MIA

I haven't blogged in a while since I've been a away for a few weeks. I just got back from biking through Ireland for 2 weeks and then went to visit Riane in London for a week. Ireland was absolutely gorgeous and very green! The biking part wasn't too tough but wasn't that easy either. We did about 30 miles a day with stops to sight see and lunch along the way. I was a little nervous since I haven't really biked since my triathlon a couple years ago but we all did great and tackled the hills just fine.

We biked in the pouring rain a couple of days which was actually pretty fun because we weren't cold and we dressed for it. We lucked out towards the end of the tour with some sunny, gorgeous days. We learned two things: Ireland is NOT flat and the wind can be killer, especially when you're biking in it! We even had to abort one afternoon ride one day due to gale force winds that were knocking us over as we rode along the coast. Craziness! It was an amazing trip. Our bike tour company planned awesome routes and chose amazing bed & breakfasts to stay at each night. The Irish people were so welcoming and very friendly. Thanks to our bike tour guide who was from Ireland, we had a truly Irish experience while we were there. We also toured around on our own via car for about 5 days and saw almost the entire west coast of Ireland by the time we left. We're ready for the Italy bike trip next...uh, I think.

Riane and I had so much fun in London! She did a great job of showing me around. We walked alot and I got to see where she hangs out and meet all her friends. We saw two plays and had a blast together just walking around the city. I was so happy to be there for her 20th birthday! We went to this awesome little restaurant for her birthday lunch called Archipelago and we ate crocodile and kangaroo! Both were actually really good. We decided to pass on the locust salad and the chocolate scorpion though. I miss you Ri!

I had a chance to play around with my camera alot on this trip and came home to realize I took a total of 1600 pictures! I am in the process of uploading them and will post a link to view soo...so stay tuned!

One picture while you wait :)

Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, Ireland

We're back!

And we miss Greece! After an awesome trip to Athens, Santorini and Crete we are back and still recovering from the 10 hour time difference and almost 24 hours of travel on the way home. Needless to say, it was an amazing trip and we had a great time with Ben and Meredith! Greece is truly an amazing country and each city we visited was beautiful and unique in it's own way. Here is a sneak peak of some of our pictures. We're still compiling all of them from all the cameras but here are some of my shares. We swam at a black beach, red beach, white beach and pink beach! Yes, it really was pink..see pic below. We ate wonderful Greek food, drank local wine and ouzo (yum!) We went sightseeing, walked around ruins and saw some of the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen.

More pics here!

Parthenon, Athens

beautiful Oia village, Santorini

Oia, Santorini

Red beach, Santorini

"Pink Beach", Elafonissi Beach, Crete

Sunset in Paleochora, Crete

Christine Visits!

Christine & I had so much fun this weekend touring around SF & Napa! She got to experience a San Francisco summer for the first time when we attempted to walk across the Golden Gate bridge today in the freezing cold & fog.

Fun in the Texas Sun!

We made a last-minute, surprise trip to Texas for Uncle Doug's 50th Bday party. We took a red-eye out of SF and drove from Austin to Corpus to meet my family at the beach for the weekend. Luckily, we went the weekend before the hurricane hit the coast. We had such a great time and were really happy to visit with everyone before we see them next over the holidays. Happy belated Uncle Doug!

More Pictures Here

....watching the full moon rise

Slideshow!

My mom & I made a slideshow for my Uncle Doug's 50th Birthday party. She spent the many, many hours scanning in all the old pictures we didn't have as digital files. I put it all together with the music and put it on a DVD. This is the second one I created (first one was for Reagan's wedding.) I just learned how to upload videos on Blogger to show it off! I think I might start a business creating picture slideshows for birthdays, weddings, etc. So, if you know anyone who needs a DVD slideshow, let me know.

You might have to scroll down to the bottom of this page and press Pause on the music playing below to hear the music on the slideshow. Enjoy!

Album Fetcher

As most of you know by now I use SmugMug to organize and share our photos. I've been really happy so far with their service and recently was able to see some prints and they look great! Smug Mug is much better than printing at starts with a "Wal..." I recommend printing in a matte or lustre finish.

One of the main features I have wished for is a bulk download option for my friends and family who want to save more than one photo to their computer. Well, FINALLY a SmugMug user has created an application just this purpose-- AlbumFetcher and it works great! It is very simple to use and in just a few steps you can download an entire album from my SmugMug page to your computer. It's also pretty cool because it will embed those files with my captions too ;)

I have created a step by step tutorial here. ............Cheers!

It's Summer!

We went to the Russian River Valley this weekend and camped on the river. This was our first time camping in this area. Normally, we go to Napa or Sonoma and camp and bike around those wineries. The vineyards in Russian River valley look dramatically different as they are surrounded by hundreds of huge trees. The landscape was gorgeous.


As members of La Crema winery (home to some of our favorite Chardonnays and Pinots), we were invited to a members only lunch at the winery in Windsor, CA in the valley. The actual winery isn't open to the public for tastings (only the tasting room in Healdsburg does tastings) so this was a treat to be able to see the winery and tour around it. The grounds were pretty and they had the inside of the production room decorated and set up for the lunch. We had their awesome wines paired with different courses and everything was wonderful! It is obvious being inside the warehouse this winery produces a ton of wine! There were rows and rows of barrels stacked all the way to the ceiling.


Our campsite was just a few miles away and it was a perfect summer day and hot out so we jumped in the river as soon as we got back. Our campsite had a good beach and the water felt great. Karl & I jumped off huge rocks with the kids into the swimming hole. The scenery was awesome and there were huge homes hanging from the cliff side over the water.