A Family Wedding

This weekend Walker and I headed to South Alabama for the wedding of my cousin Britton. The weather was beautiful and our time there was far too short. It was painful heading north to Birmingham knowing the Gulf of Mexico was just a couple of miles behind us. We stayed in a condo in Gulf Shores, and the wedding took place about 30 minutes away in the beautiful town of Fairhope. Here are some pictures from the reception...

Beautiful Mom...

Husband...

So wonderful reuniting with family... (aunts & cousins pictured below)

My cousin Austin (ring bearer extraordinaire) LOVES to dance, and spent the majority of the evening pulling people out on the dance floor with him to cut a rug. 

Mother & son (with baby boy #2 on the way!)

Pausing for a moment (and partially hiding behind best friend Rabbit) to take a picture with Aunt Jeannie and cousin Emily...

Walker & I ate breakfast with mom and dad at a local favorite (Hazel's), shopped for a bit at the outlet mall in Foley, and then made the long trek back to Birmingham. Weekends go by entirely too fast...

graduation & the beach

Last Thursday Walker & I headed to Montgomery to watch the last Fain child graduate from Trinity. Yay Jack!

Friday morning we headed down to the beach for the Memorial Day weekend. The beach does wonders to de-stress life, and despite threatening weather reports, we actually had lots of sun. The house and beach were both dog friendly, so little Bella got to have her first taste of sand and surf. To say she enjoyed herself would be an understatement.

The house...

Racing Walker (he lost)...

Loving it...

Our regal-looking beach dog...

Post-sand-rinsing...

Had I written this post Sunday afternoon, this is where the story would have ended. But alas, there is more to tell. Late Sunday afternoon as I sat on the beautiful porch reading (A Thousand Splendid Suns - a fantastic book if you have not read it!), I noticed several large, fly-like insects buzzing around. They kept landing on my legs and feet and had quite a little sting to them, but I thought, "how much damage can a fly bite really do?", and kept on enjoying the last bit of sunshine at the beach. As it turns out, this was a grave mistake. Late Sunday night and all day Monday the bites began to swell. I stayed in Montgomery on Monday night, and after looking at the bites and hearing my description of the bugs, my beach-native mom promptly made the diagnosis: yellow fly bites. I turned to the internet and learned that these horrific little creatures come out in northwest FL during the months of May and June, and pack quite a punch. Several rounds of sleep-inducing Benadryl and half a tube of hydrocortisone later, I am still miserable and swollen. I have counted 29 bites, although some on my legs have swollen together so I'm not sure how accurate my count is. How does it feel? Like poison ivy on steroids. 

Entomology lesson #1: if you are ever in a similar situation, trying to soak up the last little bit of the beach that you can, and you see this

buzzing around you, run as fast as your little legs can carry you back inside and stay there. It's just not worth it!

Thank you...

The past week has been a constant reminder of the some of the wonderful friendships the Lord has blessed me with... thank you sweet friends for your love, prayers, and support!

Lifelong buds...

Blessings from the Plains...

My sanity the past two years...

Alas, our trip comes to an end

(disclaimer: this one is loaded with pictures)

Day 5 of our Cali trip turned out to be both of our favorite, even though a large majority of it was spent in our rental car. We woke up early and headed south on Pacific Highway 1. It runs right along the Pacific Ocean and has miles and miles of unbelievable ocean views. If any of you are ever out in SF, it is more than worth the trip. We drove through Big Sur (a town famous for its huge cliffs and amazing coastal views), and continued south for another hour or so before turning around and coming back up the coast.

We stopped just south of Monterey in Carmel-by-the-Sea for a late lunch and to walk around the picturesque town. The beaches there are dog-friendly (we missed Bella terribly), and for those of you who are imagining how potentially disgusting that could be, know that there are VERY strict rules about picking up after your pet. 

The cottages along the coast are unbelievably cute...

What will one of these cute little cottages set you back? We were curious and pulled a flyer on one that was for sale - a 3/2, non-ocean view - $3.8 million. Yikes.

We then drove through of "17 Mile Drive", a stretch of beautiful homes and golf courses, including Pebble Beach. Here is the "Lone Cypress", the emblem of Pebble Beach Golf Course...

We saw a deer near the road grazing along the course and in front of one of the giant homes.

We then headed back to Monterey and enjoyed a lovely dinner along the wharf at a delicious Mexican restaurant. The salsa, entrees, and margaritas were fantastic. Our only complaint - they did not serve cheese dip (gasp!). (For those of you who do not know, Walker and I take down at least 2 cheese dips on any given visit to a Mexican restaurant.)

Sadly, we flew out the next morning. However, we were returning to B'ham relaxed and with huge academic/work burdens lifted from our shoulders. So for the moment, life in the Fain household is relaxed and wonderful :).

Day 4: Alcatraz/Palo Alto/Monterey

We spent the morning touring Alcatraz (a small island located in the middle of San Francisco Bay that served as a federal prison from the 1930s-70s). After taking a ferry from the city to the island, we had free reign to explore the island and prison at will. From the island there are beautiful views of the city and of the Golden Gate Bridge.

(the trendy headphones and lanyards around our neck are part of the audio tour of the prison)

After our Alcatraz tour, we picked up our rental car and headed south to Palo Alto, home of Stanford University. We had been told the campus was beautiful and worth the visit, and we agree. It is completely different from any university I have ever seen, and while I will always be biased to the beauty of Auburn's campus, Stanford's campus had a different sort of charm. 

