2000 Miles from Home

Last Post from the CA

2008-05-22T15:51:00.001-07:00

It's all gone...the movers came this morning, packed everything up, and hauled it away. I now have a pretty empty apartment and the bare essentials in my office. It will be an odd night without everything. However, with that being said, I will be heading back to MN tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully I will get some sleep before than!

Graduation was amazing...well, the whole weekend was amazing! I recieved an award for outstanding leadership for a graduate student on Friday and then had an amazing dinner with the Student Life people and my cohort. Saturday was a great day for graduation - very hot (100+!) but it was great. That night Jeff and I hung out with our Lodi friends one last time. I had so much fun and will greatly miss them all!! Thanks for a great night!

I have been asked a few times if our blog name will change now that we are no longer 2000 miles from home. The answer - not sure. Currently, Cali is my home so moving to MN would make me 2000 miles from home. I guess time will tell...

To wrap up - Thanks California for an amazing two years! I will greatly miss my friends, Yosemite, San Francisco, the wine! (I will be bring a few bottles - cases - back), Tahoe, and so much more!

Accepting my diploma from Dean Beck - she is an amazing woman!
Dean of Students Joanna is hooding me! She is superb and I will truly miss her and her leadership!
YAY!! I graduated!
Congrats to the Masters - Aaron, Jason, Kari, Heidi, Sylvia, Sayil, and Alyssa - and all those not present - Alicia, Deb, and Geoffrey! We did it!

long awaited update, but a short one...

2008-05-15T22:14:00.000-07:00

Hello! Sorry that it has been almost a month since I last posted. The end of the semester has flown by. This will not be a long post, but I wanted everyone to know that all is still well. I graduate on Saturday and will officially be a Master :-) How exciting! I will be posting a few pictures of the past 4 weeks and of graduation weekend early next week. I hope everyone is enjoying spring...we are already at 100 degrees here!

A busy weekend...

2008-04-21T00:46:00.000-07:00

The time is just flying by! I only have two weeks of classes left - YAY! However, that means that I have to get everything done in two weeks - YIKES! Oh well, I will survive. I had a good weekend...here are a few pictures of Friday and Saturday:

On Friday, I was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi - known as the most pretigious honor society! At least my hard work in classes have paid off and I have something to show for my 4.0!
Above: Aaron, Kari, Luke, Heidi, Santi, Steve, and Nolan. Nolan is an RA and also got inducted. The rest came out to see the ceremony and cheer us on.
Below: Liz!! She was able to come to town on Thursday evening and stay until late Friday! It was great seeing her and I am so happy she was there!

The picture below is me with President DeRosa! I was thinking about using this as my facebook picture, but I don't know if he would like that too much :-)
That evening, Liz and I headed up to Lodi for School Street Stroll. It was a ton of fun. Below is a picture of Ellie in a sexy polyester jacket...it actually fit her!! It also came with matching pants! It wasn't for sale yet though...someday Ellie you will own this outfit!
On Saturday, I headed to Yosemite for a day trip with Jason, Luke and Kari. Kari had never been and none of them had been to Hetch Hetchy so we stopped there first. Kara and Patrick joined us for this part of trip. Below is a picture of Hetch Hetchy.
Wapama Falls were absolutely amazing! It had a nice mist coming off of it. We stayed and hiked around the falls for a little while.

Below is part of the trail at Hetch Hetchy. I just think it is a pretty picture.
We then headed into the Valley. Below is Yosemite Falls. The falls were all amazing - a great time of the year to go and see them all!
After Yosemite Falls, we went and took some pictures of Half Dome and then hiked around Bridalveil Falls. There was an amazing double rainbow at the falls!

That's me on the rock!

I have been doing a lot of homework today and still have so much to do. I am looking forward to the next couple of weeks - we continue to interview for AC jobs here, have NRHH inductions, and the start of the end of the year banquets begins. I am flying to MN and will be there May 2 - I can't wait to see Jeff...it has been way too long!

It's already April!

2008-04-09T22:23:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how fast time is flying by! I had a great time while Jeff was out here. We went to Murphy, CA to go down into a cave one day. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Above: Cool formations on the walls in the cave.

Below: Wall formation known as the chocolate waterfall. It really does look like one!

Above: Jeff going down the first set of stairs. There really wasn't a whole lot of room between the walls!
Below: The spiral staircase we walked down. It was made out of the steel of a WWI battle ship!

The picture below is of Jeff and Heidi in the cave.

After our cruise through Moaning Cavern, we decided to go zip-lining. It was awesome! We didn't get any pictures, but I absolutely had a blast doing it!

Other than that, we hung out a lot with friends at Pacific and GM. We also played a lot of whiffle ball - which is an amazing sport! We got an awesome bat at a thrift store and definitely think we have gotten our $1.50 out of it!

I have been quite busy with work and classes lately...it never seems to end. However, I am determined (and sort of need to be) done with all of my assigments by April 30th! Crazy to think that I will soon be graduating with a masters. Some good things I found out: I am being inducted into Phi Kappa Phi which is a very prestigious academic honor society! I was selected to receive an award (only one given a year) for making outstanding contributions to the campus and for the leadership I have taken in my academic program! The dean of students (also my advisor) sent me flowers today! They are absolutely beautiful! She is such an amazing woman! Still waiting on the job front. I am being a little picky in what I apply for, but I am hoping to hear something soon. In other news, I got my haircut! There is a program on campus to get people to donate their hair and I decided to particpate! I chopped off 9 inches (Pantene will accept 8 for donations)! I like it and am still getting used to having short hair, but it is fun!

Me with short hair. It is nto the best picture, but you get the gest.

OK, I am off! I hope everyone is doing well!

Easter + Big Wheels + Vermont St = FUN!!

2008-03-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

After our usualy Sunday routine (church and lunch at Cam's) we headed into San Francisco for teh 8th Annual BYOBW (bring your own big wheels) event. The event was held at Vermont St, which is in contention with Lombard St. for the crookedest road. Pretty much anyone who wants to show up and ride a big wheel down the hill is free to do so. It was a ton of fun! Here are a few pictures:

Above: Jeff and Patrick sitting pretty in their big wheels gearing up for the big ride!
Above: Matt, Kara, Heidi, Josh, Courtney, and Luke anxiously awaiting the start of the race. We were the picture takers of the day.
Below: Patrick's big wheel broke on the first turn :-( Fortunately, I think we collected enough pieces from other big wheels that he will be able to build his own for next year.

Above Jeff is coming around the corner and Jeremy is right behind him.

In the video below, Jeremy is the first person and Jeff shows up around 4 second mark or so. Just look for the red helmet and Twins shirt. Behind him our friend Josh appears in his leather suit. The rest of the video is all of the other crazy racers! The video is from the 3rd race down the hill that day.

I am sure you can youtube more videos if you want to see more. It was great!!

A month and no post...

2008-03-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

WOW! I can't believe it has already been a month since I last posted. Sorry about the delay! Things have been quite busy here. I have recovered from shingles and can handle what is left. I also passed my masters comps!! YAY!! Now I just need to get through my last two classes.

I had an amazing trip to Boston. I was there March 5-12. I was able to catch up with some friends (Hal, Collin, and some NDSU peeps) and also toured the city some. Here are a few pictures:

Kari and I walked to Fenway Park. It was pretty cool and the tour was fun. There is a ton of construction going on right now, but it was still neat to see. Above is the field with the green monster in left field. Below is me sitting in the oldest seats in baseball! (They are not very comfy and are quite compact!)

Kari, Jason and I decided to walk to the Real World Boston House (above) and then to Cheers (below) as they were both pretty close to our hotel.

Kari and I also decided to walk the Freedom Trail one morning. It was amazing and was one of my favorite things to do. We didn't finish the whole trail because we had to get back for the conference, but we saw a lot.
Above is the Canary Burial Ground. This cemetary is right inthe middle of downtown Boston and the a few of the people buried here include: the parents of Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Samual Adams. Below is the tombstone of Paul Revere.

Another stop on the Freedom Trail was the original state house (above). The balcony is where the Declaration of Independence was originally read. Below the balcony is where the Boston Massacre happened.
Another amazing site in Boston is Trinity Church. It is absolutely gorgeous. This picture does not do it justice - it is just amazing. The city is full of beautiful churches.

We also got to see where the Boston Tea Party occurred. I had a great trip and would love to go back and see more. Although, I was very ready to go back to Cali at the end of the trip.

When I got back, Jeff was in San Fran for training so we got to spend a few days together. He is also here now and we had a pretty cool Easter...that blog to follow!!

A brief update...

2008-02-24T21:44:00.001-08:00

Sorry that it has been a while since there was a post. A lot has happened in the short two weeks since our last update. Here is a quick overview: Jeff got back safely to MN and is rooming with Dave (this could be trouble!). He is doing well and I miss him tons! It is a little odd living by myself. However, this past week it was kind of nice to have the quiet atmosphere. The weekend that Jeff left I attending a conference of the first-year experience in San Francisco. It was great fun and I got to hang out with Jen (a co-worker from NDSU)! I also presented a poster session on the progression of residential learning communities. On top of this, I also got the questions and had a week to complete my master comps. I guess all of the stress added up and I got shingles! It is not very fun. It started out as bumps on my forehead, which turned into blisters. I also developed blisters on my eyelid, the bridge of my nose, and my scalp. It is a pretty painful and uncomfortable experience. I have been getting headaches everyday and pretty much have them under control. I am on medication for the rest of it and the blisters are starting to scab over and the itchiness is horrible. I found that sleeping with mittens on is the best way for me to not scratch my forehead during the night! I am continuing to get better and am looking forward to putting this all behind me. I am hoping that it is within the next week or so because I leave for Boston for another conference at the beginning of March!

Sorry for not posting pictures. I know that I have a random selection to post and I will get to it someday. Right now I am just trying to do what is necessary and nothing else - destressing my life so to say! I hope that all is going well with everyone.

Parents and more...

2008-02-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

Jeff's parents came to visit from Feb. 1-Feb. 8. They were pretty busy while they were here. We toured San Francisco, Monterey Bay, and they were able to go to Sacramento and Tahoe. We had a great time visiting with them and took a ton of pictures. Here are just a couple of the visit:

Above: Jeff, Heidi, Andy, and Miki in front of the Golden Gate Bridge

Below: All of us in front of the entrance to Muir Woods

Above: The sea lions hanging out at Pier 39
Below: One of my favorite things we did with Andy and Miki was go whale watching in Monterey. We were lucky enough to see a pod of about 40 orchas! It was absolutely amazing. Jeff and I took a ton of pictures, but they are hard to catch. Below is a picture of one of the whales popping out of the water.

We had a great week with them and we hope they had as much fun as we did!

Last Monday, Bill Clinton visited Pacific and I was able to go and watch his speech and do a meet and greet with him afterwards. It was pretty cool to see a former president!

This past weekend was a wine and chocolate event in Lodi. On Saturday, we rented a 12 passenger van and visited a few of the wineries.
Above: the group at the van with grape vines in the back

Below: the group in front of some wine barrels

We had a great time, tasted wine, and ate delicious chocolates! After, we went to Jeremy's for dinner and had a little going away party for Jeff. Oh, in case you didn't know, Jeff will be moving back to MN this weekend!

I will keep the posts coming when I am able to. I have a few conferences coming up in San Francisco and Boston. I am also hoping to do a few more excursions before I move back to MN in late May.

Snowshoeing at Bassi Falls

2008-01-28T19:54:00.000-08:00

Jeff and I, along with Cat and Court, went snowshoeing on Saturday. We were lucky to have an amazing day with decent temps and a break in the snow and rain! We went to Bassi Falls which is a big tourist spot in the summer, but it was great to go up there in the winter. Here are a few pictures of the trip (and they are really in no particular order):

Above is a picture of Jeff and I once we hike the 2 miles to the falls area. Below is a picture of Bassi Falls - picture it with lots of water in the summer or covered with snow and ice like it is in the picture.

Above is a picture of Court, Cat, and I walking to the falls. The snow was around 3 feet deep - thank goodness for snowshoes! However, I had trouble getting used to mine - as in the picture below...Jeff took the picture right before I fell.

The rolling snow was amazing. The pictures above and below show a little of the sites, but really doesn't give it justice.

After we hiked, we headed back to Cat and Court's place where we met up with Kara and Patrick. We relaxed in the hot tub for a while, and then dried off and played games - that was nice!

Squaw Valley

2008-01-21T20:34:00.000-08:00

Jeff and I went to Squaw Valley in Tahoe this weekend with Kara, Patrick, and Ellie to hit the slopes. Here are a few pictures of our day trip:
Above is the entrance to Squaw Valley. It was home to the 1960 Winter Olympics!

We got there bright and early and took the first tram up the mountain. Above is a picture of the shadow of the tram - I think it looks pretty cool and the sites were amazing! There were a ton of runs open, so we had our choice of where to ski. There were also a lot of chair lifts, so the lines weren't too bad. The next three pictures were taken from the top of the Emigrant run - the views were beautiful!
Above: You can see Lake Tahoe in the distance!
Above: Heidi, Patrick, Kara, Ellie, and Jeff
Above: Another great view of the lake.
Above is a picture of Jeff and I in front of the Olympic Rings.

We had a great time skiing and there were no injuries...just some sore muscles on me the next day! Who knows what adventures these next few weeks will bring...

it's been a while...

2008-01-15T19:23:00.000-08:00

Sorry that is has been so long since the last post. We got back safe and sound from our vacation back to WI and MN and jumped right back into working. So, without further delay, here are a few pictures from our trip:

We started out visiting my family in Eau Claire. We were able to spend a full day with my dad, brother Wayne and his family, and sister Sandra and her family. It was great seeing them. We then spent time at my mom's with Melissa and Jessica and the kids. Shawn and Sarah and the kids came for Christmas, so that was fun! Bayley got GH3 for Christmas and we had a blast playing. Below are Bayley and Ali strumming away!

My nephew Carsen absolutely loved Jeff and I love this picture of the two of them.

It was SO difficult trying to get all of the kids to smile at once (and my mom too!). Below is Justis, Ali, mom, Carsen, Tayler, Bayley, Cameron, Collyn, and DJ.
On Thursday after Christmas we went to Jeff's parents' house for the next few days. We had a great time relaxing and playing with our cats! We were also able to go sledding for a while and had a good time. I like the picture below because it actually looks like I was winning in the wrestling match between Jeff and I!! (it was really not the case though!)
We had a fun New Year's Eve party. Rob and Katie and Alyssa and Adam came down. It was great to see them and we had a ton of fun! Below is a picture of Katie, Alyssa and I starting out the New Year!
The rest of the night was pretty much spent singing karaoke. We have some great videos of us singing, but I will spare your ears :-)
Above: Adam and Jeff singing away. Below: Andy and Rob are really getting in to it!

We sang our hearts away until 5am! It was awesome! We got up 10am and said good-bye to our friends. We spent the rest of the day packing our things (we flew out that night) and spending time with Jeff's family and our cats. Below is a picture of me with Bait and Jeff with Tackle.
We arrived back in Cali that evening and got back to work the next day. I was busy getting trainings ready for our GRDs and RAs. They were both successful, but it was nice when they were over. Classes started here on Monday, so I spent my birthday working. However, we celebrated during the weekend. Jeff got some people together on Saturday and we watched the Packers win! We then had people over to our place and played games for the rest of the day.
Above is Josh and I cheering on the Pack. Below - Jeff and Patrick battle in bubble hockey!
On Sunday, we went wine tasting with Kara and Patrick. We had a lot of fun. The picture below was taken at one of the wineries. It is grapevines in the foreground and the plant in Lodi in the background.
On Monday, my co-workers surprised me with a Packers poster signed by mostly everyone in the department including the RAs. That evening Jeff and I went out to dinner and then went shopping. It was a great birthday!

