Adventures by the Bay

Time to update the blog with our California adventures. First, I'd like to point out some observations:

*If California had a state car, it'd be a Toyota Prius.

*Utah's not the only state with bad drivers.

*The foggiest months are June and July.

*Bridges are awesome unless we're crossing one by mistake (this only happened once).

*We could afford a small house in Utah for the price we're paying for a studio apartment here.

*The population is a lot more diverse than in Utah. We're right by a Chinese cemetery.

*People wait 30 minutes or more to go through a car wash.

By the Bay

So what to see, what to do? Well, there's the giant ocean that we drive by on our way to church every Sunday, no big deal...

Okay, it's awesome, when we can actually see it. Mornings are more fog-friendly than sun-friendly so the ocean hides from us a lot. But we did visit the beach on a couple sunny days. Trying to find parking was a nightmare; you literally need to stalk people who look like they're heading to their cars and getting ready to leave in order to find a spot. Probably took as long to park as it did to drive there. But once there, the beach was awesome--warm sun, perfect breeze, soft sand, handsome husband lying next to me. The ocean water was quite chilly on the toes.

We went to Pier 39 in San Francisco. From there we could see the bay, Alcatraz Prison in the distance, and lots of boats. I don't know my boat lingo, so here's my best description of one we saw: a huge sucker carrying stuff under the Bay Bridge. It was just cool because I'm used to trains and airplanes. Not ships. Speaking of planes, we live pretty close to the airport. Planes fly so low over us taking off that they look way huge. Sometimes the louder ones rattle the windows.

On another weekend we went to the Tech Museum. I don't remember many specifics, except that this was a very interactive place. Lots of touching of techie things. We also watched the new Star Trek: Into Darkness on a giant IMAX screen. That was a crazy experience. The massive screen was awesome, but the action-packed, extreme actor close-ups, rectangular movie was not designed for an IMAX screen. It was actually better in a regular theater.

Not exactly LEGOs, but we managed to build an airplane. So crafty.

The Great and Powerful Google

First, a clarification...

Clayton has a summer internship with Google, who bought YouTube years and years ago. The YouTube office is not at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, but it's completely owned and run by Google. Clayton's internship is at the YouTube office in San Bruno. It's hilarious how many people (I was one of them) don't know that YouTube=Google. When Clayton tells people "I work for YouTube," they react with polite interest and think, "Oh, another tech company." Then I pipe up and say, "Which is Google." Then they get all excited and everything.

Anyways...it's much more fun to hear in person, but quite hilarious. If someone says they work at Android, they work for Google. If they work at YouTube, they work for Google. Continuing on...

On occasion Clayton goes to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, and one day I went with him. How to describe it? Very...Googley. It's made up of buildings everywhere and people walking from place to place during lunch or riding Google-colored bicycles. I got lost in the parking lots trying to find parking and got to see their electric charging stations, complete with snazzy Teslas and other electric cars. There are cafeterias everywhere that serve three free square meals a day. Google colors and symbols, like Chrome and Android, are also everywhere. We went to the Google store and got to play with the Google Nexus tablets they had on display. 

We tried to find cool sights to visit, but they were either closed or not available to visitors. Fortunately, as we were passing through the Android building, we unexpectedly found lots of fun stuff to do. First there were the statues for each one of Android's yummy version names (Jelly Bean, Ice Cream Sandwich). There was an arcade with games like DDR and a racing game that was a cross between a simulator and a normal driving arcade game. There was a 4-foot smartphone that let me play Tetris using my hands. And of course, who can forget about the magical ghost piano...

Standing next to Android 4.1

Craving Android 2.2

I'd hate to meet the person who owns this as a cell phone...

Look, Mom! No hands!

Sadly, not a ghost. But awesomely, it's a self-playing "digital player piano." It's got skills.

Google is an accommodating place for employees. There's always places to eat, places to sit comfortably, and recreational activities like volleyball or bowling. At Clayton's YouTube office, many employees exercise before the end of their shift. His office also has sweet massage chairs and a fun slide to get from the third floor to the second. I was grateful for the chance to check out Google so close. Pretty much everything there is only accessible if you visit with a Googler.

Plus There's a Baby

On top of all the adventures, I'm quite pregnant! We haven't taken any decent pictures of my belly yet, but those will come eventually. I can feel the baby move so much. So excited that after all our adventures here in California, we'll only have a couple months left before the biggest adventure of our lives begins--parenting, woo-hoo!

Christmas Vacation 2012

I know I'm many, many weeks late, but I wanted to get this posted so I'll never forget it (I actually wrote it like a month ago). I'll have a more recent one coming soon. Eventually...

Here's how our awesome Christmas Vacation turned out:

Visiting Tooele-ish Places

It just wouldn't be time off without a bit of running around. I went to Stansbury Park, Tooele, Grantsville, Magna (not Tooele territory, but close), and Wendover (Tooele territory, but not close). One of the highlights was visiting my best friend of many years who had her first baby in December. I'm so happy for her!

