Weekend BlogLog - Aug. 15th

This weekend Rick and I headed to Mud Lake in the Sierra Mountains. This is my favorite spot in the world! I have been going to the Sierra Mountains each summer since I was 9 years old. There is a little side road off Hwy 88 that leads you to Mud Lake. It is a dirt road that you have to 4 wheel drive to. We camp on the waters edge. It is amazingly beautiful! My dad and I have the tradition of going there each summer for some 4 wheeling. This year we invited Jessica, Jeff and their kids. It was fun to spend time with both of our families.

We got up there latter than everyone else because we had to work until 3:00 on Friday. When we got up there they had a big bonfire going and we were able to enjoy the light of the full moon refecting off the water. You can't get better than a full moon in the Sierras.


In the morning we woke up and my dad and I made a big breakfast for everyone. We did pancakes, bacon, and omelette scrambles with avocados, tomatoes, cheese, green onions, mushrooms and cilantro. It was delicious. We then blew up the dinghy's - we had 3. We relaxed in the rubber rafts on the lake with the morning sun beating down on us. We hiked around, threw rocks in the water, caught baby frogs, played with the cute kids and ate a delicious lunch. In the afternoon Rick, my dad, little Drew and I went 4 wheeling in my dad's "Monster Truck". Drew loved it! We thought he wouldn't last long and would be frightened by the intense 4 wheeling, but he loved it. We went to Devil's Hole and enjoyed the view of the whole valley.

That evening we made dinner, smores and popped some Jiffy popcorn and enjoyed the fire before heading out. Rick and I had to leave Saturday night so we could be home to teach lessons on Sunday morning. Everyone else stayed another night and enjoyed the amazing surroundings of the Sierra Mountains.

Weekend BlogLog - Aug. 8th

We left work early on Friday and headed up to Charleston Oregon to fish in a tuna fishing competition. I know it sounds strange. Why would we be in a fishing competition?? Well as you know Rick is one of the few who manages the StarKist Tuna brand. The brand team decided it would be a great idea to sponsor the Oregon Tuna Classic this year. So sure enough we drove until about 1:00 in the morning when we finally arrived in Charleston. The next morning we awoke at 4:00 and headed down to the lobby to meet our ride. They hired a professional fisherman and boat for the "StarKist Team" to join the competition.

Our fishing boat was nice and very clean for a fishing boat. Our skipper was Dan. Everyone took one look at us and immediately knew that we were not going to be contenders. I was dressed in designer jeans, a cute black jacket with fur around the hood, a scarf and beanie, Rick was dressed in his surfer hoodie and jeans while his co-worker was dressed in a nice wool sweater. They asked us if we brought our waiters and plastic boots - I think they were silently laughing at us city folks coming to join in the fun.

At 6:00 in the morning they shot the flare and all 65 boats raced away trying to find fish. We went out about 45 miles, no land was in site. It took us almost 3 hours to get out there.




The competition was the total weight of your 5 biggest fish. At 2:00 to 4:00 was weigh in time. Unfortunately we did not catch 5 fish. We got 4 and one got away, so we didn't get to weigh in. Rick caught the first one. It was a big 28 pounder. I caught the second one which was about 15 and Dale reeled in the third one.






We were a little disappointed we didn't get to weigh in but we still had fun. We caught about 60 pounds of Albacore. After the competition all the fish that were caught were donated to the Oregon Food Bank for the homeless. We took one of ours home since we didn't weigh in. We are going to sear up some fresh tuna for dinner - yum!



Of course we had to take pictures with Charlie the Tuna which came all the way from San Francisco. This town loves Charlie the Tuna, they even have a Charlie statue. They had two at one point but someone cut it down as a joke and stole it so the town is in the process of carving another Charlie the Tuna Statue.



After the competition we headed back to our hotel and had a big dinner with all the fisherman. Unfortunately we did not win the contest but we did win one of the raffles. We got a flare - yeah!
It was a fun trip.

Weekend BlogLog - August 1st

We got off work early on Friday and headed down to Santa Cruz to the car races. We met my dad there. It is a family tradition to go to the races at least once a summer. The races were fun and exciting as usual. The winner of the night was a 14 year old boy. He was pretty impressive. He blew away all the old pros by a long shot.

We stayed the night in San Jose and headed over to Sunnyvale Saturday morning for a family reunion. This is another summer tradition on my side of the family. We swam around, visited and ate lots of food.

Saturday night we celebrated our 6 month anniversary. How exciting! We headed over to Acote, a great restaurant in the Oakland/Berkeley area on College Ave. We ate there for the first time on the night we got engaged. Acote, is a tapas restaurant. We ordered some exotic drinks. Rick had a dry rhubarb drink and I had some unusual drink, I can't even remember how to say it. It was a sweet, floral drink that was similar to lychee. They were pretty good. We had battered squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta cheese, pork medallions, and carrot risotto. It was all very good but for as much as we spent you would think that we would have left the restaurant full. I guess not over eating is a good thing!

Sunday night we had our friends Tyler and Joelle over for dinner. We served individual cheese platters with aged Gouda and Camembert cheese along with baguette slices, fresh blueberries, apple slices and dried apricots. We then had Herbed chicken, Asparagus, and Rick's famous and very delicious risotto. Of course everyone loved the risotto and sadly enough there wasn't much left overs. We then had some french desserts from Draeger's which Tyler & Joelle brought. It was fun to see them and catch up.

