Thanksgiving Adventures in Maryland & DC

Now that it's almost Christmas, we thought it was time to update the blog with what we did for Thanksgiving.

For Thanksgiving we headed off to Maryland to visit Christie's sister and brother in-law, Jenn & Tony. They live in Annapolis, MD which served as our headquarters as we explored the area. We don't want to bore you with too much detail, but if you'd like to view more pictures from our trip, there is a slide show just to the right.

Day 1 - We explored Annapolis by foot. We walked around some of the old State buildings as we made our way to the US Naval Academy. Jenn & Tony both went there so we had the best tour guides you could have. We walked along the water before checking out the new indoor athletic complex, Bankroft Hall, and then heading towards the Chapel where we went into the Crypt of John Paul Jones.

In Front of the Old Maryland Capital Building

Walking around the US Naval Academy

Day 2 - Exploring Baltimore. We visited Fort McHenry which came under attack during the War of 1812. This is where Francis Scott Key saw the American Flag flying and wrote the Star Spangled Banner. We also took a tour of Orioles Park at Cambden Yards and went on the USS Constellation.

Day 3 - First day in Washington DC. We took the Metro in and took a tour of the Capitol Building and checked out the National Archives and a few museums including the Air & Space, Art, Natural History, and American History. The original flag that was flown at Fort McHenry has been preserved and is currently at the American history museum.

Day 4 - Second day in DC but this day we drove in to the city because we had arranged for a White House tour. The rules for that tour said you could only bring your wallet, keys, and cell phone. We wouldn't feel like tourists without our cameras, so we left those in the car and retrieved them after the White House tour. Our tour was a bit delayed because they needed to "secure the area" which we believe coincided with the President pardoning the turkey. After the tour we headed to lunch and then to the Washington Monument. We purchased tickets in advance online so that we didn't have to get to the monument super early (tickets are given out on a first-come, first-served basis and go fast). We highly recommend going online to buy them - it's only $1.50 a ticket rather than being free. We enjoyed seeing the city from way up high. After the monument we headed to Mount Vernon to see where George Washington lived. We didn't have much time to visit, but still were able to make it around most of the property which was cool.



Day 5 - We celebrated Thanksgiving by hosting some of my sister's neighbors for breakfast. We made Danish aebleskiver which was a hit. Of course we made too many so we were able to enjoy leftovers the next day as well. The rest of the day we really didn't do much - I think we were exhausted from the previous 3 days of exploring. We did make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner including turkey, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. Dessert was triple chocolate pecan pie and apple crisp. Everything was so delicious.

Day 6 - Black Friday shopping is always a must, but this year we didn't set any alarms so that we be at the stores when they opened. We woke up leisurely, ate breakfast and then headed out around 10:00. We actually were still able to get the stuff we wanted.

Day 7 - We decided to check out the Maryland wineries. They certainly don't make California quality wines (don't we sound like wine snobs) but the ones we tasted were surprisingly good. We enjoyed the scenic drive and time together. The day ended with a great meal of "small plates" and a little more wine.




We headed back home early the next day knowing we had a great time visiting Jenn & Tony and checking out the areas around Maryland and DC.

Halloween time at Disneyland

After work on Friday, we headed to Disneyland to have a little fun - eat corn dogs, ride on a few rides, and watch the fireworks. What we didn't realize was that Friday was the first day of their Halloween time. The place was all decked out and we had fun checking it all out.

Camping Fun

We needed a little time away from our usual routine, so we headed to the mountains for some clean air and a little down time. We have found a campsite near Lake Arrowhead that we enjoy going to. It has flush toilets (a must) and we've gone there a couple times so we know which sites are better than others. It's not too far from civilization...on Friday nights you can hear the high school football game cheers if it's a home game and if we want some ice cream, there's a Rite Aid about 2 miles away. But for some reason, sleeping in a tent, sitting by a campfire, and just being is a great way for us to unwind. Here are a few pictures from this last trip. And as I write this, we are thinking about heading back in a couple of weeks before it gets too cold in the mountains.

