Celebrating Patrick

Patrick's 27th birthday is next week (April 22nd) and I wanted to share some facts about my favorite person in the whole world! So, here are 27 things you may not have known about the birthday boy:

1. Patrick loves anything that has the word board in it. He skateboards, snowboards, wakeboards and boogie boards. He's even been sandboarding.

2. Patrick is an amazing athlete (even though he has asthma). In the last few years he has really gotten into running and is really good at it, even though he does not have a typical runner's body.

3. Patrick's dream would be to live in the mountains and have it be winter all year long.

4. Patrick has been deathly allergic to milk his whole life, but didn't own an epi-pen until 2 years ago when we were traveling to Portugal and thought it would be good to have one with us since we didn't speak the language.

5. Patrick had never had any alcohol until his 21st birthday and then when he had his first sip he said, "How come you didn't tell me it tasted so delicious."

6. Patrick has sprained his ankle so many times it is permanently swollen. He even sprained it one time while putting on his watch. Figure that one out!?!

7. Patrick is very musical. He plays piano, guitar and is learning the harmonica (That last one is a painful process on the ears).

8. Patrick loves playing football but isn't into watching football on tv and he refuses to play flag football because it just isn't the same.

9. Patrick loves anything funny. He loves the comedy channel, loves going to see comedy shows, and his favorite websites are collegehumor.com and jokeroo.com

10. Patrick is a perfectionist and a clean freak, although, he's gotten alot better since knowing me :)

11. If you google "Patrick Sears" you can find a resume for another Patrick Sears that has majored in all the same things as Patrick and looks like he has lived the same life as Patrick. We think there are certain things that just come with being named Patrick Sears. Really creepy!

12. Patrick was the number one student in his mechanical engineering program at Colorado State for 3 years in row.

13. Patrick loves fireworks. While in high school he had a cop tell him and his brother to stop altering fireworks that they were playing with outside their house and in college he almost burned down Wyoming. Stay away from fireworks, Patrick!!!

14. Patrick has worked as a janitor and a shoe salesman.

15. Patrick's first car was a Toyota Corona, circa 1975. You couldn't drive it at night when it rained (which in Oregon is a problem) because when you turned on the windshield wipers the headlights would dim.

16. Patrick loves tea. The stronger and smokier the better.

17. Patrick makes a killer shrimp cocktail.

18. Patrick chipped one of his front teeth while at a punk rock concert in high school.

19. Patrick will read anything Chuck Palahniuk writes.

20. Patrick's favorite shows are Heroes and Lost.

21. Patrick dreams of hiking the Oregon portion of the Pacific Crest Trail.

22. Patrick loves mountain biking and rock climbing, but doesn't get to do them very often.

23. Patrick collects Kachinas (Native American carvings of figurines out of one piece of wood. The artistry of the quality ones are really amazing). His grandpa started his interest in Kachinas when he was little.

24. Patrick has always been afraid of aliens. Funny that he has ended up making space robots for a living. Maybe he knows something we don't :)

25. Patrick can do some pretty amazing toe-touches.

26. Patrick dyed his hair black in college once.

27. Patrick is the greatest friend and husband a girl could have!!!

A Proper Date

The last real date Patrick and I had been on was 1 1/2 years ago. So, I told Patrick I wanted to go on a proper date. He planned it out and made the reservations. We dressed up in our best and he took me out on the town. Our first stop was a happy hour at a great place known for their wine and blues performances. Since we were just there for happy hour we didn't see any performances, but we had some great wine. Then we walked three blocks down the street to the restaurant we had reservations at. The restaurant was amazing. Great service and wonderful food and more great wine! So, we didn't care when the bill came and it was about 4 times more than what we would ever normally pay. You gotta do it up big when you only go on a date once every 18 months! We had so much fun, we didn't want the night to end. Eventually, we headed home and promptly fell asleep (it was 10 PM). Man, are we old!

I made Patrick pose for this picture. He looked so handsome!

A Day with the Dawsons

This last week our best friends were in town for a day. They don't get a lot of beach time living in Colorado so we decided to spend the day at the beach. First, we took them to Venice Beach. That's a real experience... Picture outdoor gyms on the beach; a rundown, dirty boardwalk; street performers and vendors selling tourist stuff like postcards, t-shirts, towels, among other more nefarious products that you will be solicited. There's also the typical baywatch style life guard huts and yellow life guard trucks that drive on the beach. Weird for non-socal residents to see. Before we moved down here I didn't know those really existed.

