Happy Birthday Carlos!

Yesterday, we had a wonderfully fun-filled day. Carlos and Donna came down to celebrate Carlos' birthday, which was really on Friday. They came late Friday night, so we all played my hubster's Rock Band game on PS2. We also sung him happy birthday and ate a yummy German chocolate cake that my hubster made:

Yep, that's a castle cake with candles in the tower. We used a castle mold that we got for our wedding (Thanks Joseph and Allison). We decided not to put the frosting on it because the outside looked so cool!

On Saturday, we decided to go in search of snow on the pass. It had snowed on Wednesday when we got hit with the heaviest part of the winter storm. You could see snow all over the mountains as you drove on the freeway. Unfortunately, most of the snow was gone when we got up there. We did see the snow and the back mountains.




We were bummed about the snow. As you can tell, we were totally decked out and ready for it. Since we were already up at the pass, we decided to go see Painted Cave with a bunch of Chumash paintings. Apparently, the Indian who painted in the cave stole from the stagecoaches that rolled through.

The interior of the cave.

The exterior of the cave.

My hubster near the moss on outside of the cave.

Since it was close to lunch time, we decided to take Carlos and Donna to Via Vai, where we had a total feast. For starters, we had the bruschetta and the butter lettuce salad. For our entrees, we had Margarita pizza, pizza with proscuitto, mushrooms, and artichokes, and linguine with clams.

Then, we had them bring out a little birthday treat for Carlos. It was the yummiest tiramisu that we had in a LONG time. Our waitress was super sweet and helped with the surprise birthday treat and taking photos. We were all delightfully full. Carlos had a major food coma afterwards. Next stop was the zoo.

Black-Footed Cat
The cutest little guy with a big roar.

Lions
Tabby often has the same facial expression as the male lion.

Giraffes
We couldn't feed the giraffes because they had their back to us the WHOLE time.


Humboldt Penguins
They're making their territorial "OORK" sound.


Blue Iguana
He's seriously blue.


Monitor
He's one of my favorites. He's got a quiet grace about him.

Overall, it was a awesome day even though we didn't go hiking, see the snow, or feed the giraffes.