Our super huge tent - we've actually gotten pretty good at setting it up.

This is a good view of the inside of our tent.

On a little hike down from our campsite.

Hanging out by the campfire.

Sunset through the trees.

Our raging camp fire.

Truly one of the best parts of camping...s'mores!

Summer Fun

I can't believe we haven't posted anything since our Oregon trip. We really have been keeping busy having fun around southern California. Today we are just at home watching college football games and staying cool, but here are a few pictures of our recent adventures.

Celebrating Christie's birthday at Five Crowns in Corona del Mar.

Trying out the new ride at California Adventure. This is now one of our favorite rides.

We also checked out the Finding Nemo submarine ride at Disneyland. Glad we went on the ride but also glad we didn't wait 2 hours.

Dodger Game on a hot Sunday afternoon.

Enjoying the last summer concert at the Mission in San Juan Capistrano. We had fun listening to the Fab 4 - a Beatles tribute band.

Enjoying Labor Day at the first UCLA football game of the 2008 season. UCLA took on Tennessee at the Rose Bowl and won, 27 to 24. It was an awesome game.

Sunset at the Rose Bowl.

Just like us, Tiki is also trying to stay cool and taking a lick of his first ice cube.

Oregon/Washington

Just exactly how much can you see and do in 4 days? We have found that you can do quite a lot. In just 4 days we saw about 6 waterfalls, tasted wine at 3 wineries, saw 3 large mountains, visited 5 microbreweries, crossed the Oregon/Washington border at least a dozen times, threw and got hit by a few paper airplanes, drove about 600 miles, and went the wrong way on highway 500 about 5 times. This list may leave you scratching your head and asking "what's with the paper airplanes?"

We flew up to Portland for Shaun's cousin's wedding. Since neither of us had spent much time in Portland, we decided to take a 4 day weekend so we could see and do as much as possible. We arrived very early on Thursday morning and immediately took off down the Columbia River. We stumbled on some great little wineries all while enjoying a magnificent view of Mt. Hood, the Columbia River, and lots of waterfalls.

At Multnomah Falls

The wedding was Friday evening, which meant we had most of the day to see more. We drove from our hotel in Vancouver, WA to Mt. St. Helens. We read that the visitor center was just 1 hour north of Vancouver, so it seemed like a great little excursion. However, once we got to that visitor center we couldn't even see the mountain and found out that the best view was another 50 miles away. Fearing we might not make it to the wedding on time, we contemplated not driving the extra distance. But, as you can tell from the pictures, we raced off and made it to the observatory to take some amazing pictures of the mountain and still made it back in time for the wedding (with time to spare).

Mt. St. Helens

Kim and Doug's wedding was held at the Kennedy School, an old school turned into a fascintating hotel. The wedding was just beautiful, very romantic and serene. The cermony was followed by a rather wild and crazy reception. It was here that we learned Sigourney Weaver was the groom's aunt. We had fun with our "celebrating sighting" and took a few random pictures just so we could get her in them. We were seated next to the groom's family table which turned out to be the rowdy group. It was that table that started the paper airplane war. The school theme (complete with paper & pencil favors) made everyone revert back to their elementary school days. It made for a very entertaining and fun wedding reception - one that we won't soon forget.

The next day before joining the newleyweds, family, and friends on a microbrewery bus tour, we drove to Washington Park to check out the International Rose Test Garden. The garden was beautiful with it's more than 7,000 rose plants. We had fun strolling through the gardens and looking at the different names and seeing which roses won medals. After leaving the park, we headed back to the Kennedy School to start the brewery tour. We made 5 stops; the Girl's Room @ the Kennedy School, Bridgeport, Pyramid, Lucky Labradore, and Tug Boat. All were unique and interesting. Even though we aren't big time beer drinkers, we definitely enjoyed the tour, tasting different types of beers, and spending time with family.

