New Years in Oakland

Your mom and I accepted an invitation from her cousin Jenny to spend New Years with her in Oakland. We rung in midnight at her friend's place and then spent the first day of 2013 with her and her friend, Lauren, and they showed us some of the sights we hadn't seen before.

Jenny lives in a cute, old fashioned West Coast house in Oakland with a couple room mates. We stayed the night in this front room which had some beautiful morning light to wake up to.

We slept in a bit and enjoyed hanging out in this cool house a little while before starting the day.

Jenny's cat reminds us a lot of one of our cat's, Kuma. This is "Caterbury Tales," otherwise known as Ms. Sittens. 

After breakfast, Jenny and her friend, Lauren, showed us around this majestic cemetery in Oakland, Mountain View. These grave sites hold a lot of history and a gorgeous view of these two Bay Area cities where most of these deceased spent life. 

It was huge, and many notorious San Francisco and Oakland business people and socialites have majestic tombs here. It was a fascinating glimpse at what remains of this history.

We walked around some of the shopping areas in Oakland, and then they took us to this really cool chocolate shop that served up some awesome gourmet hot cocoa. She made it for us from scratch and it tasted like a creamy melted chocolate bar.

The shop also made these interesting individual chocolates with flavors like "root beer float," "pear," and "sweet potato pie." I got something a bit more traditional: "cookies and cream." 

After saying goodbye for now to Jenny and Lauren, we stopped by one of the local brewpubs in Berkeley, Jupiter. I sampled a couple decent beers and we made it back to Davis to face the new year.