Big Surrrrrrr - Monterey & Fisherman's Wharf

I searched and searched to find us the perfect place to lay our heads. Did we want to stay in one central location or split it up and stay one night further south? I even looked into staying in some amazing cliffside yurts at a beautiful property in the middle of nowhere. In the end, we decided on the Marriott across from Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. That weekend was 1) Valentine's Day weekend, and 2) a long weekend because of President's Day. So most places within and without our price range were booked. We also decided that we didn't want to drive further to the airport on our last day so we stayed central. I'm not complaining, it is a great hotel in a nice walkable area.

After sleeping and getting breakfast we walked across the street to Fisherman's Wharf. Now I'm not one to do the super touristy things but it was right there and we had some time. It ended up being such a fun place to take pictures. On the way we came across a bocce court.

The view of the marina was fun.

There wasn't much to see on the actual wharf but we went where no tourist has gone before. Well, probably not, but we were pretty much the only people we saw. We walked down below onto the docks and undercarriage of the wharf. Again, super photogenic.

 

After this we ducked into a souvenir shop to buy something for the kids. Rob and I both felt woozy and like the floor was moving even though we had been on solid ground most of the time. There was some weird juju there...

Rob took this awesome pic with the Nikon

but most of the time he was doing this with his Mamiya. Yep, he's pretty cool.

Nate's Baptism

Nate turned 8 late last year and decided that he would like to be baptized and become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We were thrilled with his choice of course and are frequently impressed with his understanding of gospel principles and testimony.

We made this photo of him a few days before his baptism. I love his smile and personality and he is a joy to be around. I can’t even look at this picture of him without smiling. I’m so proud to see Nate gaining knowledge and experience and making correct choices.

Nate was baptized at the same time as our neighbor Sydney. We are good friends with her family and took some pictures of her at the same time that we did Nate’s. She is a frequent visitor over here and it was really fun to see these two interact during the photos session and wonderful to share that experience with her and her family.

It was pretty special to be involved in this as a father. I’ve been looking forward to this day since Nathan was born. It is a strange thing to be old enough to baptize your children but it is certainly and honor to do so. I love Nate very much and am very pleased with his choice.

Big Surrrrrrr - Pescadero State Beach

This beach is just. so. beautiful.  You park your car on top of a cliff and then take some stairs down to the sand and rocks below.

We were really transfixed by the colors of the scene.  I really loved the vibrant green sea grass (?) against the muted blues, browns, and grays. Most of these pictures have very minimal editing done to them.

The water rolling in made me feel insignificant.

We were planning on heading south to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse for sunset but just couldn't pull ourselves away. So we enjoyed it here.

Right before the sun hits the horizon, golden hour occurs. By no means does golden hour actually last an hour. More like 6 minutes or less. Everything in sight suddenly turns bright orange. Long shadows appear. It looks more like sunrise than sunset. Then suddenly it's gone.

We couldn't leave until it was dark.  Rob was a master photographer with these shots.

                                                                  

Ten minutes later we pulled into the lighthouse parking lot, just to see the light. I've never actually seen a lighthouse before and was surprised that the light didn't seem very bright. The surrounding buildings are now used as a hostel.

We drove another hour and fifteen minutes in the dark to the Monterey Marriott. While I took a hot shower, Rob picked up dinner around the corner and brought it back to the room. It was a great way to end our first, perfect day.

Home Decor: Stairway

(This is a long post and probably super boring. Feel free to skip :)

Two years ago we hung our family portraits on the wall in our stairway and I was happy with them.

But not much time went by before I decided there weren't enough pictures for that large of a wall. It's the focus wall in our Living Room and everyone faces it when sitting on the sofa. I'd done a lot of browsing on Houzz and decided to go with a full, top-to-bottom, end-to-end showstopper of a look. Oh, it was going to razzle and dazzle and be the perfect offset to our otherwise pretty toned-down decor.

