I wouldn't mess with me

 Yup. I had a pretty good shooting day. Im pretty sure you can't get more bullseye then that. I  must say this whole archery thing is pretty fun! Zac and I set up our target the other day and got some practice in. My bow is a little more sighted in then his. We have been waiting on his arrow all weekend. He has to have ones a little more tough than mine because his poundage on his bow is….well a lot more than mine. I think he he shot one of my arrows he would shatter it. I don't even know if I mentioned in my last post that Zac bought a bow. He had so much fun shooting mine that he wanted to get one for himself. I must say yesterday I was feeling some soreness in my shoulder from pulling that arrow back. Usually my arm that holds the bow steady is the sore one. Hopefully the more I practice the stronger I will get and can up my weight as well.  I thought because shooting bow was pretty quite that Hudson would be okay with it. Everytime you shoot a gun he will run and hide. But looks like its shooting anything! Its so weird because he will be around the loudest noises like a table saw or a grinder but you get something in your hand to shoot like and bow or a gun and he is gone! Zac says he is smart for hiding but I dunno. 

      There is an archery course up at Lake Sonoma, so once we are more dialed in we want to go test that out. Its weird once you start getting into a new hobby you find out there is this whole other….world that you were missing. Every time we have been to the archery shop it is packed full of people! Its like when you want a certain car then all the sudden you start noticing them everywhere. I had not idea so many people were into archery. I know a lot of people hunt with bows but I don't think I will ever do that.  I really am an animal lover and can't see myself being able to kill one. To each their own though. Fish, however, now I can catch fish! 

Zac is on his first 96 hours off since probably September.  He is usually on a 2x4 schedule which means he works for 48 hours and then has 96 off. (dream schedule) But the fire department has been so short staffed lately its been the opposite for him. 96 hours on and only 48 hours off. It was really hard at first being by myself all the time but I got used to it. Needless to say having him home for 4 days has been amazing! Especially because 3 of them we have off together!

We were able to work on some house stuff over the last few days. We are working on organizing all of our outdoor activity stuff into one area. Zac built some shelving for me and we loaded it up with all our stuff. I must say we do have a lot….backpacking, camping, snowboarding, biking and decorations for the holidays. It is a work in progress but we are getting that back room organized. At least you can actually walk in it now! Zac also helped me put up my riddling racks that I got from my mom for Christmas.  Our house is turning into a home and I love it. I am so thankful that I am 27 years old and old my own home. Not many people get that opportunity. Of course while Zac was working so much I did some things on my own. I was able to put a bunch of curtains up in our living/dining room and I did a big organization in our closet!

I'm not sure if I have ever mentioned I have a ginormous closet. It even has a window in it. Its not exactly where I want it to be but in time I will make it beautiful. Other things have taken priority before vamping up my closet. 

Zac is at a meeting for work right now but we might be going on a bike ride later today. The weather up here has been so gorgeous I have really been wanting to get on my bike. Its been such a long time since I've ridden it. We got out our road bikes the other day and did a nice little tune up on them so they are ready to go. It sure is nice being married to a man that used to manage a bike shop :) But Im sure even if he didn't manage a bike shop he could still do it because I honestly thing he can do anything. He can tune bikes, build cars, build tables, put in sprinklers, build fences, he's a plumber, electrician, contractor, cook and an amazing husband. I don't know how I got so lucky. I can't wait till this fall because he will finally be off of his 18 month probation period. We are going to plan a trip to Cabo to celebrate. It will be our off probation celebration! He works so hard, he deserves it. 

Well its about time to actually get my day started! Who wants to sit around all day!? Not me! I got things to do. Hope y'all had a wonderful weekend.

2014

Christmas came and went so quickly. I always love spending time with my family. This year was a little different though. A year ago on Christmas day was the last time I talked, hugged and told my grandpa that I loved him. He was well, he understood me and thats how I choose to remember him. I don't remember very many Christmas's that we've spent apart so it felt very weird this year to not have him with us. I am thankful that my grandma was able to spend the holidays with us because I can't imagine how it could feel to have someone for 62 years and then…not. All I can say is that cherish every moment you have with the ones you love because you never know when it will be your last time. 

