Birthday Month!

It seems like I'm posting after an adventure and we are having more and more of them :P  Last post was the beginning of July and here I am at the end of August.  I turned 40 this month and Joe turned 41!  He had a TDY to Atlantic City so I flew up there and had a long weekend checking out another new place.  Bonus was that I didn't even have to pay for the plane ticket!  It was a free trip with my credit card rewards....Happy Birthday to me!  
Even though we are always out and about we also have fun here in PCB.  There are days where we just need to get out of our apartment and enjoy the local places and music.  One of our regulars is Buster's Beer and Bait, and yes Buster has both of those things!  He has great outside seating and regular live bands!  

What's not to like :)  On weekends we will go for bike rides, out to a breakfast spot and then wherever we end up riding!  I'm all about exercising that doesn't feel like exercise! 

We enjoyed Atlantic City but we were also sadden by how run down it was.  It still had it's charm but we could see how amazing it use to be.  Talking to a local barista he said it's due to casinos being everywhere nowadays and not just Vegas, Reno, and Atlantic City...and of course politics :(  I got there early afternoon and once we checked in we did a walk around and figured out a show to see.  Ended up seeing a very good burlesque show after some tapas.  The next day it was a pool day and we scored a cabana platform (which is normal $75) for free!  Nothing like laying around a rooftop pool on couches drinking mojitos!  We walked the boardwalk that night, stopping where ever for drinks, hookah, food.... and good people watching!  

Second time doing hookah!  First time was in Baltimore with my girl Natalie!  This time we sat on the boardwalk, had drinks, and watched the city go by!

Had to have a little fun!  

Happy birthday people!

Before flying out we did a quick visit of Philly, a city we want to go back and explore further!  

It's always hard to come back into adulthood and our jobs :( but again... we make the most of being here. This past weekend we finally got out and did some stand up paddle boarding!  It was fun and relaxing!  We'll be doing it again for sure! 

 In 20 days we'll be checking in for our Ireland/Scotland trip!  Work is just a means to fuel our adventures! Loving my life!

West meet East

See you later SLC, UT!

I'm a west coast girl by nature but on 20 May, my car was loaded with the bare necessities along with Tux, Sami, and my new co-pilot in life, Joe, and we headed off to North Carolina.   It took us about three days.  We didn't rush it and I got to see some parts of the U.S. I haven't seen before...very beautiful country!  
We got to Pikeville NC Saturday early evening.  Sami and Tux were awesome traveling!  Sami, I knew, would be but I wasn't sure about Tux.  I heard horror stories about cats in cars and was praying that Tux would go off of Sami's chill vibe and be cool and he was.  We had a small litter box for him in the car but he didn't use it until the last day of driving.  He would get brave and check things out every once in awhile but for the most part he found a cave behind one of our seats and slept.

Needless to say by the time we got home we were spent!  

Sunday was a lazy day but one of Joe's friend's, Chris, invited us over for drinks and BBQ.  Two lazy people who just drove three days had no problem taking him up on his offer!  Chris, well...everyone out here, lives on some land and it's country out here.  He has a beautiful house and it's right next to a wheat field and the sunsets are truly something to take pause and admire!  Chris's wife is currently deployed and he's a single parent of two girls right now, poor guy needs some adult interaction :P  

Monday my stuff was delivered.  Steve, the bad ass driver, and Mesa moving were AWESOME! I had no problems and would recommend them in a heart beat!

Joe had all that following week off of work so we got busy unpacking, hanging things on the wall, and just getting settled.  Sami and Tux were helpful as is their norm :P  Sami will be 11 this August and her back legs are getting weaker.  Stairs give her problems, although she tries her best, and she gets tired rather quickly.  We have a nice back porch but some decent stairs that go to the yard.  Joe quickly made Sami girl an old lady ramp so she has access to the yard AND I don't have to carry her up and down stairs.  It's taken her about a week and a half but now she goes up and down the ramp completely on her own with no coaxing!  She's such a smart girl :D

That Thursday since we had pretty much finished unpacking we headed to the beach!  :D  I love being driving distance to the beach.  We spent a good afternoon there, got some food and headed back.  It was an overcast day with a nice breeze so THAT is what I blame our sunburns on, NOT that we failed to utilize sunscreen :(