My classes are only on Wednesdays this semester, so that is nice, but it will be a little difficult to concentrating for 6 hours! Here is to my last semester!!

One last post...

2007-12-31T10:32:00.000-08:00

I just thought that I would post something on the last day of the year. Jeff and I are currently at his parents house celebrating the New Year with extended family and friends. We are also enjoying the time with our cats - who are as huge as ever!!! We had a nice Christmas with my family earlier in the week and it was good to see everyone. We fly back to California tomorrow evening. I will post some pictures of our trip later in the week. Have a Happy New Year everyone and best wishes for 2008!

Busy Week

2007-12-13T19:11:00.000-08:00

Jeff and I have been very busy the last couple of weeks. The last weeks have been busy for me both at work and with classes. we have also had some MN visitors come to Cali for a vist. We had a great time seeing everyone and catching up. Here are a few pictures of the last week:

We picked up Nick and Carly last two Fridays ago. We headed straight to Tahoe for the weekend. We rented a cabin with Patrick, Kara, Jose, Courtney, and Jeremy. While everyone went skiing on Saturday, I stayed at the cabin and wrote a paper (fun times!).

Above: Jeff is ready to hit the slopes! Below: (l-r) Kara, Courtney, Jeff, Nick, Jose, and Carly. On Sunday, we drove around Tahoe for a while. Emerald Bay is beautiful and definitely a place to see if you have never been there.

Above: Carly and I in front of Emerald Bay. Below: Jeremy, Courtney, Jose, Heidi, Carly, Jeff, and Nick. It was pretty windy this day, but we had a great time seeing the sites.
We spent the rest of week wine tasting and Nick and Carly went to Sacramento to do some site-seeing. I felt bad because I had meetings every night the week they were here, but I was able to take Friday off and we headed into San Francisco. Ed and Seth were there for the week, so we were able to meet up with them.
We had to stop and see the Golden Gate Bridge. Above is a fun picture that Jeff took of the older fence with the bridge in the background. Below: Jeff, Carly, Ed, Seth, Heidi, and Nick in front of the bridge.
We also went to Muir Woods to see the redwoods. I love this place and always enjoy walking around. Below: Jeff, Carly, Heidi, Ed, Nick and Seth at the entrance.
In the picture below I was trying to get Seth to go into the stump, but it was wet and muddy out (it had rained the previous day) and he didn't want to get dirty. I was trying to convince him that he could fit, so I decided to climb in and show him. Best part - I came out clean! Seth didn't go in though :-(

After Muir Woods we headed to Stinson Beach. It was a little chilly out, but I was determined to play in the ocean. I took my boots off and rolled up my pants. It was great fun. I found some awesome rocks and had a good time playing with the seagulls. The water was freezing though and my feet were a little numb :-)
We stopped at a look-out point on our way back into the city. I like the picture below...it reminds me of Titanic or something "I'm flying!"
The picture below is taken at the same look out point, just not into the sun. The views were amazing! I definitely need to head back to the beach before we move!
After all of the site-seeing, we were pretty hungry. We decided to eat some dim sum as a snack and then eat a late dinner. It was quite tastey, for the most part. We orderd some great dishes and Jeff and I even ate jellyfish and chicken feet!! YUMMY! (well, it wasn't too bad) After the food, we headed into China Town to do some shopping. I love China Town and will be purchasing a few items before them move. We then went to my favortie restaurant in SF to eat dinner. They make the best tom yum seafood soup and I really enjoy the pahd thai. After eating, we decided to go to the San Francisco BrewingCompany to hang out and catch up a little more. It was so much fun!! It was great to see Ed and Seth!

On Saturday, Jeff, Nick, Carly, and I slept in - that was nice. We then went up to Lockeford to Vino Piazza. It is a great area with about 10 wineries. We then we back to the apartment and made dinner and called it a night. The next morning we packed the car and headed into San Francisco for the 49ers game as the Vikings were in town. We tailgated a little before the game. Below is a picture of Jeff, Jason, Josh, Nick, and Carly at the game. The sun was on us the whole game, but we still had a good time. I left during the 3rd quarter to take Nick and Carly to the airport.

The week went by quite fast. It was great seeing everyone!!

This week has been nuts with school and work again (of course that is expected to happen during the end of the semester). I turned in a paper on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. My final reflection paper is due tomorrow, so I should probably start working on it :-)

An Active Thanksgiving!

2007-11-26T17:39:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-18T19:28:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-01T21:44:00.000-07:00

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!

Backpacking in Emigrant

2007-10-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I, along with our friends Court, Cat, and their dog Pumpkin, went backpackng in Emigrant Wilderness which is just north of Yosemite. We had planned to leave on Friday afternoon, but the weather wasn't great, so we left early Saturday morning. (The rain and snow Friday evening would not have been fun to sleep in!) The weather was still a little chilly when we started driving. The views were amazing! The picture below was taken from a pullout close to where we started hiking:
We started hiking around 10:30am. It was a little difficult getting used to carrying an extra 30+ pounds in such a large pack, but it was fun and it helped keep me warm. We climbed up to an elevation around 9000 feet. It was well worth it: It was pretty exciting to see snow (although it was so cold, it was hard like ice). Jeff and I are kneeling in the snow:
Then we started a decent into the meadow. We passed a couple of smaller ponds with great reflections:
The colors were also amazing - both in the trees and on the ground:

We rested and ate lunch at Powell Lake. It was pretty cool. Then we continued on for a few miles and decided to set up camp at Chewing Gum Lake. We had a pretty good location just off of the lake. After we set up camp, we decided to hike around the rock formation below:
The sun came out and the weather was pretty nice - still windy, but the sun felt great!
Above is a picture of me on top of some rocks. Jeff then climbed up there and the picture below is of him:
We had a great campfire that night. It got super chilly when the sun went down. We were protected from the wind mostly, but it was still cold. I think we went to bed around 10 or so. Before going to bed we boiled water and put it in our Nalgene bottles and put them in our sleeping bags with us! They really helped keep us warm! I didn't sleep super well throughout the night. I am guessing the weather got down to low-to-mid 20s, so it was pretty cold! We woke up in the morning and made some oatmeal - that was great! W e filtered some water from Chewing Gum before we started on trek back to the vehicle. The weather was great hiking back - probably in the 50s with the sun shining! We stopped along the way and ate lunch - tuna pouches are great for camping! The picture below is just one of the many formations we passed along the way.
The pictures really don't do justice to what we actually saw. It was so peaceful and amazing. We never saw another human and the only animals we saw were chipmunks, squirrels, and birds. We had an amazing time!

A football weekend for us...

2007-10-15T11:01:00.001-07:00

Jeff and I watched a lot of football this weekend. We drove to Palo Alto on Saturday and went to the Stanford v. TCU football game. We were able to get free tickets because one of the GRDs here has a brother who plays for TCU, so he hooked us up. It was a great game with TCU upsetting Stanford!

TCU's mascot is the horned frog - below is their mascot...kind of an odd outfit!!
The weather was supposed to be 70ish, but it had to be way hotter than that! We went with 5 friends from Pacific and we all got a little sunburned! Our section was in the sun the whole game until the last 3 minutes or so!!
On Sunday we watched the Packers and Vikings win! It was great for both of us! The rest of Sunday evening was spent relaxing and not really doing much - it was wonderful!

Weekend Update

2007-10-09T16:47:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I had a pretty good weekend. We got to hang out with our friends Toni, Drew, Outing, and Josh on Friday night - I haven't seen them forever, so it was great catching up. On Saturday, Jeff went geocaching all day with some of his co-workers in Lodi. It is kind of a geek thing, but I think he had a good time. I, on the other hand, had the opportunity to attend Cirque du Pacific (or Pacifique). It was an evening recognizing all of the big donors to Pacific along with the Board of Regents. It was a formal event, so my co-workers and I had a great time dressing up and taking pictures. Below are some pictures that we took around campus:

Above is me and my friend Jason. The next two pictures are of the 2nd year grad students - my co-hort class of '08. L-R: Sylvia, Aaron, Kari, Heidi, Jason, Alicia

Below we are with one of the RAs posing in front of the entrance to the main gym. It was completely made over for the event. We had Cirque du Soleil performers do their acts while Pacific students and faculty played live music or sang along. It was the first time the performers performed with live music. The meal was amazing as well!!

On Sunday, a few friends came to campus and we had a great game of flag football. My knee has a great bruise (thank you Patrick), but I had a fun time! That was our weekend - great times!

Good luck Kristen on being induced tonight!!! Can't wait to see pictures of little Sully!!!

Half Dome

2007-09-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I decided that it was time to hike up Half Dome. We got up early on Saturday morning and drove to Yosemite, parked at Glacier Point and started our journey. The sites along the way to Half Dome were amazing. Here are some photos of the day:

We started on the Panorama Trail at Glacier Point. Above is a picture of Jeff with Half Dome in the background. This trail was a lot of down hill switchbacks and then we climbed back up hill to the top of Nevada Falls and then followed another trail to Half Dome.
The neat thing about the Panorama Trail was that we got to see Half Dome from a ton of angles.
There were many times when I told Jeff to leave me behind and go, but we was very encouraging and we moved along. There were also a few people along the way that we talked to and they encouraged me to keep trucking along. The most difficult part of the trip while going up was the last 900 feet. There is about 500 feet of granite "steps" followed by 400 feet of pulling yourself up cables. The picture below shows the line of people ascending up the cables of Half Dome.
We were very happy to make it to the top. While we were climbing the cables, we were behind some slow people and it took way longer then it should have to get to the top. I was completely exhausted! We ate lunch on top and enjoyed the views...

We stayed up on top of Half Dome for about 45 minutes and then had to start our climb down. (There was only a few hours left of sunlight.) The climb down was a little easier then climbing up, but it was still a little scarey...
Above is Jeff getting ready to climb down. The pictures below show people climbing down the cables. It gives you the idea of what we were climbing down!
We hiked down to Nevada Falls without stopping and then Jeff hiked back to Glacier Point and I proceeded down to Yosemite Valley. I wouldn't have made it the additional 4 miles that Jeff had to go. In the end we both climbed around 20+ miles. We met at Curry Village and drove back to Stockton. It was an amazing day and my body is quite sore today.

Weekend Update...

2007-09-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

The majority of our weekend was spent watching football, but I can't complain! We woke up early on Saturday morning to find out that he had rained! It also rained on and off all day Saturday so that was very exciting!! We went to the Spoonful of Stories 5k run. I decided not to run that morning and held everyone's stuff and took pictures. Jeff did great - he came in around 22 min 42 sec. or something like that. I believe he was 7th overall and got 3rd in his age group. The picture below is of the General Mills group that was there.

After the race, we went to our friends house and watched college football. Then we had people over at our place after that for games and fun. I think everyone left around 2am! Of course, we had to wake up and be to Valleybrew by 10am so we could watch more football. There are a few other Packer fans that watch football there, so we have a great time and get pretty loud during the game - it is also great because we usually get the big screen!! Jeff gets to watch the Vikings as well and also got to watch it on a larger screen!! We are very excited for next weeks game - not sure what the bet will be this year though...

After watching the Packers win and Vikings lose :-) we went to Vino Piazza in Lockeford with Courtney and Jeremy. It was Jeremy's first experience wine tasting and I think he had a good time. Below is a picture of Jeff and I outside of on of the wineries.
It is also harvest season, so many of the grapes have been picked, but here is a picture of the grapes on the vine!

Heidi's mini trip

2007-09-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to travel to Yosemite this past weekend with 150 first-year students as part of our FYE program. This is the first year we did a "Taste of Yosemite" and I think it was pretty successful. Students were able to service projects in Yosemite and explore the park a little. Here are a few pictures from my trip:

Above is a picture of El Capitan and Half Dome. Right before I took this picture I saw a couple of bears running through the brush. It was pretty cool!

The first night there we had a campfire and some of the student staff members and I did a skit of the Lorax by Dr. Seuss. The photo above is of the group that I was a co-leader of.
My group's service project was to measure some of the giant sequoias in Tuolumne Grove. We camped at Crane Flats and walked a little over 2 miles until we found tree number 27 - our tree! I supervised a sub-group within our group to take the BHD (breast height diameter). I learned a few things about the sequoias that day and I heart 27 :-)
After the measurements were taken we walked through the grove to see some other sites. Our first stop was at Dead Fred (above). It is a giant sequoia that fell over a while ago and when it fell, it was hollow inside. We were able to crawl through the tree and had a great time. We then walked to the tree tunnel (below). It was carved out in 1886 to encourage visitors to go to the park. The neat thing about this tree is that they have no idea what happened to the top of the tree!
We then walked a few more miles to the fire station lookout. We were able to visit with the fire fighters and ask them questions about their jobs. Below is a picture of the helicopter dropping off some of the fire fighters who had been working on a small fire in the park.

I had a great time and I can't wait to go back to Yosemite again. It is one of my favorite places!

In other news, life is busy. I have class on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. The rest of my days are spent in meetings for the most part! I supervise 4 graduate students, who supervise 22 RAs, who are responsible for around 700 residents in 10 buildings known as the Quads. I love the position, but it is hard to stay on top of homework and everything else. I just hired an assistant, so hopefully life will get a little easier! Our weekends are spent watching football. There is a 5k run this weekend that Jeff is running and I haven't decided yet. No official adventures planned as of now, but we are working on it! We are excited for people to come and visit though!

Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park

2007-09-04T18:05:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I had an amazing weekend at Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park over Labor Day Weekend. We left on Friday and got back on Monday. Catherine and Court, Gabby and Humberto, and the Schrag's joined in on the weekend fun. We were able to see a lot of really cool things, so here is a picture journal of our weekend:
We set up camp on Friday night and just hung around the fire. The next morning, we drove to Burley Falls. I think they are my favorite falls we have been to.
The falls are all spring fed so they don't dry up. We were able to climb pretty close to the base.
We walked around some trails by the falls. Gabby is showing off her Limbo skills below!
Later that day, we went through Subway Cave. The pictures didn't really turn out. Subway Cave is 1/3 mile in length and is a dried up lava tube. It is actually one section of a 16-mile long cave. It was pretty neat to walk through.
On Sunday morning we drove into the park and walked to Cold Boiling Lake. The picture below shows how big the "lake" was at this time!

We then hiked on along trails. The views were amazing!
We finally got to Bumpass Hell. (yes, that is the actual name) It is a sulpher bed that you are able to walk through. It was pretty smelly though!
We went back to the campground after that. We decided to go swimming in the lake and enjoy time by the camp-fire. Jeff, Cat, Court, and I got up early on Monday morning and hiked to Cinder Cone. It is an inactive volcano. The climb up is at a 30-degree angle and it was all soft sand and rock - very hard to climb, but well worth it!
We were able to see the "inside" of the volcano - it is pretty full of dried lava, but is very cool! Below - we had a great time taking shadow pictures!! Mt. Lassen is in the background.

We had amazing views from the top of Cinder Cone! Besides Mt. Lassen, we could also see the painted dunes and a lot of lava beds.

The picture of Jeff below just makes me smile :-)

We drove through the park on our way home. Above is a picture of Mt. Lassen's peak and below is a picture of Sulpher Works.

We had a great mini-vacation, but were very excited to get back to our apartment and take showers and have warm water! Everything else is going great! Will update more soon!

