Mines Memorial Day BBQ

An amazing number of our friends from the Colorado School of Mines have ended up living in the Bay Area. However, the Bay Area is a big place and between all our busy schedules we rarely get to see one another. Therefore, Dan and I decided to host a BBQ over Memorial Day weekend. We ended up with a pretty good tournout - Lindsey, Jim, and Phil who are all current Stanford students, Audrey & hubby Griffin from San Francisco, Sarah whose a pharmacy student at UCSF, Sarah's older brother Brian who actually lives in our building (and also went to Mines), Amanda from San Jose, and as an added bonus Jessica and Chris who just happened to be visiting from Colorado that weekend. We had tons of delicious food, a bit of bocce ball, and a lot of catching up - we will have to get together more often!

Yosemite Spoiled

This past weekend Dan and I were spoiled in Yosemite. Thanks to a kind wedding present we got to spend a "romantic weekend" away at the Awahnee Lodge in Yosemite valley. It was supposed to be for our first anniversary but since I went to a conference (sorry Dan!) the trip was postponed til the spring. The Awahnee lodge was absolutely beautiful and we got a room on the top floor with an amazing view of the valley and waterfalls. The chocolate covered strawberries and champagne were the perfect way to start off our weekend.

Our room was the window at the top

The best part of going the first weekend in May was that the waterfalls and rivers were all flowing at high water - so powerful and amazing! My favorite trail was the mist trail (very appropriately named) which goes 3.5 miles up right beside two massive waterfalls and the raging river. Near the first falls you go up a set of stairs right beside the waterfall but since there was so much water the stairs and the cliff above had turned into a waterfall ... we ran through but needless to say we were drenched.

Other trails we did this weekend included the four mile trail which climbs from the valley floor up to glacier point (although we couldn't get all the way because of snow) and the trail to mirror lake. I couldn't have asked for a better weekend to relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery with my wonderful Danny Boy :)