Luckily, we have a million photographs! We just needed to sort through them and decide which ones we wanted. We spent $40 on prints from Costco and called ahead and asked them not to roll our large sizes. That way they lay flat in the frame rather than bow out.

I already had half the frames but I still needed a lot more. To keep costs WAY down I headed to DI for some DIY. It took a couple of trips but I ended up with 16 frames sized 5x7 up to 30x40. Most of them are solid wood and built by professional framers (business stickers on the back). I took them all apart and painted them black. This cost me under $50.

I thought I'd be able to use most of the mats that came with them but once taken apart I found out that everything was glued together with whatever horrible print was in the frame. So unfortunately I had to spend almost $100 on getting mats cut plus $10 on supplies to put the frames back together.

This whole process was a pain! There were so many different frame sizes, mat sizes, and print sizes to keep track of, many of them un-standard. The mat cutter at Hobby Lobby also cut a few of them wrong which we didn't know until I brought them all home and tried putting them together. Back to Hobby Lobby. I had to pay for 3 mats to be recut even though it wasn't my fault. Because I didn't have the frame with me the first time they wouldn't hold themselves liable.

We spent 3 nights putting everything together. It's amazing how long things take sometimes. There also was an accident with the largest piece of glass but we opted to leave it hoping it isn't too noticeable. We were just so done at that point and still had so much further to go so we kept on going.

Next we needed to decide on a layout. There isn't enough floor space in our home to lay out the entire wall worth of pictures so we opted for photoshop. Everything looked great!

Now all we needed to do was hang everything. Let me first explain something. Rob hates ladders. He is fine with heights, just not while climbing up rungs. Every time he would have to go up high to hang a picture he would hum and haw for 10 minutes before he'd work up the nerve. Then he'd step up       s-l-o-w-l-y. He would make sure both of his feet were firmly planted on each rung before he'd take a deep breath, hold it, and head up to the next. Then he'd exhale loudly. He says he's just "safety conscientious". Granted, half the time he was carrying a frame and hammer in one hand. He was in such a grumpy mood doing this!

Anyway...we put up a few frames and then I made Rob stop because I was just not liking it at all. The frames looked heavy and felt like they were going to fall in on me. Something wasn't right. We went back to photoshop and it still looked great but once it was multi-dimensional in my living space I just hated it. I'm embarrassed that we even got this far with it. After a few days of mulling it over I made Rob get back up on the ladder and take it all down. Oh, I'm such a mean wife!

After a week or two of researching, drawing out different layouts, and laying portions out on the floor I came up with a new plan. We ended up taking out 10 of the smallest photos from our original plan. Then we spent another day and 2 nights hanging and straightening.

This time, it worked! At least I think it works. It's not quite the look I was originally going for. It's more symmetrical and traditional now. At least to me it feels natural and not like I tried and failed at a certain designer look. It really is a whole lotta Snow goin' on now, though!

These pics are taken with my phone since I don't have a wide angle lens for the SLR. Someday I'd love to change out the lighting to some beautiful pendents.

Project Cost: under $210.
Project length: Way too long. Hands on time was probably 33 hours or so over the period of 2 months.
Would I recommend this DIY project? If you're looking to do a smaller collage then I'd say "for sure." But if you're looking to do a large collage on a high wall, I'd most definitely say "No, come up with an easier idea."The cost savings were SUBSTANTIAL but SO much time and energy was used to get it done.

So glad it's done...

 

Big Surrrrrrr - Pescadero

We drove inland just a couple of miles in order to visit Pescadero and get some snacks. What a quiet little place. This particular area of California is the Pumpkin Capital of the World, Artichoke Capital of the World, and Strawberry Capital of the World. 

While Rob visited a farm stand to taste some strawberries and figs I walked around looking for a restroom. I couldn't find one in the vicinity so I asked the man tending the fruit. He generously offered me his restroom and pointed me to the back of the building. I wasn't expecting a double-wide portable. I thought, "Well, I've used porta-potties many times before and I can now." But when I opened the door and saw the toilet full, literally to the brim, of things I won't name, I stepped back out and closed the door behind me. Then I waited a strategic amount of time before heading back to the front with Rob and kindly told the man thank you. 