Another highlight was visiting Clayton's sister's family, Leila and Josh, in Wendover. They live on the Utah side, but we crossed over to Nevada to watch their oldest daughter perform in a dance recital. There's a line on the road letting travelers know when they cross from Utah to Nevada, but they don't really need it. The casinos right smack on the line are a dead giveaway that we're not in Kansas anymore. (I mean Utah.) It was nice to drop by the Leila and Josh's place, since they're always the ones driving up to see us and everyone else.

This was the first Christmas I would be away from my parents, so we made sure to spend some time with them and their recent addition to the family, Riley, their hyperactive, chewing-obsessed, goofy, lovable Border Collie. With all the Riley, frosting cookies, and Christmas movies going on, the days flew by until it was time to drive up to the chilly, lakey North.

Couldn't resist posting a couple pics of us and Riley

The Dreaded Drive to Minnesota

The trip was hard for me and the longest I've ever been on. If we hadn't carpooled with another couple, I would never have agreed to drive through the night. When my turn came, right when my normal bedtime would be, I spent the longest 3.5 hours of my life trying to stay awake. It's funny, because when I started college, I could stay up and drive until 2:00am without a yawn. The difference was that this time--unlike those days--I had already been in a car for 4 hours, I had been fighting to fall asleep before I took the wheel, I was used to the sleep schedule of an employee and not a student, and there were no other talkative college students awake with me. But now, with nothing but my music, snacks, high beams, and the occasional semi truck for company, I drove along the two-lane highway in empty darkness.

Clayton woke up for the last little part of my shift and put in a movie. When he took the wheel, he asked me to stay awake for as long as I could, but I didn't last long. Thankfully, my handsome stud of a husband made it through the rest of the lonely night and we all woke to a glorious rising sun. All my hating of the dark was transformed into a quadrupled loving of the light, a moment that helped me appreciate all the light and dark analogies that exist in the world.

The worst was over. As we drove past the aftermath of a huge storm in Iowa, I saw how blessed we were to avoid the "worst" that befell many others. There were semi trucks off the road, many facing the wrong direction or knocked over sideways. Later the highway was strung with more cars off the road sunk deep in a ditch of snow, a graveyard of stuck and abandoned vehicles. Some were sideways, and we came across one pile of smashed cars with a car upside down. How grateful I am that we didn't drive through that storm! The road was still bumpy and slick with frozen snow caked to the surface, and I spent a huge part of the trip trying to sleep or read to keep my mind off what could still happen. This was one of those times in my life that I turned to my beliefs and faith, seeking the peaceful assurance that no matter what happened, everything would be okay. I seek that assurance a lot when I'm driving. Rather than focus on how my life is in the hands of strangers and hostile weather on the road, I imagine how my life is in the hands of the Lord. Makes me feel lots better.

Ahoy, Minnesota!

I'll be honest. When we finally reached Minnesota in the evening, nearly 24 hours after leaving Utah, I was a soulless zombie. I don't remember anything except waiting for dinner, then falling asleep on an air mattress. We had go to choir practice at 8:00am the next morning so all the Watts could sing in their ward's Christmas Program for church. Zombies don't sing, so I watched the Watts practice with a blurry, short attention span. I dazed my way through church, and when I was finally free to let my body crash, Clayton and I crammed together on a twin bed, fell asleep in 5 seconds, and didn't move for the next 4 hours.

When I woke from that beautiful nap I was a real person again with a soul, and actually cared about being there.

Christmas

I went caroling with the singin' Watts the day before Christmas Eve and got an icy taste of a Minnesota winter. Nothing I wore was ever warm enough; only the warm fuzzy glow of the Christmas Spirit moved me from place to place. That, and the fact that Clayton's sister's new husband from Colorado was also freezing. Together we suffered the shivering of the Dry Climate Dwellers.

On Christmas Eve itself, I was a little homesick when evening approached since I hadn't done any of the traditional activities of my family. At the same time, it was sweet to experience the traditions of another family. Here's what the Watts do on Christmas Eve, in no particular order:

1. Hop in a sauna, then hop in the snow (didn't do the snow part this year though)

2. Play Christmas songs band-style: They had two trumpets, a trombone, a French horn, a clarinet, two guitars, a cello, a piano, and the bells (percussion) for Clayton. Crazy enough, percussion is what I played in high school for a short time, so I could share my husband's instrument and be a part of their musical jamboree. Awesome.

3. Act out the Christmas Story from the scriptures

4. Open a present: Not a tradition my family has done, so I felt weird doing it. When one of the girls opened a pair of socks, I figured that'd be a perfect pre-Christmas gift, and sent Clayton to find me a gift that felt like socks. We scored.

The days that followed Christmas were filled with basketball, volleyball, Les Miserables, and family games. While sore and aching muscles pounded my body, I still had a blast.