I have had a lot of days off from work. Which has been heaven. Sadly though Zac's schedule has been so crazy we haven'y had a lot of time together. Looks like January is going to be no exception. I did a little count the other day and I think he will be home 9 days out of the 31. Now most of those days that he is home I will be at work, which means I will only get to see him in the evenings when I get home.  So full days we have together will be…2 days? Maybe 3? Its pretty depressing if I think about it to much, thats why I try my best to just focus on one day at a time. Yesterday I took down the christmas tree which was a job in itself! But the tree was pretty dead, time to go! I got everything all cleaned up. Today was my laundry and grocery shopping day. I think there are two types of grocery shoppers….1) People like Zac who can go everyday and get what they want to cook for the night or 2) People like me who like to plan everything out go grocery shopping once and get it all done! Well thats what I did today! Quite the job. But I am excited about some of the new recipes I am join to try. 

I have been feeling like my house is turning more into a home lately. You walk in the living/dining room and it doesn't feel like a random couch just placed in the room. Its really starting to come together which is nice. I just ordered a few rugs as well so I think that will really help it feel more "homey". The front yard is looking really good too. We went from a circle driveway with an ugly mount with cactus and ugly trees to a beautiful fenced in yard with 1500sq ft of grass and bark! My next project is going to be working on our "office". I talked with Zac and I think we are going to have it has a fishing storage/office room. We will see if I can make that look cute. 

So Zac and I drove back up north on the 28th and had our 2nd Christmas with his family! It was kinda fun having two Christmases'. We got to open up all our gifts and then had a delicious dinner! My gift this year was the hit of the family. For some reason I asked Zac to get my a compound bow. I can't really explain how or why this popped into my head but as soon as it did, that was it. So after dinner we took out my new bow and shot it. So much fun! I think the boys liked it a lot. Zac told me that he now wants to get one. Im not a big hunter or anything like that. If people want to hunt, thats their thing, to each their own. Mine bow is for me to get good at shooting, fun and zombies! haha. I can't wait to get better and better. My arms are already sore from just shooting it a couple times the other night!

Anyways, tomorrow I am going to Corte Madera to go shopping with my mother in law. I still have my bonus burning a hole in my wallet so I am excited to go spend it. I have decided to get myself some new jeans! Its been awhile since I have purchased a new pair of jeans. I think I have waited long enough! Excited for a girls day. Plus I don't think I will make it till 12:00 for the new year tomorrow night! So shopping during the day will have to cut it. 

Well hope everyone has a wonderful New Year! I can't wait to see what it will bring. I think that 2014 is going to be a great one!

I made it

I made it! You know you have the best job ever when you can complain about having to work 5 days a week for only two weeks. It was a roughy but I made it and I am now officially on vacation. Well I guess I really started the party on Friday night! My office had its Christmas party and it was awesome. We only worked a half day so we could go home and get ready for our night out. We all met back at the office at about 5:00 to get the party started. We had our fondue, gift exchange, karaoke and wine of course! At about 6:45 our party bus came to pick us up. We headed over to Russos to have dinner before heading over to Petaluma to see Star Diamond, a Neil Diamond cover band! It was so much fun! Everyone had a really good time…some people a little to much if you know what I mean!

 Speaking of work, have I mentioned how much I love my job? I had my year review on Friday and I must say it went very very well! I told my doc he would never get rid of me. After our party night Zac and I actually had a full day off together. We needed to pick up a gift for my grandma ( last gift to purchase) and Zac had an ocean boat he wanted to look at. So after we looked at the boat we stopped at Corte Madera on our way back home to get my grandmas gift and….drum roll, spend some of my bonus money from work! Again, love my job. So I am really bad at spending money when its for me. I usually get all stressed out and find an excuse of why I don't need it. However, I walked into Juicy and boom, there it was, a gorgeous purse! Then the lady tells me its 50% off! Sold. Its my congratulations for working my butt off the last year! And I love it.

