Yoohhhh-semite and Heyyy bruther.

Since our partial-catch-up blog, two fun things have happened: we had our second sibling visit with brother Paul coming to town for a few days on business. He's a real worker these days... and we had a lot of fun. Every familiar face has been great, but I was especially excited to see the one I spent about 97% of my childhood with!

I caught up on lost weirding-Paul-out time as soon as possible--I write up a "BROTHER PAUL" sign to hold up at the San Diego Airport, and he was indeed quite surprised by that. Actually, he looked right past me 2 or 3 times and I sort of had to ruin it by saying "hey Paul..."

It was fun, and we had a good time hangin out in beautiful Dana Point, where his ritzy hotel was.

It seems that as of now we have no uploaded photos as proof of this fun. However, more will come with the additional photos that will be uploaded soon. And those photos will be of our trip that followed Paul's visit, which was to...

YYYYYYYooooooooooosemite National Park!!

Coming soon...

On our way there, on EARTH DAY (during National Parks Week,) we fittingly visited the world's largest tree! (by mass) The General Sherman in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park.

It a biggy.

For more info, this is fun and interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Sherman_%28tree%29

Below are some photos and videos we couldn't help from taking on the way TO the tree. We just had to keep pulling the car over.

One of the greatest things about seeing the side of the country opposite Ohio has been seeing the sights you read about in storybooks as a kid or hear people sing about in songs, like smokey mountaintops. When you see them yourself, you see what people are singing about...

Lookey there:

Here's a little motion picture of those cloudy mounts. You might especially enjoy Cara's color commentary in these videos.

After that, we hopped in the car, drove around a few corners and, not even 10 mintues later, no joke, we had this:

Not an hour later, the good times continued as we enter the GIANT FOREST. It's hard to tell the scale here, but these guys belong in that Giant Forest. Imagine a little 6 foot tall human being standing next to these, being dwarfed by them:

To be continued... with Yosemite... (But sorry, we didn't catch that ornery Sam guy.)

FIRST of all,

YAYYYyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! 

Congratulations Dan and Tori!

Check it out: http://dansbigyear.blogspot.com/

Awesome.

I cannot say enough about how happy we are! It's so great that they have found each other, and we are so excited to have a family that is growing with children AND adults!


Speaking of growing family, also somewhere far off in that hard-to-describe domain is our anticipation about the big date for Kateri and Paul, which is just on the other side of May!  We have our plane tickets!


It seems like it could have been some sort of Madlibs game I could have played a year ago:

My brother,  ____(Name of brother)  __Dan___ ,  will be moving to ___(distant land)__Libya___ to work, and not long after that he will be ___(verb, past tense)__ENGAGED___ while having a ___(noun) Stranger___ take his __(noun)_photo___ in the streets of __(unbelievable travel location)__Rome!

Wild.




SO we're sorry that it's been so long--we must have misplaced our Log deep in the closet while we were reorganizing our new place.  Or, actually, it might be because we don't have free wifi to bum in the comfort of our own apartment anymore...

Things have been very good, though.  Much has happend since January.  Cara is enjoying her floatation between ICU units at the two hopsitals.  It makes for lots of surprises and adventure.  And even though it took a little longer to settle in, since she floats between so many different units, she's glad she got this position and an extension until July.

I've been working a bit, too, and actually just moved to a store this week that is only a few blocks away.  It's a bit different being in the bustling city, and I won't be riding the train up and down the coast anymore (I was commuting to Oceanside by the way) but it's a good change.  I will miss the train a bit, though.  It had some lovely views and everybody likes a TWAIN!

Beyond work, our play usually involves a jog together--we like to just go down to the harbor area or behind the convention center where there are some coastal park areas--or a trip to Balboa Park.  We've gone to the Sunday afternoon organ concert a few times now, which is great and goes great with a picnic.  It's also a great park to just wander around in with new friends which are actually accumulating out here and old friends that have come to visit!

