The First 6

It's been a few weeks since we've updated the blog and my mom has been asking me every time I've talked to her if we've written a new post so I think it is time for a quick update!

Mike ended his first work contract at the beginning of May down in Poway/ Escondido.  We decided to spend the weekend in nearby San Diego after his last shift.  We've had tickets for the San Diego zoo for a few months and I'd been itching to check it out so this proved to be the perfect opportunity.  We didn't take too many pictures but did snap a picture of this cute little panda bear munching on eucalyptus.  The zoo was huge and amazing; we really enjoyed our time here.

While in San Diego we also visited the Gaslamp Quarters which is full of restaurants, shopping, and bars.  We took in a movie ("Act of Valor"- we liked it!) and then had dinner and drinks afterwards.  It was a perfect weekend.

The first weekend in May Mike completed a half marathon in Newport Beach.  He signed up with a friend from our small group, Dustin, and a few of Dustin's friends.  Mike had a few weeks to train and did an awesome job; he received a time of 1 hour and 47 minutes, a personal best for him!

Dustin is standing next to Mike

Bear Grylls, from the show "Man Vs. Wild" spoke at Saddleback Church.  I was working but Mike was able to attend.  Below is a picture of Bear scaling the wall at church.  He's definitely an entertaining and talented outdoorsman.  

This past weekend Mike and I briefly visited Long Beach.  After work on Friday we drove over and walked 2nd Street.  We found a tasty mexican restaurant and enjoyed happy hour specials while watching the Laker's playoff game.  Afterwards, we found a cute cupcake shop, "The Frosted Cupcake", and both picked out decadent cupcakes to enjoy.  Mike got chocolate toffee and I enjoyed white coconut. Yum!  

On Saturday we headed to downtown Los Angeles (can you believe we've been here for almost 6 months and I haven't even explored LA yet??!!).  We watched the Clippers play...and lose. It was a good game, though, and was close for most of it.  We had nosebleed seats at the very top of the stadium as you can tell from the picture but they were comfortable and roomy on the aisle and we could see pretty well even from that height.

All the fans got free Clipper's t-shirts 

Standing in front of the Staples center where the Clippers and Lakers play

After the game we walked around LA Live.  This area is full of a variety of restaurants, bars, museums, and stadiums.  The taping of the show "American Idol" is held here in the Nokia Theater and this is also home to the Grammy Museum.  Mike and I found an outdoor patio to sip on a few drinks and people watch.  

We headed to Santa Monica after that and did a little shopping in downtown Santa Monica.  We also enjoyed watching the numerous street performers along the way.  Below is a picture of a woman in her 70's who was putting on a singing and dancing performance.  It was not very good but it WAS entertaining.  I made Mike take a picture.  Many of the street performers are actually very talented and I've been told some famous singers/ musicians have been discovered this way. It was also rumored that one of the women contestants from the show "The Voice" comes out and performs regularly; however, we never saw her.

  

Dragons made out of bushes in the middle of the shops.

At night the trees lit up; it was actually much prettier in person. 

We finished up the evening at a restaurant called "Yankee Noodle" and coincidentally ran into some of Mike's friends from Purdue (crazy, huh?!).  The couple moved out to Santa Monica around the time we moved to California, too.  We were excited to find that we have a few more friends here! 

We are just coming up on 6 months of living here in California and couldn't be happier.  We feel very settled and are enjoying exploring all that California has to offer.  We can't wait for what's in store for the next 6!

Mike's Birthday

Mike is turning 27 tomorrow (April 23rd) but we celebrated his birthday this past weekend since he (unfortunately) has to work on his birthday.  But before we delve into all of the birthday festivities we participated in this weekend let me recap what we did last weekend. 

