Annnnnd we are off!

In a few minutes we will be checking out of our hotel and checking in for a flight that will begin the next four years of exciting adventures in Korea. Thanks to everyone who has helped us out in the past year while we were preparing for this move. We hope that we can share some awesome times with everyone through this blog. Zak and I are so excited to finally start our lives in Korea. And for those of you who would like to know where Korea is in location to the United States:

I will update when we have arrived on the other side of the world!

Much Love-
Nikki and Zak

Tales from an airport

Let me back up first and say that my husband and his uncle, Keith, decided to light off giant fireworks in the backyard last night. Fireworks that apparently ONLY out of towners can buy here in Pennsylvania. There is a store that you are only allowed to enter if you have a state ID from somewhere other than PA...being Florida residents meant that we can buy any explosives we wanted. So $100 and two packages of fireworks later we sit in "ooh and ahh" at the loud boomers just 200 feet above us, and then it rains down ash like Mount St. Helens erupted. The neighbors and the dog were thrilled. he he

I will let Zak show you how awesome the fireworks were... (best viewed in 720p)


Pretty exciting huh? I'd like to mention how much Zak resembles "predator" in that video...

So here we are now, sitting in the Philadelphia airport listening to babies screaming and the news anchor talk about Mel Gibson. We are on our way to Los Angeles for the night, and we will be leaving for Korea tomorrow afternoon. Woo hoo! Zak's phone is disconnected so if anyone needs to get a hold of us before we head out please call my cell phone, it wont be shut off until after the weekend.

:)

Happy 31st Anniversary to the Alley's!

Don't forget the good ol' days!

Happy Anniversary!

With Love-

Nikki & Zak

Part two of trip down south.. and update on move.

After spending 4th of July weekend in North Carolina we headed further down south to see Zak's Dad and Eleanor in Georgia. There is just something about Georgia that Zak and I love, you can have the hustle of Atlanta  and also the calmness of floating down the Chattahoochee River....oh and LOTS of shopping :). We arrived  pooped from the weekend at Kathy's we had to nap and recover for a day. After we recovered we headed to the Chattahoochee to do some lazy river floating with the fam. The lazy river floating turned out to be the "This raft is made for a child, why is this water 50 degrees, I really need to pee...damn this beer is tasty kind of day". Unfortunately Zak's camera battery died and he left the charger in California.. (which by the way the hotel mailed back to us, to the wrong address and no one lived there so now our package got forwarded to this lady's house 2 hours south of here...and we got charged $50 for all of this... and still no camera/computer charger.) So no pictures of this water adventure....but I was able to snap an awesome photo of Zak's tan line on his feet that was caused by wearing these.

The best part about visiting Zak's Dad and Eleanor are margaritas followed by a mean game of badminton... and their cat is pretty cool too. ::Shout out to Stewie::

(Eleanor and I)

(Stuart trying to hide in the jungle)

(Zak ready for some badminton action!) 

We also took Zak's family out to Korean food...so we could get them hooked on it and hopefully have a visit from them while we are out in Korea ;) Right Eleanor? The dinner was awesome and Eleanor ordered some sort of seafood pancake with octopus tentacles in it... but she wouldnt touch the mildly compared Korean BBQ Beef... I on the other hand ate wayyyyyyyyy too much and feared that I might be in trouble because I seriously love Korean food too much. At least they dont eat bread and cheese there, I could spare to cut out a few carbs!

I tried to introduce Stewie (the cat) to Pleo (our dinosaur) and he got so upset that he slept behind the TV for the rest of the night, hey at least I got a good picture!... Ok Stewie to make you feel better I will post some photos of the giant bug you stalked and chased away... this wasp like creature was dragging a giant spider behind it.. take a look for yourself.

(Pleo meeting Stuart)

(Stuart stalking scary bugs...they are the blur...wait for it....)

(Scary bug carrying even scarier spider)

It gives me the ebbeeegeeebeees just looking at this.

