Yearly Archives: 2011

Monterey continued…

Posted by Lisa On March 5th, 2011

So I realized that I didn’t upload any of Kevin’s photos from our trip to Monterey (and there were some good ones!) so I thought I’d dedicate a short post to some of his photos. 🙂 Enjoy!

At the beach in Carmel…

On the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail…

Okay, it’s official: this is where we’re retiring.

Amazingly clear blue ocean

Waves crashing.

Kevin’s friend the squirrel

This photo cracks me up, the squirrel looks like he’s spying on someone.

My wind-blown look.

One of my favorites that he took, gorgeous rocks, ocean and sky.

My second favorite of his, the seagull is perfect in this photo!

Seagull in flight

Valentine’s Week & a trip to Monterey

Posted by Lisa On March 2nd, 2011

Like I mentioned in my last post, I arrived at the SFO airport late at night on Sunday 2/13, the day before Valentine’s Day. Kevin picked me up at the airport and he suggested, since we weren’t going to be able to spend any time together on Valentine’s Day itself, that we do a crazy late night dinner after picking me up. So at 10:30pm we got seated for dinner at BJ’s in San Bruno and enjoyed a nice dinner together (and shared a yummy pazookie as well!)

We’ve never been big on V-Day or anniversaries either, but Kevin sure pulled out all the stops this year. In addition to suggesting this cute late night dinner idea, when he picked me up at the airport he gave me a King size box of Junior mints (my favorite!) and the card game Skip-Bo that we had been talking about getting for a while. Then on Monday (V-Day) I had to go to work but he had the day off so he suggested he meet me at the office for lunch before he drove to class. He surprised me with some of the most delicious, homemade (from scratch) devil’s food cupcakes I’ve ever had (and even had a few extra for some co-workers). And lastly, he got me a frame with spots for four photos: he put one of us from our wedding, one of us about 2 years into our marriage, one of us and Lola living in SF, and he left one spot empty for when we have a baby. What a sweetheart! Okay, enough of the mooshy stuff. 🙂

The following weekend (President’s Day weekend) we decided to get away for the night and take a trip down to Monterey! We realized we hadn’t taken a real vacation (just the two of us, and no Long Beach doesn’t count) since we went to Australia in 2008!! Yikes, we gotta do a better job of getting away more often. Carleigh and Scott graciously volunteered to watch Lola that night, so we packed up her bag and dropped her off at their place on the morning of Sunday 2/20 for 36 hours of play time with her best friend Bailey!

Looks like Lola on her first day of school! Her bag was packed with lots of goodies to share with her friend Bailey.

We were recommended by C&S to drive down Highway 1 and we were glad we did. Such a gorgeous drive along the coast. Sure makes us appreciate this amazingly beautiful state of ours! We stopped off for a quick visit to Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

Somebody’s a major fan of the lighthouse with their “I Love Pigeon Point Lighthouse” license plate frame

I love old, run-down buildings

Thar she blows! Unfortunately you couldn’t go inside the lighthouse itself.

View off the coast

Ahoy matey! Kevin sporting his binoculars.

Me sitting on a nicely decorated Pigeon Point Lighthouse barrel (aka a trashcan with a lid, gross).

Before checking into our hotel we drove down to Carmel to get some lunch at Carmel Belle (yummy food but super small portions and a pretty hefty price tag). We did some window shopping and then walked down to the beach. There were TONS of doggies out and about and it was such a gorgeous day. We enjoyed walking along the beach and taking a break to soak in the sun.

Then it was time to check into our hotel! Our hotel was just a block up from Cannery Row so it was nice to be so close to all the action. Although working across from Fisherman’s Wharf in SF and knowing that I would never recommend anyone stay in a hotel out that way, I couldn’t help but get excited about being in the middle of this tourist trap in Monterey! Haha.

Gorgeous mural of a whale around the corner from our hotel

Random old-school scuba gear on display

When Kevin saw this banner of John Steinbeck he jokingly asked me, “Why do they have a picture of Saddam Hussein up?” Hahah.

A really neat mural of fishermen along the beach.

No, we didn’t spend our money at the wax museum (they were closed, haha).

After the mandatory stroll down Cannery Row, we ate dinner at Paradiso Trattoria (pretty yummy food, especially the cilantro spread they have for their fresh baked bread…amazing!)

This was our view from the restaurant. Gorgeous.

On Monday we woke bright and early, ate the continental breakfast at the hotel, and then checked out to go out and enjoy a drive and a walk along Ocean View Blvd. and the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail–by far the highlight of our trip!