RA Retreat

2007-08-19T16:41:00.001-07:00

I had a fun weekend at Cal-State Maritime in Vallejo for the annual RA Retreat for training. We had a lot of fun bonding and doing all sorts of other retreat stuff. Here are a couple of pictures from the retreat with some of the fun people that I work with:

Above is Shauna and Nikki - both are Area Coordinators. Below are Steve and Mylon. Steve is the Assistant V.P. for Housing and Dining Services and Mylon (my direct supervisor) is the Associate Director for Residential Living.
Below (l-r): Matt, Cassie, Jeremy, Aaron, Heidi (me), Alicia, Luke, Josh, and Jason. Jeremy is the Area Coordinator for Greek Life. The rest of the people are some of our Graduate Resident Directors (GRDs). I directly supervise Cassie, Alicia, and Luke (also Adam, but he is not in the picture).

We have our last two days of training on Monday and Tuesday and then the residents start moving in and classes start on the 27th! Besides doing all of this fun stuff, I am also on the search committee to hire the new Director of Judicial Affairs and Outreach Services. Hopefully we will be bringing candidates to campus in the next couple of weeks. It has been pretty fun! Everything else is going pretty well. Jeff and I are trying to find a weekend to get away for a miini vacation - hopefully we will go camping over Labor Day weekend. Well, have a great week everyone!

Such a long time...

2007-08-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

I have been quite busy the past couple of weeks. The GRDs moved back on campus the day Jason and Matt left and we started two weeks of training the next day. It was pretty intense and a little crazy, but I made it through! I am now in the middle of RA training and getting ready for the residents to move in and for classes. I feel like I really haven't had a life, but that is the way things usually are in August for a person who works in housing. Jeff and I did get to go to the 2nd Annual Saturday Night Live themed party for the celebrations of Josh, Kristi, and Toni's birthdays! We had a great time. Here are some pictures of the characters:

Above: Mango (Catherine) posing with Canteen Boy (Court). Below is me dressed as Harry Caray.
By the end of the evening, Jeff (above) had a little bit of everyone's costume on, or so it seemed! Below is Toni dressed as a Spartan cheerleader and Outing as a super-fan of Da Bears.

Josh celebrated his 30th birthday cowbell style! The hair on his chest...none other than his dog's Lolly!

Sorry for not posting in a while. Hopefully we will do a better job of updating everyone. This weekend I will be going on our RA Retreat. Maybe I will be the camera and take some pictures of my staff or something :-)

Visitors from MN...

2007-07-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

Jeff's brother Matt and our friend Jason came to visit us last week. We had a great time with them while they were out here. Jeff and I both had to work most of the week, but we still tried to take them to a few places so they could get the "California" experience. They were also able to utilize the pool at our apartment and took one day to drive to Santa Cruz and try skim surfing. They left us their board so it is something that we will definitely have to try while we are still living here. Below are some pictures of the week:
On Monday I took Matt (left) and Jason (right) wine tasting in Lodi. We made it to three places and I think they had a good time. At Jewel, there was some random cardboard cut-out (above) so I got a picture of the boys. Below Matt and Jason and relaxing outside of VanRuiten's tasting room. It was a gorgeous day!
On Thursday, Matt, Jason, and I drove up to Sacramento. We walked around Old Sacramento for a couple of hours. Below is a picture of the boys outside a tea house.
We drove down to Lodi and met Jeff at the LBC for dinner and then walked around the farmer's market. Matt took advantage of the Free Hugs girl!!
Jeff and I both took Friday off from work and took Matt and Jason to Yosemite. It was a perfect day for the trip. Below is a picture of Half Dome.

Matt and Jason wanted to hike Yosemite Falls, but, unfortunately, it was almost completely dry. We ended up climbing and hiking Lower Yosemite Falls. There was just a little water pouring down so we actually hiked where the water would normally flow. It was pretty cool. Below is a picture of Jeff and I underneath the lower falls. (note: If you look back at our blog pictures from the Yosemite Trip in June, you will be able to see what Yosemite Falls looks like earlier in the year.)

After playing around there, we drove over to see if Vernal and Nevada Falls were flowing. They ended up being pretty strong still! So, we decided to start hiking on the Mist Trail up to the top of Vernal Falls.

Above is Matt and I at a rest stop and below are the boys. It was pretty warm at this point so we were sweating pretty good!
It was a great view from the top. Below is a picture of the four of us.

We climbed down by the water before it hit the falls in an area known as the Emerald Pool (or something like that). It was pretty warm so we decided to go for a swim!
The rocks were pretty smooth, so Jeff had a great time sliding down! Below, Matt and Jason thinking about the slide in the rapids. Jason went and ended up cutting his foot. Matt knew to stay to the side more and they had a great time. The water was super freezing, but it felt good to cool down. After we got dressed, we hiked just a little further to see Nevada Falls. We decided not to hike to the top, and started the decent down. It was a lot fun and we have some excellent pictures!

On Saturday, we headed to San Francisco a couple hours before Matt and Jason had to be at the airport. We walked around Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf and then drove over to the Golden Gate Bridge. Below is a picture of Matt and Jeff.

It was a busy week while they were here. I start training tomorrow for the GRDs and will pretty much be busy for the next month. In two weeks, the RAs arrive for their training and then classes start! This summer has flown by!!

Where have we been?

2007-07-18T15:57:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I have been pretty busy. We went back to MN and WI for a little over a week at the end of June to July 9. We had a great time seeing everyone, however, it was nice to go back to CA and "relax" a little bit. We drove over 1000 miles on Nick's truck while we were back!! Crazy! We were able to see Jeff's family, friends from college, my family and some old co-workers! Below are some pictures from our trip:

Above: Jeff's brother Mike put together 500 boxes (or maybe it was more - don't remember) of sparklers together and lit them off. It was pretty insane. We had a ton of fireworks that went off at the lake house that the Crabtree's brought over. Definitely made it a festive 4th!!
Below: Tonya (sister-in-law) with our niece Mia. It was only our second time seeing Mia and we got to see some of her first steps!
Jeff and I also got to go skiing, tubing, and wake-boarding with Carly and Nick and the Crabtrees (thank you Larry!). We had so much fun. It made us feel a little old though because we woke up pretty sore then next morning :-)
Of course a trip home wouldn't be the same without seeing our kitties. Bait (above) and Tackle (below) are as cute as ever!!

My family and I planned a surpise 50th birthday party for my mom while I was home. We had it at the beach in Shell Lake and it was great! She was completely surprised and a few of her siblings and friends were able to attend. Below is a picture of my aunt Jeanie, mom, Unclue Tommy, aunt Marylee, and aunt Carolyn. Tommy had his jet ski with and it was great tubing and riding around. Our muscles weren't completely feeling better from the 4th, but we had a great time!!

While in Shell Lake, we hung out at the Red Barn campground (as that is where my mom and sister Melissa were staying). We had great time making smores and hanging out by the fire. Above: Nieces Ali and Tayler at the campground. Below: Jeff and nephew Bayley showing their muscles.
Jeff and I also went and toured the Leine's brewery. That was pretty neat. We had a great trip!

We have been quite busy since we have been back in Cali. I got a promotion at work and am now the Senior Graduate Resident Director of the East Area. Pretty much I will be supervising 4 other graduate students, 22 RAs, and 10 residence halls. I am really looking forward to this opportunity. Training starts in 10 days!! The whole month of August is training and then classes start. I just keep saying to myself - 5 classes left...you can do it! Can't wait to graduate!

We are definitely looking forward to having visitors out here next week. Jeff's brother Matt and a friend from college Jason will be out here for the week!!

What happens in Vegas, gets posted!

2007-06-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I had a great time in Vegas. It was great seeing friends and hanging out in the city. On Friday, we were the first to arrive, so we hung out at our hotel (we stayed at Hooters) and went for a quick walk around MGM. That night, we met up with everyone for dinner and watched the volcano go off at the Mirage. We walked the strip for a while and hung out at Monte Carlo. A few of us decided to play in a poker tournament at the Monte Carlo Saturday morning. There were around 45 people playing total and I just happened to get second! The money I won there paid for our meals and shows for the rest of the weekend. Below is a picture of me with the chips I won!
That evening we went to dinner at the Tournament of Kings show at the Excalibur. Alex, Seth, Tim, and Ed joined us. We were seated in the Austria section and I think we had the rowdiest section of all. Sticking with the theme, there were no utensils to use for dinner, so we drank our soup and ate our broccoli, potatoes, and cornish game hen with our fingers - it was great! Below is a picture of the "stadium". We weren't allowed to take pictures during the show.

That night Jeff, Alex, and I walked the strip some more. We walked to the Bellagio to look around. It was pretty cool. Below is a picture of the lobby ceiling:

We also watched the water show a couple of times. This was one of Jeff's favorite things to watch:
On Sunday, a few of us decided to go to Circus Circus. We ended up playing a game of mini golf. It was a lot of fun and I made 3 hole-in-ones...Ed still dominated all of us! Below is a picture of Jeff, me, Ed, and Tim. Ben, Sarah, Alex, Seth, and Bob also played.

That evening Jeff and I had dinner with my cousin and then met back up with everyone to watch a Cirque du Soleil show. The show was absolutely amazing. It is too bad that we couldn't take pictures! We stayed up until after 3am. Monday morning we had breakfast at Hooters and then walked the strip one last time. Jeff and I were supposed to fly out at 8pm, but our flight was delayed and we didn't get back to Stockton until 2am. This week has been one of the longest work weeks ever!

On Tuesday and Wednesday I worked from 7:30am - 11pm!! Crazy! We had check-outs for summer session 1 and check-ins for summer session 2 this weekend. I am the GRD on-call, so I was dealing with a lot yesterday. However, we did manage to sneak away to see Evan Almighty. I really enjoyed the movie! Sorry that it took so long to post about Vegas, it has just been nuts. We fly to MN on Thursday of this week, so I have a few things to get done before going. There will probably be no posts until we get back, so have a great 4th of July everyone!

A Down and Up Weekend

2007-06-11T21:27:00.000-07:00

It was an interesting week. I was on duty all week, so I couldn't be more than 10 minutes off campus. It was pretty quiet for the most part. I decided to go to the mall on Friday to see if I could find some fun clothes for Vegas. I wasn't in there too long, but when I went to my car there was a note attached to my windshield that read, "I left a scratch on your car...I'm real sorry...my parents have insurance." It also listed in a name and phone number. I looked around the passenger side of my car and nothing...however I was shocked when I walked around to the drivers' side. I have a pretty big scratch starting from the back drivers' side door leading all the way back to the bumper. There is some dents and other markings as well. I called my insurance company and they will take care of everything for me - as in contacting the kid and his parents, the dmv, filing paperwork, etc. I go in to the shop tomorrow for the estimate and hopefully will have it fixed by the end of the month. My guess is they will have to replace the back bumper and fender and buff the door. I will post pictures later (if I remember to take them). On Saturday, I got my fellow GRD to hold the duty phone for me so I could help Jeff and the rest of the General Mills crew set up for the Trix Run - a 5k. We got to Lodi around 5:30am! It made for a long day. Around 7am, Jeff and I decided that we would run. I told Jeff when we moved that I would run it with him, however, we stopped running after he hurt his ankle, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Here are some pictures of the day:

The Honey Nut Cheerios Bee and the Trix Rabbit made appearances and great photo opps!
Jeff finished the race in just under 23 minutes so he had plenty of time to get the camera and wait for me to finish.
The picture above is me passing the 3-mile marker. Jeff started running with me after he took the picture so I sprinted the rest of the way. My goal was to finish the race in 45 minutes, so my time of 34:30 was pretty good - especially since I have never really ran more than 2 miles before the race!
After the race, Jeff got to announce the top three finishers in each division while the mayor of Lodi handed out the medals.
It was a fun day, but I was exhausted afterwards. Toni and Drew had a BBQ that night, but I was unable to attend because I was back on duty. Jeff went and had a good time.
P.S. We'll be in Las Vegas in 4 days!!!

Playing Catch-up

2007-06-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a long week since I last posted. I have had to say good-bye to many of my friends from school who have graduated and moved on to bigger and better things. Jeff and I have also moved into the townhouses for the summer and move in for students was last weekend. It didn't go as smoothly as I hope, but hopefully things will be straightened out by tomorrow - fingers crossed!! Please pray that I have no students break any more windows, that there will be no tight rope walking attempts, and definitely no jumping off of the pool house roof into the pool!!
Jeff and I went to Josh and Outing's for dinner on Friday night. It was a lot of fun! We also went with them to the Twins v. As game on Saturday. I have to tell you that it was probably the most boring game that I have ever been to. I was hoping to post these great pictures of the Twins winning, but that didn't happen, so here is a couple of random picks:
Moreneau actually got on base!! Below is a picture from our seats. They weren't too bad!
The best thing about the game was the fireworks show they had after. We got to go down on the field, lay on the grass, and watch the show. It was amazing! I really don't like the picture of Jeff and I below, but it was really the only one we took!

One other pretty cool thing happened at the game - we ran into an old college friend of ours - Too Tall!!! Apparently he is going to law school in San Francisco, so that is cool. We will have to catch up with him sometime!

OK, that is all for now. I am on duty this week, so no exciting plans. However, next weekend is the trip to Vegas - can't wait to see everyone!!!

Memorial Weekend in Tahoe

2007-05-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I spent the weekend in Tahoe with friends. We were able to rent a gorgeous house with an amazing view of the lake. Here is a photo journal of the weekend:

Above is the back of the house that we stayed in. Not the greatest picture, but the sun was shining and it made it difficult to get a good shot. There were three levels to the house. It had 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. There were 2 decks - the lower one has a hot tub. It was great!

Soon after we got there on Saturday, Jeff and a few others decided to hike up gunbarrel - a ski run at Heavenly. The house was pretty close to Heavenly Ski Resort. (Yes, Heavenly is where we skiied earlier this year.) The picture above shows the part of the run they walked/hiked up - Lake Tahoe in the background. The picture below is of gunbarrel (on the left).

While some were hiking, I stayed back at the house to enjoy the view and get some sun and also to catch up with Toni and Outing. Well, stupid me didn't think I would get sun-burned, but I was wrong! It was disappointing because I couldn't enjoy the hot tub :-( However, my redness is slowly going away and I really wasn't in pain, so that was a good thing.

We were able to watch the sunset over the mountains and lake. It was beautiful!

On Suday, a few of us drove to Emerald Bay. I have talked about this in previous posts and posted pictures. We decided to hike down the the "beach" area. It was pretty cool to see. In the picture below, you can see where a rockslide took out part of the mountain. Road crews are currently working to build a retaining wall and more support for the road.

I learned something new about Tahoe this weekend - it has a waterfall! Eagle Falls is comprised of the upper and lower falls. It was a fun hike back to the base and was pretty neat to see. I love waterfalls! In the picture above, you can see my sunburn - especially in my face with the white sunglasses mark around my eyes :-) Below is a picture of Lower Eagle Falls.

We ended Sunday night with another amazing sunset. This time the whole sky turned pink and then slightly red. It was a great site to see as we were eating dinner!

Jeff and I left on Monday, but did some shopping in Tahoe before leaving. We had a great weekend!

End of the Year banquets...

2007-05-24T23:03:00.001-07:00

I wanted to post a couple of pictures from our end of the year banquets. There were a few of them and I will post pictures from two.

This picture is from our Housing and Greek Life banqet that occurred last Thursday. It was a great dinner at a country club not far from campus.

Back row (l-r) Jason, Junior, AJ, Heidi, Kari, Amy; Front row (l-r) Tiffanee and Alicia

The next three pictures were taken Friday night at the Student Affairs appreciation dinner for the graduates of the MA program that I am in.
The picture above is of me and my supervise, Mylon. He is the Associate Director for Residential Living and Programming (or something along those lines!!) Jeff was able to attend this dinner, so below is a cute picture of us!

