Engagement

We are engaged!!  John surprised me on Tuesday, December 21st with an amazing evening!  We were on the way to Cadillac Bar for dinner and he "forgot his wallet."  We headed back to my apartment, he goes in and then a few minutes later peeks out and says he still can't find it and that he needs my help. I come to the door and there are candles all over my apartment.  He takes me into the living room and says all kinds of sweet things and then gets down on his knee and asks me to marry him!  We have champagne and he gives me a gift that is a frame with the ticket stub from the movie we went to on our first date!
We then head outside to the car but SURPRISE there is a limo with everyone in it!!!!!!  My Dad is hiding behind a car taking pictures and my Mom, Katy, Michael, Amanda, David, Katie, Gray, Mandy, Greg, Ryann, and James were all inside screaming and banging on the windows.  We head to Cadillac Bar where we have a great time and sweet John treats everyone to dinner.  We then go to Absolve and continue celebrating!
John and I are so excited to begin planning our wedding and the fun adventures we have ahead!  We will blog throughout the process and continue to blog when we head to California in September and after!!

Yosemite National Park

We arrived at Yosemite Lodge about 30 minutes before our 1:30 departure for Glacier Point. We took a charter bus up to the top, I think it was about 8000 ft in elevation. This is a view from the top, you can see half dome to the left and Yosemite Falls to the right. We then began our walk back down to the Valley floor which was called 4 mile trail. It took us about 2 1/2 hours to walk down and we were so tired.

This is a picture of the trail. It was 4.6 miles of switch-backs going down the mountain.

This is the picture from the bottom when we finished hiking. We didn't even know what the mountain we were hiking on looked like. We hurt really bad today. I have a blister on my toe the size of a bean, yuck.

After a long day of driving, riding, and hiking, we're now relaxing on the patio of our room with a cold Miller Lite as the Sun sets. The stars should be great

Heading to yosemite! A little afraid of the bear stories...

Finished book 10
PRIVATE by James Patterson

Thursday

Last night we finally got the washer to work but when we tried to plug the dryer in, it shorted out the entire building. So at around 8:30 last night we had to go to the laundromat in order to use the dryer. What a pain.

John has been noticing his car is hesitating to start, so I planned to go to work with him today so that we could get a new battery and oil change for our trip to Yosemite. Well we go out to the car this morning and the car won't start. We call AAA and 30 minutes later they come and actually have a battery we can buy so it all worked out. I drove with John out to San Ramon and ran around shopping. Looks like we are all set for Yosemite!! We will leave early tomorrow morning!

20 min walk to a normal store... I am tired

So these are the stairs we have to walk up and down to get to John's apartment up top. Two ladies live on the bottom floor, a family of 3 live in the middle, and John is up top.

To do laundry we have to go downstairs to the area where I took this pic to a little shed type thing and pay $1 for washer and $1 for the dryer. This morning I went down to do some laundry... put it in, put detergent in, the money in, and it won't work. So I might end up walking to a laundromat with detergent soaked sheets to attempt to get them washed. Let's hope the handyman gets here to help!!

Wednesday

We are staying at Yosemite Lodge at the Falls. We are trying to scrounge up things to wear, I think it will work out.

Yesterday I walked to Whole Foods in attempt to buy things to make a calzone...
There were no pepperonis, no jalapenos, the only pizza dough I could find was in the freezer section and a little ball that looked questionable. I miss HEB. My second attempt will be walking to Andronicos today, hopefully they will have some normal stuff. It is sad that my view of normal is NOTorganic NOT all natural and definitely NOT too good for you. HAHA oh well.

Tuesday

Book 9 for the summer finished- THE HELP, it was really good.

We are trying to plan our trip to Yosemite. I didn't bring any shoes good for hiking so we will see if the ones I ordered get here in time.

This place sure is foggy.

Sunday

We went to see Toy Story 3 and I cried really hard at the end. It was really good. We had our First adventure at Trader Joe's grocery store and it was not as colorful as Berkeley Bowl. Everything was still all organic but it was in Emeryville. We cooked dinner and booked our hotel for Yosemite next Friday!! We are so excited!!

