Spontaneous Road Trip: Part 1

After Carly & Chase's wedding we decided to drive up to Portland, OR to visit our college friends Dave & Rachael Berry and meet their daughter Pearl. We figured, hey, we'll be halfway there (in Sac) and we're unemployed with time to spare, so why not!

It was a great decision! The drive up there was beautiful- neither of us had driven that far north as adults and seeing I-5 in the spring is a lot greener and nicer than summertime. Gigi noted that there were "wots [lots] of cows."We had a great time touring around Portland with stay-at-home dad Dave (one of David's college roommates and also to be forever remembered as the groomsman at our wedding with 2 left shoes). He helps pastor a church in Portland and took us to tour Skate Church which his co-pastor started over 20 years ago. It was really fun to see Gigi and Pearl play together, too. Pearl turned 1 in December so they are only about 7 months apart.
We went to Powell's Books which is the biggest bookstore I could imagine- an entire city block and multiple levels!! It was awesome! And we also saw the beautiful Multnomah Falls (pictured up above) in the Columbia River Gorge. It was raining, but that didn't stop us from venturing out!
I really loved Oregon, especially how green it is~ and I mean that literally and figuratively.

Enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for the rest of trip's recaps.

Arizona: The Land Of Hot Dirt... And Traffic

Last weekend we had a great trip out to Arizona... why, you ask? Visit Round Ball Round Bat for the details, including a link to our photos from the trip {fyi- if you are not our contact on flickr yet you will only be able to see the baseball pictures and not all the other cute shots of Gigi and her cousin}.

Also, here's a cute video I finally edited that will give you a little hint as to why we went to the desert (if you don't already know).

Weekend in Sac!

Gigi and I flew up to Sacramento this weekend for a fun time with family and friends. We were so stoked that David was able to come out from Colorado too and we loved spending the weekend with him; it made us even more anxious for when he's finally out here for good!

We stayed with our friends Dave, Emily & Isabelle as we have been wanting to visit them ever since Dave had a bit of a health scare last month. We loved meeting Isabelle and Gigi was so happy to meet another new friend, Ih-belle. Gigi & Izzy got to take a couple of baths together and Gigi got to play with all of Emmy's fun toys that she has from her speech therapy days, and Mommy was happy to eat yummy abalone for dinner- mmm!!

Bath time!

We also went to celebrate with the Bennett side of the fam and Gigi got to go to Aunt Carly's bridal shower and spend time with her and Uncle Chase, Granny and Granpa and even Aunt Stacey, who came all the way from Indiana, surprising her little sister! During the shower, David and his dad got to play golf at the golf course that David worked at in high school with his buddy Taylor and his dad ~ just like the old days.

Surprise!

At Carly's Shower

On Sunday, we also spent time with Kristina & Sarah, another one of Gigi's friends. It was so cute to see the three girls sort of "hanging out" together and observing the different stages each of them is in.

Moms & Daughters, the next generation

Isabelle (~6 mos.), Sarah (~11 mos.), Gianna (~21 mos.)

Speaking of stages, sweet little Gigi Bri has officially entered the Terrible Twos, as of Carly's shower, which she pretty much spent in one constant tantrum (sorry, ladies!). Although, she sort of redeemed & refreshed herself yesterday with two good naps, and a good night's sleep.

Thanks, everyone, for a really fun weekend!

Argentina - La Tierra de Bife

Hola, friends and family. As some of you know, I recently traveled to Argentina for a business meeting. I am used to going to Alabama and Mississippi, so this was a pleasant deviation from my normal trips. The company I work for, United Launch Alliance, will be launching an Argentinian satellite on one of our rockets so I got to go down there to support a meeting with the spacecraft manufacturer.

The meeting was held in Bariloche, which is in the northern part of Patagonia. Bariloche is roughly opposite from Denver in latitude across the equator. We had to fly from Denver to Atlanta, Atlanta to Buenos Aires, and Buenos Aires to Bariloche. The flight to Buenos Aires is 10 hours, but my company's travel policy allows for flying business class on international flights so I was able to sleep in my seat that folded almost flat. My travel plans gave me two days in Buenos Aires - one on either end of the trip.