Congratulations to the graduating class of 2007 in the MA in Educational Administration and Leadership specializing in Student Affairs!! (This will hopefully be me next year!) From left to right: Shiraz, Jeremy, Kelly, Amy, Junior, AJ, Michelle, Tiffanee, and Ben!

In other news, I got my grades back and am keeping with my 4.0 theme for this year! I was pretty excited. How cool would it be to graduate with a masters with a 4.0!?!?! Next year will decide it all!!

Weekend Fun!!

2007-05-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

As always, we had a great weekend. It technically started on Thursday for me with award ceremonies, dinners and graduation. I will post those pictures later. I will start with our fun times on Saturday. We went to Zinfest in Lodi with friends. It was so beautiful outside and the wine was delicious. We got to taste a few new places and some of our favorites. I got to be a part of a magic show and that was pretty fun. Below is a picture of Toni and I with a new intern at the G. One of the wineries gave away cotton candy and I was so excited!

After Zinfest we picked up Tim from the BART station and then headed up to Elk Grove to a bbq. The food was delicious and I won 3 straight games of Uno! Then Josh won and then Tim, but I still won 3 - ha ha ha boys! :-)

On Sunday, we headed into San Francisco for Jeff's birthday. We were going to go to Golden Gate Park, but it was crazy busy because of a race going on, so we decided to head to Chinatown. We ate at my favorite restaurant there and then walked up to Coit Tower. It was one of the clearest days in San Francisco and was a great day to go to the tower. It is over 200 feet tall and you get a great panoramic view of the city from the top. Here is a picture of Jeff, Christopher Columbus (don't know why there is a statue of him there), and Coit Tower.

The picture below was taken from the top of Coit Tower. You can see Pier 39 and Alcatraz. The view was amazing! We took so many pictures!!

After we got done with that, we headed over north of the Golden Gate bridge so we could go sailing! We were originally on a 32 ft boat, but the boat was upgraded, so we were on a 42' beneteau sailboat, named Sijambo. The 3-hour ride was so much fun. It was just the three of us with the captain. Jeff and Tim got to do a lot of the work and I took a lot of pictures. Here are some pictures of the trip:

Above is a picture of Jeff and I on the boat. It was a little windy, but a great day to go! We were able to see a ton of harbor seals, went under the Golden Gate Bridge, sailed by Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39, and Alcatraz, and saw great sites all around. Below is a picture of a sailboat and the Golden Gate Bridge. It is one of my favorite pictures. I took a few of them.

The next few pictures are of Jeff and Tim driving the boat and working the sails. The one directly below shows the underneath of the bridge. It was pretty neat to see the under side of it.

The wind was really blowing and the guys had to hang tight sometime and use their muscles at others. It was great. I pretty much sat in the same spot (held on at times) and snapped a ton of pictures. Jeff and Tim did a great job picking up on the sailing techniques. The captain was pretty impressed!

Towards the end of the day, when things were a lot calmer, I was able to take the wheel and drive the boat. I was pretty excited. The guys had to take down the sails during this time.

We had our captain take a picture of us at the end of the day. Here is a picture of Tim, Jeff, and I on the Sijamba after we docked.

We had so much fun! We headed out to Pier 39 for dinner when we were done. We saw some amazing street performers. They were using spray paint to create amazing pieces artwork in under 15 minutes. We watched them do a couple. It was unbelievable and one of the coolest things I have ever saw. Ok, that is all for now. This weekend we are heading to Tahoe! It should be an amazing time!

Yosemite 2007

2007-05-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I had a great weekend! We went camping at Summerdale campground in Fish Camp about 2 miles south of Yosemite National Park. There were 10 of us all together. We got there on Friday evening and hung out around the fire. I didn't sleep well, as it got down to around 40 degrees or lower that night. It was a bit chilly! We left the campground Saturday morning to start our day at Yosemite. Our first stop was at a scenic overlook. We took a similar picture of this last year (and I believe we posted it on our blog). It was a little hazy that day, but the view is still amazing!!
We then drove to Bridalveil Fall. We only saw Bridalveil from the road last year, so it was great to walk up to the fall. It was a little chilly that morning and the mist from the fall didn't help much.

We then continued on to Yosemite Falls. It is the 5th tallest waterfall in the world and the tallest in the US! For more information on Yosemite Falls check out this page: http://www.yosemite.ca.us/yosemitefallsfacts.html

The hike was around 3.2 miles to the top of the falls. It was a tough hike for me and a couple others. I think it took around 2.5 hours to reach the top, but it was well worth it. Here are some pictures from the hike:

The trail was a little rough. It would be rocky at one point, sandy at another, and wet in other places. It was a pretty steady climb up with one section that flattened out for a while - I definitely needed that to catch my breath. This part of the trail was great for seeing the Upper Fall. The mist of the fall felt wonderful. The weather was great (probably no hotter than 80), but it was warm climbing up!

When we got to the top, we were pretty hungry, so we found a nice spot by the water to sit and eat our lunches. The water was very refreshing - a couple of us took our socks and shoes off to cool our feet! It was a great view for lunch.
After lunch we walked around to the scenic overlook. It was breath-taking; a little scarey, but beautiful!

Below is a picture of the group at the top: Catherine, Court, Jeff, Heidi, Toni, Outing, Josh, and Drew.

There was a "trail" that led down to an overlook from the top. It was a little nuts going down and up. Below is a picture of some people going up the "trail" and below is Jeff and I on the outlook.

The way down the trail was much easier, but a little rough on the knees. There were some great picture opportunities though. The one below is of a rainbow with the falls to the left. Half Dome is in the background. It is one of my favorite pictures!

After we made it to the bottom, we regrouped and decided to drive up to Glacier Point for some more great views. Below is a picture of the group: Jeff, Drew, Kara, Patrick, Outing, Josh, Toni, Heidi, and Catherine (not sure where Court was at this point).

The picture below is one I took after we got down from Yosemite Falls. I am amazed that I made it to the top!

We headed back to the camp after that. I was pretty dirty and sweaty and thought that it would be a good idea to bathe in the creek. It was super freezing, but it did feel amazing! We ended the night by eating our dinner and sitting by the fire. I was super exhausted and went to bed a little early and didn't wake up until 9am!! We packed all of our stuff and headed back to Yosemite for a smaller hike. We went to Mariposa Grove. There are tons of giant sequoias there and it was great to see. The picture below is of Grizzly Giant. It is gigantic! The picture under that one is of the group if front of the tree.

We had a great time and loved the sites. Our bodies our a little sore, but they will heal. I am sure we will sleep super well tonight!

Ports and a festival!

2007-04-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-04-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

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!

A Short Update...

2007-03-25T15:28:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-25T14:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-03-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-03-08T10:35:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-03-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-03-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

*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

Did you see us on tv?

2007-02-27T19:49:00.000-08:00

Last night Jeff and I went to the Pacific men's basketball game against Long Beach State. The game was aired on ESPN 2! It was a pretty good game, even though the Tigers lost :-( Of course, if they would have made their free throws, it would be a completely different story. The half time show was pretty exciting. They had 3 bike stunt guys peforms. Here are a couple of pictures (sorry they didn't turn out better):

The guy in the above picture is turning his bike around. The picture below shows another guy doing a back flip on his bike. He didn't get much height, but made it around safe and sound.

Catherine was able to get the General Mills tickets to the game, so she invited Jeff and I. The picture above is Catherine and her husband Court. Jeff and I are below. I know it isn't the best picture, but it is the only one we took.

We didn't do a whole lot this weekend. Mainly because I had RA interviews/carousels all day on Saturday. It was quite interesting to see all of the candidates. In a couple of weeks we will go through more interviews for next years' GRDs - there are 10 openings!! So, if you know anyone who wants to go to grad school at Pacific, have them apply!

My dad is coming for a couple of days next week. I am very excited to see him. He will be here only for a couple of days before continuing his journey from San Diego to Portland, but it will be great to see him! I am sure I will take lots of pictures (if we get out to do anything - the rain stinks!)

I am sitting at home tonight while Jeff is out at a company dinner. Yeah for homework!! Only 1 year and 3 months to go! Off to finish my case brief.

Have a great week!

A conference in Texas

2007-02-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

I got back last night from a conference I went to in Addison, TX. I was there since Friday morning and have to say that I was happy to get back to Stockton. It was a great conference and the First Year Experience, but it was filled with long days of sitting in sessions and networking. I attended two pre-conference workshops and loved them. I also was a presenter and the session went great. My colleagues and I are definitely putting in a proposal for next year's conference and possible one that will be in November. I could go into all of the student development things related to FYE, but I won't bore you. Another great plus to the weekend was the vendors. I came away with about 30 free books!! The publishing companies were just giving them away! The books range from Freakonomics to Forty Million Dollar Slaves to Enrique's Journey. I have a lot of reading to do! I was sad that I didn't get to hang out with Krista and Nic, but I am looking forward to seeing you (and everyone else) in Vegas in June!
Sorry there are no pictures to post. I had the camera and didn't take any!! I think that is a first :-)

Jeff spent the weekend hanging out with friends and touring San Francisco (again). I love that city!

I hope all is well with everyone! Oh, and congrats to my friends - one on the engagement and two others on the baby!! (I won't say names in case others don't know)!!

excuse me...bobby could you move I can't see

2007-02-13T20:05:00.000-08:00

So we have been a little delinquent in our posting duties as of late...probably because we haven't had a whole lot going on...I didn't post it last week but I managed to land a ticket the Kings game. General Mills has some pretty sweet tickets...3rd row between the visitor bench and half court. I also am very happy to report that I got a hold of all 4 of the tickets for the T-wolves when they come to town in March...you can bet there will be some pictures of KG posted after that one. It was actually really hard to get good pictures as teh coaches, refs and players were all in the way.

In other news Heidi and I started playing volleyball with some general millsers...talent we don't have...to be honest we don't have much heart either, but even in losing we had fun our first game. We actually played another General Mills team. They won all 3 games and we are probably the two worst teams in our league...we will be lucky to pull out a game the entire season...but it is fun to play.

Also, Last week Heidi and I went to a Black History month event on the University of Pacific campus. General Mills purchased two tables for the event and there were about 12 employees(and spouses) from the plant in attendance. The key note speaker was Lee P. Brown a former presidential cabinet member in the Clinton administration. He was also a 3 term mayor of Houston, chief of police in Atlanta, Houston, and New York. He also was the first ever African American Phd in Criminology and first African American sheriff in Oregon. I probably left out some of his accomplishments, but there were a lot to mention. He was interesting to listen to...even more interesting was the speaker who introduced him. One of the first ever graduates from a criminal rehabilitiation program first instituted by Dr. Brown...interesting to hear a man talk that spent 30+ years in prison and now is a college graduate and facilitator of the local rehabilitation program. Also pictured above is Liviu Vizitiu the plant HR manager and his wife.

MN Visitors!

2007-02-04T20:45:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

We had a great weekend in San Francisco and Livermore visiting with Chris and Tonya. We were so excited for our first visitors of 2007! Here is a picture blog with words of our weekend:

Jeff and I drove to SF on Saturday morning. We picked up Chris and Tonya at Union Square and headed out to show them the city. Our first stop was Ghiradelli Square. I love the free samples :-)

Ghiradelli Square

We then headed over to Golden Gate Park and the Presidio. We saw the Dutch Windmill and a naked hippie, among other things (sorry - no pictures). At the Presidio, we had some great views of Golden Gate Bridge.

Chris and Tonya

While walking around, we were able to see some of the old army bunkers along the bay. We lucked out, as they had some of the pop-up guns/canyons were out. It was pretty intersting to walk through a couple, however, Tonya and I aren't the history buffs like our husbands :-)

Jeff enjoying the view!

While at Golden Gate Park, we stopped at the Japanese Tea Garden. It was very beautiful. I could only imagine what it would look like in full bloom. We may need to go back there in the summer/fall. Chris and Tonya missed the roses by a couple of weeks - they just cut them for winter! (Although it was in the 60s and was completely not winterish!)

Part of the Japanese Tea Garden

Jeff and Heidi on the bridge at
the Japanese Tea Garden.

From there, we headed for the Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. We ate lunch at Boudin's (which is famous for the sourdough) and then walked around for a while. One of my favorite spots at the Wharf is the playland. It has a ton of older games to play or look at that costs anywhere from a penney to fifty cents.

A couple of the games.

Once we played all of the games, we walked over to Pier 39 to see the sea lions. Jeff and I really haven't taken any pictures of them during the day until now. I love watching and listening to those animals!

No, they are not dead - just resting!

We walked down the Pier and stopped at a few shops - including the candy store to get our fill of salt water taffy - yummy!! It was then back to the hotel to rest before dinner. We walked around China Town that evening and ate and our favorite place there. The food was delicious. I love walking around China Town and looking at the stores and everything. We hit Cold Stone on the way back to the hotel. It was a fun day.

On Sunday, we headed over to Livermore to do some wine tasting. Jeff and I had never tasted there before and it was fun going to another city to taste.

Tonya and Chris enjoying the wine!

Jeff and I dropped Tonya and Chris off at the BART station in Dublin so they could head back to San Fran and we could head home to watch the SuperBowl. However, we did stop for a late lunch at In and Out Burger before departing!

I was able to do some homework during the game and finished it not too long ago! I think I am going to head to bed now - I am a little sleepy! Have a great week!!

Playing catch-up

2007-01-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

Hello all! It has been and will continue to be quite busy here for a while. I have been having meetings about the upcoming conference I will be presenting at, about RA selection, about RA and GRD training, about programming, about building renovations, about Residential Learning Communities, and so many other things. I feel like that is all I do - attend meetings (and send out emails). Oh well, that is the life of a person in housing :-)

In other news, Jeff and I had a pretty lazy weekend. We didn't really do anything at all on Friday and Saturday! That may have been a first for us! On Sunday, we drove up to Elk Grove and played some sand volleyball! Yep, volleyball in the sand, outside, in January! It was so much fun. Unfortunately, I didn't bring the camera, so I have nothing to show. However I did get a nice sand-burn on my leg! We needed the practice for our upcoming volleyball season! I can't wait to start doing sport stuff again. Let's just pray that no balls or elbows or anything else hits Jeff in the nose!!

This coming weekend we are headed to San Francisco to hang out with Jeff's brother, Chris and his wife, Tonya, who are coming to visit. I am so excited to eat some yummy clam chowder and also to eat in China Town!! We are also going to a few wineries in Livermore on Sunday, so that will be neat to see - I haven't been to any there!

OK, well, I need to get some homework done. My reports are already piling up! Have a good week and weekend!!

Skiing in Heaven(ly)

2007-01-22T16:12:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

We had a great weekend skiing in Tahoe. We were at Heavenly and the views were absolutely amazing. I was a little scared at first because you have to ride three ski lifts to the top of the mountain!! It was nuts! There were a ton of runs and the weather was great. Here are a few Heavenly Mountain facts:

~10,067-foot elevation (the highest at Lake Tahoe)
~4,800 acre spanning two states (the most on the West Coast - and yes, we did ski to Nevada and then back to California!)
~Top to bottom decent: 5.5 miles (the longest on the West Coast)
~3,500 foot vertical (unmatched on the West Coast)
~92 runs and 30 lifts

There were nine of us who went up Friday afternoon. We hung out at the house and had a great time. We skiied from 9am-4pm on Saturday. Unfortunately, our friend Toni hurt her knee and was brought down to the medical center via sled. Hopefully it is nothing more than a sprain!! Saturday evening was spent relaxing in the hot tub, playing games, and eating pizza.