The Rose Garden

Having fun tasting beers

On our last day we decided to head into Portland and see what we could see. We had to find VooDoo Doughnuts, which we saw featured on the Top 10 Donut places in the US. We enjoyed some very unique doughnuts. Shaun had a doughnut topped with mini m&m's and Christie had the "old dirty bastard" (that was it's name) which was topped with chocolate frosting, crushed oreos, and peanut butter drizzle. YUM! After our doughnut snack, we walked over to the Classical Chinese Garden. We debated whether or not to pay the admission to go in, but once inside we decided it was a good thing that we did. The garden was so beautiful and tranquil. The brochure they provided had so much information about the different areas of the garden and what they would normally be used for. We left feeling quite smart! We didn't have much time after that before we needed to be at the airport, but we did manage to find a Nordstrom so Christie could check out the Anniversary Sale in a state with no sales tax (what a bonus).

Yummy VooDoo Doughnuts

Enjoying the Chinese Garden

This was another great adventure. We feel so fortunate that we are able to visit new places together and share our experiences with you.

Vegas Baby!

We headed to Las Vegas to celebrate Shaun's big milestone birthday on July 4th. Christie secretly planned the trip with Shaun's best friend, Ken.

On our way out to Vegas, we made a few random stops as part of the "things you must do before you turn 30"...get your kicks on Route 66 (we visited the Route 66 museum in Barstow), take your picture with the tallest thermometer (a little break in Baker where the thermometer read 105 degrees), be a Desperado and get a bird's eye view of Primm (that roller coaster is freaky). Once in Vegas Shaun put money on #29 at the Roulette table, put 29 quarters in the slot machine, and then enjoyed a drink with someone at the bar who was also 29 (Ken flew out to surprise Shaun and met us at the bar at Treasure Island).

From there we headed to Cashman stadium to watch the Dodger's AAA minor league team, the Las Vegas 51's, play the Angel's AAA minor league team, the Salt Lake Bees. The stadium was quite nice and the three of us enjoyed $1 beer night. There were also going to be fireworks after the game, but we left before the end of the 9th inning to head back to the strip. When we left the game around 10 pm, it was still 98 degrees outside.


On Shaun's birthday we explored some of the different hotels. Here we are at the Mirage.
While at the Mirage we visited Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. Below is one of the baby tigers that was just 9 weeks old. There were 6 tiger cubs; all but this one were white tigers.
There weren't going to be any fireworks on the Las Vegas strip, so we drove out to Red Rock Casino. We enjoyed a nice dinner, played some craps, and then went outside to watch the fireworks. We wound up being in the perfect spot to watch them.


Once back on the strip, we headed out to get a view of the city at night.
Christie made some plans for a nice birthday celebration on July 5th, so as not to compete with the fireworks. We had a great dinner at Lawry's Prime Rib before heading to the Wynn to see La Reve. Happy Birthday Shaun!

La Reve was an amazing show. It's set in the round, so everyone has a great view. Every thing takes place in water and on platforms that come out of the water. The performers were so strong and it was incredible to watch what they did knowing that they were all pretty much soaking wet.

The picture above is looking up through an opening in the ceiling where water is raining down as the performers are being lifted up through the opening. At one point, a performer was pulled up through the opening, out of sight, and then dove into the water below. Amazing!

Laguna Beach Picnic

The weather was so nice on Saturday (June 7th) and we didn't have much going on, so we took a picnic dinner and headed to the beach. We live so close to Laguna Beach and we rarely go and just hang out there. We went to the cliffs above Crescent Bay and enjoyed a lovely evening. It's days like this when we just love living in Southern California.

It was a little windy, but quite beautiful!

We sat on the grass and ate our dinner with the bunnies. At one point there were 10 bunnies on the grass near us. One was so comfortable with us being there, that he got within just a couple feet of where we were sitting. We thought he might want to share our dinner with us.

Laguna Beach Sunset.