Some good friends of ours threw us an engagement party a few weeks ago.  We had a wonderful time.  The food was wonderful, complete with homemade enpanadas and grilled steak tacos.  Our friends also got us some useful gifts like a bridal bargain book, and I've already read through the wedding gown chapter!  We also had our friends fill out my "Brian & Amy" Crossword Puzzle, filled with questions about us.  The first two people to solve it got Starbucks gift cards.

I also decided to throw Mr. BAW a surprise 33rd birthday party for him.  Since it was a few weeks prior to his actual birthday, he was completely unexpecting it.  He was also treated to his favorite thing in the world, chocolate cake.  But not just any chocolate cake, I got him the Midnight Delight ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery.  All in all, we had a wonderful time thanks to some good friends and very good food.

We packed a picnic and dragged Toby down to the Trump Golf Course at Palos Verdes Beach to view the Perseid Meteor Shower on Sunday night.   It was a perfect night for viewing since there was a new moon.  Without the moon's glare, the meteors will stand out much more.  I didn't bring my telescope because there is no way to track the fast moving, unpredictable trail of a meteor.  The best way to view a meteor shower is just to look up at the sky.

It was also a warm night and we got to enjoy a great picnic of cheeses, ham, homemade samosas, pickles, grapes, and chocolate cake.  We even brought along Toby's dinner and evening supply of rawhide for him to enjoy while we star gazed.  Though Sunday evening was not the peak of the meteor shower, we managed to see around eight meteors between the two of us.  They were quick buggers so when one of us saw one it was gone by the time the other person turned to look.  But when you see one, it is simply amazing and beautiful.  Besides the meteors, we also spotted about 4 low-Earth orbiting satellites, likely GPS or weather satellites.  They look like a faint star but they are moving across the sky at a rather quick, constant pace.  They usuallyl travel from South to North (polar-orbiting).  Mr. BAW had never seen a satellite in the sky until this.  Once I pointed one out to him, he quickly saw several others.  It's amazing how many satellites are orbiting Earth these days!  All in all, a wonderful experience, even for Toby.

And for those who wonder:
Meteor = The light streaks we see when objects fall into the Earth's atmosphere but burn up before they reach the ground (simply because they are too small to begin with.)
Meteorite = The parts of the objects that fall into the Earth's atmosphere and actually makes it all the way to the ground.

I've been web browsing quite a bit of late, searching for all kinds of random stuff...many wedding related.  In doing so, I discovered a few amazing sites that I would like to share with everyone.

Hostess with the Mostest      -For those who like to entertain and look at beautiful things.  This site has it all.
Style Me Pretty                  -Everything wedding, talk about sensory overload with beautiful inspirations!
Outblush                           -For the hippest and latest anything.
Feynman Videos                 -YouTube videos of all Richard Feynman interviews.  Excellent site for nerds!
The Reel Man                     -Insightful movie critique from a writer in the show biz.

There is something romantic about a lighthouse.  On our recent road trip down the California Coast, we visited the quaint town of Carmel.  There, we discovered the oldest active lighthouse on the West Coast, Point Pinos Lighthouse.

The view of the ocean from this little lighthouse is spectacular.  The day we visited, the sky and the ocean were at perfect shades of blue.  The little white house stood out against the background like it was straight out of a magazine.  The lighthouse is basically a tiny house with an elderly woman attendant who was very eager to share the history of this lighthouse with us.  The original attendant was apparently a single woman who lived in the lighthouse and was quite a socialite with the wealthy Carmel community back in the early 1900's.  Besides the abundance of black and white pictures from its early days, we also got to see the reflector mechanism that is still in use today as the light source. 

There is also a golf course right next to the lighthouse.  This place would be an adorable place to have a wedding.  The view of the ocean would make a beautiful backdrop.  The reception could potentially be held at the golf course country club next door.  I wonder if people have gotten married there.  It's too bad we don't live  in Carmel... :-)