Melyak + Dog-yaking

There's a new member in the family!

Check out the Melyak in the Melement!

Since Dave has been swimming in the ocean a lot, we've decided to purchase a single person kayak for myself. This way I can paddle alongide him giving both of us peace of mind-- me, so that I can SEE him and know he's doing alright; him, so that he knows there's support in case he gets really tired and needs a break. We got the chance to test out the boat immediately. Yesterday, Charlene and her husband, Chris came into town to take their little one, Maddie, on a kayaking trip!

The Chans:

Chris, Maddie, and Charlene!
Maddie was helping out by paddling along...

The Lius!

It was a beautiful, glorious, calm day... The water was extremely clear with tons of sea lions out frolicking... and leopards sharks hanging about. A very loud sea lion barking in the background.
Sea lions were swimming around everywhere! Dave even had one swim right under him which freaked him out.
Two sea lions were lying next to each other, floating on their backs, with their flippers sticking straight up into the air. I have no idea what it means...
Maddie vs Dave the Fish
Swimming hard... Maddie was finally allowed to go into the water! She was so excited, she swam straight for Dave (Dave took the pic) and then tried to climb up him!Maddie's heading back to the boat...
...cuz she's pooped out!
Dave helped haul her back onto the kayak. What a cute wet dog.

Afterwards, we had an awesome meal at Bondi, followed by some extraordinary desserts at Extraordinary Desserts!

We came back this morning to see if the leopard sharks were still out, since we didn't take any pics of them yesterday. Check them out!

Heather in town!

Heather came down to spend a wonderful weekend with us!

It was full of good eating (The Original Pancake House, Todai), exercise (ocean kayaking with sea lions), and lots of animals (Wild Animal Park).

She has a blog entry with pictures, check it out here.

Transformation of the Backyard

When we first moved into our home, our backyard was one small dirt pit. Well, not really a pit, but just dirt.

I had previously posted some pictures of our backyard in progress here.

Below are pictures of the backyard closer to completion.


A reminder of what our concrete looks like:
Backyard hardscape is complete!
I love my wall, especially the slate slivers on top!

Our little "alleyway" where the veggies will be grown.

A couple months later, after we've gotten a chance to plant some things.

Grill, Star Jasmine, Honey Mandarin
Blackberries, green grapes, Merlot
merlot, chardonnay, veggie area (right now, basil and tomato plants)

And that's it so far... we still need to get a table and chairs so we can properly use and enjoy the small cozy space!

Find your hobby

Find your hobby!

CNN.com had a quiz today. I filled it out and guess what I got?

OUTDOOR

You can't be cooped up! People like you need to breathe fresh air and commune with nature. Feeling the dirt, rocks, water or sand beneath your feet and hands and having the wind in your face makes you feel alive. You'll take the outdoors any way you can get it, whether you're dangling from ropes, paddling a boat or speeding down the countryside on a dirt bike. You might like hobbies like spelunking, motocross, hiking, deep sea diving, white water rafting, Ultimate Frisbee or other outdoor team sports.

How fitting, eh?

Our Thriving Garden.... and PESTS!

An update of our attempts on raising creatures with chlorophyll...

Our zinnias are growing extremely well with a bounty of flowers of all shapes and colors!

In our backyard, we strive for multipurpose plants--i.e. good to look at and eat!... such as fruit!

Merlot and Chardonnay grapes - We hear the fruit is extremely sweet. That's why they're great for wine.

Thompson's green grapes (supposedly the kind you get at supermarket to eat?)
Star Jasmine with a pleasant sweet fragrance that will hopefully help mask the smells of food cooking from our neighbors' homes...
Honey Mandarin Orange tree
with some fruit! (well, ONE fruit)

And the latest addition to the collection... Blackberries!
In the far off corner of our yard, we're growing some tomato plants that sprouted out of nowhere. They are growing like gangbusters...
With tons of tomatoes!


Unfortunately, recently, we've been infested with a nasty creature. Remember the big green wormy guy from Bug's Life? He was awfully cute in the movie...

....but not in real life!

This monstrous guy chewed up our tomato plants to smithereens!

He was so voracious, he didn't just settle for leaves, but attacked the fruit as well! Consumed huge chunks of it!
And left nasty green poop... yuck, worm poop.

That was the biggest hornworm we've seen so far. In the meantime, Dave's been killing little mini ones daily. At least 5 a day... Ugh...