Anyways: 

After getting "home" from our trip down south, we had a lot of organizing and unplugging to do before the movers came. We took everything down from the walls, puttied all the holes we made... packed lots of luggage... and had a really long night cleaning and figuring out what we needed to take with us on our flights since we wont have our household goods for another two months.

The movers came yesterday and it only took them about 3 hours to pack and move all of our stuff out, I was so happy that I was not the one packing this time! I have done that too many in the past 18 months. So now we sit here at Zak's Uncle Keith's home with his family, and they are so awesome for letting us stay whenever we find ourselves homeless! We leave on Friday to LA and fly to Korea on Saturday... I will update before then.

Thanks for reading!

4th of July weekend in North Carolina!

Its been a while since our last blog post so this one is filled with lots of exciting things!

Zak and I decided to drive down south for our holiday (week). Our first stop was Kathy's house in Charlotte, NC. We had a blast white water rafting (yes I took on the rapids again!) and boating on Lake Norman. I was able to meet up with a cousin I haven't seen in a looooooong time.. ok like I was in the womb last time we met. Laura and her husband are renovating an awesomely old home from the 1900's if you are interested read her blog about it here. It is great to meet up with family..considering I don't have much of it in the United States! After we met up with my cousin we went to South Carolina to see a live band play and catch July 3rd fireworks. Below are photos of our night!

(Kathy and I)

(Zak and I waiting for the fireworks!)

(Zak's sis Brittany and Kathy!)

On 4th of July we all headed to The U.S. National Whitewater Center. They have everything from rafting to kayaking, hiking, rope courses, zip lines...etc. We had so much fun! (Pictured Below)

Zak loves to be adventurous, as do I (ok..well, im trying!) so it was definitely an awesome day. The whitewater rafting is all done on a man made river that was/is used for Olympic Training. They have rapids ranging from Class 1 to Class 4, and each boat sits about 6 people.. plus a river guide... as long as your river guide stays on the raft and doesnt fall off on the biggest rapid and leave you wondering what the hell you should do without him... good thing we decided to pick him back up..

Here are some photos of our rafting adventure..

                                               Gearing up to go!

Heading down the rapids with Brittany and Kathy in the front! (Kathy later realized that this is the roughest seat in the house...and it later landed her in the water..good times, right Kathy?)

Next we went flat water Kayaking and it was a great break from the thrill of the rapids.. I tried to get all of us in this one... 

The best part of the day (in my opinion) was watching a lady being coaxed of a giant tower that you are supposed to walk off and simulate falling to your death. Ok so its not that bad, but really this lady would.not.jump. Kathy and I chickened out at first but decided since that lady could do it.. so could we! We kept reciting "Just walk off, dont give yourself enough time to think about it.. just do it!" Here we go:

(This one is Kathy)

(This one is me!)

(and this is Zak and I) 

The Whitewater Center had the best fireworks show we had ever seen! It was at least 30 minutes long, and I think everyone in North Carolina showed up for it! The next day we went out boating on Lake Norman, we arrived on time for our rental to find out that the secretary is playing hooky (darn those 4th of July brews eh?) and the Marina guys had no idea what to do! But eventually we got in our boat and then found out we had no gas.. and lucky for us, the whole marina was out of gas too! So the manager came up with a plan and we followed him to a nearby marina with the fumes we had left in our boat and filled 'er up! After that fiasco we headed out on the lake, enjoyed a few coronas and lots of sun! I think Zak is a natural...

More blogs to follow on the rest of our trip...

White Water Kayaking Craziness

This past Sunday Zak and I were planning to go to Yosemite National Park, woke up early prepared for our 3 hour drive and then we decided it would be too far to do in one day, and since Zak has already been... I was ok with missing out. Not to mention I was up an hour before the alarm went off wondering if I would come across a bear while we were hiking and what the hell I would do? Since we were already up we began looking for something fun/adventurous to do in closer proximity to Sacramento. Zak came across this white water rafting place about an hour and fifteen minutes north of here on the Cache Canyon River. The family owned company, Cache Canyon River Trips, welcomed last minute guests so we decided it would be an exciting thing to do since I am a newbie to river kayaking and Zak loves the thrill of the rapids. We arrived, signed up, got a safety tutorial (which later came in handy!), put our life jackets on.. grabbed an inflatable kayak and off we went!

