Ducks and Chickens!

Here's the FABULOUS place where we stayed! A family lives in the main house, and we stayed in a small apartment type place right behind matt's head! It was a little rustic but perfect for us! It even had a tiny stove and sink, which saved us money on food!

This is the view from our bedroom upstairs! Yep, that's the ocean in the background!

We enjoyed relaxing and just doing whatever we felt like doing!

This is the porch outside of our front door

Here's the view looking off the porch...

...where we were immediately greeted by 3 ducks in the morning!

They'd follow us around...until....

...matt followed them around!

Matt: "Come on ducks...let's play!"

Ducks: "no way, no way, no way, no way...."

Ducks: "Don't play with the chickens...play with US!"

Ducks (as they came in for the attack): "RIGHT NOW!! Play with US!"

(very indecisive ducks!) :)

Matt was quite good at speaking chicken!

But the chickens weren't too fond of him once he took their egg for our breakfast!

...ok, so off the farm and into the village. We sauntered around town and found my new favorite tourist shop! It was a sanguine's dream- Bright, Happy, Cheerful colors and sounds!

The sun went down that evening...and we went home to watch the cooking channel! Sorry, no in-between pictures since we didn't do too much but wander and relax!

A good day

Fun at Mendocino Beach

Well...my birthday, Christmas and our 1.5 year anniversary are coming up! All good reasons for a trip to the beach! Matt and I prefer going somewhere new over buying each other gifts, so this year we went to a little town called Mendocino village. It's hard to choose just a few pictures...and as always, pictures just can't capture how utterly awesome the beauty was...so you should just go there yourselves if you haven't yet! :)

First, breakfast at a little restaurant overlooking the ocean!

the birds were hoping for some of our breakfast

It's hard to tell, but we're way up on the edge of a cliff...similar to the direction matt is looking

The beach makes me come alive!!! I LOVE IT! I'm amazed at the beauty of the California coast. It's so different than Oregon and I'm continually in awe of it! It took us half the day to walk a half mile since we stopped at every new view!

We wish we could have captured the huge waves crashing against the rocks. You can see one in the background of this picture!
This is looking back toward Mendocino Village where we stayed. One of those buildings is where we ate breakfast!
Matt loves getting as close as possible to the water! Again, huge waves that seemed much larger in person! REALLY! :)
This was our favorite spot! We're up on the edge of a cliff over the water...so i thought i'd dive in! Every few minutes, HUGE waves would crash against the rocks below and splash all the way up to where we were! We were told the waves were larger than normal because of a storm surge! Good timing for us! The other fun part was that no one else was around! We had a personal ocean waves show!
This picture shows the waves splashing up from way below! Wish you could have seen it!
Matt freaking me out down by the water! It was safe...i think...but a thrill to be so close to Huge waves! This was immediately after a massive wave crashed right up near Matt!
There were several of these bridge type things! The water came crashing through here but again, the picture we took just doesn't capture how amazing it was!

Nap time for matt

Just some views of the town. It was tiny and quaint

And for "Murder She Wrote" fans...here's Jessica's house! The majority of the shows were filmed somewhere else, but several of the buildings in Mendocino were used, including this one!
We made it down to the beach at low tide. If you look close you can see matt in the little cave.

This is a beach a little further north at Fort Bragg called "Glass Beach"

People come here to find glass that has been smoothed by the ocean waves. Years ago this was the location of the city dump. Now all that remains are tiny pieces of glass mixed into the rocks and sand of the beach. We met a few people who were collecting it to make jewlery!

FABULOUS MEMORIES with my FAVORITE MAN!!!

Zoe's 7th Birthday!

It's hard to believe that Zoe is 7 years old already!!!

Her favorite gift by FAR this year was her new cousin...just 2 weeks old!

If she could have, she would have held her all night! SOOOooooo Proud!!!

Here's mommy Kara (Bob and Beth's sister-in-law)

And the CAKE!!! Exactly how Zoe requested it!

If you haven't yet seen Beth's cake web site, you should check it out! She took a cake class just for a new hobby and found out that she has a gift!!! Actually, she's quite amazing if you ask me! Today she told me she made her first ICE CREAM CAKE!!!! bethscakes.jimdo.com

AND THEN...

...as i sat...i looked over and saw the cake knife covered with black frosting...hmm, that looks like fun...and sure enough....

"what is aunt cheryl doing?..."

...like this Joshua...

SOOooooo much fun!!!! and all we needed was a little black frosting!!! :)

DadO was there, of course, and MomO came to town for the celebration, so we got to spend some good visiting time!

Bob's parents, Bob and Sue, were there, as well as his brother and sister-in-law, Shane and Kara! Good times! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOE!!!

Apple Hill

It's a famous "hill" about 40 minutes from our home that it seems EVERYONE in the area goes to in fall. A couple weeks ago, DadO joined us for a day of relaxing and eating!!!...

The hill consists of several apple orchards, as well as vineyards, Christmas tree farms, and other farms. The farms vary in size and produce, but many of them participate in the fun of the fall season!We first went to "High Hill, which is where Matt's family went when he was a kid. It was the happenin' place, with craft booths, a pond to "fish" in, hay and pony rides, pumpkin patch, and of course the smell of fresh baked apple pie in the air!!!....and anything else made from apples we could imagine!!! And CROWDS of people!DadO knew what he wanted!!!...apple donuts of every kind to last all week! We enjoyed free samples of fresh juiced apples with nothing added!!! WOW!!! SO GOOD!!!
It was a perfect afternoon to sit and talk by the pond. We really enjoyed hearing more about DadO's life and time in Vietnam.
We next visited a smaller farm, which i enjoyed even more! The orchard was right there, fewer people, and beautiful setting!

....and even a pig on a spit!!

US!!! :)

We had lunch at "Honey Bear Farm" and just enjoyed the scenery.

By the time we were done talking and relaxing, most farms were closing up, so we just drove around to a few more. We found a great vineyard that we hope to visit again someday for wine tasting.

So peaceful, great view, relaxing, Frank Sinatra playing in the background, sun setting... happiness!!!

This is one of the smaller places closing up shop! We got there in time to pet some animals!

Llama!

Goose, llama, llama, llama, llama! :) I like the one with bangs!

And a place with tons of flowers!

We only got to see about half of "Apple Hill" so I hope we'll get to see the rest on another saturday! Maybe you could visit and come with us! :)