Flynn Family Fun in Minnesota!

Minnesota!

It's been awhile...

Oh wow...

It's been awhile since any posts to this thing.

What's happened recently, let's see. Travel wise, I went on a week long trip with Mary to Oaxaca, Mexico, then a few weeks after I met up with some of my family in Maryland to celebrate my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary, and Garrett and I recently visited Minnesota for a cousin's wedding. 

Garrett is hard at work as a physical therapy aide and clerk at a physical rehab office in North Davis, as an afterschool assistant director in South Davis, and as a physical trainer at a health club in town. He's also focusing on strength and conditioning training with sports groups, as well as developing a community boot camp program.

I am still at the lab, working with fruit and insects and helping out with some tests to develop a fumigant that will kill certain pests so we can export oranges and grapes to Australia without them having to worry about unwanted insect invasions. I also took up a second job at a cafe across the street, so I can hone in on some food service skills so I have a broader scope for employment when we move to Hawaii. So, I'm now also a dishwasher, salad maker, cashier, barrista, food runner, table busser, and closing shift clean the whole cafe up person. 

It will be a busy summer. Garrett likes to point out that it is the beginning of his never ending summer. Lucky guy.

Take a break and hit the city...

We had a nice getaway weekend to San Francisco. Thanks to my mom, we were able to stay at the Inn at the Opera, right by the Civic Center and next to the SF Ballet. We had fun walking around, meeting up with friends who were in the city for a concert, and ate "spicy thai" thai rice which we couldn't finish even though we ordered beer, thai iced tea, water, and ice cream to take away the heat. We ended up giving it to Paul when we stayed at Paul and Eileen's in San Rafael. He said it was pretty hot but he could handle worse.

Different pasta sauces at FIERA's The Boss of the Sauce competition in North Beach.

Who will be the boss of the sauce?

Saturday was a wet rainy day in the city, but this is what we saw on our drive back in from San Rafael on Sunday morning.

The view from Alamo Square

Putting the tree up in Union Square

Check out these shoes from the Nike store!

Halloween #2

Here are some photos from our second Halloween celebration...(this was actually on Wed the 31st).

Garrett the Pirate and our friend Vince the 80's breakdancer

Garrett with his parrot

Garrett and our friend Nick

Halloween #1

We dressed up this Saturday for an early Halloween celebration.

Mary came to visit and we did some costume hunting in Woodland. Woodland is a very interesting place. I'm excited because it has a bowling alley, and lots of good looking taco trucks. I was really surprised at how big the town is.

I dressed up as a Pirate, and I made a costume for my parrot, Garrett.

Arrgh matey

Garrett and I won the costume contest at our favorite bar, Little Prague. The prize, a nice bottle of champagne.

Mary found an awesome hat at the goodwill store

Thank goodness for $1.99 glue guns!!

A trip to Napa

This Sunday we took our friend Eduardo to Napa. Eduardo is visiting from Spain on an international postharvest technology scholarship and has been working in my lab for the past few months. He has been almost everywhere in California except Napa, so we decided to take him on a day tour through the area.

The vineyards as seen from Castello di Amorosa

We started off by visiting the Napa Visitor's Center, always a good idea, and decided we'd visit some of our favorite wineries as well as a few new ones that we had never been to. We enjoyed champagne tasting at Domaine Chandon, the free self-guided tour and smell-a-vision kiosks at St. Supery , the sun and the views and delicious cabernet sauvignon at the Robert Mondavi winery, and had burgers and fries at Taylor's Refresher (one of our favorite places to eat). Their Ahi Burger is amazing, as are their sweet potato fries. We also visited the Culinary Institute for the Arts at Greystone in St. Helena, which was a beautiful old Hogwart's style building with lots of culinary goodies inside.

Tasting champagne at Domaine Chandon

The long lines at Taylor's Refresher, well worth the wait!

During our last visit to Napa with Andy and Patti, we saw as Castle in the distance from the Sterling winery views. We asked about the castle at the visitors center and learned that one of the owners of a winery down the road had a love for Italian history and Italian castles, so he had a few shiploads of Italian rock sent over and built a castle, the Castello di Amorosa. It was sort of strange, but very cool. They do have tours of the castle for an arm and a leg, but we did the $10 tasting only deal and were able to wander around the castle a bit. I thought the best part was seeing a little girl who came to visit--she was dressed up in her snow white costume and running around the castle like she was a little princess. Quite cute.

Castello di Amorosa

It was an enjoyable trip, one of our longer times spent in Napa, and it was nice that we got to see some new places. We're so grateful that Napa is so closeby! So that means all of you come visit us in Davis so we can do a day trip to Napa!

Happy Birthday Garrett!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you!
Happy BIRTHDAY dear Garrett!
Happy birthday to you!

On October 7, 25 years ago, we have many thanks to give to a most wonderful Theresa Flynn. Thank you for your labor! :)




We celebrated early on Saturday with dinner at Cattleman's in Dixon with Felix, Eduardo (a spanish exchange student who works in my lab), Dov Alima, and Eileen and Paul.

Dinner at Cattleman's in Dixon. Steak. It's what's for dinner©

On the actual birth day, we had brunch at Cindy's with Vince and Felix, and watched Vince and Garrett's soccer team win (3-1, Davis v. Berkeley), and later had some wine and smelt at Seasons and then watched Shaolin Warriors at the Mondavi Center. It was a nice weekend of food and festivities. Happy day!