My muscles are still a little sore, but it was worth it. I did complain a lot through the day - but I think I was a trooper for going down the "steep" parts which completely freaked me out. I realized that I like skiing and it is fun, but I just don't know if it is for me. I am so happy that I went and skiied in Tahoe though - it was awesome!!

Here are a few pictures from our trip:

It was hard not to look at the views while skiing, but if I didn't concentrate on what I was doing, I would have completely wiped out. Fortunately, we stopped a few times along the way and took some pics. I don't think I fell until after lunch, so that was impressive :-)

The picture above is the view we had from the house we rented. It was so beautiful!!

Drew, Kristi, and Josh rocking out to Guitar Hero! A complete hit!

It's was a long week...

2007-01-16T07:47:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

Sorry about not posting for the week. We had training for the RAs and I was pretty much busy from 8am-10pm. It was a lot of fun, but it was a little exhausting! The theme for training was Project RA (taken tidbits from the show Project Runway). We had a tee-shirt fasion show and the infamous Talent/No Talent show. I hope the RAs got stuff out of training. I actually got to present 3 sessions and they all seemed to go well!

On Saturday, Jeff and I hung out for the most part. We met some GM friends at a place called the Lodi Brewing Company for dinner to celebrate my birthday. After dinner, we went to a local bar (Mojo's) and then to Drew and Toni's house. We played a few games and then called it night around 2:30!! It was a great time and I am so happy that everyone was there to bring in by big 2-6 day!!
Haning out at Mojo's (l-r): Kara, Patrick, Court, Brian, Melissa, Catherine, Kristi, and Heidi! (Not pictured: Brent, Kari, and Jeff)

One of the present's that Jeff got me - Guitar Hero 2 - We are having a lot of fun playing it :-)

It has been finalized - we are going skiing in Tahoe this coming weekend!! We have rented a house and there are about 9 of us going. I am a little nervous to ski down the mountains of Tahoe compared with the "hills" of Wild Mountain, but I shall do my best!!

Chris and Tonya will both be out here at the beginning of February, so that will be a lot of fun!! I am excited to go to San Francisco!

Classes start this week - wish me luck!

P.S. Think good thoughts for my mom - she will have her second round of chemo this week!! Hopefully all continues to go well!

Christmas and New Year's

2007-01-07T16:51:00.000-08:00

Well, this weekend has been pretty uneventful. Jeff has a pretty nasty cold, so we have been chilling out in the apartment, except for the occassional walks, for the most part. I though that I would take some time to write and post pictures a out the rest of our trip.

We had a good Christmas with the Goettl's. We got to catch up with all of Jeff's brothers, his parents, and some extended family.

Top Row (L-R): Tonya (sister-in-law), Mia (niece-Chris and Tonya's daughter), Chris (brother), Miki (mom), Matt (brother), Kerri (sister-in-law), Andy (brother); Middle Row (L-R): Mike (brother), Andy (dad), Wally (great-uncle), Vi (great-aunt), Jared (cousin), Shelbi (cousin-Jared and Becky's daughter), Becky (cousin); Front Row (L-R): Jeff, Heidi, Rileigh (cousin), Isaac (cousin), Loghan (cousin - Jared and Becky's son)

We had fun playing some poker, opening presents, playing the dice game, and eating!!

On Tuesday, Jeff and I were able to go ice skating on the lake at Jeff's parent's house. We had so much fun. I was wearing Jeff's dad's skates, so they were a little bit big (like 3 sizes) for me!! I did pretty well though and only fell a couple of times :-)

The rest of the week, we hung out at the house, went to lunch with some of Jeff's family, and baby-sat for Mia! We had a good time! On New Year's Eve, it started to snow while we drove to church. An hour later, we had at least 2 inches already!! Jeff and I thought it would be the perfect time to go out and play!!

Above: Jeff doing a great job at snow-boarding down the hill at the house.

Below: The snowflakes were huge!! We even made a gigantic snowman, but the wind blew it over later that night!!

Although we were very excited to see the snow, we were a little bummed that it ruined some travel plans for our New Year's Eve Party. However, neighbor Dave and his family were able to make it (along with some of his world-famous ribs!) and the Sullivan's also drove up from Iowa - even though they were "bumped" by a semi!! (Adam and Alyssa - I hope your car is OK!!) We had a great time catching up, playing cards and other games, and bringing in the new year. Below is one of my favorite pictures of Travis!!

We also got to spend a lot of time with our kitties!! At their last vet check-up (the beginning of Dec.), Bait weighed in at 17 lbs. and Tackle at 15 lbs.!! They are so big!! Bait loves people and getting attention and Tackle is a little bit leary.

The above and below pictures are of Tackle. He is such an adorable cat and has very soft fur!!

The above and below pictures are of Bait. He is a little weird and sleeps in the craziest positions!

We got up on Tuesday morning and headed up to the Cities with Jeff's dad. We dropped him off and went to the Mall of America for a couple of hours. While there, we were able to see the world's largest ginger bread house and the Polar Express train. We then headed up to Coon Rapids and had lunch with Sally (I hope your back is better Matt!) It was great to see my old friends from Anoka-Ramsey. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Jeff's brother Andy's house. Then it was off to pick up Jeff's dad and we were dropped off at the airport.

We had a great time back "home" and are now getting back into our California life. My busy times start next week with meetings and training and classes start the week after. (Oh, on a side not and because I forgot to mention before, I got all A's last semseter!! Yeah for me!!)

We will hopefully have our first guest of 2007 here next weekend (my birthday weekend)!! Jeff's brother Chris may be coming out of work and will be staying a couple of days with us. Some good times should be had. We are also hopefully going to go to Tahoe skiing on the weekend of the 19th!! I'll keep you posted.

OK, I need to make some dinner - yes, I actually cook when the dining hall isn't open :-)

A Vaction after a Vacation...

2007-01-03T14:58:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

Happy New Year!! Jeff and I had a great vacation back in MN and WI. It was wonderful seeing everyone and hanging out. We got back to Stockton this morning at 3am!! We are both a little tired today, but that's OK. I started to unpack, but I think I will wait until Jeff gets back from work to finish. Here are a few pictures of Chritmas with my family:

Shawn, Melissa, Jessica, Heidi, and Mom

Back Row (L to R): DJ, Justis, Lauren, Bayley; Front Row (L to R): Cameron, Collyn, Tayler, Ali, and Carsen - DJ, Justis, and Lauren are Shawn's kids, Bayley, Ali, Collyn, and Cameron are Jessica's kids, and Tayler and Carsen are Melissa's kids

Cameron and Collyn absolutely adore Jeff!!

The next picture will need some explanation. Jeff always wants to bet on the Packers/Vikings game and I am against it most of the time. Well, this year, we bet that the person's team that lost had to wear the other team's jersey to Jeff's family Chirstmas (who are mostly big Vikings fans). Well, of course, the Pack won the first game so Jeff wanted to make a double or nothing bet for the game on the 23rd. The double was that he had to pose and smile for pictures whenever anyone asked and he could only say positive things about the Packers. Silly me forgot my Favre jersey in CA so Jeff thought he was off the hook. However, Jeff's brother Andy and his wife, Kerri, gave me an early b-day present - a new Packer shirt!! I also got a Packer shirt for Christmas from Chris and Tonya, so below is a rare opportunity to see Jeff in Packer's apparel with a smile on his face!! Oh what a joyous day it was!!!

OK, well that is what I am going to post for now. I will post pictures of New Year's and other stuff later - including us playing in the snow and ice skating!!! I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and many well wishes for everyone in 2007!!

Last California Post for 2006

2006-12-13T20:00:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

I can't believe how fast this semseter went. Tomorrow, I have my last class of the semster!! All I have left to do is hand in my paper I just finished and take my oral exam tomorrow. I am very excited to get back to MN and WI and to see everyone. Another great thing - my sister Melissa and her family are moving home!! Branden will officially be out of the Army tomorrow morning! It will be the first Christmas that we have all been together for a while, so I am really looking forward to that.

Here are a couple of picturs from this past week:

So, the above picture isn't the best, but I wanted to include something from the Lodi Light Parade. The picture is of the General Mills float that Jeff and I help build and we got to ride on it during the parade! It was a lot of fun. We were the 13th float in the parade so we were able to watch the rest of the parade at the end!

The following pictures are from the amazingly awesome game that took place on Sunday between the San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers! I had such a great time! There were a ton of Packers fans there. With about 10 minutes left, a majority of the 49ers fans started to leave, so the stadium was full of green and gold. There were times throughout the game where the cheer "Go Pack Go" was louder than the other cheers!

We took a ton of action plays with our camera. The above is just one of the many - I didn't want to overload the blog site :-)

Jeff even wore green :-) He didn't do a lot of cheering, but he still really enjoyed the game!!

OK, that is about all from this end! We fly out at midnight Friday morning and will arrive in MN at 6am!! I hope that everyone had a great week and has a wonderful holiday season. Hopefully we will see a ton of people while we are back in the midwest. Be sure to give us a call if anything is going on!!

A Boat Parade and A Marathon...

2006-12-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

Ok, so I am supposed to be writing my paper that is due this afternoon, but I needed a break from all of the Adlerian theory stuff, so I thought that I would write a post. I know - what a great excuse to stop writing a final paper that is worth 40% of your final grade...

This weekend was a lot of fun. On Friday, Jeff and I hung out in Lodi with some friends at the Cactus and then played darts at Drew and Toni's for a while. We got up pretty early on Saturday morning and drove to General Mills to help build/decorate the float that will be in the parade on Thursday. We were there for a couple of hours and got some accomplished. I am excited to see the finished product. (As a side note - Jeff and I will both be riding the float! How fun will that be!!) We got home and took a nap. I got up and did some homework and then we went to beauiful downtown Stockton for the lighting of the Christmas tree and the boat parade. Well, we missed the lighting of the tree, but did get to see the parade. It was pretty cool. We attempted to take some pictures, but not all of them turned out. Here are a couple to show you what we experienced:

The boat above was one of my favorites. It had the sword fish in the front and the fishing poles in the back had fish and stockings on them. I thought it was very creative. The photo below is of a speed boat decorated to look like a swan.
Overall, there were about 75 boats parading in the Delta that evening. It was something that we would never experience in MN and had fun seeing all of the boats (I could use the word yachts). A funny note about this - they place where the tree is and where the delta flows is a pretty popular place. During the winter months they have an skating rink. I was excited about the opportunity to go ice skating so Jeff and I walked over there while we were waiting for the start of the parade. Well, it turns out that it is not an "ice" skating rink - it is plastic!! It was so funny to see people skating on this. I almost want to try it just to see what it is like :-)

Sunday was another early rise. Jeff and 3 others from General Mills (Toni, Steve, and Catherine) ran as a relay team in a marathon in Sacramento. I was their support person and chaperone for the day. It was fun to see and there were a ton of people there! They did a super job and finished the race in just under 4 hours! Here are pictures of Jeff running and the team:

Jeff ran the final leg of the race which ended at the capitol building in downtown Sacramento.
Toni, Catherine, Steve, and Jeff - Go CHEERIOS!!

OK, I need to keep going on my paper. I know that it should be completed already, but the rest of the weekend was spent on a final presentation for my Monday class - which I am very happy with how it turned out (Yeah for Cultural Identity Development Theories!!)

I hope that everyone had a good weekend. Only 10 days left until we are in MN/WI!!! This semester just flew by!!

The rest of the weekend...

2006-11-29T17:19:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

On Saturday, we headed up to Sacramento and walked around Old Sac. It is a pretty neat place - lots of fun shops and great candy stores!! That evening we went to see a movie in Stockton - "Almost Fiction" and then ate dinner at Pho Lucky's. The movie was good and dinner was delicious! It is kind of a Vietnamese style place.

Sunday was the big day in San Francisco. We left our place around 8am and headed to Muir Woods to see the giant red woods and sequoias. It was a miserable day weather wise, but we still made the most of it. I am glad that I brought extra socks and shoes along!! Here are some pictures of the day:

The pictures above and below were taken at Muir Woods around 11am. It looks dark because of the rain. You can see how big the trees are in the photo below. That is Jeff and his brother, Mike. There are a ton of trails all through the park. We also saw a few deer when we were leaving. A sad thing that I noticed is how unaware people are of their surroundings. For example, the deer were right by the trail eating and people walked right by them - it didn't even phase them that 3 deer were 10 feet away from them.

After Muir Woods, we went to the Fisherman's Wharf for some lunch - of course we ate chowder in bread bowls. One thing I am really going to miss about California is the clam chowder and sour dough bread bowls. It is one of my favorite thing to eat here!! We also went to Ghiradelli Square - one of my favorite places to go in SF!! Wonderful chocolate! We then headed over to Pier 33 to board the ferry for Alcatraz. It continued to rain and was dreary, but it was still really neat. I really enjoyed going out to Alcatraz and want to go back because I feel like I still have so much to see. We were there for a little over 2 hours and took the 4:30 ferry back to the mainland.

These two pictures are of Alcatraz. The one above was taken as we were nearing the island and the one below was taken on the tour. There are so many more pictures we have. We were able to go in some of the cells, the dining hall, and around a few other places. There were also photos of some of the inmates, information about some of the escape attempts, and were able to read about a lot of the history before it became a federal prison. I would recommend the trip to anyone!
The rain stopped when we got onto the ferry. We were able to get some amazing pictures of the sunset and of the city. Those pictures are at the end of the blog. When we got back to land we walked down to Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, and some other places in the area. We went for dinner at a place in Chinatown. It was so yummy - they have a really good soup there and I love tea. Below is a picture of Jeff and I at the gate to Chinatown. After we ate and walked around some, we headed to the airport to drop Mike off.

The 4 pictures below are what we saw on the way back to the city from Alcatraz. It was so gorgeous. The rain stopped, the clouds went a way, and the sun made the most brilliant colors.

Above is the SF skyline.

The next pictures are the sunset and the Golden Gate Bridge. I love these pictures!!

It was a great weekend and I hope Mike enjoyed his time out here! We will be heading to MN/WI in 2 1/2 weeks!! I have 2 big papers, 2 big presentations, and 1 oral exam left for my classes. It will be a busy couple of weeks for me, but I can get through it!!

Napa, Thanksgiving, and Monteray

2006-11-29T08:31:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

What a long weekend!! It started on Wednesday when Jeff and I took a trip to Napa Valley, Calistoga, and Sonoma with some General Mills folks. It was our first trip up there and a ton of fun. We got to taste a ton of wine - thanks Drew for the hook-up - and really enjoyed ourselves. We had dinner that night with Liz - I finally got to see her and then got the sad news about her mom passing. Luckily, Jeff and I were on our way to the airport to pick up Jeff's brother and were able to get a ticket and bring her there! Here are a couple of pictures from our first winery stop at Robert Mondavi:

I love elepants and am so glad that this rock was there! Below, Jeff and I are in the vineyard. There were still some grapes on the vines and the leaves are starting to change colors!

On Thanksgiving, we were at Toni and Drew's house. They made an excellent turkey and stuffing and everyone else brought some yummy food to share as well! I made cranberries and pecan pie and brought some appetizers. After we ate, we played football, darts, and some games. It was a fun day!!

On Friday, we got up and drove to Monteray Bay and some other places along Hwy. 1. We drove on the 17-mile scenic drive adn that was amazing. The views were spectacular. It was a little chilly that day and be by the ocean didn't help at all. The pictures below are from the drive and some of the stops along the way:

Above is bird rock. It has a ton of birds sitting on it and flying around it. There were also sea lions in the water in front of it splashing around. It was pretty cool to see. Below is a picture of Jeff and I in front of the water.

