Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

So obviously I'm a week late on the Christmas wishes, but today I finally got our Christmas letter and card converted into a digital format! This version might not be as personal as the one via US mail, but it's clearly superior because of the additional pictures and links. :) Enjoy!

December 18, 2013 

Merry Christmas, dear family and friends! 

We hope everyone is having a joyous holiday season that is full of merriment and void of stress. It's been a very blessed and often busy year at the Luce household, and it's so hard to believe that 2013 is already over. As you may have guessed from the pictures, we had a significant loss in our family this year as our dear dog Hope passed away. After a cancer diagnosis in June and many subsequent trips to K-State for chemotherapy, we let our sweet girl go on August 10. She was a fighter until the very end and never ceased to amaze us. We miss her loveable weirdness so much, but we know it was the right time—just before her 13th (or 14th or 15th) birthday. 

Fresco seemed sad at first but has adjusted very well to being an incredibly spoiled only dog.

We might start fostering again in the near future, but right now he has play dates and outings all over the city! In fact, today he's having a great time playing with our friends' dog Willy as I provide fill-in childcare for their toddler! 

This is one of the huge blessings of not having a regular job—getting to help out friends and family members in need whenever possible. I still volunteer once a month at the food pantry, but I stepped down from coordinating back in April to devote more time to my family and to the volunteer team I lead at church. I still spend 1-2 days in Topeka with my mom, continue to do portrait sessions for friends and had a wonderful trip to California wine country in April with a bunch of ladies I adore. Mom and I visited Eric and his girlfriend Jiffy in Los Angeles in July, and I walked the 60 mile 3-Day for the Cure for the 7th time in October—this time in Tampa. A few weeks later Chad and I went on vacation with my mom to New York City, where we saw a Broadway play and took in lots of the sites. We even met up with Eric and Jiffy there for a couple of days!

Chad also got to go on his annual pilgrimage to Florida this month to play golf with his friend Dante and a couple of other friends. He continues to golf every chance he gets—when he's not working or volunteering at church or watching sports or doing yard work! He just finished his 10th year at Westar and finished his term on the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce board. He's taking a few days off over the holidays and might even get to play a round of golf if the weather stays like it is today! The other thing on his “honey-do” list is to plan our next vacation—a big trip for our 20th anniversary in June! 

We are so incredibly blessed to have each other, such terrific families and so many dear friends—not a day goes by that we don't thank God for all He has given us. We were reminded what a gift each moment is in October when our friend Tiffany was killed in a car accident, just 18 months after she and our dear friend Mike were married. Life is so precious, and we pray that you and your loved ones treat each day as the wonderful blessing that it is. May you all find joy in the precious gift of Christmas as well. Much love, Kim (and Chad)  

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. --Isaiah 7:14

Washington National Cathedral

The other day while I was going through all of my pictures from the year, I realized that I hadn't ever talked about my visit to the Washington National Cathedral or shared the plethora of pictures I took there. I've worked on this post three separate occasions so I'd say it's about time I finished it!

When Dad and I finished walking our 60 miles we stayed at a hotel for the night in DC, and the next morning we decided to do a little sight-seeing before making the drive back to Ohio. Dad had just recently taken a vacation to the nation's capital, so we decided to take in one of the attractions that he and his wife Mim had missed while they were there--the Washington National Cathedral.

Seriously, if I had to sum this place up in three words, they would be Oh.My.Goodness. This place was absolutely phenomenal--I can't even begin to describe it. The architecture of the building was absolutely amazing and the history of the building was absolutely astounding. The planning of this place actually began in the late 1800s, and after several architectural drawings and re-drawings, the first stone was laid in 1907. The first chapel in the building was finished in 1912, but construction continued until the largest towers were finished in 1990. It is such a massive, complex, intricate building, the final dedication wasn't until just 20 years ago. In case you're poor at math, that means it took 83 years to complete it!!

There is so much history behind this place and so many fascinating facts about it. The funerals of many former presidents and were held there, along with memorial services and national days of prayer. President Woodrow Wilson is actually entombed within the structure, as are many other famous Americans, such as Helen Keller and her tutor Anne Sullivan. There is a particular stained glass window which actually includes a piece of the moon, which was presented to the cathedral at a service by the astronauts who collected it. The moon, people. It has a piece of the moon! The building is one of the highest points in Washington and the tallest part of the building is just over 300 feet tall. You can't imagine how massive it is!

Dad and I went on a guided tour of the main floor with a bunch of junior high kids, which turned out to be fine since they were well-behaved and the guide was super knowledgeable. We then checked out the lower level chapels on our own, browsed through the gift shop, found fellow Salinans we knew in the Kansas guestbook (who'd just been there a few days before!), and went up to the observation gallery in one of the towers. The views up there were spectacular and we also learned tons about the architecture and planning from the very informative displays. There are just so many cool things to see in this place, but I know my descriptions probably won't make it sound very interesting! My pictures won't do the place justice either, primarily because I didn't take my good camera to DC! Had I known we'd be going to such an amazing place for photography, I would have carried my DSLR all 60 miles just to have it at the National Cathedral!

Although the pictures aren't very good, I hope they give you an idea of how incredible this place was. I definitely plan on going back some day and hope everyone else takes the opportunity to do so the next time you're in DC!

