Farewell...from the Alexandria Crew!

Saturday May 3 was our Farewell from the boat. We had a Kentucky Derby themed get together at the Captain and Krysti's home. We ate Kentucky Derby themed food, watched the derby and bet on our favorite horses, and had a derby hat contest. It was lots of fun. We also of course had the normal gag gift exchanged to and from Josh. Josh gave out some pretty funny gifts and got some good ones in return. Of course he got some Dr. Pepper and plenty of candy to hopefully last him through our drive to California! I also got a few gifts...mine were MUCH better.....because mine were not gag gifts! Thanks to the bestest friend in the world I got some great things......the ladies of the Alex got me a beautiful Vera Bradley duffle bag, a gift certificate to Under Armour, a glass candy dish with the boats seal engraved on it, and a wine bag.....and a GREAT book on California and what there is to do there and were it all is. I will have to take some pictures of the things I got and post them on here! We had a lot of fun....and I am truly going to miss everyone so much! The good thing about being in the Navy is meeting some amazing people and knowing that there is always a possibility that you will be back in the same town and some point or another!

Where is Monterey you ask.....?

Since so many of you keep asking us where exactly Monterey is in California....what other cities it is near....how far from here or there....I decided to help answer some of those questions as best I could since I really don't know much about Monterey or California for that matter....hopefully I will soon!:) Here is a map of California and a map of Monterey. Monterey is ABOUT:

1 hr from San Jose
1.5-2 hrs from San Francisco
4-5 hrs from Los Angeles
6-7 hrs from San Diego
7-8 hrs from Las Vegas



We are looking to live somewhere in the Pacific Grove area.

A night out on the town....well dinner at least

Last night Josh, me, Rachel, and Kyle all went on a fun/dressy date night to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Providence, RI. Rachel and Kyle had given us a gift certificate there for house/dog/cat sitting for them while they were in Kentucky for a week so we decided to go ahead and take advantage of it and try it out with them. The food was wonderful! Josh LOVED it....of course. He has always been wanting to go there and try it out.....now he can say that he has. The thing that I thought was crazy was that they serve the steaks on 500 degree plates so it comes out sizzling! Here are a few pictures from the night.

The entrance to the restraunt in Downtown Providence, RI
Rachel and I after dinner... Josh and I.....he got all dressed up in a tie! He was so CUTE!

Day Trip to Newport, Rhode Island.

The weather here in New England has been absolutely BEAUTIFUL lately. Last week while dog/house sitting for the Calton's I was able to get a little sun and then this past Saturday Josh and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and our last free weekend before we move and go and check out Newport since that is one place of many that we wanted to see before moving. In Newport we at lunch at a little restruant on the water front with our neighbors Christie and Eric and their friends Shawn and Tonya who were visiting. After lunch we went our seperate ways and Josh and I went and checked out two of the vineyards in the area. We went to Newport Vinyards and Greenvale Vinyards. We took the whole tour at the Newport Vineyards and did a tasting at both. We decided that we don't need to take anymore tours because we can now give the tours ourselves....:)! We really enjoyed it. Josh said that we have to drink all the wine that we have right now before we leave because we are going to a place were there is far much more....and probably even better....!!!:)!!! After the vineyards we went back toward the water and went on the 3 1/2 mile cliff walk along the water and the right by all the Newport Mansions. It was absolutely beautiful. We did not do the entire walk because we made a mistake and did not use the restroom before starting the walk and plus we had to go and pick up Rachel and Kyle from the airport and did not want to be late for that. Here are a few of the pictures that we took. Enjoy!