What a deal I got! Plus I have been rocking the same wallet for the last…6 years? Wow has it really been 6 years? And my speedy 30 definitely needs a little break because I have been using it for the last…2? Every time I think of switching purses I just love my Louie so much I can't do it. But Juicy is going to take over for awhile. So Zac and I had a nice little day together. I really enjoy the days we have together because we just don't get them much. 

So now it brings me to So Cal. I left home this morning at about 5:00. I really don't like messing around when I drive home. I have done it so many times I just like to get it over with. Leave early, one stop, done. And thats what I did, except this time I got to have a passenger with me! My main man Huddy. Its always nice to have him with me. We got in around 1:00. So right now we are both just taking it easy. Mom and I are watching A Christmas Story. 

 This isn't our exact christmas card picture but its close. People were really slacking on their cards this year. I was worried when just a few weeks ago I only had 3! I made this really cute thing to display all my cards and I was so disappointed to only have a few. Luckily they started to all come last week! I just love getting christmas cards! Oh and I also love doing ours. Its always so much fun to think of a card idea! I wasn't really happy with ours this year but I think it will do. Is it weird that I already have an idea for next year card? Cause I do! So much fun. Alrighty Well this was a very jumbled short post but Im not running on a lot of sleep right now. So I am going to say Merry Christmas to y'all and leave you with this adorable picture of Hudson! Thanks for the Christmas bandana grandma ;)

At it again

Yup, remember when I told you that I was hooked on ocean fishing? Well its true! Nothing new, Zac has been working a ton and actually so have! I sound horrible complaining about this but 5 days this last week and 5 days this next week! However I feel like because I appreciate my 3 day weekends SO much, I can complain about having only two. Well Zacs only day off was today, Sunday. Originally we were suppose to go with Zacs brother Tyeler and his girlfriend Becca but they weren't able to make it so it ended up just being the two of us (which I never mind). 

Zac got off work at about 8:00 this morning and headed over my way. We decided that this time we would test out Bodega Bay. I was pumped because my last fishing adventure in the ocean was awesome! We arrived at Bodega Bay around 11:00. It is always a little intimidating launching a 14' foot boat around all these ocean boats but once we headed out there I saw a few smaller boats that reassured me. It was a bit chilly but we motored out to a nice little spot by the cliff. I was a little nervous because over to the left of us were some monster waves. Zac told me that we would be fine. We started to get a few bites, Zac caught two ling cods but they weren't big enough to keep. Before we knew it we were starting to get into those monster waves. I started to feel very un-easy with the huge swells and when I looked around it felt like we were surrounded by waves! Even Zac thought it wasn't a good place for us to be so we got out of there quick! 

We found a different….safer spot to fish. Zac caught yet another fish and this one was a keeper! Finally. I was getting pretty discouraged because I kept getting bite but no fish and I kept getting my line caught on the rocks! At one point my line got caught and I thought I would have to give up, until finally it got free and what was on the end of my line!?

Who catches a star fish with a fishing pole!? This girl. Well needless to say I was still feeling pretty discouraged about not catching a fish yet. After a bit more jigging I finally got one on the line, he was a big guy. I got him all the way up to the boat, Zac had the net and then boom. Just like that he got away. I was so upset! It is so frustrating seeing the fish that you caught and then watching him swim away. It was getting colder out, I could feel it in my fingers and toes but I was so determined to catch a fish. Zac told me that we would try doing one more round and then we could head home. 

