Sunday, September 23, 2012

A Great Start to the Fall Season!

Hike Around Ross Lake
While it's chilly in the city year-round, it's warm and sunny when you cross the bridges.  So, we're making it a goal to spend our Saturdays exploring the Bay Area while obtaining some needed vitamin D. :)  The hike around Ross Lake is located near the town of San Anselmo in Marin County about 30 minutes north of San Francisco.  My co-worker told me about the hike, so we decided to check out it last Saturday before heading home to watch the Aggie game.

The boys....Toby always has to lead the way.

It's hard for me to believe a view like this is only 30 minutes outside the city.
While hiking, we felt like we were in Tahoe!
 

I had to zoom in on the above picture for you to appreciate Bella's "smile".
She's happiest when she's ouside walking in the sunshine.

Massive Redwood trees are scattered around the lake.
The enormity of these trees still gets to me every time I see them....breathtaking.


Apple and Pumpkin Pickin'
My favorite season to bake is the fall...not surprising given I'm such a fanatic about the holidays. I love all desserts that contain apples, pumpkin, ginger, chocolate, peppermint, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  The Bay Area is home to countless farms, so when I googled "apple orchards" and "pumpkin farms" I found several options just north of the city and to the west of Sonoma County.  We decided to visit Twin Hill Ranch which is located in a tiny town called Sebastopol known for its wine region that produces chards, syrahs, roses, and pinot noir.  After a stop at the apple orchard, we ate BBQ at a fantastic lil' place, and then went to a pumpkin farm.


Time to pick some apples!  I love that they gave us cute lil' red pails to collect our apples.
 

The orchard was pretty large.  Twin Hills Ranch primarily produces apples for juice, but they also run a small bakery focused on apple goods.

So many apples on the ground.

We learned that an apple is ready to be picked when it easily comes off the branch when you touch it.

So many apples to choose from!

The apples we picked!  Only cost us $7.00....$1/lb...pretty sweet deal!

We ate lunch at Smokehouse BBQ in Sebastopol.  Delicious!
 
We've arrived at the pumpkin farm called Peter Pumpkin Farm, which is also a dairy farm that produces cheese.
 
The farm had many expectant cows due within the month.  These large kennels are lined up waiting for newborn calves.
 
The farmer told us to visit his calf born 30 minutes before we arrived.  So, we walked up the farm road to where he housed his cows and this is what we found!!!

And here are the pumpkins!  This was our first visit to a real pumpkin patch...so fun.
I found the perfect one!


To pick a pumpkin from the vine, you just twist it.
 

Before we left the farm we stopped by to take a peek at the calf again.
She had moved much closer to the fence and was curious about us.

Mama standing guard.

The lil' thing tried walking through the fence...she was precious!

Here is the apple pie I made with the apples we picked from the farm.
It's a recipe from a Junior League cookbook and it was delicious!

Here's a close-up view of the leaves I cut from leftover dough for the crust.
I was pretty impressed with my first-ever apple pie to make!


Monday, September 3, 2012

5 Year Anniversary in Bora Bora

It's hard to believe that we've been married for five years!  We still remember August 11, 2007 in Key West like it was yesterday. Since this was a milestone anniversary, we celebrated it in a fun way by vacationing in Bora Bora, French Polynesia.  We used Mike's points for most of the airfare and it look us on a longer route through Auckland, New Zealand, but it allowed us to sightsee in another country which was neat.  Bora Bora is truly paradise...it was the most beautiful place we've ever seen and it was hard to leave.  I'll warn you, this post is long due to so many pictures....I could not stop taking pics of the beautiful turquoise water, white sand, and swaying palm trees.

Auckland, New Zealand


View of Rangitoto Island....a young, extinct volcano formed 600 years ago.

Up in the Sky Tower for a bird's eye view of Auckland.  We were feeling a bit tired at this point....left SF for our connecting in LA on Wednesday evening...then boarded a 13 hr flight and arrived in Auckland around 8am. 


Mount Eden...an extinct volcano.  I'm somewhat fascinated with volcanoes and loved the Auckland's sky line was dotted with extint volcanoes. I told Mike I want to visit more of Auckland one day...particularly the central region of the North Island where there are active volcanoes!
 
Mike standing on the glass floor of the Sky Tower....the tallest building in Auckland.  They even had a glass floor in the elevator...talk about crazy!

The Sky Tower is in the right of the photo.  Auckland reminded us of Sydney and San Francisco...large city on a bay with a ton of sailboats.


Bora Bora, French Polynesia


We made it!  This pic was taken from the runway.  Talk about an amazing view from the start!
 
We were greeted with floral leis that smelled amazing.  Then we boarded a ferry to the property.

"Is this for real?!"  I'm pretty sure that's what came out of mine and Mike's mouth when we took in our first view of the property.






View from the back patio...we could lay out, walk down the steps and snorkel off the balcony, and watch amazing sunsets.  One of our favorite activities was eating dinner on the back patio.

We had a square glass floor on the back patio to view the fish below.  We also had end tables that opened to the water below and we fed the fish from there every night.


Our hut over the water!


View from our back patio of the other huts.

The first of many sunsets we watched.





























Farewell Bora Bora...we love you....we'll be back at some point in our lifetimes!
 Back in Auckland, New Zealand



We took a ferry to Davenport which is an adorable seaside village. We walked to the top of a very small extinct volcano called Mount Victoria and took in amazing views of the Auckland area.