We spent some time in the beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park and hiked to Emerald Lake…

We attended Tour de Fat hosted by New Belgium Brewery…

Ate some yummy food at Lucile’s Creole Cafe…

And spent some much needed time with family!

Hope you had a fun and relaxing labor day, too!

Me at the wedding

Well, I was in a wedding last weekend as the matron of honor. I was so nervous about it, but everything went off beautifully and the couple was very happy in the end. Here is the speech I nearly had an aneurysm writing. I also started crying mid way through it!

Good Evening everyone, my name is Erin and I am proud to be the matron of honor. Bride and Groom*, congratulations on your marriage. I know you two will be really happy together.
Groom and I have known each other since high school, and I first met Bride when she started dating him in college. I liked her right away because I saw how happy my friend was when he was with her, and then I could see why he was so happy. Groom, I don’t have to tell you what a sweet, caring, thoughtful person Bride is and I can’t begin to thank you enough for bringing someone like her into my life. Bride is the kind of person whose “effect […] on those around her [is] incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life” like Bride (Middlemarch).
And actually, our meeting was pre-destined. Bride and I lived a block away from each other when we were in elementary school and we went to the same middle school, but never knew each other. In fact, when we were in middle school we both took a quiz sponsored by our student council that was supposed to tell us who our friend matches were. For some reason I kept mine and came across it a couple years ago, and guess who my number one friend match was? Some girl named Bride. So, see? I did learn something in middle school.
At this point it’s usually customary to offer up some quote or a tidbit of advice about love and married life. Unfortunately, having been married for two years now I know that there’s nothing new I can tell you that you haven’t heard already. Being married is hard work. And there will probably be days when you are so annoyed by your spouse, you may wonder what in the hell you were thinking getting yourself into this whole marriage gig to begin with. Ephesians says to “Patiently put up with each other and love each other.” (Eph 4:2) Because then you’ll remember the time he tried to make you soup when you were sick, or how you told jokes in the dark before sleeping and laughed until your sides hurt, and it’s all worth it.
“Rejoice in the wife of your youth […] may you always be captivated by her love.” Prov 5:18-19
As your relationship began among books, it is fitting that it continues in “Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, [and] is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve,” (Middlemarch).
Here is to the beginning of the next chapter of your narrative. Cheers, to Bride and Groom.

*Named changed to protect the innocent!

Next week I am flying to Knoxville, TN to attend another wedding. Fortunately, this time I am not in it, just a guest!

We went to The Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, CA. The Villa itself is incredible, it was built in the same style as the art it houses (mostly ancient Greek and Roman pieces).

lol, Are we old enough to be married? We still act like children!

Us in front of the fountain in the gardens.

That afternoon, we drove over to the Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey and checked in. The staff there was really friendly and excellent. They saw our note that we were celebrating our first anniversary, so gave us complimentary champagne:

and strawberries:

View from our room:

After we dropped our stuff off in our room, we rented bikes from the concierge and took a ride along Venice Beach:

The next day we went to The Grove and The Farmer’s Market:

tee hee

Afterwards, we tried to get in to see The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien but we didn’t get in. It’s really unfortunate that we didn’t, now that he’s off the show. Instead, we went to LA Live to look at the new Ritz-Carlton, Los Angeles (it wasn’t open yet, so we couldn’t go inside) and saw Avatar and went to a really nice dinner at Sur using a coupon from Groupon:

The next day we went to the Griffith Observatory:

You may remember it from movies and tv.

Awesome Periodic Table exhibit:

Went to the plane-arium and saw a show:

Oh hey, Hollywood sign!

The next day we drove to Marana, AZ and checked into our hotel:

They upgraded us to Club Level (!! a room with unlimited free drinks and food) and more champagne and strawberries were waiting in our hotel room:

View from our balcony:

The next day we went down to the pools. Mike went down the water slide:

It was kinda cool outside so I didn’t go in the pool.

Mike used to work with the guy that is now head chef of the restaurant CORE, he made us a really nice meal that night (that he didn’t comp it ended up being like $100, thanks for nothing, man! Oh well, it was still really nice of him, and tasty):

The next day we had to drive home :

It was an incredibly long drive:

The next day was our actual anniversary, we stayed in and celebrated All in all, a great way to end the first year!

I had some apprehension over this trip. Prior to this I had never really been in snow before at all. True California girl I guess, haha. I’d never been snowboarding, I’d never seen it snow, never driven in snow, you get the picture. I was envisioning a horrible blizzard that would bury the state of Colorado and we would never be heard from again, haha. But of course that didn’t happen. There was snow but not an excess of it, and I packed plenty of warm clothes for the duration of our trip.

our boots matched, and they worked really well in the snow.

