Spent the day with Jon

We spent the day with Jon yesterday.  We drove to Santa Cruz and went to lunch at the Delmarette in Santa Cruz.  After we walked over to our favorite candy/nut shop (Nut Kreations) and spent more money than we planned!  Unfortunately, it's hard for me to pass on their make-you-own-trailmix combos as they have a incredible assortment of roasted nuts and dried fruit, like salt/pepper cashews, honey roasted mixed nuts, ranch flavored corn nuts, red walnuts, dried golden raisins, cranberries, blueberries, banana chips, pineapple and much, much more.  Okay, enough about the trailmix!

We drove to Watsonville (about 20 minutes from Santa Cruz) which is a farming community.  We saw pickers harvesting strawberries and I realized that I must be more thankful when I eat strawberries.  Row after row, bending over to pluck them from under the plants--how their backs must ache after a long day of work.

We walked down 100 steps (I'm not kidding) to get down to Sunset Beach.  Even though it's beautiful, the ocean is so cold here in northern California that it only takes dipping a couple of fingers to decide that it's best to stay on the beach.  Although we discussed it, we decided not to be corny and write our names and the date in the sand.  Then came the bad news--the car is back up the 100 steps, which reminded me that I've got to start up on the elliptical message when we get back.

Jon showed us his new chair project and all of his most recently completed projects.  I'm amazed at his skill.  He gave us a new wooden box with a leather covered lid.  The mitred edges are beautifully done!  Don't know exactly what I will use it for, maybe jewelry.  

We finished off the evening at Bantam Pizza, a swanky pizza place in Santa Cruz.  There's nothing ordinary about their pizza which means that we had to have the waiter explain various ingredients, i.e. crescenza (cheese), panchetta (bacon), stracciatella (cheese), calabrians (spicy red peppers), etc.  We settled on a Margherita pizza and a Salchichero (pepperoni) pizza.  Delish!