The Photo Session

I was initially thinking that my last California post would be about the lunch we had before we left for the airport, but then I decided that our lunch probably wasn't really blog worthy. It was a good lunch, don't get me wrong, but just not super eventful. We walked down to Fatburger from Eric's and I had a great turkey burger while Chad attacked a gigantic burger of monstrous proportions. It was yummy and I liked it lots better than In and Out Burger because there was a great selection and the meat seemed like better quality--but that's just me.

Anyway, while I was looking through the pictures I took of the family at lunch, which were generally pretty horrible because the back lighting was really bad at our outdoor table (which also made them a good Photoshop exercise in how to sort of salvage blown out backgrounds), I came across a series of pictures that my dear husband took when I asked him to take a picture of my brother and me. Instead of taking a picture, he pretty much just held down the shutter release continuously. This was the ridiculous result.

I clearly wasn't ready, and I had no idea my brother was pretending to pick my nose.

Still not ready and completely unaware.

I'm finally smiling instead of talking, not realizing Eric's still picking my nose.

Okay, finally a good one...

...and one more good one.

Now I'm realizing Chad's getting out of control.

Oh boy...

Oh jeesh...

Oh my...

You have to laugh at my hubby's photography skills!

Time with my brother is always entertaining! I'm so glad we were able to go visit him last month!

The Hotel

I really and truly am almost done yapping about our trip to California. I was actually going to make this my last post, but I just noticed a few more pictures from our last day that might need their own place in this little web world. I promise that the next CA post will be the very last, and you will then be able to get back to reading the regular, everyday drivel about our lives.

So our hotel in LA was called The Mondrian, which took me all weekend to remember how to pronounce correctly, although I'm not sure why it was so hard for me to figure out. We stayed at this particular hotel because it was in Eric's neighborhood (within walking distance) and as usual, I got a great deal on it on Priceline. As most people know, when you "name your own price" on Priceline you don't see the hotel first--you only choose the location and how many stars you want--so I didn't really know until after I "won" this 4-star hotel that it wasn't really our kind of place overall. It was super swanky and ultra modern, but the room itself was not very functional at all, and the decor was just downright weird. The coffee table had a hand (yes, a hand) sculpture sitting on a glass tray, which hopefully gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. The only super cool thing in our room was this gigantic mirror separating the sleeping area from the rest of the room. At first we though it was just a weird unnecessary mirror--then we realized it was actually a second TV, which could watch a different channel than the first TV. As you can imagine, Chad was in heaven laying on a comfy bed where he could watch two different sporting events at the same time. The only other cool thing about our room was the view, which looked out over the "outdoor living room" and pool, which I'll talk about a little more in a second.

Before I show you the pool area, let me just explain a little more why this wasn't our kind of hotel. Really, it was kind of about us not really fitting in there, not that we really fit in (nor want to fit in) most places in LA. Let's just say that this place was especially posh, and every time we were coming and going there were women in tiny mini-skirts and ridiculous high heels prancing in and out of the club/lounge/restaurant with their dates/husbands/clients. Oh yes, there were hookers, and yes I'm sure. These two 55-year-old guys were coming in with these two girls dressed quite skankily that couldn't have been more than 20. It was really quite disturbing and quite sad, and it really made it quite clear that this wasn't the kind of nightlife we were interested in!

For the most part we really didn't care because we weren't there to spend time hanging out at the hotel anyway. However, there was one part of the hotel I wish hadn't been overrun with people way too hip for the room, because I definitely would have spent way more time there. We could see the pool area from our room and it was always packed over the weekend, but on Monday morning when we went to check out we walked down and lounged around in the "outdoor living room" a bit, and it was absolutely gorgeous. I can see why people stay there even if they're not into that night life--this pool was so fabulous and the whole outdoor area couldn't have been more relaxing! I took quite a few more pictures which you should check out here. It was an amazingly beautiful place!

The Landscape

This post isn't really about anything in particular--it's just an effort to share a bunch of "urban landscape" pictures that I took for my photography class. The assignment the week I was in LA was landscapes and urban landscapes, so I was in the perfect location to try and capture some good shots!

The first ten pics were taken as Chad and Eric and I walked up to the grocery store on Sunday evening (which is up Crescent Heights Boulevard to Sunset Boulevard), and then the rest of them were walking down Santa Monica Boulevard, which is just a couple of blocks south of Eric's apartment. The pictures aren't terrific, especially since I've run out of time for editing and they're straight out of the camera, but I think there are a few cool ones!



As you might have noticed, Santa Monica is an especially interesting street, with a ton of old Russian delis and bakeries mixed right in with the restaurants, clubs and porn theaters. I especially like the bizarre contrast of the sign all in Russian with Will Ferrell jumping over the top on some movie billboard. My brother's neighborhood is definitely a unique one--at least compared to ours!

The Hike

This weekend I’m really going to try to finish up blogging about our trip to California. My goal is to complete the last few posts by Monday—a mere (cough) month after we left!

After our lovely brunch on Sunday morning and a subsequent change of clothes, we headed up to Griffith Park, which is one of Eric’s favorite hiking/running spots. I was super excited, mostly because I knew it would be a great place to get some good pictures. Of course I was also looking forward to getting some exercise, spending time with my dear family, seeing the hiking spot Eric always talks about, and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

Our goal was to hike up to the Hollywood sign, which is apparently about a 7 mile trek round trip. There are several ways to get up the hills, some which are a little more challenging and treacherous than others. We started out on a pretty wide trail with a fairly low incline, but soon the California heat started kicking in, which made the incline feel a lot steeper than it was! The temperature wasn't especially high (probably only around 80), but that So Cal sun was intense!