The first night in Colorado we drove to Fort Collins, went grocery shopping and got drunk at Vanessa’s apartment, haha.

The next day, Friday, Vanessa showed us around Fort Collins, including Old Town. One of my favorite things about Old Town Fort Collins is the proliferation of small, independent restaurants and sandwich shops.

This delicious sandwich is from a little place called Spicy Pickle.

The building Vanessa works in at CSU.

We were unsuccessful at getting a tour of the New Belgium brewery, so we went home and changed for a night on Old Town.

Old Town Square in Fort Collins at night.

Beau Jo’s in Old Town had really good pizza and served the local brewery’s beer, New Belgium.

We went to a chill bar called Lucky Joe’s and then we went to another bar across the square called Zydego’s, which is more of a dance joint.


Vanessa convinced me to dance on the bar and her friend Cory got up there with me.

Eventually Vanessa got up there, too haha.

The next day, Saturday we drove down to Broomfield and went to a family Christmas party with Vanessa’s mom’s side of the family. That night we stayed at her mom’s house in Broomfield and the next day Vanessa, Mike, Vanessa’s cousin Chrissy, Chrissy’s boyfriend Julio, and I attempted to go to Rocky Mountain National Park. First we stopped in the precious Estes Park for lunch.

Natuuuure.

The boast of World Famous Burgers drew us in (I was more attracted to the baked potatoes).

It was nice to be inside, outside was really freezing.

After that we drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park, until we found out it cost $20 per car to get in. Later we found out the roads inside the park were closed anyway, but the cost was enough to drive us away. Luckily there was a visitor center outside the park, so we stopped there to play in the snow and take pictures.

It was super cold.

Mike got the snowball fight started.

LET’S SEE MIKE DODGE THIS.

That lake is FROZEN.

After out little excursion we met Vanessa’s mom and sister for a movie at the mall. We ended up seeing Juno, which I loved (the soundtrack rocks, too). We drove back to Fort Collins that night.

The next day we went back into Old Town and caught some lunch at another cute restaurant:

It totally reminded me of Maz!

After lunch we went to New Belgium again to try and get in on a tour, this time we were more successful. Before the tour we sampled some beers.

Da beers.

Cute Holiday display.

Fat Tire bikes.

Inside.

Tour Guide serving us some Fat Tire.

Cool lighting using beer bottles.

That night was New Year’s Eve, and we had a little party at Vanessa’s apartment to celebrate. Chrissy, Julio, Sam and Bobby came to hang out.

Happy 2008!

The next day we went to Horsetooth and took a hike.



Watch out for yellow snow!

Horsetooth is behind us.

That night we went to the mall in Fort Collins (yayyy I got new clothes at Hollister!!!!111) and rented a movie.

The next day we went snowboarding, finally! We met Sam, Bobby, Chrissy, Julio, and Vanessa’s mom Kathy at Eldora.

Turns out I didn’t like snowboarding, so after lunch Kathy, Chrissy and I went to Kathy’s house to chill while everyone else finished the day snowboarding. That night we drove back to Fort Collins and packed up for our flight the next day.

The last day in Colorado we meant to go to breakfast, but unfortunately we woke up too late, so we went straight to the airport and made it through security and check in just in time. By the time we got to our gate they were about to begin boarding. Whew!

If you want to view all of the pics from the trip, you can check them out on flickr or on facebook. Overall we had a ton of fun and as long as you dressed properly, it wasn’t too cold.

The first leg of our trip actually took us not to Queen Creek but to Williams, AZ, which is 439 mi — about 6 hours 13 mins away from home and about 3 hours away from Queen Creek. The reason? Pie.

Maz drove through this tiny town on his way out East a couple of years ago on a road trip with another of our good friends. On their way through, they stopped in at Williams and the Pine Country Restaurant and have been raving about the pie ever since. So we decided to stop here since we were going to be in Arizona anyway.

(WARNING: IMAGE HEAVY BEHIND CUT)

Unfortunately, since I couldn’t take Friday off of work, we got a late start from Orange County and it took us nearly 10 hours to wade through the traffic and get to Williams. By the time we got there, it was 1:00 AM and mysteriously, all of the motels in town were full. We couldn’t account for this! Why would a tiny town’s accommodations all be full? Was it due to its close proximity to the Grand Canyon? No. The annual Cowpuncher’s Rodeo was taking place there that weekend, as we learned from a banner we passed by. Cowpunchers?! Great. Granted, it was a little naive of us not to have made reservations beforehand, but we really thought it wouldn’t be a problem! Oh, how wrong we were.

