Celeste and I have been having a lot of fun as usual. We went hiking last weekend at Castle Rock State Park. The weather was perfect and the scenery was amazing. Our friend, Mandy, and her daughter went with us. Since Mandy's husband was out of town, I volunteered to carry Mandy's daughter, which was a good workout and a great contrast to my sedentary office job. We hiked a total of 5.2 miles. What most amazes me about hiking at Castle Rock State Park is that it is only about ten miles away. The great outdoors are literally in our backyard. I uploaded the track log for our hike at
ActiveTrails.com and some pictures at Picasa Web.
On Monday, I took a flight right after work into Seattle. The cab dropped me off at my hotel at around 9:30pm. I was hungry, so decided to walk to (where I thought was) a nearby Wendy's. After about a half hour of wandering, I decided that Google Maps had led me astray (look at the map below -- according to Google, it should have been there), so I started back towards the hotel. On the way back, it started to rain. I left my umbrella in California (I don't remember the last time I had to use it), so I was relieved when I finally ran into a Subway. I ate there, then went back to my hotel.
View Larger MapI worked all day on Tuesday... later than I expected (of which my Dad is especially aware :). Then I had fun spending time with my family (one of the benefits of business traveling is that it sometimes leads to family and friends). We just sat around and talked and enjoyed one another's company. Those are some of my fondest memories with my family -- just being together. :)
On Thursday, we had a fun Thanksgiving. We cooked in the morning -- a turkey in the crock pot, raspberry green salad with sugar-coated almonds and green onions, raspberry salad dressing, and rolls (added a bit of pumpkin for moisture and flavor). We also bought pumpkin ice cream and graham crackers for a Cold Stone-style dessert. We went to our friends house for dinner. They prepared some additional food -- mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing (as always, I tried it, but didn't really like it), squash, fruit salad, and pumpkin pie for dessert. We played the Celestial Marriage game afterwards, and basically just relaxed (Celeste relaxed so much that she fell asleep). It was a really fun day.
On Friday, Celeste had to work in the morning, so I tidied up around the apartment. In the afternoon, we went to a tree farm in the Santa Cruz mountains to cut down a tree. Our friends came along with their four kids, so we had a blast walking through the acres of trees to find just the right one. The kids kept pointing at tree after tree saying "This one! This one!" We ended up cutting down a tree that was ten feet tall (it was a fixed price for any tree that we picked) and had to trim the bottom off when we got home. We'll use the extra branches to make wreathes. But we got the perfect tree. :) Thanks to my Mom for getting all of the ornaments ready for me to bring back from Seattle. We filled up our tree with all of the ornaments.
On Saturday, we spent the entire day at the Dickens Fair in San Francisco. Basically, they took an old warehouse and turned the inside into the streets of London. They incorporated scenes from Dickens' books, such as scenes from The Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist. They even had the Queen of England visiting the various parts of town -- she made an appearance at the Fezziwig's party while we were there dancing. It was really fun. My favorite part was to watch a condensed version of the Pirates of Penzance. The general gist of the story is that a boy is apprenticed to a boat of misfit pirates until his 21st birthday. As his 21st birthday approaches, he warns the pirates that once he is turned back to normal civilization, he will have no choice but to destroy the pirates. However, it turns out that he was born on February 29 (leap year) and must continue to work with the pirates, since he is technically only 5 and a quarter.
It's crazy to think that November is almost over. The time has flown by too quickly. Christmas will be here before we know it. I can't wait...
