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 :)

Good Luck Patrick!

Wow, I can't believe it's already February (it's hard to believe since it's 81 degrees here today)! It's been a while since we last updated the blog as the month of January wasn't too exciting. This last week I've had a cold and have been working really hard not to pass it on to Patrick. I would hate to give it to him since this Sunday (the 8th) he has a 10K race that he's been training for. He has been really looking forward to this race. The race course goes through Chinatown and up the hill around Dodger Stadium. It benefits the local asian communities' schools in honor of the Chinese New Year. I will make sure to take pictures for the blog. Wish Patrick good luck for his race!

Home for the Holidays

Patrick and I recently returned from spending the holidays in Portland with our families. We were there for 2 weeks and arrived the night of the giant snow storm. We were one of 4 flights allowed into Portland that night. As we were landing at the airport and I saw the runway covered in ice with snow blowing across it, I thought "Wow, I can't believe they let us fly in to this." Patrick and I have seen a lot of snow in both Colorado and Boston, but we have never seen that much snow in Portland. We were planning to go to the mountain while we were home, but there was really no need (not to mention you couldn't even get up there due to all the snow). We saw plenty of snow!!! The timing was a little inconvenient as it was right before Christmas and Patrick and I needed to get out to buy gifts, but it was still really special to have a white Christmas and be a part of the craziness.

While in Salem, visiting Patrick's grandma, we heard about a Dunkin Donuts that still existed. A little history for you... All the Dunkin Donuts on the west coast closed many years ago and at the time we never gave it a second thought. While living in Boston, however, we fell in love with Dunkin Donuts coffee. So for the last 2 years living in California we have been craving Dunkin coffee. You can buy it at the grocery store but it is just not the same as getting it from Dunkie D's. So, we were soooo excited to hear that there might still be one in Salem. Patrick's dad drove us down there in the snow to see for ourselves (we also found out that Patrick's dad worked there a long time ago making donuts). Well, it turned out to be a donut place but it was called Daynight Donuts. Every thing on the inside looked like Dunkin Donuts, so we went in to see what the deal was. Apparently they used to be one but no longer. They, however, still had all the Dunkin Donuts napkins, sugar packets, cups and coffee. So, here is a photo of us standing out side Daynight Donuts with our Dunkin Donuts coffee:

The closest we've come to a Dunkin Donuts in 2 years

While at home we visited friends and family, spent a day in Portland, froze our butts off, ate lots of cookies and gained weight. All in all, a great holiday season! Happy new year to everyone!

Here are a few more photos from our time in Oregon:

This picture doesn't do it justice. There was so much snow!

A night out in Portland

The riverfront in Portland

Festive Christmas pic

Hanging with the girls our last night in Portland. We had to take a picture with our newest addition to the group.