Since Mom isn't able to tolerate the heat very well and wasn't really prepared to walk 7 miles this summer (as opposed to two summers ago), a mile or so up the hill we decided to leave her in a shady spot for a rest. The remaining four of us continued up the path on our own, but after a little while Eric went back down and walked with Mom a bit more and sent Dad, Chad and me on our way. There wasn't much in the way of trail signs in Griffith Park, so Eric gave us the best directions he could and we headed up into the hills.

We followed Eric's instructions and headed off the main trail to a more interesting and difficult smaller trail. It was definitely a more challenging hike, with lots of rocks and steep drop offs. Dad actually slipped on one of these rocks and it looked for a moment like he might fall right off the side of a cliff right in front of us--I about had a heart attack. After Dad's near fall Chad and I were definitely were a lot more careful as we went--although I don't think my ambitious father was!

I should mention that my dad was not only undaunted by the heights and challenging terrain, but he was also completely unfazed by the 7 mile trek, since he's walked even farther recently training for our upcoming 3-Day in Washington, DC. My dad is in incredible shape for someone who's nearing 70!

Anyway, after we'd probably gone another mile, in the approximately 30-45 minutes since we'd left my brother, we were heading along this tiny path, not really sure if we were even going the right direction at all. Just as we're thinking it would have been really nice to have cell service so we could call Eric for directions, we round this corner and glance up the hill to see a guy sitting cross-legged on a clearing who kind of looked like he was meditating. As we got closer, we realized that the guy was actually my brother, which was quite the shock since we'd left him so far behind, going in the opposite direction! As it turned out, he was not meditating but rather recovering, since he had walked Mom safely to near the bottom, and then turned around and RAN straight up the side of the hill on a super steep trail so that he could literally cut us off at the pass. He'd only gotten there minutes before us, so his timing and his stamina was pretty incredible!

The four of us finished the last mile or so of the hike together, and made it to the Hollywood sign for some incredible views and pictures before heading back down through the hills. We took a slightly more challenging route on the way down, with lots of rocks and sharp bushes, so we were fairly pooped when we got to the bottom and met back up with mom.

That evening we walked up to Trader Joe's to get groceries, and grilled some awesome steaks and other stuff at Eric's apartment, so it was a great end to a fun day!

The Brunch

I was a little worried we weren't going to be able to see our KU friends on Sunday morning, because when I called the restaurant where they were brunching (a place called Taste) to make a reservation, no one would answer the phone. I found the spot online and tried to make a reservation there, but their website said they were out of tables. We decided that we'd just go down to say hello to Tish and then find someplace else nearby to eat, since Taste was apparently a really popular place.

We arrived at the restaurant only to find there wasn't a single person on their patio (despite the fact that it was 10:30 and gorgeous outside), and as far as we could tell, not a single patron inside either. We walked up to the hostess and asked for a table for five, and she asked if we had a reservation. Eric replied, "No, but I'm pretty sure it won't be a problem." She seated us at a lovely table on the patio.

Amanda and Maria arrived a few minutes later and just pulled up a table to join us. Maria had told Tish they a had a mini surprise for her (just to motivate her little buns to get into the city), but she had no idea the surprise was just getting to see me. She seemed very excited when she arrived and saw the whole Luce/Almquist clan, but she is an actress, so hopefully she wasn't too disappointed about her little surprise in actuality!

We had such a fun time at brunch, and as usual, Tish was an absolute crack up. She definitely entertained my entire family, and I was so glad that she and Eric finally got to meet, since I've talked about Tish to Eric and Eric to Tish so many times!

My brother was actually pretty darn entertaining as well once we pulled out the camera. I have a whole series of pictures with Eric being completely bizarre and goofy. There are several that are hysterical, but I think this is my favorite.


I think that will make a great profile picture on his Facebook page, don't you? :)

The Getty

Considering the slow rate at which I'm blogging about our trip, it could seriously take me the rest of the summer to finish all the posts. This particular post took forever mostly because of the insane number of pictures involved and my obsession with tweaking every single one of them in my newish version of Photoshop. I seriously should probably get a grip and just post them as is, but at least it's good practice to help me figure out how this new program actually works!

Anyway, after we slept WAY in on the day after Eric's b-day, the family gathered together to decide what we would do for the day, and we decided to go to The Getty Center, home of the J. Paul Getty Museum. While I'm honestly not much of a fan of most museums (probably because I'm not much of an art connoisseur), I was really excited to visit the Getty simply because I'd heard all about the beautiful architecture, and I was super excited to have a cool place to take pictures. My photography assignment for the week was to shoot come landscapes and urban landscapes, and I thought this might be a fun place to do them.

The Getty campus certainly did not disappoint. The buildings were absolutely beautiful, the landscaping was phenomenal, and the view was flipping fantastic. I could have taken pictures there all day long, much to my husband's chagrin. Actually, the art was pretty interesting as well. While there were certainly a lot of paintings I didn't care much for or really appreciate, there were also many really beautiful pieces of work. There was also actually one entire gallery that was full of paintings by famous artists--famous enough that even I knew who they were! There was a Van Gogh, a Monet, a Renoir, and Degas, and a Cezanne, among others. Even though I'm not a huge fan of impressionism, it was still kind of cool to see a bunch of names I actually recognized!

