Grad Formal

The annual Graduate Student Formal was this last weekend. We've been every year so far and we couldn't break tradition so we got ourselves dressed up and headed out for an evening of music and dancing.

Scotty and Kevy

Couldn't resist getting a free cheesy formal photo.

The Guys.

The Gals.

The D.J. this year was pretty bad. They'd play a couple good songs and get people dancing. Then they'd switch to some techno music that nobody knew how to even dance to. It didn't stop Kevin from getting his groove on though.

Sarah requested Don't stop Believing by Journey and they told her they would play it. The song finally came on and everyone was singing and dancing. The energy was awesome. The song was over and the D.J. said..."we'll that's it" and the dance was over. Like I said....the worst D.J.'s ever. We still had a wonderful time and we'll probably still go next year if we can.

I told you you'd see another collage. You just didn't think it would be so soon.

Rancho San Antonio Hike

The weather has been absolutely wonderful the last couple of weeks and we decided to take advantage of it last weekend. There are many areas close to us that are great for hikes. Kevin found one he wanted to check out in Los Altos so we headed over there.

There are a bunch of different trails to take so we are already looking forward to going back. In this picture you can see the NASA Ames Research Center (the big white buildings in towards the left) which is actually pretty close to where we live.

Smile!

There were so many pretty flowers and it inspired me to experiment with making a collage on Picasa 3. It was fairly easy so I might be adding more of these in the future.

There is a 20 mile hike that Kevin read about that he wants us to go on, but we'll have to do it when we have a little more time. We'll probably bring a picnic lunch and stop at the vista point 10 miles in to re-energize for the hike back.

Kevin's B-day Weekend

This year for Kevin's birthday we had a special treat. Kevin's parents made the trip out here to California for a long weekend! They flew in on the Friday and had a chance to relax and tour Stanford a little bit before coming over to our apartment for a birthday dinner for Kevin. Brian, Moria, Sarah, and Jonathan were all able to come over too and it was fun to have Kevin and Patti meet some of the people we hang out with all the time.

27 candles. There is starting to be A LOT of smoke when all of them get blown out!
I had to work on Saturday, but we were able to go out to breakfast and do a little shopping before I had to leave.


Happy Birthday Kevin Patrick!
Kevin had a water polo tournament in the afternoon and then Kevin and Patti went to his softball game later in the evening. Then they went out to this hamburger place called 'The Counter' where you make your own burgers. They have all kinds of different toppings you can choose from and really really good sweet potato fries.

On Sunday Patti, Kevin, and I drove up north to Point Reyes. We'd never been up there before and were excited to see the views we'd heard so much about.

We had to stop along the way a couple of times for some good photos.
It was a really beautiful sunny day which meant there was a lot of traffic trying to get over the Golden Gate Bridge. After we got past it and through Sausalito we knew it was worth the drive.
We parked our car and got ready to walk over to the Point Reyes lighthouse. The scenery took our breath away.


Poor Kevin, he doesn't have any sunglasses.
Not even the trees provided much relief from the wind.... oh well.

We determined that being a lighthouse worker would kind of be a crappy job. It is so cold and windy and I think it would be kind of boring most of the time. The remaining time would be dangerous and scary.

The view isn't too bad though. During whale migration season, this is a great spot to see them. We may have to make the drive up next season to see them.

We did get to see a few seals playing in the water.

On Monday we went to breakfast again with Kevin and Patti before I had to head to work. Kevin and his parents hung out the rest of the morning and afternoon until they had to head to the airport to go back home.

The weekend flew by like they usually do when we are doing something fun. It was great having family visit and we look forward to the next visit!

Lake Del Valle

Two weekends ago was our camping and fishing trip out at Lake Del Valle about an hour away in the East Bay. We left Friday night so that we could get up early, get out on the lake, and start fishing. At first we thought that it would be tough to get up at 6:30am since we didn't actually head to our tents until after 1:00am. Luckily for us though, the guy in the campsite beside ours decided to start blaring his thrash metal music at 6:00am. Apparently he didn't like being told to turn it off at 10pm for quiet hours and was making a statement that quiet hours were officially over.
We headed over to the lake where we rented a pontoon boat. It took us a bit to get all of our gear, food, drinks, etc on the boat but then we were finally ready to catch some fish. it was a gorgeous morning and we were pretty excited to catch a bunch of fish and have them for dinner that night. I'd gotten a bunch of free veggies leftover from an event at work and we'd brought several spices so we could grill them with the fish. I was a little nervous about gutting a fish since I'd never done it before, but I was ready to try it.
What we didn't know is that it wouldn't really matter that we'd brought all the fixing's to go with these fish because the fish were not interested in anything that we had to offer.

We kept on trying though and we were having fun just being out on the lake.
Occasionally we had to make pit stops on land for potty breaks.
The views from the boat were amazing and it made us feel a little better about being fishless.
Later in the day we headed back towards the marina since part of our group had to head out early. While we were over there, Kevin managed to get one of Jonathan's lures stuck in the bushes. We were determined to get it out and with Brian behind the wheel, Kevin finally released the lure. There was a lot of cheering for our only catch of the day.
At this point we could see the swimming area across the lake. That is when Moria was challenged with trying to swim the distance. There was a lot of debate as to whether or not she could actually make it. Both Brian and I knew she could (she's been on swim team and done water polo for years.) Plus, it wasn't that far away. I made the mistake of saying that even I could swim across. The next thing I knew I was in the water with Moria and we were determined to prove them wrong.
Jumping in was a cold shock to say the least. It literally took my breath away and it took a few minutes to adjust.

Initiated by Kevin, Moria and I had to put up with comments like.... "you're never going to make it", "take this life vest before you drown", etc.
As we got closer to the swimming area, Kevin dove into the lake and began swimming as fast as he could to the finish. Moria tried to catch him, but he started further ahead of us and he wasn't already tired from swimming. Naturally he beat us to shore and then we were made fun of for swimming so slow.
The only shot of our entire group before Jason, Brian, and Moria left. Afterward, we headed back out on the lake for a couple more hours with new Intel on where the fish might be biting. We got one nibble, but still didn't catch anything. Luckily we had plenty of food so we didn't go hungry.
Once we got back to the campsite, we were greeted by more thrash metal music. We're pretty sure this guy was just sitting in his car all day listening to his awful music. It was really loud and we felt really bad for all the families with kids.

Finally his car battery died and we were incredibly relieved. He managed to get a jump from someone and then drove off. He came back a few hours later with a friend and a police car following him. We got to watch him fail a field sobriety test, get arrested, the police search his car and then arrest his friend.
It was fairly entertaining to say the least.
Our Double Decker fire.
One last group shot.
Even though we didn't catch any fish, we still had a really fun trip. Hopefully the next fishing trip will yield better results though.

Big Basin

I'm more than a little behind on posting, so I am going to try really hard to get caught up this weekend. In order to do this we have to flashback to the middle of April.

Moria's mom was in town for the weekend and I went with them on a hike at Big Basin Redwood State Park. It is a beautiful park not too far from us and it was fun getting to meet Moria's mom.

Moria's mom studied entomology and wasn't afraid to literally get in the creek and start looking around for bugs. She would overturn a rock and find a mayfly or a water penny....something I would never even thought of finding or even noticed.

It was pretty cool seeing all the different insects she could find.
We brought sandwiches and stopped for lunch after getting off trail for a little bit. Luckily Brian used his map skills to get us back on track.No matter how many times I see them, I'm still amazed by these trees.
We had to stop at a scenic point on the way down. Gorgeous.

It is always fun meeting our friends family members. We hear stories all the time and it is fun to be able to put a person with those stories.