March Madness!

The madness is here! I know everyone has their brackets filled out so I am going to provide you my expertise (or lack there of) on who will be crowned this year's champion.

Sweet 16:
Louisville, Wake Forest, West Virginia, Michigan State
Connecticut, Purdue, Missouri, Memphis
Pittsburgh, Florida State, Villanova, Duke
North Carolina, Gonzaga, Syracuse, Oklahoma
(very conservative, I know!)

Elite 8:
Louisville, Michigan State, Connecticut, Memphis
Pittsburgh, Villanova, North Carolina, Oklahoma

Final 4:
Louisville, Connecticut, Villanova, Oklahoma

Finals:
Connecticut, Oklahoma

2009 National Champions:
Oklahoma

First round upset specials:
Arizona, Utah State, Maryland, Tennessee, Western Kentucky, Michigan

Don't be surprised if:
Cleveland State, North Dakota State, or Portland State pull shockers in the first round

Onions! (Thank you Bill Raftery)

Twitter Revelation

I just had to comment on this because I am amazed at how this new medium, Twitter, has captivated me and others. I recently read an article on how Twitter is vastly becoming the way many people get their news and it seemed all too relevant to me today. If you aren’t familiar with Twitter, I’ll just say Google it and you’ll learn more (god, am I becoming tech savvy or what?)

So back to my point. On twitter, I am following George Stephanopoulos and John McCain, among many other celebs, pseudo-celebs, and normal folk I call friends. Steph. And McCain had been hyping up this Q and A twitter between them to happen today. I was just recapping my twitters throughout the day and became so interested in what they were saying to one another and thought….Isn’t this what we watch interviews on TV for? LOL…And now I was getting this info through TWITTER….Absolutely, this IS the new medium through which we get info, much like Facebook. Will Twitter reach the legendary status Facebook has? I guess only time will tell….But by my accounts, it is well on its way.

If you want to Twitter go to www.twitter.com to find our more. You can follow my twitters at mary_eliza and Coleman's at uk6deuce or just see my Twitter feed on this blog.

Enjoy!

weekend on the Central CA coast

This is a long overdue post, but I have to share a weekend trip Coleman and I took back in January. We definitely stay busy on the weekends whether it is a Fresno area or CSU-Fresno event. The weekends we have free we try to plan something fun, new and exciting. After winter break back east, which actually wasn't that wintery at all, we wanted to take a beach trip and see some of Central CA. Per our backgrounds, we love college towns so we knew we wanted to go to San Luis Obispo, home of Cal Poly, and from what we had heard, a cool college town close to the Pacific. We also wanted to visit Paso Robles, the newer and emerging wine country in CA.

Coleman ended up planning a great weekend and I wanted to share with you the highpoints....by the way, this would all definitely be near the top of my list of fun hot spots to hit up when in CA--

1- Friday afternoon we headed out of Fresno to Monterey. Cool oceanside spot. We got there early evening and enjoyed some great seafood and strolled around Monterey. Didn't get to go to the Aquarium which everyone recommends- another trip...

2- the next day we got up and headed down the 1 through some of the finest real estate in CA- Pebble Beach (uh, golf), Carmel (stoppped for lunch here and walked around downtown- an art lovers paradise, Clint Eastwood former Mayor), Big Sur (some of the most amazing views of the Pacific), to the most quaint, friendly ocean towns of Cambria and Morro Bay (as we drove into Morrow Bay there was a street fair and farmers market happening- just my luck!)

stopping during the drive to take in the

views of the Pacific

3- It took us about 2.5 hours to get down the coast from Monterey area, but well worth it. We settled in San Luis Opisbo that Saturday evening. Sunday we enjoyed visiting the wineries in the San Luis area and touring downtown. I guess for our SEC friends, I would compare SLO to Athens, GA. It has a ton of restaurants with lots of variety and a quirky edge about the shops and locals much like Athens.

Edna Valley Vineyard in San Luis County -

recommend the Chardonnay

4- We rounded out the weekend with a drive to some of the Paso Robles wineries (we visited 4 out of the 180 or so in the area- so we'll have to go back some other time LOL---A gentleman that we met at a winery in San Luis suggested we visit Opolo (we recommend- everything! huge selection of wonderful reds) in Paso....ended up being one of our all time favorites! After lunch in quaint downtown Paso, it was about a 2 hour drive back to Fresno.

It was a great weekend and we got to see so much of the central coast. We definitely want to go back to Carmel, Big Sur, and San Luis....not to mention the Paso wineries!

Barnes Holiday Post 3- Kentucky happenings

Christmas day we left MS and headed for KY to see Coleman's family- many of whom we had not seen since the wedding last summer..

While in Bardstown over the winter holiday, thanks to Coleman's uncle Steve and wife Marie, we had the opportunity to go on the My Old Kentucky Dinner Train. I had been wanting to do it for a while and Coleman had never actually been on it! You go for a nice ride and dinner on the train enjoying the scenery . It was definitely a lot of fun and we got to share the experience with Coleman's sister, Brooke, and her fiance, Austin.

We also went to the Kentucky vs. Central Michigan basketball game with Coleman's parents...It was my second time in Rupp Arena. The Cats have some of the most passionate and devoted fans. I love seeing that enthusiasm!

Here are some pics....


(Pic courtesy of MOKDT web site :))

seated on the train before heading out

Brooke and Austin



at the UK Game

UK Cheerleaders

Barnes Holiday Post 2- MS Bound

People always ask us if we are able to get back home much to visit friends and family. Luckily we had a long break over the winter holiday and visited both of our homes for the hoildays. I know that we are pretty lucky that we were able to see both families- that might not always be the case. :(

After the NM Bowl, we flew into NOLA where my parents picked us up and we spent some time on the MS Gulf Coast. As many know, my parents moved down there last summer, pretty much right after the wedding. I think it has been a great experience for them and now they can say that they have pretty much lived in all areas of the state....well except the Delta...maybe we can leave that one out for a while. Ben also lives on the coast so we had a good time visiting with them and relaxing and catching some bowl games.

We stayed on the coast until Christmas Eve when we drove up to Fulton to visit my grandparents. After a short stay there we headed back out and made our way to Kentucky.

bad blogger

I just visited my blog as I generally do every so many days to see what updates my friends have made....and I just thought, how hypocritical am I that I look forward to seeing updates from friends blogs but haven't updated mine in a month! Yes, I have started s new job but that doesn't take up all of my time...I have just been lazy! But I guess we can all fall victim to that! I promise I am going to finish my holiday blog and move on to 2009 events!

For example, Coleman and I took a great weekend trip to the CA central coast in January that I have been wanting to share with friends....probably one of the best things we have done since we have moved to CA! I hope to share pics with you soon..

On another note, I just saw in our paper online that a tornado touched down in a town about 45 minutes north of us earlier today! The article said it was the first tornado in the area in 13 months. And I thought all we had to worry about were earthquakes and drought! Ah, gotta love mother nature!

Barnes Holiday Post 1- New Mexico Bowl

Coleman and I had a great first visit to New Mexico for the bowl game vs. Colorado State. Of course, the outcome wasn't what we had hoped for, but the bowl experience was a lot of fun. Albuquerque was a great town and we enjoyed all of the events planned around the bowl. Coleman also ventured up to Sante Fe and said it was such a cool city. I was at another event and didn't go, but we definitely want to get back to NM and spend some time in the Sante Fe area. The food was so good and Coleman picked out some great restaurants for us to go to when we had free time....all I have to say is red or green?

Here are a few pics...

the Sandia Mountain view from the stadium

(the game was played on the Univ. of NM campus)

Us at the Pep Rally at the stadium