Saturday

We went to Chevron's family picnic at Little Hills Ranch near San Ramon. I got to meet some of the people that John works with, even the CFO lady with a wedding ring the size of a small plate.

After that we took the BART to San Francisco and walked all the way to Pier 39. We ate dinner and had the most amazing little baby donuts that were covered in cinnamon and sugar.

We had a Chevron BBQ and then spent the rest of the day in San Francisco.

A bum just told John he looks like Andy Richter... Haha he hates that.

We just saw TONIC at the fair, it was fun! I talked to Emerson the lead singer!!

Back in Cali

I just arrived last night back in Cali and our adventures are continuing. I am about to go catch the BART to have lunch with John in San Ramon and then explore in his car. Ww will see how it goes. Off for my walk...

At airport, my bag weighed 49 lbs!!! That's some good packing!

Wednesday

I leave today. I am going from 55 degrees outside to the 90's... yikes.

Tuesday

I tried to take some pictures of the liberal things in Berkeley. Look at this hilarious street sign...

See where it says feel men use fists, John and I thought this was hilarious. There are blockaded roads everywhere, that won't let anything but bikes go by. It is like driving around in a maze, it's funny.

Just walked 15 minutes carrying a 15 lb. Box of junk I overpacked.... Tought me a packing lesson.

Monday

Book 5 down, just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire. Now I am starting to read The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest on my Kindle!!

I come home very very late on Wednesday. Only a little more time left, I am getting sad that our little excursion is coming to an end. But I will be back in a couple of weeks and John has tons of fun stuff he can do on the weekends.

Birthday in Napa

We arrived in Napa and checked into out hotel, Napa Valley River Inn. We get a call that says our limo is waiting!!!! How exciting. We went to 3 wineries and had a GREAT time!!

We just got back to the apartment and John gave me a Kindle!! He has spoiled me for sure. He also sent me roses on Thursday, this has been a great 30th birthday!!!

Chocolates make turning 30 better.... Maybe

We went to 3 wineries ans are going to another tonight. John got a very nice hotel and everyone seems to know I am turning 30!!! It has been so much fun!!

It is Robert Mondavi's birthday and my birthday eve!!! We are having fun riding around in our Expedition limo!!!

John got a limo!!! I am so excited!! This is the best birthday ever!!

Off to Napa.

David Hasselhoff is on Young and the Restless soap opera... Hahaha.

Thursday

We leave tomorrow for Napa. We will be going to Robert Mondavi, Cakebread, and Frog's Leap wineries. We are excited!!!

Wednesday

Reading, reading, and more reading...

By the way it was 54 this morning in the apartment and I was freeeezing. It is pretty cold here, 50's this morning and now i think it's probably 70. It does feel nice but my body is going to go into shock in Houston with the heat and humidity.

About to crack open some vino, I have to practice for our trip to Napa on Friday!!

Tuesday

Book 4 down. And now I am going to read the next in the Dragon Tattoo series, The Girl Who played with fire.

Here is all the fruit we got at the Berkeley Bowl!! John is trying some fruits he has never tried before!! We learned online how to cut a real pineapple and we actually did it!!

Monday

I went shopping all day at a cute little shopping area, then watched a movie all by my big self.

John is having fun at work, he is getting to meet a lot of people and make a lot of good connections. In a few weeks he will be having lunch just him and the CEO of Chevron!! How exciting!

Sunday

We went to breakfast (John's favorite meal of the day) at a place called Rick and Ann's. It was a good local place that had a line out the door.

We spent the rest of the day resting and watching movies.

Here is a picture from our seats at the Giants game. We will have to go back to San Fran to see more of the wharf etc... we haven't even seen a trolley yet.

Saturday

Today we are heading to San Francisco. We have not been there to explore, we only drove through it. We are also going to a Giants game at 6.

Friday

Book 3 down.

Heading to yoga today at 9. Nothing else too exciting going on just sitting and reading and enjoying California. I will try to take some pics of the town today.

Thursday

Book 2 down... The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is hard to get into at first but it gets really good and you can't put it down.

Today is a lot sunnier, therefore warmer. I hope everyone is doing great back in Texas, we miss y'all.

