Big Trees

For my birthday this year, we went to the cabin and to a play. On the drive up, we realized that Pieter had never been to Big Trees (how? I don't know; it's 5 miles from the cabin and I've been so many times that I guess I thought we'd taken him) For those of you who don't know, Big Trees is a park where you can see some of the biggest Sequoias in the world! Check out the one below:

They cut it down in the 1800 for an exhibition in New York and built a dance hall on it, using the stump as the floor! It's that huge!

Here are some other pictures we took while exploring...I missed getting a picture of the tree people used to drive their cars through though.

Amy's Bridal Shower

Amy flew home in July to 

A. See me 

B. Have her bridal shower thrown by Linda and her daughters (and me, I guess, but I can't take any credit for anything) 

C. Go through the temple for the first time.

These are listed in order of importance, of course! Anyway, this was all on Saturday, so it was a crazy busy day, especially since the Oakland temple was closed, so we went up to the Sacramento one! It was beautiful! I'd never been to a session there and the murals are gorgeous! That is one thing that the small temples have up on Oakland: the murals. 

After the temple, we drove back home for Amy's bridal shower (a pit stop to the Jelly Belly Factory may have been involved on the way home. By the way, Belly flops are kind of a rip off now ($9 a bag), but the Hodgepodge is $1/lb, SCORE!) 

Then there was the bridal shower. Sean's mom, Linda, went all out, making dinner for 40 people and cute name tags(should have taken a picture). Then there were the normal festivities the Newlywed Game, Gift Bingo, etc. As for presents, people were really generous and Amy really lucked out.

Opening her gifts

I just have to brag about my gift for a minute. My sister and I went together and bought Amy this:

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Our Grandma Evelyn had a stool like this and it was always a fight over who got to sit on it. Just one of the special things about visiting Grandma. Now she has her own!

Making the ribbon bouquet...she only broke 1 ribbon...lame

The Amy we all love!

Pony Tracks Tank Farm

I never blog/have pictures from work, but this is the exception! This summer, I finally went on the Pony Tracks tour. What is that, you ask? A super rich man, Jauques Littlefield had a hobby when he was a little kid: building model tanks. Not too uncommon, except, he never grew out of it. When he became an adult, the puny little models ceased to satisfy his love of tanks, so he began to purchase and restore them. Cue a lifetime passion. He collected and restored over 200 tanks and other military vehicles before he died a few years ago. It's the largest private tank collection in the world, located in the Portola Valley. Anyway, they give tours to military and other defense people (maybe anyone?) so we got to go up one day and check it out!

1 of three warehouses full of restored, operational, minus the guns (there have to be some concessions made to legally build and arsenal larger than some countries), tanks. There were also about 50 tanks outside because he bought tanks faster than he built the huge garages.

One of the original tanks: from WWI, if it looks like a farm tractor, that's because it is. Some American farmers shipped them over and metal plates were riveted on them. Only problem was that it was crank start, so when it stalled right in front of the enemy...yeah....you were a goner

Pieter with the kitty. This cat lives in the garages and spent the tour leaping from tank to tank. MY highlight of the tour

SCUD missile (one of 2)

Tank that Mr Littlefield used to show off every 4th of July. He would buy 5-6 junker cars and line them up in one of his fields. He'd invite the whole neighborhood over for a party and then at the designated time, get into this tank with his kids and charge forward at 35-40mph, smashing all the cars. Apparently, it was quite a sight to see. You can still see the paint from the cars on the underside of this tank.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

On Saturday, we went down to the Aquarium with my parents and Aunt Marilyn and Uncle David since they're members of the museum. Pieter hadn't been since he was 10 and visiting from Georgia. We watched them feed the otters, penguins, and the fish in the Kelp Forest. For lunch, we finally got our clam chowder in sourdough bread bowl! We've been meaning to do that since we've been married. My favorite part of the museum though were the jellies! I won't subject you to all 50+ pictures that I took, but enjoy!

Weekend Trip to Pittsburgh

After graduation, we flew out to Pittsburgh for a weekend to scope it out and find and apartment! We took the red-eye out on Saturday. Pretty much the summary of this trip is that people in Pittsburgh are SO friendly.  We got invited to dinner by 2 couples at church! We were taken on a tour of Pittsburgh by my parent's old landlord's son Randy. For 2 hours we got driven around all over the city with a narration and helpful tips (on Mother's day no less!). Super nice for a guy we'd never even met! We also explored the city and found where my parents used to live.

 (Bad picture of my parents' old house in Pittsburgh, but the people were moving in and I had already passed my quota of number of times you can drive by without being creepy)

The next few days we met with our advisors and on the last day finally found an apartment! Yeah, we were really sweating it, wondering if we would ever find a place. Apartments in Pittsburgh are competative! Case in point: we looked at and loved this one apt and were about to head down to the office to sign for it, but as we were walking out with the agent, the person who'd seen it 5 minutes before us snagged it! Talk about disappointment, but everything worked out in the end!

Get this- we're living in a church! It's an old church from the 1920's that they've converted into 6 apartments, high church ceilings, windows, and a big church basement for laundry too! I love that everything in Pittsburgh is unique and old with character! We'll be living by the Pittsburgh zoo in Morningside so I guess when I get frustrated I really can run off to the zoo, hehe!

Enjoy some Pittsburgh pictures:

 (okay, so maybe this isn't my school, but it's across the street!)

Cathedral of Learning on campus. That's how much my school thinks of education,plus it's like Hogwarts inside, no joke

The trip back home was a little less exciting...our connecting plane in Minneapolis(it's nearly impossible to get a direct flight to Pittsburgh, lame) broke down and we had to spent 3+ hours chilling in the airport, but now we have Delta vouchers so I guess I can't complain too much!.