Monday, September 29, 2014
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Monday, September 15, 2014
Friday, September 12, 2014
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Breaking in My Writing Chops
How long has it been since I've written? 15 days? A month? The video uploads are much easier to upload. BUT! I told myself I would write, so here I go!
Chris's wedding and a big shaker!
After moving out, we went to our wonderful friend (and Bridesman) Chris's wedding!
We stayed (since we are now officially FUN-emloyed) at an Air BNB, which was the home of a VERY nice, very altruistic woman who rescued/fostered dogs. FOUR dogs. I know, I'm supposed to be a dog person. But when the dogs break down the door to your room at 7AM!!!! The dogs also were only indoor dogs, which was fairly difficult to breathe inside.
It was wonderful to spend one last hurrah with all the UCLA friends I've had and see some old friends from a long time ago! The wedding was beautiful, felt so short because it was so fun, and the MAYOR who married Chris and Lindsay was hilarious! We explored the beach, and then went to downtown LA for awesome street food breakfast (homemade sausage egg sandwiches). Since Terryn was a LITTLE hungover, we went to the nice dark Griffon Observatory, where we explored and hung out in the planetarium SUPER FUN!
When we came back, Jen--our wonderful Jen!--let us crash in her room. Slumber party! We slumbered pretty well--until the 3am wake-up from the Napa earthquake!!! We all woke up in Redwood City to the whole house shaking! We drove up the next morning to clear up the Mud Hut (Gregg's folk's house). Holy Smokes was everything upside down! There was a six mile crack down the levy. Their house is right on the river, and we lucked out that our house was super duper triple reinforced. The neighbor's houses were not so luck. One neighbor had a 30 gallon fishtank. One had his dock and boat swim away down the river. Not good!
We lucked out mostly with our stored stuff. Our stuff was on the second floor of a building in Napa, and the building next door in the storage area got red tagged. Ours was yellow, meaning no elevators and only 1 of the 3 staircases was ok. When walking down the hallway, some of the storage doors were bent like there had been someone inside trying to break out! Most of our boxes were ok, just everything kinda shifted about 45*. A few hours of grunt work was all it took.
We finished all the moving for the rest of the week. Then off to Bishop!
The Neighbors backyard--about 2 inches further from the river than before
The neighbor on the other side of the Mud Hut's dock. I think one piling might be a little bit shorter now that the shaker has shaken it.
Chris's wedding and a big shaker!
After moving out, we went to our wonderful friend (and Bridesman) Chris's wedding!
We stayed (since we are now officially FUN-emloyed) at an Air BNB, which was the home of a VERY nice, very altruistic woman who rescued/fostered dogs. FOUR dogs. I know, I'm supposed to be a dog person. But when the dogs break down the door to your room at 7AM!!!! The dogs also were only indoor dogs, which was fairly difficult to breathe inside.
It was wonderful to spend one last hurrah with all the UCLA friends I've had and see some old friends from a long time ago! The wedding was beautiful, felt so short because it was so fun, and the MAYOR who married Chris and Lindsay was hilarious! We explored the beach, and then went to downtown LA for awesome street food breakfast (homemade sausage egg sandwiches). Since Terryn was a LITTLE hungover, we went to the nice dark Griffon Observatory, where we explored and hung out in the planetarium SUPER FUN!
When we came back, Jen--our wonderful Jen!--let us crash in her room. Slumber party! We slumbered pretty well--until the 3am wake-up from the Napa earthquake!!! We all woke up in Redwood City to the whole house shaking! We drove up the next morning to clear up the Mud Hut (Gregg's folk's house). Holy Smokes was everything upside down! There was a six mile crack down the levy. Their house is right on the river, and we lucked out that our house was super duper triple reinforced. The neighbor's houses were not so luck. One neighbor had a 30 gallon fishtank. One had his dock and boat swim away down the river. Not good!
We lucked out mostly with our stored stuff. Our stuff was on the second floor of a building in Napa, and the building next door in the storage area got red tagged. Ours was yellow, meaning no elevators and only 1 of the 3 staircases was ok. When walking down the hallway, some of the storage doors were bent like there had been someone inside trying to break out! Most of our boxes were ok, just everything kinda shifted about 45*. A few hours of grunt work was all it took.
We finished all the moving for the rest of the week. Then off to Bishop!
The neighbor on the other side of the Mud Hut's dock. I think one piling might be a little bit shorter now that the shaker has shaken it.
Last view of the house.
I learned how to make fried chicken, gravy, biscuits, and green beans!
