Ann vs. Jason

By Jason

I just realized we haven’t updated the blog in a few weeks. Work has been very busy. I’ll cover some of the things we’ve been up to lately, including visits to a number of local parks.

GoogleServe 2009

This past week we had our annual community service project at work, GoogleServe. This year my team signed up together to remove invasive plants from the dunes at Half Moon Bay. We were going after mustard and ice plant. I was surprised to find out that ice plants aren’t native to California – I took a bunch of pictures of them when we visited Santa Cruz. They are great at stabilizing dunes but choke out native plants that local wildlife depend on.

I didn’t take any pictures, but Reid did, and you can enjoy this quick video from my friend and fellow internet-blogger Wysz.

Apparently very few Googlers (or Californians, for that matter) have ever used a hoe before. I tried to explain: in the Midwest, we have these things called yards, and with yards you can often find gardens. Given real estate prices here (even in a down market), I guess we’ll have to find a volunteer organization or community garden or something to better introduce Athena to the outdoors.

GoogleServe, by the way, is an amazing program that more companies should consider copying. Kudos to Seth for his help organizing.

Castle Rock State Park

Last weekend we took Athena on a hike in Castle Rock State Park. We’ve been on walks before, but we’re starting to work our way up to what I would call an official hike.

Athena loves hiking so far but going up and down hills is probably the only activity that’s still hard for Ann. She’s been working out and is probably in better shape than me by now but the changes in grade make walking a challenge for her.

You can see the Castle Rock formation in the photos below. Given all the mountains and cliffs around California I was a little surprised at how small Castle Rock is – it reminded me of the rocks at in Chippewa Gorge at Brecksville Metropark. Fun for climbing.

I have more photos at Flickr.

Lake Chabot with Ahan and Julie

A few weekends ago we spent the weekend at Ahan and Julie’s place, including a nice walk at Chabot Regional Park in the East Bay.

It’s a long story why we spent the whole weekend with them – we haven’t written about it much, but Athena had cold symptoms for about 5 weeks straight, since just after our visit to Cleveland. We’ve had water leaking in the ceiling and mold problems at this apartment so we spent the weekend with them to see if it would make a difference. I headed back home for one of the days to do a thorough cleaning, even washing the walls of her room.

In any event, she’s fine now. Back to the pictures:

Athena loves the grass. We couldn’t keep her on the blanket for long before she rolled over into the grass to start pulling it up.

We’ll try to do another update soon, with picture and video of Athena in her current favorite toy, the Johnny Jump-Up.

By Jason

Since last weekend was a long weekend we decided to take a trip down the coast to see Monterey and Carmel.  The hotels were pretty booked up (and expensive) so we stayed in nearby Salinas.  Salinas is famous for…  well, not much, except maybe John Steinbeck.  Also, according to Wikipedia Craig Kilborn worked there as a sportscaster before he hosted The Daily Show.

One fun fact not listed in Wikipedia is that there are two Best Western Hotels on the same street, separated by one other hotel.  We almost went into the wrong one before we realized the address wasn’t quite right.

Overall I think we would give Salinas a thumbs-up – it was pretty close to everything we wanted to go see, and we had some really good Mexican at El Zacatecano.  At the end of our trip we also found out that there’s a free shuttle between Salinas and Monterey so we could have even taken advantage of that.

A quick warning:  this will be a pretty photo-heavy post, since I got a new camera, a Nikon D60.  I’ve been thinking about getting a new camera for a while now but I really wanted to get a DSLR before the baby came – that way I can better handle low light and motion.

Our first stop was Monterey, where we visited Old Fisherman’s Wharf.  There was a nice little Greek Festival going on but unfortunately we had already eaten.  The view from the wharf is nice:

We kept passing places that had caramel corn, salt-water taffy, cotton candy, and other sugary goodness.  Ann captured me trying to get the last sugar fibers off the cotton candy stick.

The wharf was worth a stop, probably a bit more touristy than we would have liked but a good place to pick up whale watching tours and such.

On the drive back I couldn’t resist playing with my new camera.  It gives me a lot more options, for example 4-second long exposures at night:

Ann was pretty worn out:

The next day we drove down to Carmel-on-the-Sea with then intention of taking some pseudo-artistic pregnancy photos on the beach.

I like the way this one turned out, specifically the low angle and the way the breeze has Ann’s skirt moving in to the middle of the frame:

We were hoping to pick up a long flowing wrap or a sari to make better use of the ocean breeze but the stores were selling nothing but jackets and hoodies.  I understand that they stock things seasonally, but I can’t imagine we’re the only people on the planet who once in a while want to buy a summer item in summer or a winter item in winter.

The waves were fun to watch but it was in the 60s and the water was pretty cold anyway, so we didn’t do any swimming.

Carmel is a nice little town, it started as an artist community and still has that feel, though the houses are all ridiculously expensive and the shops sell $400 purses and whatnot.

We followed the coast a bit further down to the Carmel River State Beach and took more pictures.  This is the estuary where the river meets the pacific.  The water from the river is clear and and very warm and calm compared to the ocean just a few feet away, so it looked like a great place for little kids to play.

A fun picture of Ann’s shadow:

Our next stop was the top of Jacks Peak, the highest point on the Monterey Peninsula.  You’re able to drive pretty close to the top, but Ann made it up the rest of the trail, so we’re going to say she officially climbed a mountain while pregnant.

Ann gives me a classic skeptical look:

A view of Monterey from the peak.  I made a very large vertical panorama of the view looking towards Carmel, too.

Here’s Ann smiling.  The park was nice, though full of poison oak.  There were a couple places that were supposedly filled with fossils but I didn’t see any, which was disappointing.  Ann thought maybe they were there, but I just didn’t notice them.  I assured her that I know what a fossil looks like.

The next stop on our trip was Cannery Row in Monterey.  There they have not one, but two Thomas Kinkade stores, which meant that I had to throw up twice.  Other than that it was nice, touristy like the wharf but a little bit upscale (meaning more expensive).  We didn’t go to the aquarium, so we’ll have to head back some time to check it out.

It was getting late so we decided to head to the beach for the sunset.  Monterey faces north so we had to go up the coast a bit.  There are miles and miles of beaches but not as many access points as you would think.  We ended up in Sand City, on a big dune overlooking a beautiful beach.

Here’s the sunset.  Because of the often cloudless sky and general haze off the ocean, I’d have to say we have better sunsets in Cleveland, but I’m not complaining.

On Monday we drive back up the coast toward home.  Here’s Ann at the Moss Landing beach.  It was too chilly do take any artsy photos here.

These tiny birds are sanderlings.  They’re pretty entertaining to watch, because when the water retreats they all rush down the beach the look for food, but when a wave comes in they all run back up.

Here’s a photo of the Elkhorn Slough wetlands near Moss landing, this is supposed to be a great place for birdwatching.

We went home and had a little cookout with hotdogs and a greek salad.  We’re probably going to go ahead and count this trip as an early anniversary, too.

I’ve got more photos at Flickr.  You can also see the photos from our trip mapped out by following this link.

Next up, an update on baby names and some democracy, so stay tuned!