Mark and Kristi Visit!

Our next visitors came to us from Minnesota! Mark and Kristi are two of our dear friends from our college days back at the U of M. They are certainly two of the many people in Minnesota who made it difficult to want to move away! Mark and Kristi were in town for the weekend for a wedding, and they extended their trip by a few days so that they could visit with us. We've been planning this almost since the time we moved to Cali, so we were so excited that the time was finally here!

Mark and Kristi arrived in Oakland on Wednesday evening. Unfortunately it has been a really busy week for Will at work with the out of towners in town for meetings, and getting ready to go to Arizona for the day on Friday. Wednesday night Will had a dinner meeting so after work I picked up Mark and Kristi from the BART station and brought them back home. We had a nice evening catching up, eating the lasagna I had made that morning, and later on Will came and joined us for some games and libations around the table.

Thursday our guests headed into the city while Will and I went to work. Coming from Minneapolis where they had just gotten several inches of snow, the beautiful, sunny, clear morning was a welcome change. Here are some pictures Mark took from our backyard. (Thanks to both Mark and Kristi for taking most of the pictures in this post!)

Hawley bought this Buddah for us as a housewarming gift during their stay.

Tulips Will bought me at the store the other morning. So sweet!

Later in the evening I met up with the three of them in Jack London Square along the waterfront of the Oakland Estuary. We had an amazing muti-course dinner at Bocanova. Will had been here once before for happy hour, but I had never been. It is a pretty special place, so we were saving it for a special occasion, and this was certainly the right time!


After dinner we took Mark and Kristi to one of our favorite nooks in Jack London Square, Heinold's First and Last Chance. And, lucky for us, the Sea Chanty guys were playing tonight as they do most Thursday nights!


The next few weeks will bring in more routine and low-key activities as we wind down from all of our visitors, and Will gears up for his first big trip to Hawaii!! He will be attending lots of meetings and visiting a nursery and macadamia nut orchard with the CEO and CFO of Terviva. And along with his work, he'll be scouting out where to take me when I go along on an upcoming trip! Can't wait!

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