Lots of breathtaking views to be had…

It’s a long way down!

And then, as we were looking out at the rocks and crashing waves, we spotted a furry thing scurrying across the rocks…who knew squirrels lived in the rocks along the beach?

They came up really close to us, probably looking for some eats.

Not only did we see lots of squirrels, we also saw harbor seals basking in the sun on some rocks!

Beautiful rock formations

Kevin taking a photo of the ocean

And tons of seagulls to look at and take photos of…

Seagull in action, leaping across the rocks!

Kevin taking a photo of a squirrel. They became good buds that day.

It was so so so nice to get away, just the two of us. This being the year of our 5th anniversary of being married and our 10th anniversary of being together (!!!!) we have to take more time to celebrate our relationship and this was a perfect start to that!

Weekend in LA

Posted by Lisa On March 2nd, 2011

I flew down to LAX on Fri. 2/11 for a work retreat at our LA campus and decided to stick around for the weekend to see some family! My mom and her boyfriend Steve came to pick me up in Alhambra and we went straight to one of my favorite restaurants out that way: Noodle World.

I spent most of my time with Mom and Steve out in San Pedro. We took a 2 mile walk down Paseo Del Mar and when we were looking out over Royal Palms beach, we happened to spot a mermaid!

But then we realized she wasn’t alone. Alas, she and her three friends were with a full crew taking photos.

We then enjoyed breakfast at the Lighthouse Deli (yummy batter-of-the-day pancakes!) That afternoon me and my mom went to visit my aunt in her new digs in Garden Grove. For those of you that know my family well, I’m happy to report that Tina is doing GREAT! 🙂

Then we made our way back to San Pedro to The Corner Store for a wine tasting benefiting the Marine Mammal Center of San Pedro.

Lots of incredible desserts like these fudgy, red velvet cake pops dipped in chocolate. AMAZING!!

Then we zipped on over to Busy Bee (a famous sandwich shop that I had heard so many good things about but had never tried before) to buy a boatload of sandwiches to enjoy with Brianne & Brian and my brother Derek who were coming over to Steve’s for dinner and games!

Mmm…check out that greasy goodness on the sandwich wrappers. 🙂

Brianne and Brian and Catalina Island in the background

Not the best photo, but the three of us enjoying the sunset

Gorgeous view, eh?

We spent a good few hours laughing our rears off playing a game called The Game of Things (highly recommend this game for groups, so much fun!) Kevin even joined in on the fun in SF via Skype! He was my partner during a few rounds and it was great to have him join in on the game for a bit. 🙂

The next morning we were up bright and early for some yummy breakfast (egg, muenster cheese and honey mustard paninis with cottage cheese/oranges and a piping hot cup of joe).

Then we drove down to Long Beach and I spent a whopping 2 hours in LB the entire weekend. I went to visit with my in-laws, Dorothy and George, and we had a great little visit. George cooked up some yummy and slightly spicy chicken salad sandwiches for us to enjoy too. Yummy!

After the short visit with the Edmonds family (and an even shorter appearance of my bro-in-law Thomas) we drove down to pick up my brother Derek to get some lunch at Portillo’s Hot Dogs in Buena Park and then made another visit to my aunt Tina.

Derek, a huge fan of the Chicago Cubs, made a visit to the windy city last year and found out that Portillo’s (a Chicago-based restaurant) had a chain out in Buena Park. Here he is enjoying a dog covered in goodness (as you can see, he’s not the biggest fan of the Lisa blog paparazzi).

We then made our way back up to San Pedro to make a visit with Steve’s grandson Christian who is an adorable kindergartner. We spent a good amount of time drawing mutant animals…

And then as the sun was setting, Christian insisted on taking me on a flashlight tour of Steve’s backyard where he showed me, amongst other things, the place where his cat is buried. Haha!

After that we rushed off to LAX and I was home around 10:15pm on Sunday. I had a really fantastic whirlwind of a trip and can’t thank my mom and Steve enough for the hospitality! 🙂

It’s true what they say about Dolores Park…

Posted by Lisa On March 1st, 2011

Don’t know what I mean? Well then take a gander at this Dolores Park Bingo card:

On Saturday 2/5 we were lucky enough to spot some of those wonders: speedos, dog crap, ice cream cart, tiny dog, giant dog, tightrope walkers, and the “cold beer, cold water” guy. Not enough to make a Bingo, but pretty darn close.