After walking the boardwalk at Venice Beach we headed north to Santa Monica where we walked the pier and saw the original Hot Dog on a Stick stand. Next we drove south along the coast to Huntington Beach. Huntington is a lot cleaner and less touristy than Venice and Santa Monica. We had lunch out on the pier and then walked through town to see what it had to offer. We sat on the beach for a while and watched the surfers and then walked back to town to grab a beer at the local brewery.

We had a great time as we always do with the Dawsons. More laughs than you could count! Miss you guys already, but here are some pics to remember our day at the beach:

The canals at Venice Beach

The pier at Huntington Beach

Lindsay and me. As you can tell it wasn't the warmest.

The four of us. You can tell who's from Colorado by who's wearing the least amount of clothing.

Around Town

The other day, Patrick and I decided we needed to take a photo tour of Pasadena. While living in Boston, we were always inspired by the city to take pictures of the architecture, the neighborhoods, etc. But, to be honest, Pasadena doesn't really inspire the same feelings. We've lived here for over 2 years now and haven't taken any photos of Pasadena. There are definitely gems to be found if you look for them, though. So, here are a few of our favorite photos that we took on our walk around our neighborhood in Pasadena.

This garden area has some beautiful tile work. You can see some of it in the background.

A lovely church on Colorado Ave.

Pasadena City Hall

Monuments to Jackie Robinson and his brother who both attended a local high school and did alot for the community after becoming pro athletes.

A fountain in the courtyard of City Hall. We thought this looked like we could be in another country.

One of our favorites! We love the art deco style of this building. If you notice, it says "Ice Cream" on the right hand side. We always find this so disappointing because there is no ice cream. This building actually houses a school supply store. How much cooler would it be if it really had an old fashioned ice cream shop???

A Day in LA

Although, we live only a 10 minute drive from downtown LA, we rarely go there. Downtown LA isn't the most beautiful place and traffic can make that 10 minutes into 1 1/2 hours. But yesterday we decided to brave the smog and traffic to have an adventure.

LA's Fashion District was having it's monthly sample sale. This is where hundreds of designers (small names and big ones like Betsey Johnson, Joe's Jeans, Calvin Klein, etc.) sell off the samples that they made to show buyers or have models wear for photo shoots or runway shows. There are 4 high rise buildings full of different designers showrooms with sample sales. We were planning on making it to as many as we could. Since we spent 3 hours working our way up a 13 story building, going into sample sales on every floor, we only made it to one building. I was in heaven! There are no dressing rooms, but each designer provides a mirror and everyone is either just changing right there in the open or, like me, throwing the clothes over what they were already wearing. Generally, the prices seemed to be 50% off the wholesale price. They had clothing from previous seasons, but what I thought was really neat was they had clothing that's for this spring that isn't out in the stores yet. The new clothing was usually not as marked down as the older stuff. I walked out of there with some awesome deals. One of the dresses I bought we found online when we got home. It had been featured in InStyle magazine for this spring. My dress is famous! That's the closest I'll ever come to something famous.

After all that shopping, we were starving, so we headed over to Canter's Deli. Canter's is an LA institution. It is a Jewish deli with staples like knishs, potato pancakes, and crazy sandwiches. They also have an amazing bakery with danishes, rugelach, challah bread and lots more. We had some great food and Patrick finally got to have a sandwich he hadn't had since we moved from Boston (pastrami and liver on rye). Now, Patrick was in heaven. It was his reward for being such an awesome husband while we were in the Fashion District.

Since we didn't want our fun day in LA to end we decided to go to one of our favorite places in Hollywood. Amoeba! It is an amazing music store. They have new and used cds, records, dvds. You can find anything you are looking for even if it is really obscure. Usually, you can find it used, as well, so it saves you lots of money. But before we went to Amoeba we bought tickets to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at the Arclight Theatre next door to Amoeba. We then spent a good half hour in the music store, walked down to a great tea shop and sat and enjoyed our tea and then headed back to the movie theatre to catch our movie. We both loved the movie. It was so beautiful. We highly recommend it. So that was our day in LA and now we have plans to go back to the fashion district to hit up one of the other buildings of showrooms when they have their next sample sale.