Right off the bat we hit some good rapids and since I was up front I got soaked! It was so much fun to take them head on, and when we got a break we pulled over to enjoy the scenery.

About 2 miles past our start point there is a pull out where we could get our BBQ lunch. We weren't really hungry but we paid for it so we got out and ate anyways! :) By this point, every inch of us was soaking wet! Here is a photo of me heading to our lunch:

Ok back on the river we go! One of the river guides (who were strategically placed along the river) was nice enough to snap a photo of us as we headed back down the Cache Canyon River. 

Here is a video of us taking on a small rapid! (Sorry if it makes you dizzy!)

The next series of photos depict Zak and I taking on the largest rapid on the river called "The Mother" and after we were done with it I decided "The Mother #$*@^$" would be a better name. In these photos you will notice that our faces go from shear excitement to... oh sh*t we aren't in the kayak anymore! ("The Mother" Photos courtesy of Cache Canyon River Trips.. we paid $25 just to re-live this moment) (click to enlarge)

It happened in a split second and before I knew it I was being drug underwater by a class 3 rapid, reciting in my head "Do I have my hat? Wheres my hat? Oh crap can't let go of the paddle!" Then I remembered what we learned in the safety course to put your feet in front of you if you happen to fall into a rapid to avoid hitting your head on a rock. Ok check.

 "Wheres my husband?! Ok I see him..hes ok.. now how the hell do I keep from drowning? Sweet a big burly man is jumping in after me, he will rescue me!" (Thanks to the river guides strategically placed on the river, or else I don't know how badly beat up I might have gotten!) So after what seemed like at least a 5 minute struggle to get me out of the current (in reality probably only a minute) I was pulled up onto a rock and reunited with my husband who proceeds to say "Nikki don't freak out, you are ok". Semi-freakout in 3-2-1... after regaining my thoughts and coming out of a shock like state, I realized that I had successfully rescued my hat and kept a hold of the paddle the whole time! Mission accomplished! Now if only I had put not swallowing water first on the list..

After a river guide told us where to find the paddle that Zak let go of we hopped back in the Kayak and headed back down the river...this is my scared face..

So long Mother Rapid... until we meet again..

So thats it for our adventure, bruised and banged up we traveled a few more miles down the Cache Canyon River, and hit a few more rapids. In all it was a great experience and would do it again if I had the chance! 

To see more photos of our white water experience click here.

Wagyu and Wine

Another fabulous weekend here in the Moreland...hotel? It was our last weekend in Sacramento so we had to make it a good one! Friday night we went to an AMAZING restaurant called, The Kitchen Restaurant. The world class chefs literally cook your food right in front of you with top notch ingredients ranging from sea scallops fresh out of the water, wasabi fresh from the root, and the most tender wagyu beef we had ever tasted.

Here is the set-up of the restaurant so you can get an idea of what we experienced...

We could walk around the whole restaurant, including the kitchen in the back, like it were our own! They only have one seating a night for dinner and the menu changes monthly, it is truly a one of a kind experience.

Take a look at the size of the lobsters they cooked! (And fresh wasabi below that)

There were five courses in total and each of them were unique and delicious, I just loved that they used local organic farmers to acquire their vegetables. Our favorite course was the wagyu beef! It was so mouthwatering delicious, Zak's co-worker even said that he hadn't ever enjoyed a steak until that night! Here is a picture of it to get your mouth watering too!

If you want to see some more pictures of our night at The Kitchen, click here.

Today we went white water kayaking, it was crazy fun to say the least and we took a nasty spill on a class 3 rapid so I now have a very painful deep tissue bruise on my rear end- blog and pics (sorry no pictures of the rear end..lol) to follow!