Hiddenbrooke Garage Sale This Saturday

We've been getting ready sorting through our stuff for this Saturday's Hiddenbrooke neighborhood garage sale. It starts at 8am and you can get a map of all the participating houses at the info booth. Come by and visit us at 8150 Carlisle Way.

SLO Bound-Day 2

The next day, we drove to Pismo Beach to enjoy some sun, and boy was it beautiful. Who knew that driving a mere 20 or so miles away from foggy Morro Bay would bring the sunshine out in full force. I did venture into the semi-cold water, but with the sun out and shining, it was rather enjoyable. Becky loved Pismo Beach's fine sand. Pismo gets better and better every time I return. I still say it's one of the nicest beaches in CA. After enjoying a couple hours laying in the sand, we roamed around the boardwalk area in search of some food. We had a late lunch over at Mo's BBQ. Later afternoon we drove to our new hotel, Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort in Avila Beach. We got mixed reviews about the place from Trip Advisor, but with a hot tub for every room, we just had to try it out. This place was awesome, along with the hotel grounds. Every room is named for something bordering on the romantic side, and ours happened to be called "Yearning". The grounds had all sorts of cool stuff, including rock gardens, bridges, a yoga dome, trails, gardens, gazeebos, benches, beautiful flowers, and of course hot tubs galore. It was like a mini Disneyland, as the concierge called it. And don't get me started on our room. It had a living room with fireplace, fridge, couches. The bedroom had a four post raised bed. The bathroom had a huge shower with 2 heads. And of course right outside the bedroom was the fresh water hot tub. Some rooms had sulfur tubs, others had mineral water, and some had fresh water. All we cared about was that the water was hot! Did I mention the room had bath robes. This place became new favorite place to stay when visiting SLO. After taking a quick shower, we headed to downtown SLO to catch the farmer's market. Little did I know that trying to go to a farmer's market in the summer would be like going to Disneyland on a Saturday. It was packed. Finding parking took forever, and there were people EVERYWHERE. I couldn't tell if they were all tourists or locals. All I have to say is things have changed in 10 yrs since I went to school there. The food of course was still awesome, along with all the produce they were selling, and the live music everywhere. After fighting off the crowds, we decided to head back to the hotel and use the tub.

SLO Bound-Day 1

Back in July, Becks and I had the chance to go visit my old college town of San Luis Obispo during the middle of the week. We spent our first day roaming around the Morro Bay area, checking out the shops, visiting Morro Rock, having dinner at one of the local seafood restaurants, and watching birds diving into the water during sunset. It reminded me a lot of a more low-key, less busy downtown Lahaina area. We found some pretty cool shops, including a vintage tin sign store that had some really funny stuff. Check out the Ponch one. One thing that I didn't get to take Becky on that I've done a lot is kayak in the bay. I think I've kayaked in Morro Bay well over 10 times. Perhaps next time. As for the weather, it was a bit foggy and chilly till late afternoon, but we still had fun. We enjoyed a nice dinner at the Galley Seafood Grill and Bar, which was #1 on Trip Advisor for Morro Bay restaurants. I tried their crabcake, which was awesome, as well as their calamari steaks...which consisted of 3 very filling servings. Becks stuck to the steak. We spent our first night at the La Serena Inn, which was very nice.

Comic-Con 2008

Just a few weeks ago, on July 25-26, Tim and I flew down to SD for what seems like an annual event for us now-Comic Con 2008. We spent our first day checking out all the booths, and sitting in one of the more popular panel discussions for the movie, Watchmen. Of course, the popular booths were once again Sideshow for the excellent statues, busts, and hourly giveaways, and Lucasfilm for everything Star Wars, which included a lifesize Jabba the Hutt, and a stage with the new life size Clone Wars characters on display. This stage was filled with endless and constantly changing star wars characters, such as every Clone Trooper imaginable, various forms of Mandalorian bounty hunters (aka Boba Fetts), and numerous Jedi knights. There was even a point where a group of predators stormed the stage to steal some of the spotlight from the Star Wars characters. Massive lines were also present at the ever popular Hasbro and Mattel booths for their exclusive Comic Con figures. I ended up buying a Lobo (from the Superman series) at the Mattel booth because of their short line at the Saturday opening. Perhaps it was because all the people were away lining up for the Heroes panel discussion, which we tried to get in line for at 8 in the morning Saturday by the way, but after seeing the line which wrapped around the Convention Center all the way to Seaport Village, we decided to pass and just hit the main show room.