It's been a week and I'm still peeling off my skin! ugh

Last week Joe was back to work :( But I had things to do. NC driver's license, NC license plates CHECK!  Looked into getting my interim social work license here and found out I need some paperwork from some good folks in UT :( ugh.  So that's on the docket for completion next week. I'm also getting my bearings around here.  I'm so use to having a big mountain range to gauge where I'm at, and what direction I'm going in.  Here.... not so much.  I'm seeing tobacco fields right and left but they don't help me with a sense of direction :P

This is the first move in my life where the military wasn't a part of it somehow.  Yes, Joe is active duty Air Force but that has no real impact on me.  Even when I moved to Utah I transferred to the Utah Air National Guard and I was still part of something, I had work responsibilities, something while I searched for another job.  Now, I don't have that anymore and it's weird but nice at the same time.  Granted, being a military brat and then serving for 20 years I will never ever be completely away from the military!  Yesterday I went with Joe to a retirement on base, followed by a house party and yep.... military everywhere I look.  It's fine, it's kinda nice being the "civilian" girlfriend although he's told everyone that I just retired so I can't play like I don't know anything about military stuff LOL

Today I did some venturing on my own and while people watching realized how "white" Utah is.  I knew it was but being here and seeing so much more diversity is a nice change of pace for me.  Also, the history here, I think, can be felt.  Just driving around some of these small towns you see some amazing old houses, plantation houses, Victorian looking.... I can't wait to explore more of the East coast and all the history in the area.  

On Monday I'm meeting up with a friend I had in middle school/high school!  We were in the P.I. together and the last time I saw her I was a freshman in high school!  She lives about 2 hours away with her family so we are going to meet in either Raleigh or Chapel Hill!  I have another close friend that is about 3 hours away, and then another one about 6 hours away!  I have NO excuse not to travel up and down the eastern seaboard!

Since I've been here I've slacked on photos.  Mainly it's because I usually use my phone but T Mobile SUCKS out here and I have been having phone issues :(  That's something else on my "to do" list!  I'll probably blog more now since I have some free time with the job hunt and all.... 

We will see how that goes :P  

Lake Tahoe and a little bling ;)

     Shane and I took a little vacation last weekend to Lake Tahoe.  It was a long weekend, we left on Thursday and then drove back on Monday.  I've never been to Lake Tahoe or Reno so it was great to see new places :)
     In Reno we stayed on the main drag, the famous sign was just about a block away from our hotel.

I can mark Reno off my "been there" list.  It has it's historical neatness about it, and it seems as if Reno does have some stuff to offer (they have a river walk) but we were only there for one night and then off to Lake Tahoe.  We walked around this main street (it didn't take very long) just checking everything out.  It was weird to see big casinos empty and shut down!  One big empty casino turned the outside into a big climbing wall!  Pretty good idea, and they seemed to be doing good business.  We ended up at the Eldorado Brew Brothers for some dinner and micro brews.  Good food and they had a live band that started up once we got there.  Started off with some good music, I starting missing my old club days back in Oki! But then the music got bleh and we called it a night.  Well, I did.  Shane did some gambling that first night and did decent.  I don't mind him gambling because he is somewhat smart about.  Goes down with a plan, how much to spend and when he wins he starts putting it to the side.  

     We got up at a decent time and headed out.  Shane's cousin lives in Lake Tahoe and works for the casino and she really hooked us up with places to eat and things to do :D  Before we left the Reno area we had breakfast at the Squeeze In.  Their claim to fame is their omelets.  They are good and I'm not a big omelet person!  The atmosphere was eclectic and hippy like so I enjoyed that :D  Shane focused on getting his new toy working, a GoPro.

Guys and their toys!  He borrowed one for our canyoneering trip and I wasn't totally shocked when he bought one for this trip.  I'm more of a picture gal but he likes the video.  He took a lot but I haven't seen any of them yet.  We mounted it on the inside of the car but that wasn't working too well (glare, a lot of dash in the video) so we eventually put it outside of the car!  That made me nervous but at our first stop there was a couple in a Porsche that had one mounted on their windshield and they've never had a problem.  

     We took a mountain road into Lake Tahoe and it was beautiful with all the overlooks!  

We took our time driving to our hotel.  We checked out short hikes that we'd be passing on our way to the south side of the lake.  Our first stop was at Sugar Pine Point State Park.  