 

Pacific Beach on Valentines Day sending our love back to all of you at home!  

 

Best bud Christina and coming in at a close second Mrs. Beck in to visit from Ohio! Crazy Pirates of the Caribbean special effects show with lots of fire and explosions.

 

Scary Jurassic Park Dinosaurs that kill the sweaty guy with glasses at the end of the movie!

 

Fake rain and floods!

Good news--another friend came!  We have a lot of good friends...orrr maybe it's our location. Well, either way, Jonathan suggested going to Disneyland--for free thanks to volunteering Give a Day program! Wee!

And here's our effort at taking our own picture, which gave us two photos we title "Right Half, Cut" and "Left Half, Blocked"

 

Then, inside the cool AstroBlaster, "Trifecta of Terror"

 

And outside of the THREE DIMENSIONAL feature, the revival of "Captain EO" staring ol' MJ... "Trifecta of Cool"

 

And oh yeah, the IMPRESSIVE results of that ride. And note who was taking it QUITE seriously:

We also went to the lovely La Jolla beach. We got 100 % of our faces here.  

Below that, Cara saw a REALLY NEAT CREVICE.  So, she thought the next step would be to get in it.

Mission accomplished. 

 

Then we went to the highest point in San Diego County, Mt. Soledad.  Look at that...

 

There's a nice military memorial there, the top of which is a huge cross, which is visibile from the lower elevations.

 

A friend who resides along the La Jolla beach walkway (a friend who we later found out, during the visit of Matt and Megan, enjoys a tasty french fry.  Good idea Cara!):  

 

This is the view from our brunch overlooking the great Pacific at The Beachhouse.  Good times and good eats.

 

Sadly, we don't have many pictures in our collection as proof of all the fun we had with (cousin) Matt and Megan's on their visit.  We did all kinds of fun things including  playing some cards at the San Diego Convention Center, eating Yummy sushi, and most importantly, throwing around the FRISBEE!

And here we are enjoying some super green Wheatgrass on the day of green, St Patrick's Day.  Mmm! Cheers!  And below, playing Giant Jenga at a place near our place called Bareback Grill.  We actually didn't finish the game--for our toes' sake...and so we could all be winners!

 

We're going to do our best to keep you up on our current fun: our trip up to the Yosemite/Sequoia National Parks--which coincides with Earth Day week (free admission!)  Happy Earth Day to all!! We enjoyed ours by seeing the world's biggest tree--Gen Sherman... We'll also do our best to catch up on a few other fun things that we never got to: to be continued...Lotsa Love!

When you're DOOOWWWNTown...

...Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go
Downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown, no finer place for sure,
Downtown, everything's waiting for you!
(Downtown)

So, it turns out that the sound of traffic (and clubbin' coming from right around the corner of that opening in the pic above) isn't ALWAYS a great thing when you're DOWWWNNTOWN, but even so, we are delighted with our new abode.

We will most certainly be outdone by folks moving into REAL abodes (Yay P & K!) but we thought we'd share a few pictures now that we have completed our furniture set. We did that, by the way, through the magic of craigslist and a guy named Tom who was moving to NYC and just wanted to get his stuff to a nice home.  Lucky for us, we helped him achieve that. We bought a cushy, 3 month old futon from him, and he threw in a free bed!!

As you'll see, we're in a loft that's made up of three rooms: a living area, a bath, and our bedroom. With it's treated concrete floors and big ductwork, it has a bit of an industrial feel, which is kind of neat. The floors are also good for stocking-footed slides, such as dramatic sliding entrances.

Here's the kitchen-- the fridge is just left of you when you walk in the door of the apartment:

Mmm good tea.

So it's nice, with ample cupboards and all the appliances. (Even a stacked WD in a closet next to the bathroom. That's to your right as you come in the door...It's basically behind me in that photo.)

And taken from the fridge area, facing the patio/living room:

 

Modeling Ikea furniture. 

Hey, I tried.