Yippee... I finally figured out how to use the french press and not have tons of coffee grinds floating in my coffee. Thank you ineedcoffe.com

Wednesday

It is 60 in the apartment and about 64 outside... burrrr.

view

This is the view from the living room. Everything is white in the apartment and it's very clean.

Tuesday

Today is trash day but really it's recycle day!! John and I realized that since Berkeley recycles compost there is no more normal trash, there is recycling of everything. We accidentally had everything lumped together so on the curb we had to sort paper and plastics, bottles etc apart. We peeked in other peoples trash to make sure we were doing it right :). We are actually recycling compost!! We are becoming full fledged earthy people!!

Just walked to the grocery store and can't help but giggle because it feels so weird. Walk in thinking I have a list of things I can for sure find... wander to the frozen food section looking for steam-in-the-bag broccoli and then remember- oh wait we don't have a microwave. Then try my luck at finding frozen fish in a bag, no such luck. Try to find ground turkey meat. See packages that say organic chicken- air cooled. air-cooled what on earth does that mean and why do I care if my chicken has been air-cooled. Continue walking around giggling like a crazy person because the food and people are all weirdos. Finally I attempt to find the cheapest fish in the fish section, they only have where there are display cases and you have to ask for the meat/fish. Nothing is pre-packaged, continue giggling because everyone looks like hippies and the place is packed and it is 1:00 on Monday... and I am wearing my BBQ shirt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One book down....

The coffee turned out ok. It looks like chocolate, the Berkeley Bowl does not believe in creamer I guess it's not organic so I had to use milk.
Berkeley Bowl is like a Central Market but more intense. Vegan this, organic that...

Monday

John is off to work... I am attempting to grind coffee beans for the first time, and use a french press for the first time. So far I don't think it's going too well.

We walked to the Berkeley Bowl grocery store, it was quite exciting. Now we are going to pick up some pizza. This time with meat!

Hilarious

Last night we decided to go to Cheeseboard Pizza, we read about it online and tripadvisor etc recommended it.

John walks up to the counter, we don't see a menu anywhere...

John "can we have a small pepperoni pizza"
Guy behind counter "no you can't for 2 reasons... 1. we only serve one kind of pizza 2. they are all vegetarian."
John "uh ok well we will take one of those"

As we sat down to eat we noticed John had on a Kreuz BBQ t-shirt and we could not stop laughing. The pizza had no sauce, and had potatoes and some other stuff on top. It was good but we wouldn't have minded some meat hahaha.

We have tv!!! We went to target and got an adapter and we have a couple channels!!! It is sad we couldn't go a day without the thought of no tv..

John and I are learning how to recycle!!

This is where John is staying. We are getting everything set up today for John to start work.

Johns drive to work looks fake because it is so pretty.

In N Out burger was really good. The line was out the door. P Terrys in Austin is just like is and tastes just as good!!

We are about to have In N Out Burger!!!! Then we are checking out John's office at Cheveron.

This was one of favorite places where we stopped today along Hwy 1.

This was the view from our balcony at the hotel last night, it had triple sliding glass doors.

We made it

We arrived at John's apartment at 8:00 pm. We met the husband and wife that are letting John stay here and they are really nice.

This town is a lot like Austin, very liberal and earthy. We went to find wine at about 10...
John" For a college town this place sure is deserted."
As we walk into Whole Foods...
John"oh this is where everyone is. So in Texas people go to bars in Berkeley people go to Whole Foods" Hahahahaha. It was hillarious. As far as we can tell the only grocery stores are Whole Foods and this place called Berkeley Bowl. I am hoping to go to Berkeley Bowl tomorrow, it looks cute.
Gas here is $3.13, yikes.
The "apartment?" is the third floor of a house and different people live on every floor, the second floor is vacant. There is no air conditioning so we just open up the windows and hope for a breeze. We got here at about 4ish and as we were driving around noticed the town is setup for more bikers and pedestrians than cars. Some streets are only for bikes.

It is so foggy we can't even see the bridge. Heading to Berkeley... If we can find it.

Almost to the golden gate bridge!!

We have taken so many pictures my c drive didn't have enough room....

We keep seeing signs saying speed enforced by aircraft... is this a ploy to keep people from speeding or are we going to be getting 80 tickets in the mail??

Just ate at Taco Moreno in Santa Cruz and had glorious tacos and quesadillas.

