Halloween

Our pumpkins! Can you tell who did which?

Our awesome penguin costumes! Nothing beats a trip to Goodwill for making Halloween costumes.

Kung-fu penguin.

Kyle and Alexis visit Nor-Cal!

Brian's brother, Kyle, and his girlfriend, Alexis, came out to visit us last weekend. Thursday night we headed into San Fran for dinner (Ethiopian food...yum!) and Nightlife at California Academy of Sciences. They had a great rainforest and aquarium...and we thoroughly enjoyed being able to have some cocktails in the museum. Above you can note the evolution of man!

Friday night...back in San Fran for sushi boat. Sorry it wasn't a real boat ride! And luckily we steered clear of the jellyfish!

Ahoy Matey! Kyle and Alexis looking out over Carmel Beach...do you see what they see?

Great fun in Monterey...kayaking! We got very close to the sea lions, seals, and otters and saw some wicked jellyfish. And...we looked hot in our wetsuits!

The Custer men mugging in Santa Cruz. Finally, the sun was out! Still wouldn't call the beach hot, but at least it wasn't freezing.

We have been very grateful for our recent visitors and have had a great time! All are invited to Seattle too!

Melanie Visits Nor-Cal!

Sorry I have been a delinquent blogger! Time for big updates! My cousin, Melanie, came out to see us a few weeks ago and we had a blast...and kept her very busy. That Thursday night we went to AT&T Park to watch the Phillies play the Giants...sadly, the Phils lost and we froze our buns off. Who expects to need winter clothes at a baseball game in July?

One of our favorite activities since we've been here...biking across the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito, where we had lunch. Yes, it was foggy and cloudy of course, but bright, sunny, and gorgeous once we got into Sausalito. We then took the ferry back across and bay and headed to Ghirardelli for sundaes...a perfect treat after our 8mile bike ride!

Saturday we headed to Sonoma for some wine tasting. We got in about 6 vineyards and had a blast!

Picture of us in front of postcard row with the city skyline in the background. This is where the opening picnic scene for "Full House" was done.

And Monday while Brian worked, Mel and I had girls day at the beach in Santa Cruz...nice and relaxing!

Yosemite

We headed to Yosemite National Park on the 18th...it was a free National Park weekend, so why not take advantage?! Our first hike was to Lower Yosemite Falls (above). It was a short hike, but then we did a lost of pseudo-rockclimbing to get to the pool of the waterfall.

You can see Upper Yosemite Falls in the middle of the pic above. It is reportedly bigger in the spring and early summer and by the end of August will be dried up.

This is Vernal Falls, taken on our 2nd and more strenuous hike of the day. We went to the top...1.5 miles...the first half all uphill, the second half up many, many, many rock stairs. It was gorgeous though. Once at the top, we jumped in Emerald Pool in our clothes for a very refreshing swim. There was also a natural rock waterslide that of course we had to go down.

This is the view from Glacier Point. The large roundish rock in the upper left is Half Dome. Off to the right is Nevada Falls, which is just above Vernal Falls where we had hiked earlier.

Our final mini-hike of the day was through Mariposa Grove, one of the home of the Giant Sequoia trees. They really were massive and quite impressive. But it was also starting to get dark and Lori+hiking through the woods at night=Not so much fun, so it was time to head home!

Napa

We spent a lovely day in Napa last Friday. We took in 8 wineries and brought home 7 bottles of wine...not a bad day! Let's see if I can remember them all...we went to Sutter Home, V Sattui, Rutherford Hill, Beringer, Beaulieu, PlumpJack, Alpha Omega, and Peju. We also stopped at Robert Mondavi, but their tasting was too expensive, so we left. We had a picnic after our tour at Rutherford Hill overlooking some of wine country.

Sweet, sweet baby grapes!

I really just wanted to turn one of those over, dump in some grapes, and smash 'em up!

Brian hiding in the grape vines at PlumpJack.

Our last stop (can you tell?) at Peju. Mmm, Mmm Good!

Brian's Birthday Pics

Super Secret Brownie Birthday Surprise...with peanut butter M&M's!

Gifts from my Mom and Dick.

Gifts from Brian's Mom and Dad.

Skydiving!

Brian got very surprised this year by a skydiving adventure for his Happy Birthday. He had no clue until we arrived at the airport. At first he thought he was going to be flying a plane and then he looked at me and said, "Or...are we going to be jumping out of planes?" SURPRISE! Here he is with his instructor, Laura, getting suited up.Those 2 little blips are us! Brian jumped first, so his chute is the one on the bottom. It was really crazy getting to watch him jump! He went from sitting right next to me to being about the size of a dot.

Here's Brian coming in for his landing...which he took a little hard on his bottom. His instructor misjudged the landing just a tad, which resulted in a 10ft skid in the sand, thus also a nice crotch full of sand! But at least it was soft sand on the beach!

And here I come with my instructor, Garth. We landed on on feet.

We survived! And it was so incredibly awesome...unlike anything that you expect, since we never really felt like we were falling. We got to do flips out of the plane, had about 60sec of freefall, then 8-9min of hangtime. We highly recommend it!