Ports and a festival!

The week was a complete blur for me, but I had a great weekend. It started out on Thursday when Jeff and I, along with some co-workers, went to the Stockton Ports baseball game. We always have a good time when we go. Tickets for the homerun hill are only $5, so it makes for some cheap entertainment! Here is a picture of Jeff and I at the game:

It was Pacific night at the stadium, so there were quite of few people from my school there. At the end of the game, I convinced Power-Cat (our mascot) to wrestle in the grass :-)

Jeff had a retreat for Leadership Lodi for part of the weekend. On Saturday I spent about 10 hours doing research for a take-home final. I am about 1/2 way done! It is due on Thursday, so I will need to spend a good chuck on this week doing homework too. Jeff got back on Sunday morning and we decided to go to the Asparagus Festival! Yes, Stockton has an event dedicated to asparagus! It was really hot on Sunday, so we only stayed for a couple of hours, but here are a few pictures of the day:

They had a hole-in-one contest to see who could hit a golf ball from a make-shift peir to a floating platform. It was quite funny to watch the guys on the platform be hit with flying golf balls - that is one summer job I would not want!

A highligh of the Aspargus Festival is all of the food and beverages made from or with asapagus. Below is a advertising for the aspara-ritas! We decided to pass on that beverage!

We did wait in line for the famous deepfried asparagus. Below is a picture of our half-eaten food:

I took the following picture to show you part of the waterfront of downtown Stockton. In the distance there is the Ports baseball stadium. The building with all of the windows is the arena where the Stockton Thunder (hockey), California Cougars (indoor soccer) and Stockton Lightening (arena football) play their home games. We have yet to go to the arena, but it is on our list. To the right of the arena (not pictured) is a construction site where about 300 condos are going in and to the left (where the people are walking and not pictured) is the amphitheatre and Weber's Point. It is a pretty nice place to walk around.

This week will be a little crazy for me as it is my last week of classes! OK, I have one next Monday, but we just have to listen to final presentations and my group presents tonight, so technically, it is my last week of classes. I have about 6 assignments left! I am so ready for summer!!

Another week has come and gone

It has been a pretty uneventful week for us. We have been hanging on the d-l for a while. Jeff did go and get x-rays on his ankle - it is not broken, just not better yet. Maybe by the end of this week he will start to run again!?!? On Sunday, we took one of my co-workers/classmates wine tasting. He has been wanting to go for a while and is graduating this year, so we thought that we should bring him. We went to Lockeford and then to Woodbridge. It was fun. Below is a picture of Jeff and I at Vino Piazza.
My days have been full of homework. Only 3 weeks left of this semester, so it is crunch time! I have a few papers/projects and last minute homeowrk assignments to finish up. I am really looking forward to no classes for the summer!
Upcoming events/outings for us: camping at Yosemite, hopefully going to the Twins v. As games, and a trip to Vegas (we are going to have a blast!). Jeff's brother, Andy, and his wife, Kerri, will be out here visiting in about a month, so that will be great!
Have a great week everyone!

half marathon setback and other stuff

It was a rough Wednesday for us, especially Jeff. We played in our last volleyball game with the General Mills folks in Elk Grove. We played at 7pm for 3rd place. Well, we only had 3 people show up and you need 4 to play so we had to forfeit our first match. I wasn't a happy camper. Our other 3 players showed up at 7:15 and we lost that match, so we finished the season in 4th place. We play in another league with some of the RAs and GRDs at Pacific and the games are also on Wednesday nights, however we didn't play until 11pm that night. During the first match, Jeff went up to hit a ball and a girl on our team slid her foot underneath of him and he twisted is ankle pretty bad. I have never seen an ankle swell that fast before! He had this huge bump coming out above his shoe-line. He got some iced and had it checked out by the trainers and sat the rest of the games - we lost :-( Anyway, Jeff hasn't gone to the doctor at all and has been just icing, resting, and elevating his foot. It is looking much better. Here is a picture we took a couple of days ago: The bad thing about the injury is that Jeff will be running in a half marathon in May and hasn't been able to run at all this week! He is going a little crazy being cooped up, but hopefully he will be better soon to run at the end of this week or next.

As far as the other stuff goes - we went to a surpise 30th birthday dinner on Friday night in Sacramento at an Irish Pub. Maggie was very excited that she pulled off the surprise on Steve. In the picture below - Steve and Maggie are arriving to us blowing on noise makers and yelling 'Happy Birthday' and 'Surprise' - it was pretty fun!We then headed to Catherine and Court's house for cake and games. It was also Kari and Brent's going away party - they will be moving to MN next week! We had a great time hanging out with everyone. We even made up a new game - Catch Phrase Charades! We started out on the "plant and animal" category, but then moved on to other ones. It was so much fun and we laughed for quite a while. Here are a couple of pictures from the night:

Above: How do you spell "Congratulations"? I wonder if Catherine could have gotten her money back :-) Below: Brent acting out some animal during Catch Phrase Charades. His facial expressions were great!

I know that I posted a picture of a rose already, but campus is full of them right now. I love our rose gardens on campus and took some more pictures of them. The next two pictures are at the front/main entrance to the university.

