Greetings from Wine Country!

This last week, Jeff and I celebrated our 1st anniversary together by traveling up the coast to the wine country! We drove through Napa, making a pit stop at one winery, then headed up through to Healdsburg, a quaint town where we stopped to grab a bite to eat. This is a place that I would definitely recommend staying. We then proceeded to Santa Rosa and stayed at the Hilton there. The next morning we had a 6 hour wine tour planned, that we were both really looking forward to. Word to the wise: If you plan on enjoying a 6 hour wine tour, make sure to bring and ample amount of water!!

On our tour, we went through the Dry Creek, Alexander and Russian River Valleys, known mostly for Zinfandels and Pinot Noirs, although we tasted a lot of great Chardonnay, as well. If you like red wine, this is a great place to go. The drive is way more scenic than it is through the Napa or Sonoma Valleys, as it is more spread out. There are so many great wineries and also hidden jewels. We stopped at one winery called Bella Vineyards and Wine caves. Check out the pictures! Because of its beauty, we decided that this would be a great place to picnic and have lunch. Another word to the wise: Be careful about what you plan to pack for lunch as there are many hungry yellow jackets just waiting to dine with you! Probably about 5-10 minutes into our romantic picnic, both Jeff and I were swarmed with too many bees to count. I was not a happy camper and had to stand up for the rest of my lunch...even though the bees were persistent and continued to follow my food. So much for an enjoyable picnic! Oh well.

At about the 5th vineyard we visited, we were a little tired of tasting wine. They began to taste the same. Our palates were tiring out, as were we. However, we stuck it through for 3 more wineries. Had it not been for all of the water and the wine dumping bowls (good for dumping or spitting out the wine you are tasting) I don't know how much longer I would have lasted. We ended up going back to the hotel and crashing until 7 or 8!

The next day we headed down to Monterey, which I think was one of Jeff's favorite parts of the trip. So I will let him share! We had a wonderful time and I would highly encourage those of you who enjoy a glass of wine or two, to drive through the northern Sonoma Valleys.

Myrmecophobia!!!!!!

Some may call this a fake illness, but I say no! Look no further than me! Saturday night we came home to find our kitchen floor crawling with ants. Those nasty little buggers decided they wanted our little zoey's dinner.

Now, when it comes to ants and fruit flies, I get.... well some might say...crazy. I don't hate much in life, but those are two things that I absolutely despise.

Last year when we were trying to find a dog, I said, "Lets forget the dog, and get an Ant Eater." Erika (my beautiful, loving, stellar, smart wife) said, "Why in the world would we need to get an Ant Eater??"

Well, for a moment just like this. If we had an Ant Eater, we could just let him (or her) have fun and snout up those pesty punks.

Alas, we used a vacuum instead. Same outcome, less fun. I slept horribly that night and was worried all day at church the next day. (Which by the way, we had a going away party for the in-laws! ;) (look for something more on that in the near future)).

We came back home in the afternoon and scrubbed down the entire kitchen. (Mom, you'd be amazed at me!) I ripped out the dishwasher and sprayed every nook in the kitchen. I never could tell where they came in from. Hopefully they found something better to eat next door. Not that I wish to force bad luck on anyone else... well unless you're an ant.. Needless to say, my least favorite comic book character was "Ant Man"....

I don't want to make light of a serious illness though... If you or someone you know, suffers from Myrmecophobia, let me know. I am thinking of starting up a support group......Well after I check the kitchen one last time.....

Leap of Faith

Some of you may have heard, but a couple of weeks ago I went skydiving! Thanks to Jeff for volunteering me to go. His aunt, who was in town, had wanted to go and told my sister-in-law, Cindy that she was going to go with her. Jeff just happened to overhear this and told them to count me in, as well. The thought of doing it had always been on my mind, but I never thought that I would actually go through with it. Fortunately, I did not chicken out, like I thought I would!

When we arrived, we had to wait 3 hours before boarding our plane! Imagine getting up the nerve to jump and having to wait for so long. Atleast, it gave me some time to reconsider my decision. However, as we waited, we watched as the jumpers who went up before us came down safely. It was actually a lot of fun watching all of the parachutes open up. As my cousin-in-law put it, "It's as if the sky is giving birth." : )

Finally, it was our turn. We had to strap into our gear and have a quick training session. Then there was the walk out to the plane, as the Top Gun theme music was playing in my head! As we soared above San Diego, I knew that there was no turning back now. All of a sudden, people just started jumping and it was time for me to go. What a rush...Imagine jumping out of a plane 13,000 ft above the earth and falling at speeds of up to 120 mph. Needless to say, the experience doesn't really feel like you are falling. Instead, it's as if you are flying through the sky...at speeds of up to 120 mph. So the winds are really blowing against you. Just look at my face in some of those pictures! : ) Well, I guess that's one thing to check off my list of things to do in my lifetime.

