13th Anniversary Lunch

Haven't posted in a long time, but thought I'd drop in some quick pictures from our anniversary day out. We snuck out to Pebble Beach for the day and had lunch at Roy's at Spanish Bay.

Not the type of food Faith normally likes, but I talked her into it and she ended up having a really good meal. She has surf-and-turf with filet mignon and mahi mahi over potatoes, rice and vegetables. I had the bento box with butterfish, salmon sashimi, california rolls, and ahi tempura. Especially nice were the customized menus they had for our anniversary. Definitely worth calling ahead for, and a wonderful way to celebrate 13 years together.

After lunch we had a little dessert at the main inn at Pebble Beach and drove around 17 Mile Drive enjoying the views of the Pacific.

We finished off the rest of the evening in Monterey with a lighter dinner and some shopping (Faith's favorite) before heading home to see the little ones.

HP Discounts

If you need a discount on HP gear, feel free to check out this link. It appears to be the same discount we get as employees.

Spring Break

Just a short note about Spring Break. The kids had the week off from school, and HP 'highly encouraged' everyone in software to take a week off this quarter, so we had a fun family week. For Easter, my folks came over for the standard egg hunts, etc. Then during the week we did some fun activities like bowling and miniature golf, and the kids had a blast. Then to end the week we went over to Atwater to visit my parents again and do a trip up to Jamestown, which is a cool little old gold rush town in the foothills. It's main draw is that they have a railroad museum, and a we rode the old steam engine on a trip through the hills, which the kids thought was cool. Finally, to finish out the time, we visited my cousins who bought a vacation/retirement home in Cooperopolis, which is about 15 mins from Jamestown. It's a beautiful place on a golf course, and reminds me of the Grand Californian hotel at Disneyland. Sadly we were having so much fun there, we forgot to take pictures, but some of the other pictures are here.

Christmas 2008 Recap

Well, as the Christmas vacation time comes to a close, and the inevitable return to work/school creeps ever closer, I thought I'd post a quick recap in an attempt to hold on a little longer. It was a blessed time for our family, and we were able to do a lot and spend a lot of time together, so for that I'm very grateful.

We kicked off the season with 3 performances in a row. Iain and Allison had their school Christmas performances on back-to-back nights, and then Allison and Amber had their winter dance recital on the following day. If you're wondering, yes, that's too many performances in a row.

Like many companies, HP had a mandatory shutdown for the two weeks around the holidays, so before Christmas, we took the kids out for their first ice skating experience. While they spent a good amount of time on their bottoms, Iain, Allison, and Amber all were able to skate around unassisted by the end.

I also had a first, by attempting my hand at homemade pizza. Sadly, it took a burned arm and 2 bad attempts before we got something that was pretty good. Definitely not my last attempt.

The holiday was a wonderful time, as we were able to spend it with both Faith's and my parents, so the kids had an unending supply of grandparents to perform for. As usual, the women made enough food to feed an army, and the men were happy to oblige by eating enough for an army as well.

After things settled down a little bit, I was able to take Iain out with Faith's dad to do a little target shooting down at Clear Creek. It was a long drive for not a lot of shooting, but it was worth it to get out of the house, and Iain was able to fire Faith's dad's .45 automatic for the first time, which he thought was pretty cool.

We just finished 'un-making' Christmas around the house and packing all the decorations away, but it was blessed and joyous time we're not soon to forget. I hope all our friends and family had a wonderful Christmas and that we'll see a prosperous new year in 2009. (ok, ok 2008 didn't set too high of a bar, I know)

I did my best to capture some snippets of this in our Christmas 2008 web album.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with Faith's mom and dad, and had a really good time. Her dad smoked a turkey as always and it was excellent. The kids dressed up as pilgrims... well, except for Iain who thought indians were way cooler. All in all it was a good day. I put some pictures in a Thanksgiving 2008 web album.

Disneyland Trip

I'm a little late posting, but better late than never. At the end of Oct, I took a week off of work because Iain and Allison had the better part of the week off from school, so it sounded like a perfect opportunity for a vacation. After much debate, we settled on a trip down to Disneyland so we could see the Magic Kingdom and California Adventure.

We had taken Iain and Allison about 4 years ago, but it was the first time we had the whole family. Needless to say it was a lot of fun. Each of the kids got to meet their favorite Disney characters, and ride all the cool rides. I put together a web album of some of the better pictures so we have documented proof that they had fun. ;-)

Now we just need a vacation to rest up from our vacation!

Beach Trip

So in what Faith would call an 'unprecedented move', I took a day off of work and we went on a day trip to the beach over near Santa Cruz.

We almost had a family portrait at the beach, but we couldn't tear Iain away from fishing with his grandpa. The fish weren't biting too well, but he did get a few little bullhead which at least gave him a sense of accomplishment even if it wasn't dinner.

For more pictures, check out the Web Album of our Trip to the Beach.