It had an old lodge built in 1902 as a summerhouse for the wealthy.  We didn't go inside but walked around the grounds and down to the beach.  It was beautiful!  First time walking down to the water and there is huge pine cones and geese!  I'm use to palm trees and seagulls!

Our next stop was for a little hike to Cascade Falls.  It's just a mile out and then a mile back.  But with it being to a water fall it's not a flat easy trail :P  A lot of uphill and rocks! Ugh.  It was worth it though!  It overlooked Cascade Lake which is a private lake.  Shane and I wondered about the lake, we heard later on that it was used for movies... so with the help of google here is some information on the private Cascade Lake if you're interested!  John Steinbeck wrote his first book there while he was hired as a caretaker and tutor!

After that hike we headed to our hotel, The Tahoe Beach Resort!  I recommend it!  It's small, and they are doing renovations right now so it will just get better.  We had a room that overlooked the lake, there was a fireplace in the room that was never used but would be awesome during winter!  They have activities for families and just neat stuff to do... yoga on the beach, wine tasting!  A pretty good set up!  Friday was a long day but good.  We ended up at MacDuff's Pub (walking distance) for dinner!

     Saturday we had a relaxing morning before heading out on a longer hike.

We went by a grocery store and got some food for lunch and headed out.  We hiked a portion of the Rubicon Trail, starting at D.L. Bliss state park.  It's about a 4 mile hike (one way) but we went and checked out an old light house so we did about 5 miles that day.  The hike takes you around Emerald Bay and we stopped at the Vikingsholm castle.  We didn't get a tour because at this time we realized we had a bit of a time crunch.  We were planning on taking a shuttle back to the state park so we didn't have to hike back but the last shuttle took off in about 20 minutes and we still had to hike up to parking lot which was a straight up hike!  We were going try and if we missed the shuttle we were going to hitch hike back.  Shane stopped some workers to confirm the shuttle time and one of the workers offered us a ride back to the park! SCORE!  Talk about vacationers luck :D  Awesome!  We actually high fived we were so stoked!  I was sort of looking forward to my first hitch hiking adventure...but I guess that is for another time;)

the Lighthouse

our lunch stop

Vikingsholm

     Now Shane had a plan for the night so he was stressing about getting back to the hotel so we can go to dinner.  We didn't have reservations anywhere but the whole sunset thing was crucial.  

     Yes ladies and gents, he proposed!  I didn't make it easy on him.  I was tired from the hike and I just wanted to shower, throw on some cloths, and get some food.  He wanted to look nice.  So I did, but I took my time not knowing anything.  He wanted to walk down to the beach and I'm just thinking FOOD!  We stopped there and just enjoyed the sunset and I'm still thinking FOOD and then he does the one knee thing and proposes. He smartly added the long engagement clause, which I also repeated :P but at the same time the word yes came out before my brain got engaged with what was going on!  So ta da!

After that I finally got some food ;)

     On Sunday the plan was for a lazy day, and his cousin got us some comp tickets for a boat cruise across the lake.  We had a nice little breakfast before setting out on the M.S. Dixie!

The boat went from the east side to Emerald cove, so it was neat to see it from the water after hiking around it on Friday!  A lot easier too :P  It was a touristy thing to do and they told us neat stuff and facts about the lake.  A very nice way to spend the morning!  We then went back and spent a few hours on the beach!  Shane got into the water but it was too cold for me!  I got half way up my calf and I was done!

That night we met up with his cousin and her husband for dinner.  It was a good time and then we checked out the casinos.  A casino is a casino to me but it was neat all the same.  We went into Harvey's, the beginning of it all... of course it's all renovated and not it's old self but it's still neat to check everything out.  Shane did a little gambling there, didn't do well but didn't "loose" anything either.

     Monday was our drive through the desert back :( Ugh but this was our parting shot leaving our hotel.

It was a wonderful vacation!  It was hard to come back to work.  

     After he propose he wanted to start calling people :P  I, on the other hand, wanted to keep it to ourselves before  making any post or calls plus we were on vacation!  I'm not a phone person anyway so why would I want to spend my vacation time on the phone!  He did tell Codi while we were still there, that was fine.  I haven't made any FB post either for the same reason, we wanted to call/text and tell people that were close and important to us so they don't find out via the Internet.  We might have missed someone here and there but I'm going to load ALL my vacation pics onto FB today and the word will then be out to the masses!

If you want to check out all of my vacation pictures, go here!