Birthday cupcake with gobs of chocolate icing

Originally, we had big plans to drive up to San Francisco. Mike had the entire weekend off which doesn't happen often so we wanted to utilize the time; however, the weather ended up being uncooperative.  We bounced around ideas of other places to go for a weekend trip but in the end decided to stay a little closer to home.  We did make a short trip south to Temecula, an area about an hour from Orange and known for all of it's wineries.  We visited one winery there called Leonesse (recommended by our friends Sarah Romberg and Jon Gibson who visited there when they came to see us) which had breathtaking views and a number of very tasty wines.  We did wine tasting and bought a bottle to share.  There was a restaurant on site where we had lunch with the most delicious french fries I've ever eaten.  They were truffle fries sprinkled with gorgonzola cheese and I'm pretty sure I could feel my arteries clogging with each bite.  We had a really nice visit there and then finished up the weekend with a concert at our church (Ryan Travis and Matt Redman).  

Overlooking the vineyard at Leonesse Winery

Squinty eyed self-portrait with views of the winery in back

We started Mike's birthday festivities on Friday with a giant frosted cupcake (waiting for him at home after work for breakfast!) and later dinner out at a restaurant that he'd been wanting to try called "Yard House".  I didn't give him too much information on what we were doing for the weekend but did inform him that he'd need to be ready to leave the house on Saturday morning by 5:30 am.  He'd been talking about skydiving for a few months now so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for him to try it out.  We headed north to Lompoc, California which is about an hour north of Santa Barbara and a three hour drive from our apartment in Orange.  Two hours and fifteen minutes into the drive Mike informs me that he didn't bring his wallet or any forms of identification <insert loud sigh from me>.   A driver's license was required to do the skydiving and I hadn't considered that I should make sure he brought his wallet (lesson learned).  Luckily, we called the skydiving company and they were willing to accept a copy of his license which Mike did have in an email.  Crisis averted.  Mike did his jump, loved it, and survived.  Success!

All geared up for his jump. I was more nervous than he was!

The airplane getting ready to take off!

This picture speaks for itself :) 

Mike is attached to the parachute in front.

We headed down to Santa Barbara after skydiving and explored the town.  We had lunch at Palazzio, an Italian restaurant that gave GIGANTIC portion sizes and had melt-in-your-mouth, to-die -for garlic rolls.  And they give you three of them.  Immediately.  When you sit down. And then keep bringing them every time you stop chewing.  The food was delicious but the portions were so big we only ate 1/3 of our food and we even shared our entree! 

Garlic rolls at Palazzio

And yet, even after that we still had room for gelato.

Enjoying peanut butter and salted caramel gelato (2 flavors for the price of 1!)  in front of a beautiful old church in downtown Santa Barbara.

After we finished gorging ourselves we walked around downtown exploring some of the many shops and investigating the nearby neighborhoods with beautiful older homes.  We stumbled across an Earth Day festival in a city park and walked around checking out the different vendors present.

Earth Day Festival

It's hard to see but there were a group of kids rolling around a huge planet earth ball in this picture.

We drove a mile down the road and checked out an old Spanish mission that is in the heart of Santa Barbara.  It was founded in 1786 and is now used for several different purposes including a museum, a church, a retreat center, a cemetery, and a garden.  It was a beautiful piece of history to see.

 

 

For the most part, the weather was beautiful, warm and sunny but there was an interesting looming cloud that seemed to hover near the water.  It was at least ten to fifteen degrees colder and much foggier near the ocean but we decided to check out a Santa Barbara beach anyways.  The beach we chose to explore was called Hendry's Beach and allowed dogs on the beach. It was pretty entertaining watching so many dogs off leash play in the water and run at top speeds to jump in the waves.  We didn't stay too long though because it was a bit chilly.

The "looming" cloud

Hendry's beach. Not the best picture but the ocean is a little further out.

We decided to drive back to Orange after that and have a late dinner locally since we were both still stuffed from lunch.  We tried out a local Mexican restaurant in downtown Orange called Avilla.  It is in an old church that was converted to a restaurant.  The atmosphere was fun, the food was delicious (the salsa was so-so) and the margaritas were yummy, too!  It was a good way to finish out the weekend.  

Passion fruit margarita

Happy Birthday Mikey!!!

Adios, until next time!