiffer falls was a little smaller than I'd expected, but really beautiful.

We almost didn't get to see the Falls because the trail was closed. We took the detour hike up to the falls which was about a half of a mile, but we decided to take the closed hike back since it was only .2 miles. On our way back we saw why the trail had been closed.

A huge tree had fallen and smashed the bridge over a small stream. We just climbed down off the path and walked across some logs over the stream.

Monterey Sunset

On our way home we stopped in Monterey to watch the sunset over the ocean. It was a beautiful, clear, warm night. The last time we were here was about 5 years ago when we spent Thanksgiving with Keith's aunt and uncle who were serving a mission in California. During our visit we drove down to Monterey with four friends of mine from Sweden who also happened to be visiting the same week. Coming back made me think of them.
Keith and I enjoyed walking on the beach and watching the sun set.
The sunset was spectacular!
This was a beautiful end to our birthday get-away.

THANKS MOM AND DAD!

Today I used my new KitchenAid that Mom and Dad gave me for Christmas for the first time. I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies to see how it would handle the load. I couldn't believe how easy it was! I'll never make them any other way. The cookie dough looked so good that I had to give it a try. It was fantastic. I needed a second opinion before I posted on my blog that I'd just made the world's best cookies in my new KitchenAid, so I found a volunteer to test them. I sweetened the deal a little bit and made an icecream sandwich with 2 of the cookies.
Keith gave the cookies two thumbs up.

Keith set up the TiVo this weekend. We completely love it. I love being able to watch my favorite shows anytime I want. We can do our own instant replay or pause the show if we need to. It's fantastic!

Here is our TiVo in its new home - in our new TV stand. (More pics to come soon of the furniture we bought this weekend. I'll show you everything once we have things set up and put together. It's all Ikea stuff, so it might take us a little while! :) )

Here's an example of what TiVo has saved for us so far. It's a funny mix of things. I'm going to go watch my newly saved episodes of Medium and What Not to Wear now.

Thanks again for the presents Mom and Dad! We love them!

Happy New Year!

We had a New Years Eve party at Joseph and Miriam's apartment. We rang in 2006 in style with pizza and ice cream. I also played, or rather, lost a rousing game of Pig Mania to Jacob.
We went out on the balcony at midnight and saw a few fireworks go off.
This is Jache and Victor, Joseph and Miriam's bird. Victor was our entertainment at the party. He's really fun.
Joseph and Victor.

Thanks to Jacob for providing all the pictures I'm posting today. I am really happy that he got a digital camera for Christmas and that he's such a good photographer! :)

Chillin' in NC

Keith and I had a great time in NC with his family. We did a lot of fun things on our vacation. Here are some pictures of my favorite things we did. This pic is of the family at dinner at our favorite NC restaurant, Texas Roadhouse Barbeque. Keith and I even had steaks. They were fantastic.














This is a great pic of Keith E playing pool. He's so much fun!

Below is a pic of family movie night in the home theater. We watched War of the Worlds. It was super intense. I thought the subwoofers were going to blow out. They almost knocked me out of my chair a few times during the movie. This was the perfect place to see this movie!

Geocaching

Sam, Jache and I went geocaching in NC at Cane Creek Park. Jache gave Sam a GPS device for Christmas, so we went to try it out. This was my first time geocaching and I had a lot of fun. The park was beautiful and I probably wouldn't have seen it otherwise.
Sam and I by the lake in the park.
Sam and Jache by the lake in the park.
Jache and Sam. I like Jache's engineer hat. It suits him. :)

The hat looks better on Jache than on me.

Treasure!

After some searching we, I mean Sam, found the geocache hidden in a tree stump. There were 3 caches hidden in the park. We found 2 of them.

The caches have log books were you can record and read about the people who have been there before you along with the "treasures" they've left behind. This bunny is my favorite one. There was also things like dice, yoyos, action figures, pop bottle tops and toys. I had a lot of fun.