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.

Christmas 2005

The family Christmas tree. Isn't it beautiful?
Sam, Jache, Joseph, Miriam, Tony, Brianne, Dena and Keith opening presents early on Christmas morning
Jache opening his present from Keith and I. I think he likes it. :)
Keith and Grandma Alma
Keith E in his Christmas apron.

Jacob and Ann on Christmas Eve
Ann in front of the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve
Miriam and Joseph
Miriam in front of the Christmas tree. Look at all those presents!
Dena and Grandma Alma

Keith and I had a great Christmas with his family. We decided to open gifts at midnight on Christmas Eve (which is *technically* Christmas morning) since Christmas day was going to be so busy and we wanted everyone to be together. So we opened presents from 12:30 am to 3:00 am on Christmas morning. It was unconventional, but lots of fun.