Big Sur, San Luis Obispo and Fun with Friends..

Still trucking away on my awesome caffeine high, I post yet another wonderful blog to all you out there. For the long President's weekend, Kirk ralleyed the troups for a fun getaway up to Sunny San Luis Obispo. With surfboards in tow, we raced with other vacationers up North where we met up with Mitch, Lindsey and Micah Lundquist and Lindsey's sister, Kate as well as Derek and Brittany Simmons and their newest addition, little Jack. The boys were all excited to hit up the big swell, and the girls were excited to shop, hang out and just get away for a couple days. We had a great time touring the sites, eating out and visiting all manner of shops, museums, beaches and historical sites. All of us visited San Luis Obispo's Mission and explored the old mission that has since been turned into a full service church. In the courtyard there was this huge tree that had beautiful, large blossoms and I just had to take a picture because I felt like I was staring at a cherry tree in Japan or something. It was awesome. As a side note: I did my Mission project on San Luis Obispo when I was in the 5th grade, pretty fun, huh?

After spending a couple days in SLO (as the locals call it) we continued further north to Paso Robles which is a darling little winery community. We unloaded our stuff and decided to visit Hearst's Castle which is on your way to Big Sur. We marveled at this gigantic house that stood alone on this mountain. William Hearst purchased 256,000 acres of land in the San Simeon area many years ago, and his life's work was to complete this ostentacious and elaborate mansion. There are actually 5 tours that you would have to take to view all of his estate, so we were only able to see a fraction of the castle. There are over 60 bathrooms to give you an idea on the size of this place and each room is decorated to the nines. It's not really my style of design, but WRH had a pretty nice pad in his day.

Here is the Neptune pool that over looks the hillside and the beach and coastline below. Our tour guide informed us that it is available for renting if you want to have an epic pool party that your friends won't forget. They also host weddings and other parties there. I think the starting rate is something like $16,000 for just a few guests... Maybe in the future Kirk and I will renew our vows there- or not.
I'm not sure this pictures does the front of the building justice to how grand this place is. With rare artwork and imported wood, furniture, fabric, animals and plants, this castle is a feast for the eccletic eye.
After visiting the simple house Hearst created, we met up with Sami and Dave and little Bentley for a quick hike near Big Sur. This is almost the whole posse minus Layne and Kate. I do believe that Kate is somewhere behind me- sorry Kate!
We were so stoked that we were able to have fun with all of our friends and get to see the Halvorsens too for the day. Kirk did a good job carrying Bentley through the hike, and it was hard to not get baby fever after spending the weekend with such cute kids! Micah is the funniest kid ever and little Bentley and Jack are just so precious! We had such a great time and the best part was there was even good surf the guys! I always feel bad when we make a trip somewhere and the waves end up being junky. Yeah for family and friends!