Another Wednesday...

Heidi writes:

Well, the sunburn is healing (no peeling yet!) and the butt isn't quite as sore! Things are going well. The weather is also "cooling" down some. It is only suppose to be in the mid-90s this week, so that is a relief :-) Jeff and I went running yesterday and it was perfect weather out! We are still debating what to do this coming weekend and for the 4th of July.

My sister Melissa sent me pictures of her kids, Tayler and Carsen. I don't get to see them very often, since they live in Alaska and all. I thought that I would post a picture of each of them. Tayler will be 4 in July and Carsen will be 1 in September.

White Water Rafting

Heidi writes:

What an experience! We had a great time! The day started pretty early, as we had to be at the camp to check in by 8:45am. There were 12 of us that went all together - we split into two groups of six (as that was the number of people allowed in a raft + the guide). Before we got into the rafts and started the journey, we were given the safety talk - what to do if you fell out of the boot,- it is very important to keep your feet up and how to lift someone back in the raft, etc... We rafted the South Fork of the American River. The rapids were class 3 (Rapids are rated Class 1-5, 5 being the most dangerous/or the largest). We stopped about half way down for lunch and then continued along the way. The total trip was 21 miles. It was about 108 degrees out, so the 55 degree water felt pretty good when it hit us - a little shocking at first, but you got used to it, sort of. Our guide, Geoff, was pretty cool. He has been rafting for over 14 years! He let us swim a couple of the rapids. I only did one, Jeff did both. The current was pretty intense in the river. A scarey part of the trip was when we were heading down one of the haystack rapids and Jeff fell out (he was pretty much washed out because his side of the raft went under water). He did a good job of floating the rest of the way down the rapids and he got him back into the boat! At the end of the day, we compared sunburns (even though we lathered on the spf 30 and 45, we still got burnt). Jeff's back and shoulders were pretty bad...a nice outline of a life-jacket. The top of my back was red too, but the top of my legs were the worse. We are both hoping that we don't peel! A lot of the redness went away during the night, but I still hurt!! The other thing that hurts - my butt!! I never knew that sitting on a rubber raft for a few hours would make my bottom hurt as bad as it does. I seriously have problems sitting down and standing up and walking! Hopefully, that pain will dull soon! We didn't bring a waterproof camera with, but we did buy some pictures that were taken of us along the way. I have attached 4 of them. Maybe we will post more later. I don't really remember all of the names of the big rapids that we went down, I am sure Jeff does though, so we may edit this later or he may write his own comments. All in all, I had a great time! We are even considering doing the Middle Fork of the American River next - class 4 rapids! That may wait until next spring though.



Jeff and I are in the back of the boat in these first two pictures. I stayed in the back the whole time - I was a little scared to move up to the front.

















Jeff is in the middle row in these two pictures. The guide thought it would be safer to have the girls in the back by him.

It's Finally Friday!!

Heidi writes:

Hello!! It is finally Friday - an end to a long week and one day closer to win the weather here is suppose to go back down to 98...that will be such a cool down!! By the time 8:00am comes, it is already over 80 degrees! The meteorologists say that by next Wed. or Thurs., the temperature should be in the 90s.

Today was also test day for Jeff and I! We both passed our written tests - YEAH! We can expect our Cali licenses in the mail in about 2-4 weeks. For now, we get to carry around a half sheet of paper. I got 3 wrong and Jeff got 2. However, it took Jeff about twice as long to complete his test! Oh, and Krista - the merging into the bike lane for a right hand turn question was on mine!! Thanks :-) We also both got our cars registered for CA. We have to get a smog test performed to make everything official, so we will probably do that sometime this weekend and get plates sometime next week.

In other news, I have started running with Jeff!! I know, I know...I can hardly believe it myself. I am not a great runner, especially with distance, but I am slowly adding a little more each day we run. Plus, this heat is horrible to run in. The humidity is low, which is both good and not so good - your mouth gets dry fast! I chug gatorade at home all day before we go, so that helps a little. We have been going to the park at least 3 days a week. Jeff has been patient with me and running a little slower of a pace to stay with me. He always does a couple extra laps after I can't run anymore...someday I will be able to keep up with him! My goal is to run the General Mills 5k race next May or whenever they have it. On Wednesday, we were walking a cool down lap and a little birdie pooped on Jeff's arm!! It was just a little tiny bit, but I thought it was pretty funny :-)

I would also like to congratulate Geoff and Kristen on the arrival of Lily!!! I am very happy for you two!! Send more pictures when you have time!

OK, it is almost 3:30pm here. I have about a 1/2 hour before Jeff leaves work, so I think I am going to take a nap. I think we are going out to dinner with some people and hanging out afterwards. The white-water rafting trip is all finalized for Sunday...I am a little nervous, but really excited! My dad said the best thing to us - "Tell Jeff to wear a football helmet to protect his face!" It made me smile and then made me worry...hopefully no injuries will occur!!

Ah..Ah...ah.ah...ah....Juicy!!

First, I should apologize to Better then Ezra for trying to spell the hook of their song in the title of this blog. So unfortunately the weekdays aren't filled with unbridled amounts of excitement as they used to be in Minnesota...so to fill my weekly post allotment it is time to express the new love of my life...



The In-N-Out Burger. I am not sure how many of our readers have west coast experience, but I sure had very little exposure. I had never really seen a mountain, the pacific ocean was foreign to me, and little did I now I spent the first 25 years of my life completely unaware that the In-N-ut Burger ever existed. I won't write any poems or songs about it...Mark Noffler(?spelling) attempted that with McDonald's in that Kroc with a 'k' song and it wasn't real impressive in my opinion.

