Christmas 2014: Vegas Adventure!

Ever gone to the desert for Christmas?  I have!

This past Christmas was spent in Arizona with my mom, stepdad and brother.  We opened presents on Christmas Eve, then packed up our bags and headed on the road for Vegas!

Don't get us wrong here: we still had a lovely Christmas dinner the night before, and spent lots of family time hiking and such... and road tripping.  But Jhet and I had never been to Las Vegas before so we were quite excited!

Jhet passed out in the back seat

We got to stop and see some of the Joshua trees that grow along the road between Arizona and Nevada.  Gilbert decided to photobomb this pic!

As you all probably know, you aren't allowed to take pictures in the casino gaming areas, so I didn't take my camera around a lot.  Gilby and I snagged this one in the Golden Nugget.

Even the Walgreens had kitschy Vegas garb! 

We had a flippin' blast, and Jhet won enough money to buy himself a pair of nice Oakleys.  I kinda just evened out.  Gilbert and I played the penny slots a bunch and all of us enjoyed some games of Craps.

On the way home Bill offered to take us to see the Hoover Dam, so we made a pit stop there and got some really great photos and a cool U.S. place checked off our list.

Waiting to see the Hoover Dam

Apparently we weren't the only ones with the idea to come see the Dam that day, because we were in line with other cars for at least an hour and a half!  Worth it though.

The Bridge we were all standing on that looks over the dam

That last one is my favorite shot of the dam.  The water level is a lot lower than I thought it would be.  So neat to be able to see so many man-made wonders in a weekend (Vegas included)!

More of Costa Rica and some Long-Overdue Utopiafest Pics.

Yesterday was 6 years since we danced the night away at our wedding, so I thought it appropriate to post some pics again today.  There have been so many wonderful moments since then, and I want to share some of them with y'all.  Costa Rica was one of our favorite times we've had together.  We celebrated our 4 year anniversary by gifting ourselves this kickass trip, and couldn't have had more fun.  

The above picture and the ones below are from a canyoneering trip we took while we were there.  What the crap is canyoneering, you ask? Why, it's when you hike through small canyons and rappel off waterfalls, swim through streams/rivers like a boss.  Adventuring!  This was our big excursion we took while we were near Mount Arenal.  Ziplining was also done but no photos from that since it's waaaay up in the mountains and these guys had a professional photographer on their team.

If you guys ever decide to go to Costa Rica and feel like an adventure or two, check out the Desafio company!  We even got a home-cooked lunch included.

Our group for the day

Click "Read More" to see our Utopiafest pics!

Californ-i.a.

I desperately needed a break from packing, so I'm posting these pics from a few years ago that I never got around to until now.  Enjoy!  I'm going to get around to the Oregon pics from 2013 before 2016 hits hahahaha!

La Jolla, Cali!

You know you're into music if you book your summer vacation around a hip hop festival in SoCal... We wanted to do something great for our anniversary in 2013, so we thought a mini-road trip through southern California would be fun.  Lo and behold, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to an all-day hip hop fest and BBQ presented itself, so we took it.  Here are some photos from Back2Basics 2013!

Sage Francis

Most of our motivation for hitting up this fest was the fact that The People Under the Stairs, The Pharcyde, Del the Funkee Homosapien, Sage Francis, and countless others were all going to be under one roof, for one day.  Who could pass that up?

People Under the Stairs

People Under the Stairs (Thes One in the front, Double K in the back)

The shows didn't disappoint.  Even Ladybug from Digable Planets made an appearance with Deltron!  We shared a picnic table with some people out back, had a beer and a burger at the backyard BBQ, and had a damn good time.  What a way to start out in Cali.

Jhet picked me some flowers for our hotel room :)

After that was our time at the beach.  We spent a day in La Jolla just exploring the beautiful scenery there.  What a freaking nice place to live if you can afford it!  

Jhet looks like he's in a postcard haha

Squirrel! Beach Squirrel!  So Cute!

The Mighty Jhetface!

We also went to the Birch Aquarium over in San Diego.  They have a wonderful seahorse section with so many different types I never knew existed!  I love seahorses.  They even had Sea Dragons!! 

Leafy Sea Dragon

Shark Eggs.  Cool.

We had also made a stop at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, which was really amazing.  They had a great Scrimshaw exhibit (check it out if you don't know what that is), and some fantastic gems and cameos from the Medici family that they explicitly did not want you to photograph.  Trust me when I say they were exquisite!

South Pacific Islanders exhibit of masks, art and instruments

We ended up in San Diego at the Regal Beagle, a chill little bar that we have a name affection for (The People Under the Stairs reference it in a song, we thought... turns out we were wrong haha).  Inspiration for a future brewery?  Who knows.  Either way, it was enoyable.

All in all this was a great trip.  We want to go back and explore northern California soon, starting in San Francisco (Monterey Bay Aquarium!) and road trippin' from there.  Love y'all, thanks for looking!