What a Weekend!

Steve and I have been keeping busy. We went down to Southern California this past weekend to visit with my grandparents, see my brother’s new apartment and attend Kristi’s wedding.

My brother has started his new job in Oxnard and got an awesome apartment right near the harbor and, more importantly, the local fish-n-chips place. He’s working for a naval contractor doing materials testing.

Here we are in his apartment this weekend:

From Oxnard, we drove to Santa Barbara to the gorgeous Four Seasons Biltmore hotel for Kristi’s wedding. The weather was just perfect, warm and sunny with a nice breeze. The hotel is right at the beach. It was just beautiful. They performed the ceremony in one of the hotel’s gardens and then we had a fabulous meal in a great little dining room.

It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: she looked just gorgeous.

We were pretty exhausted when we got in after midnight on Sunday night, but it was worth it. We had a great time.

The VMA’s…

… a.k.a. the “Video Music Awards” on MTV are something that I couldn’t possibly care less about if I tried. As comedian Lewis Black put it “MTV is to music as KFC is to chicken.” In case you’re a KFC fan and are confused, it was meant as an insult… that both have taken something great (music and chicken, respectively) and created the most junky unhealthy version of it possible.

But a derogatory comment by the host of the VMA’s about promise rings got talked about to the point of absurdity on the news circuit. For those of you who don’t know, promise rings are given out by Christian groups and proponents of abstinence-only education. By wearing it, the person is promising to save sex for marriage.

I am a big proponent of self-determination, living your life as you see fit (without infringing on the rights of others to do the same, of course). So I certainly don’t look down on those who save sex for marriage or those who choose not to. It’s a personal choice. So after all of the vapid coverage of the issue, I was pleased to read an opinion piece on MSN music that really encapsulated my thoughts. For those of you with time to kill: http://music.msn.com/music/opinion/in-defense-of-losing-your-virginity/?GT1=BUZZ1

Like so many things in this world, it seems that the polarized in opinion get the most attention. I would like to think that most people are somewhere in the middle of abstinence-only and free-condoms-at-every-child’s-desk. I mean, what’s wrong with teaching that abstinence is the only way to be 100% sure that you don’t contract an STD or get pregnant, but also how to protect yourself as best as possible if you do happen to engage in sexual activity? Seems logical to me. I can’t imagine that any parent would want a child who made a foolish decision one night to pay for it for the rest of their lives with disease or an unwanted child.

Bunnies Everywhere

Sometimes as I’m sitting on my couch relaxing I have a moment of clarity where I realize what a strange life Steve and I lead. Do we really have 6 rabbits in our living room… and often on our couch?

Beach Train

My parents were in town this past weekend to visit our new place and spend a little time in Santa Cruz. After all, if all goes well, we won’t be living here next summer.

When Steve’s parents were in town, they went on the beach train during the week and we weren’t able to go with them, so we were excited to check one more thing off of our “we should really do this at least once since we live here” list.

I really enjoyed the train. It starts in the town of Felton in the Santa Cruz Mountains and takes about 45 minutes or so to trek through the mountains down to the beach boardwalk. Trains are a very relaxing way to enjoy the scenery and a welcome change from driving everywhere we go.

Not all of the train trip is scenic, however. At one point it passes through an industrial area best known as the location of the Santa Cruz CostCo. That was the natural place to get a shot of us, since we seem to be there all the time.

When the train stopped at the boardwalk, we wandered around a bit, had a snack and went on the carousel… yet another thing on my to-do list that we had never gotten around to.