Russel and Julie

Today we went to Tim and Astridas wedding, they’re some great friends of ours from Oakland. They’re from New Jersey though, so of course their wedding was in New Jersey. We flew from Portland, Oregon to Newark, New Jersey with Alex, he did great. Their wedding was awesome! It was at The English Manor. We had such a good time. They had so much food it was unbelievable, and the food was great. We met a bunch of their friends and family who were all fun to hang out with.

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We spent last weekend in Monterey at the Marriott Monterey. I took the day off on Friday and we drove leisurely down to Monterey. After we checked in we ate at the Old Fisherman’s Grotto where we split the lobster tail and fillet minion “surf and turf”, it was delicious.

On Saturday we went to Carmel-by-the-Sea, we went to the beach first, it was windy and freezing cold so we took to the shops. We stopped for a cookie at the Carmel Bakery and ate Lunch Paolina’s where they had some great pesto pasta. We drove the 17-Mile Drive and went to Pebble Beach Golf Links. For dinner we ventured to Moss Landing in search of Phil’s Fish Market, they’re famous for their cioppino but I’m not a big seafood fan, and Julie thought it looked gross. She got fish and chips and I have an artichoke.

Sunday we checked out of the hotel had breakfast at Grandma’s Kitchen on Fremont Street in Monterey, it was excellent. Then we enjoyed hanging out on the beach, flying a kite, watching the waves and the surfers while we soaked up the rays. It was so much fun!

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It’s Julies birthday! Happy birthday Julie! I had a special birthday trip planned for Julie but it was super secret! I didn’t tell her where we were going, only that I had plans and that she needed to pack some clothes. This afternoon when we were leaving on our “trip”, which Julie thought was a road trip, I headed to the Bart station and we took Bart into the city. Surprise! We’re at the Fairmont in San Francisco! We’ll be in San Francisco until Saturday.

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Before we went to the castle we took a trip to Morro Bay where we walked around downtown and check out the shops. Then we headed to San Luis Obispo to hang out and to have lunch, we went to this place called Bel Frites – they only served ”Belgian” fries with gourmet dipping sauces. Since we were having a late lunch it was great that it wasn’t too big of a meal. Before we went on our tour we had dinner at El Chorlito, it was excellent.

We took the evening tour at the Hearst Castle which was cool since there are people dressed in period clothing wandering around inside and around the castle. Since it was dark out and they keep the lights very dim in the castle to preserve everything inside our pictures didn’t come out very good, but we had a lot of fun checking everything out.

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We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium today on our way to Cambria. We ate at the resturaunt inside to aquarium which was great. We spent over 3 hours wandering around checking everything out, it was really cool. Tomorrow we’re going to go on a tour of the Hearst Castle.

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Hawaii was awesome, we had so much fun. I don’t want to go back to work, I want to sit on the beach and go diving some more! Julie still has some time off before she starts work, she might drive up to see her parents.

When we got home my mom was waiting for us at the airport, what a suprise! We stopped at my moms house, where we watched all the wedding videos that Dave took. We also got to see all of the pictures that my mom took. It was great to see pictures of our wedding for the first time. It was also lots of fun to see everyone on the video having a great time.

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If only we could stay another week and do some more diving… Today was another great day with Big Island Divers, Captain Mike and Divemaster Cal. We even had the chance to snorkel with the dolphins between dives. It was incredible to have a dolphin swimming only feet away. After two fabulous dives, we headed to town. We walked around, found some souvenirs and headed to the Kona Inn for a world famous Mai Tai. Russel’s Mai Tai’s are much better, maybe we should open up a world famous Mai Tai shop. The Ono fish and chips were great though. Tomorrow, we head to Hilo and then home on Sunday.

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Today, we completed our last two dives for PADI open water diver certification. Woohoo! It was an all around great day, except for that part where you have to remove and replace your mask underwater. As we arrived at our first dive site, Casa Cave, there was a pod of dolphins swimming nearby. We grabbed a mask, jumped in and there we were swimming with the dolphins. There was a turtle sleeping near the cave and lobsters aplenty inside of the cave. The site was spectacular. Russel took pictures of our dives and thanks to our instructor, Cal, we have a few shots of us together. After diving, we went to Killer Tacos and ate killer burritos.

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