Trip To Arizona Wine Country

My last post I highlighted my trip to Auberry to see my dad’s new church, the Auberry Nazarene Fellowship and to the USBC Nationals and how I unfortunately had to go it alone as my lovely wife was not able to get away. Last weekend however I was finally able to take some time with my favorite lady on a little weekend getaway of our own. We drove out to Phoenix to see my uncle get married and then to head off to Arizona wine country down in Senoita, AZ for some wine tasting and sightseeing. The goal of course was to sample never before tasted wine from Southern Arizona and to see my old stomping grounds from high school which I hadn’t been back to for at least 10 years… and Flor had never seen.

The trip was definitely a ton of fun and we even got to spend some time with my cousin Eric who I also hadn’t seen in a very long time. He introduced us to his two kids and his long-time girlfriend and we got to see his awesome house which he just picked up off the foreclosure market. Man, if anything would make you want to move to Phoenix this would be it; the price of real estate. :) But then again, it’s nice being a few miles from the ocean so I think we’re doing OK.

The highlight of the trip was of course the nuptials which Flor and I took a few pictures of. My sister was even caught in this awesome dress with ruffles. We all loved it.

Early Sunday morning Flor and I headed out of Phoenix area to go rough it at the Xanadu Hybrid Bed & Breakfast Horse Motel down in Senoita, AZ.

Yeah, I know, the name sounds crazy but seriously the place was fantastic. It was our first experience staying in a B&B and definitely our first experience staying at a horse motel. :) Obviously we had some fun visiting with the horses on the ranch and kicked back for a perfect Monday evening watching the sun go down over a bottle of wine from the Kief-Joshua Vineyards.

Anyway, I am really excited about the vineyards we visited especially since they are all so new. Only a handful of the 10 active vineyards in the area are producing wine from their own fruit yet and only one, the Rancho Rossa Vineyard, is producing it completely from their own fruit. Interestingly enough most of the wines we tasted from Rancho Rosa were our favorites, which is nice because it was the local fruit. They all tasted very earthy.

Rancho Rosa also featured an awesome couple of Basset Hounds that really brought fond memories back of my dog Snick. One of their Bassets was named Shadow and they named their dessert wine after him. Of course we took some pictures.

Anyway; I’m really looking forward to going back and trying out these vineyards again, especially in a few more years when their blends will be packed with more local fruit and the accommodations of the town expand to accommodate more tourists. For now there’s not much in the town but man, it sure is relaxing. I definitely recommend anyone who likes wine or the country to head out to Xanadu Ranch, the best Senoita bed and breakfast that I’ve ever stayed in.

Anyway, we ended up the trip by swinging through Sierra Vista and seeing my old high school and taking a tour through Tombstone, home of many dead cowboys and outlaws, and spending some time Tuesday morning at Lake Pategonia, whicj I didn't even know existed until this past weekend.  Maybe next time we'll jump on a boat and go fishing.  I can't wait, I'm always thinking about the next vacation. :)

A toast: Here’s to vacationing with the wife! It sure beats hitting up Reno by myself.  Enjoy a few more pics.

Trip To Auberry And USBC Nationals In Reno

It's definitely been a while since I posted here in this blog; I've been spending a lot more of my time lately over on Facebook and on other blogging projects around the web lately. Most notably I've been working on my bowling blog a lot as I've neglected it a ton since setting it up last year.

If you recall I decided to separate my bowling blog posts from this blog and put them on a site dedicated strictly to my bowling related activities. Of course this was simpler said than done as I can't have duplicated posts on both this site and that one and neither can I just delete posts here as many of my old bowling posts touched on things that had nothing to do with bowling.

Anyway, recently I took a trip to Reno, NV for another attempt at the USBC Nationals. If you've made it over to Mounts Bowling you might have been following along already however most of you probably haven't. My latest post over there however is my tournament recap for the event and an index of all posts related to the bowling trip. Check it out if you have the time; there's plenty of video and pictures available for your pleasure: USBC Nationals 2010 Recap.

In addition to hitting up the tournament in Reno I also took some time to stop by my dad's Nazarene church in Auberry which I posted on in December. He's been there for roughly 3 months now and things are getting settled. I met a couple people in the church and took a look at there new logo and sign which is being unveiled in the next few weeks. The church will now be known as the Auberry Nazarene Fellowship.

