Recent Blogs
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May 18, 2013
When my brother, Dave, was here, we spent an afternoon driving up the iconic Highway 1 along the California coast. We started from Big Basin, headed to the coast, and drove north, stopping along the way to experience the windy beaches, explore rocky cliffs, and admire the views.
We stopped at Año Nuevo, a state park where you can see herds of elephant seals... (read)
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May 4, 2013
Yes, it’s true, we went to Hawaii! We spent a week on Kauai, in a cute island cottage with palm trees outside and chickens roaming the property (turns out that’s an accurate description of any place on the island, including the beach).
Some highlights included hiking to Hanakapiai Falls, snorkeling in super-clear water and seeing giant sea turtles, and long walks on the beach... (read)
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April 17, 2013
Since Ryder and I have birthdays four days apart, we get to string our celebrations out for the whole span. How better to celebrate than with two cakes…
(chocolate cake with speculoos cookie butter frosting)
(surprise cake from work)
… some new (real) cacti to go with my crochet cacti collection…
… strawberry-banana daiquiris…
… and cookie stuffed cookies for Ryder’s labmates to enjoy... (read)
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April 14, 2013
While my brother was in town, we took a day trip to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. It’s about an hour from our house, the last half on winding roads up into the Santa Cruz mountains. Big Basin has some of the largest old-growth redwood trees in this part of California, which was our primary motivation for choosing this park.
Two of the largest trees, the “mother of the forest” and the “father of the forest” are 15 feet in diameter and almost 300 feet tall!
Besides those two huge redwoods, there were many, many more huge redwoods... (read)
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April 7, 2013
My brother Dave came for a visit recently and we took the opportunity to do some more exploring. First up was a visit to the Palo Alto Baylands Park and the adjoining Byxbee Park. The Baylands park itself wasn’t much more than a Duck Pond and some trails among the marshes, but Byxbee Park was a bit more interesting.
Pole Field is an art installation featuring poles... (read)
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March 26, 2013
I don’t know if California really is prettier than Atlanta, or if I am just more apt to take walks since the weather is great pretty much every day. Or maybe it’s that I now work from home and have the luxury of taking walks around the neighborhood when I need a little break!
Oranges in the sun – seems so appropriately Californian
Flowers peeking through the fence
A sunset from our driveway
Funky old pickup that lives in our neighborhood
Pretty lilacs wisteria
Beautiful blooming tree (Anyone know what kind of tree this is?)
Evening sky on our walk home from an emergency tortilla-chip-acquisition-expedition
(read)
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March 3, 2013
A couple of weeks ago we went for a wander around Stanford’s campus and admired some of their pretty architecture.
Walking through some of their archways.
The main quad.
The facade of the campus church.
The rest of the main quad (this is what you see standing in front of the church).
We also saw this little hummingbird perched on a tree!
(read)
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February 9, 2013
Today was our first expedition into the vast array of parks that this area of California has to offer. Wunderlich Park is a county park about 15 minutes west of our house – a mostly wooded, hilly park between the Pacific Coast and the populated area along the Bay.
We spent a few hours there this afternoon, hiking along some of the trails and marveling at the trees... (read)
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February 4, 2013
A few evenings ago, I spotted this beautiful sunset out our front window:
Yesterday, the weather was sunny and warm, and we enjoyed it by taking a stroll around our neighborhood. These ducks were enjoying the “creek”.
This is the “creek” – enclosed in a cement ditch for its entire length (at least in mile or so of it that we’ve seen)... (read)
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January 15, 2013
Well, I’m realizing it’s a lot harder to blog regularly when I’m working full-time! I’m blessed to be able to continue working for the company I did in Atlanta, which means that going back to work last Monday threw me full swing into catching up from two weeks off! Our evenings have been spent unpacking, organizing, and visiting every grocery store nearby to try to find the best prices (Walmart seems to be winning…)
First real meal in the new place: pizza!
Our plants are enjoying the full sun that we get most of the day in our front window... (read)
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January 6, 2013
Thanks to the help of Ryder’s labmates, our new apartment quickly went from this:
to this:
Yes, a queen mattress fits in our bathroom. It’s the most generously proportioned room in the house.
Our new apartment is slightly smaller than our old apartment, and differently proportioned, so we’ve been playing tetris to get our furniture, clothes, and craft supplies (okay, so those are mostly mine) to fit nicely in our new place... (read)
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January 5, 2013
Hi, friends! Just stopping in to let you all know we made it to our new apartment, met our very kind landlady, and unloaded the truck! 5 of Ryder’s new labmates came over to help unload, so we had the truck empty and lunch eaten in well under two hours.
Now our apartment is full of boxes and a jumble of furniture! We’ve taken a break from unpacking to have some dinner (and conveniently found wi-fi here) and pick up some groceries for tomorrow... (read)
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This morning was a stark contrast to yesterday. It was a balmy 40 degrees and sunny when we woke up in California today. We said goodbye to Blythe, and gaped at the gas prices that were 70 cents a gallon more than they were across the border in Arizona. Yikes.
We are having fun, I promise.
Our morning drive was more “nothing”, punctuated by beautiful mountains... (read)
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January 4, 2013
We woke up this morning to a lovely sight — our truck and car covered in a solid inch of snow. Ryder was thrilled — he loves snow (not). According to Francisco, the hotel concierge, El Paso only gets snow a couple of times a year and this was heavy one. Fortunately, I still had my snow brush in the trunk of my car from when I lived in Michigan 5 years ago... (read)
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Wailua Falls
Wailua River
Opaeka'a Falls
Another critter outside our cottage
This photo + previous photo = mostly smiling Wincks
Apparently we are not good at both smiling in the same picture
Flora at our cottage
Chickens & roosters are everywhere on the island!
A miniature garden growing in a fallen-over tree trunk
