Birthday in the Redwoods

For my birthday this year, Matt and I decided to spend the day exploring the South Bay Area. We headed out towards Santa Cruz and decided to hike through the Henry Cowell State Park - a redwood state park.

It was only a 30 minute drive from our house and the weather was gorgeous. The redwood trees were so huge and awesome and we even got to see a couple banana slugs - always a treat I know.

After working up an appetite we drove 15 minutes into Santa Cruz and tried a cool burrito restaurants complete with fresh, organic ingredients. Then we drove around downtown Santa Cruz too tired to do any more walking. We stopped by Mission Santa Cruz, which was tiny compared to the mission in San Juan Capistrano then before we headed home we stopped at a famous local ice cream shop. I tried some blackberry ice cream while Matt filled up on donuts.

We are so blessed to be so close to such amazing places. We HEART California and are really loving discovering the Bay Area.

Me under the HUGE redwoods

Mini Matt or Humongous trees?

Seth's Graduation

My little bro recently graduated high school and I was so excited to be here for it. Rocky also drove up from Anaheim for it. We had fun celebrating Seth's big day but also my parent's 40 year anniversary the night before. 

How funny it was to be back in the old Fairfield High stadium again, sitting on the hot bleachers. Luckily Seth's name was called first so we didn't have to wait so long for him to be called. I could not have been more proud to see him dancing down the aisle when they called his name. A dancer after my own heart :)

I'm so happy for Seth to start on his own adventure now as scary as that probably is for him. I just love my family and love all the different personalities including Seth's and his calm demeanor :) Our little family angel.

Congrats little bro!

My parents celebrating their 40th anniversary 

The chef was so cute and made this for my parents

Check out the tough guys hanging out and waiting for graduation to start

My Grandma Goss and mom 

The graduates waiting for festivities to start

Mom and me

The big grad Seth (on the left)

Just trying out my green thumb

I finally got around to planting my little garden in our tiny backyard. I started in May by digging up the dirt and adding soil and compost to it since it looked like clay. 

I'm still not confident in how the dirt feels because it still seems so rough, but I decided to give it a go before it is too late to plant. I planted tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, green onions, yellow onions, peas, strawberries, cilantro, and basil. I'm hoping at least one of these will turn out. 

I must say it has been more fun than I thought and if I have success, that will be even better. Any tips would be most appreciated.

Before - this is what the area looked like when we moved in

This is how it looks now that I planted (taken from our upstairs balcony to give you the full view)

So much sushi!

Matt's co-worker, Jonathan, was in town from Seattle and took Matt and I to dinner...and amazingly got Matt to agree to sushi (something I don't get him to do often.) 

The food was so good and it was so fun meeting Jonathan and hearing funny work stories. He shared with me that he was so impressed when he met Matt at Deloitte University (Matt and he were in the same hiring class) because Matt was walking around with a little notebook writing down the names (and descriptions) of all the people he met so he would remember them.

I loved it and decided the do the same in our new ward since I keep forgetting people's names. Now all I have to do is skim through my list each Sunday before church to freshen up on my names :) My husband, such a networking champ!