A Short Update...

Ok, so this is my 4th post I wrote today! I finally had some time to sit down and write and uploard photos. I thought that I would share a few other stories:

-On Thursday and Friday we had 14 cadidates on campus to interview for the 10 opening GRD positions for next year. Although the days were crazy busy (leaving the apt. at 8am and not getting back until 11pm both nights) it was a great time and the candidates were a lot of fun. It will be a hard decision to make and I am glad that I am not on that committee!

-Class wise things are going well. I didn't get as much as I wanted to done during spring break, but I am still ahead in a couple of classes, so that is nice. Luckily, I don't have too many meetings this next week, so I will be able to get other work stuff caught up!

-My summer plans - I will be the GRD for the Townhouses and am also doing my field experience in the Career Resource Center. I think that I am going to spread my CRC experience through part of the academic year as well so I can get experience with some of the programs they put on. I am really looking forward to the experience!

-Jeff - he is doing great! He has tendonitus (spelling?) in his shoulder, but he is doing quite well. Work is keeping him busy and he is also participating in Leadership Lodi and is having a great time with that experience. He is planning on running a half marathon in May!

OK, so that seems to be a good catch-up. Today is a beautiful day weather wise. However, I don't want to get anymore sun until my burn is completely healed - you never can be too careful. It is a great day to blog though and we have also been doing our "spring cleaning" and catching up on laundry!

I hope everything is going well with everyone! Remember, visitors are always welcome :-)

Red Shoe Ball

Last night we went to the Red Shoe Ball. It is a benefit for the Ronald McDonald House and camp. There were a few of the General Mills people who went (GM was a "diamond" sponsor so we had 2 tables). We had a great time and tons of fun! Here are a few pictures of the evening:

Kristi, Dan, Jeff, Drew, Heidi, and Toni (not sure what she is doing) taking a break from playing Black Jack. We had play money for the casino and used the winnings to get raffle tickets for prizes. Jeff and I ended up winning a gift certificate to Tokyo Fros! Below is Connie, Drew, Josh, Christina, and Janessa playing the table!

Above: Heidi, Toni, and Kristi with our favorite dealer Lulu! She made playing black jack so much fun! Below: Kristi and Dan playing cards!

In honor of Ronald McDonald's famous footwear, everyone was encouraged to wear red shoes. The girls all had them on! It was great. In the photo below - Toni, Christina, Janessa, Heidi, Kristi, and Jodie - we look so cute in our black dresses and red shoes! (Sorry about Drew "squeezing" into the picture!)

Above - Drew's "dancing" face - or at least I think it is his dancing face :-)

Jeff and I are above and Christina and Josh are in the photo below.

It wouldn't be a ball without dancing! The photo above shows us getting down!

Drew and Toni at an unnamed Sacramento establishment. I think they were worn out from all of the dancing and card playing! Luckily, a few of us got a hotel room and were able to walk back there and relax. We had a wonderful time and I am so happy that we were able to go!

St. Patty's Day Pics

Here are a couple of pictures from St. Patty's Day. Thanks Kristi for sending them to me!

Above: Heidi, Outing (Christina), and Kristi! I love the girls! Below is a picture of me in Old Sacramento. It is one of my favorite places (probably because of all of the candy shops!). They had a great parade and Kristi and I had a lot of fun hanging around there for a while.

You can also see some of my sunburn in the pictures! I did so well taking care of it, but I did start to peel on Thursday. It isn't a bad peel so that is a good thing. Plus, not all of it peeled and I have a little bit of a tan now!

Wolves v. Kings

Jeff and I went to Arco Arena to watch the Sacramento Kings take on the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday. It was an amazing game. It was close the whole time and the Wolves pulled out the victory. Jeff was able to get the General Mills seats, so the view was amazing - 3 rows from the court! Here are a few pictures of the night...

above: Wolves pre-game warm-ups. below: Kevin Garnett

Jeff and I wore out Timberwolves shirts. Mad-Dog noticed and talked to me a couple of times throughout the night - that was pretty cool. Below are Dan and Vanessa. They came with us. Dan is an assistant vice president at Pacific and they are a ton of fun to hang out with.

