1. Trip to South America – After four years of saving money and miles, we finally got enough frequent flyer miles to go to Patagonia! We’re heading to Chile and Peru, so come next week, we’ll be in the South American summer. We are super excited!

2. House – It’s a long sordid tale, but after many many months, we finally closed on our crazy house. We bought it gutted, so it’s a ways from being inhabitable. One day we’ll move though, and we’ll have to post some pictures.

The front, in all its glory, back in May when we went under contract

The back a couple of weeks ago...yes the back has been ripped off for quite some time.

We stayed at the Hotel Chateau Chamonix, and we highly recommend it! It was pricier than we wanted to spend, but it was worth it for a special occasion.

Our other main activity was touring the Hotel du Paris museum. It was fairly interesting, but we do not recommend it because the tour guide was really rude. The main Georgetown attraction is the Georgetown loop railroad, but we didn’t partake this time. Overall, Georgetown is a a nice place for a quiet break. Joel might not agree, but it was quite nice to have a weekend in the mountains that didn’t involve strenuous activity!

Early celebration of Evie’s 2nd birthday:

Joel and I set up some indoor portraits of the families because it was raining outside.

Due to the rain, we headed to the Hatteras Lighthouse and down to Ocracoke Island:

We rented a tandem bike for the week, and it was super fun! We’d ridden one once before, and this time it was great for getting to the beach (we were across the highway on the sound side of the island).

Evie and I on the porch after dinner one night:

The lovely house we stayed in:

Dark picture of us on the sound near the house:

We went sea kayaking our last day, but we didn’t get any pictures since we were in kayaks. Also, our little camera wasn’t working (surprise), so we didn’t get any beach pictures. Oh well.

We packed up quickly and headed out of there! The drive between the rims boasts some great sites. The Navajo Bridge has spectacular views over the Colorado River and surrounding cliffs.

In the background of the photo above and in the photo below are the beautiful Vermillion Cliffs.

Despite the wind and snow, we had a great trip. It was a lot of driving, but seeing such amazing sites is totally worth it. I can say that because Joel drove the whole way.

and Lipan Point, which was the worst wind we encountered. I’d say we were out of the car for approximately one minute.

This was our final view of the South Rim. Although the canyon is only about 10 miles across, it is over 200 miles driving from rim to rim. So we began our 4+ hour journey to the North Rim. We weren’t hiking to the bottom of the canyon on such a short trip, but we wanted to hike down a little ways. We decided on the North Kaibab Trail, which is similar to Bright Angel Trail on the South Rim if you’re familiar with it. Here’s Joel (slightly distorted) at the Coconino Overlook on the trail.

We then headed to Bright Angel Point for a classic North Rim view…and some more wind.

During this trip, we decided to take full advantage of the phrase “car camping” by spending copious amounts of time in our car rather than utilizing the picnic tables at our campsites. Why, you may ask? I’ll give you one guess. Did you guess wind? Good job. We resorted to eating cold smores in the car, because the first night we attempted a campfire, but it was fairly disastrous. In addition to campfires in extreme wind, cold smores are also not recommended.

Stay tuned for the next morning’s surprise. Or you can find out by looking at our pictures here.

When we arrived in the park, after 3+ hours of driving from Phoenix, I am proud to announce that Joel was in awe. I had hoped the Grand Canyon wouldn’t be built up too much for him, and thankfully it wasn’t. We stopped at the first viewpoint and took a picture of him.

Next, we hiked (walked) out to Shoshone Point, where there was a wedding about to begin. I hated that it was so windy for them, but I guess they knew it was a possibility.

We then set up camp. Joel is a dear for always blowing up my camping pad. I get light-headed at sea level when I blow things up, so I can’t imagine doing it at high altitude! (product advertisement: Big Agnes pads are great for side-sleepers)

We finally headed to Hopi Point for sunset.

I’ll make two more posts on this trip, but you can see all the pictures here.

After breakfast, we headed across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Muir Woods National Monument.

This was a repeat of our honeymoon. It is amazing to see all the enormous redwoods.

Nothing like a good school picture pose on a huge fallen tree.

Then we headed to the Muir Beach Overlook.

We attempted to relive a wonderful honeymoon burrito experience at Grilly’s in Sausalito, but sadly, it was closed for renovations. In loving memory of the burrito is this picture from 2005.

Next, we headed back into the city  to Crissy Field for a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

We took a quick trip down Lombard Street…

…and finished the day with a giant loaf of sourdough bread from Tartine Bakery. It’s in the Mission district, which is packed with hipsters sporting ironic mustaches and super tight jeans. Totally worth it. And yes, I put it in my suitcase to bring home.

The end.