We left Palo Alto and hopped on Pacific Highway 1 to Monterey. We arrived late afternoon, settled in our hotel, and headed to the downtown/marina area for dinner. Walker was instantly taken by the city's charm, and it was a nice change of pace from our miles and miles of walking in San Francisco.

13.1 miles

A brief interruption of our SF trip to tell you about this past weekend...

Walker and I ran in our first 1/2 marathon! Lele and Eric were our gracious hosts for the event, and supplied us with the proper nutrition (bagels, bananas, water, Gatorade), rides, a cheering squad, and photographers in preparation for and during the big run. After an Italian dinner Friday night to carb-load for the race, we hit the sack early so we would be rested for our 5:15 a.m. wake-up time. Unlike the glorious and comfortable weather we found in SF, the temperatures on Saturday morning in Nashville were blazing hot. Our goals were modest and two-fold: to finish the race, and to run the entire time. With the exception of about 1/8 of a mile around mile #12 when Walker's hamstring started acting up and we walked, our goals were met! (his hamstring is fine, it was just tight and he was a bit dehydrated)

These were the people leading the way in the marathon... (they finished the marathon faster than we finished the 1/2)

Around mile 8 (I think)...

We did it! (and have medals to prove it)

Following the 1/2 marathon and some recovery time, we headed south and spent Saturday night with the Norris's. Chef Lizzie prepared us the world's best 1/2 marathon-recovery meal, and we had a fantastic time visiting with sweet Campbell.

Blaze on...Saddles

So I know there has been much anticipation for this blog post from all you Fain Blog readers out there.  So here goes.... Day 3 in San Francisco:

So Em and I thought we had carved out this great plan for day 3 of our trip to San Francisco. We would rent bikes and bike across the Golden Gate Bridge... which should be exciting, then bike on down to Sausalito (a quaint little town just north of the bridge) and eat lunch.  And then bike a little bit further north to Muir Woods and experience all the greatness of a Giant Redwood Forest.  Only one of these items actually amounted in a good experience, which is very sad.  Even sadder is the fact that the other two items were, for the most part, quite miserable.  

So we woke up and had a quiet little breakfast in the room, then proceeded to walk down to Pier 39, where we would rent our bikes from the "Blazing Saddles" rental bike company for the day.  Side note - the people at the bike place make it seem really fun and easy to just "bike the bridge" into Sausalito.  We found out the hard way that "biking the bridge" is neither fun nor easy.   In fact "biking the bridge" is an experience where you fear for your life.  Riding across one of the most historical landmarks in American history should be a great experience, however, there were two things that we did not plan for: fog and Lance Armstrong/Casey Anderson-type bikers flying past us.  Not only did we have these professional cyclists flying past us, but the bike lane for the bridge is about 8 feet wide.  So we were just calmly biking across the bridge and would hear someone shout "LEFT" and immediately quiver and fear for our lives as these cyclists blew past us on this 100 ft tall structure.  As the day progressed we realized that we were among the minority riding our mountain bikes in and around the bridge/Sausalito.  Here is a snapshot that we took on our ferry ride home that will show you the immense fog hovering over the bridge.

Fog

So after we made our death defying bike across the bridge we then shared the road with cars to get into Sausalito.  Sharing the road with cars was not one of Emily's highlights during the trip. Upon arriving in Sausalito we enjoyed a nice lunch in the small, quaint village which is pictured below.

Sausalito

After eating lunch, we started our trek to Muir Woods.  Just so you know, the bike ride from the Blazing Saddles rental store to Sausalito was an 8 mile ride...this will be important to know towards the end of the post.  As we continued our biking up to Muir Woods, we started to become quite weary of getting passed by the bikers.  Here is somewhat of a comparison of me on my bike from Blazing Saddles and the people that were passing us all day.

Me on my Blazing Saddle

Similar picture of the people passing us all day (yes that is actually Lance Armstrong)

If you only really knew how similar this scenario was throughout our day.

As it turns out, the 10 mile trek up to Muir Woods was going to take too long to bike there and back from Sausalito, so we settled for Oak Mill Park which was 4 miles shorter in total.  We were told by the Blazing Saddles folk that we could see some great Redwoods here.  Upon arriving at the entrance to Oak Mill Park, Emily exclaims in a very disgruntled voice "Is this is it?"  Obviously this is a rhetorical question to let me know her disappointment in the park.  Well just so happens that right as she says this a random older mountain man walks out of the entrance and proudly answers "yup, this is it."  I kid you not...we laughed about that one for a while.  Emily's disappointment in the park stemmed from the fact that there were no giant redwoods.  There were redwoods...but giant they were not.   Here is a picture of me in front of one of the redwoods in Oak Mill Park showing my disgust....

Boo small redwoods

After such disappointment, we begrudgingly rode our Huffy mountain bikes back to Sausalito village and then took the ferry back to Pier 39 to return our rental bikes.  In total we biked 20 miles for the day.  Arriving at the hotel that evening we were exhausted and also disappointed in Blazing Saddles.  Yet, we continued on Blazing our own Saddle throughout the remainder of our trip.  Stay tuned you Fain Family Blog enthusiasts for Day 4 of our trip out west.

For your viewing pleasure here are a few more pics...one of me showing off my bike and the other is Golden Gate Bridge without the fog.