There was another exhibit elsewhere in the museum that we also really enjoyed, but not because it was beautiful. It was a photography exhibit called "Engaged Observers" that contained several different photography documentaries. There were several photographers' collections that were intense and even horrific (lots of war and poverty) but also incredibly moving. They certainly weren't feel-good kind of pictures, but I was glad we saw them none the less.

My pictures probably won't do the beauty of the whole campus justice, but there might be a few that are worth looking at. The flower garden was especially gorgeous, and I don't do a horrible job photographing flowers since they are completely immobile. This is one of my favorites.


There was another bunch of pictures that was really more about being at the right place at the right time and nothing else. After a brief rain shower we went to the outdoor sculpture garden, and happened to capture this amazing view.


This was darn good luck for me, because I always go crazy for rainbows!

There are a whole lot more pictures from the Getty in the California album, so if you want to watch the slideshow, you can check it out here. Stay tuned for my next post, which includes one more great story about the Getty that ties nicely to our activity the next morning!

The Surprise

The destination of our California trip was the always exciting city of Los Angeles, and the special event was important enough that we brought my dear mother along with us. After we landed and picked up our rental car, our first order of business was to eat at Chad's favorite Cali restaurant, In-N-Out Burger, before checking into our hotel. After resting for a couple of hours, we headed to the location of our very special surprise, which wasn't a surprise for us but was for my very dear brother, who happened to be turning 40 on that very day. My dad was already in LA staying with Eric, so he let us into the apartment, where we tried to decide the best way to surprise my brother for his special day. None of us really had a plan, so after many ideas and counter ideas, I decorated a "happy birthday" poster to put on his door and Chad figured out how to play happy birthday on Eric's guitar. When we finally heard him coming up the stairs, Chad played the tune while sitting on the stairwell out of Eric's view and my mom and I hid behind a bookshelf. Since Eric was on the phone when he arrived home, he really didn't comprehend what he was hearing or seeing, so when he walk into his apartment, he was downright shocked to see his entire family!

Obviously almost anyone would be a little taken aback to have their family arrive at their home unannounced, and Eric was certainly no exception. I think he was especially concerned that his apartment wasn't clean enough and he didn't have enough of a party planned for his birthday. Eric and I were chatting yesterday about his reaction to our surprise, and he said that his initial thought was, "Is this an intervention? I'm not even drunk!" That certainly would have been an alarming thought, and I feel a little bad about shocking him in a bad way, but it was certainly a fun surprise for the rest of us!

My pictures of the surprise moment weren't really very good because of the strong backlight, so obviously I should have broken down and used a flash, but I do love this one taken just a few minutes after Eric got home. It captures his reaction fairly well, I think! There are a few more good ones here if you'd like to check them out!

The Flight

Our flight out to California on Friday morning was relatively uneventful, aside from the little girl behind me that kicked and bumped my seat the entire way. I wouldn't have complained if she hadn't been about 10 years old--entirely capable of controlling her body, in my opinion. Multiple stern looks at her through the seats didn't seem to help, nor did a polite request from Chad to please stop kicking my seat. At times she'd slam the tray table up so hard my entire body would bounce off my seat--it was ridiculous. I finally turned around to say something again and before I could finish my sentence, she blurted out a snotty "SOR-RY" that made me think she wasn't really sorry at all. Lovely.

Our only other in flight excitement was a sudden drop in altitude as we were coming in for a landing which left everyone's stomach in their throat. Since Chad decides when he will start worrying on every flight by the reaction of other more seasoned and less scared passengers, it did not bode well for him when the entire plane gasped in unison. I think he about had a heart attack.

Whenever I fly I always try to grab a window seat so that I can look at the beautiful views below, and this trip was no exception. Flying over the mountains and the desert and the Grand Canyon always astounds me. I've included a couple of my favorite pics in this post, but if you want to see the whole group of them, click here for the slideshow!

The Trip

I've failed to blog during the past week partially because we weren't actually home for much of it! For reasons that will later become clear I was unable to post about our mini-vacation before we went, but over the next few days my plan is to write several relatively small blurbs about several different portions of our trip. That will give me adequate time to edit and upload the ridiculous number of pictures that I took in a 4 day period.

Most of our good friends knew where we were going, but for the few of you who didn't we went to California for the 3rd time in 3 years. Hopefully for our next vacation we'll branch out a little more, but this year there was a particular important event (much like last year) that we didn't want to miss! Pictures to come soon!

Tulsa Mayfest

Here's one more blog post that I should have completed many, many moons ago, but since things were so busy with house shopping and packing and moving during the spring/summer, I just never could find the time to edit all the pictures from the weekend. When I was working on our Christmas letter for 2009 and thinking about all that we did during the year, it hit me that I'd never actually blogged about our trip to Tulsa!

It was a very quick weekend vacation, but one that was so needed at the time. We were just so overwhelmed with house hunting and trying to get ready to sell our house we just wanted to get away from it all just for a couple of days. It worked out perfectly that my favorite band just happened to be playing at a music/arts festival in Tulsa right in the midst of all our house craziness!

We took off on Saturday morning and made the drive south on Highway 169, and taking the scenic route was so incredibly relaxing! The pastures were all so green and lush, the skies were beautiful blue and the air was unseasonably cool. After an enjoyable drive of about 4 hours we arrived at our hotel, right near downtown, where Mayfest was held. Our friend Jason and his girlfriend Tracy met us there, and we headed to the festival, walked through the artist booths, ate horrible fair food and listened to a few bands along the way.

