Spring is Here ... just in time for Summer.

Driving through Colonial National Park I found the sweetest Swan family...



They were so cute I had share.

Virginia is for Lovers (of History)

I spent the last two weeks in Virginia for work - I was able to break away on one rainy evening to head over to Colonial National Historical Park . I had about an hour, so I enjoyed one of the guided drives - it was raining lightly so I didn't do much exploring outside the car. There is so much to do in the area that I didn't have the chance to take advantage of.

Langley, AFB would be the prefect jumping off point. NASA Langley has a visitors center in downtown Hampton. The Virginia Air & Space Center houses exhibits from both the base and Langley. Colonial Williamsburg and Historic Jamestown are both about 45 min from Langley - or if you have two hours you can drive around the whole colonial highway which links Colonial National Park with Williamsburg and Jamestown. There are lots of little pull-offs and planned stops. There is a Bush-Gardens just up the road too in case you've had enough "living history."

Hopefully the next time I am in Virginia I will have more time to spare. Until then enjoy the pictures of the very green Commonwealth of Virginia!

Oxnard Strawberry Festival

Every May Oxnard hosts their annual Strawberry Festival. It always seems to fall on my birthday weekend and since our arrival at Edwards we've always had plans preventing us from attending. So you could say it was on our proverbial Edwards bucket list. This year, although it was tightly sandwiched between business trips, we were able to attend. On top of that, in the last six months our friends from Dayton, OH have moved out to Point Mugu enabling us to combine the Strawberry Festival with a much overdue visit to Mr. & Mrs. M and their two adorable children.

I'm not going to lie, the Strawberry Festival was a bit of a let down. (As was the Avacado Festival in Carpenteria and the Poppy Festival in Lancaster.) I suspect it is because I have high standards for "festivals." In Georgia the Vidilia Onion Festival, for example, shuts down the whole town. Streets are closed and filled with every type of handmade craft, kids ride and Onion treat that you can imagine. When your at the Vidilia festival you know there are lots of people around, but you never feel crowded. The Strawberry Festival, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. The park and surrounding streets were cordoned off, but then the booths were arranged into a labyrinth - we frequently found ourselves in a dead end with hundreds of other people trying to turn around. Food booths were randomly grouped so that lines ran into the entertainment seating area. Although they have been holding the festival for a long time, it doesn't feel like they have their act together.

It is not all bad though, the fair has a great shuttle system that utilizes the school buses and several shopping center parking lots. We used the free shuttle, instead of paying $10 to park right at the fairgrounds, and found it convenient and quite fun. The shuttles were always there and drop off right at the gate. We were revealed not to be sitting in traffic.

The festival is held smack dab in the middle of the strawberry harvest - everywhere you look there are strawberries being picked. We were able to stop at some road side stands and pick up fresh berries - or you can buy them from the growers right at the festival.

The highlight of our trip was the Kashi/Burts Bees booth where after tasting a variety of products and learning about "7 whole grains on a mission" we were given a gift bag with all sorts of goodies from Kashi and Burts Bees. It was well worth our stop at the fair.

If Strawberries were your main reason for attending the fair - you would not be disappointed. There were strawberry nachos (pictured above), strawberry pizza, strawberry shortcake and strawberry parfaits .. if you could find them. It was hard to find the strawberry treats as they weren't labeled particularly well, but once you found them you were sure to enjoy them.

We stayed for about 2 hours - if we had kids with us we probably could have managed another hour with all the free kids activities. Bottom-line - its worth checking out if your already in the area. My advice would be to combine this trip with another activity in the area or with a visit to friends. You can overnight at Point Mugu and head out to the Channel Islands in the morning, go hiking in the hills or head to the beach.


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Team CoCo

I've been struggling to pull together a post about my road trip back from Texas with my dad. We covered so much ground, saw amazing stuff and had a great trip.. until I got food poisoning in Las Vegas. (Ironically it was at the most reputable place we ate the entire trip.) That post will come in time but I've decided I have to try to keep up with our adventures now that we are back in California.

A few months ago we landed four tickets to see a Conan show being taped at the Warner Brothers studios in LA. (You can request tickets to the Conan webpage.) Warner Brothers studio is in Burbank - so its a bit closer then if you needed to get all the way into the city. I know allot of people making it to a show while they are stationed here, and if you haven't, I would highly recommend it. Jeff had been to a few shows in the past, but this was a first for me and the rest of our "team".

The experience was quite enjoyable but here are a few lessons that we learned:

1. First come, First served. The instructions said to check in any time between 11am and 2pm - so we figured we had all afternoon before we needed to check in. When Jeff had been to shows in the past they interviewed people to figure out where they should sit. The Conan show is seated on a first come, first seated bases. If being seated upfront is important to you - come right at 11am to get your number and then go have lunch or walk around. Even arriving closer to the end of the bracket gave us great seats - the studio is not that big and all the seats are fine.

2. Lunch. Once you check in you are free to leave until your call time. Check in early and then go get some lunch. There is a taco stand that shows up outside of the parking deck (parking is free for the studio audience) if you decide you want to hang around. We hit up lunch first (see above post) just down the street at Studio Cafe Magazzino. Its a small cafe, just outside the studio walls with delicious food - soups and sandwiches mostly. The soup of the day was a corn chowder and it was amazing - I know it wasn't just me because everyone in the place had a bowl.

3. Hurry up and Wait. You are going to be doing a lot of sitting/standing around. Luckily our little group never runs out of things to talk about. There was plenty of good people watching going on to provide a steady stream of commentary. They try to keep you entertained with clips of the show and little things like that - but basically, except for the 45 min of filming, you will be waiting. If this sounds terrible either (a) bring something to do or (b) abandon your dram of being in a studio audience. We found the funniest part to be when we were organized into groups to be marched across the street with the lights - if ever there is a reason to build a pedestrian bridge, this would be it.

4. They lie. They say over and over and over that you cannot bring your cell phone (see picture at beginning of post) - they lie. I dutifully left my cell phone in the car, only to find everyone in the waiting area playing on their phones! They later make an announcement saying its fine to bring them with you but they must be in your pocket and off. Not that I need my phone all the time - ok, actually I do - but you have allot of time to kill (see #3.) They also say that you can't use the bathroom once you leave the parking deck - lie - there are bathrooms available they just would prefer you didn't use them.

Overall it was a great experience. Conan was exceptionally funny - despite some of his guests being, well... not entirely there. The show lasts exactly one hour - the band will play during "commercial breaks" so although it is not "live" it has the feeling of being live. Our taping stared a bit earlier then usual so we were out by 5pm - just in time to hit traffic on our way home. When we reached Santa Clarita we stopped for dinner at Oggi's Pizza and Brewing Company. The pizza was delicious and it sure beats any place around the antelope valley mall. We skipped desert there and headed across the parking lot to the Cold Stone Creamery. (I had the vanilla ice-cream with strawberry and gram cracker crust mixed it and it was extraordinary. Seriously. You should try it.)

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