Patrick in his own personal heaven

Valentine's Day Trip

For Valentine's Day weekend Patrick and I decided to take a trip up the coast of California. We only went as far as Morro Bay but we saw and did so much that our 2 day trip was jam packed. Our first stop was a quick coffee break in Santa Barbara. We were having a torrential down pour at the time so we didn't do too much exploring. We then continued on our way to Pismo Beach to visit the Monarch Butterfly Grove.

Apparently, monarch butterflies migrate to this area for the winter. They huddle in clusters in the trees and without someone to point the clusters out to you, you would just think they were dead leaves. They are also all over the ground so you have to be careful not to step on them. It was really neat to look up into the sky and see tons of them flying through the trees over head.

Next we headed to Pirate's Cove, a secluded beach off the beaten path. You drive out on some beautiful country roads off of the highway, then down a dead end and park in a muddy lot (it had been raining all day, but had stopped just in time for our arrival). We then hiked down the cliff a ways to get a better view of the beach. At the bottom of the trail, we noticed some seals lounging on the rocks. We didn't end up making it actually onto the beach because we decided we better hurry back to the car as there was a huge bank of black clouds getting closer and closer and the trail we had hiked down was literally a creekbed. We knew if it started raining that trail would soon be flowing with water. Luckily, we made it to where our car was parked right as the rain started to fall heavily.

We then moved on to Port San Luis, a working fishing village (and by village I mean 2 restaurants at the end of the pier and a fresh fish market. I didn't even see any houses). This was my favorite stop on our whole trip. There were very few tourists and the road into the village dead ended at the pier, which you could drive out on and park at the end to visit the restaurants. There were sea lions lounging on a lower level of the pier and huge pelicans and sea gulls all over. We went to the Olde Port Inn for some wine and seafood, but really so we could sit at their glass bottomed tables. While eating our lunch we saw a mom and baby otter swimming under our table. The mom was eating clams. It was so cool. I went to look out the windows to get a better view of the bay and noticed that a sea lion was playing with a pelican that was sitting in the water. The sea lion would nip at the pelican and the pelican would nip back. I thought, "Oh, how cute." Five minutes later the sea lion had killed the pelican and was eating it. Those things are viscious!

Next we headed to Morro Bay. We didn't spend very much time here. We really just went to see the giant rock that Morro Bay is known for. We got there just as the sun was going down and saw the beautiful sight of the sun going down behind Morro Rock. We also got some delicious chocolates and salt water taffy. You can't go to the beach without getting candy!

We then drove south and a little bit inland to San Louis Obispo. We visited a local brewery, had dinner and then headed to Solvang. From the little we saw of SLO, we would love to go back.

We stayed the night at a hotel in Solvang and the next morning woke up ready to explore the town. Solvang is the Danish capital of America. A group of Danish arrived in 1911 and founded Solvang and to this day over 60% of the population is of Danish descent. They had lots of touristy shops but also wonderful bakeries and restaurants. The bakeries, of course, had danishes, but also other danish desserts. They also had lots of items that were Swedish as Denmark is very close to Sweden. This was really fun for us as Patrick's grandpa was Swedish and we recognized alot of the stuff Patrick had grown up with. This area is also known for their wine, so we had some wonderful wine tastings. For lunch we went to a local restaurant that served authentic Danish food. Very good! We spent the rest of the day walking around town and visiting the shops and then headed home. We had a wonderful time and would love to go back!

Monarch Butterfly

Clusters of monarch butterflies

Trail down to Pirate's Cove

Seals on rocks in Pirate's Cove

Driving on the pier in Port San Luis

Umm, why is this sign even necessary? People are so stupid!

Port San Luis

Pelican. I wonder if this was the one the sea lion ate?

We had great wine and seafood. Yumm!

Morro Bay

Solvang

I think this about my size.

Taking our own picture once again.

One of the many pretty vistas on the drive home.

Race Day

Well, as you can see, race day didn't go according to plan:

Unfortunately, Patrick got my cold and added a little something of his own. A 101.6 fever. He is really bummed that he missed his race and I feel so bad for him (So I posted a picture of him sleeping on the blog. I'm sure that will cheer him up!). He has been working so hard on his running and he was psyched to have a competitive finish. I told him he'll just have to enter in a different race and by then he'll be even better. Sometimes life just gets in the way of our plans :)