Weekend Plans

Surprise! I'm going out of town this weekend. For the record, I've gone out of town for 6 weekends straight, which may be a personal record. I think that this will be it for a few weeks at least, but San Diego, here I come.

I'm glad to be leaving this weekend for a few different reasons. Maybe I'll post about that next week. For now, have a fabulous weekend everyone. A new chapter in my life starts as soon as I get back. I'm determined to make it a good one.

Coming Home

My parents are coming home on Friday. It will be nice to be able to talk to them at normal hours of the day instead of 12am or 7am. Seriously.

Here's where they've been all summer.

I think I'm going to go in March or April of 2008. That pool is already yelling my name. Can't you hear it? "Esteph!" I'm really hoping that some hottie will be in that pool across the street too...

My mom doesn't really want to come home. She misses her grandkids a ton, but really, I think she'd stay if she could. If my mom wouldn't have been so sick during her pregnancy with me, I would have been born in Spain instead of Napa. And for that, I shake my fist.

Congratulations

photo via flickr

Two of my really close friends have gotten engaged in the past few days/weeks, so I wanted to give them a little shout-out congratulations! I'm so happy for you both! I'm also so glad that you're both getting married the weekend before two major holidays this year. Your planning is convenient and it is appreciated greatly.

Movie Review - The Nanny Diaires

Saw this movie last night. It didn't follow the story in the book very well, so for that reason alone, I was a little turned off. I honestly think I enjoyed the book more. I went with Silvia who is a nanny, but she's had quite the opposite experience from the nanny in this movie. I guess I'm glad that I know of families like the one that Silvia works for who treat their nanny so well that she's like family. The ending in the movie is completely different than the book, which annoyed me a great deal. I won't bother watching it again, but if you're dying to see it, go for it.

Where Fun Never Grows Up

Yesterday I went to the California State Fair in Sacramento with two really good friends.

We did all sorts of exciting things. First on the agenda: Get a breathalizer test.

I guess to drive one of these bad boys they wanted to make sure that you were sober. Since Andrea is Italian and this is a typical Italian car, we thought it would be fun to let him drive a typical American car.

After driving around a huge obstacle course, we decided to get in touch with nature a little and see some animals. Tommy & Andrea were so excited, they did a little happy dance.

And inside, we all fell in love with this little guy:

Have you ever seen all three of us so happy?

I haven't...and I've known these guys for years. Awesome.

Next on our list was to try some fried food.

Tommy and I shared a fried snickers, but you could get other fried foods like the following: Avocados, Peanut Butter & Banana Sandwiches, Frog Legs, Zucchini, Coke, Veggies, Twinkies, Cheesecake, and this sandwich was the strangest. {Pace, check out the sandwich}

Then we tested our romance skills:

Andrea really is an Italian Stallion.

And I must not have been holding the handle correctly..ahem.

And Tommy was mild.

We saw all sorts of animals:

Even some dead animals...

Before leaving, I had one special request: I wanted to ride the swings!! I love these things. I could seriously ride them all day.

Family Tree

I've always thought that I looked pretty evenly like both my parents.
Here's my proof:

Abandoned

Life has been crazy for me the past month or so. I fell asleep on the couch tonight at 7:30...but I was awoken by the vibrations of my phone. I'm an expert at not reacting appropriately when my phone is yelling at me, so I got up, went upstairs, put my PJs on, and got into bed(all without answering the phone or checking the voicemail). I read for about 10 minutes and turned out the light. About an hour later, I turned the light back on and pulled out the lappy.

I'm going through a weird transition right now. And I just don't know what to do about it.

About a year ago I realized that the friends I had upon moving to SF were all "gone" in some way or another. Emotionally AND physically. Many of you know details on that, so I don't have to go there. But its still a weird thing for me to think about. I lost a large chunk of my life all at once basically. Luckily, I had some friends there to hold my hand along the way and fill in the gaps. I am actually pretty good at that.

But this last month has been brutal.

Best friend MM who I talk to everysingleday got married and although our friendship hasn't really changed, I can't exactly call her at 11pm (or 8pm for that matter) anymore. She has different things on her mind. I've spoken to her twice in the past 3 weeks for 10 minutes. Ouch.

Best friend MD (who is always good about mending arguments and such) and I got in a fight while I was in UT. I do the "right" thing and try and talk to him about it, and it backfires. We haven't spoken in 2 weeks. Ouch.