After driving through the town for about 20 minutes and being turned down at every motel, we finally stopped at a Holiday Inn and asked the receptionist to direct us to a motel that WASN’T full. We arrived at the Grand Country Inn at about 1:30 AM and paid $100 for one of the nastiest rooms I’ve ever stayed in. Poor Maz was fit to be tied at how royally screwed we were on the room, but at that point I just wanted to get into a bed and sleep for the next few hours. If only!

When we walked into the room, the first thing we noticed was the stench. It smelled awful! Soon, we figured out the source of the stench: the air conditioner. Perhaps it was mildewed inside or something, but it was gross. I then gleefully documented the nastiness of the room:

Here is the mirror, obviously in need of replacement, and the tiny soap that Maz and Amber had to use (brought my own!)

This is the wall next to the toilet. Obviously never been rubbed down… those brown and red spots are NOT a part of the pattern.

The room, it looks like a flashback to the late 1980s, early 1990s. And that lamp on the right didn’t work, and the alarm clock was stolen at some point.

The TV in our room. A Zenith! This thing must be an antique but amazingly, it still worked. When we turned it on, an old Star Trek episode flickered on screen. Was it channeling the shows that were on the air during its prime, or was it set to TV Land? The world may never know…

Me getting ready for sleep, before I realized there was something… off, about this bed. When we all got into bed we realized that the sheets were damp. I instantly got a creepy crawly feeling, and I got out my own sheets that I had brought to use on my air mattress once we got to Troy’s, and spread them over the bed. After that I was able to fall asleep, but I kept waking up during the night.

Finally at around 8 or so we gave up the good fight and decided to get the hell out of there. Once I got out of the shower and returned to my bed, I was greeted with this lovely sight:

A bug crawling across the floor. Was it a baby cockroach? I have no idea.

We finally got out of there and decided to get some pie for breakfast.

Saw this hooker mannequin hanging out of a window on the way to Pine Country Restaurant.

My first cup of hot coffee (lots of creamer and sugar plz!) and my pie: Strawberry Cream Pie. I would have liked more strawberry with my cream, haha.

Maz got a Blueberry-Apple-Peach pie a la mode with black coffee.

Amber got a Raspberry Cream Cheese Pie with coffee, too.

Maz loooved his pie!

I think Amber preferred the coffee.

After breakfast, we decided to hit up the Grand Canyon before going to Troy’s. It was only an hour north of Williams, and we had all day to get to Troy’s. Also, I hadn’t been there since I was a toddler, so I didn’t really remember it all too well.

On the way to the Grand Canyon.

We got to the Grand Canyon and the view was amazing! We took so many pictures, here are some of my favorites:

Amber was afraid to go to the edge; there was no railing and she has vertigo.

Maz standing at the edge of the canyon, with some perspective.

Maz was being all artisty with his cool camera.

I’m pretty cool, too.

Maz doing a dance on the edge.

Aww they’re so cute

Amber and I thought this would be a good spot to meditate.

After about an hour or so, we decided to hit the dusty trail, and make our way down to Queen Creek finally. It took us about 204 mi – about 3 hours 4 mins to get there. Once we got there we unloaded our stuff and chatted for a bit, then headed over to a local restaurant for some grub.

The set up of the restaurant was really cool: it was a large courtyard surrounded by several buildings with different functions. One was a pool room, one was a saloon, one was the main restaurant, and the other was additional indoor seating.

Here is the courtyard and saloon. The little pits strewn about can be lit and then you can roast marshmallows while watching the (country) band play and people dance to the music on the dance floor.

This is the main building where the restaurant part is.

Ready for some grub!

The county this restaurant is in has some ancient law from 1930 that prohibits outdoor dancing. This place gets fined like $50 a day for outdoor dancing. It’s like something straight out of Footloose!!

Troy’s chicken was heart-shaped.

They spontaneously made the same face for this picture. Aren’t they adorable?!

After dinner, we went outside to roast marshmallows. The wood and everything was wet from the rains though, so all it did was smoke really badly. And it made our eyes water.

It kind of looks like we’ve been smoking out or something!

The next day we lazed around the house while Troy worked on some paperwork for buying a new one. We watched this awesome/crappy movie/TV show called Darkest Knight starring the irresistible but somewhat emotionally limited Ben Pullen. Read the various reviews of it, they sum it up quite well and it’s quite hilarious. Once he got back, we grabbed a quick sandwich and headed out to Salt River to do some tubing down the river. It was really fun! And we got heckled by some drunk guys jumping off a cliff to “show our tits.” Yeah, no thanks buddy!

