music we're lovin...

a couple weeks ago brett surprised me by picking me up early from work, and then he drove me to santa cruz and we went to a mason jennings concert.
i used to be enamored by mason jennings' music a few years ago in college, and after that concert, he's back on my top list of good listens. folky, earthy, and just plain good.

Family Visit Time!

Brett's fam came to visit for conference wkend. It was fun, did a lot of hiking & exploring in san francisco.

more pics from our trip...

friggin awesome tree, huh. this was actually the exact landmark where rachel, josh, and i ended our bike tour down the oregon & cali coast 10 years ago! (that makes me realize i'm really getting old)

it doesn't look like it, but this was a really warm day, and we both jumped into the ocean. this was our own little private beach, accessed by a rickety stairway down a cliff edge. finding this secluded beach was my favorite part of the entire trip. it was hidden from view, and separate from any beach. lovely sand too.

that's me on the sand... soakin up the sun.

this was the seal rock at yaquina head. check out that seal on the left, just chillin and doin a horizontal stunt on the rock. cutie

Oregon was Amazing!

Yaquina Head Lighthouse in Newport. We climbed all the way to the top!

This was one of my fav parts of the trip - deep sea fishing! this is brett right after he caught a big shiny salmon. then we ate it for dinner. yum-nummers.

THIS was our condo. nice view, huh.

we did a bonfire on the beach one night. we roasted marshies too. the beach is in the background, but it was really foggy, which kinda added to the fun.

tide-pooling one morning there were loads of star fish.

oregon or bust!

in about 2 days we are taking our first official "ROAD TRIP!"
all the way from san jo to lincoln city, or. the best part is we will be driving along the coast for most of the way, right on highway 101. stoked!
any advice for passing the time on road trips? we are armed with tons of music, books on tape, and of course we can fall back on annoying sing-along songs if we're real desperate.

we will be staying right on the beach in lincoln city, which is what i'm looking forward to most. falling asleep to the sound of waves on sand. yes!

Brett's Big 26th

Birthday Time!
for Brett's b-day, we went to monterey. it was a beautiful, warm! weekend there, and we had a hotel right on the warf. niiiiice...
that night, we had a bunch of our friends from byuh over (who are all in the accounting profession as well --- oh, gotta love san jo.) and they celebrated with us.
some of them are moving away now. bye april & jay-hawk! we will miss them...

brett gets excited every time we see seals. there are tons in monterey - and they're cute and little.

i think this was brett's favorite part - we saw sea otters! this one is feasting on a crab.

the awesome monterey bay aquarium.

brett agreed to trade birthdays with me this year, so he is turning 29, and i am going to turn 26 in nov. hey, a girl can dream, right?

Last day o' school!

It's party time! Last friday was our official last day of school. These are a bunch of my students, playing during lunch. This is their favorite hobby - soccer! They're pretty dang good too!

Above is one of the students that I met with regularly after school. I was determined to make sure she passed, and she did! I love this girl.
These are some of my wonderful students. I'm going to miss them. It took so long to be at a point where we could trust each other and learn together, and now they're moving on! I'm sad to start all over again next year with a new bunch of 9th graders...

2 YEARS

Monday was our 2 Year Anniversary.
This was my gift to Brett - one of my students did it for us.


Ever since Brett lived in Brooklyn, he has really loved the art of graffiti.
This piece is a canvas, 2ft by 3 ft.
It looks great in our house. One big bonus of teaching city kids.

Big Sur Weekend

big sur is amazing. we spent our day yesterday exploring its amazing coast line. dang, the ocean is so beautiful here, but nothing like hawaii... in hawaii, the water beckons you to come and play. here, it says "respect me, or die"

this has got to be the ultimate playland... it's too bad this beach is restricted from public access. brett and i were almost drooling as we looked at it from above:

isn't this an awesome shot? brett's masterwork:

it is also SO COLD at the california coast!

looking through a new lense

we got a new camera! we decided since we are visiting so many beautiful places here in cali, we need to have a camera that will at least give them some justice for their natural beauty...
this is us at the rose garden, located just outside of downtown san jose:

Spring Breaaaaaaak!

tomorrow... back to school. spring break was great, especially since it started with a fun trip with the tolleys! they visited us and we road tripped to monterey... so beautiful. brett and i are now trying to find a way to live there.



the beach south of monterey:

digging around in the rocks:

i love this picture of mom:


it was such a nice break, but since brett didn't get any time off anyways, i guess it's only fair for me to be going back to work. ahhh... it pays to be a teacher.

And we were attacked by a swarm of... butterflies!

this weekend: we took a mountain-biking/camping trip to the near-by joseph d. grant county park. beautiful. this was our first real mountain biking trip with our new bikes. we love them. it was fun, and we are grateful for every inch of travel on the forks.




the craziest thing about this park was the huge number of butterflies - unlike anything i've ever seen - there were swarms of them - and they just blew in the wind like dry leaves - twice while we were biking they flew right into my face! it was amazing.

Weekend Adventures

This is the County Park we hiked at last weekend. Probably the prettiest of the local ones we've gone to so far - tons of waterfalls! (Yuvas County Park)