Goose Creek State Park

Went for a hike in a state park yesterday, beautiful trees and forest.
We encountered occasional swamp land and black water (stagnant swamp
water). Ended up in a restaurant at Washington, NC on the inner banks
with live music.

Sunday in the park

Listened to bluegrass music Sunday evening in the Greenville park.

Grocery shopping

Went and got groceries at this gourmet market in Greenville called
Fresh Market, very nice produce and deli section. We ordered
sandwiches, delicious.

Off to North Carolina

Jill is a little nervous...

Sunday morning

Jackson wanted to go to starbucks this morning, he loves his pikes
place.

Cafe de Schmunk

Our new morning ritual in the garage, because the house is so hot.

Hike up Mt. Lassen

Lavender Festival (Cherry Valley, CA)

Took grandma Cottrell to the lavender festival and enjoyed a lavender
latte, live classical music, and walking the lavender fields.
Beautiful day to sit and jus relax in the shade.

The reason I'm in North Carolina

Mr. Potato head

In a cafe in NC Sidney loves it because the quesadillas are good and
they have a play area.

Golfing in Pslm Desert

Golfing at Shadow Ridge with aunt Bonnie, John, and uncle Martie.

Riding bikes in Pacific Grove, CA

Birthday weekend road trip

Tonight Jill and I walked over to the Re-Live upper room at the Loma Linda Church and watched The Passion of the Christ. I had first seen it when it was released and not since, and Jill had not been able to see it till now. Once again it was amazing to watch, probably one of the most powerful movies I have ever watched. It's interesting to see how the battle between good and evil is portrayed and the sacrifice that was truly made at the cross. Have a wonderful Easter everyone.

Our First Time to Mammoth Mountain, CA

Last weekend Jillian and I went to visit our friends Trevor and Leah in Mammoth, CA. They moved from Loma Linda 6 months ago to Mammoth and we finally found a weekend that we could go up and visit them. Of course the snowboards had to be packed just in case there happened to be some snow up there. We ended up being there on the best day ever, 2 days before it had snowed 15 inches one day and 18 inches on the next, and the day we went was blue sky (as you can see). The powder in the tree's was awesome, we covered as much of the mountain as we could.

A California Adventure with the Poblacions

To start off the month of March Byron and Tracy invited us to go to California Adventure with them for the day (really I think they just wanted to use Jill's season pass that has free parking), just kidding. We had a good time, we all took the single rider line on the grizzly rafting ride and Tracy won for getting the most wet. Later on I went again while Jill, Byron, and Tracy went on the tower of terror. I know, I am a big weenie. We did get corn dogs at the Corn dog King Castle and an ice cream in the old Zephyr train car. Later we watched the Pixar parade with all the characters from the animated movies (to bad the light parade wasn't going that day). We were surrounded by little 12-13 year old girls all day because apparently we went on the day that Disney was hosting the national junior cheerleader competitions, which made the crowds even crazier.

The Amgen Tour of California

In February Jill, Byron and I went down to Pasadena at the Rose Bowl and watched the riders of the Amgen Tour of California finish there stage 7 from Santa Clarita to Pasadena. Vendors were out from bike company's to herbal life (Byron and I enjoyed a nice shake) and we picked up as much free stuff as we could find. The riders finished the stage at the Rose Bowl and did about 5-6 circuits of a final loop before the race ended. We got to see a number of break aways and a lot of world renowned riders in the main pelaton.

Lance Armstrong's time trial bike (his backup)

Byron with the Liquigas team girls

The Pelaton

Team Astana, that's Lance in the black and yellow helmet with Levi Leipheimer his teammate right behind him who actually won the tour.

George Hincapie in the lead

The last snow storm in southern CA

This is my first blog post from my iPhone, trying it out.

1 Year Anniversary Trip

For our 1 year anniversary we decided to take the train. Since we planned to go visit Jill's family in Seattle over New Year's we decided we would travel by train from L.A to Seattle, so on new year's eve we departed.



Union Station in L.A. was actually very nice, old fashioned decor, a Christmas tree, and since we had reserved a an overnight sleeping car we got to wait in the first class lounge before getting on the train.





Jill posing for the camera, trying to act excited about something out the window, not sure if we were even moving yet.


The parlor car was decorated a little for the new year, this was the main room where you can sit and relax and enjoy the view. We ate a couple meals here and also spent new years eve count down in this car while we were passing through Sacramento with a couple about our age going to Sunriver, OR to snowboard. The couple to Jill's right we actually got to know, they were from Vancouver, BC and they stayed right across from us. The four of us ended up having dinner together the last evening we were on the train.


Klammath Lake, OR

The snow capped mountains some where between Klammath Falls and Bend, OR.




One day after lunch we took our dessert to our sleeper car and ate them there, Hagen Daaz chocolate and vanilla ice cream, yum.




Union Station at Portland, we had a few minutes to get off the train to look around before getting back on.