Afterwards we showered up and headed out to a Mexican place nearby for some dinner. I got a prickly pear margarita (yum!) and we ran into Troy’s grandparents (small town). I was introduced as Troy’s date for the night — awkward! That night we played some card games, like The Great Dalmuti.

The next day we woke up early to go see a model of the home that Troy decided to buy. It was really nice and cute! I want a house! But if that involved moving to Arizona… no thank you! After that we packed up and headed out on the road back to California. Nothing much interesting happened on the way back. Some guy tried his best, “Hey, how you doooin’?” on me, and there was a lot of lightening and rain, but that’s pretty much it. We had a really awesome time though! I really want to do more road trips, like maybe to Colorado and around the Pacific northwest.

So I’m a bit of a dork. I forgot to post the pictures I took of us on that beach in Santa Barbara and also pictures on the way to Davis going over the Golden Gate bridge, but rather than adding it to the post afterwards, I decided to just make another post. So here’s pictures of us on that beach (behind the cut).

Brittani climbed a slippery rock. After that some rocks fell down, it was a little scary!

Oh look, I was there too! You can see some of my serious sunburn, haha.

There’s the rickety bridge down to the water! The waves are lapping up all around it. Also you can see down the shoreline, pretty.

Countdown until this house falls into the ocean! Seriously! And people live in it!

The seaweed and fly infested beach.

Now time for some pictures on the way to Davis. We went over the Golden Gate Bridge to get there.

It was foggy when we first got on the bridge. Isn’t that creepy how the cables just disappear into the fog?

A couple of minutes later the fog cleared completely.

Massive!

The driver, yours truly.

Teresa, the map!

The photographer in the backseat!

See the rest of the pics from the trip on my Flickr.

UCSC was lovely, but we had to push through and continue on our journey! This time we needed to make the drive from Santa Cruz to San Francisco to say with Mirthala, my sister Teresa’s former roommate and bridesmaid. The drive was about 75.5 mi – about 1 hour 32 mins, and we got a later start than we anticipated. By the time we got there, around 5:30 PM, Mirthala was on her way to class from work, and wouldn’t be out until around 10PM. Teresa was on her flight to Oakland from Orange County, so Brittani and I decided to walk around the neighborhood. And what a neighborhood it is! Mirthala’s apartment is a block away from the panhandle of Golden Gate Park, and about two blocks from Haight&Ashbury! It was also close to several colleges, namely University of San Francisco. We walked there, but they wouldn’t let us use their bathroom, lol. So we found a Starbucks again and chilled there for a little bit. Eventually as the afternoon wore on, I got a little chilly in my shorts and t-shirt, so we made our way back to the car so I could get a sweatshirt and then we decided to wait for Teresa in the panhandle of Golden Gate Park and read our books.

Once she got there, we stowed her stuff in my car and hobbled with her over to Haight, as there was a restaurant there she wanted to take us to. I say hobbled, because the poor thing fractured a bone in her foot two weeks prior! Silly girl! We wanted to go to Cha Cha Cha!, but the wait was too long, so we ended up at a smaller Mexican restaurant next door. And we stayed there until they turned off the lights, subtly asking us to leave, I suppose! Ha ha! We started making our way back to Mirthala’s apartment when she called to let us know she was on her way. Perfect timing!

I do have a note about Haight, though. It is CRAWLING with homeless people! I felt like there was a homeless person at least in front of every store and on every corner. At one point, there was a couple of guys panhandling on a corner with an honest sign that read, “Need Drugs!” They asked us, “Hey, can you spare some change? That way we don’t need to kill someone’s children. AND YOU’RE SOMEONE’S CHILDREN!” And earlier that day at Golden Gate Park a homeless guy sat next to us on a bench. So, I can’t say that I felt completely safe there, haha. We got back to the apartment and Mirthala let us in and gave us some spare keys. Yay! We set up our stuff and stayed up talking for a while, and then crashed for the night.

The next morning we set out for a walking tour of University of California, Berkeley, the oldest UC of them all. This was by far the WORST of the walking tours. Not only was our group huge, but our guide didn’t know anything and she didn’t speak nearly loud enough for a tour of this size. I was disappointed because this is one of the schools I really want to apply to, and I didn’t get a really good feel for the campus. It is a very pretty campus though, and Berkeley is a really cute town. You should just get used to me saying that I didn’t take pictures of the campus, haha. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me at the time! Here are some website pictures:

Eventually I woke up and we made our way downtown again for the HP party. I’ll make another post on this later.