Above is the Lone Cypress. It is kind of interesting how a tree just grows on a rock like that! They have cables holding it up so the wind won't blow it over! Below are some deer hanging out at Pebble Beach Golf Course.
The picture above is a beautiful sunset. It was awesome being by the ocean during this time!

We drove down to Big Sur to see the lighthouse but it was closed by the time we got there :-( I am thinking another road trip will be in the making soon - who is coming to visit next? While we were driving down there it came to me why they say that happy cows live in California. It is because they have amazing views of the ocean!! I attempted to take pictures out of the window so you could see where the cows graze, but they didn't turn out!

Ok, so that was the first part of the weekend. I will post later and share things about Sacremento and San Francisco.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

2006-11-22T08:58:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

Happy Thanksgiving (a day early) everyone! I hope that you all have a safe, fun weekend! Jeff and I have a lot planned. We are going to go to Napa Valley today - and I finally get to see Liz!!! After that, we are driving to San Francisco to pick up Jeff's brother, Mike, from the airport. Thursday will be turkey day with some General Mills peeps. Friday brings a day of travel to Monteray Bay and a drive along the coast. Saturday will be spent eating sushi, visitng wineries, and traveling to Sacramento. Sunday will be a day in San Francisco visiting the sites and touring Alcatraz. I am sure Mike will have a good time!!

Only 3 weeks left of classes for me!! I have so much to get done!

Have a great weekend everyone!

A Busy Week...

2006-11-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

NASPA (National Association for Student Personnel Administrators) Western Regional Conference was a lot of fun. We had an excellent speaker on Thursday and then headed over to AT&T Park (where the Giants play baseball) for our welcoming ceremony! It was awesome. We got tours of the stadium that took us into the visitors locker room, the dugouts, and the field! Here are a couple of pictures:

The picture above is the locker room for the visiting team. The brown thing in the middle is an old door that was signed by all of the players who were in the locker room the last year the team played at Candlestick Park (now known as Monster Park). The picture below is me sitting in the dugout. It was so much fun!

I went to some pretty good sessions at the conference. My favorite was on legal issues in higher education. I just find it so interesting! There was also an interesting session on assessment and another on women in leadership positions. I was able to network with a lot of nice people and possibly found some internship sites for the summer. The hotel we were at was a block from Union Square. We were able to walk around, go shopping, and see some sites - we could see Coit Tower from our hotel room!

The picture above is the "Heart of San Francisco" - which is Union Square. It was obviously night time, but Union Square is a pretty cool place - an open 'mall area', tons of shopping places, and a cool place to hang out.

This week has been quite busy. I have a big paper and a presentation/paper due tomorrow night for one of my classes. Why they are both due on the same day is beyond my control, but I need to get those done. I am done with the presentation/paper, but need to do the research paper - or start the compilation of my research to write the paper! Once that is done I will be down to 2 big research papers, 1 big presentation, 1 oral exam, and a couple smaller papers. I only have 5 weeks of classes left!! That is so crazy!

We have tickets to the Standford football game this weekend, but not sure if we are going to go. The big Michigan vs. Ohio State game is on and that may be a better game to watch. Not sure what we are going to do, but either way, we will be off campus which will be nice :-)

I hope everyone is having a good week! For all my WI and MN friends - we need to plan a time to hang out when Jeff and I are back. I am sure New Year's will be at Jeff's parents' house. I do want to see people though!! I will send an email out later and we will figure it out. I am sure we will hit a couple of Thursday Night Poker games when we are home!

Oh, one more thing - GO PACK GO!!!! Ha, ha, ha all you VIKINGS fans (and yes, Jeff, that does include you)!!!

Just a Catch Up...

2006-11-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

I thought that I would write a quick post while I am waiting for my co-workers to finish what they are doing so we can head to San Francisco for a conference. Here are some misc. pictures from our week back home and the 49ers/Vikings game at Monster Park last Sunday.

Here is a picture of me, Tackle, Jeff, and Bait - such a family!

Tackle is above and Bait is below. I know, Bait is standing

wierd, but that is just how the cats are...wierd and BIG!!!

These two pictures are from the football game. It was pretty fun.

I do have to say that I like the outdoor stadium, but I like the Metrodome

a little better - more of a variety of food and parking is much better in Mpls.

The guy below in the white shirt is Joe Montana - they had an alumni day!!

After the game we drove to Pier 39 for dinner. We decided to stop and see the sea lions. There were a few of them there, but the pictures didn't turn out. I love the picture above - it is sunset at the Golden Gate Bridge. It was absolutely gorgeous!!!

OK, well I am off to my conference. I will bring the camera and maybe take some pictures. Talk to everyone later!!

A Quick Update

2006-11-03T11:13:00.000-08:00

Heidi writes:

It has been a whirlwind of a week. Jeff and I flew out of SF last Sunday at midnight and landed at MSP at 5am. It seems like sleep hasn't really existed this week. We are currently in St. Cloud at Frank's place having a "relaxing" day. The wake was on Wednesday and the funeral was yesterday. A positive to the week - I have got to see and spend time with my family. My sister, Melissa, and her family arrived on Tuesday from Alaska. We also got to see Jessica and the kids. Jeff and I also stopped out at Wayne and Kim's and saw Blake and Lance and Dad for a little bit. Here is a picture of the kids on Halloween:

Ali, Collyn, Bayley, Tayler, and Cameron - it isn't the best picture, but it is hard to get the kids to sit still together for too long to get pictures. It was fun taking them trick-or-treating and seeing them run from house to house.

We got to see Mia for a little while when we first got here. She is so cute!! We are heading to Mankato tomorrow morning to spend time with Jeff's family and then we are flying out tomorrow night.

Mom is doing OK. She just needs lots of love and positive thoughts sent her way. Thanks to everyone who has sent well wishes our way!! We greatly appreciate everything!

Tahoe or Bust...

2006-10-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Sorry for the delay in not updating sooner. It has been one of those weeks. Jeff and I went to Tahoe City (North Tahoe) with some of my co-workers/classmates last weekend. We had a really good time. One of the girls has an uncle with a condo up there and he let us stay there for free - it was a nice place and it wasn't too far from the water. It was also great weather - high 60s/low 70s all weekend. We got there on Friday afternoon, hung out, went to dinner and walked around for a while. That night, we went to the casinos in Nevada (about 15 minutes away). Saturday, we went on a boat tour of Lake Tahoe and more specifically of Emerald Bay. The water and views were absolutely amazing!! We got some really good pictures. We conked out for a couple of hours in the afternoon, but had a great time that night. We went back to the casinos and had the $2.99 steak and eggs breakfast :-) It was so much fun! Here are a few pictures from the trip:

These two pictures were taken from the boat. We have a ton of pictures from the trip!

The tree above may look young and small, but it is actually over 150 years old!! It just can't grow any bigger because there is no place for the roots to grow in the rocks!

Below is the group we went with (right to left): Jeremy, Kelly, Shiraz, Junior, Sylvia, Kari, Amy, Jason, Heidi, Jeff. Below is the boat that we road on. It was a good time!

Not a lot of plans for this weekend. We are going to hang out with people on Friday and not sure what else for the rest of the weekend.

This week has been good. We had a big program tonight - Safe Trick or Treat on campus. We had over 400 kids attend!! It is also Alcohol Awareness Week and there a lot of programs for that. We are also getting ready for International Education Week in a couple of weeks, so that will be fun :-) Next weekend I get to go to an RA conference (I am presenting a program at it) and the weekend after that I will be going to Regional NASPA in San Francisco, so that will be fun.

Time is just flying by and I am excited for the semester to be over. I don't have too many things left - about 3 presentations, 4 major papers, 5 smaller papers, and an oral exam. It seems like a lot, but with the work I have done so far, it is not that much.

Jeff is doing well. He handed in his application to participate in Leadership Lodi and hopefully that will work out for him. He will be on a committee with other business-people from Lodi and will be doing a community-improvement project.

One other thing going on - we are hoping to bring Bait and Tackle back with us when we are home in Dec. A few of us have done research on pet policies at other universities across the US. Jason, one of the GRDs here, has put together an excellent proposal. He has convinced everyone he has presented to thus far and has one more committee left - with all of the "important" people. I am hoping it goes well!! We have really good relationships with the higher-ups, so hopefully they will be on our side and say "yes"!! Of course, we will have to sedate them both (especially Bait) because they hate being in cars or any other form of a vehicle - he would start hyper-ventilating again and probably wouldn't make it out here.

OK, this is long and it is getting late. I hope all is well with everyone! I will try to upload pictures tomorrow - and hopefully they will load!

Have a great wedding Nick and Karin - we will be thinking about you!!!

A Fun Weekend

2006-10-17T18:51:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Jeff and I had a fun weekend. We went to Monteray Bay and Carmel on Saturday. It was a lot of fun. We took the scenic route down CA-Hwy 1. It was the first time that we really saw the ocean (besides the SF bay) since we have been out here. We started out at the Aquarium in Monteray Bay. It was pretty cool. I really liked watching the penguins - they were cute. We saw a ton of other sea life. The camera really wouldn't work in some of the exhibits (no flash allowed - it would scare the fish, sharks, octopus, eel...), but if you really like sea life, I would recommend it. Here are a couple of pictures:

After the Aquarium, we went and tasted some wine on Cannery Row. (Cannery Row became known as Cannery Row because of the amount of sardines that it once canned.) That part of CA is known more for its' white wine where here, in the valley, we are known more for the reds, especially Old Vine Zins. So, we tasted a few different varietals and I was pretty impressed. After we tasted, we walked down by the water and I waded a little bit and got splashed - my jeans were pretty wet, but they dried out!

I just like this picture...the starfish is adorable! We took the picture from one of the winery windows! We had some great views!

After Monteray, we drove down to Carmel. It was a gorgeous drive and we had a wonderful walk on the beach. However, our camera didn't want to work at that time, so we didn't get any pictures :-( Of course, that just means that we will have to go there again and take more pictures :-) One of the big sights to see is Pebble Beach golf course. We didn't do the drive arround it because of the camera, but will definitely do it next time we are there. We drove back up to Monteray for dinner and ate at the Old Fisherman's Wharf. The restaurant we ate was at the end of the pier and we ate dinner while watching sea-lions and sea-otters play in the ocean! After dinner we walked around wharf area and started to hear the sea-lions. We walked over to the side and saw a few of the sea-lions below the pier on the rafters - they were getting ready to sleep. A couple of them fell asleep (one was snoring!) and others just kept barking back and forth. There was a lot of wierd sounds coming from them and I laughed pretty hard! On the next trip, I want to go on a whale-watching cruise, so hopefully we will do that soon!

Here are a couple of pictures of Jeff and I taken on Cannery Row.

We had a fun Saturday, which made for a lazy Sunday, but it was nice. I am looking forward to going back soon and also looking forward to going back when it is "swimming" weather!

As far as the rest of the week goes, my Thursday class is canceled - it is now a "research" day and Jeff has his departmental retreat for work (they are going to Ironstone Winery). On Friday, we will be going to North Lake Tahoe with a few of my co-workers. I am really looking forward to it! Have a great week everyone!

Kickball and Stuff

2006-10-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Last Saturday, I played in a kickball tourney with a few people from General Mills and a couple people of UoP. It was a great time. We played a total of 5 games, beginning at 9am!! We ended up getting 2nd place - so we got some snazzy t-shirts and a scare crow! The kickball tourney was part of Elk Grove's Harvest Festival. There were a lot of festivities going on throughout the day, including a giant pumpkin contest...they were huge! Here are a couple of pictures:

Me at my first kick of the day. I did OK, the first game, but then learned how to kick and I was very happy with my performance! I did a good job on the field as well, catching a few balls and making a couple of plays!

Here is a picture of the team with the scarecrow. Our team name..."Meet the Crockers!" I had to let everyone know that I was an orginal member of the "Meet the Crockers" team :-)
Here is a picture of a few of the giant pumpkins. They had other giant fruits and veggies, but none as big as the pumpkins. The winning pumpkin weighed in at over 1200 lbs!!

In other news, Jeff got a promotion at work!! YEAH :-) He had a great time when he was in MN. I have heard many great stories and have seen some wonderful pictures. I would post some of the pictures, but most of them turned out blurry - we need to teach everyone how to use our camera. I didn't even get to see any pictures of my kitties :-( However, Jeff told me that they are huge - Tackle weighs about 12 lbs. and Bait weighs in at about 16 lbs! I miss them lots and am very excited to see them in December. Speaking of that, we booked our plane tickets home!! We will be in flying out on Dec. 15 and returning on Jan. 2. Can't wait to see everyone!! Not sure what we are going to do this weekend...we'll bring the camera though!

Random Post

2006-10-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Not a whole lot to report on my end. Jeff is in Iowa and Minnesota for the week, so I am here. I saw the movie Open Season this weekend. I really liked it - it reminded me of home!! My plans for this week include homework, homework, and homework - maybe some shopping or other fun things in there! The big news from California - it rained yesterday!!! It made me smile! It has not rained since we got here, so it was awesome! Here is the weather forecast for the next week for Stockton:
5 DAY FORECAST
Monday73°F (23°C) 49°F (9°C)
Tuesday78°F (26°C) 52°F (11°C)
Wednesday68°F (20°C) 49°F (9°C)
Thursday74°F (23°C) 48°F (9°C)
Friday74°F (23°C) 48°F (9°C)

I think it is actually warmer in MN today than it is here!! How crazy!

Other News: GO TWINS!! There are a few people here who are thinking about going to the games in Oakland on Saturday and I would love to. We tried to get tickets, but standing room only was all that was left :-( I would still go though!!!

I hope everyone has a great week. And for anyone in MN who reads this, take care of Jeff when you see him! It is so different not having him here!! He also has the camera, so be sure to take lots of pictures for me!!

Saturday afternoon...

2006-09-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

On Saturday afternoon we drove into the foothills of Placerville and went to Apple Hill. Well, we went to part of Apple Hill. There are around 50 apple orchards, a ton of wineries, a brewery, and a few other things to see along the way. This is all within a 15 mile stretch or so. We went with 4 of my co-workers - Sylvia, Shiraz, Kari, and Jason. Everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves. The first stop was at a winery, then to an a few apple orchards, another winery, a fudge factory, and a brewery. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Shiraz, Sylvia, Heidi, Kari, and Jason posing pretty outside the first winery stop.

Jeff and I decided to try the sampler flight at the brewery. We had 12 different beers to try!! I wasn't too impressed with any of them, but Jeff enjoyed the IPA (of course!).

Here are some pictures of grapes of the vine. I think these pictures are awesome. It is our hope that we can blow some of the pictures up and hang them up - especially since we have a grape kitchen theme!!

Saturday morning...

2006-09-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Jeff ran in the "San Joaquin A+ Spoonful of Stories Run" on Saturday morning. General Mills was the major sponsor of the event. There were a few other Gen Mills employees who ran the race, but Jeff kicked butt!! He finished the race in 21:01.2!!! That is a 6 min and 47 sec mile pace! He beat his last 5k race time by over a full minute! It was pretty sweet. He finished 12th overall and was first in his age-class.

After Jeff finished the race, we hung around for little while. Well, about 10 minutes after Jeff finished the race, Mike Merriweather, a former MN Viking (and he played for the Packers for 2 games) crossed the line. It turns out that he is from Stockton and lives here now selling insurance. Jeff talked to him for a while, got his autograph, business card, and a picture.

Here is a picture of Jeff, Steve, Catherine, and Jacob (Steve's son).

It was a great way to start a Saturday morning - even if I wasn't thrilled at waking up at 6:45am!! I was glad that I went and am very happy that Jeff did so well!