Second effort. Same results.

Ready to have a ball!! In a bowl! (chair)

Note the fine, contemporary decor. Thank you Ikea. And World Market for the big, colorful bamboo rug.

We call this artsy shot "Ikea Futon and mirror, below Star of Little America Rest Stop."

Little America? you're asking? 

 

And our new bed! It's not inflatable!

****

Ok, unlike most of the posts of mine, this one's short and hopefully sweet. I hope, though, that it packs a potent punch and inspires a few of you to come for a visit!

 (Not pictured: Luxurious, elevated Queen Airmattress bought just days before hitting it big with the free bed.) 

Finally, our outdoor space. Our little patio area opens up to the courtyard, which has nice seating and plants and a big grill. And as you saw in the first pic, it overlooks the street. We've eaten outside a few times, and it's very nice. 

It does also mean the city sounds that Patula Clark talks about are right outside our window, so we bought ear plugs but haven't really needed them. Good news...

Another neat thing: the hallways are sort of outdoor. See in this shot the exit sign above one hallway:

  

And to the right of our patio...

Sweet bike!

Take care all...

P.S. Thanks for all the comments. We love hearing from each of you, and giggling at some of them. And we're glad to be sharing at least a bit of the fun...

Happy 'n Rosey 2010!

Happy 2010 Everyone!

Or TWO OH ONE OH...

So there are Cara and sister Bethany on Colorado Ave, Pasedena, California on January 1, 2010, just before the start of the Rose Bowl Parade. We'd rang the new year in at a diner with a TV we spotted at about 11:57 PM while driving to downtown Pasedena. Here we are at Shakers:

Cheers!

The funniest part of this visit was the un-synchronized countdown brought to us by Cara and Bethany and probably the closed captioning delay on the TV... not sure how it happened actually but it went something like: TEN! ten! NINE! nine! EIGHT! eight! (you get the idea...) 'twas fun! And note the festive gear and sharp, new Scarlet track jacket on the guy...

This is what came next, for about 7 hours. Cool Dollar Tree glowing stuff:

  

TWO OH ONE OH!

However, we kept ourselves occupied, and there was a nice sunrise as you can see, along with the other campers:

Not all of those campers were as happy (or friendly) as others, but it was part of the experience I guess, and a fun one for sure.

To the parade:

Yay 2010!

Big guy with his moving trumpet arm...

 Jack Hannah, who is as friendly looking when he's in a parade as he is when he's on Dave... but go Columbus Zoo!

 

And Go Bucks!

(sorry that it focused on that stray finger on the right side. Good news: it's yelling GO BUCKS, too.)

 These guys were sharp looking, though.

And of course our other Ohio friend was there! Yay Akron! Thumbs up Rose Bowl Parade! (corner)

But that wasn't all the fun we had with Bethany. Far from it, but here are just a few of the other activities.

La Jolla Beach Sisters.

It wasn't just Cara's closed eyes that "ruined" this one... SOAK UP THE SUN!

Coooooool. Hollywoooood shirts.

At the San Diego Zoo, imitating elephants, clearly...

And scientists.

Balboa Park, museums and fountain in the background. Bethany in the fore.

This is where we got those shirts!

...After the Theater and Stars walk:

That's Jim Carey's, and our bad/successful effort at looking like Dumb and Dumber.

Mr. Depp.

Mr. Snoop Dee Oh Double Gee.

Wax version.

At The Grove Shopping, Hollywood

 

 

That's a big tree!

And ending with the beginning of Bethany's visit, we picked her up from the airport and went to the harbor/Seaport Village.

More big trees: Can you spy Cara and her?

And how about the human between them? 

 

It was a lot of fun, and we enjoy every minute. Thanks Bethany! We also had fun with our friend Kristen, who came the next week (no photos available : (    ). And we look forward to future friends and family coming so we can have even more!

Will post more about our new place and job soon, once we're all settled. Take care and love to all.

Happy two oh one oh!