Documentation follows:

Giant happy dog (AKA Lola)

Happy yogis doing crazy stunts in the park

Disco Stu walking the tightrope

And an extremely intoxicated anonymous dude making a fool of himself

And there’s this young lad named Kevin being entertained by all of the sights of Dolores Park

Rainy day at Golden Gate Park

Posted by Lisa On March 1st, 2011

On Saturday 1/29 we decided to spend the gloomy, rainy day at Golden Gate Park with Terri, Scott and their two pups Madeira and Ihna! We had a yummy picnic with meats, cheese and crackers along with fruit, veggies and homemade hummus. And what picnic in the park could be complete without red wine drunken straight from a plastic mug! 🙂

Terri opening up the bottle of wine

Scott getting some kisses from Ihna

Madeira relaxing after a good round of fetch

Me and Kevin’s mandatory photo opp 😉

After lunch and playing fetch with the dogs we went on a nice little hike on Strawberry Hill. Terri and Scott are quite the hikers (we went and hiked Mt. Diablo with them back in July, see the post here) and although Strawberry Hill isn’t much of a hike, it was nice to enjoy the fresh air and the gorgeous views amongst the occasional cold raindrop. 🙂

Terri, Scott and the pups after the hike

Day hike in Saratoga

Posted by Lisa On March 1st, 2011

On Monday 1/17 I had the day off in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day so I took the opportunity to make a trip down to San Jose for a visit with my favorite sister Jessie! 🙂

After some mandatory cuddling with Marzipan (her kitty and my furry nephew)…

We ran off for a day hike at the Sanborn County Park in Saratoga. The park was almost completely empty so except for a couple of park rangers we had the park almost exclusively to ourselves. It was pretty chilly and the park itself is really shady so not much sun came in but it was a gorgeously lush park with green everywhere you looked.

Jessie took this lying on the ground looking up at the canopy of trees

Can you spot Jessie in this photo??

We then did some window shopping in the super cute town of Saratoga and enjoyed some Middle Eastern eats at Rose International Market which is a huge market with deli counter.

It’s always so nice to get to spend some seester time with my Jessie!

Concrete slides, Corona Heights, and campfire

Posted by Lisa On February 9th, 2011

On January 15th Kevin, Lola and I went on another city adventure. Our destination? The Seward concrete slides! These 40-foot concrete slides are side-by-side down a pretty steep hill in the middle of the Castro. We had already gotten our thrills on the Bernal Heights slides (see the post about that visit at this link) and we’d been dying to check out these slides.

Lola, patiently waiting to get out of the car

Seward St. and Douglas St. in the Castro

“No adults unless accompanied by children”…oops.

[Insert holy music here]

It’s a long way down!

Kevin preparing the piece of cardboard he went down the slide on

Watch a video of Kevin and Lola going down the slide (click the link)!

Our beautiful day in the sun wasn’t quite over yet–we then made our way to Corona Heights dog park which we could see from the slides (the hill in the distance in the photo below).

Dangit, we brought the doggie shampoo and everything.

A gorgeous pit bull we made friends with

That night we had Carleigh, Scott and Bailey over for some homemade (from scratch!) pizza and a campfire! Perfect way to end the day.

Day trip to Muir Beach

Posted by Lisa On January 20th, 2011

On Sunday1/16 Carleigh, Scott, Bailey, Kevin, Lola and I piled into Carleigh’s little Jetta and took a day trip to Muir Beach for an exciting day in the sun! We had every intention of spending our day at Muir Woods but were sad to find out that John Muir hated dogs the park didn’t allow pups. So we drove another five minutes down the road to beautiful Muir Beach and were not disappointed!

It’s a short two minute trail walk to the beach–the beach itself is expansive with lots of room for friends, families and doggies to play around. We saw some folks had put up tents to spend the whole day there and Kevin and I would love to go back and do the same some time. The water was a nice, cool temperature (not ice cold like the beaches in SF) and it was pretty shallow water for a good 40 feet or so.

Bailey showing his mama some loving

Lola, the happy camper!

Bailey resting up for the big day on Scott’s shoulder

Lola, the helpful navigator

Muir Beach on a gorgeous, sunny day!

Lola playing with another doggie in the water

Some random kid with a stick

Some random pup in a tent

Bailey boy

After a half hour or so of hanging out on the beach, we decided to take a hike to Pirate’s Cove. We climbed up and up and up some very steep hillsides and when we thought we were finally at Pirate’s Cove, we found out we weren’t even half way there! So we settled for a view of Pirate’s Cove off a beautiful cliff.