Hearst Castle

Nathan and I decided to take a drive along the coast and go to the Hearst Castle in San Simeon.  The drive was beautiful! But it was slow and full of turns and hills (next time, pack the dramamine).  It was a fun day! We saw the beauty of the coast the entire way and we stopped to see the Elaphant Seal boardwalk which is really close to the Hearst Castle.  Of course, winter is mating season, so that was fun. Claire loved the castle.  She kept calling it her Castle.  We took a tour of the upstairs suites and then we roamed the grounds outside.  I think next time we may have to pay for all of the tours (okay, maybe next time if we're loaded cause it's $25 per adult per tour, but they do have a 10% discount for additional tours booked for the same day...who knows).  I was shocked and amazed at these rooms! I was tempted to tell you everything about this castle, but you can google it or watch the documentary on Netflix.  But, I do want to tell you that he (William Randolph Hearst) took 14th century CEILINGS from Italy and put them in his home.  WHAT?!! Oh you know. Just the usual.  Doesn't everybody do that for their homes?  Anyway, the grounds are gorgeous and the castle is wonderful.  I want to go back for an evening tour because they have people dressed in period clothing enjoying the castle as if they were there at the time.  It's like a dream come true right?!  Okay, so here are the pictures from our trip.

 

Okay, these things are HUGE! They were making some interesting noises. Claire was intrigued.  I was amazed at how fast they can move on land if they choose to.  They look like these massive lazy lumps that can't move very fast, wrong.  They can haul!

 

The view of the castle from the bottom of the hill.

Arriving at the castle.

 

Looking out a window.

A guest suite.

Part of the library (house over 4000 books).

Ceiling

The Lady of the House's room.

 

The Power Room.  Claire kept saying, "Big Power Room!"

And this is part of Claire's bedroom (She and the tour guide both called dibs). As you can see, the bed sits above, and there is the bathroom and parlor area below.  The space was narrow, so this is how they fit everything in to make a suitable guest suite.

 Celing of Claire's room.

 Stairs from the bottom of Claire's room to get up to her bed.

 Claire's bathroom.

This is the Neptune Pool.  I can see why this pool was so popular amongst guests.

There are fruit trees all over near the home. (The property is ginormous, though! Seriously, google it.)

This is the roman pool or reflection pool.  In my opinion it was a little dark in there so I see why the Neptune pool was more popular.

Our evening was happily ended with a beautiful sunset over the ocean on our way out.

 



How we roll

So, it's been a while and since I don't live near family, I figure I should update especially for the three of you who don't have facebook. :) First off, we're doing well and getting settled in.  Claire already loves to go swimming and we've been to the aquarium twice (believe me, it is amazing we haven't been more).  Anyway, as I was getting pictures to share, I found some gems of when I was still living in Idaho. So, I would like to share those first. 

To start us off, I have some pictures from our trip to Texas. Claire LOVES animals, so the zoo was a huge hit, especially since it had elephant statues to ride.

 She was getting into the spirit of picture taking and would stand on something random and say, "Picture You!" So, of course, I took a picture.

 Now this picture of the cousins is a real gem.  I had others that I could have merged together so everyone was looking and smiling at the camera, but I thought, "Why ruin a great blackmail piece?" It's quite lovely, don't you think?

 And of course, this is just cute.  The littlests and their blankets having their own silent conversation.

And of course, you need to be able to share in the happiness when Nathan came home for Christmas, and the randomness that is our daughter.

 When C saw Nathan, she wanted out of my arms and into his right away!

 She's just silly. Period.

 She loves the feel of her blanket.  This day, she was wanting it on her belly.  Well, when you have one piece jammies, you do what you have to.

On to our travels. We only went through maybe 2 tunnels, but Claire thought they we AMAZING! We go through a tunnel when we pick up Nathan or if we go to the Aquarium, so it gets pretty exciting.

 This was just funny to me.  I know the packers were rushing to pack up my stuff, so it's not completely their fault that they spelled things wrong.  But it was still funny.

As I said, Claire LOVES animals.  So the Aquarium is a great place for her.  We like the Nemo tank, penquins (not pictured), the jellies, and the touch pools the best.  Claire asks almost daily if she can go touch a starfish. I've yet to get her to touch the crab in the touch pools, though.

 Okay, this is just more of her being cute and random.

 This was Claire's fortune from Panda Express (our Valentine's dinner). So true right?

Claire loves to go swimming.  We live near a pool that has a kiddie pool perfect for Claire (1'6"). She loves it and cries every time we leave.

Another joy for Claire is the great weather so we can go to the park multiple times a week (sometimes every day). She loves to swing and has her favorite slides at each park (we have quite a few all around our community). She also loves ladders (it scares me sometimes because she has almost fallen twice!).  I like when she sticks to the little ladders.

Because of Claire's love for parks, we took her to a really fun local park that everyone raves about.  It is really big!  I think she would have enjoyed its entirety if it hadn't been so crowded (that's what you get on a holiday weekend I guess). But, the swings were still a hit.

 

She likes to watch the waves and feel the sand on her toes, but she doesn't like the waves to get her.  When they do, she tells them, "No do again!"

 Here she is loving that the sand has sparkles in it and so it's making her feet sparkle.

 
Oh and this is her penguin family.  I mentioned above that we like the penguins.  Well, the smaller two were presents from Grandma Norby when she joined us at the Aquarium.  The bigger one she already had.  She had to have these with her almost everywhere for at least 2 weeks. She still likes to have at least two of them in bed at night (along with Mario of course).

 

 

 

Yesterday we took a trip down to the Hearst Castle.  I post that seperately so as not to overwhelm one post with all these pictures.  Thanks for joining us on this brief catch up of our lives.  I hope to keep you in the loop with our activities as well as maybe rant/ramble since I don't have anyone to rant/ramble with regularly (Nathan always has studying...sheesh!)

Over a year

So, this is just a quick update to let everyone know I am back to updating this blog.  I know I need to do a year in review, but that probably won't happen.  Here are just a few quick snapshots of what we've been up do these last weeks.  These are the photos we send to Nathan every week while he is at boot camp.