my quarter century birthday

I decided to make the absolute most of my birthday as it fell on a Friday. My one day turned into a 4 day long weekend as I signed up to do different activities I had not done before. I reached for the land, air and sea, all in one weekend.

Let's rewind to Thursday, the start of it all...

Thursday, my birthday eve, I celebrated it with my family. A nice dinner followed by what can only be described as the most amazing cake to ever grace my presence. This is saying a lot, because I am not exactly a "cake person." I generally would prefer something along the lines of ice cream, cookies, or sweets for dessert. However, I saw this post on Pinterest a few months ago; Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake. Yes, you read that right.. cookie dough inside a cake. Never in my wildest dreams could I have guessed that I would be getting that cake for my birthday. {and I certainty was not going to attempt to make it!} This cake was hands down, the most delicious cake I have ever had, with little bits of cookie dough, running through the middle.

Friday, was a typical day of work for me. Although I did get a free birthday drink from Starbucks! A great way to start any day, if you ask me. After I was done for the day, I raced home because Brett had a couple presents left for me that I was ready to open. Yay for presents! Tissues paper and wrapping paper covered the floor but it was time to leave! We quickly fixed ourselves up a bit and went to grab a bite to eat before tearing up the track on Go-karts! I have been twice before and it is a really fun experience to just let loose and race your friends. My parents even came and my dad was brave enough to get on the track with us. It was a great Friday night.

Saturday morning, we drove down to Monterey, as we booked a 4 hour rental for Stand Up Paddle-boards. {or SUP} We figured 4 hours would be a sufficient amount of time as neither of us had done this before. We were expecting a little more trial and error, that's for sure. We got the hang of it in about 15 minutes and off we went. We had such a good time paddling through the "slough" as the tide was helping to carry us. We thought we had plenty of time to get back to the dock to return the boards, with 2 1/2 hours to fight the tide and return. Little did we know just how difficult it was going to be to paddle against the tide. It was really hard going and for a good portion of the time, as hard as I paddled, I just stayed in place. We eventually made it back to our dock and returned the boards. As soon as I got in the car, I immediately fell asleep {sorry, Brett!} I was so exhausted.

Sunday morning involved sleeping in, past 10, I might add! Which is something I haven't done for a very long time. We had a lazy morning as we were gearing up for a big activity, a flight tour and lesson. We arrived to the airport early and filled out some paperwork and waited in the lounge for the pilot and plane. I was expecting an air tour around the bay area and a short in flight lesson, that's what it seemed like would happen on their website. As soon as we got in the plane and went down the check list, the pilot showed me the controls for the plane and off we went! I was flying a plane the entire time we were up in the air. Of course he helped assist in take off and landing and through a patch of turbulence we had. Otherwise he was explaining the gauges and talking about the area we were flying over. The 45 minutes went by so fast and before I knew it, the wheels hit the runway and it was all over! I loved every minute being up in the air and is something I would definitely do again. After we left we went home to make dinner together and fell asleep really early after such an amazingly long weekend.

My 24th year was a pretty big one looking back on it. It took me to far away lands, local new discoveries, new job, new apartment just to name a few. Really looking forward to see what my 25th year will bring me.

Cheers!

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shredding the gnar

Since I was busy packing, moving and then unpacking through the entire month of December, I didn't get a chance to hit the snow at all in 2012. Once January / February came around there were a few big storms that brought a lot of snow and made for some really excellent snowboarding conditions.

I went up three times this year in total, all day trips which worked out really well. We timed all our trips perfectly so that as soon as the storm has dumped all the snow, Saturday morning at 5am we were in the car and headed north.

I'd say by my third time there, I had made some significant improvement with my boarding skills. Hopefully next winter I will have many more opportunities to improve and work on my skills!

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a few from labor day weekend

I hope everyone had a great three day weekend! As you know, I had my first camping experience this weekend to celebrate the holiday and it really was a lot of fun. It was different than what I was expecting but for the most part we were completely prepared and weren't going "ohhh, I wish I had brought that" which is very good.