I kept with it, up and down, up and down. Crap! My line got caught on a rock again! Or so I thought. Then I felt the tip of the pole start to move up and down and realized that this was no rick, this was my fish! I was so focused on this fish I did not want to let him get away. He was a pretty decent size too! We got him in the boat and measured him at about 27", not to shabby. After that the cold hit me hard! It was time to head back in. Zac and I made the cold and bumpy ride back to the boat launch. On the way home we talked about how nice it would be to have a larger boat with a cabin so that we could stay warm on our ride in and out to sea. We decided to wait till we were home to do our fish pictures.

 Some Sea Lions chill in in the sun

 My ling cod that I caught

Me holding mine and Zacs ling cods

So thankful to have a full day with my hubby. This is the second one we have had this month and I think we will have one more next weekend before I leave for So Cal to visit my family for Christmas. I am thankful for the days we have together. Yesterday I was able to wrap almost all the presents we have for family. It was a nice little evening having the light of the christmas tree and getting all the goodies wrapped up. I love giving gifts. It is my favorite part to see people open the gifts I get them. I feel like I did pretty good this year too so I am excited.'

Well, sorry yo ditch you all but my husband is sitting next to me and we are going to watch a movie together. Im one lucky girl! Hope everyone has a good week!

Christmas tree huntin

Its that time of year again. Time to get your christmas tree. Now most of you probably head over to the good ol tree lot, maybe home depot and pick out a beautiful tree. Not my family. I used to go to a big tree lot and we would cut down our tree every year. But since I moved up north we took it one step further. We drive into the mountains, find a tree and cut it down. Straight up Clark Griswold style (Except we remember the chainsaw). This is an all day event and I mean ALL day. We met at Cindy and Steves house at about 8:00am loaded up the vehicles and headed north. Now, we had to stop and get our tree tags so we ended up going through Lake County but it was nice because we were able to stop in Calistoga and have breakfast. We had a little snafu when we reached the road we needed to take to Pillsbury and it was closed until the truck with the sand came. We decided we didn't want to wait so we found another route.

We probably didn't make it to Pillsbury until 2:30 or 3:00. Once we reached Pillsbury it was up even higher into the mountains. Thank goodness we all had four wheel drive because obviously it was snowy and icy! I was surprised by the amount of people that were up there getting trees. It was nice to see the be groups up there though, Im sure they have been doing this for years and its a family tradition. All the vehicles made it up to the mountain safely, I think Bob only spinned his truck out once…or twice…okay maybe three times but they were all on purpose.  Once we found a good spot it was time to take the family Christmas card picture. How nice that the picture is going to have snow in it! Beautiful. It was a little difficult to round everyone up and when I say everyone I mean the boys. There was snow and dogs and guns and you know how boys are with taking pictures but I think we got a few good ones!

I am very thankful of my snow boots to keep my feet nice and dry but man was it chilly on my feet! However, once Zac and I headed out looking for our tree my feet warmed right up. It was kind of difficult to find a good tree when a lot of the trees had snow on them. I feel like this year there was slim pickins for the trees or maybe it was the snow that threw me off. Zac and I finally found a place where the trees were started to look a little more like how I wanted. It wasn't as obvious as last year when I saw my tree I just knew. I think we picked a pretty good one though.

Everyone finally had picked out a tree and we were getting ready to head back down the mountain. The sun was just starting to set. I told you ALL day, we didn't get home till 9:15. However we did have some set backs. One of them was on our way back we all got stopped on the mountain because a corner of the road was covered in ice and peoples vehicles were sliding around. But in the christmas spirit shovels magically appeared and people started shoveling dirt onto the ice so we could get our trucks down the mountain. Im thankful for the boys that braved the 20 degree weather to do that, thanks boys!

So now I am sitting in my nice warm house looking at this big tree I need to decorate. Big thanks to Steve and Cindy for helping me get the tree set up while Zac is at work. I had all these big plans today to get all this stuff done but this tree and just cleaning the house is really taking up a lot of my time. This blogging is a quick little break before I am back to my tree and cleaning. I am working the next two Mondays! Yuck. But I need to power through these next two weeks then I'll have almost two weeks off. I just don't know how I am going to take these 5 day work weeks. I remember doing that at my old job and I was so anger and bitter! I think coming home to my new tree and hopefully some christmas lights on my new house will make it all better! Well I hope that you all had a great weekend and are able to enjoy the look and smell of a beautiful christmas tree! Here are a few more pictures from our tree trek.