Friday night, we also roamed the downtown SD area in search of numerous urban boutiques, such as the Armory, the Attic, and Five and a Dime. We also visited the Westfield mall (where we were standing right next to Method Man in Footlocker) before heading to dinner at Rei Do Gado's, our favorite Brazillian bbq. We stayed at the Bristol Hotel, which was awesome by the way. It was very modern, as our room was decorated in black, white, and red.

On Saturday Tim and I split up for most of the day to do our own things at the convention. Tim went around searching for autographs. I spent it looking at all the booths in detail, searching for gifts for Becks, playing papparazzi, and sitting in a DC panel discussion (included Bruce Timm of Batman cartoon fame), which had a preview of the 2009 release of the animated Wonder Woman. I actually ran into Ray P in this panel, so after it was over, we scoured the main showroom together for at least 30 minutes before he left to rejoin his family at their hotel. On Saturday the stars were out in full force (Heroe's James Kyson Lee and Hayden Panettiere, Buffy and Angel's Eliza Dushku and David Boreanaz, Star Trek's Avery Brooks and Jonathon Frakes, 24's producer and director Jon Cassar, rappers Common and Methodman, Lou Ferrigno, etc.).

5 Month Anniversary

On July 16, I decided to take Becks out for dinner for our 5 month anniversary. I had originally planned to take her to the 1930s era restaurant, Bing Crosby's, in Walnut Creek. The concept seemed great, but after reading as much bad reviews as there were good reviews on Trip Advisor, coupled with the expensive prices, we decided to head elsewhere. We ended up going to the Napa Valley Grille in Yountville, a favorite of her parents'. There was great food again, as our last visit there with Shannon in January for her birthday. I was pleased to find my favorite, Paella, on their everchanging menu.

Contest of Champions: 0-8

On July 12, I had the privelege of playing in the Contest of Champions, a church fundraiser for the youth group staff. I thought I had retired from the tournment 2 years ago, before pulling a Brett Favre, and unretiring. Our team consisted of (3) 6 footers, Julian, Christina, and Michael A, and (3) under 6 footers, myself, Tim, and Amy. We named ourselves 3-6 Mafia for intimidation because of our (3) 6 footers. Intimidate we did not, going 0-8 before being eliminated from the double elimination tournament. No one else, however, had as cool a team picture as us. Had we had more time playing together there is no doubt that we would have notched at least a couple of victories.

The 1 Year Dating Anniversary

On July 8th, Becky and I spent our 1 Year Dating Anniversary at the place where it all started: Mimi's Cafe in Fairfield. We even wore for the most, the same outfits we wore that day. Yeah, call us sentimental. It was fun just reminiscing of that lunch, and all the events that lead up to it. The day before was Walter and Kristine's wedding anniversary. We were just reminded of God's goodness, in how He brought us together last summer, and now one year, later were celebrating that special one year anniversary as husband and wife. Indeed God is good!!!

Genesis 2
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Socal Day 3: The Real OC

We spent our 3rd day in Socal cruising the OC. Our first stop was the Newport Beach/Balboa area. We walked around the pier, took some pics. At the Balboa pier we even saw hundreds of kids doing some summer training as junior lifeguards. There was just a sea of kids running around in red swimming trunks and bathing suits along the beach and the park. We were even approached by a couple of guys interviewing for a local college on the topic of global issues. I thought for a minute it was a Jay Leno bit where they see how stupid people are about certain topics. I'll admit that when they brought up a country in Africa where there were genocides happening, I had no idea what they were talking about. Luckily Becky knew a little about it. Then the topic changed to politics and Obama...so we had our chance to give our two cents about our dislike for him. We then decided to drive south through Corona Del Mar, another rich neighborhood, before making our stop at Laguna Beach. This town was something to behold. For such a small town, there was definitely a lot of people roaming around. We grabbed a couple of sandwiches from Whole Foods and head for the beach park to enjoy our lunch. Their main beach park was awesome. Crammed into their beach park, was a lawn, a kids playground, many beach volleyball nets setup (which house AVP tournaments on weekends by the way), 2 hoop courts, and a tidepool area. And right across the street were the many boutiques and restaurants. How often can you say that you played volleyball and basketball on the beach. Let's just say that the only other place I've done that at was on Oahu. We ended our day by heading back to Newport Beach's Fashion Island Mall to kill a couple of hours before jumping on the plane home.