A Day in Sacramento

Back in December, I posted pictures from our Video Shoot. Today, Jesse submitted the video to the internet for the world to see. I absolutely love the finished product.

Here it is, enjoy! 

Point Reyes

Last Saturday, we were planning to drive to the Bay Area to see Josh, Jodi, Judah and Jacob but our plans fell through that morning. We didn't want to sit at home like we do all too often, so we hopped in the car and headed for the coast. 

It took us almost 3 hours to get to Point Reyes so by then we were quite hungry. For lunch we stopped at Cafe Reyes. I had a garlic pizza and Malisa had some kind of soup. We were both really impressed with this little place. They gave us cookies while we were waiting for a table, and 2 more before we left!

After lunch, we walked around Point Reyes Station a bit. There were art galleries, restaurants, pubs, private medical clinics, and markets along this small stretch of Hwy 1. Many of the buildings had the "Marin Organic" placard on them signifying all of their produce and ingredients were locally grown. We grabbed some coffee for the road and started toward the lighthouse. 

It took another 45 minutes to get to the lighthouse from Point Reyes Station around Drake's Bay. We parked at the main lot and got on the bus to the lighthouse. Since this time of year is whale watching season, they close down the roads since the small parking lots get too busy with all of the visitors. When we got off the bus there was the most amazing view of the ocean. We're so used to seeing a row of houses along the coast that this was a very welcome sight. 

To get down to the lighthouse we had to walk down over 300 stairs, I don't think I realized how many that is. Going down was't bad but coming up, that was brutal. They have little 'pitstops' set up along the stairs and we utilized each of them. We went inside the lighthouse and heard some history on it. The lighthouse was originally built with prisms to bounce the light out to sea. It was cool to see the old construction with the hand cranks, weights and pulleys to rotate the light. Oh man, and the view on the lighthouse was incredible also. 

Once we got back up those stairs we got on the bus and back to our car. It was getting dark so we hurried to South Beach to see the sunset, we caught it just in time!

We weren't sure what to do for dinner but figured if we were in the area we would get Burma Superstar. Well, the short of it is we missed our turn and drove all the way down the dark and winding Hwy 1 which took about an hour and a half longer. On top of that, we were almost out of gas, didn't have any idea how far away we were and didn't get any cell reception to find a gas station. We finally got to a familiar area, went through Marin and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. 

When we got to Burma Superstar the wait was an hour and a half! We placed a to-go order which took over 45 minutes, they were crawling with customers. We ended up eating in the car and drove home. 

It definitely was a great day, although I always have great days as long as I'm with my wife. 

Here are a few photos, enjoy!

Oh and by the way, the first picture here is actually 2 photos that I stitched together. The exposures were different and getting it to line up took some time. It's not perfect but here it is. 

Charlotte Joy

Back in November, I had just purchased my camera and needed a model. Who better than a 4 month old little girl? I wanted to make sure Dan and Jackie had some more pictures of Charlotte (aka CJ) as a baby, you can never have too many right? 

CJ is one of the happiest babies I've ever been around, she is constantly smiling and laughing. I loved spending the afternoon shooting photos of CJ and her mommy, Jackie. Dan joined us for a bit as my "make sure Charlotte looks at the camera" assistant, which helped out a lot. 

Thank you Dan and Jackie for letting me snap a few photos of your little girl. I think we will need to do this again soon since CJ is 8 months old and has teeth now!

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the day (and one that makes me laugh), enjoy!

Walt Disney Museum and Sutro Baths

Last wednesday, Malisa, Jess and I spent the day in San Fransisco. We left Sacramento bright and early (8:30) and headed west. Whenever we are in the Bay Area we always stop in Berkeley at Cafe Yesterday to get some much needed coffee and breakfast. From the cafe we drove to the Presidio to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum. This museum has been on our list for at least a year so we were quite excited to visit.

We didn't really understand how great the weather was until we got out of the car at the museum, blue skies and fluffy white clouds was a great deal better than the typical bay area fog. Although I love the fog and cold weather, the view of the Golden Gate Bridge was amazing. 

The museum was all about Walt growing up, his early sketches, starting in the animation business and eventually building Disneyland and Disneyworld. We LOVE Disney movies and Disneyland so we were like little children reading all of the history behind how it all started. 

Something that stood out to me was the pencil-drawn sketch of the street and store-front of Tony's Restaurant from Lady and the Tramp. The drawing had the most incredible detail and depth. From the 1909 era cars and street lamps to the lighting/shadows from inside the restaurant, wow. I have seen the greatest animated movies from Pixar but this one sketch drawn with a lead pencil and piece of paper was the most impressive. Unfortunatly they didn't allow any photos to be taken inside the museum or else you'd actually see the drawing instead of me talking about it. 

From the museum we walked around the Presidio a bit and went to grab a snack and coffee. We couldn't figure out what else to do so we started driving around. We went to Baker Beach, the Golden Gate lookout area and some other places. When we drove past the Cliff House restaurant, Jesse told me to pull into a parking lot. I had no idea what we were doing but when we got out of the car, there was the most incredible view. 

I'm not sure how Jesse found it but we were visiting the ruins of the Sutro Baths. They were built in 1896 and were destroyed in a fire in 1966. The foundations of a couple walls were still there which allowed us to walk between the flooded ruins and the ocean. We stopped to watch the sunset and realized that once the sun was down, it would be completely dark outside, so we hurried back up the hill. Click here to see a panoramic iPhone shot of the ruins. 

This is what the baths used to look like, scroll down to see what they look like today. Image obtained from this article. 

From the ruins we met Chad for dinner at Burma Superstar, another must-do in the bay area then we headed home. It was truly a great day. 

Enough talk, here are the photos. Enjoy!

Charles Schulz Museum

In the middle of December, Malisa and I visited the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA. If you aren't familiar with the name of Charles Schulz, do you know about Charlie Brown or Snoopy? Yes? Then you know Charles Schulz. He was the creator of the Peanuts cartoons and drew for nearly 50 years until he died on February 12, 2000. 

The museum had a number of cartoon strips printed, the furniture from Charles' home studio and a wall Charles drew on that was in daughter's bedroom. The wall had been painted over multiple times since the house was sold and a lady used paint thinner to restore his old artwork. She then donated the entire wall to the museum. It was pretty incredible.

They also had a small theatre where we watched the interview Charles did with Charlie Rose a few years before he died. Across the street from the museum was Snoopy's Home Ice, an ice skating rink, and the gift shop. We had a great time walking around and learning the history of this man and his life's work. 

Here are few pictures, enjoy!