This day was dedicated to golfing.  We started out with a drive around 17 mile loop, which is where Pebble Beach and some other amazing golf courses are located.  We saw the loan cypress tree, which is featured on the Pebble Beach logo.  Then we stopped by the Pebble Beach lodge and got some amazing pics.  So pretty!

After our fun drive, it was time for our tee time at the course at the hotel and the start of the Hawker Open.  Every year, the Hawker boys compete for the family title.  I got to join this year.  This is my 2nd time actually playing golf, so I was thrilled to actually get par on one hole.  That hole was definitely an outlier though.  In the end, Ben came out on top and took the title of family champion.  While the boys were golfing, the girls got pampered getting both a pedicure and a manicure!

Day 2: Redwoods and Monterey

With San Francisco behind us, it was time to move down the coast to the adventures that awaited us in Monterey.  We took the scenic route down the coast and stopped in the Big Basin State Park, which luckily wasn’t closed being a state park instead of a federal park.  The Big Basin State Park is known for it’s coastal redwoods.  They are actually normal size trees, but they seem so big because you shrink as you approach them.  We’re about 2 feet tall in the picture of us together.  Or so it seems.  After our adventures in the forest, we continued the drive to Monterey and had a nice evening there.

Day 1 of our Hawker California trip: San Francisco.

San Francisco was lots of fun.  We saw the Full House House, drove down Lombard street, went to Pier 39 and saw the sea lions and then had Fish and Chips, then we got to see the Golden Gate bridge up close.  I’ve always wanted to go see the bridge and I finally got to!  Yeah!!!  It was very impressive.

Our good friends James and Erica Peterson came down to Utah for the weekend and stayed with us.  We had a great time visiting with them and we got some good work and playing in while they were here.  Before I go on, I need to tell some back stories.

#1 Last year Kathryn and I transplanted the Rose of Sharon growing to the side of our garage a couple of feet over into the neighbors yard.  Then we smashed down the cinder block wall that separated the car port area to the side of the garage from the rest of the driveway.  We had planned to replace the wall with a gate, but we ended up deciding to just leave the area open.  Where the tree was, we planned to pour a cement pad.

#2 Kathryn has been anxious to work on the baby room since pretty much day 1.  We’ve got a crib, but we haven’t set it up yet.  We also have some furniture at Kathryn’s house that is waiting to come down here to furnish the baby room with.  The problem has been that the baby room is currently serving as our guest room.  We didn’t want to move the guest room downstairs right away, because we needed to do some work downstairs before it is ready to become the new guest room.  So anyway, we’ve been stalling.  We’re not that excited to work on the basement, and we knew James and Erica were coming to stay with us.  So one day we were looking for other projects that we could do in order to procrastinate working on the basement a little longer.  That’s how we came up with the idea that it would be nice to finally finish the concrete pad so we don’t have to worry about mud etc. when we go to take out the trash and stuff.

So we began to make preparations for the pour.  We dug out the dirt and we compacted the soil.  We borrowed some tools from the neighbors and selected the concrete we’d use.  Saturday morning Kathryn and I went in to the concrete place and picked up our cart.  We definitely exceeded the recommended towing weight of our little “truck” with our 2500 pounds of concrete plus the trailer weight.  We took it really easy going home.  Kevin came over to help and we got started.

It went really well, albeit slow.  It took a couple of hours for the concrete to bleed off the water enough so we could work it.  It just didn’t want to start curing for a long time.  We took the cart back and it was a much easier pull going back with the unloaded cart.  Maybe someday we’ll get a bigger truck.

Once the work was done and after we had a fabulous lunch by Kathryn, we loaded up the bikes for a quick trip up Hobble Creek canyon.  It had snowed and rained during the week, so it was a little soggy up there, but not too bad.  It was really pretty.  Devin joined us for the ride.  It was a lot of fun have the gang back together and it was fun to have Kevin be able to join us.

 

While the boys were riding, Kathryn and Erica had a great time working on some ornate Christmas wreaths.  I wish I had more pictures, but this is what I found.

It was a great weekend!  Thanks James, Erica, and Kevin for the help with the concrete!