Baby Dog King!

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If you haven’t heard already… we are expecting! Baby dog King arrives this October. Well he’s already born, we just don’t get to take him home for about another month. Brad and I are SO excited. You might remember that I mentioned Brad made us late leaving for Oregon a few weeks ago. It was because he made sure the breeder told him first about the birth so he could surprise me. He got a card and a bone (the one in the pic above) and I have to say I got pretty teary eyed.

Almost two months ago I found a goldendoodle breeder online and got in contact with her. We set up an appointment to come out to meet her and her dogs in Galt, a town just south of Sacramento. They were in the middle of nowhere surrounded by lots of farmland. The dogs were sweet and we even got to meet two of the dogs that were a product of their breeding; a 6 year-old beauty named Rosie and a 12 week-old pup named Lefty.

Poor Lefty had experienced an unfortunate accident that left vets with no option but to amputate his back right leg. So obviously his name is super fitting. However sad his circumstances, this dog had no clue he wasn’t supposed to have only three legs. He was out of this world cute! He was interested but laid back. He loved to be pet and would follow us around the yard. I could have taken him home that day, but Lefty was already spoken for. It sounded like he had a really nice family that he was going home to, but it was still kind of hard to say goodbye to him…

Also it should be noted that Rosie was such a nice dog too who even greeted us at the door with a sock. Apparently when she meets people she likes to have something in her mouth. Dogs can be so funny!

The whole trip just confirmed that we were getting our dog from the right place. We get to choose from three males in a litter by a female golden retriever who is the sweetest dog you could imagine. When we met the mom she came right up to Brad and let him pet her. Just so calm and mellow and enjoying the attention she was getting.

We are so excited for this upcoming experience and I apologize in advance for the over abundance of pictures that will inevitably flood social media.

Kings Come to California

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Blogging is harder than I thought. I have so much to write and so little time! Oh wait, who am I kidding? I’m a stay-at-home housewife… But in my defense we have been a little busy lately. I will catch up about our fun Labor Day weekend soon, but first I will start with this past weekend…

Brad’s parents came to visit! They flew in Thursday afternoon, and after wrong turns on the way to the airport already making me late and driving around the airport three times because San Jose International is way confusing (arrivals are picked up on the left side, makes no sense) I finally got to them! I’m sure I won so many daughter-in-law points that day 😉 But hey, I’m their only daughter-in-law so that automatically makes me the best.

We headed back to Fremont and got lunch at Boudin’s because so far that has proven to be the best place to get any meal. Can’t beat their famous sour dough bread and Brad and I have never had anything on the menu that wasn’t good. And at this point, we have tried a lot of different foods from there.

We had some time to kill before heading to see Brad at work, so we got Brian and Mary checked into their hotel and then I took them back to our place to see our totally amazing apartment. Well the living in close proximity to a million people isn’t great but we got a nice view and the windows let so much beautiful light in.

View from our apartment. Look how pretty! Except all that grass is dead now. I look forward to it getting green again in the winter.
View from our apartment. Look how pretty! Except all that grass is dead now. I look forward to it getting green again in the winter.

Then we headed to the magical land of Facebook, where there is a never ending supply of free food… Brad gave a little tour of his workspace, the micro kitchens, cafeterias, restaurants, merchandise store and sweet shop. We ate dinner and played ping-pong. And then of course we had to take pics out in front of the giant “like” sign that welcomes everyone to headquarters.

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Nice face, Annabelle.

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Friday was spent doing a little shopping in Fremont before heading out to Half-Moon Bay. None of us had ever been there before and it was another thing for Brad and I to check off our ever-growing list of things to do in the Bay Area. It was cute and quaint. The drive there brought us up in elevation and through lots of trees before dropping us down by the ocean.

We got a late lunch at Jersey Joe’s and ate the strongest garlic fries of our lives surrounded by Philadelphia sports memorabilia. (Go Eagles!) We headed to the foggy beach and took the adorable picture below and then walked around town checking out some stores.

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Saturday morning we got a text from Brian saying that when we were ready to come pick them up for the day that we would need to pick them up at Costco… they had taken the airport shuttle over to our local store! It’s just a King thing to check out Costco even when on vacation 😉 I feel like that’s how I measure how much evolving into a King I’ve become, by how much more I want to go to Costco. I’m slowly but surely learning of all the things I can get at that amazing store. It’s impressive.

So we picked them up and then ventured into San Francisco. We walked along Fisherman’s Warf, made a pit stop into a year-round Christmas shop, watched an unusual show on the pier, and dined at Lou’s Fish Shack. We lucked out with the food for picking a random restaurant. It was pretty darn good.

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We then made our way down to Ghirardelli Square where a chocolate festival was going on. We restrained ourselves and stuck to poking our heads into the stores up there and only giving into treating ourselves to Ghirardelli milkshakes. They were rich and chocolate-y and probably a really bad idea. But when in Rome!

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Needless to say, it was a really good weekend. We love visitors especially when they are family. Come back to visit soon, Kings!

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How could I not share this?

A Weekend on the Oregon Coast: Part 2

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So to continue the adventures of the weekend…

After sand dunes we checked into our hotel and took a little rest for a couple hours. We met back up with Tayler and Eric to head down to Bandon for dinner at a restaurant we picked solely based on its reviews on Yelp… Well at least Yelp didn’t lead us astray. The dinner was delicious and the view was amazi- I mean, the view would have been beautiful and scenic except for SO MUCH FOG. I thought we left the Bay Area? We even made reservations for 7:30pm to catch the sunset out over the ocean. The restaurant had perfect views right on the water, but sadly it just wasn’t a good day. We forgot to document dinner, but know that we had good fish (except Brad who hates fish) and good laughs as we watched the fog get thicker and thicker.

The next day we headed back to Bandon to check out the beach. Now I’m a beach girl. Give me the sand and ocean and I will be more than content. However I knew the beach we were going to visit wasn’t going to be what I was used to but it sure was breathtaking.

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The huge rocks with all their cool caves and arches and the tide pools. It was really beautiful. And we all had so much fun exploring. Brad skipped rocks (because that’s a thing he likes to do?), Tayler and I snapped away on our cameras (aka my iPhone and she’s the one with a legit camera) and we even took a stroll through an artist’s maze that he created in the sand. Well it wasn’t really a maze because you couldn’t get lost in it, it was pretty much a swirly pathway… I don’t know how to explain it, just check out the pics.

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Don’t ask. It’s just us, ya know?
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weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
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We may or may not love taking ridiculous pics.
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Brad’s photobombing is getting really good.
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Taking a walk on the spiral thing…
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Spiral thing from above.

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It was agreed that when they start a band, this would be their album cover.
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We have play-by-play images of this jump. Now maybe if I ever figure out how to use a computer I could put those images in a collage…
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Skipping rocks.

 

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Like I said, Brad’s photobombing skills are on point. #nailedit
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As soon as we spotted this Bernese Mountain Dog our hearts skipped a beat. We beelined it towards Bernie (real original) and his owner and asked if we could pet him. He was 115 pounds of beast.

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Thanks, Oregon!