An Active Thanksgiving!

Jeff and I had a great Thanksgiving weekend. It started out on Wednesday with wine tasting in the afternoon with Toni, Drew, and Drew's parents. We then woke up early on Thursday and ran a 5k. It was pretty cool because it ran along the waterfront in downtown Stockton and ended by homeplate in the Ports baseball stadium. Jeff finished in just over 22 minutes and I finished in 33 minutes - I was happy though because I ran the whole time with no breaks! That afternoon, we went to Josh and Outing's place for dinner. Toni, Drew, and his parents joined us. We had a great time up there, but it was uneventful with no baby arrival - soon Outing soon!! On Friday, we pretty much just hung out all day. We did go to a Thunder Hockey game that night. The Thunder are a minor league hockey team for the Edminton Oilers. It was pretty fun!

Saturday was a great day! We decided to drive to Yosemite and hike Hetch Hetchy. This is something that I wanted to do before we left California because Pacific has a huge John Muir collection and a lot of his work on Hetch Hetchy. It was the perfect day for hiking! (Note: Hetch Hetchy is in the northern part of Yosemite. It is an area that supplies the San Francisco Bay Area - which is around 180 miles away - with its' drinking water.) Here are some pictures of our day. Above is the entrance area to Hetch Hetchy. Below is the dam that creates the resovoir.
We walked across the dam and through the tunnel to the trail. We thought that we would hike the 2.5 miles or so to Wapama Falls (even though we knew they would be mostly dry). As we started along, we were told by other hikers that there was a bear in the trail around the bend. We were pretty excited to see a bear - Jeff had never seen one in the wild before. As we went around the bend, another hiker said the bear ran up the hill. However, we still saw it moving around about 30 feet up the hill from the trail. Then, we saw a cub running behind the larger bear. This freaked me out a little because I didn't want to get attacked by an angry mom bear! We waited for about 30 minutes watching the bears run around the hill and down to the trail. We then decided to proceed on with a group of five other people that caught up to us. Below is a picture of the bear as we walked by her. (It is a little dark, but you can still see her)
The 'lake' of Hetch Hetchy is gorgeous! There were also some amazing views from the trail, which followed along the side of the lake. Jeff and I are below and Kolana Rock is behind us.

There were some pretty cool bridges along the trail. I am walking on one above. Below is one of my favorite pictures of part of the trail.
On the way back, the light was great for taking pictures. Below is Jeff and I in front of the lake. The color of the water was pretty amazing.

We had a great day! Sunday was spent playing flag football and doing some homework. Tonight we are going to play broom-ball with my area. It should be a good time!

A concert and a party

So, it's been awhile since we last posted. We have been pretty busy with work and school for me. Jeff had a good time in MN and I am happy that he is back here. School and work has been a little crazy for me lately - maybe it is just that time of year. I am definitely looking foward to the end of the semester - just 2 presentations, 2 major papers, and 3 smaller papers to go!

Jeff was able to get some free tickets to the Rob Zombie and Ozzy concert. We decided to take the tickets and went with some of my friends from Pacific. It was a pretty good time. Here are a couple of pictures from the concert:

Rob Zombie opened. He was very energetic and it was intense!

Ozzy was up next. He was a hoot to watch. He had three phrases that we repeated during the concert and it was pretty funny. Jeff describes Ozzy's performance as Richard Simmons meets drunk girl at the bar singing karaoke. I thought that it was pretty good though! I am happy that we went!
Above is a picture of Jeff and I at the concert.

On Saturday, we did a little wine tasting in Lodi and then went to Josh and Outing's going away party at Toni and Drew's place. It was a fun time! I actually beat Josh at darts :-) Below is a picture of Jeff and Outing (she's due to have her baby on the 23rd). Jeff has never felt a baby move in the womb, so it was pretty funny when he was feeling Outing's tummy and baby!
We will be heading up to Elk Grove to Josh and Outing's for Thanksgiving. Toni and Drew will be joining us. I am looking forward to it! In a couple of weeks, Nick and Carly will be visiting and we will be going to Tahoe to ski and then I believe Ed and Seth are coming out! I am very excited to see some of our MN friends!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Halloween in Northern CA

We had a busy week leading up to Halloween. Saturday morning Jeff had a ribon cutting ceremony for his Leadership Lodi community service project. Then we picked up Kara and Patrick and went to an area called Apple Hill. It is about half way between Sacramento and Tahoe on hwy 50 just past Placerville. It is a gorgeous area this time of year. Pumpkin patches, wineries, apple orchards and christmas tree farms. People from MN can imagine the places down around Stillwater MN and then multiple by 30 or 40 stops and get the idea. It is truly a fall spectacle.

The next couple of pictures don't do the area justice, but here they are anyway...

If the wine tickles the senses half as much as the grape vines did it will be amazing!!!

Pine Trees in training.

Naked on top.

After spending the day at Apple Hill we drove down to Catherine and Court's house to cut/carve the pumpkins. The pumpkin patches were pretty picked over so we had to get creative with what was leftover.

I give you Frosty and Leonardo!!

Tuesday Heidi and one of her hall directors, Cassie, ran the University of the Pacific's Safe Trick or Treat. All told there was over 1100 people there!! I borrowed the robot costume Patrick made for Kara at the General Mills Trick or Treat event. It doesn't look like much in the picture, but the remote controls the spinning blades and the lights...the kids went absolutely crazy for it. Jeff was mobbed the entire night by literally hundreds of kids. It was pretty amazing when they turned from crying to smiling, or came out of their shy shell, and occaisionally screamed and hid behind their parents upon the sight.

Heidi borrowed Kara's Raggedy Anne costume. She had a midterm right after the event and went to class dressed up. Around 8pm that night, we experienced our first earthquake in CA! It was a 5.6er in San Jose, so it wasn't real strong in Stockton, but the buildings still shook! It was pretty cool.

We stayed low-key on Wednesday and just hung out around campus. Heidi has been really busy with work and classes. We went to the Pacific men's basketball game tonight and watched the Tigers beat CSU-Stanislaus. Tomorrow we are going to the sensory appreciation evening for General Mills and we both leave on Saturday morning. Jeff will be going to MN for the week for a conference and Heidi is bringing a delegation of RAs to the NRAP conference in Reno for the day.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!