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to....

Avenue Q!

As my wifey told me, you are going to be cultured! I told her fine! We can go to Oktoberfest. But apparently, her type of culture is different than my type of culture. Which means, I have no culture...remember, we covered this already she's right, I'm wrong, men call it "Love".

Anywho, I was surprised at how well done this was. Acting is a difficult thing to do well; but, acting while controlling a puppet... Its a total ripoff of sesame street, only themed for adults. This is the 1 o'clock A.M. Cineamax version of Sesame Street. We are talking about full frontal nudity...of the puppets of coarse.

The first act was semi-monotonous. It seemed as they were trying to push the envelope on every front possible. It didn't seem as though there were any solid plot lines, just a ton of story arcs. Since we are trying to be a family friendly blog I won't post any of the song titles or themes. Just think Bert and Ernie living in a brothel.

The second act was soooo much better. They focused on a couple of arcs and ran with it. The story, in a nutshell, is about a man(puppet), fresh out of college, trying to find a purpose, and learning that to love is to give, and to give is purpose.

All in all, I give it 7612837 marionettes out of 9083432 marionettes.


The only thing I think could have made it better would have been a cameo from Big Bird...The Pimp.

HI

Hi there! I'm am making my very first entry into the blog world o' fun! For us, it's a great way to keep in touch with the outside world and with those whom we don't get to see very often. So, for those of you who choose to follow along in our adventures, enjoy!

So far our summer has been quite busy! Jeff and I have managed to have plans every weekend, whether it be spending time with family, friends, going to parties or weddings. Our relaxing weekend days feel as if they are a thing of the past and I'm sure Jeff is wishing for the days that we are able to reclaim that. For me, I enjoy being busy and since I have the summer off, I get bored with relaxing every day...poor me.

So I hope all is well. I gotta run...but thanks for joining us and hurry back!

Erika

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself. - Josh Billings

Ohh how they grow up so fast!

One day they are only the wee age of two and then, suddenly, BOOM! They are the ripe old age of 58! Well in dog years it is more around 8, but still!

My beautifully hot and super nice, kind, and do it all wife took our 2 year old into the vet today. (For those who don't know we have a part Chiquia, beagle, and pug, a "chuggle" named Zoey). We decided to take her in to have the vet look at some hot spots that she was having. We've only had her for less than a year, and the first time we took her in, the vet that checked her out was a cat specialist. So needless to say, we didn't receive any new information from the vet that we didn't know from the rescue shelter.

So the new vet, a dog specialist, took a better look at her. Wifey had the vet look at a cyst that we found on her as well. The vet ran some tests and decided she had Lipoma! Well its not that serious, except for the fact that it only shows up in older dogs. But this can't be! The shelter we rescued her from told us we had a two or so year old dog! Upon further research, we learned that there is a slim percentage of dogs that get Lipoma when they are younger. The vet continued to look over our baby and stopped when he got to her eyes. He exclaimed, "This dog had the beginnings of Cataracts!"

Well he didn't quite say it so emphatically, but I added it for emphasis. But then upon further research, we learned that there is a slim chance that dogs can start to develop cataracts at a young age. I am not a mathematician, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn™ last night, but I am pretty sure that it is highly improbable that a young dog would have both Lipoma AND cataracts.

So I guess the moral of the story would be that you should always cherish the time you are able to spend with the ones you love, because you never know when you might wake up one morning and realize they are 6 years older...

Welcome!

Welcome All! Well... This is our blog. Welcome to our life. We decieded to start a blog...well so that we (read that as I) wouldn't have to call our parents. Well serriously, I think Erika wants to use this for her school. I want to use this to complain. What? I'm a serrious fellow. I personally promise to only offend those who don't have the same point of view as me, I promise to constantly contridict myself, and I promise to always play the devil's advocate against myself. Oh... and my Wife is always correct. This I understand and accept and is why I am happy.

So enjoy this. And if no one reads this... We won't get into that.....

Jeff