We started moving towards the main stage as the Old 97's showtime neared. There was a pretty big crowd watching the band before them, but as soon as that group finished their set, the crowd started to thin out pretty quickly. We jumped at the opportunity and quickly filled into the front row, which was actually (unfortunately) at least 30 feet from the stage because of a barrier. Regardless, we snagged our four chairs and then moved them up right against the barricade, just to make sure no one else would be able to stand in front of us once the show started. We were determined to be in the front row, even if the front row was 30 feet away from the stage!

The show was excellent, but that pretty much goes without saying when it comes to the Old 97's. Despite the fact that it was downright cold in Tulsa that night, the 97's went all out and put on a terrific show on the outdoor stage. While they didn't play one of my favs (Nightclub), they did play The One, which I'd never heard in concert before. It was a bummer that we were so far from the stage, because that meant my pictures turned out pretty awful, but we still had a great time jumping around and singing at the show!

We regained our hearing on the way back to the hotel, and after a good night's sleep, we headed back over to the festival in the morning and browsed through the art again before heading to a local restaurant for lunch. After a great meal with our friends we hit the road and headed home, taking a different route back just for a change of scenery. The drive home was almost as relaxing as the drive down!

It was really a terrific weekend overall, despite the fact that my pictures of the show turned out so terrible! Most of the shots are so over-exposed they make the guys in the band look like ghosts. If only I'd taken my good camera they would have been a little better. Regardless, here are the pictures from the weekend if you're interested! There are also a few videos if you go directly to my Picasa page!

San Francisco 2009

Obviously this is post that should have been completed many months ago, but better late than never, right?

When we traveled to the San Francisco area back in June for Nate and Leigh Ann's wedding, we went ahead and made a vacation of it, since we knew there was tons to do in San Francisco that we didn't get the chance to do when we were there the previous summer. Since I'm writing this post so many months after our actual vacation, I'm going to try to make it brief and just hit the highlights of our trip.

1. Aquarium of the Bay. I'm actually not a big fan of aquariums in general, but we'd purchased a San Francisco CityPass, and one of the things it included was admission to the aquarium. Since we were right down on Pier 39 anyway waiting for our cruise to start, we decided to check it out while killing time. We actually saw a ton of incredible marine life and found it all very interesting! Verdict: I would totally go back there again if we were in the Pier 39 area.



2. Bay Cruise Adventure. We thought this bay cruise would be interesting because it went underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Even though it was a fairly nice day, we got on the water and it was absolutely freezing. It actually made the cruise fairly miserable, and most of it we felt like we'd seen before on our ride out to Alcatraz last year. Verdict: I would only take this cruise again if it were SUPER warm and sunny and I had a fleece jacket!



3. The Fairmont San Francisco. We booked this hotel because the Donatello that we loved so much the previous year was already full for the few nights we were in the city. They were having a sale one day on Hotels.com and we got it for half their normal price. The location was decent, but overall we just weren't that thrilled with our room. It was a fairly old hotel, and even though the lobby was beautiful, the room really showed its age. Verdict: I would only stay here again if it was on sale and other hotels in the area were already booked!


4. The Exploratorium. This was another place that was included in our CityPass, and although we were probably the only people in the place who weren't there with children, it was still actually pretty cool. There were tons of fascinating things to play with and see and do and explore, and we only made it through the first level and probably only stopped at 75% of the exhibits. You could spend days in that place and not get bored. Verdict: I would go there again and specifically check out the second level that we complete missed!



5. The Cliff House. We specifically went to the Cliff House for lunch because we'd read so much about the history of the place, and the food was really good. We ate in the diner instead of the formal dining room only because we were hungry and the diner was easier to get into, and the ambiance was kind of cute.



6. California Academy of Sciences. This place had a Natural History Museum, and although that's generally not my thing, it had some interesting exhibits. The live penguins were great. It also had a lot of boring exhibits, but hopefully I learned something useful. The Academy also had a rainforest, which was close for repairs/upgrades, an aquarium, which we'd already seen, and a planetarium, which we missed because it closed a couple of hours earlier than the whole building and we didn't know it. Verdict: I probably wouldn't go to the Academy again unless I knew everything was open and we just happened to be in the area.


7. The Beach. It was such a nice day when we came back down from the wine country the beaches all the way down from the north were packed with people. We stopped at this beach at the edge of Golden Gate Park and miraculously found a parking place, so we just got out and took a nice stroll and watched the waves and people and flying kites and dogs. It was lovely and I could have stayed there for hours if I'd had a beach towel. Verdict: I would always go back to the beach on a nice day!


8. Mt. Davidson. This is actually the highest spot in San Francisco, but it's so far from the main city it's not very well publicized. There were absolutely no signs that we could see to direct us there--Chad just kept driving around in circles higher and higher towards the cross on top of its peak. It's a park with an interesting history, and the cross was actually burned down several times before being rebuilt in concrete and steel. The tiny area around the cross was actually sold by the city to a private group, because the city-owned park with a cross was considered to be a violation of the separation of church and state. Besides the interesting history, the views were absolutely amazing. The cross is actually really cool too because it's huge--103 feet tall. Verdict: I would most definitely go back to Mt. Davidson and would recommend it to everyone as well!

9. AT&T Park. The Giants weren't actually in town when we were in the city, but we took a walk down by their stadium, which was absolutely gorgeous. Even though I'm not a Giants fan, I think it would be super cool to see a game there. Verdict: I probably wouldn't go see the stadium again on a day that it wasn't open, but I'd definitely go back to see the Giants play!