Just ate at Taco Moreno in Santa Cruz and had glorious tacos and quesadillas.

Heading to Berkeley

We are getting a late start today, we are expected in Berkeley at 8 so we have some time to kill. We are planning on stopping in Santa Cruz for lunch and might try to hit Alcatraz today. We are excited to see San Francisco!!

Tomorrow we will be arriving in Berkeley where John will be for the next 10 weeks. I can't believe the trip is already over, but we still have fun things ahead in Berkeley and San Francisco.

This is one of my favorite pictures from today. We went to the Julia Pfeiffer National Park and walked to see the waterfall. It was really pretty.

Here is the pick of the elephant seals that were sunbathing.

Eating at Sly McFlys listening to blues music on Monterey Bay!!!

We are on 17 mile drive. We just saw the Pebble Beach tree.

2 o'clock and we still haven't eaten. We have stopped so many times to take pictures. About to be at Nepenthe.

Morro Bay has a cloud of pollution over it.... shame on you California.

"We've missed things like the world's biggest paper cup, I hope your happy" John said.
Hahaha

Pismo Beach gas- $3.13 per gallon. John got 1 gallon

Every day without fail Lil Wayne sings to us on our way out of town.

Day 5 our last day before Berkeley

It is about 7:30 am here, and we are about to leave. We will be driving through Big Sur, Monterey, Carmel, and Pebble Beach. We will be staying the night on Monterey Bay. We are planning on eating lunch in Big Sur at a place called Nepenthe. You can google it, it looks really really cool. It is in the 50's right now, but it is supposed to warm up.

Thanks to my Dad's camera we have taken a lot of really good pictures!! We thought the sun would set on the water but it turns out I think we are still a little south of where we need to be. Tomorrow we will be in Monterrey and I hope we will be able to see it there. This pic was from where we were sitting on the beach and the building in front of us is our hotel. We had a fun day, and we have a long day ahead tomorrow. We love our hotel, we went to the hot tub for a little and we are so relaxed.

Sittin' on the beach in Santa Barbara, having a Miller Lite and watchin' the Sun go down...not bad at all...

Went to a wine tasting, tasted about 20 wines and they were all so sweet. We are now wondering around the pier waiting for the sunset which sets in 4 hours...

If your gonna be a hobo you might as well be one in Santa Barbara. They are everywhere...

Santa Barbara

We didn't have to drive much today. We were expecting to stop in Malibu, but we just kinda blew through it. Santa Barbara is a little chilly but it's really neat. We are right on the water and there are a lot of sailboats and a Pier we are going to check out. We were checking in and got a map of our area and there are some walking wine tours we are going to go to.

This is a pic of us at the Santa Monica Pier. It was stinky like dead fish but we had fun!! We are looking forward to our first Pacific coast sunset!

Just ate lunch at the Santa Monica Pier, next stop Malibu!

Wooohooo we made it to Highway 1!!!!

We just got passed illegally and flipped off by some road rage psycho in LA. I miss texas hospitality....

We finally found a starbucks with parking. Thanks Amanda for the gift card!!

Highway 1

Today we beging the Highway 1 journey.

Making our way to LA

Palm Springs...


We thought this was a cute little town with a lot of spas and people with their shirts off that shouldn't probably have them off.

The Chinese Theater is right across from our hotel. We lucked out and somehow got tickets for the movie that was in the main huge theater. It was really fun!!

Tomorrow we will be going to Santa Monica, Malibu, and Santa Barbara which is where we will stay the night.

Thank you so much for the comments we have fun reading them!!

Filter is playing at our hotel. they sing "do you want to take my picture" and "hey man nice shot"
We are going to try to watch somehow.....

Ate at Mels diner. Now we are at a super dive bar- Power House. Then we are going to McGruber at Chinese Theater!!!

We checked into Hotel Roosevelt on Hollywood blvd. And at the desk I saw Brett from Flight of the Concords!! I stared at him inappropriately.

The best rap songs have whistles- California Love

Already in traffic and we are 1 1/2 hours outside LA.

In Palm Springs eating!! John is going to take his shirt off to blend in with the locals.

