No place like home.

I knew that I wanted to do something more for officer because he would be turning 30 on his birthday, but wasn't sure that I could pull off a fabulous surprise party. Instead, I had this great idea that I would try to surprise him by taking him home to California to celebrate with his family. This played out pretty well until just a couple weeks before when he had all sorts of court subpoenas scheduled, so the surprise was gone, but we still made the trip! Unfortunately - I am the worst with taking the camera out and snapping lots of pictures so more pictures will come of the birthday party when I gather them from family. Officer loves this time of year out there and he and I haven't been out to CA in the early spring since we were engaged, so it was really great to go when it was so green and beautiful - this was a picture of the property where Officer grew up (a little fuzzy). It is really amazing how you can disappear down a small dirt, canopy covered, road just outside of a busy city and find this. Nothing compares.

Miss peanut was just thrilled with all the orange and lemon trees she saw, as well as turkeys, peacocks, and COWs. She is still taking about gramma and papa's house, and of course all her cousins, and Aunts and Uncles! We had such a great time while we were there, we always wish it wasn't so long in between visits.

Officer and I even got out for a kid free evening thanks to Grandma and Aunt Shannon! As a belated Valentines Officer took me to see Wicked in San Fransisco - it only took a small amount of hinting. We rode BART down into the city which was quiet in the evening time, with only a few exceptions. We walked around near City Hall, observing some of the local flavor then we had gyros at this little Mediterranean place just off Market street near the theater, so yummy! Wicked - I won't spoil anything by discussing it, but the music, costumes, talent was really enjoyable! We both liked it; it's been a while since we've come from a movie or show and could say that we really liked it. We tend to have mediocre shows that pass through home most of the time, so to see a production that had been running in one place for more than a night or two was nice.

We did have a birthday party because there were lots of birthdays to celebrate in Officers family in February! I'll have to post those pictures later. The only other thing that officer really wanted to do while we were out there was to go hiking in valley around their property. It rained so much during the week while we were there so everything was muddy, but we put on our rain boots and took a long hike. We went to what the called as kids "the mossland" where boulders and trees are are just covered in green. There is a creek that runs through the area and we got distracted by trying to redirect the creek. We kind of felt like we were 10 years old again - moving debris that was clogging up the creek and stratigically placing boulders so that it would change the flow of the creek. It was fun! And we got back to the house just minutes before another big rainstorm hit. We really wish we could have hiked back to see the creek after all that rain, but we left to go home the next day. Our kids are troopers - it is such a long drive for them, but they did great!