Fun Days – Page 13 – thosecoolkims

Danna & Jarod’s Wedding!

koberwedding_kiss

Last Saturday, two of our dearest friends got married in Lake Arrowhead. Danna has been Ed’s best friend since they were 18 – meaning now, they can officially say they have been friends for 1/2 their lives! Danna was Ed’s Best (Wo)Man at our wedding, so he got to return the favor by being Danna’s Lad of Honor at her wedding. I was a bridesmaid too, which made things fun – we got the unique opportunity to be on the same side of the wedding party! Since Jarod was also a groomsman at our wedding, favors were being returned all over the place. Both Ed & I felt very honored to be a part of such a beautiful wedding.

The wedding was really cool, because it was like a mini-destination wedding – we all got to stay at Arrowhead Ranch for the weekend. Because we were in the wedding party, Danna & Jarod hooked us up with a cozy little cabin! Here is the infamous Cabin 6:
koberwedding_cabin

The location couldn’t have been more awesome. The ceremony took place in the ampitheater, outdoors among the trees. It seemed so magical – as one of Danna’s cousin’s put it, it was like being right in the middle of a Midsummer’s Night Dream!

koberwedding_ampitheater2

Also really cool, our other dear friend Rebecca made Danna & Jarod’s wedding cake topper! It turned out perfect. Rebecca also made the cake topper for our wedding … it’s fun to look at them both!

Danna looked absolutely gorgeous of course:

And the rest of us girls didn’t look so bad either!

Ed was dashing as the Lad of Honor:

The stunning ceremony location:
koberwedding_ceremony

And the bride & groom even cut their cake with Lord of the Rings swords!

We are just so happy for Jarod and Danna! They are a perfect couple – and we love them both dearly. Congrats, Jarod & Danna – the “Wild Mountain Kobers“!

Kober Wedding

It just isn’t summer without the Orange County Fair

Ed & I missed the fair last year, so we made sure to make it this year! We were seriously fiending for some of that grilled corn on the cob, and we always like seeing the wacky homegrown produce and all of the animals. What we weren’t expecting was to be spectators at the Pig Races! It was surprisingly fun … and those little pigs are adorable! Ed snapped the camera at just the right time:

Amazing, right?!? Those guys were fast! And we are proud to report that our section’s pig, Yukon, brought home the bacon and earned first place in the race! He’s pictured below – the brown little guy with the red bib:

Here we are, happy to be spectators!

After all that excitement, we had to get our corn on the cob fix!

All in all, it felt like a very summery day, and we even took a ride on the skyway …

No fried twinkies, but we did get our rings cleaned. It was a pretty good trip to the fair!

Spontaneous Day Trip to Temecula

Today, we felt like making Sunday a Fun Day – so we hopped in the car and drove out to Temecula. Seems kinda random, but we wanted a long drive and a tasty lunch. We were also pretty motivated to drive through the Wine Country and see what they had out there. It’s a mere 2 hours away via the scenic route, so we went for it.

Once we rolled into Temecula, we embarked upon Old Town. It’s kinda cheesy with its old West vibe, but it was fun. We definitely thought if Huell Hauser hasn’t been already, it’s a destination he’ll be visiting soon! We saw a Mexican Restaurant called “The Bank” – and sure enough, the restaurant exists in the town’s old bank building, originally built in 1914. Since today was Sunday, they were serving menudo.

Menudo makes Ed a very happy boy.

The highlight of the day was hitting up Temecula Olive Oil Company, where they do Olive Oil tastings! We had no idea that tasting Olive Oil could be so interesting and fun! We learned a lot about the olive oils they make themselves, as well as some very unique vinegars. One of the most interesting combos we tried was their California Pomegranate Vinegar mixed with their Citus Reserve olive oil. We came home with a bottle of their Mission Late Harvest Olive Oil, which stands out due to its smooth, buttery taste. Can’t wait to saute some fresh summer veggies with this one! We also picked up their “Just Dress it!” which is gonna be awesome for some fish marinade!!!

Finally, we arrived in wine country. Since we were driving, it was kind of a tease. We couldn’t do a lot of tasting … but just going along the vineyard-lined roads was really relaxing and beautiful. But we’d be lying if we said we weren’t seriously jonsing for all of the wine! Needless to say, we can’t wait to go back with some sort of driver. There were probably about 20 wineries in the area. Some were really pretty, especially Leonesse, which we stopped at to look around, but didn’t taste. :(

Once we came up on Maurice Car’rie, we figured we HAD to stop … I supposed I was a little influenced by the name. :) We did taste the wines here … and we were not disappointed! Nothing like a little spontaneous wine tasting!

Ed’s Faves: the 2008 Riesling and the 2007 Muscat Canelli.

Carrie’s faves: Pineapple Champagne (okay, I admit – it sounds more like a Wine cooler than a wine, but it was goood!!!) and the 2008 Chenin Blanc. Both of us chose pretty light wines, but it was 99 degrees out there today!

All in all, we had a very fun day! Now, who wants to go on one of those wine tours with us?!?

The Great German/American Reunion of ’09!

We were FINALLY reunited with one of our dearest and best friends ever – Andreas, and his awesome and very cool girlfriend – Catherine, after almost 6 long years! Andreas lived here in the U.S. for 6 months in 2003 and became part of our crew almost immediately. We had some of the most fun times ever during that time, and were very sad to say goodbye once he had to return to his homeland in Germany. The three of us (Danna, Ed & I) were so sad in fact, that three months later, we went to Europe to hang out again! That’s when we got to meet Catherine. But it’s been a long time since 2003, and we were so happy to have Andreas & Catherine with us. We seemed to have picked up right where we left off, and we had some seriously good times!!!

It’s tough to believe I didn’t take many pictures, but we managed to do a lot. We had a great dinner at Tantalum, went to Olvera Street, saw a show at the Troubadour, experienced Canter’s late-nite style, had a lot of laughs at Old World Village, and even enjoyed what all Germans come to America to do:

Eat an In-N-Out Burger!

(Seriously, it’s no lie – The Germans are always excited about In-N-Out).

Anyway, that’s just the stuff we did with them when we were off work … on their own they managed to fit in Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Naples, Belmont Shore, 4th Street (Vintage Row in Long Beach), The Pike, Venice Beach, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Palm Springs – and that’s just while they were in SoCal. They even experienced Northern California, because they flew into San Francisco and stayed for a few days, then drove down PCH hitting up Carmel and Monterey before arriving to stay with us. Those Germans are thorough!

But sadly, yesterday was time to say goodbye again after two fun weeks. Ed & I took off work and we hooked up with the rest of the crew, and had one last fun day! We started things off right with a “proper American breakfast” – at no other place than one of our old school faves: Park Pantry.

It was just like the old times!

Andreas & Catherine – we officially just started saving up for our trip to Germany TODAY!

Facey Kids Weekend, pt. 2

Today’s adventures with the kids took us to the El Dorado Park Nature Center, which is literally steps away from where we live. It’s always a good time and we knew the kids would enjoy checking out all the birds, bugs, turtles and squirrels we’d see there! We checked out all the artifacts in the center, and then took a stroll on the 1 mile trail.

Some highlights:

P.U.! Kendall finds the skunk pelt.