Grape Fest or Bust...

2006-09-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

So, Jeff and I were told all of these wonderful things about the annual Grape Fest that takes place in Lodi. We were pretty excited to go and experience our "first"!! Although there were some very neat murals made out of grapes and other food products, the fest was a total bust! It was more of a fair/carnival than a festival. We did eat at the Lockeford Sausage stand which was awesome, but then we took off. Here are a few pictures of the murals - they were really cool and huge!!

The photos above and below are a couple of the big murals. It was also the 100th birthday of Lodi, so many of the murals portrayed something related to that.

I loved the Wizard of Oz and Pooh and Friends murals. Keep in mind that they are made completely from grapes!

I took the picture below as a close-up on part of a mural. I love the wine and wine glass.

Jeff and I missed the Steele County Fair this year, which means that I was unable to eat my fill of frozen, dipped bananas. Well, after we had enough of the Grape Fest, we headed to the Lodi Brew Pub and had some dinner. We stopped at the chocolate store next door while walking back to the car and they had frozen bananas!! I was so excited!! I know it is not the greatest picture of me, but the banana was delicious!!

We spent all day Saturday watching college football. Now, when I say "all day", I really mean ALL DAY!! We went up to Elk Grove to Josh and Christina's and were there from about 10:30am-10:30pm!! We did leave for a couple of hours and went to TGIFridays for some food. It was a good time, however I did homework and took a nap while we were at the house!! Maybe I just had too much football!

Jeff and I went to the Valley Brewing Company this morning to watch football. Games start at 10am out here! Both the Vikings and Packers played at 10am and the bar had both of them on. We got there around 10:05 and there were two other guys in the bar - both Packer fans!! It was awesome - we got the big screen and the sound!! Jeff got a little screen and words, but his team also won, so that's fair!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Hope all is well in Ohio

2006-09-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Last Friday night we had a going-away party for an intern at General Mills, Kyle. We have had fun with Kyle this summer and he has been a good sport about taking a lot of bs from everyone - right FIB?? I thought that I would post a couple pictures for him from his get together.

Happy Hour at Lodi Brewing Company!

Darts! We had a couple competitions that night - how fun!!

Watch your hand, Drew! I don't think Toni knows how to open her beer with the staple gun!!

Me - watching the 2nd contest - it was an early night for me because I volunteered Saturday morning for school!

How cute is Alex!?!?!?!

Not sure what the plans are for this weekend. I am sure we will go to the Lodi Grape Festival and maybe up to Apple Hill. However, we may just chill out and watch football all weekend!

Adult Swim Party

2006-09-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Last night Comcast sposored an Adult Swim Costume Contest and show viewing. We had a pretty good time. I decided to dress up and I went as Leela from Futurama. I won 3rd place in the costume contest :-) Here is a picture that Jeff took of me. It isn't the best, but a few people took pictures of me at the program and if I get a better one, I will post that.

Plans for this weekend include a going-away party tonight, volunteering tomorrow, maybe some homework, and FOOTBALL!! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Camping Pictures

2006-09-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

I forgot to add pictures from camping. Here are a couple:

Above: Toni, Josh, Christina, and Amber snacking some before we cook dinner on the fire!

Above: Jeff and Josh attempting to wash the ash off of the cheddarwursts. They rolled off the grate into the fire while we were cooking them. Thankfully, Jeff and Josh did a great job cleaning them and they were delicious!

Above: Jeff and I posing for a picture before we teach everyone how to play Farkel!

Above: The Truckee River ran next to our campsite. It was shallow, but the current was pretty strong so we never went in there.

Labor Day Weekend

2006-09-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Hello all. I hope that you had a great Labor Day (besides mourning for the untimely loss of the Crocodile Hunter). Jeff and I had fun. On Friday, we took three of my co-workers/classmates to Lodi to a couple of the wineries. I didn't have the camera, but will post pictures once I get some emailed to me. On Saturday, we drove up to North Lake Tahoe and went camping with some of Jeff's co-workers. We got there around 1pm, set up, and then went kayaking on Lake Tahoe - good times, good times. We packed up camp on Sunday and drove down to South Lake Tahoe. We had lunch at the Heavenly Ski Resort area. We decided not to take the gondola ride and instead drove back home. We stopped at a couple turn-outs along the way to take in the views. It reminded us a lot of Yosemite and the sights were absolutely gorgeous! On Monday, we had two cookouts! Lunch with my co-workers and dinner with Brent and Kari. All in all it was a great weekend. Here are some pictures:

Alex (above) and Lolly (below) got to go swimming and get cleaned!

They were pretty dirty from playing at the campgound!

The picture below is part of Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe. There is a castle on the island. I am hoping to hike this area sometime while were are here.

Jeff was driving and I kept snapping pictures. I took the one below out of the front window (sorry about the glare) of the view we had while drive along Lake Tahoe from the North to South.

I took this picture at a turn-out that we stopped at. I like it for two reasons: one, I like the tree in the front. I just thought it looked neat. The second reason I like it is because there are clouds in the sky. There are never clouds in Stockton, so seeing a cloud was good :-)

These two pictures are of Jason, Jeff, Sylvia, Alyssa, and AJ playing bocci ball. Jason grilled out for us at his apartment and it was fun hanging out with co-workers and classmates outside of the those settings! Jeff was absolutely amazing and kicked our butts in 2 out of the 3 games we played. We started making him play left-handed, but he still did a great job!

School is back in session

2006-08-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Well, training is over and all of the residents are here and classes start tomorrow! There were a lot of fun activities these past couple of days on campus for all of us. On Friday, we say "V for Vendetta". I wasn't sure if I would like it, but I really did enjoy it and would recommend people to see it. It was playing in our campus theatre. On the way home, I noticed a lot more activies taking place in our student union area. Jeff and I walked up there and we got to build a stuff animal. I made an elephant and Jeff made a cow. They are so cute!

Yesterday, there was a carnival for us. I really enjoyed myself. I had cotton candy, nachos, a rootbeer float and midnight breakfast! I think going on the inflatables so many times built up an appetite. My favorite inflatable was a giant 30ft slide. I think I went down it about 25 times and each time was just as fun! It was great. Jeff and I also got our picture taken in the giant chair. Unfortunately, it was with a polaroid camera and I don't have a scanner so I will not be posting that picture. I also got an airbrush tattoo. Since I am not allowed to get anymore real ones, I thought that an airbrush tat would be the next best thing.

Today we played tennis and then went to the Welcome Back BBQ. It was a good time. I have my first class tomorrow and am looking forward to it. I will post later this week to let you know how classes are going. I will also take a couple pictures of my office. Jeff and I are also hoping to get some more pictures of the grapes - they are now purple and harvest time is just around the corner. We found a place that has a grape stomp celebration, so I am hoping that I get to participate!!

Other good news - we got tickets to 2 of the San Francisco 49ers games - one on Nov. 5 when they take on the Minnesota Vikings and the other on Dec. 1o when they take on the Green Bay Packers!! I am so excited!

Ok, that is all for now. I hope all is going well for everyone! Let us know if you want pictures of anything specific :-)

A quick trip to San Fran

2006-08-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

I wanted to post a couple of pictures. Tim visited us this weekend. Jeff got to spend all weekend entertaining him and showing him around the area. I had an RA retreat in Vallejo, so I didn't get to spend time with them until Sunday. From the stories I heard though, it seemed like they had a great time. Yesterday we had our fantasy football draft and then we went to San Francisco and had dinner with a friend of Tim's before dropping him off at the airport. We had a great time. Tim and Jeff found some cool places that I had previously not seen, so we walked by them on our way to dinner in China Town. Here are some pictures from our walk:

Jeff Writes:

above is a picture of the Monte Cristo cafe and the front entrance to the Embarcadero. Turning around 180 degrees you can see the ferry building. There are ferries that come in and out of the pier behind the building all day long. Inside the building there is a market area that is really cool. Lots of trendy little shops and restaurants. Also outside there are farmer's markets and art and crafts shows every now and then.
The below picture is the entrance to the Embarcadero center. You can walk through about 4 or 5 blocks of the city either through the middle at ground level or through the 2nd and 3rd floors where there are many patio areas to sit and each lunch or relax. It is really cool because even when you are inside the air flows through and it is very open. Lots of trendy shops.
Below is a picture from St. Mary's Cathedral in China town...rumor has it that the verse was put on the outside of the building to hopefully catch the eye of a some of the miscreants that spent all night drinking at the bars and spent most of their money on booze and trips to the brothel. Clearly some of the finer San Francisco history and lore.
unfortunately I didn't get any better pictures of China town as we met with a friend of Tim's and walked right on in to dinner. It was awesome to be in the area with someone who actually knew a thing or two about where to go and what was going on. Believe it or not China town can be a little over whelming to the casual tourist. Tim's friend Bill was a great guide. He was also great to talk with, he is working his way through living in pretty much every major city in the US and attending some of the finer Universities a long the way: Boston U, Loyola, Georgetown law and SFU. All I have to say is after he gets his PHD finished I think he is going to make one heck of a professor.
The pictures below are of us standing in front of a fountain between the Embarcadero center and the Ferry Building...the water looked kinda nasty...interesting shade of yellow...but it actually fit really well with the industrial feel of the sculpture.

Campus & Apartment Pictures

2006-08-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

So, I finally got out of training before 7pm so Jeff and I walked around campus and took some pictures in the sunlight.

Apartment Pictures: The picture below is of the hall we live in - Weymss House. The 3 windows on the first floor are the windows of our aparment. We have a view of the "sunken" field and the football field.

The following 3 pictures are of our aparment - 1 for each room :-) It is small, but it has not been that bad. The first picture is of our "kitchen" area and the dining room area is to the right. The second picture is of the living room. The bathroom is connected to this room. The third picture is of our bedroom. We have two dressers and two closets - so that is nice! We still have to do some "decorating" - hang pictures up and stuff.

Campus Pictures:

The above picture is of the football stadium. Unfortunately, we no longer have a football team, so there are mostly women's soccer games and some high school football games in the stadium now.

The picture below is of Morris Chapel. It is part of campus and pretty much everyone in Stockton gets married there. We have not been inside but I have heard it is gorgeous!

The picture above is of Knoll's Hall - it houses our Admissions Office (which is right when you walk into the front door) and other administrative offices.

Below is a picture of Library Columns. For some reason we just have these columns in the middle of campus - not really sure why they are there, but they are pretty!

Above is the Clock Tower and then behind that is an open area with trees and places to hang out and study or lounge around outside.

Below is a picture of a fountain that is outside behind my building. It is built on to the Quad Dining Hall.

So, there are some pictures of campus. It is really pretty here. There are so many more I could post, but if you want to see more, you will just have to come and visit! Or, go to the Pacific website - www.pacific.edu

On a side note, we are getting our first MN visitor this weekend. Tim is coming to visit. Unfortunately, I have to be at the RA retreat and we are going to Vallejo, so I won't be here. Hopefully we will get back in time on Sunday so I can get up to the football draft/cookout to see Tim for 2 hours before there is more training on campus! That reminds me...if anyone has a list of who I should draft for my fantasy team, please email it to me as I have not had time to compile a list of players!! Any help would be greatly appreciated :-)

A Few Misc. Pictures

2006-08-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Hello all! Sorry that it has taken me so long to write on here. Training has been keeping me extremely busy - we go from breakfast through dinner, so I do not make it home until 8pm or later. By that time, I am exhausted and just want to sleep. However, my training is now over and RA training starts tomorrow. I have a few things to plan for that, but I am starting to meet with other groups on campus that I will be working/involved with. Below are some pictures that Jeff and I took of campus tonight. It was dark when we took them, but I wanted to get some up. Hopefully, I will have time to take some during the day this week.

Jeff took this picture of me in front of the Pacific sign for the University.

This is Burns Tower. It is the tallest building on campus. I don't exactly know what it is used for (besides visitor check-in) but it is the most prominent building on campus and can be seen from a couple of miles away.

This is one of the classroom buildings on campus - all of the buildings on campus are brick and most of them have ivy growing on them.

Last night, Jeff and I went to a Saturday Night Live themed birthday party. After much discussion and lots of costume ideas and a ton of shopping around, we decided to go as the Blues Brothers. We had a great time and it was so nice to be off campus!

OK, that is all for now. I will do my best to post more and all that jazz!! I hope all is well with everyone!

Ane we're off...

2006-08-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Hello! I wanted to write a quick post about training and my new colleagues. Training is going well. The Graduate and Greek Resident Directors are pretty fun. We have a good time during training. There are around 16 of us and we all have been getting along great. Each of us is different and come from all over the US and world - it is pretty exciting and leads to some good conversations. I have been mostly hanging out with Alicia (from CA, but went to school in IN), Jason (from MO, but went to school in IA), and Sylvia (from Slovakia, but went to school in NE). We have good times and lots of laughs. My Graduate Assistantship is different from what the others are doing. I am the GA for Programming and Training. That means, that I will help train the rest of the group (and RAs) on the programming model, help with ideas for programs throughout the year, and I will be helping create living/learning communities on campus. Those are the main aspects of my job, but I will be doing more - I am really looking forward to it.

I met with my advisor today. Her name is Joanna and she is awesome - I really like her. We sat down and wrote out my program model for the next two years, so I now know what classes I am taking and when. The big question now is thesis or no thesis...I will most likely write a thesis so my options for a doctoral degree stay open - can you imagine, me a doctor in something :-) I guess we will wait and see what the future holds! I do know that if all goes as planned I will graduate in May 2008 with a masters in Educational Administration and Leadership with a Specialization in Student Affairs!!

OK, so this quick post is becoming rather long, so I will wrap it. I promise that I will post pictures soon - both of campus, people, the apartment, etc... I hope all is going well with everyone!!

Weekend...What Weekend?

2006-07-30T21:17:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

The movers finally delivered our things on Thursday afternoon. One table was broke and our matress was a little dirty, but at least everything is here. I also have to apologize to Nick and Carly - apparently all of your food was packed up from our house, so we got a box full of 1/2 eaten loaves of bread and cereal and pb & j - it was pretty yucky!! However, we are in the apartment and it is wonderful! It is small, but we have enough space for us, so it's all good. We haven't completely got everything put away, but we will get around to it. I will take pictures later and post them!

Primo Vino was Saturday and it was a ton of fun...of course, the wine helped with that :-) We played bocce and drank wine all night, it was great! When Primo Vino ended, we went to Drew and Toni's house. I don't remember the whole night, but there are a lot of pictures to tell stories and boy, did we have a laugh this morning!! Needless to say, we all ended up sleeping at Drew and Toni's.

Jeff and Heidi - Primo Vino 2006

The beautiful sunset at Primo Vino!

At some point during the night, it became 80's dance party time...maybe Drew took it a little too far!!

Jeff and I went home and slept until 2:30 this afternoon - it was wonderful! We then went grocery shopping and bought a new microwave. We had a welcome bbq at 6 for all of the housing people on campus. It was nice finally getting to meet everyone. It seems like a fun bunch of people and I look forward to getting to know them more!

Side note - Chris and Tonya took pictures of Bait and Tackle for us and posted them on their website. They are getting so big!! Here is a picture of them.

Oh, one more thing - HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

Move-In Day...hopefully!