On Saturday, our first day, we spent almost the entire day just out on the lake. We had a little bit of trouble as the plastic oars from my parents old little raft had all cracked and failed on us while out in the water. There was a general store with a restaurant on site so luckily they had one oar to purchase. We used that and it was a bit better but still it was a little difficult to get around on the small raft. Brett gave it his all fishing off the boat and caught three fish! They weren't that big but we still brought them back to BBQ and eat with our dinner.

Sunday we drove out to Columbia where they have kept the town and have shops and business's open as if it were 1850. These towns were developed when the rush for gold started and everyone came out west to strike it rich! I had been there once on a school trip and I have wanted to go back and see it again for awhile. There is a stagecoach tour that you can take, visit any of the old general stores, ice cream parlor, blacksmith, bar's and saloons and of course panning for gold. It is definitely worth a visit if you are ever in California and interested.

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24 hours to see thira (santorini)

The next stop on our journey was a quick overnight in Santorini. We heard it was a very small sleepy little island and didn't think there would be that much going on, so we thought one day / night to explore would be perfect. Well we were a little off and wished we had just one more day to explore but we made the most of our short time and did as much as we possibly could! Santorini is also known as Thira and it is the biggest of the islands that came up because of the volcano below that erupted thousands, or millions of years ago - I'm not exactly sure so don't quote me!

The island is very small and all the houses, buildings, etc. are on top of the island because all around is just cliff! You have to take these steep roads and drive up and down these switchbacks. But once you are at the top it is a little hilly but fairly easy to get around. This time we rented a little car {CONVERTIBLE smart car!} because there were about 8 rent-a-car stations at the port, so it seems that is what everyone does. It also worked out because we had so little time and we could just drive to everywhere we wanted. Well we made it to our hotel just in time to see the beautiful sunset from our balcony and then dressed up a little and went into the town. The car was awesome too, it was a little smart car and the whole roof would go back, so it felt like we were back on an ATV. We loved that little thing, I ended up calling her Put-Put because there were so many hills and we were worried she wouldn't make it.

The "sleepy little town" we heard about - was all wrong! It was just as busy as Mykonos as tons of people walked through the streets, headed into restaurants and bars and did some late night shopping. It was such a fun atmosphere. We had an amazing dinner on a rooftop terrace restaurant and then just got lost in the little winding city streets until it was really late and we headed back. Since we had the full day for Santorini because our ferry was at 6.30pm, we booked to go on a boat tour to the other little islands off Santorini where there is still a little {thermal} volcanic activity. The bus arrived at 9am and picked us straight up from the hotel and took us down to the port. We had a really nice tour guide who was on the boat with us. First we went to the bigger island - called something like Old Burnt Island and the other was New Burnt Island, or the other way around? I can't remember. Anyway the first one we were able to hike to the top and get some great views and our guide gave us a little history about the islands and the volcanic eruptions. It was the strongest wind I have ever felt, oh it was crazy! I thought I was going to blow off the island. But I'm still here, so don't worry. Then he took us over to the other smaller island to the hot springs. {luke warm water} The water was this horrible orange murky color and it was so weird to be swimming through it. Again it is said the waters are supposed to have "healing powers" but I'm not feeling any.

After the tour was over, it was about 1.30 or 2 o'clock so we hopped in the car and drove to the other side of the island because there was a point on the map that said "Ancient Thira" and I thought that would be really cool to check out. It wasn't too far away but the map failed to mention that you have to climb up this huge hill for about 15 minutes to reach the top to "Ancient Thira." Our poor little car {Put Put } just barley made it up there and I kept saying encouraging things so she wouldn't die. We made it to the top for some seriously breathtaking views of the other side of the island, along with more crazy intense winds that made it really difficult to walk.. or stand, or do anything really. But it was still completely worth it. Ancient Thira is only 2 euro's and open to the public to walk through at your own pace and check everything out. There were some great little descriptions and explanations of things that you can read about with drawings of what they think it may have looked like.

After all that walking around and exploring we went down to the beach for a late lunch and a quick swim to get all the murky "hot spring" water off of us. Then we had to head back to our hotel to pick up our bags and return the car and then our ferry arrived right on time to take us to our last and final destination, Crete.

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