San Francisco Trip (aka The Babymoon)

Did anyone else feel like May just flew by? Our entire month of May was sooo busy! June is looking a lot less busy for us, and I'll be done working at the end of this month! Yay!

Anyway, I'm overdue for a quick post about our trip to San Francisco at the beginning of May. I've been having quite a bit of tailbone pain lately, so the flight was not very fun. The rest of the trip, though, was great!

We spent a full day in the downtown San Francisco area, doing the tourist thing. I put on 26,000 steps (about 10 miles) that day!


We had dinner that night was some friends who recently moved out to California.


We then went to see the Winchester Mystery House, which was not nearly as furnished as I thought it would be, but still soooo interesting.

On day 3, it was time to see the Redwoods. Just amazing. You really do need to see these trees in person to fully appreciate how huge they are.

On our way back to San Francisco, we stopped at California's Old Faithful geyser. I'm guessing it's not much compared to the Yellowstone Old Faithful, but for two people who had never seen a geyser, it was pretty cool!

So, that's the Cliff Notes version of our trip to San Francisco! We almost didn't go on this trip, since there wasn't much time between our trip to North Carolina and the beginning of my third trimester of pregnancy (when travel is supposed to get more uncomfortable). I am really glad we decided to go and really glad that we didn't go any later in the pregnancy than we did!

North Carolina Trip 2010

Ray and I went to visit Tom in Raleigh again this year. We had a great time, as always, though Ray started getting sick on Saturday. Then, after getting home this week, he lovingly passed his cold onto me!

Our Raleigh trip this year was a little more low-key than previous years, mostly due to Norman Jr. Still, Tom had plenty planned to fill our days!

On Friday, we went to Duke University. The guys loved seeing where all of the big-name NCAA ballers play, and I loved the gardens.

Ray and Tom at the Duke University basketball court.

I LOVE wisteria! I really want to plant some, I just need to get Ray to build me a pergola!

We then met up with Tom's sister, Mary, her husband Matt, and their daughter Kalina, at Tom's dad's house. The men talked men talk and watched Kalina while Mary gave me the 411 on cloth diapers. I had asked her ahead of time if we could do that on this trip, and I'm so grateful she was willing to take the time to share her wisdom with me.

Friday night we went to a real symphony! It was a first for Ray and I. They did a beautiful Beethoven piece.

Saturday morning we left for the ocean! We first went to tour the WWII ship, USS North Carolina. After that, we went to the beach. This is the point where Ray started feeling sick. Ray laid on the beach while Tom and I went for a walk. It was a bit chilly to go in the water, but it was gorgeous!

Tom, Me, and Ray at the front of the USS North Carolina

On Sunday, we went out to Bald Head Island by ferry (a short, non-choppy ferry ride, thank you!). We didn't have much time, but we took a walk up the lighthouse (which was not recommended for pregnant women, hah) and enjoyed a fantastic view!

Luckily, Ray was feeling better on Sunday, because Tom had talked up Ray's basketball skills to his Raleigh friends. They had a great time beating some college kids on the UNC basketball courts.

The victory walk after beating kids 10 years younger than them!!!

That night, Tom called up an acquaintance who showed us the view of downtown Raleigh from her high-class downtown apartment building. We met some people who probably have a lot more money than we will ever have! It was very interesting :)

View of the Capitol building

A great time was had by all, as always. I doubt we'll make it back to Raleigh again next year (maybe Ray will???), but we'll definitely have to get back there SOON. We always have such a wonderful time.

Backpacking Isle Royale

Life's been pretty busy, so I'm not going to even try to provide a synopsis of the backpacking trip. Besides, Angela already did an awesome job of it! Here's a photo of the gang:

Arizona Trip: Saturday and Sunday

I'm finally getting around to posting about the rest of our Arizona trip! Life's been very busy :)

Ray and I got up pretty early on Saturday morning (we never did adjust to Arizona time). We randomly chose to do a hike up Schuerman Mountain. I picked out a geocache that was on the hike, so I was able to add Arizona to my geocaching map! The trail was nice and had excellent views of the red rocks.

After our hike, we stopped for milkshakes at a crazy little diner called The Red Planet Diner. I call it a crazy diner because it's all about aliens and alien sitings. I guess it goes with the area since there are supposed to be lots of "vortexes" in Sedona. (insert eye roll here!)

We made a quick stop by the Chapel of the Holy Cross. This church is so beautiful. You can see the cross from a really long way away. Just awesome! (Blogger's giving me problems with loading pictures right now, so I'm afraid you'll have to click on the link to see the chapel.)

The wedding was at 3pm. It was very nice and low-key... and even shorter than Ray's and my ceremony! After dinner and mingling, Ray and I almost walked into a couple of boars! They were on the sidewalk in the middle of town. Very strange! I have no idea if that is normal or not, but we kept our distance.

Sunday was another early morning and another long flight (this time delayed). We were glad to be home!

