Our vacation told through pictures (and a few words here and there)

After arriving in Sacramento we scooped up Rachel and her friend and headed up to a small town to see a Cake concert. I have been longing to see this band in concert since I was 16. I adore them and this was a dream come true. Here is a blurry picture of the lead singer.

Being the huge fan that I am, I waited patiently after the concert to see if the band would come out to sign autographs. I was one of the last people waiting when a good old boy police man named Reed made me his special project. Before I knew it, there was a swarm of policemen all trying to help me get my poster autographed. They were successful and I now have a Cake poster that has the lead singers autograph along with "Anna is great." It was the perfect ending to the night.

The next day we bummed around with Rachel and ended up on a beautiful hike. It was so good to get to catch up with a lifelong friend.

My factory obsession got the best of us and we ended up at the Jelly Belly candy factory on our way to San Fran. Grant wasn't too upset because he ended up with a sack full of sour jelly beans.

After candy it was time for wine. We found a great picnic spot outside of the Darioush winery. Yes, it is Persian owned and operated. With wine, cheese, and beautiful sunshine it was scarily perfect.

We hit a few more wineries the next day and took a tour of the Robert Mondavi winery. It was quite educational and ended with a tasting of all their reserve wines.

While in San Fran we bummed around and did everything from eating fish at Fisherman's Wharf to bike riding through Golden Gate Park. We rode to the beach and had another great picnic, this time by the ocean. We stayed with our college friends Mandi and Michael and man was it nice to see more friends.

Our trip ended as all good ones do...at the car dealership. Someone...cough Grant...left the inside car door light on for a couple of days and our battery bit the dust. After getting jumped, the radio would not function. We did not have the correct anti theft code. After 2 hours at the dealership we finally were able to get it working again. There was a fancy latte machine at the dealership, so I was taken care of.

This really was one of the best vacations we have taken. It was extremely relaxing and slow paced. It was just what the doctor (aka Grant) ordered.

Days 1-3

Day 1: Drove to Reno, stayed in shady hotel. No gambling this time, unless you count staying in shady hotels as gambling.

Day 2: Drove into Sacramento. The drive was beautiful. We took some videos along the way that we might post later (the internet connection at this coffee shop isn't the greatest so it would take forever right now). Once we got there, we met Rachel and one of her friends, and then drove up to Oroville to watch the Cake concert. Anna had a great time (Cake is her favorite band). The show was a benefit concert for some local volunteer fire department, and it was at the Oroville Municipal Auditorium, which was some old burnt-out gym that held only 1,000 people. Anna got a poster autographed by some members of the band and was very happy.

Day 3: We stayed at Rachel's apartment overnight, and got up Sunday and went on a hike in a really nice area about an hour away. Photos to come...

Day 4: Got up early since Rachel had to work, and now we're sitting at a coffee shop trying to decide what to do next. The choices are Jelly Belly factory or wine tours. At the moment, there is an old man sitting behind me who insists on speaking like Donald Duck (he says his name is Donald so that somehow justifies it??). It's hard to enjoy your morning coffee with an old duck behind you. Gotta go now. More updates later.


UPDATE: upon further review, it appears that the duck man also has a Donald Duck t-shirt and a Donald Duck necklace on. This is actually much worse than originally thought (and probably much more pathologic). We've gotta get out of here right now...this guy could flip his wig at any moment.

California trip

We're leaving this afternoon on our week-long trip to California (it's my first vacation week!). I put in a Google map below for everyone to see what we're doing...or at least what we think we're doing at this point. Our plan is to leave today and hope to make it to Reno, but we probably won't make it that far. We're going to be in Sacramento by Saturday afternoon, but we might stop by Lake Tahoe for a little while to play. We'll meet our friend Rachel in Sacramento, then go to a Cake concert in Oroville, CA. Then we'll go back to Sacramento and stay for a few days. After that, we're going to San Francisco, but on the way we're going to stop by Vacaville to visit our friend Scott. We will also stop by the Jelly Belly factory to eat some jelly beans. Then we'll play in San Francisco for a few days, and have fun with our friends who live there (Michael, Mandi, Christian, Tammy). Then we might spend some more time in the wine areas before driving home next weekend! Should be a fun trip, huh?



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Listen to the Pumpkin

This year I decided to send a message with my pumpkin carving..."GO VOTE." If you have been thinking about not voting because you are sick of hearing political analysts carry on and on, maybe the pumpkin can change your mind.

The other person in the photo is my friend Ashley who works with me at Ann Taylor Loft. After carving I took the pumpkin guts and made some killer roasted pumpkin seeds. Grant was leery, but I converted him to the way of the pumpkin seeds.

Here is a great YouTube video about not voting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vtHwWReGU0

New blog stuff

For you tech-savvy folks, there is now an RSS feed subscription tool on the left side of the page. I've included a video below to introduce you newbies to the beauty of RSS feeds.

Also, I didn't think this blog was quite depressing enough, so if you scroll down to the bottom of the page there is something to keep you all down in the dumps.

First snow

It snowed last night for the first time since we moved here. There was only about one inch here at the condo, but more like 3-4 inches at the hospital (which was where I happened to be from midnight to 7:00am this morning). My poor little Honda didn't know what to think. It's mostly melted now, but it's supposed to snow again tonight and get down to 31 degrees. This is a little bit different than October weather in Arkansas!

Vegas video blog

The video says it all...sorry for the lack of pictures, but we didn't take very many. The pictures we did take were not that great anyway. You guys can all look up pictures of Las Vegas if you want to see where we were. We stayed at the Wynn hotel and casino (thanks again to Anna's job).



By the way, I'm wearing the hat because it was kinda chilly in the condo today.