It looks like I have a new project to start on in the coming weeks too as I'll be whipping up a website for the church and their daycare. I'll be sure to link to it later on to get feedback from everybody.

Anyway, to quickly summarize the trip; I had a great time but I ended up spending about 24 hours in the car over 5 days by myself. Unfortunately Flor was not able to get away from the hospital as she's deeply entrenched in surgery rotations at the hospital. I forgot what it was like to vacation without her and I look forward to her being able to join me again. Next year she better be there! :)

Disneyland Family Pictures

A couple months back Flor and I met the rest of my family for an old fashioned family trip to Disneyland. We had a great time and the family outing reminded me of being a kid again. Ohh the good old days. Anyway, Kathleen made it abundantly clear a few weeks back that she was disappointed that I hadn't posted pictures from our trip so this post is for her. For related reading this is my previous post on our time at Disneyland.

Atlantic and Pacific Blue Tangs

Today, Flor and I finally ridded ourselves of our "starter fish" and upgraded to some more interesting fish. This whole process began last weekend when we were unfortunate enough to think that we could introduce a Tang into our small saltwater tank with our four Damselfishes. This did not work out as the Damselfishes decided to torment the Tang to death.

After days of trying to rid our tank of the Damselfishes we finally caught them and returned them to the store. These little buggers were incredibly difficult right up until then end as we were not able to catch them until we pulled all of our live rock from the tank.

Anyway, after the ordeal was over, and after the fish store exchange today, we now have two new fish who are non-aggressive herbivores. We picked up two small Tang's, an Atlantic Blue Tang and a Pacific Blue Tang. The Atlantic Tang is yellow while still young and will eventually turn blue as they get bigger and older. We'll look forward to that happening as our family grows up. For visual stimulation please enjoy these stock photos of our two Tangs:

The Atlantic Blue Tang (blue is old yellow is young.)


The Pacific Blue Tang


Next time you stop by the house make sure to say hi to our newest additions!

I'll take my MBA, thank you. :)

I'll take my MBA, thank you. :)

Shipwrecked In Disneyland

Last weekend on Saturday after Flor finished up with her 2nd year of med school, we had the pleasure of heading up to LA to meet my family for a rousing day at Disneyland. We had a fantastic time taking in all the sights and riding all the rides while enjoying short lines on a Memorial Day weekend. In fact I can't even remember the last time that my family got together for something like this... maybe last Fall when we hit up the Charger's Chiefs football game but that just seems somewhat different in my opinion. The last family vacation like this was probably back before I moved out of the house if you take weddings and the like out of the equation. Anyway, Jim was there to join us as was my sister Kathleen. For around three years now the family outings have been lacking Kathleen because she was living in Boston so it's been great to have her around again.

Anyway, I'm not going to say too much about Disneyland because we all know about the place but I will say that while we were there we were treated to an exceptionally long ride on the Pirate Ship. It's not really a pirate ship though, it's actually a replica of the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe. The replica now circles the pond/river there at Disneyland every day while guests take rides like they would a roller coaster. Well, we were no different than any other group of riders except that on our ride the motor on our boat went out and we were stranded about 15 feet from the shoreline for about an hour and half on this boat. We ended up having to be rescued one by one down a ladder onto the Mark Twain River Raft. Keep in mind this ship supposedly circumnavigated the globe... I guess they worked better before they threw motors into them. Apparently the Disneyland model doesn't have sails.

Eventually of course we got off and they treated us to some fine bottled waters on the house as well as some complimentary front of the line passes for our troubles. Lets just say I'm glad none of us had to go to the bathroom while we were on the boat; that would have been some significant trouble. It's hard to complain though because we got to do pretty much everything we wanted to do on the day despite the lost 90 minutes. I will also say I had so much fun spending time with my dad on roller coasters; I honestly can't remember riding a roller coaster with him for some reason. It makes me smile thinking of it.




I took a lot of pictures during the day and I thought I'd share a few of them here. Note the awesome picture of my uncle Jim squealing like a five year old girl at the fake elephant behind him on the Jungle Cruise. Hehe, I love it!