Arizona Trip: Day 1

The Arizona trip hasn't been quite as exciting as our DC trip, but we are having fun! The first thing I have to say is that getting up at 3:45 in the morning is NOT fun. Secondly, did you know that AirTran is a very prompt airline? Luckily, we were on time, so it was ok!

The flight to Phoenix was really long, but the plane wasn't full, so Ray and I got to stretch out. It was a pretty decent experience, all things considered. When we arrived in Phoenix, we ran into Aaron Schlicht! We've now run into three friends in airports during our last two trips. Craziness!

Arizona is probably the weirdest place I've visited as far as the landscape is concerned. There's no grass anywhere and really tall cacti all over the place. I would consider Arizona to be more different from Wisconsin than even Jamaica (landscape-wise)!

We did manage to go on a hike this afternoon. There was a nice breeze in Sedona that kept it from getting too hot. I'm a little worried I might have gotten a little sunburned, though. I'll eventually post a picture from our hike.

We hiked around Courthouse Butte and Bell Rock. To be honest, neither Ray nor I thought that Bell Rock looked like a bell. Kinda funny! We did lose the trail for awhile and I was getting nervous. We eventually found the trail again, though, so I'm alive and well at the hotel right now!

Soooo tired. Must sleep....

Washington DC Trip: Heading Home

Monday dawned, and it was time to leave our dear friend Tom and his east coast fun. Before dropping us off at the airport, we stopped by a local park to look for a geocache and some basketball courts. We couldn't find the geocache, but Ray and Tom found the basketball courts! They played some rousing one on one and had a blast!

The trip home was pretty uneventful. I highly recommend Washington DC to anyone. It's a great place with tons of educational, architectural, and entertaining things to do. It's even better when you have a tour guide named Tom Hanks. ;) Thanks for the good times, Tom!

Washington DC Trip: Sunday

Our last day in DC :(

It was cloudy and a bit chilly on Sunday morning. We found an awesome parking spot right in the middle of the three things we wanted to see! First, we walked back to the White House. Lots of success this time; we had a beautiful view. We meandered around and saw the front of the White House as well. It wasn't quite as grand, but we were much closer. We imagined the president sitting in there somewhere reading the paper in his underwear (we didn't "picture" it, just imagined the general idea of it!).

We then walked over to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. That place was a zoo! Kids everywhere! We still managed to see some neat meteors, gems, jewelry, animal skulls, and the like. We also saw the Hope Diamond. I actually wasn't that impressed. It was big, but I thought some of the other jewelry there was prettier. We also went through a gallery of nature photographs. They were amazing, stunning, whimsical, sad, endearing, everything you can imagine. It was probably my favorite part of the museum.

We ate lunch at the Nancy Hanks building. There is a tower there with bells at the top. The bells were donated to the US by Westminster Abbey. We were hoping to tour the bell tower, but couldn't because the bells were being rung for six hours for some special occasion.

We then left DC and went south to Mount Vernon, home of our first president, George Washington. Mount Vernon was definitely a highlight of the trip. The grounds are meticulously maintained with fantastic landscaping (I'm running out of adjectives to describe how great everything was!). The mansion is in excellent shape and we got to see the room and very bed that President Washington died in.

One cool thing I learned is that Martha was 4'11" - about the same height as me! One of her gowns was on display in the museum, and it looked like it would fit me! George, by the way, was taller than Ray at 6'2". That's quite a height difference!

Exhausted, we started our drive back to Raleigh. It rained almost the whole way, with major downpours during much of the drive. After much discussion (Tom), indecision (me), and irritation (Ray), we ate dinner at a Cracker Barrel on our way back. Tom almost left Ray at a gas station while the two argued over who was going to pay for gas! Lol! A very fun day.

Washington DC Trip: Saturday

Saturday morning saw Tom, Ray, and I getting up early, as usual! We rushed into DC to get in line for tickets to tour the Capitol building. It's free to tour, but you need to get there early to get tickets. Our tour time ended up being 11:40am, so we walked over to the Library of Congress to blow some time. The Library of Congress is a beautiful building (they all are in DC!), with elaborate quotes on the walls and carvings in the marble staircases. We got to peek into the main reading room, which is stuffed full of books. It was a very interesting place, I wish we had had more time to spend there.


We got back just in time to ask some fellow Wisconsinites to take our picture and head in for our Capitol tour. They are just about finished with their Visitor Center, so things were a little chaotic and we lost our group! We almost got escorted out by a security guard, but Tom sweet-talked him into trying to find our group. We never did find our group, but we snuck in with another group and learned some cool facts.

Next up was a drive out of DC and over to the Smithsonian's other Air and Space Museum. By this time, my feet were killing me from two days of walking on pavement went I'm not used to it. I let Ray and Tom wander around while I sat for a bit. I did get to see a Concorde airplane, a Blackbird, and the space shuttle Enterprise. Monsterous machines, all of them!

Saturday night was our relaxing night. We ordered some really good pizza to the hotel. The guys then watched some NBA finals while I worked on this blog and caught up on some reading. A very fun day!

Washington DC Trip: The White House Adventure

Ok, here is the promised “White House Adventure” story.