Above is a picture of Bibby - he is an awesome player to watch! The picture below gives you somewhat of an idea of where our seats were located and how close to the court we were.

Kings #93 is Ron Artest - he still gets boos from the Kings fans. I thought he looked pretty awkard playing. The shot below is of the Timberwolves towards the end of the game when they were in the lead! Go Wolves!!

I had a great time and am hoping that I have the opportunity to go to a couple of more games while we are out here. We will see what next season brings!

A quick update...

Hey everyone! Sorry about not writing on here for a while. My spring break went well. I didn't do a whole lot, but enjoyed doing nothing :-) I did get ahead in a couple of my classes in homework, so that is always a good thing. Jeff was at a bachelor party in Tahoe from Thursday-Sunday and had a great time. I spent St. Patrick's Day laying out by a pool with Kristi and Outing and then went to Old Sacramento and a friend's house for a little get together. I got a little sunburn and am hoping I don't peel - so far so good! It is a little chillier this week - in the low 70s and rainy, which is a nice and welcomed break from the 80s we had all last week! Tomorrow we go to the Kings v. Wolves game at Arco, so we will be sure to take pictures there (if the camera is remembered!). It should be a good game and it should be on t.v. so you should look for us - we will be in our Timberwolves shirts and the seats are between the visitor bench and the half-court line about 3-4 rows up. The rest of the week I will be interviewing candidates for next year's GRD positions and showing them around Pacific and Stockton. I am really looking forward to it! The Red Shoe Ball is Saturday and it is going to be so much fun - definitely watch for photos. Ok, that seems like a good update for now! I hope that all is well with everyone!

A great Saturday

Jeff and I had a fun-filled weekend, especially on Saturday. We got up Saturday morning and headed over to Murphy, CA to visit Ironstone winery. Jeff had been there for a work outing, but I had never seen and have heard amazin things. The place is absolutely gorgeous! We took a tour of the winery and were able to see some neat things. Here is a picture diary of the tour:

Our first stop was in the museum. We went into the vault and saw the world's largest gold nugget (above). It weighs just over 44 lbs.! It was really cool to see. On our next trip, we will definitely look more in the museum, as we didn't have enough time to browse around.

We then headed down into the tunnels (caves) beneath the main building. It is where all of the wine is made and where the barrels are stored (above are some of the barrels in part of the cave). A fun fact we found out - the door to one of the caves was used as the door sounds in the movie "Casper the friendly ghost". It was a great sound for a movie like that! There were also natural waterways in the caves that looked like many waterfalls. It almost reminded me of the movie "Goonies" when they are walking underground by the well. Below is a picture of Jeff and I in front of one of the "waterfalls".

The landscaping of the winery is amazing. They have around 12 full-time landscape artists working year-round. Above you can see "IRONSTONE" wrote out in the bushes.

We were then able to head into the dining room area where many weddings take place. On the back wall their is an organ that takes up the entire wall. It is now all computerized and we were able to listen to a couple of songs on it. It was so loud, but very fun to listen to.

It is daffodil days in Murphy and it was amazing to see all of the flowers. On the road leading to Ironstone there were a ton of flowers springing up. It was so gorgeous!

We walked around the town of Murphy for a while and had a late lunch at an old ice cream parlor. It was delicious. We then headed up to Elk Grove for Brian and Melissa's going away party. Brian was transferred to a new plant with General Mills. Below is a picture of Patrick, Brian, Kara and Melissa at the party.

The weather has been so nice here. I can't complain about weather in the high 70s and low 80s! I am on spring break this week, although I am still kind of working, having meetings, and doing homework! However, it has been nice to sit outside and do homework :-)

A fatherly visit...

My dad was able to spend a couple of days with Jeff and I this week. It was great seeing him. My Aunt Linda (dad's sister) bought a car in San Diego, so she flew dad there to drive the car up to Portland for her. My Uncle Mike (dad's brother) flew from Portland to San Diego to make the drive with dad. They got here for dinner on Tuesday and I was able to spend all day Wednesday and had breakfast with dad today. They are now on their way to Portland. All though it was a short visit, we had a lot of fun!