*shiver*

The good news is that our plants are starting to recover!

Battle of the Hummingbirds

August 18, 2007

We have hummingbirds in our backyard!

Dave and I had put a hummingbird feeder in our backyard several weeks ago. We knew we had hummingbirds in the area. Once I had the balcony door to the bedroom open, and 2 hummingbirds flew in! They quickly flew out, but that was an exciting moment.

Anyways, today, we realized that the hummingbirds had discovered our feeder!

AND we managed to capture some pictures!

We counted about 5 different hummingbirds coming to feed. They are extremely territorial, so they would fly and chase each other through the air. Dive bombing to prevent other birds from feeding. Very entertaining... We should probably put a few feeders out in other spots to help with the territorial-ness.

.

September 3 Addendum:

We recently ran out of nectar and realized our local Walmart stopped selling it. I discovered a recipe for nectar online, and wanted to share with all:

.....4 parts boiled water

.....1 part granulated sugar

.....Mix until sugar is dissolved.

.....Let cool to RT.

.....Store at 4 degree C (fridge).

.....Good for 2 weeks.

.....Pour nectar into a hummingbird feeder that is red.

........(Red attracts the birds)

A Week of R&R

To celebrate Dave's completion of his Boards exam (on the 24th), we decided to go for a break. We originally planned on flying East, loading up a car full of my stuff, and driving cross country. However, the thought of that sounded like the equivalent of work (the heat waves cross country didn't help either), and decided to postpone that plan. Dave looked around at other options, and we decided to go on a 5 day cruise from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. We had never cruised before, and we intrigued of the 24 hour dining option. :)

On August 25th, we boarded our boat, the Carnival Elation, at 3pm, in San Diego. Some pictures of us waiting to sail off....

Out to sea!
Arrived in Cabo San Lucas on August 27th. View of Land's End from our stateroom window:
Land's End, The Arch, Lover's Beach, Neptune's Finger

View of the harbor
Cabo San Lucas is a tender port, meaning that the cruise ship parks out in the ocean. Small boats come up to transfer us to the harbor. It was pretty neat to step off of the massive ship onto a small tender boat. Sorry, didn't take any pics from the boat, was worried my camera would get wet from the splashing water.

View of the cruise boat from the harbor.

We went on a snorkeling trip in Chileno Bay. Our catamaran first took us for a look around the big sites around Land's End. The water was pretty rough here as it's next to the Pacific Ocean, so not a great place to swim or snorkel (although some people try).

Seals? Sea lions? hanging out next to the Arch.

Land's End and Arch

After checking out the sites, our catamaran drove for about 20 minutes inland to Chileno Bay. It was a pretty nice place to snorkel, near a beach. It was easy to swim to the beach.... Afterwards, we sped back through the ocean to the harbor. I saw some "things" jumping in the ocean in the distance. My guess was large fish... That was neat... Our boat also took a break mid-ocean to snag a tuna from one of their fishing boats. SO COOL! I wish I had a picture of the fish, it was about 2+ feet long and really colorful... Right afterwards, we saw a dolphin swimming alongside the boat...

Afterwards, we walked around Cabo a bit. It was sooooo HOT, equivalent to the heat waves across the nation. We didn't last long and quickly went back to the air-conditioned ship. But we were pretty impressed with how nice Cabo looked.

After Cabo, we had another day of sea, and then a stop in Ensenada. Dave and I had driven to Ensenada in the past, and were not terribly impressed. We were again not impressed. It's just a little touristy town, probably only good for food and drink. Food was free on the ship, so Dave and I did a quick walk through town (for some exercise) and quickly went back to the ship to enjoy a crowd-free boat.

So you're probably wondering what we did on the boat? Well, a WHOLE lot of EATING... and the rocking of the boat made us feel pretty woozy, so we slept a lot as well. They had such comfortable beds! It was a truly R&R vacation with the amount of lazing around we did. Cruises are definitely deadly.... We had hopes of swimming and working out at the gym, but the 3 pools on the boat were too small to swim in. And the gym was quite small as well...

One of our favorite activities was to attend an art auction. That was pretty cool and upscale. They had some mighty pricey things on the boat, but it was neat to look at the selection and learn more about art.

Would I go on a cruise again? Maybe, but not anytime soon. I would probably research more into boats that offer more "sporty" activities, such as lap pools and rock-climbing walls. There definitely needs to be more options to burn off all the calories that we ingest, since we're such pigs, y'know? :)