Portland

Jeff and I had a great time in Portland. We were able to see all of my relatives (except for 1 cousin) who live in the area. I hadn't seen my cousins in about 11 years and Jeff had never met them. My aunts and grandma came to our wedding, but that was still a couple of years ago. We had a wonderful time and loved every minute that we were there. Before I write any more about our trip I need to write this - I did not want to write this blog because about 200 pictures of my family mysteriously disappeared from the laptop. We uploaded them during the trip and they are no longer in the folder that I put them in :-( I was so upset about this last night and asked Jeff to write the blog entry. However, I have some free time on my hands this morning (OK maybe not free, but I don't feel like doing much else) so I thought that I would put it together. - Back to the trip:
On Friday, we walked around Portland's waterfront. It was absolutely gorgeous outside and the views of Mt. Hood were breathtaking. That night, a few of us went on a tour of Portland's underground. It is amazing - I really enjoyed it. We learned the history of being shang-haied and saw an opium den, tons of artifacts, and few other pieces of history. On Saturday, we drove to Mt. Hood with my grandma and Uncle Mike. We went to Timberline Lodge, which was amazing. It was cloudy and rainy that day so we couldn't see the summit, but the lodge was pretty cool to look through. That night, we went on a dinner-boat cruise aboard the Portland Spirit. My cousin Amy, her kids and fiance joined us. It was a great time and I am so depressed I don't have the pictures. Not all pictures were lost, just the ones that I wanted. We have pictures from after the boat cruise, so above is the boat we were on.

After the dinner cruise, we went back to my aunt Linda's and enjoyed good company. We picked up Amy's dogs from the hotel and it was quite the house full of puppies. Above is Hunter (on the floor), Daisy (black dog on couch), and Molly (small dog on couch). Daisy liked Molly a little bit too much and we had some great laughs that night being entertained by them.

On Sunday, we went to my cousin Joey's place and met his family. We then headed back to cousin Kelly and Rob's house for dinner (which was delicious). We stayed there for a while playing with the dogs. Above is Jeff with Oden (on the the couch) and Daisy. Below is me with Oden. Oden is Kelly and Rob's dog, Daisy is my aunt Cheryl's dog, Hunter and Molly are Amy's, and Lena (who was not pictured here) is my aunt Linda's dog. We had such a good time with all of them.

Here is a picture of my 2nd cousins - Justin, Mickaela, Lily, Iris, and Abby. We had a great time with the kids. They are so cute and very energetic!

Pictured below are my cousins Joey and Tavis.

We stayed at my aunt Cheryl's house. I stayed there when I was younger and just remember how much I loved her house. It is an old house with a ton of character. A few years ago, she had a guy paint a mural outside of her kitchen window so she wouldn't have to look at a cement wall. Below is a picture of the mural:

I have a few more pictures of this, but I think you get the idea. She had four naked women painted. It is huge and amazing! The vines are starting to grow up and as grandma says, "it covers their unmentionables."

On Monday, we walked around downtown Portland and window shopping. We stopped by Powell's bookstore, which takes up a city block and is about 3-4 stories high. It was amazing to go through. After visiting with grandma and looking through some old photographs of my dad's childhood, it was off to the airport. On the way there, we say a rainbow and got a picture of it. That had to be a good sign :-)

We had a great and unforgettable trip and I thank all of my relatives for showing us great hospitality!

dogs, flowers, and cats - oh my!

It has been a while since we have updated this, so here is a random post with random pictures.

The dogs above are Pumpkin (on the left) and Barley (the beagle on the right). They like to play together. Pumpkin is Court and Cat's puppy (yes, he is a puppy - only a few months old) and Barley belongs to Patrick and Kara. They also own Nutmeg (pictured below). Nutmeg is one of my favorite dogs ever. She is such a sweetheart and is the perfect size.

I walked around campus this morning and took some pictures for a paper that I am writing for a class. We need to do an environmental scan of campus and write about what we think. I have decided to include pictures in my paper. I love the flowers (especially the roses)! There are a few rose gardens around campus and they are starting to bloom. Here is a picture of one of the roses - it is beautiful!

Most of my colleagues have been out of town for the past few days at a conference. I have been taking care of Nikki's cats. She is allowed to have them because she is an area coordinator. Anyway, here are some pictures of the cats:

Pictured above is Peaches. She sheds a ton! She also has a little "temper" problem and doesn't like very many people. She got used to me though, so that is a good thing :-)

Gracie is pictured above. She reminds me of a cat that I had when I was little. She can be a sweetie when she wants to, but also has her moments. She has asthma and allergies, so she needs to take a pill every day for it. Below is Autumn. She mostly does her own thing and that's fine with me. She would come out to play, but otherwise, really wanted nothing to do with me.

Cat-sitting really made me miss my kitties. I found pictures of Bait and Tackle yesterday as I was going through some old pictures. They were so tiny when we left! I am very excited to see them again.

OK, I need to get going. I have to do laundry and get some homework done. Jeff and I are flying to Portland, OR tomorrow for the weekend. I have relatives up there and we are looking forward to have a great trip! We will take lots of pictures and post them when we get back. Happy Easter everyone!