Friday, September 5, 2014
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Hello from on the road
We are in our warm up phase of our travels. We just spent a wonderful weekend with Chris and Lindsey Watson at their amazing wedding in Redondo Beach,CA. Now we are at LAX enjoying the life of traveling and flight delays ;) Since we are here with little else to do I thought I'd finish our first of hopefully many videos. So as soon its published to youtube I will post it here it on the blog. Stay tuned!
Cheers,
Gregg
Monday, August 18, 2014
Halfway gone--completely if you are only counting the really important stuff...
The going away party has partied, the storage shed has reached that "practice climbing in order to get to that one thing you shouldn't have packed away" status, and we have almost all our hostels for Japan, Nepal and China figured out! Gregg and my last working days are this week, and we have our last wedding of the year this weekend (Yay Chris and Lindsay!), and then we'll both be signing off at work next Monday.
It still isn't hitting me--it's kinda like right before you leave for college!
The one major crazy thing we forgot to remember before we left (aside from SOMEHOW still not having our malaria pills)---any kind of lightbulb in our room for the week now that all our furniture has been put in storage. I'm not sure how, but this week's night time we will be living like farm hands in the 1700s--asleep when the sun goes down. Which is good, since sleeping on an air mattress is never something I've mastered.
Off to pack more boxes! And call Kaiser. Attempt number 6 for malaria pills--go!
It still isn't hitting me--it's kinda like right before you leave for college!
The one major crazy thing we forgot to remember before we left (aside from SOMEHOW still not having our malaria pills)---any kind of lightbulb in our room for the week now that all our furniture has been put in storage. I'm not sure how, but this week's night time we will be living like farm hands in the 1700s--asleep when the sun goes down. Which is good, since sleeping on an air mattress is never something I've mastered.
Off to pack more boxes! And call Kaiser. Attempt number 6 for malaria pills--go!
Monday, July 7, 2014
And so it begins
Where to start?
It started well beyond when Gregg and I met, but you could say it planted on Valentine’s Day, 2011. Gregg sat across from me and said “I have this idea, but I’m not sure if now’s the time to bring it up. How about we retire early and travel around the world for a year?” In the first second, I thought he meant, like, at 50 years old, when theoretically we might have just kicked our first kid to the curb outside the college of his or her choice.
When it hit me that...wait...he meant in a couple years, my ears perked up more. “I’m in. I’m all in.”
Three years, a wedding, a couple international trips, thousands of miles driving to Utah, Bishop, Yosemite, Tahoe, and Santa Barbara later, it’s time. We’re hitting the road!
Well, at least the tarmac. :)
As these last couple months fly by, as I try to juggle getting strong for the rock climbing ahead, the mountains to climb, making sure my job doesn't explode the second I leave, packing, and saying goodbye (not to mention 4 weddings, when did we get old enough to have so many married friends?!), I can’t believe my amazing fortune to travel the world with my best friend. I can’t imagine leaving, but I know that I have to drop everything to take this chance for an amazing adventure.
So here it is! We've bought our first batch of flights, we're waiting in line for Chinese visas, I've actually dragged Gregg on a couple training runs (shocking), and we have less than 2 months until we fly off to Japan to start this journey. I'm not sure the plans when we get back. Part of me wants to set up a ton of options, part of me wants to wait until we return to see what I have planned. But all of me is full of this nervous energy. We're pulling a latitude to the nth degree.
It started well beyond when Gregg and I met, but you could say it planted on Valentine’s Day, 2011. Gregg sat across from me and said “I have this idea, but I’m not sure if now’s the time to bring it up. How about we retire early and travel around the world for a year?” In the first second, I thought he meant, like, at 50 years old, when theoretically we might have just kicked our first kid to the curb outside the college of his or her choice.
When it hit me that...wait...he meant in a couple years, my ears perked up more. “I’m in. I’m all in.”
Three years, a wedding, a couple international trips, thousands of miles driving to Utah, Bishop, Yosemite, Tahoe, and Santa Barbara later, it’s time. We’re hitting the road!
Well, at least the tarmac. :)
As these last couple months fly by, as I try to juggle getting strong for the rock climbing ahead, the mountains to climb, making sure my job doesn't explode the second I leave, packing, and saying goodbye (not to mention 4 weddings, when did we get old enough to have so many married friends?!), I can’t believe my amazing fortune to travel the world with my best friend. I can’t imagine leaving, but I know that I have to drop everything to take this chance for an amazing adventure.
So here it is! We've bought our first batch of flights, we're waiting in line for Chinese visas, I've actually dragged Gregg on a couple training runs (shocking), and we have less than 2 months until we fly off to Japan to start this journey. I'm not sure the plans when we get back. Part of me wants to set up a ton of options, part of me wants to wait until we return to see what I have planned. But all of me is full of this nervous energy. We're pulling a latitude to the nth degree.
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