The Pacific

Well, as some of you might know my dear sweet husband is addicted to fishing. But people…if his addiction is fishing then this wife says, knock yourself out! He has always loved fishing ever since he was little but I feel like it has grown with our first boat purchase, the blue hoochie. Since then we got ourselves a pontoon which was a ton of fun and currently we own a 15' Klamath. So within the last year we've gone through a few boats. 

The Blue Hoochie

The pontoon

The Shady K

Anyways, now that you have the tour on our boats I am going to begin my story.

So Zac working at Mill Valley has had the luxury of having friends with boats and he has been able to go out ocean fishing with these friends…with these boats. Well, I believe that this helped to feed his fishing addiction, possibly the whole bigger fish thing. Well believe it or not he has taken out both the hooch and the shady k out into the ocean. Since then he has come home and told me that he wants to take me out ocean fishing. I of course called him crazy and told him no way. Well, then I start seeing all these huge fish he is catching….and I see that he is not getting slammed with giant waves and he is coming home…in one piece. After telling me yet again he wants to take me out I finally say, okay. However, I want it to be as safe as possible. I don't want to go when the waves are big or it is super windy. He said he would take me out on a very safe day.

Well our day finally arrived. It was a Monday morning. The swells were flat and the wind was calm, it was turning out to be a good morning. We drove down to San Francisco and we literally launched the boat right under the golden gate bridge! What a view. It was a little daunting seeing the big ocean and our little 15' foot boat but I was determined to catch a monster! So off we went into the Pacific. 

 Where we launched our boat

 Not a bad view

One happy hubby

We headed out under the bridge and around the corner. It probably took us about 20 minutes to get out there but it sure felt like it went by a lot faster. You really can't beat the view. I even saw a dolphin! Don't get me wrong, it was pretty chilly out but I planned ahead with a bog jacket, gloves and ear warmers so I was good to go. 

We finally got to our destination. The fish finder was turned on. We got our poles ready and it was time to fish! Zac and I used swim baits with some frozen squid. We let the line out until you can feel it hit the bottom of the ocean, it varies depending on the depth. Once you hit the bottom you jig the line ( slowly bounce it up and down) until you feel a bite. It can get a little sketchy because you are fishing in rocky areas so every once in awhile our lines would get caught on the bottom. We never lost a swim bait though. We didn't have much luck at the first place so we were off to another spot and thats when things started to heat up.

Zac was the first to catch a fish. It was a big one. I felt happy and jealous! I wanted to catch my monster. After he caught the first ling I caught a fish, a rockfish. It was just a little guy though so it wasn't AS exciting, but still it was fun to catch a fish.

So our ocean fishing in out little Klamath was turning out pretty good so far! We decided to move on to another spot. And Im so glad we did because we found the honey hole! It started off with Zac catching another rockfish (as seen above) and then he caught fatty cabazon. At first we thought it was a ling because it looked similar but after checking out  my little fishing guide I found out that it was just a big fat cabazon. So that would be three fish for Zac and one for me, just one….and a little one at that. I kept at it though. We were still in the honey hole when I caught my line on the bottom, or so I thought! Then I felt my line pull and I knew I had a fish on! I started to get really excited cause this sucker started to pull! Zac had told me earlier that I was on a soft pole so any fish I caught it would make it feel like a big one and this one…did. It started to run from me, I heard the line buzzing and then I would real it back in. At one point the tip of the pole was down touching the water. Zac was excited for me and grabbed the net. Then after a good fight we actually saw him. Zac started freaking out so I was thinking I did good! When we finally got him in the net and in the boat Zac was in shock and was telling me this was a huge fish! I was SO excited. We measured him because you can't keep any lings that are under 22" (not that that was an issue) he measured out at 30"! After that catch we were done. We had plenty of fish and I caught my monster. All in all and amazing day out on the bay.

