Great Day with Grandparents

The Tuesday after the fun in Las Vegas, I had a great outing with my grandparents in San Francisco.  It was one of the highlights of the summer and let me tell you why.

First, we went to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, which is currently featuring priceless works from the Musée d'Orsay.  The Musée d'Orsay in Paris is currently undergoing extensive renovation, so they are lending our their major works.  The collection is broken up into two showings: Birth of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.  We saw the Birth of Impressionism, but the Post-Impressionism collection is now on display.  Obviously, no photographs were allowed, but the museum website highlights what works from Degas, Monet, Manet, and Renoir were on display.  This was an amazing exhibit if only for the fact that I just drove an hour and paid twenty dollars to see priceless works of art that usually would cost me thousands of dollars to go and see.  The de Young will be the only museum in North America to feature the Post-Impressionist works by Cézanne, Van Gogh, etc., so I highly recommend going.  I'm hoping to go.


After we got out of the exhibit, the weather was incredibly perfect, so we had lunch at a restaurant that faces the ocean called Beach Chalet.

The top floor of this building is the restaurant

Our tickets from the de Young museum included free entrance into the Legion of Honor, which is another San Francisco museum that normally houses the European collection.  The architecture alone is worth the trip up to this lesser-known museum.

Roudin's The Thinker

After seeing all the great art, we took a drive around to soak in the beauty of San Francisco on a sunny day.  I got out of the car at one point and snapped this great picture.

It was a great day in San Francisco all thanks to my grandparents!

Graduation and Las Vegas

Back in August, I finally finished my Master's program in the Earth and Space Sciences Department at the University of Washington.  When I first began at UW, I was in a Ph.D. program, but with Darren's job change and a change in the kind of career path I want to pursue, I switched to a Master's program back in January.  I had finished my coursework before I left for Antarctica, so all that was left was to come up with a research topic, pursue it, and write a thesis.  I worked remotely most of the time and went up to Seattle once a month for ten or so days at a time.  The seven months I commuted back and forth were at times unpleasant, but generally I had a blast.  I got to hang out and live with good friends in Seattle, while Darren and I appreciated each other more since we weren't both at home all the time.

At the end of the summer quarter, I wrote my thesis and gave a presentation on my results and had an oral defense afterwards.  My thesis wasn't that great, but everyone said my presentation was really good.  My thesis is on the department website, if you are curious.  Once I turned in that thesis to the graduate school and I was officially done, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.  Unfortunately, I took zero pictures to commemorate the event.  My family here even had a small graduation party for me and I still forgot to take pictures...

Right after I flew home from finishing my program, we drove to Las Vegas to attend a wedding for some of our good friends from Boston.  I had never been to Las Vegas, so I was excited to go.  When we arrived the day before the wedding, we hit all the major spots on the strip.

The fountains at Bellagio

After walking around for two hours seeing all the major hotels and sights, I must confess that I did not really enjoy the strip.  I don't enjoy smelling like an ash tray, I got tired of people trying to hand me inappropriate fliers, I didn't want to pay $16 to ride one roller coaster once, and except for the Bellagio, I didn't think the hotels were that impressive.  I know some people do enjoy going there, so I think it's just not for me.

The best part of our trip was, of course, attending all of the wedding events on the next day.  We went to a brunch in the morning to meet all of the wedding guests and had some delicious crepes since both the bride and the groom enjoy French culture.  We were also privileged to attend the wedding ceremony inside the Las Vegas temple.

The Las Vegas LDS temple, taken later in the day

 The happy bride and groom exiting the temple after the ceremony

Later on that night, they had a reception in a family friend's backyard that was beautifully landscaped and well-decorated for the occasion.

 

A string quartet played music during the first half of the reception

They had great desserts and bridal portraits that were stunning

Me and Darren

Some other good friends from Boston also attended the wedding and it was great to catch up with them.

The couple in the middle are now engaged and are getting married soon! Congrats!

The next day Darren and I attended church and then left for home.  We had a great time at the wedding and were really happy we were able to make it!

Summer Hike

This summer we had the privilege of having Darren's sister live with us while she was completing an internship in the area.  Darren's sister and I were already good friends in Boston before Darren and I began dating, so it's pretty awesome that she's my sister-in-law now.  We had tons of fun having her around, but with me living part-time in Seattle and finishing up grad school and Darren traveling for work, we didn't get out and do as much I would have hoped.  I had some grand plans for several camping trips that never really happened, but we did manage to go on a hike the day after Fourth of July.

We headed up to Saratoga and took a small hike at the Villa Montalvo Arboretum.  Villa Montalvo is an arts center that has some beautiful landscaped grounds along with acres of woodlands.

Landscaped grounds with one of the performing centers, from VM website

We did some hiking and ended up at a great lookout point that had a view of the Peninsula and the South Bay.  It was a little bit muggy that day, so we couldn't see the bay itself.

View from the lookout point

Me and Darren's sister

Me and Darren

This place was a great find by Darren!

Guten Tag!

Hello and welcome to the our blog!  As most of you know, we are moving to Zürich, Switzerland around the end of October for Darren's job.  I thought it would be fun to document our adventures once we got there.  However, now that I have graduated and generally have a lot of free time before our move, I thought I would just start a family blog for us in general and get going before we get busy with the move.  So some of these first posts will be documenting highlights from the last couple of months.

Our First Anniversary

We celebrated our first anniversary on July 18, 2010.  It honestly feels like we have been married a lot longer than that with everything that happened in the first year (unexpected job change and subsequent move, trip to antarctica, grad program change, deciding to move to a foreign country), but it's been a blast.  For our anniversary, since I was in full thesis-writing/stress mode at that point, we just took a day trip along the California coast to see the highlights.

Gray Whale Cove State Beach

There was, of course, fog along the coast, but after we hit Half Moon Bay, we went inland to do some casual hiking.

Portola State Park

The view from Alpine Road looking back at the ocean

We had saved the top layer of our wedding cake last year and defrosted it on our anniversary to eat.  The filling didn't taste that great, but the cake and the frosting seemed to be edible.

It was a great anniversary!