On a side note, Flor and I hit up Loma Linda the following day and saw Carolyn Sharpe and her family on Sunday. She just graduated Medical School and is now a doctor! Congratulations Carolyn!

Stratosphere Thrill Rides - Video

It’s been over two months now I know but Flor and I enjoyed our time in Las Vegas at the USBC Nationals both on and off the lanes. Of course I put on a show of inconsistent achievement during the tournament and she showed me how to bowl after I purchased her her very own bowling ball and bag… but when we weren’t in a bowling center we had some fun seeing the sights.

We actually didn’t venture very far from our Hotel but we did walk around the Freemont Street Experience a little bit and we decided to hit up the Stratosphere. The sole reason for this visit was because neither Flor nor I had ever been inside the hotel let alone gone to the top of the needle. Anyway, long story short we rode up the elevator and took a gander at the strip from some 1000 feet in the sky. It was very beautiful up there but unfortunately for us the bar was closed and the rides were just too scary to consider enjoying. Yes, I know. We are chickens. Here’s the video:

The Top of the Stratosphere

Shout Out to Myself

I just wanted to take a few lines here to send a shout out to myself. Last night I finished up the last assignment of my MBA program at Ashford University. It's been a good long 18 months since I started this process and I'm immensely satisfied that I did it. Go me!

Now that that project is behind me I can start working on scraping the popcorn off my ceiling and cleaning up an old computer I've had lying around for the past year or so. I also should expect everybody to call me 'Master Brian' from now on to reflect my status in life... :)

I am feeling very happy right now.

Mr and Mrs Arend Hermsen

I guess technically it's after midnight and today is now tomorrow but ignoring that fact Aaron and I went today to Sycuan Resort out in East County to film / enjoy my old friend Arend Hermsen's wedding. Ironically he married Aaron's former coworker Carrie Stone (whom I've also become friends with over the past couple years) though there was no prior knowledge of the friend of friend situation. To my great pleasure Flor also came out about an hour after Aaron and I arrived to enjoy the wedding too; it was great having her there.

Weddings these day's seem a little different to me than they did not too long ago. Since Flor and I married I now think about us whenever I watch a wedding ceremony. I think about what I was feeling and thinking during each significant event during the day. It makes me smile. Anyway, the wedding was very nice, the location and weather were perfect and the food was good. I just wish I was able to enjoy the party a bit more than I did... having to wield a camcorder kind of wipes you out.

Congratulations my old bowling friend!

Extreme Vocal Depth

Extreme Vocal depth

I happened to come down with a cold a few days back and as a result my voice decided to drop about an octave and a half... it's crazy! My voice typically drops during a cold but this is so extreme that I figured it was worth a blog post. Please forgive my nerdery and do compare to reigning vocal depth champion JD Sumner. Enjoy!!!

Shave and a Haircut

Last week was a fine week of vacation for me and my lovely wife. We both enjoyed a much needed time of relaxation and care-free leisure. Of course I’ve already blogged a bit about the first day of our trip in Vegas and my bowling exploits but before I finish that epic up I thought I’d offer a little tidbit from the beginning of the trip (my dramatic haircut) and a tidbit from the middle of the trip (my dramatic shave).

Those that know me could probably remember the days when my hair wasn’t so long. A few years back my hair was quite short and then one day this girl told me she liked guys with long hair. Needless to say the past three years my hair has been long… but at least I got the girl. :) Not so anymore as on Friday the 13th I decided finally to hack it back to what it was a few years back: Proper. Ohh, and it feels so good too.

Flor of course was very supportive of the move (despite her liking men with hair) and later in the week she decided that I needed to complement the new do with a fine shave. She purchased me a wonderful facial, shave, and scalp massage while on our cruise this past weekend. Now, I’ve been shaved before but not by someone else. It was so weird having someone else holding a blade to my neck. Anyway, I thought I’d share my post-haircut / pre-shave picture followed by my post-shave pic. Then feel free to check out my fantastic commentary on the shave last Friday evening the 20th.

La Mesa Oktoberfest 2008

When I was a kid I lived (for a time) in Nurnberg, Germany. When I was in college I lived (for a time) in Vienna, Austria. In both of those places the locals speak German, they drink beer, and they eat sausages.