We did also go back down to the Union Square area to get dinner and drop off our rental car, but since that was something we also did last year, it's probably not work blogging about. We tried to get Uncle Vito's pizza again since we loved it the first time, but the line was so long we ended up getting pizza at some other place that wasn't very good. Verdict: next time we'll stand in line for Uncle Vito's!

If you want to see lots (and I mean lots) more pictures from our trip, check out the full slideshow!

Road Test

Today I'm trying something new on the old blog just out of sheer
boredom. We're currently driving through Oklahoma on our way to
Dallas for the 3-Day, and although I'm enjoying the quality time with
my dear husband, I'm tired of being in the car and I'm trying to pass
the time. I hadn't tried posting via email yet (although I've been
known to post via Chad's Blackberry), so I thought I'd give it a go
even though I really have nothing to say!! So there. I guess that's
it. We're driving and I'm super excited. Twenty-four hours from now
I'll be finishing up my first 20 miles!

Wine Country Wedding

Over the weekend we went to a terrific pre-Labor Day BBQ hosted by our friends Leigh Ann and Nate, which reminded me that I need to get my rear in gear and actually talk about their wedding that we went to a few months ago! Our trip to California at the end of June was centered around this fantastic event!

Nate and Leigh Ann's wedding was held at the beautiful vineyard home of Leigh Ann's uncle in an adorable little town in Sonoma county called Healdsburg. We arrived in Healdsburg late in the morning on the wedding day, and spent an hour or so walking around the lovely town square and shopping in the touristy little stores. By the time we checked into our hotel in nearby Geyserville early in the afternoon, it was SUPER hot out (I had no idea the climate was so different in wine country than in San Fran), so I took a dip in the hotel pool, which was really quite nice! My friend Emily and her husband Ashford arrived a couple of hours later, and in the early evening we all rode over to Leigh Ann's uncle's house together in the Hummer that Em and Ash had gotten as a rental car.

The wedding itself was absolutely perfect, which isn't surprising at all since Leigh Ann is a meticulous planner and an amazing host. The setting was gorgeous, with her uncle's vines directly behind the gazebo. The weather was wonderful, with perfect temperatures in the shade even though the sun was a little hot. The music was very unique and meaningful to the couple--completely non-traditional and very fun. Leigh Ann looked absolutely gorgeous (see my favorite photo to the right) and was flanked by her sister and her fabulously fun friends. The ceremony was one of a kind, especially because Nate's best friend from high school was the minister! Everything about the wedding was personalized and perfect!

The reception was also at the family vineyard, with incredible wine (obviously) and fabulous food. We ate at perfectly appointed tables out on the lawn, which were each named after a band instead of simply given a table number. Each band was a band that Nate and/or Leigh Ann had seen live, and since they came to the Old 97's show last year in Lawrence, we got to sit at the Old 97's table, of course! This fun and unique idea is just the kind of incredible detail that goes into every gathering Leigh Ann plans. I've often thought that she missed her calling as a party planner!

During dinner we enjoyed live music from a band, who went on to provide dancing music after dinner. We talked and laughed and socialized with our friends, mostly current and former friends from KU Endowment, late into the night. Everyone had such a great time, and thankfully, the celebration didn't end there! The next morning we all gathered together to jump onto a bus which took us on a wine tour that Leigh Ann had also planned! We stopped by four different wineries that day, all with beautiful views and terrific wines. After learning how incredibly complicated the wine making process is, I came to appreciate why good wine is so expensive!

Chad was such a good sport on the wine tour, because even though he isn't a wine fan at all he actually tasted almost all of them! There were only a couple that he might actually drink, one of which I remembered because the staff at Dry Creek Vineyard nicknamed it the "porch pounder" since it was such an easy-drinking white!

After a long day of wine-tasting, we all gathered together in a local park to eat massive amounts of food cooked up by Leigh Ann's dad. It was a fun and exhausting day, but after a few hours of down time by the pool we actually managed to go out and enjoy a little more food with Emily and Ashford late that night. Spending so much quality time with my friend Emily, who moved to Utah over a year ago, was such an added benefit of this California wedding. Emily and I had a great time hanging out, but it made me miss having her in Lawrence that much more!

We obviously had an amazing time at Leigh Ann and Nate's wedding celebration and were so very thankful to have been invited! They are such terrific friends. If you're interested, here are tons more pictures of the wedding and wine tour!

Home

Last night we returned from our wonderful California vacation, and as lovely as the trip was, we were so glad to be home with our dogs! Since our house needed to be empty while we were away (for the appraisal and inspection), Hope and Fresco stayed at Home Sweet Home doggy daycare and Celtic (who turned 12 while we were away) stayed at my mom's. Knowing that they weren't in the comfort of our own home made us much more anxious about leaving them, but thankfully they all survived the six days without us.

I'm excited to share the pictures of our trip and am loading them onto the computer as I type, but I'm sure it will be quite a while before I can get them organized and find the time to blog about everything. This week is going to be busy! Tonight I watched Chad play in two softball games and the next two nights we have houseguests--hooray for Jake and Amber's visit! We're so excited to see them as well as our friends James and Beth, who will be here on Thursday! Hopefully I'll get back to blogging on Friday when we have the day off! :)

Vacation!!!