2006-07-27T11:49:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Does anyone else ever have problems with movers? The people that are supposed to deliver our stuff today was supposed to be here between 9 and 10 this morning - they showed up at 10:59! I went out of Wemyss Hall to meet them and they asked if everything had been packed and if the boxes were ready to go. I gave them a confused look and said that you are supposed to have my stuff and you should be dropping it off for me! The guy gave me a confused look and then got on his cell phone trying to figure out what was going on. After about a 1/2 hour, we said that our stuff was either being delivered to another house (the people at the house was expecting their stuff to be picked up) or it is still in the warehouse - and hopefully it was in the warehouse out here and not in MN!! So, the movers left and said they would find the stuff and bring it later today. I am just hoping that they have it all and that we get it today! So, in the mean time, I am moving what we brought with us over to the tiny new apartment and waiting for a call from the movers. Everyone just think good thoughts about our things and the movers :-)

I am not sure when I will be able to post again. We have internet at the apartment, but I have to figure out where it hooks up at and if we can put in our wireless router. I start training on Monday, so hopefully I will be able to write something Monday evening about how the remaining of today goes and the rest of the weekend!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Yosemite Falls and Views

2006-07-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, we drove to Glacier Point, Washburn Point, and drove by Yosemite Falls. We decided not to stop at Yosemite Falls because we just wanted to get back to shower and sleep!

Glacier Point:
This is an amazing look-out point. You can see so many of the spectacular views of Yosemite. From this perch, you can look down 3,214 feet to the Valley floor!

The picture above shows Half Dome on the left and the two waterfalls are Vernal and Nevada. It was great seeing them from far away - knowing that I had hiked to the top of them!

The picture on the left shows Vernal and Nevada Falls and the picture of the right shows a close up of Half Dome. Half Dome rises 8,842 feet. It is 87 million years old!

The picture above is me - with Vernal and Nevada Falls in the background.

Yosemite Falls view from Glacier Point!

Washburn Point:

Washburn Point is about a mile away from Glacier Point. You can see pretty much the same stuff, but the view still wows me!

Jeff and I enjoying the view!

Yosemite Falls:
I took these pictures while driving past Yosemite Falls. The upper and lower falls, and an intermediate cascade, drop 2,425 feet and combine to make the tallest waterfall in North America and the 5th tallest waterfall in the world.

So those are the pictures that I am going to share with you. I hope you enjoyed all of them. If you ever come to visit and want to go to Yosemite, I will be happy to drive down there. It is great. I know that Jeff and I are planning on going back. You have to book campsites in the park a few months to a year in advance, so we will see if we can book one for next year sometime.

Nevada Falls

2006-07-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

Nevada Falls:

After taking a little break and eating a little snack at the top of Vernal Falls, we continued the additional 900 foot climb up to the top of Nevada Falls. The 900 feet may sound not so high, but you need to remember that we had already climbed 1,000 feet to Vernal Falls and from the bottom of the trail to the top of Nevada Falls was right around 4 miles - 1,900 feet in 4 miles is a good size climb. I was excited to reach the top of Nevada Falls - what an accomplishment!

This picture was actually taken when we were walking back down on a different trail. It is one of my favorite pictures of Nevada Falls - I love the orange flowers!

This picture was taken at a look-out point on top of Nevada Falls - it was a great view!

We ate lunch at the top of Nevada Falls. We all packed sandwiches and other snacks to bring with us. There was a little smooth rock area on the side where we sat and relaxed. We waded in the water for a while to cool down. Some of us even drank some of the water - nothing like drinking mountain snow runoff!

These two pictures (one above and one below) were taken on the climb up to the top of Nevada Falls. I was pretty hot and sweaty in the bottom picture - stopping to rest and to snap a few pictures was great!

Vernal Falls

2006-07-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

Vernal Falls:
We hiked to the top of Vernal Falls on Saturday. It is a 1,000 foot gain to the top of the falls. The trail we followed was Mist Trail. The name comes from the fact that you get pretty wet walking up the trail from the mist of the waterfall. The cool mist felt pretty nice though - it was said to be 104 degrees in the valley! The trail was a little strenuous - you can see the trail in the first two pictures below. The spots on the camera are water drips - we couldn't take too many pictures, because we didn't want to break our camera!

Vernal Falls in the background. You can see people walking up the steps on the left.

Jeff and I posing in on Mist Trail in front of Vernal Falls. The steps behind us are part of the upward climbing trail.

We made it to the top of Vernal Falls! Kyle, Andy, Brad, Drew, Brian, Toni, Kristi, Jeff and Heidi. Jose and Niserine are in the far background.

The picture was taken at the top of Vernal Falls looking down across the valley. Can you see the rainbow?

I will post pictures of Nevada Falls and some from the rest of our trip soon!

Blogger doesn't like pictures...

2006-07-25T12:26:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

I have tried to post pictures, but blogger won't even let me upload them. I will keep trying - maybe 1 or 2 more times today. There are some really cool pictures that I would like to share, so hopefully it will work again!

In other news, go see Clerks II - it is absolutely hilarious! Jeff and I went yesterday because the movie theatre is nicely air conditioned and we really needed a break from the heat - plus, we really wanted to see the movie. It is so hot here - I think we have set a record for the most consecutive days over 100 degrees! I believe it hit 115 yesterday! It used to cool down at night, but lately, it has been maybe getting down to 80 - it was still 95 at 9:30 last night! Hopefully, the power won't go out here!

Upcoming events -
We get to move into our apartment on Thursday!!
Primo Vino is Saturday!!
I start training (officially) on Monday!!

What a Weekend!

2006-07-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Hello! We had a great time camping and hiking Yosemite. It was amazing! We took over 250 pictures! We still need to go through them and decide which ones to post. I will probably break the weekend into a couple different posts so I can post more pictures.

We stayed at Summerdale Campground in Fish Camp, which is about 2 miles south of the south entrance of Yosemite National Park. There were about 11 people camping all together. Here are a couple pictures of the campground:

We drove into Yosemite Valley Saturday morning. We hiked to the top of both Vernal and Nevada Falls. The views were spectacular. Here is a picture of our first stop right outside of the valley. You can see Half Dome in the background, I believe El Capitan is on the left side of the picture, and I believe the waterfall on the right is Bridalveil.

I will continue to sort through the pictures and write blogs throughout the next couple of days.

I think I'll go to Boston...(or Sac-town)

2006-07-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Jeff and I went to Sacramento last night with Kristi and Toni to see the Fray and Augustana in concert. It was at a small place - maybe 1,000 people were there - and it was an amazing concert! I think Augustana may now be my favorite band. They opened for the Fray and did a great job. After they were finished, I walked to see what t-shirts and cds cost. The cd was $5 and the t-shirts were $10! Of course, I had to get one of each. Then, the guy selling the stuff said the band would be down in a few minutes and will sign the stuff if I wanted to wait, so I did. I got 3 autographs and photos with the band! It was fun! Unfortunately, I brought the old digital camera with and I can't find the computer hook-up for it, so I can't post the pictures. However, I will see if it comes with our stuff when the moving company brings it all next week and if it is not, then I will buy a new one and post pictures. BUT - I did some research for all of my Minnesota friends and Augustana will be playing at First Ave in Minneapolis on Sept. 17 - I highly recommend going to the show! If you want to visit there website - www.augustanamusic.com
The Fray did a great job too. The song choices were interesting, but it was still a good concert. Well worth the $20 tickets!

In other news, the water is shut off today until 3:30 and I am stuck at home as my car is getting the ticky noise fixed - stupid turn signals! The next post will probably happen on Monday with pictures and stories about camping. I am very excited to go!

It's been a while...

2006-07-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Sorry it has been a few days since the last post. The end of last week was pretty slow. I went to the Farmer's Market on Thursday (my normal ritual) and had a meeting on campus most of the day on Friday. I did get to have lunch with Jeff and Alyssa Randall - she was at the plant for a couple days and we went to Matsuyamas - a really good sushi place.

On Saturday, we got up early and played tennis for over 2 hours. Brent, a Gen Mills employee, is pretty good and was kind enough to give us "lessons." He showed us how to serve and how to make our backhands better - it was fun and my serve was pretty amazing a couple times! Although, we were pretty sore Saturday evening and Sunday - my wrist and arm are still aching a little! Saturday evening we saw You, Me, and Depree - it was pretty hilarious. Jeff and I both enjoyed it. We went to the Cactus (very good Mexican restaurant) with a few people after that.

On Sunday, we got up super early and drove up to South Lake Tahoe with Kristen, Kyle, and Ted. We went on a bike ride along paved trails and saw some pretty neat sites. We rode probably 10 miles all together and my butt is pretty sore! At one point, we went on the off-road trails - not fun to me!! It was pretty scarey - we were right next to the edge of the cliff that went down to a creek and there were all of these huge rocks in the middle of the narrow trail and I ran into a few bushes along the way - my legs have the scraps and bruises to prove it! I got through it though and then the guys wanted to go again, so Kristen and I decided to wait for them - we both needed the break! Below are some pictures of the day.

These first two pictures (one above and one below) are of Caples Lake. We needed a stretch break and this one looked nice! It was gorgeous! The top picture is one of my favorites because you can see the shape of the moon in the sky.

The picture below is of me and Jeff. We stopped along the way to pose with the bear. I think it is a cute picture!

These two pictures (one above and one below) are of Lake Tahoe. We were on the south end of it, so it didn't look very big. The color of the water was amazing! At the end of the bike ride, we grabbed some food and ate at one of the beaches, then we decided to take a dip. The water was pretty cold, but it felt nice - it was a warm day!

The picture below is of Jeff through part of the off-road trail. This was one of the "easy" parts of the trail. We didn't get too many pictures of us on the bikes because we were riding (duh!), but I did get a couple of the guys when they did the trail a second time.

The picture below is of Ted - he is a pretty "extreme" biker. I chose to walk my bike down the hill!

As for the coming week - I was hoping to find a cheap plane ticket to Chicago - my Aunt Dorothy passed away and I really wanted to go to her funeral. However, I couldn't find any that were less than $500 and that is a bit much. However, we are planning on going to a concert on Tuesday evening and this weekend we will be going camping in Yosemite - I am excited for that!

Random Stuff

2006-07-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Not a lot has been happening here these past few days. Friday we went to happy hour and then played some yard games with some people here - it was a good time and I apologize to anyone who got a phone call in the middle of the night :-) Jeff and I went to a Stockton Ports baseball game on Saturday and saw the new Pirates movie on Sunday. I liked it and Jeff thought it was OK...I am just super excited for the third movie to come out next summer! Tonight we are going to a friend's place to watch the All-Star game - and cheering on the Twins that are there!

I have also been in a lot of contact with the U of Pacific. I have been "unofficially" working - attending meetings and doing some research. I am getting really excited. Jeff will get to see the "tiny" apartment today that we will be moving into soon. Maybe we will buy a house while we are out here - we will see what he thinks. You can't really complain about a free apartment though! I will have to take pictures of campus sometime and post them - it is a gorgeous campus!

I decided to post some pictures of Emily and Sadee - our rommate's miniature pinchers.

These two pictures are of Emily. She is very vocal and more active, but she's a good dog. I think the picture of her yawning is adorable.

These pictures are of Sadee. She spends most of her day laying on the couch - she has cancer (you can kind of see the tumors on her underside) and has had surgery on both of her back legs! She also has one of the highest-pitched barks!

I also wanted to post a couple pictures of the sailboat. Jeff's brother Andy has been working hard to refinish this and he sailed it a couple weekends ago. I am excited to get back to MN during a "lake month" and get a ride!

The picture on the left is Andy and Dad Goettl get the boat ready to sail.

The picture on the right is Andy and Kerri out on the water!

TGIF

2006-07-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Today I thought that I would just write a few misc. notes. I was reading through some of the old posts and realized that we left some things out. For example, during our first trip to San Francisco we laughed our butts off at the "Bush Man." He had some tree branches that he held and crouched down on the sidewalk (where there would be no bushes) and hid behind the branches that he held. When people walked by him, he would move the branches and show himself while yelling and scare all of these people. Jeff and I watched him (along with about 50 other people) for about 1/2 hour. It was super funny. Unfortenately, our camera ran out of batteries and we didn't get to take any pictures, but if we see him again, we definitely will. There are so many interesting street performers in San Francisco.

The grapes are also starting to appear on the vines. When Jeff and I were here at the end of April the grape vines were just the vines, no leaves. Now they have filled out beautifully. I took a couple pictures so you can see what we are surrounded by. Imagine fields and fields of these! I am not sure what type of grape this is - I am still learning the types.

I also go to talk to a few of my poker friends from MN last night! It was so good talking to them - I miss you guys! And Katie - I will be waiting for a picture of the new tattoo in elvish :-)

I got an email from Matt (my supervisor from Anoka-Ramsey)and he sent me a couple of pictures. I thought that I would that I would post one of Matt, Sally, and me. I miss you guys too! And congrats Sally and Dan on getting engaged!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Fun Times

2006-07-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

We spent Saturday evening at Josh and Outing's house - grilling and playing yard games. It was a good time. They have a new yard game - Kubb...it was pretty fun, especially playing in the dark with the wine kicking in :-)

Brent, Josh, and Jeff playing Kubb.

Sunday, we saw the movie "Click" and then went and ate at Outback. Our roommate gave us a gift card for watching the dogs.

Monday we drove up to Fairfield and toured the Budweiser and Jelly Belly factories. It was pretty fun. We were going to start at the Jelly Belly factory, but the line was insanely long, so we drove the 2 miles to Budweiser and joined the tour right when we got there. The tour started in the tasting room - 2 free drinks each! Then there was a "presentation" about how the beer is made, etc. I volunteered to be a taste-tester (I didn't do so well, but it was fun) and at the end of the tour I got a certificate saying I am a "Honorary Beermaster"...pretty sweet!

The Jelly Belly tour was a little more indepth and we got to walk around the factory more. We still had to wait in line for a little over an hour for the tour, but it was worth it. Plus, we got a handful of jelly beans while in line and then two bags each after the tour - you can't beat free Jelly Belly jelly beans!

Tuesday morning we went to Muir Woods (it is just north of San Francisco). There are tons of giant redwoods and a lot of trails. We walked this trail and kept walking and then walked some more - most of which was an up-hill climb. We ended up at a camp ground and found a ranger's station so we could buy a trail map. We were a little out of the way from where we thought we were. Luckily, we had packed a lunch so we ate that before heading back. A couple "highlights" of the hike - I tripped a lot on the trails and fell twice! The first time, the side of the trail gave way and I slipped down the embankment and caught myself on a root - I only cut my knee up a little bit. The second fall was a little worse - I slipped in mud and fell on my hands and knees. There was mud everywhere. So, I climbed down the side of the trail to the stream and washed myself up. The water felt pretty nice! The other cool thing that happened - we saw a few deer along the trail.

After that, we were exhausted, but we really wanted to go to San Francisco for fireworks. We changed clothes and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge. We parked by the Fisherman's Wharf and headed over to Pier 39. We ate dinner - fish and clam chowder (yummy!) and then walked around the pier for a while. Surprisely, there were 3 sea lions there - usually they don't go to the pier until the fall. The fireworks were pretty neat. They had two barges in the bay - right by Alcatrez - that shot off the fireworks - they shot off the same fireworks at the same time. We could only see one of the shows from where we were at, but it was still pretty cool. There were a ton of people there. It took us around 2 hours to get back to the parking garage and drive the 3 miles to the Bay Bridge - just nuts.
The above picture is of the sea lions being lazy. The picture below was taken from the upper level of Pier 39. There were about 4 times as more people when the fireworks started.

Happy 4th Everyone

2006-07-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

Heidi writes:

Ok, so I am a day late, but I hope that everyone had a great 4th! Jeff and I had a pretty busy weekend and we have lots of pictures to share. Today was kind of a rest day for me and in the next couple of days I will go through the pictures and put up a post of our fun times!

Another Wednesday...

2006-06-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

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.