And Happy 27th Birthday to my baby sister!!

After that we came home to chill for a while. My dad came over to hang out too until they could check into their hotel. THEN we decided we had to take them to Sweet Lumpy’s for a BBQ lunch.

I ordered the tri-tip burrito and I have to admit that the nacho cheese was the selling point for me. It came with freshly made fries too! I was only able to eat a little less than half the burrito.

Matt had my fave – the pulled pork sandwich!

After lunch my dad and crew headed to their hotel and Matt and I decided a nap was in order. What was planned to be a 20 minute power nap turned into a 2 hour sleep-fest. Oops. But we made it back to the festival around 4:30. Just in time for some fun wine tasting and exploring!

Only made it through a couple of wine tastings before I switched over to beer. Shock-Top to be exact. Beer just seemed more refreshing in the 90 degree heat than wine. Although the wines I tried from Thornton and Wilson Creek were ah-mazing!

For dinner I went with a BBQ Chicken Pizza from CPK and Matt had a tri-tip sandwich.

Matt says relax!

We met back up with my dad & co and listened to the Gin Blossoms! I think I know exactly 3 of their songs. But it was fun to watch.

After the concert we headed over to watch the balloon glow. Somehow Alyssa and I convinced a balloon operator-guy to let us in a basket. We know people.

I posted all the pics from the day on Flickr, so feel free to go check them out!

Love,
Matthew & Michelle

Anyways I’m going to make this one short…we rode around Silverwood Lake on Saturday. In Aaron’s Manx. The end.

Just kidding. So I’ve been wanting to get a helmet cam for Matt when he rides his motorcycle, but I didn’t really want to spend the dough on a good one. Well, I found an Action Cam on Amazon Gold Box a few weeks ago for $50 and ordered it. I wouldn’t say it produces the greatest quality videos, but for the price it’s awesome! The camera will record 1 hour with a 2GB SD card. OK, back to the ride…Matt had the idea to attach the camera to the Manx so we could shoot our entire ride. We ended up with over 5 hours of video, so Matt sped it up to make a short 22 minute video. I’m pretty fond of the part at about 11 minutes in when all the guys are running to the bathroom. I suggest you watch the entire video, but make sure you set aside 22 minutes of your life first. Oh and wait 30 minutes after eating to watch otherwise you might get sick.

Silverwood Lake Ride from Matthew Wedeking on Vimeo.

To view the photos of the day you can check them out HERE.

Matt and I didn’t even know Santiago Peak existed before then. They were all headed up through Orange County, while Matt and I found a trail that started in Corona. It took us at least 2 hours to make it up to the peak. It was so much fun!

There are several antennas on the peak.

The views from the top were amazing. We could see downtown LA, San Clemente, Palomar, Ontario…all over southern CA!

We a fun picnic lunch and a little wine at the top! So fun and I can’t wait to do it again. Although parts of the trail going up were questionable in the truck. So, on the way down we followed the Carlsons back down through Orange County.

But she was sad because I only put 9 candles instead of 26 on it.

Then she spit on it.

Matt’s been serenading me ever since…not really. The guitar is now sitting in the office gathering dust. But at least it looks cool sitting on it’s nifty stand. And we occasionally bust it out making up songs about each other. I’m sure glad no one is here to hear us.

The process for getting tour tickets is a little annoying. We got there a little before noon for the 12:00 tour; however you actually have to get there 2 hours prior to the tour starting to get tickets. We didn’t know that. So, we had to wait in line to grab tickets for the 2:00 tour. The line wasn’t bad as we were pretty close to the front of the line. With our 2 hours to kill we headed out to have lunch then came back for the tour.

The brewery was pretty small, but still interesting. We learned all sorts of things that I have forgotten since then. I never was that good in school.

Anyways, as usual the best part was the tasting afterward. I’m usually not a fan of the dark beers…actually I hate them. But they were included in our tasting and my favorite turned out to be the Stone Smoked Porter. I could totally taste the hints of coffee and chocolate in it. We even bought a jug-thing and brought it home.

So, I continued to rack my brain for ideas when it suddenly hit me…Palm Springs! That is one place we had never spent much time and it was supposed to be SUNNY and warm. This is when I started researching places to stay. My only real requirement was that it must have a nice pool area. I found and fell in love with a Marriott that has an awesome pool and even a water slide; however it came with a $200 per night price tag. Then I came arcross the Riviera Resort and Spa. From the description and photos on there website I didn’t think we could go wrong to quickly made reservations. The hotel is newly renovated and fabulous…and it was only $99!

The pool area was awesome and came complete with a bar. One of my favorite things was that I saw 1 child the entire time we were there. Not that children are bad but I didn’t want to hear little brats yelling “Marco Polo” during my mini vacay! Our room was pretty nice. We were on a corner with a pool view!

We pretty much lounged by the pool all day, even having lunch poolside. Oh and several cocktails. OK, fine…I had a few cocktails too many and had to spend an hour in the room alone with the toilet. But then I eventually made it back to the pool.

We shared a flat iron steak and lobster mac n cheese for dinner in the lounge. There was actually a DJ in the lounge, so we got to listen to some fun music as well.

On our way home we stopped by Tyler’s Burgers, which I can’t recommend enough! We shared a cheeseburger and a strawberry malt…both were so fresh and tasty!

After our shopping extravaganza we made our way to the Marriott Hotel and Marina in San Diego. The hotel is now on my list of faves and I will be back there soon!

We had dinner at Dick’s Last Resort…too crazy! We had a blast and a few shots.

After Dick’s we headed to The Double Deuce. What a fun place. Poll dancing, bull riding and a little twangy music…what could be better?! Oh and more shots.

The next morning we all woke up at 7 a little groggy. The comment was made, “you know you’re getting old when you go to bed at 3 and still wake up at 7.” So true. But we rallied and made our way to Lips for brunch wearing the bachelorette shirts we made. The shirts are based on the movie Anchorman. Go watch it.

Brunch was fun…the pregnant Cher was my favorite part.