Simply put the menu contains only like 8 items including pop, shakes and milk, but it has truly been one of the better parts of my California dining experience...If I come back to MN weighing 400 lbs it will mostly be the fault of the In-N-Out Burger...and might have something to do with sensory testing Betty Crocker products a couple of times a week. Today was oatmeal CC cookies tomorrow Blueberry muffins...



I will close by saying here is to you creator of the In-N-Out Burger man...your passion for the hamburger allowed you to ignore main stream america by not offering a chicken option...and who could disagree with your choice to remove salads from a fast food menu...

--Jeff

Just Another Manic Monday...

Heidi wrote:

Ok, so not really, but I can pretend :-) There isn't a whole lot going on. At least I can check email and communicate with the outside world while Jeff is working. Much of my day has been spent playing with Emily and Sadee - our roommate's miniature pinchers (I will post a picture of them later). They are very vocal and well, not the best at playing fetch, but they try!

I did make an appointment at the DMV for Jeff and I to get our California DL and car registration. I can't wait to take a written driving test again!! The appt. is Friday, so I will update you all on how it goes! Think happy, positive thoughts :-)

I also went through and named all of the pictures that we have taken while we are out here. I thought that I would post a couple more:

This is a picture that I took while we were driving down I-80 in Wyoming. It was the first time we saw land formations on the trip, so we were pretty excited!!

This picture was taken in Utah. It was pretty neat to see snow in May!

This is a picture of the Great Salt Desert. We had to drive about 100 miles through this vast sandy place. It was pretty uneventful - I couldn't imagine breaking down or running out of gas in this place - there is absolutely nothing around!


OK, so those are the pictures I will post for now. This weekend we may be going white water rafting with some of the people from General Mills. I will have to buy a water-proof camera and take pictures. Jeff and I are both looking forward to the adventure!

Heidi is on the net...

Hello!! I finally got to check my email today for the first time since leaving MN!! How wierd to think how addicting the internet is...I seriously think I was going through withdrawls! :-)
I don't have a lot to say...Jeff is doing a good job at keeping everyone up to date and posting pictures. I hope that everyone is well!!

Week 2

The weather has been great…actually like mid 70s the last couple days, last week spent most time in the mid 90s. I am not sure I am ready for when it hits 100 in another month but hopefully it will slowly increase so I can adapt. Heidi and I went into San Francisco for the weekend. Alacatraz was sold out for the day before 10 am, apparently the internet has made it so you have to book in advance, but Pier 39 and the fisherman's warf were really cool. We checked out golden gate park and the bridge, and we wandered around china town some.

Ofcourse we drove up and down all of the rediculous hills, and we made the trip down the world's most crooked road. All and all San Francisco was pretty interesting, I am sure we will make a lot of trips back as people come out to visit, Heidi may complain some about the amount of walking(probably put in 5miles that day, much of it up and down hills) but we will be happy to go back time and time again.



On the back in MN front...My brother and his wife had their baby!! Amelia Marilyn Goettl!! I may get this wrong as I didn't write it down but I believe she was in the neighborhood of 6lbs 5 oz and 20 inches long. Everybody is happy and healthy and I believe they came home yesterday.

getting settled...

So this is one of the few times where you will actually read a post that was put here by me(Jeff). Heidi and I have arrived in CA. We are situated in our temporary apartment with our new roommate Stacy. She is a lot of fun and very nice. She has 2 miniature pinchers, they bark a lot, but other then that it has been great. She actually brought us along to a family pool party at her parents house...surprisingly enough the California folks aren't all that unlike the Minnesota people...must be the southern Cal people we here so much about.

Anyway...We do not have the internet, and we have only one car until the end of next week so Heidi does not have the ability to get to the library and check her email or update this blog...she promises to keep it up to date and add all sorts of pictures(there are quite a few from the journey out here) as soon as she can.

As far as the trip goes, I will give a brief overview but expect the complete story with photos and travel log to come(yes we were bored enough to write stupid things down as they occurred...we Heidi even has a list of all the license plates we saw along the way.



We made our first pit stop at Casa de Sullivan in the grand city that is Des Moines Iowa. The Sullivans are doing well and have an awesome house in a great neighborhood(pictures to come) Travis is starting a new full-time job with John Deere financial and Kristin is still pull in the big bucks as an engineer with John Deere.

From there we basically pushed right on through driving day and night until we hit Reno Nevada, we though about stopping along the way but lets be honest what is there between council bluffs Iowa and Reno? Salt Lake was cool but the actual lake was kinda stinky and the beach was littered with dead animals(pictures to come)

Anyway, we stopped off along the way getting food and seeing somethings, occaisionally taking a walk or most frequently scowering crappy small towns for a kinkos or any place where we could print a pdf and then fax it back(the house offer is officially accepted, the inspections are done and the closing is the 13th!!).



Reno was the biggest little disappoinment(pictures to come). I was expecting the biggest little city in the world to be much more specatular...we wandered around the casinos, missed the buffets because we were too late and went to back to the hotel dissappointed. The following morning we played in a holdem tourney...fast paced, aggressive blinds, but fun. I was on a roll early and because of the speed of the game had to play much more aggressively then I would have liked. I went all in before the flop with 2 callers thinking I was golden with 2 Q's and learned quickly that 2 K's would have been a nicer hand to have.

Heidi lasted much longer but didn't fair near as well...well she sat at the table about 4 times as long as I did she probably never got up to the $ amount I had in the first 10 minutes. She faced crap cards all day and did the best she could eventually going with a 6, 2 offsuit.

More details to follow with pictures...