I did find an actual bathroom soon thereafter but it wasn't much better than the porta-potty.  That was our extent of activity in the town other than getting a few pictures and then heading off to another beach.

Pescadero Beach at Sunset

This photo was taken at Pescadero State Beach on Valentine’s Day. Julie and I made it there a while before sunset and hiked around over the beach and rocks. What a lovely place. As sunset approached we spent a little less time on the rocks and got down closer to the water. To really capture the moment you need to imagine the sound of the birds and waves, the smell of the sea, and then focus on the visuals. Hope you enjoy the photo.

This photo was made on February 14, 2014 at Pescadero State Beach on Valentine’s day with a Nikon D7000 and the Nikon 12–24mm f/4 lens at 12mm. The exposure information was 1/125s, f/9.0, and ISO 100. The image was edited in Lightroom 5 with a graduated filter (exposure, shadows, and contrast to the sky), boosts to the temperature, vibrance, black clipping, shadows, and clarity sliders affected the entire image.

Big Surrrrrr - Half Moon Bay

Our next stop was Half Moon Bay State Beach.

We drove through the homey little town and down a one lane residential road to get there. It is a wonderful, weather-beaten scene. It looks real and un-touristy. It looks like the picnic benches have been there for decades and well-loved. There are also campsites which would be amazing to utilize someday.

 

There seemed to be many locals enjoying the area. We felt privileged to be among them.

Walking barefoot in the sand is always one of the best feelings for feet!

 

Happy Valentine's Day, my love! 

Big Surrrrrrr - Starting Out

We have so many pictures (we took over 1000 in 4 days) and so many things to say about our getaway that I decided we better not break it up by days, but by stops. Haha. But first, how did our trip come to be?

Last fall I decided that I should plan a trip for January because I knew that by then, like every January, I would be itching to get out of dodge. Around that same time Rob found out that his company was going to be changing their vacation and sick time policies in the months ahead. He also found out that he was able to cash out a bunch of his time and for the first time ever, due to not needing any time off for a baby birth, he had enough vacation to pay out. We only thought it was fair to use vacation payout money for a vacation so we were set!

We knew we wanted to do a couple's getaway this time after two vacations straight in Disneyland. We haven't even had 1 night away in 4 1/2 years and we were ready.  I wanted to go somewhere warmer than northern Utah and it couldn't be far because we didn't have too many days to devote to this. I've always wanted to drive California's Highway 1 and Rob was stoked to be out in nature and have some awesome landscape to photograph so our decision was pretty easy. We'd fly into SFO, base ourselves in Monterey, and explore the coast from Half Moon Bay down to Julie Pfeiffer Burns State Park. This covers about 162 miles of pristine coastline.

Valentine's morn, Rob's parents came over to watch the girls and we took Nate to school on the way to the airport. We flew into San Francisco, rented a Jetta, and started our drive south. Rob actually forgot a cable so he was unable to plug in his phone in the car which meant NO MUSIC the entire 4 days! For him, that's huge. I didn't mind...

It wasn't long before we just HAD to pull over so that we could gawk and feel the sea breeze and smell the sea smell. It was incredible. We both just kept shaking our heads in wonderment. How could we possibly, after only a short time, have our feet on the edge of a continent? And how could we possibly be blessed enough to behold it? It felt so surreal yet natural.

One funny thing, I borrowed Nate's binoculars that we got him for Christmas. He was pretty trepidatious about lending them to me and conceded only after I promised to always wear them around my neck so they couldn't fall off a cliff :)

Rob wanted to take the power lines out of this shot but I like them. It draws the eye down the coast. Besides, it's the last time we saw power lines along the shore for the rest of the drive.

Of course I have to thank, wholeheartedly, Rob's parent's for taking our 3 crazies for us. We can never pay them back for the beautiful experience they gave us. We love you both very much.