The next day, Saturday, Teresa, Brittani and I drove to Teresa and Mirthala’s alma mater, University of California, Davis for a walking tour. I really love Davis’ campus and the city, it just feels really close knit and everyone there was friendly and helpful, but unfortunately it’s really hot in the summer! Here are some pictures from the Davis website:

From one of his favorite movies, The Big Lebowski. After about an hour we rushed back to the apartment and I hopped in the shower to rinse off before going out that night with Teresa’s friends. Brittani decided to stay back at the apartment and catch up on her summer reading, which actually worked out better for us, because now we could go to bars! We had reservations for 8:00PM at Rose Pistola in North Beach, but we got there a little early, so we went over to a nearby pubs for some drinks. Dinner was excellent, I got the grilled calamari (so did Mirthala) and we all ordered a bottle of wine. After dinner we went to a couple more bars and pubs, and stopped by a restaurant at around midnight for some dessert. After that we headed back to the apartment, Keith and Emily took off immediately, but Eric came up for a chat. Brittani was already asleep and I crashed next to her. It was a very long day full of walking and I was exhausted!

About four hours later I had to wake up and get ready to get an early start on the road. We still weren’t sure how Brittani was going to get back to Big Bear (I certainly didn’t want to drive her all the way there!) so I left a little early so we could fit that in if need be. The drive from San Francisco to home was 434 mi – about 6 hours 47 mins long. Brittani, being the sweetie she is, summarized the first five chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and then proceeded to READ the book to me for the remainder of the drive! We stopped a couple times — once at a rest stop because I really needed to pee, haha, and another time to get lunch. The route I was on took us right through Burbank and Glendale (read: LA) so I was a bit apprehensive about the traffic I might hit (it makes no difference that it’s a Sunday afternoon!) but traffic wasn’t too bad, and we made it home around 3:00 PM. But first, we stopped at a Borders and I bought my own copy to read once we got home.

Overall, I feel like it was a really successful trip, and I’m super glad we went. I had an awesome time and I really liked spending time with my sister and my niece

So far since I’ve graduated college, I’ve set out fulfilling every post-grad stereotype out there: toyed with the idea of going to graduate school, gone on a backpacking trip through Europe (although it wasn’t too successful), and gone on a road trip (which was more successful). Usually it’s a cross-country road trip, but I just went through California and frankly, I think that’s enough! Here are some pictures and summary:

The goal of this trip was for my niece, Brittani, who is applying as an undergraduate this fall and for me, applying as a graduate, to check out different colleges throughout California and see how we like them.

We left on Wednesday, July 18, and our first stop was California State University, Northridge, a mere 76.3 mi – about 1 hour 28 mins from home. For those not familiar with the area, it’s in the San Fernando Valley right outside of Los Angeles. First though, we stopped at a supermarket and grabbed groceries. We decided to make our breakfasts and lunches in favor of saving some dough, and eating out for dinners. Once we got there, we caught a walking tour as it sauntered by and learned about the campus. Brittani is very interested in taking language classes and majoring in Deaf Studies, and Northridge has excellent programs for both. California State Universities only offer Master’s Programs, and I’m more interested in Ph.D. programs, so I didn’t get much out of it, but the campus is very nice. We forgot to take pictures (boo!) but here are some from their website:

The next day, Thursday, we woke up really early and got a head start to University of California, Santa Cruz. This was a much longer trek than our previous ones: 267 mi – about 4 hours 32 mins from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz. Again, we took the 101 most of the way, which was not as pretty as before, since it cut inland after a while and all I saw was farmland. I was also really really tired, so the boring drive did not help me stay awake! Eventually we stopped at a Starbucks for some help staying awake, haha. We also passed several Missions on this drive, I was kind of disappointed we couldn’t stop and take a look. However, Mission San Juan Capistrano is right near where I live, and I’ve been there before, and I think it’s the best preserved one out of all of them, so I don’t think I missed too much!

Finally we arrived around 11:30 AM, which was about an hour and a half early. Since we were so early, we tried (in vain) to find the bookstore, but ended up getting lost. The campus is HUGE, by the way. Our other campus tours were walking, this one was in a bus and we got off to walk around sometimes. But it was LONG. Brit and I didn’t each lunch beforehand, and after the tour we found the bookstore (Brittani got a sweatshirt), so we ended up not eating until around 3PM! Kill me, haha, I was starving!! Brittani took tons of pictures, I didn’t. Oops! The campus is not very far from the beach; in fact, you can see the ocean from several spots on campus. And the place is covered in trees! Redwoods, pine, etc. It’s a completely gorgeous campus, and I think that’s why Brittani ended up liking it the best. Anyway, here are some pictures of Santa Cruz (from their website):