I knew very little about Argentina before I left for this trip so I did some cramming with one of those travel guide books (I think it was Frommer's). While those books have a ton of great information, you really don't get a feel for a foreign place until you are actually there. Here are a few examples of guide book tourism versus the real thing (I am paraphrasing the guide book versions, but you will get the point):

1. Transportation
Per the book: Traveling by car in Argentina is much more dangerous than in the United States. Think about calling a taxi or taking the bus before considering driving in Argentina.

What it should say: Traveling by car in Argentina is absolutely insane. If you are the least bit faint of heart, do not even get in a car. No one pays any attention to lane lines, stop signs, or pedestrians. The only hint of obedience to the law is at stoplights. If you want to walk across the street, your head must be on a swivel or you might as well be dressed as a speed bump.

2. Food
Per the book: The cornerstone of Argentinian cuisine is beef. You will find many traditional meals consisting of tender, grass-fed beef.
What it should say: Bife, lomo, and carne are all words you will find on a menu that mean 'beef". Kind of like Hawaiians having all those words for "waves", it seems fitting to have all these words for beef since Argentinians love to eat steak. We had a huge steak lunch two days in a row in Bariloche at a local BBQ place. The meat was absolutely fantastic - so tender you could cut it with a butter knife. No sauce needed for this steak. And to get the party started, we had beef turnovers (no joke). As an aside from the beef, they have soda in glass bottles in Argentina. The country is dominated by Coke products so I ordered"Coca" at most meals and drank it from a wine glass since they also have tons of that. For dessert, you will find many types of chocolate treats. I partook in several of these goodies, the best of which contained dulce de leche, a caramel-like liquid made mostly of sugar.

3. Shopping
Per the book: Argentinians as a whole are a very fashionable people. You will find many botiques, as well as larger stores to get your fill of shopping.
What it should say: While you can buy clothes to dress like the Argentinians, it is much harder to be as good looking as most of the people there. There are hardly any fatties in Argentina and it seemed like every woman, young and old, had a beautiful complexion. If you still want to shop after seeing all the beauty, be prepared to buy something leather. Whether you are prepared or not, the store owners will be in your grill trying to get you into their store to buy a jacket that used to be the wrapper on the steak you ate for lunch.

4. Sports
Per the book: Soccer (fútbol to the locals) is by far the most popular sport in Argentina.
What it should say: Soccer is basically the religion of the Argentinian people. "Sporting goods" stores are actually soccer stores with a couple aisles of random equipment for tennis, basketball, and maybe golf. The only "sports bar" we saw - and ate at - was a soccer bar which could have doubled as a disco joint. Argentina was hosting Uruguay in a World Cup qualifier on the day we left so every other person on the street was wearing at least a jersey - usually accompanied by a hat, scarf, or face paint - sporting the colors of the Argentinian national team.

A few other random notes:
- Be thankful for the budget that is dedicated to public works in the US. The sidewalks and streets (as you will see in a few of the pictures) are not taken care of nearly as well as they are in the US.
- There was a disturbingly large number of stray dogs. Not sure what to say about that one...
- Speaking Spanish is very helpful, even if you are not fluent. I had four years of Spanish in high school and I was able to get myself and my three co-workers around just fine (especially considering one of my co-workers had to ask me how to say "please" in Spanish).
- I ate wild boar stew. Awesome.
-We had time on the last day of meetings to do a hike to the top of El Mirador (in the Andes Mountains). Bariloche is in the foothills of the Andes and we drove through one of the parks and took a bunch of pictures.

As a whole, this trip was very enlightening and interesting all at once. I was able to see the large city of Buenos Aires as well as the small ski village of Bariloche. I had fun trying to speak in Spanish with waiters, bellhops, and others who spoke absolutely no English. I took a bunch of pictures while I was there - here's the link:
http://flickr.com/photos/bennettars/sets/72157608469189825/

I am very thankful for the chance I had to go on this trip and I hope you enjoyed this synopsis. If the opportunity to travel to Argentina ever presents itself, take it and enjoy the country of great complexions and tender steak!

