Birthday in East Central Illinois

My birthday celebration was held this year in beautiful Robinson, Illinois. Although this may not seem like fun to many -- we were pleasantly suprised and heres why:

1. Justin came over from his job in Springfield, MO
2. I got to learn a new technology in the Marathon Refinery
3. Robinson, IL makes it easy to chose what to eat - they have 1 italian restaurant, 1 chinese restaurant, 1 mexican restaurant... etc.
4. They have two bars -- one of which Jason and Justin got to sumo wrestle at!
5. They had a birthday celebration at Monical's pizza for their 50th anniversary and pizzas were only $5
6. We stayed in a "country club" -- the Quail Creek Country Club to be exact... they hosted PGA tournaments....in the 60s..and the hotel rooms probably haven't been updated since

Overall -- it was a great trip and a great birthday! :) The pictures are of the beautiful fall colors from our country club.

Exploring the Coast

After our visit to Stanford we decided to go even further west. We drove through the mountains towards Santa Cruz and then north to Half Moon Bay. It was getting late but we got to view the sunset while driving north up the coast. There was a beautiful ocean sunset on the left and beautiful mountains and forest on the right.

We stopped at a few locations up the coast on the beaches and eventually in Half Moon Bay for a delicious dinner at the Flying Fish Grill. Don't worry -- I ate chicken. Here are some beautiful pictures from our Sunday adventure. The first one is Mary and I on the beach and the other is a lighthouse with the sun setting next to it.

College Tour at Stanford

Happy October Everyone! This is my favorite month! I haven't updated in so long that I will split my post in to two pieces.

So - this past Sunday Mary, Jason, and I took Sunday afternoon to go explore the other side of the bay. I love visiting college campuses so I made Jason and Mary go on the campus tour of Stanford with me. We didn't only get to learn about Freshman classes -- we also got to see the beautiful beautiful campus. We had a cute Beverly Hills tour guide who carried around a skateboard. We decided not to go up the Hoover tower but we did learn that he was an engineer and the first student at Stanford...ever. Here is a picture of me before we entered their Quad. Unfortunately, their quad isn't as awesome as Illinois's quad which actually has grass in it -- but they do have a cool church bordering theirs.

Before leaving the town of Palo Alto, where Standford is located, we decided to visit a bar we read about called the Nut House. At the Nut house they give you peanuts and you get to throw the shells on the floor. The peanuts are not just available on the table. You have to reach inside the gorillas cage and take his peanuts. Here is a picture of him and his box of nuts.