Our lives have been so busy with house issues the last few months I haven't even had the chance to mention that we're leaving for vacation tomorrow morning--just another reason the house contract came at such a divinely perfect time! While it's not exactly ideal that we're gone this week while we should be meeting with inspectors and lenders, we planned this trip quite some time ago in conjunction with my friend Leigh Ann's wedding, which will be Friday night at her uncle's house in Sonoma county. We thought as long as we're going to the San Fran area, we should make a vacation out of it! I'm really excited!

In honor of our trip, I decided to actually post the final set of pictures from our San Francisco visit last year. In the back of my mind I knew I'd never finished blogging about our vacation, but I just couldn't seem to find the time to do it! Today I actually went through that last group of pics and put captions with them, so hopefully that's almost as good as actually blogging about our activities during those last days of our trip! Enjoy!!

California: Lombard Street

For anyone just tuning in, we took a vacation to San Francisco back in June. I wanted to recall and record the details of our trip after our return home, but I couldn't seem to get all the blogging done in a timely manner, so I'm doing it bit by bit as life allows. This is the next installment of the California series. To see all the previous vacation stories together, just click here.

As I mentioned last time, from the top of Coit Tower we spotted our next destination--one that we knew we wanted to visit while in San Fran but hadn't really worked into our plans yet. If you look at this picture, you might be able to see (in the top right quadrant of the frame) the tourist spot that we were drawn to. After seeing it at this height, we decided to make the walk up to Lombard Street.

Since we'd already walked a good 8 miles that day, we decided to just keep on hoofing it towards the famous crooked part of Lombard, which was only about 1 more hilly mile away. It was actually a pretty fun walk, because there are so many beautiful homes along Lombard Street. I was completely fascinated by the way most front doors on this street were straight up a steep flight of stairs, and most tiny garages were positioned directly beneath each home. No yards, no porches--all houses attached to each other. There were some really cool homes, but it is such a different way of living than here in the Midwest!

When we arrived at the "crookedest street" in San Francisco, we pretty much just walked the steps up to the top and took lots of pictures. They've done some beautiful landscaping on this block, and there are wonderful views of Alcatraz and Coit Tower from the top of the hill, but it's still kind of funny that it's become such a crazy big tourist draw. There are tons of people walking up and down the street at any given time and almost always a line of cars waiting to take their turn just to drive down it. It's kind of crazy that people are so entertained by this, since there's really not much to actually do here except climb up and down a bunch of stairs! With that said, I'm still very glad we visited Lombard!

California: Coit Tower

After walking almost 7 miles on the Sunday morning of our vacation, Chad and I were obviously pretty tired. However, because we aren't people who generally like to hang out in our hotel room while traveling, we only spent an hour or so resting before heading back out on the town. Our next stop: Coit Tower. We walked down to a nearby bus stop and took the F-Line, which is actually not a bus at all but a historic streetcar. It was a fun experience, but once again the thing was so packed you could barely move!

We jumped off the F-Line less than a half mile from our destination; the only problem was that Coit Tower is smack on top of Telegraph Hill, a hill so steep that you climb stairs to get to the top. It was kind of an interesting climb, since the "street" that goes up to the tower is more like an alley that goes behind people's houses, so you're basically climbing the stairs up into their yards. I can't imagine living in an area like that which doesn't have a driveway or a street to park on or anything. It looked like they would have to park on a street that wrapped around the hill and then walk up to their front door. Can you imagine bringing home the groceries that way?

Anyway, we made it to Coit Tower and went into the gift shop to buy our tickets to go up to the top. The gift shop smelled pretty bizarre--not in a good way. We bought our tickets and then stood in line for several minutes before climbing onto the ricketiest, tiniest, smelliest little elevator you've ever seen. It really smelled like a dirty cat litter box. I honestly couldn't believe Chad got on it at all--it looked so not safe. Had there been a stairwell that went all the way to the top, we most certainly would have taken it, but apparently there were no working stairs in the place!

Thankfully, we made it to the top in one piece and the beautiful views from atop the city were spectacular. You could see all the sites of San Francisco perfectly from a birds-eye view--it was almost like looking at a map in some ways. We took tons of pictures, none of which really turned out that great because they were all taken through a pane of dirty plexiglass. It appeared that the plexiglass wasn't a part of the original structure, and despite the fact that it obstructed the view somewhat, I could totally see why it was necessary. The wind was so fierce that high up on the hill, it almost felt like the tower was swaying back and forth. The wind whistled through the cracks in the windows so loudly, I wondered if it wouldn't blow you over completely if the windows hadn't been there at all!

After saying a few prayers for elevator safety we held our breath and traveled back down to solid ground. We took one more picture of Coit Tower from the outside just to get some perspective. It doesn't look that big from this angle, but those tiny little windows in groups of 3 at the top are the windows we were looking out in this picture! It's much taller than I think it looks here!

As we sat by this statue of some important person we consulted our map and headed off on our next adventure--one that we only decided on after seeing it from a distance from the top of the tower!

California: Golden Gate Bridge

I'll bet you completely forgot that I never finished my posts about our trip to San Francisco. Oh wait...maybe you were actually just wishing that I'd forget to finish my San Francisco posts. Well no such luck. I'm going to stick it out until the very end, assuming that I actually remember the end of our vacation by the time I get around to writing about it. My new goal is to finish by Thanksgiving. :) Here's the next chapter of our exciting adventure.