My boss who is also my good friend is going on maternity leave starting tomorrow for 4 months. The only possible good thing about this is the potential for taking naps under her desk if I need one. Ouch.

The day I get back from UT, a friend tells me that my roommate is moving. And in two weeks. Oh, did I mention that she's been my "other half" for the past year and a half? Ouch.

One of my other really close friends got engaged. I'm happy for her; and sad about the fact that I never see her anymore. Ouch.

In June, I lost 7-8 friends to their dental careers. Ouch.

Its on days like this, that I just want to call my Mom...oh, but wait. She's in friggin' Mallorca still and I. can't. call. her. Ouch.

Seriously, sorry for the pity party, but its just the way things are going right now.

Oh and by the way...

Angel Island was nice the other day except for all the bugs. Tons of bees and little worms that were EVERYWHERE. The weather was amazing though. Here are a few pictures that I took:

Looking out from the West Garrison towards Tiburon.

I love the cactus with the Golden Gate in the background. Have I mentioned lately that I live in an amazing city?

To learn more about Angel Island, click here.

Scherenschnitte

Say what? I was invited by the lovely Rebecca to join the Ladies Activity Club tonight to learn how to Scherenschnitte. First of all, I was totally honored that she said I could come. I've read about these on Emily's blog for a while now and I thought it was such a great idea. There are definitely never enough reasons to get together with a bunch of great women and learn a new craft or hobby.
I actually knew what Scherenschnitte was since I occasionally read Cindy's blog about it. I definitely thought that it was something that I could never do because Cindy's creations are soooo amazing, but look, Ma! This is going to look awesome in my room. I can't wait to frame/hang it. I think I want to make more.

To check out some serious scherenschnitte, click here and here and here.

Ta-hoeing it Up

So if you read my blog on Thursday, you know that I went to Tahoe this weekend. I have been traveling quite a bit lately, so it was nice to go somewhere relaxing where I wouldn't have to decorate for any weddings or drive all over Tarnation to visit everyone I know. No offense, people; just stating the facts.

On Saturday I was a little tired, so stayed at home while everyone else went hiking. What a fabulous idea that was. I just stayed in my pajamas for a while, read about 300 pages of the book I just finished, took my sweet time getting ready, and took a brief nap on the couch. All while my friends were off making out with nature. Lucky for me, they stopped by the house to pick me up in the early afternoon so that we could go swimming in the lake. But first, we needed floating devices. We bought these lovely pink rafts at Raley's for $1.99.

Unfortunately for you, we don't have any pictures of us all on our rafts in the water. I'm sure you could spot the five of us from a mile away. BUT when we got back to the beach, we used our rafts as air mattresses while we sunned ourselves. Brilliant idea.

Here's Eria, Kambria, me, and Rebecca.

That night we decided to play Cranium, but when we opened up the Clay-Dough, we found a slight problem. It was so dry that it was growing crystals. Sick!

Oh no, that wasn't going to stop us from playing. Did we just forget about the Clay-Dough? Heck no...we decided that we had the skills to fix it. We weren't exactly sure what was going to work, so here's Derek with his microwave it and add water approach.

Rebecca gave it here all with the potato masher.

Rick decided to put the cheese-grater to use.

Rebecca's potato mashing didn't seem to be doing a whole lot, so Rick broke out a huge knife and cut it up into tiny little pieces.

Rick's cutting and grating idea seemed to work the best, so Rebecca decided that she'd explain to everyone why his grating and cutting worked over the microwave method.

Playing Cranium was a lot of fun; especially when we had to do blind drawings for each other. To ensure that there was no cheating, we made each other cover our heads with sweaters. It seemed to be effective.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of Ryan sitting on this "stool."

Before coming home, we wanted to get a bit more sun. We hit up D.L. Bliss State Park on the west side of Lake Tahoe. Such a beautiful place.

We found these jokers chillin' on the beach.

Despite this sign, we blew up the rafts and hopped in the water. Once you got used to it, it wasn't so bad.

For the record, I have beaten Emily Bates in a race. Just don't tell anyone that it was a race on rafts. Shh.

Here I am loving my pink raft.

Look at that beautiful water. It was a beautiful day!Thanks to Rebecca for a lot of these pictures...your documenting skills are amazing.