I Love You, California!

Will has been yearning to go Mountain biking since the day before we knew we were even moving to California - ha! When we got out here we knew we needed to upgrade my bike, so I got a brand spanking new one on sale at REI back in July. I'd used it several times just around the city, but it was time to go test it out on some trails! We ventured off to Redwood Regional Park which is a whopping 15 minute drive from our apartment, right here in Oakland. We are so lucky to have such diversity in landscape just a short distance from us! When we got there we started off with a picnic lunch in the Redwood Bowl, which is a big opening in the middle of the park. It was an extremely foggy morning. It was 12:15 already and still this foggy! It made for a really cool atmosphere though, it felt like a rainforest inside. Then we were off on our bike ride. It is about a nine mile loop around the park and we did the whole loop. The technicality level of trail is intermediate for biking, and...

After two extremely gloomy, somewhat rainy days, the fog lifted and the sun came out, making for a beautiful day to go to Napa! This time we ventured off with our neighbors Katie and Alex. A month or so ago we bought coupons from livingsocial (a groupon like website) for a tour in Napa. We assumed it was for a group tour, and I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be, but apparently we were the only people who signed up for the day or something. When we got to our pick up location, a guy came over and asked if we were Erin party of four, we said yes, and he guided us over to our own personal Lincoln Navigator! So we got a private driver for the day to Napa! whoop whoop! We stopped at the lookout for the Golden Gate Bridge before we headed out of town. I don't remember the name of our first stop. I'll fill in that detail later when Will gets home. He'll remember I hope! On our way to the next winery we popped the bottle of champagne that was included with o...

Nine years ago tonight Will asked me to be his girlfriend! It has been an amazing life together and it's just as fun and adventurous as it was nine years ago! I made dinner at home and we toasted with a bottle of bubbly our wonderful neighbors gave me for my birthday.

Saturday, October 6th   Phew! It's hard to even know where to start with this weekend. It was a record breaking weekend for ridership on the BART, and it was expected that there would be one million more people in San Francisco, which could only mean one thing - a lot of action going on! Here are just a few of the things going on: Fleet Week in SF, Oaktoberfest in Oakland, Giants playoff game, America's Cup sailing races, Madonna concert, Justin Bieber concert, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park, and just a beautiful autumn weekend altogether! Needless to say we had a hard time deciding what to do and certainly didn't make it to everything we had hoped. We knew we for sure wanted to attend Fleet Week as well as the America's Cup races so that's where we started. We packed a picnic lunch and headed on our way. Ready to go to the city, Pumpkin Late in hand! We wandered our way toward the Russian Hill neighborhood and had a picnic lunch...

As I turn 28 I am again one year closer to 30, but if I'm correct, after next year I'll always be 29, right?! haha.  And if today wasn't a record breaking day for Oakland, it certainly was for my birthday, the hottest on record - 95 degrees! I had a very lovely day which started off by giving Will a ride to work, followed by a free Starbucks coffee drink of my choice - awesome! (For those of you who care, I got a pumpkin spice late with soy milk)  When I got home I dug out the Halloween decorations and now our apartment is all decked out in ghosts, pumpkins, and black cats. One of them is even alive! : ) I spent the afternoon at a nail spa getting my nails done, and the coolest part I learned while I was there is that Charles Woodson of the Green Bay Packers used to go to this spa when he played for the Raiders! So cool! Later in the evening I picked Will up from work so that we could go out for dinner. Knowing that I was decorating for Halloween today, he got this fo...