Sunday, October 30, 2016

Howard and Dan's wedding

> Our trip excuse was the wedding of a dear friend and ex-coworker Howard Formby (who taught me so much about California native plants). The wedding was at his family ranch in Petaluma, Sonoma county.
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> It was a beautiful evening. Lots of love in the air. Amazing food.
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Drive back home

On our drive down to LA from Morro Bay we stoped at the monarch butterfly wintering grove in Pismo beach. We locked out as it had opened for the season that week and we arrived right in time for a docent lead monarch talk. It was full of information and it went on for 45 minutes! So much to learn!

Laurel found the perfect Halloween outfit in monarch wings (thanks to grandma Lynn for picking up the tab on it!)

We then stopped at the near by Guadalupe dunes and Oso Flaco lake. We had a lot of fun and non of us wanted to get home!

Central coast: Cayucos and Morro Bay

Our other most favorite spot in the California coast is Morro Bay. The nearby town of Cayucos has a delicious smoked seafood shack (Rudell's) and the best cookies in the world! At Brown Butter cookie company ;) we never fail to stop here.

Morro Rock and the hopes to catch a glimpse of the peregrine falcons that nest here is always followed by delicious fried fresh local seafood on the fishing pier at Tongazzini too

It was trip filled with wonderful moments. We are so grateful we could spend 5 days together and share so many delicious food and beautiful scenery. Happy birthday to me!

Point Reyes National Seashore part 2

We had a hunkering for more oysters the next day. So we went back to Hog Island and got to see oysters harvesting - before a 1/2" of rain falls they have to pull out oysters or it becomes an issue of run off and then they can't harvest the oysters for a long period of time

We tasted mead - wine made from honey. This local farm had the most dreamy hammock chair under a weeping willow!

The canon is said to belong to one of the galleons of Sir Francis Drake. That guy made the rounds!

Here are a few images of how cool some homes are perched over Tomales bay.

Point Reyes National Seashore

The view from our cabin's hot tub of the rolling green hills giving away to the Tomales Bay was enjoyed throughly by us. It rained a lot. We spent a lot of time on the hot tub watching the clouds role by!

Happy cows of California live in this area. Seriously. It's the milk I use exclusively for my ice creams, Strauss farms. Love love love!

Point Reyes Lighthouse is the most windy spot in the United States. Or something like that. We made sure to visit that corner and get all our cob webs blown off!

Wind sharpen Monterrey Cypress (native to the area) frame this amazing driveay. What we in the landscape world call an alleè from the French word for alley. Sounds better in French!

Hog Island oysters

Next stop on our trip was Point Reyes peninsula. We met with our dear friends Chad and Sara at Hog Island oyster company.

We must have had 5 dozen or more oysters! The air was cool. Rain was coming and the oysters were so delicious we could not get enough!

Point Reyes is one of our 2 favorite spots in The California coast. We can see ourselves slowing down in this special corner of the world.

Friday, October 21, 2016

Busted tire = daddy school

We just had our first lesson on car jacks, brakes and shocks .... it will be a memory we won't forget!

Car jack in Spanish? Gato!