 

Well, needless to say I am hooked. Pun intended. I had so much fun! Why would I want to go lake fishing when I can go ocean fishing and catch monsters!? Zac is now currently on the hunt for our next boat. An ocean boat. I must admit I am pretty excited about it. At first he was checking out a 30' boat with a kitchen and all this stuff, I tried to convince him that that was to big but he didn't believe me until he went and looked at one today and then he told me….its to big. Uh yeah! So anyway he is on the hunt for our next boat. I will keep y'all posted. I am hoping to catch even bigger fish!

Helicopter

Well I had a pretty exciting and fun weekend. I have not been able to keep up with this whole blogging thing. At first I thought someone was hacking my e-mail because of my blog but now that I know thats not the case….here I am. Sorry for such a delay. I actually have a lot to blog about but thinking about it all kind of overwhelms me, so I am just going to talk about my most recent weekend.

I left for Orange the day after thanksgiving. Dana had wanted me to come visit her for awhile and check out her new place. We finally found a weekend that worked. I left about 4:00 in the morning to head down to see her. We just took it easy on Friday because I was tired from driving all day. That night we called our friend Tyler to see what the plan would be for Saturday. I had been looking on groupon to get ideas for fun things to do….When we were talking to Ty I mentioned going on a helicopter ride, mostly joking but he was like "you want to go in a helicopter? Let me call my friend". Just like that we had our plans for Saturday!

Saturday came and Dana and I got ready for our big day. We headed out to get some breakfast and do a little shopping while we waited to hear from Ty. I am doing really good on my christmas gifts this year! No stress for me. So after that we headed back to Danas apartment because we were still waiting for Tyler to get back into town. He gave us a call and told us to meet him at the Van Nuys airport at 2:00. We had to leave right away because it was a bit of a drive and there was traffic.  Anyways instead of talking you through all of it I will just show you some pictures!

 Me in front of our helicopter

 Dana and I excited to go!

 Flying over the Playboy mansion

 All three together after 4 years!

 Obviously the Hollywood sign

 Flying right above the water, Santa Monica

 Stoked

There we are :)

Well, that was our trip! Pretty sweet. I must say I am a big fan of helicopters they are pretty sweet. I can't wait till my friend Tyler gets his license ;) After our little joy ride we decided to head on over to the LA auto show. Tyler was super excited to see all the carbon fiber cars. I always like going to the auto show. My family usually goes every year! Its fun to check out the all the cars and you can sit in them and press buttons and all that. After walking around for a few hours and checking everything out we were pretty hungry! Dana and I hadn't eaten since our bagel that morning. We headed over to The Counter and we all built ourselves some delicious burgers! Yum. After that Tyler wanted to drive us around LA and show us some of the giant mansions. By the time we were done checking things out I think it was 10:00. I was already ready for be, you know me and my sleep. So we dropped Ty off at his van and Dana and I headed back home for some much needed sleep! It was quite the day we had.

For my last day in So Cal Dana and I decided we would head back over to Santa Monica.  Instead of flying over the pier it was our turn to actually walk on the pier! Needless to say we slept in. We didn't get to Santa Monica until around noon. I was already hungry and ready to eat. We found a restaurant at the the 3rd street promenade. It was really fun to eat outside and people watch. There are definitely some interesting people! After our bellies were full we did a little window shopping. They had some pretty cute stuff. Good thing Im really bad at buying things for myself. Because those 7's jeans were just beautiful and the Juicy store? Oh I could do some damage there! We decided we wanted to head over to the pier before it got to dark! It sure was crowded that day but what do you expect the Sunday after thanksgiving. Anyways here come a few more pictures to round out my post for today. Hope y'all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Bring on Christmas :)