San Diego Anniversary

We've been having some fun in San Diego for our fourth anniversary. We stayed on Coronado Island just across the bay from San Diego. The Marriott resort we stayed at was very nice -- it had pools, fountains, and (Celeste's favorite) an aviary. We mostly just bummed around on the beach, walked along the water, and generally just enjoyed being together. We also had a chance to go to the San Diego temple. From the outside it is gorgeous, but the inside is even more gorgeous (if that is possible). Whenever you have a chance to go to the San Diego temple, we highly recommend it.



After spending a few days at Coronado, we met up with some friends who used to live by us in California (they recently moved to the San Diego area). We enjoyed the evening in Old Town. Then today we packed up everyone for a trip to the San Diego Zoo. To save a few bucks, we split the cost of an annual pass for Mitch and Mandy. It was only $79 and Mitch and Mandy will be able to go as many times as they want for the rest of the year. Plus, they got two free guest passes (can you guess who the guests were?) and a whole bunch of other discounts. It ended up being cheaper than paying separately. At the zoo, we enjoyed the koalas, kangaroos, gorillas, elephants, and giraffes.



But our favorite by far were the giant pandas.



You may have noticed from our pictures that Celeste got the cast off of her leg. She got it off Tuesday right before we left for San Diego. She's been gradually building up strength, but decided that it would probably be best to use a wheelchair to get around the zoo. I had a lot of fun (and exercise) pushing her up and down the hills. For more pictures, check out our web album.

Looks like gas prices...

Looks like gas prices are going down. On my way to work today, I saw that the local gas station was $4.69 as opposed to $4.73, so, thats good. listen

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Celeste's Cool New Shoe

Ever since we played on a BYU intramural soccer team, Celeste and I have loved playing soccer. It's a fun sport and you get a TON of exercise. I still attribute soccer to taking away the extra pounds I acquired during my KPMG internship (I felt that all I did was sit and eat). Since we've moved to California, we've started to play on the KPMG co-ed soccer team. It's pretty fun, and there are some other company teams you might recognize (such as MySpace and Facebook). Anyway, while playing in a game a few weeks ago, Celeste was in the middle of the action when suddenly she collapsed. It turns out she got her legs tangled with one of the other guys and rolled her ankle. We rushed her home to get some ice on the injury, then took her to the minor injuries clinic at Kaiser Permanente the next day. After taking some X-rays, the doctor's assessment seemed promising -- she would be walking normal in a few days. They wrapped up her ankle, gave her some crutches, and we were on our way.

After a few days went by, things didn't get better. In fact, they got worse. With hope on our side, though, we decided to wait a few more days (the doctor said she should be walking just fine after a few days -- maybe it was a few days longer than his assessment). But alas, it didn't get better.

More than a week after the injury, we went to Celeste's regular doctor for a second opinion. Her opinion: "I don't know why the first doctor said she would be walking after a few days. You should see a specialist."

 So we set up an appointment with a specialist for the next week (for two weeks exactly from the date of Celeste's injury). We meet with the specialist, he looked at the X-ray, and his immediate assessment was: "Looks like the injury is 80% sprain, 20% broken bone." So they put a cast on her -- she chose the florescent green with sparkles (it looks pretty cool if I do say so myself). It was also the first time I'd ever seen someone get a cast before -- very interesting.

Now Celeste is able to get around a lot better than before. Plus, I don't have to worry about accidentally hitting her sprained foot while we sleep. I'm actually the one dodging her leg! Casts are really hard. They say that the cast comes off right before our anniversary. Perfect timing so that we can enjoy the beach.

Bike to Work: Good for the Heart, Good for the Wallet

I posted a link last week of ways of saving gas. Celeste and I are certainly conscious of the rising price of gas, especially since we live in one of the states with the highest price of gasoline (the closet gas station to us is selling regular unleaded at $4.73!). One thing that we're trying to do is ride our bikes as often as time will permit. Now that we've moved to Mountain View, my commute to work is less than three miles. So, I've been trying to ride my bike to work about four times per week. It's a great way to start the day -- gets the heart pumping and the mind thinking. At first, I was lugging all of my stuff on my back (not too comfortable when you've got a laptop in the bag). However, we recently went to the REI used gear sale and I got a rack for the back of the bike. It's funny because growing up, I used to think that kind of stuff was for geeks. Now I think it's kind of cool. :) Of course, I may have just turned into a geek. ;)

The bike I've been riding to work is actually Celeste's bike (I've claimed as my own in the paragraph above) . I got a bike a few months back for $25 which is too small for me (we mostly just got the bike to see whether I'd enjoy riding, which I've learned that I like tremendously). I've since learned a little about bikes including sizing, etc. So now I realize that I need a new bike, but I'm not sure whether I should opt for a mountain bike or a road bike. I think it is fun to go off-road, but my main purpose for the bike is commuting to and from work. In a perfect world, I'd get two bikes (a road and a mountain bike). Any suggestions?

Ways of Saving Gas

Here is an interesting link with tips on saving money on gas. There are some pretty good ideas. Hope it helps in saving gas during these high gas times. By the way, at the gas station right near us, the cheapest gas is currently selling for $4.73. When I was in Dallas, I thought it was a steal selling for $3.99.

Update on our Garden

It’s been fun to watch our garden grow over the last couple of weeks. I can definitely tell that they have grown, although Celeste could give you a day-by-day of how many new flowers and how many new vegetables have sprouted. She really enjoys spending time in the garden, especially now that her office has moved to our apartment and the garden is right outside. We made a bet on what vegetable would be ready first -- we both guessed cucumber. But the first vegetable was actually a green pepper. It was very tasty. That was about two weeks ago, and a week ago, the first cucumber was picked. I wasn’t there for the honors since I had a short trip to Dallas (by short, I flew in at 12:30 am and left the same day at 8:00 pm). So I enjoyed the cucumber through Celeste’s description. She said that it was very good. We've since picked a few more cucumbers and green peppers, and they have all been wonderful.

There are some fun things we’ve learned from our garden. First of all, squirrels apparently like strawberries, since strawberries keep disappearing before fully ripe. Celeste keeps thinking that it is me. It isn’t, though. We have a family of squirrels living in the tree on our patio. We haven’t caught them in the act, yet, but we think it’s them.

Herbs straight from the garden are wonderful! Fresh parsley is wonderful! Fresh basil is wonderful! Fresh cilantro is wonderful! You might be interested to see what cilantro looks like when you let it grow past its edible stage (you know, the fresh cilantro bunches you buy in the store). Once cilantro gets to a certain point, it grows flowers and seeds and loses the “cilantro” flavor. It actually looks like a giant weed. That isn’t a weed, though. We’ve been keeping our garden weed-free. We’ll probably plant it in a separate container next time, but for now, it towers over the green onions. One other interesting thing is that the seeds that grow on the cilantro plant are called coriander. Who knew? I guess the bigger question, though – who knows what coriander is? I didn’t even know it existed until Celeste told me.

The last fun thing about our garden is our new drip irrigation system. When we went to Monterey for the three-day Memorial Day weekend, we weren’t sure who to get to water our garden. So, we installed a drip irrigation system and a timer. Now, we don’t have to worry at all about watering, because it self waters everyday at the same specified timed. It’s great. Low maintenance gardening.

An example of the hose that connects all our plants.


The water timer for auto-watering convenience.
For more pictures, go to our Picture Album.