I learned just today that there is a big multitude of transplanted Germans living in Lakeside from my coworker who used to live there. This population probably is one of the reasons that Oktoberfest in La Mesa has been so popular for so long. It seems to be regarded as the best San Diego location for Oktoberfest and since it is right off the trolley line just 20 minutes from our condo by public transit we figured this would be a great outing to kick start the weekend.

Now I know Flor doesn’t drink beer but seriously; how could you turn down all those great sausages and liederhosen? :) Here’s to a great night out on the town. Who said married folk can’t get out and have a good time? The Mars Volta one night followed up with Polka the next. Prost!

Family Website Projects Are Fun

I've been really enjoying myself lately as I've been learning a lot of CSS and HTML web design skills. If any of my routine readers have taken note of this site's re-design over the last few weeks you can obviously see what I'm talking about. It's almost hard to beleive that this site is hosted from Blogger for no money whatsoever as it looks nothing like blogger at all. It's funny, I have a domain name brianmounts.com but I haven't associated it with this site because it's actually registered to my good friend and wedding photographer Aaron Riveroll. Maybe one day we'll transfer the domain to my name and then maybe I'll use it for this site.

Anyhow, the purpose of this post is just to make mention of a project that I started casually working on last fall, in which I have since re-worked it over the past few weeks and am so pleased with overall. My dad, as many close readers know, is a pastor in the Nazarene Church and he has been dabbling with starting a website for a while now as an additional outlet for his ministry. Funny thing is that my dad is still learning to use the computer so I've been handling the setup of the site and the design aspects of it. My dad puts the content together like nobody else could and I make it look good. Obviously my goal is to slowly and continuously teach my dad how to make the site look good himself so that I personally have less editing to do but for now I'm perfectly happy helping him out any way I can.

If you wanted to head over and check out my Dad's prayer blog and marvel at my site design abilities (which by the way was really just a modification of someone else's site design) then I'd appreciate your thoughts in return. I'm sure my dad would appreciate some feedback on his content as well as this is a new medium for him and he's still learning how to keep a blog.

Coincidentally, I just learned that my cousin Jess is learning a little web design for a class she's taking so I'm interested in taking a look at her creations when they go live.

Father's Day 2008

A couple weeks back was Father's day. Flor and I drove up to Los Angeles and met her family and mine at Barbara & Carlos' new house. Newlyweds, Ada & George also came along with George's family. We had a good time spending the day together eating, playing games, and generally hanging out. It was really cool having all those families together at the same time. Here's a little video from the day followed by a few pictures.






For other videos you can check out my Video Collection and for more photos you can check out my Photo Collection over at Picasa Web Albums.

Underwriting Approved

I just got word that underwriting finally approved my loan. I should move into the new condo on Tuesday. I've never shed tears of joy/relief before today. I can't even describe the feeling. Praise God! I can't wait to get Flor and the cats into the new place!

Sorting Out Old Computer Files And Found This Gem

How about a bit of that old Matrix Pops video? Those were good times at Loma. I forgot I had this file even though it's been incorporated into a few other videos. In my time at Loma on the campus network this one video circulated the network pretty good. I was proud of it. :) Enjoy it if you haven't seen it before.

Jalapeno Potato Soup

Contrary to what one night expect I still eat well when Flor's not around.

Abby, kathleen, boobin, schmidt, and mys

Abby, kathleen, boobin, schmidt, and myself helped rob and Michele move to encinitas this afternoon. I'm pooped but it was a good time anyway. Abby had a good time at least lounging pool side while we all worked. :)

Happy Mother's Day Mom - We All Love You

Thought I'd send an online shout-out to my mom. I know Mother's day was this past Sunday but I'm just saying so now. Flor, Esther, Myself and my sister Kathleen treked out to take dear old ma out to lunch. We had a great time and took our first full family picture since the wedding and the addition of the little kitty. It was a very nice time.

Looks like we just bought our first home...

...check out the pictures! I can't believe it. The place is in El Cajon, walking distance from downtown. It's a 1 bed 1 bath place, 710 square foot, completely upgraded and move in ready. It was a forclosure and we bought it from the bank at a steep discount. We got an amazing deal... I'm so happy! It's got a hot tub!