Week in California

Sorry for the delay on this post~ still waiting for a few pics to get emailed to me, but I figured I can just add to it when they arrive!
Gianna and I spent a week in California at Yaya & Papa's house while David traveled to Argentina for work (more on that later!).We had a great time! We saw lots of friends and family-- Granny & Granpa came down for dinner one night and Unc A & Tia spent most of the week with us, too. On Thursday we had a very full day visiting some friends in Orange County which was very fun. We even went the San Diego Zoo on Friday -- Gigi loved all the "amuls" (animals)! Oh, and Gigi fell even more in love with Sydney (aka "Ninney").Gigi Bri did awesome on the plane rides (sleeping most of the time!). The only bummer about this whole week was that we came back to significantly cooler weather. Let's just say I currently have 2 tomato plants and 1 jalapeño plant in my kitchen trying to survive ~ I'm always in denial that winter is coming!

As usual, I have lots of pictures to share from the week away...

My album from the week:
http://flickr.com/photos/bennettars/sets/72157608242781930/
Al-Buddy also has some great shots too:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14000165@N05/sets/72157607946938560/

P.S. I wrote a guest post for Green & Clean Mom last week. You can read it to find out how/why I decided to go green...

Trip to NorCal

We spent a long weekend in California, seeing lots of peeps and driving all over! The trip was to go to my dear friend Emily's baby Shower in West Sacramento, which was awesome because we had almost the whole lake crew together (missing some of the guys and their significant others). We flew into San Jose because it was cheaper, which turned out great because we even got to see a few friends in the Bay Area in addition to our friends & fam in Sac.We stayed the weekend in shared hotel room with my parents (Thanks!) and then spent a night with David's sister Carly and a night with our friends the Wingers. Thanks everyone for your hospitality and a really fun trip (minus David li'l bout with food poisoning or the stomach flu).
Thanks to my parents babysitting, David & I even got to celebrate our 5 year anniversary) (which was Saturday) with a lovely dinner at Morton's!

Here are all the pictures (make sure to enable the captions if you do a slideshow!)! Click here (sorry I forgot to make it a link before!): http://flickr.com/photos/bennettars/sets/72157605951661795/

Nor Cal

We're coming to Sac at the end of the month!!



I know this is random, but I found it on neatorama and had to make one!

Santa Fe-- A Quick Trip

Saturday morning we left for Santa Fe, NM... we stopped to visit the Millers in CO Springs for a bit and then we were on our way. We pulled into downtown Santa Fe in the late afternoon, checked into our hotel (a national historic landmark), and walked around the downtown & plaza area a little. Our hotel was in a great location for walking around. The city is very adobe. We weren't really sure what we were expecting, but maybe something a little more metropolis-like, since it's the state capital. But all in all, it was a very cool city.
We had some good food (Santa Fe is known for its green & red chile-- see The Chile Shop) and saw the sights. Sunday morning we had a delicious crepe breakfast before checking out and heading to our ultimate destination... Trader Joe's! We spent about 45 minutes there (which is a lot for such a small grocery store!) and filled up 2 ice chests and several bags. Mmmm.... totally worth the trip!! Unfortunately for a guy at David's work who asked for some 2-Buck Chuck, in New Mex, they don't sell alcohol before noon on Sundays so we couldn't buy him any! These states and their weird liquor laws... The funniest thing was that our checker said we were her 4th Coloradoan customer that day! And then as we were leaving a lady overheard us and said, "hey, I'm from Colorado too"! So I guess we're not the only crazy ones!! :)

Here are all our pictures from the trip:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bennettars/sets/72157604556298880/

Going outside...