Weekend BlogLog - July 25th

Finally I got my husband back after a few weeks of being gone. Friday after work we hoped in the car and drove to the Napa Valley where we stayed the night there. We needed a little get away together. We ended up changing our plans around a little that night and didn't end up where we originally thought we were going to be. We ended up on this little tiny off the beaten path were we pitched a tent and set up camp on the side of the road behind some bushes.


We woke up Saturday morning set up our table, had breakfast, listened to some music and played cards. We then headed to Lake Berryessa for the day. Rick wanted to go somewhere where we could work on getting rid of our tan lines in the hot sun. What better place than hot Lake Berryessa.

Of course we had our best travel companion with us - the dinghy. Rick blew up the dinghy and I packed us some lunch. We tossed the cooler, blankets, games, our new portable solar shower and some towels into the dinghy and paddled away. We found a little hidden cove where we docked and set up for the day. If you know Lake Berryessa at all, there is absolutly no shade to be found so we used the dinghy, some towels and a stick we found to build us a little shade shelter.



We swam around for the day in the nice warm water, rode around in the dinghy, had a picnic lunch, played cards, skipped rocks and laid around. It was a perfect day in the sun. We then paddled back to shore and headed home.

Weekend BlogLog - July 18th

This weekend was a little on the boring side for me but fun for Rick. He has been out of town on business all week and next. This week he was in Chicago and next in Pittsburgh so he decided to stay out in the east coast for the weekend with his best friend Ben who is doing his residency out there. They went camping and white water kayaking in one of the Great Lakes. I'm glad they are having fun and able to spend some time together, although I miss him terribly and can't wait for him to come back home.

My mom was nice enough to come over mid day Friday and hang out with me. We played some games which we always love to do. We then rented a movie and ordered pizza and had girls night. It is always fun hanging out with her! Saturday morning my friends from young women's decided to keep me company while I was husband less. They brought over breakfast and we all cooked together. We had pancake, bacon, potatoes, fruit and orange juice. It was delicious and so fun. I loved it!

The rest of the day I kept myself busy doing all the little things I never have time to do when Rick is around - clean house, run errands and paint. I am definatly ready for him to be home!

Weekend BlogLog - July 11th

Friday night we did a little shopping and ran around town for a while. We had dinner at Pasta Pomadora in Emeryville, cream sauce always hits the spot! We stayed in town this weekend because I went to my high school friend Cyndi's baby shower on Saturday.

After the baby shower Ricky and I suited up in our wetsuits. It takes me a very long time to squeeze my whole body into the neck hole sized opening in the top of my wetsuit. We got down to the beach, blew up the kite and was ready to hop in the water. There were no kites in the air and as we were prepping, a few tried to launch but didn't quite make it up. I casually mentioned to Rick that we might not be able to go kite boarding today because there wasn't enough wind. He said the other guys didn't know what they were doing and that we would be able to get the kite in the air. After sitting in the hot, thick 5.3 wetsuit for about a half an hour trying to get the kite in the air he finally decided that yes there was not enough wind to launch. We packed up and headed home.

On Sunday we headed over to my families house for a last minute family dinner. My little twin brother Justin was headed off to the Air Force. I can't believe he is in boot camp and won't be around for a long time. I wish him luck and hope he comes home safely some day.

Weekend BlogLog - July 4th

Ricky and I went to Westwood for 4th of July weekend. My Uncle Steve used to live there and was a fire captain who was killed in the 2003 Happy Camp Forest Fire with some of his crew. His hobby was buying old house and fixing them up. When he died he had 7 houses. Our family sold all of them but one, the one he lived in. It is now our family cabin.
This is his monument at the firestation. They built trees for
each of the firefighters, a picnic area and the rock with their
pictures.








Rick and I went to Chester for the 4th and watched the town parade. I had to ran down all the kids who were trying to pick up candy that people were throwing in the streets while driving by in their floats. They were greedy little kids, they had stashes of it. All I wanted were a few pieces to eat while watching the parade.

That night Rick and I went for blackberry shakes and had a BBQ in the backyard. Saturday morning we woke up and went to the small parade in Westwood and again I was fighting with the kids just to get one piece of candy. We rode over to the parade on some old bikes we found in the garage. We spent the morning riding up and down the streets in town (there are only a few). That afternoon Jessica and Jeff came and brought the kids. Ricky pulled Drew and TJ in the red wagon down to the park where they were having the Mountain and Bluegrass festival. We watched the snowmobile drag races on the grass and played around a bit.

Then we headed over to Lake Almanor which is a huge beautiful lake that is surrounded by mouthains and green trees. However, there was a large forest fire pretty close resulting in white smokey skies. We weren't even able to see the mountains and trees on the other side of the lake. We played at the park right in front of the lake. We played badmitton, horseshoes, teatherball and of course on the playground with the kids. We then had a BBQ.

Of course Rick and I brought the dinghy. We pumped it up and headed out into the water. We were relaxing and reading our book together when all of a sudden the lake sheriff pulls right up to us in his boat on the water and asked us if we had our life jackets in the boat. He actually made us get off the water since we were considered a "small craft" and didn't have life jackets. Luckily he just gave us a warning and not a ticket! Our first incident with the dinghy.





The next morning on our way out we stopped by the Lava Tunnels or Subway Caves in Lassen National Park. It was super cool. It was a great weekend, a little time by ourselves and a little time with the family. We were glad J&J were spontaneous enough to hop in the car to meet us for the weekend.