The day after checking into our hotel near Union Square, we woke up early and had a relaxing breakfast in the penthouse lounge of the Donatello before walking a few blocks down to the start of the cable car line. We waited in line for 20 minutes or so, which is why I took so many pictures of the cable cars coming in for the turnaround. It was really quite a fascinating, because I didn't really have any idea how this old-fashioned method of transportation actually worked until we got there. At the end of the line, the car comes to a stop on a rotating wooden platform, and then one of the operators actually pushes the whole car around in a circle to get it going the other direction. It was a genius design back when it was invented in the late 1800s, but it's so amazingly inefficient by today's standards. I wonder if they would have updated the method of operation by now if the cable cars weren't a National Historic Landmark!

When it was finally our turn to board, we jumped on the Powell-Hyde line and I took the last seat that was left. The car was full enough that Chad had to stand inside, but what we didn't realize was that the car would continue to stop for passengers regardless of the fact that we were already full. We were completely shocked at how many people they squeezed onto each car! At every stop more people piled on, and the operators kept barking orders to the standing passengers to keep crowding together so that more people would fit. Poor Chad was just about squished by a mass of tourists! Thankfully, many people were only riding to the top of the hill to Lombard Street (the "crookedest" street in San Fran), so the second half of our journey wasn't quite as crowded.

We hopped off the trolley at the end of the line, which is down near Fisherman's Wharf. At this point we started walking to the west, with our destination being a bus line that would take us to the Golden Gate Bridge. The walk to our bus stop ended up being a bit a of a haul, not because of the distance (it was just under a mile), but because of the huge hill that we had to walk up next to the old Army post, Fort Mason. The view of the fort and the GGB from the top of the hill was beautiful though and well worth the hike!

Unfortunately we arrived at our bus stop right after the bus had just left, so we had to wait about 20 minutes for the next bus to the bridge to depart. Once our bus departed, it was a short couple of miles to the parking lot of San Fran's main attraction. After taking a few pictures of the bridge with hundreds of other tourists, we set off on our journey to the other side.

Our walk across the Golden Gate Bridge consisted of me taking tons of pictures, and Chad trying not to look out over the railing at the water below. He walked mostly on the edge of the walkway right next to where the cars were whizzing by, and had no interest stopping a lot for me to pull out the camera. There were so many beautiful views I just couldn't help myself, but every time we stopped I could see the look of tension on my dear husband's face--his uneasiness in high places was certainly taking its toll!

As we'd discovered driving across the bridge a couple of days before, the sheer size of this architectural marvel is so astounding when you're up close. You don't really realize how long it is (it's still the second longest suspension bridge span in the U.S.) until you set out to walk across! It took us around 45 minutes to walk the 1.5 miles across, including all the stops for picture taking and reading about the bridge along the way. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful and perfect for a stroll. It was of course incredibly windy, but the sun was shining and it was extremely warm for San Francisco. I didn't even need my jacket most of the time! When we arrived at the north end of the bridge and stopped to take some pictures, I decided I'd bust out the zoom lens and take a few shots of the city and Alcatraz. Unfortunately, the wind was so strong there was no way I could hold the lens steady enough to take a decent shot!

One thing that we found a little shocking on our trek across the bridge was the plethora of these signs, which say "The consequences of jumping from this bridge are fatal and tragic." The signs were accompanied by a suicide hotline phone. It made the trip across a little morbid and depressing, since I certainly hadn't previously realized that it was common for the bridge to have so many jumpers. According to Wikipedia, there is a suicide from the bridge about every 2 weeks. There have been multiple documentaries and studies done on the subject, which sound terribly disturbing to me. Apparently there are only a couple of people who have ever survived the jump, since the fall is so far that people hit the water at a very high rate of of speed (ironically, 88 miles per hour, which might only be ironic if you're a Back to the Future fan like I am). As morbid as the the whole thing was, I have to admit I chuckled a little that they felt the need to say that jumping was "fatal and tragic." Was it not enough to say that it was fatal? Is there a time when a suicide attempt isn't tragic? Really?

Okay, sorry for the depressing digression. Back to the story.

After finishing our 3 mile hike across the bridge and back, we started to sit down and wait for the bus to take us back to the Fisherman's Wharf area. As Chad was looking at the map, he noticed that Crissy Field (an old military airfield that's now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area) was nearby, and remembered that there was a big sports warehouse near there that we had talked about visiting. We decided to just walk there, since we were in our good walking shoes and it didn't look very far on the map. It ended up being about a mile and a half, so we were a little pooped by the time we got there since that brought our total walking for the day to almost 6 miles.

We shopped around Sports Basement for a while and bought some new shoes and other athletic apparel, and then grabbed energy bars and drinks for a quick lunch. We headed off to find a bus stop, although we weren't really sure what bus to get on since we hadn't really planned on being in this location in the first place. Thankfully, Chad was very good at reading the route map, so he figured out a route that would work and pointed us towards the proper stop. As luck would have it, on our way there we accidentally happened upon the most beautiful scene, where I of course had to stop and take a few more postcard worthy pictures. The building turned out to be the Palace of Fine Arts, which is surrounded by a big pond with a fountain and tons of ducks and geese. It was so gorgeous!

A few blocks later we came to our bus stop, and thankfully the bus was just getting ready to head off towards our hotel, so we didn't have to wait at all. Much like the cable car, the bus was crazily crowded. Fortunately this time we both got seats, which was nice since we were pretty exhausted from walking almost 7 miles that morning! We made it back to our hotel in the early afternoon and enjoyed a little rest and relaxation to recover from our fun-filled morning!