Sedona, AZ

Adrienne and I share a goal of visiting all 50 states before we're 30.  It's a somewhat arbitrary goal, but it forces us to travel to new places.  I hadn't been to Arizona and it was beginning to feel somewhat hopeless that we'd have good reason to visit; we'd contemplated flying to Phoenix for a weekend just to check it off our list.

As luck would have it, my parents were planning on touring the Grand Canyon and exploring the South-Western US and would be using some of their time-share time in Sedona, AZ.  They asked if we'd like to come visit them in Arizona.  We obliged and spent a long weekend in Sedona and managed to cross Arizona off of the list of unvisited states.

My mom's sister Louise and her husband Tom spend their winters in Arizona, so they traveled into Sedona to visit.  In addition, my mom's brother Jim and his wife Kathy also used some time-share time in town... we had a mini-family reunion!

The highlight of the trip was the Pink Jeep tour throughout the greater-Sedona landscape (Adrienne might argue that the highlight was the trip to Nordstrom’s Last Chance, but that’s another story).

This is one of my favorites from the Jeep tour:


Check out the entire collection on Flickr: Sedona Jeep Tour

For the curious: Adrienne still needs Hawaii.  I need Hawaii and Alaska.

Easter Dinner

My geekery (or geekthusiasm) isn't limited to just computers and technology.  No Sir!  For whatever reason, I also get excited about fancy tables.  As such, Adrienne helped me craft a clever plan with the goal of showing off our new table and making use of our new china and stemware.  The cover story that we'd share with our families was that they were invited to our home for Easter Dinner.

I baked a ham (thanks Alton Brown for the recipe) and made some vegetable sides; Betty made a tasty dessert.  Of course, this was all a rouse to show off our fancy table:

Rob and Anne Marie's Engagement Party

Adrienne and I volunteered to play host to Rob and Anne Marie's Engagement Party. We wanted to get a cake made that really suited the two of them. After hunting down a cake baker who'd take our strange request, we commissioned a cake which looks just like Rob's Mini Cooper:

Here's the front/top:


And the Side:


And since Rob and Anne Marie are both fans of Battle Star Galactica, we included the text "Happy Fracking Wedding". See the entire set on Flickr: Rob and Anne Marie's Cake

The party was a blast...


You can view the entire set on Flickr: Rob and Anne Marie's Engagement Party

Or just view the cake pictures on Flickr: Rob and Anne Marie's Engagement Cake