Have had to go to the bathroom for about 20 minutes. Finally we see an exit and it is apparently the set of the movie Deliverance, super scary.

We are in California!!

There is a website called Roadsideamerica and it lists all the little roadside things you can see. For example-the thing. John wants to stop at them ALL...

LA here we come!!

Happy Memorial Day!

We are so excited to go to LA, I have never been there and John has been for work...that couldn't have been very fun.

Not too excited about getting in the car and my booty going numb again but we have to.
We are not quite sure what time zone we are in, we thought Mountain but I think we are already 2 hours different. So we thought we were running late now we are ahead of schedule.

We went to White Sands National Monument and it was awesome! As far as we could see were white sand dunes!!! It was definitely worth the detour.

"The Thing" was not worth stopping for, it is hard to put into words but basically it was a bunch of old junk that used to be "the thing". For example old cars, old sewing machines, old sorry but crap they made us walk through 3 barns looking at. It was strange.

At Giligan's in Scottsdale...everything is miniature-sized and you can spin the Wheel of Death and get fed a shot by a little person...boom goes the dynamite...

At dinner-
K-"hi we're from Texas can u take our picture"
after eating- here is a sundae on the house!
J-"Looks like your excessive backstories paid off"

We made it to Scottsdale and are tired of being in the car. "The thing" was a whole lot of NOthing. I will post pics tonight.

Hours of driving and nothing to be seen....
We are about to stop and see "the thing" we have no idea what this will be. We shall see.

Los Cruces, can't find food but can find 30 packs of Miller Lite for $13.99 at Walgreens.

Leaving White Sands National Monument, white sand dunes as far as you can see!!

Just passed through US border patrol
BP-"Are you US citizens?"
Us-"Yes"
BP-"ok"
The car in front of us was searched, I think we just witnessed racial profiling

Turns out our morning song is Lollipop- thanks a lot Lil Wayne....

Day 2 heading to Scottsdale, AZ

We are up bright and early and get a free hot breakfast!! John is pumped about that. We are first heading to White Sands National Monument. We had not planned on going to White Sands but it came highly recommended so we are doing a small detour that will probably add 2 hours to our day, so we should be driving about 8 hours.

EL PASO,TX

We expected to arrive in El Paso at 9:30 and somehow we are here at 6.

The drive went well, it was much prettier than we expected.

We are unsure as to how close to the border we are, and we decided we don't really want to know.

Pic of the day....

Turns out the world's largest swimming pool is also the world's most ghetto pool. Full of Memorial day weirdos, we refused to pay $7 each.

Ozona TX
We just ate lunch at Cafe Next Door, headed to the largest pool in the World in Balmorhea

It took a while to get everything in the car since I brought 3 mths worth and will only be there 3 wks, John brought 3 wks worth and is staying 3 mths. Oops

Here we go!!
8:30 and we are packed up and leaving Austin.

Testing mobile blog...

In case you were wondering

Since this is both of our blog we didn't know who to put for the user so we randomly chose Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day....


Memorable quotes forGroundhog Day (1993) More at IMDbPro »

Ned: Phil? Hey, Phil? Phil! Phil Connors? Phil Connors, I thought that was you!
Phil: Hi, how you doing? Thanks for watching. [Starts to walk away]
Ned: Hey, hey! Now, don't you tell me you don't remember me because I sure as heckfire remember you.
Phil: Not a chance.
Ned: Ned... Ryerson. "Needlenose Ned"? "Ned the Head"? C'mon, buddy. Case Western High.
I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn't graduate? Bing, again. I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times until you told me not to anymore? Well?
Phil: Ned Ryerson?
Ned: Bing!
Phil: Bing.


Ned: Phil? Phil: Ned? [Punches Ned in the face]

Hello There

A tad? A tad, Lloyd? You drove almost a sixth of the way across the country in the wrong direction! Now we don't have enough money to get to Aspen, we don't have enough money to get home, we don't have enough money to eat, we don't have enough money to sleep!
-Dumb and Dumber

We are about to head out in three weeks to California!!

If you would like to see our journey you can click on the link below :)

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=114222284404885309635.000480274a92239094ce6&ll=34.001741,-110.105596&spn=7.556362,24.731071&output=embed%22%3E%3C/iframe%3E%3Cbr