New Year's Eve

This year, Robert and I stayed in Folsom to celebrate. Craig and Kim joined us for the celebration too. We had reservations at 8:30 at Pachanga. It started out with a delicious dinner followed by drinks and dancing. The restaurant had a live band and we partied the night away.

Robert and I goofing around before dinner.

Craig, Kim, Robert, and I at Pachanga.

Boys will be boys.

Happy New Year!!

Tom and Lorie are coming to California.

This year for Christmas, Tom and Lorie came to see us. I was really excited because I got to spend almost a whole week with them. It was a good opportunity to get to know them better. I will always remember the first time I met Tom. I was a waitress at the Bordertown and Tom and Robert were both in Fargo for a construction project. It was around the time, November of 2003, when Robert and I started becoming close friends. Robert asked me to go to Montana with him for two weeks and I agreed. It was a couple of days before I was leaving with Robert...I will never forget this. Well, I was waiting for Trina to make my drink orders, and here comes this man coming up to me. He started talking about the trip to MT. I am like oh, great Robert did you tell the whole construction crew that you are going to MT with me? So I was talking about the trip with Tom, and then he says, "Let me introduce myself to you. I am Robert's dad!" I was pretty shocked. I had no idea his dad was in Fargo and I would meet him so soon! So that was fun. He always ordered Leinenkugel's Honey Weiss with no lemon. He is such a charming man and he tells such great stories about his horses and life experiences. He is a real genuine guy and treats Lorie like a queen.

The first time I met Lorie was at the Hilton Christmas party in Minneapolis. She was just as charming too. She is such an exquisite lady and she makes beautiful sculptures! Some day I will have to hire her to do some horse sculptures for me! :)

Thursday, December 21 they arrived at the San Francisco International Airport around 4:00 p.m. Once we got all situated, we headed towards Monterey! Checked in at our hotel called The Sand Dollar Inn. We drove to Cannery Row and found a restaurant to eat dinner.

The next morning we headed back to Cannery Row to look at all the cute little shops and beautiful Monterey Bay. We also found a friendly sea otter to take a picture with :)

Our next stop was Point Pinos. So gorgeous-the beautiful Pacific Ocean, the sand, waves crashing up on the rocks. I felt so at peace.

Next stop was Asilomar State Beach. You could see Point Pinos Lighthouse and Pacific Grove golf course.

Tom and Lorie. * * * * * * * * * * * * * Point Pinos Lighthouse.

Our next destination was the 17 - Mile Drive.

17 - Mile Drive

These two pictures is the 17 - mile drive points of interest and a map of it. You can click on it to enlarge the picture. You can do that with all my pictures.

The 17 mile drive was just beautiful. Million dollar homes, beautiful golf courses, the sound of the ocean, all the walking and biking paths alongside it. Those people who live there certainly have it made. We stopped and go to most of the points of interest. The ones that I was waiting for was Pebble Beach and the Equestrian Center and The Lone Cypress. It is the symbol of Monterey County and a registered trademark of the Pebble Beach Company.

Pebble Beach Golf course. I would give anything to play golf on this course. What a spectacular place! Robert is standing on the putting green.

Carmel

What another beautiful spot to live. I guess Clint Eastwood lives here. We stopped at Carmel River State Beach. You could see Pebble Beach golf course from here. Magnificent, beautiful, gorgeous Carmel. We spent some time here, walking the beach and just soaking it all in!

Highway 1 to San Simeon

After we got done with Carmel we headed towards San Simeon on Highway 1. The highway goes along the coast, so you could just imagine how beautiful of a drive it would be. All these pictures are taken along Highway 1.

Here we stopped at a vista point! What breath taking sights!

What handsome men!!

We stopped again to enjoy the view.

After our wonderful drive to San Simeon, we headed to our hotel, Inns of California. We were all pretty exhausted. We had seen so much and the time just flew, sadly. After dinner, we called it a night.

Hearst Castle

Saturday, December 23, we had a tour at the Hearst Castle. You can read some history on these photos below.

These pictures were taken in our tour bus. It was a five mile trip to Hearst Castle.

There's the Castle! I couldn't get a good picture of it, so next time I will :)

Robert by Casa Del Sol. Casa Del Sol is an 18-room guesthouse facing the majestic Pacific Coastline.

The Neptune Pool. This below picture was taken out of Hearst Castle, The Official Pictorial Guide.

This picture was taken by Lorie.

The courtyard behind me.

You can see the ocean from the view of this courtyard.

The two statues of Sekhmet, the lion-faced Egyptian goddess of war and battle, are the oldest works of art at San Simeon, dating from 1350 - 1200 B.C. Hearst acquired the pieces in 1935.

Casa Grande is the main house. We got to see the five main rooms on the ground floor. Assembly Room which is the largest of the four sitting rooms and once a gathering place for Hearst's guests, the Refectory which is the single dining room at Hearst Castle, the Morning Room which is a magnificent sitting room filled with Spanish antiques and Flemish tapestries, the Billiard Room which is a game room featuring two 1920's billiard tables and a Gothic "millle fleurs" tapestry, and the Theater which is the largest room in Casa Grande. A lot of our pictures didn't turn out because if you were going to take a picture you need to have your flash off.

The below pictures was the Refectory room.

This was the Morning Room.

The Roman Pool. The pool and surrounding room, which were built from 1927-1934, can be compared to an ancient Roman bath. Every surface of the pool, walls, and ceiling are a mosaic of hammered gold and delicate Venetian glass tiles.

After the tour and the National Geographic companion movie Hearst Castle Building the Dream. We got something to eat and started our way back to Folsom. The drive was about 5 hours long. Along the way I spotted this and took a picture of it.