Party at the Ritz

This year Apple out did them selves. Our SPG Holiday Party was at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. I actually almost missed the signup deadline since it was fairly early in November, but luckily we got our names on the list and booked ourselves a room at the hotel for the night as well. 

It turned out to be a fairly decadent weekend. We were coming off of a week of vacation in San Diego for Thanksgiving, and that Friday we were delivered some Dungeness crab from our fish share. We ate up Friday evening and then Saturday we spent the morning relaxing at a coffee shop before checkin. Checkin time was at 4pm and we arrived promptly at 4 in order to take full advantage of our stay at the hotel. Everyone else who was staying had the same plan and there was a bit of a wait in order to get into the valet area but we survived and got our room at the nicest hotel either of us had ever stayed at.

 

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First Anniversary – Palacio Los Gatos – 10/10/2016

Our first wedding anniversary. We made it a whole year.

On our actual anniversary we were recovering from a long day of moving furniture and boxes. The 10th was Monday, and the previous weekend we spent in Colorado. We had flow to Denver on the Thursday before in order to attend Matt Olsen’s wedding in Estes Park. It was a great event and we got to see a few old friends we hadn’t see in a while.

 

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Shadowbrook Restaurant, Capitola, CA

9/17/2016

Megan found out about Shadowbrook while browsing through one of our CA guide books and it has been on our to do list for some time. They are famous for, among other things, a working cable car that lets you arrive in style or avoid the ‘arduous’ trek up the hill the restaurant is situated on after dinner. Initially we planned to visit for the big loan payoff celebration but with summer coming to an end and a bit of money still owed we decided to just make a reservation so that we could enjoy the sunset during our time there. As it turned out, I got a promotion at work the week of our reservation so we called this dinner a promotion celebration instead.

Overall it was a great experience. We showed up an hour early for drinks and a big pretzel with cheese in the bar by a fireplace before having dinner in the original fireplace room within the main part of the original restaurant.

 

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CME, Wilderness Medicine Conference, Tahoe, CA

8/8 – 8/13/2016

Megan is a PA, and along with the regular studying, journal reading, and YouTube toenail removal videos that she watches, she also has a CME requirement to stay on the bleeding edge of PA license holders. She also has a generous CME budget provided by her employer. So when a post card for a Wilderness Medicine Conference in Tahoe showed up in the mail, she signed up.

Using the budget provided by her employer, we booked a fancy hotel in Squaw Valley, home of the 1960 Winter Olympics. To start the trip, on Saturday afternoon we left Campbell and drove up to the Tahoe area for a night of camping and stargazing. There was a meteor shower going on, however it was a full moon so we didn’t get to see too much in the way of meteors. It was a nice night though, camping in the woods, and Megan and I both felt that was good to be back in the mountains. Strangely, there was an enormous number of bees everywhere we went and after a breakfast of scrambled egg and bacon and pudgy pies the bees cleaned up the dishes. We found out later that there was a sudden explosion in the number of bees town, partly due to the mild winter previously. I escaped unharmed, but Megan was stung in a vicious attack.

 

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Point Reyes, Bodega Bay, CA

4/9/2016 – 4/10/2016

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to make the drive up to San Francisco. Megan had a CME conference to attend beginning at 8 am. She was scheduled to spend the morning learning about the lungs and kidneys, while I planned to explore a bit and drink coffee.

When finished with the training, we met up for lunch at Sushirito, a local chain serving up ‘sushi burritos’. This place had been recommended to me and was good, but not deserving of more than two sentences on a blog or something.

 

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Honeymoon, Portland to Santa Barbara,  12–25 October 2015

Warning: this is a long one, written mostly by Megan… Megan’s words… Jon’s words… enjoy. ( oh, and see if you can find Megan’s head hidden in one of the photos! )

Monday

Our amazing honeymoon started bright and early Monday morning, actually it was still dark out so I guess it was just early. We left Arvada via an Uber and took the shuttle to the airport. As my wedding bouquet was so amazing we brought it with us to strap on the motorcycle and share the journey. We arrived in Portland and lugged our giant and heavy moving boxes into the second Uber of the day and headed to Sven’s house where we would stay for the next 2 nights. Portland was really fun and beautiful. After Jon made the solo journey to the Harley Davidson dealership to commandeer our wheels for the next 2 weeks, we set off to explore the city on a couple of Sven’s bikes. The awesome part about Portland is that there are bike lanes and therefore people on their bikes, everywhere. We eventually made it to the International Rose Garden and were surprised to find out that despite being October, the roses were still in full bloom and looking as beautiful as ever. Peddling our way back home we stopped at a fish market and bought a whole Dungeness crab that rode with me in my front bike basket. Dinner was amazing. Fresh crab, butter, wine.

 

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CA – Christmas Party

Last Saturday, Megan (my invited +1) and I experienced our first ever swanky corporate holiday Christmas party. We took an Uber ride and arrived promptly 15 minutes after 6 and were greeted with many open bars, long lines for food, and decorations that reminded me of Vegas. Oh, and they were handing out selfie sticks as party favors… classy.

 

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The Lost Coast, King Range, CA

Three weeks into starting my new job and I was ready for some time off. Megan had just arrived the previous week, and after a few days of unpacking she too was long overdue for some RnR. Luckily, the company gave me the full week off for Thanksgiving, so we headed North five hours to the Lost Coast for a backpacking trip.

 

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