Ray, Tom, and I decided to walk past the White House on Friday evening. Upon arriving on the south side (which is actually the back of the White House), we saw that the road was blocked off. Getting closer, it became clear that we were not going to be allowed to walk past the White House. We hung around, wondering how long the sidewalk was going to be closed.

Finally, we decided to talk to a Capitol police officer who was obviously there to make sure nobody tried getting to where they weren't allowed. He was very nice and told us that a helicopter was going to be landing on the White House lawn and that was why the area was blocked off. He wasn't sure how long it was going to be, but didn't think it would be long.

We chatted with the police officer for awhile longer and decided to hang around and hopefully see the helicopter landing. There were a lot of people around, and some seemed to not notice that the area was blocked off (one spot in the road was left without barriers for vehicles leaving the secured area). Every couple of minutes, someone would try walking down that road instead of staying on the sidewalk, where they would have seen that it was blocked. They wouldn't get very far before a secret service officer would loudly blow his whistle and tell the person to get back.

After seeing this happen a couple of times, the three of us started trying to predict which people walking by would try to make it past the tough SS guy. We also tried to figure out how far down the road they would make it before the SS guy blew his whistle at them. We got quite a few laughs out of it and even had some Danes nearby laughing with us. Then, the Capitol police officer caught on to what we were doing, and he was laughing, too! Fun times!

A few people tried getting through the SS guy with White House passes, but he just yelled out, “I don't know what that means” or “That means nothing to me.” This guy was tough! Finally, some other secret service officers walked down the road. First, they showed their White House passes. No go. Then, they showed some other type of pass (we couldn't see what). The SS guy replied, “THAT I understand.” They got through :)

We never did get to walk past the White House that night. We got some awesome pictures on Sunday, though!

Washington DC trip: Friday

For anyone who doesn't know our friend, Tom, he is a "go, go, go" kind of guy. Vacations are no different as far as Tom's concerned. He had us up and showering a little after 6am on Friday. As soon as we were ready and fed, we headed to DC.

It was a 4-hour drive from Raleigh, and we made a pit-stop at Tom's favorite restaurant, McDonald's, for lunch. We parked our car near our hotel and took the metro train the last 20 miles into downtown DC. The timing was perfect! We parked the car, got our tickets, and stepped onto the train right before it left :)

Upon arriving in DC, we headed to the National Air and Space Museum. It was filled with tons of planes, space craft, and information about these things. We all touched a moon rock (photo to right is of Tom touching the moon rock)!

After seeing all of the sights at the Air and Space Museum, we decided to go visit Tom's state representative's office to pick up some tickets he had requested. We walked past the US Capitol Building on our way - it is beautiful!

We all felt a little intimidated inside the building where our representatives' offices are. It's a very quiet building and we had to go through security (just like we had to everywhere in Washington DC). We found the North Carolina office and, like the sign said, just walked in! The front desk guy was very nice, but we didn't get to see Tom's representative or anyone else "important" while we were there ;)

Next up was a completely unplanned trip to the US Botanic Garden. There were plants there from all over the world, from tropical ferns to cacti. There were also plenty of fragrant flowers in bloom (yes!).

By this time, we were all starving! We started heading in the general direction of the Lincoln Memorial, looking for food. We weren't coming up with much, so we finally settled on a place that looked a bit more expensive than we had hoped. The food was good, but the service was mediocre.

After dinner, we continued on. We decided that since we were close, we'd do a quick walk-by of the White House. On the way, we found awesome ice cream and a bunch of restaurants that looked much more like what we had hoped to eat at. Doesn't that figure?!

Ok, where to go from here...the White House adventure really deserves it's own post, so I think I'm going to blog about that separately. You'll have to wait!

After the White House adventure, we stopped by the Washington Memorial. We didn't go in, just saw the outside - very impressive. Our last stop for the evening was the Lincoln Memorial. That was awesome! It has amazing architecture and just looks majestic, especially after dark. The statue of Lincoln is huge! They also had the entire Gettysburg Address on one wall. It was very moving to read.

Exhausted, we found our train and headed to the hotel. I wore my pedometer and we walked over 21,000 steps on Friday! That's a new record for me while wearing the pedometer. It's good exercise walking around Washington DC :)

Washington DC Trip: Thursday

Ray and I left on Thursday afternoon for our trip to, first Raleigh, NC, and then Washington DC. Our flight had been delayed from 2:30pm to 4:30pm, so we had plenty of time Thursday morning to take it easy. It was really nice, it felt like we were retired!

We went for a nice, long, and leisurely walk in the morning. Then, we stopped at REI in Milwaukee on the way to the airport and picked up some pants for our upcoming backpacking trip. Yes!

Once at the airport, we ran into our friend Mustafa and chatted for awhile. Mustafa left for home and we found out that our flight had been delayed because of plane maintenance. While waiting for a new plane, we ran into our friend Jamie! It was pretty crazy.

We finally got to Raleigh at about 9pm (Tom's time). Tom took us out to a very late dinner and we got to see his place and listen to him play the piano.

Stay tuned for day two!