A visit from East Coast Friends....

For the past 6-7 days our friends Christie and Eric ( our old neighbors from CT) came to visit us! It was so good to get to see them and hang out....and do ALOT! Josh and I haven't done much but walk around and look since we have been here so it was a lot of fun to get to do some of the things for the first time with Christie and Eric. We took so many pictures and I know I will leave a lot of the stuff we did off here because I just can't remember it all...so if and when Christie gets the trip posted on her blog you can check that out because she journaled the whole trip. Here is a quick run down of some of the fun things we did and saw:

Wednesday--San Francisco...Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39, Lombard St., Ghiradelli Square, and took a ferry ride under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz.

Thursday--Monterey...Fisherman's Wharf, went out on a boat to go Whale Watching

Friday--July 4th...walked out to Lover's point, watched the fireworks over the ocean

Saturday--Monterey Bay Aquarium, 17-Mile Drive( Pebble Beach Golf course)

Sunday--Carmel....In and Out Burger, Carmel Spanish Mission, Carmel by the Sea

Monday---Monterey....watched the seals off the coast Guard Pier, Josh started Classes, Layed out on the beach, when to a nice dinner at Willy's

Thats about all I can remember and there are so many details that go along with each....I will leave all of that up to Christie! All in All we had a wonderful time getting to visit and site see with them and were really sad to see them leave. Christie will be back the end of August with Rachel though so that will be nice! I will try and post pictures later today....I have to go through them there is over 1,000!!!

From working all the time to almost never.....

I guess Josh deserves to have a break after all the hard work that he has done on the submarine....but we didn't realize that he was going to have it this good!!! Like I mentioned in the previous post, Josh checked into NPS on Friday and got his school schedule....and here it is:

Monday and Wednesday 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Tuesday and Thursday 8:00am - 10:00am and then 1:00-3:00pm
Friday NOTHING

Don't you wish you had that kind of schedule?!?!?! Thats only 16hrs a week!!! Although he will have to put in more time for studying....he still has a pretty good schedule! I'm glad though that he gets a break for a little bit...he more than deserves this time. As for me....I will be looking for a job soon....not sure what I want to do...nothing perminent obviously....since we are only here for 18months....but I will be finding something once our stream of visitors dies down....although anyone is welcome to come and visit anytime.....I am SOO excited about my visitors this summer.....Christie and Eric the day after tomorrow.....my parents the beginning of August....and Rachel the end of August....not to mention our trip to Colorado the first weekend of August for Amanda(Josh's Step sister) and Ben's wedding!! I can't wait to see everyone...both in Colorado and visitors here! Well...that is all for now....gonna go practice my Mario Kart...gonna play via the wi-fi with Christie and Eric later! Hope everyone has a good week....I will probably not update again until next Tuesday when Christie and Eric leave!

Love and Hugs,
Amanda and Josh

More from Monterey....

Sorry for the lack of updating lately. Josh and I have been busy hanging out and just learning more about the area. I'm able to update because Josh went to check in at school this morning. So now we will hopefully know what his schedule will be like. All we know right now is that he has orientation on Tuesday. He is excited and not.....he is excited to get back to school since he loves it so much but not too excited to have to go back to work....he and I have enjoyed him being home all the time and being able to do whatever when want. Not much else is going on here...we finally have our place all set up.....and are ready for our first set of visitors. Christie and Eric come to visit on Wednesday so they will be here to celebrate the July 4th holiday with us. And...we bought a grill....its AMAZING....Josh cooked steaks last night on it and they were TO DIE FOR! We both thought that they were some of the best steaks that we have ever had! Well...thats all for now...here are a few more pictures:

View from Lover's Point....the trees here are so neat!
Josh touching the Pacific Ocean for the first time......
A seal swimming outside out boat on the glass bottom boat we went on
More Sea Lions!
Monterey Sunset!

I have never seen so many beautiful flowers..and so many...this is one of Josh's favorites....besides his most favorite which is birds of paradise!
We had a huge heat wave...and no one around here has a/c...including us....so I think Ollie was hot....he has never done this before.....
Out on the water with last weekend's storm coming in...the lightning from this storm was the cause of several of the fires around here!

A few Pictures

Here are just a few pictures we have taken...I will explain each below:


Just the waves....
The sea otter we watched on our walk this morning...he wanted lots of attention!

Josh liked that the seals were on the rocks...
Our first friend we met just below our feet while sitting on a bench near the water...Josh was playing tug-o-war with him with a weed...kinda funny...not sure what he is!?
more water, waves and rocks.....
and again.....

view from our guest room.....

outside....side view of our townhomes.....
cloudy morning...this was from our walk this morning
coming home from our walk.....
we found some more sea otters....we think they are fun to watch