My dad had never been wine tasting before, so I thought that I would show him around Lodi. We started Wednesday out by touring campus and he was able to meet a ton of people. We then went to lunch at Woodbridge Pizza - it is delicious and Jeff was able to meet us for lunch. I then took dad to 4 wineries - Woodbridge, Jessie's Grove, Michael Davids, and Van Ruiten. Our friend Bill was working in the tasting room at Woodbridge and dad really enjoyed talking to him. We learned that they have enough vats to hold 50,000,000 (that's million) gallons of liquid (wine and/or juice)!! Dad was pretty impressed with the layout and how big the winery actually is! He also really enjoyed Jessie's Grove. There is a lot of history there and it is still family owned. Luckily, the owner was in the tasting room and we were able to talk to him and he told dad everything! Michael Davids is a fun winery to see, but weren't there too long. We headed over to Van Ruiten's when Jeff got off of work and met him there. The owner was also in the tasting room and we had a good time talking to him. I bought a few bottles to send with dad up to Portland to drink with the family. I think they will enjoy them! We had dinner that evening at Garlic Brothers which is right on the delta in Stockton. It was a nice setting and had beautiful views. Here are a couple of pictures from the day:

Above: Dad and Jeff at Van Ruiten's tasting room.

The above picture is of me and my dad. The picture below is of Uncle Mike, me, and dad. We had just finished eating at Garlic Brothers.
We ended last night by heading back to our apartment and played a few games of cribbage and poker. Dad was able to come to campus this morning and I treated him to breakfast at the dining hall. It was great seeing him and I know that he had a good time visiting!

Another beautiful weekend...

It was a gorgeous weekend here. We definitely enjoyed the 70-degree+ weather! On Saturday, we decided to go to the wineries in Lockeford. It is about 10 minutes northeast of Lodi and is only open on the weekends. It is a lot with a few buildings with 12 tasting rooms! It is so much fun. We were there for at least 3 hours and didn't even see all of the tasting rooms - we made it to 6. It is definitely one of our favorite places. Here are some pictures:






The Olde Lockeford Winery (above). It is owned by one couple and the other wineries rent out rooms for tasting. During harvest season, they bring in a large mobile machine that they all use to make the wine. In the buildings (below) each tasting room holds barrels of the wine. It is pretty neat to see. Each tasting room was painted a different color.


Below is a dinosaur fossil. I know, pretty random to have at a tasting room, but this t-rex wasn't the only one they had. There were numerous fossils out for all to see. The wines each have a different fossil on the label.

There were so many chickens running around. It was pretty funny. The guy below almost made it into the tasting room!!

While tasting at Boitano, the owner needed some help getting a couple of cases down from the pile. So, he asked Jeff and Jeff was happy to comply. For Jeff's services - we got a free bottle of wine! Anyone else need some help?

Below are what the grape vines look like now. They are pretty bare. They probably won't start to turn green until April or May.

So, if you decide to come visit Jeff and I and are here on a weekend, this is a place where we would definitely want you to see!!

After that, we went to Kara and Patrick's house to finish watching the Lord of the Rings triology with them. We got there toward the end of the second, which worked out fine because I hadn't seen the third yet. Good times :-)

On Sunday, we played a great game of sand volleyball. It was another warm, sunny day! We were all in shorts and t-shirts. It was great! Jeff played some ultimate frisbee last night while I did homework. Maybe next Sunday I will be in.?.?

Have a great week all!

Priceless...

*Cost in time of having 15-20 inches of snow = Approx. an extra hour added to your commute, 45 minutes to shovel, at least an hour to complain about it

*Cost of a snow shovel or snow blower = Approx. $20-$50 to $500 Plus

*Cost of a new winter wardrobe(coat, hat, gloves, boots) = $200 Plus

*Living in CA while your friends and family are getting dumped on by mother nature…PRICELESS