Even though we've had snow the last 2 days, we have had some warmer weather lately and are starting to feel like Spring is creeping toward us. Last weekend we went on a fun hike at a nearby state park with our friends the Matthews. It's really fun getting to know them again as we all went to Cal Poly together, lost touch, and then ended up living just a couple miles from each other here in CO!!

Melody, Kyle, Wyatt & Us

Then this week I spent an afternoon hanging out with my new friend Meredith who is expecting a little girlie of her own to be born any day now. She just happens to be an awesome photographer and she got some great shots of Gigi at the park. I'm happy to report that in her old age, Gigi not only loves to swing, but she's also slowly overcoming her fear of grass!
See all the pictures here: http://flickr.com/photos/bennettars/sets/72157604495128003/


We're off to Santa Fe, NM tomorrow for the weekend to check out a supposedly cool city and hit up the one and only Trader Joe's (5 1/2 hours away is our closest one). We got a surprise sneak peak at what we will be able to stock up on when we got a few yummy things in the mail from David's aunt Jann today!! :)

Breckenridge Trip

We had a great weekend up in the mountains with some friends from David's work. Some of them are old friends who flew out here from CA, along with one who works here in CO with David, and some other new friends that we met through the Chows who planned the trip. We had an awesome cabin (heated floors!!!) and great snow. David and I split the day snowboarding on Saturday at Copper and it was really fun.

Here's the group at Copper Mountain. (L to R: Dominick, Geoff, Chris, Margaret, Denny, David, Pao, Wes, Me & Gigi, Laura, Daphnie & Vivian)

Alex, we made sure to get some sweet icicle photos for you!
Here is the photo album: http://flickr.com/photos/bennettars/sets/72157603733223785/

We love Boston!

We got home from our little trip to New England on Monday night. We really loved Boston- it is a great city- we think we even liked it better than New York City! As most of you know, the reason we went there was for a Red Sox/Yankees game that David won tickets to. We finally had our standing-room tickets emailed to us the day before we left! They turned out okay though; other than sore backs and legs, the standing room area had a great view, and we really enjoyed the game.
David was amazed at how Boston is truly a baseball town. Everyone talks about the Red Sox, from the lady we shared a taxi from the airport with, to our Duck tour guide. You see people in Sox paraphernalia everywhere, whether they are going to the game or not. We were happy to have the Red Sox win the day we went to the game even. The crowd was amazing, it was like a playoff game, totally sold out with people 4-5 deep in the standing area. Everyone cheers when they should without being prompted, there are no banner boards that tell you to "Get Loud" or "Make noise," because everyone does it at the appropriate time on their own (i.e. everytime there are 2 outs & 2 strikes, etc). We met up with our friend Jeff from HB, and ate at the Cask n' Flagon (a Red Sox fan haven) and I had the BEST fish and chips of my life!We went on a really fun tour on Saturday morning called a Duck tour (thanks, Pete Merandi for the recommendation). It is an old WWII vehicle that goes on land, and then drives right into the water to become a boat (with very entertaining tour guides)! Between that and the Freedom trail, we saw a lot of Boston, including lots of our country's heritage and history. The Freedom Trail we did on Sunday with David's high school friend Katie, who lives in Boston. It is a 2.5 mile walk through town hitting all the historical landmarks like Ben Franklin's grave, Paul Revere's house, the Old North Church, etc. The old brick buildings and uneven roads are so cool.
My favorite part of the city (besides Fenway Park) was the North End, which is where Katie lives. It is the "little Italy" of Boston, and it is so quaint and cute with cobblestone roads and an infinite amount of Italian restaurants and pastry shops. We tried cannolis for the first time- delish! We also walked around Harvard which is beautiful, and I think we feel a little smarter just for visiting. :-) We also had some authentic New England Clam Chowder at the much-recommended Legal Seafood- it was delicious.I hope you enjoy our pictures and I hope you all can visit this awesome city someday! Oh, and Gigi did a great job on the trip overall!
See photos (make sure to click the "i" if you are watching the slideshow so you can see the captions!): http://www.flickr.com/photos/bennettars/sets/72157602084527531/