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Another trip to Long Beach in July!

Posted by Lisa On August 29th, 2010

Two weeks after Rock the Era I was back in the car to make the drive down to LB–but this time with Jessie and Lola to accompany me!

We again left on a Wednesday night and stayed through Sunday–but this time I decided to take Thursday off as a vacation day so that I wasn’t stuck at home working from the computer!

On Thursday my friend Kim came over and brought over some delicious breakfast–oat pancakes with bananas, peanut butter and nutella spread–amazing!

On Friday me and Jess took Lola and Luke to the Long Beach dog park for some afternoon fun.



That night I went out to dinner with Brianne and Brian and it was great catching up and spending some time with them! We went to eat at The Spaghetti Factory in Fullerton and it was oh-so-delicious. We shared a lot of laughs, especially when I told the waiter that it was Brianne’s birthday (even though her bday is in October) in hopes that we’d score some free dessert and then was surprised when he told me that they come around to sing but won’t bring any dessert, haha!

B and B at The Spaghetti Factory

The main reason I went down to LB for a second time in July was to celebrate the marriage of Janeth and Diego, two friends from Redlands. They got married at the Alumni House on campus and their reception was in downtown Redlands in an old brick warehouse type building that was absolutely gorgeous!

The beautiful bride being escorted by family down the aisle

The moment we’ve been waiting years for!

The happy couple!

Amazing appetizers

Nialta, Heather and Alison

Me and Sara

Waiting outside the Mitten Building where the reception was held

They’ve arrived!

Me butting in for a dance with the groom

Mmmm…cake!

Love this shot–Heather and her fiance Steven

The bridesmaid’s bouquets hanging out

WRW girls

WRW girls and RYG boys

Me and Alison

Pretty in pink–Marquitta, Ebony and me

Me and my “brother” Chris

Burlesque show debut

Posted by Lisa On August 29th, 2010

My sister Jessie’s roommate (whose name is also Jessie!) had been taking burlesque classes with Bombshell Betty for a few months and her debut show was on Tues. 7/13 so Jess and I decided to go and root her on!

Jessie & Jessie

Jessie showing off her glitter


Rock the Era!

Posted by Lisa On August 29th, 2010

The Buddhist organization that I was born-and-raised a part of had the very lofty goal of hosting three youth-led festivals collectively called “Rock the Era” throughout the United States in the month of July and I was lucky to be a part of the movement. The western states were preparing for a youth festival scheduled for July 10th in Long Beach, so I was a part of the San Francisco youth and I decided to help out with the theater group. The theater group was 21 strong and most of the kids in the group are high-school age so it’s been great “practice” for when I am a teacher. They’re a really great group with tons of energy and we have a lot of fun at practices. So in preparation for the July 10 festival, we were practicing twice a month for 4-6 hours at a time and having a great time while doing it. 🙂

Most of the youth from outside of Southern California either went down to LB by bus or plane but because I’m from LB I decided to make a little trip out of it. So on Wed. 7/7 I jumped in my car at 6pm and made the drive down to LB, getting in around midnight.

Before I go into what I did during my time in LB I thought I’d mention that Thurs. 7/8 was actually me and Kevin’s four year anniversary (!) and unfortunately we weren’t able to spend the day together! But we promised to celebrate when I got back to SF. This last year has been one of the happiest for the two of us and I find myself filled with so much appreciation for Kevin. He is a great husband and we’re a great team and I love him so so much! 🙂

Okay, back to the events of the week… 🙂 That Thursday I decided to take as a remote working day, so I was glued to my laptop at my mom’s house during the day which wasn’t super fun. But my friend Kim dropped by and made me some delicious vegetarian Indian food for lunch!

Friday was the all-day rehearsal at the Long Beach Arena getting us prepared for the festival the following day. I was at the Arena at 8am and we didn’t leave until 8pm. That night my sister had a little get together at my mom’s so it was great seeing some old family friends.

After an all-day rehearsal and a late night I think saying that the next morning when I woke at 6am being tired was somewhat of an understatement. The rehearsal that day started at 7am and went straight through to show time at 2pm. There were so many great performance groups: taiko drums, gymnastics, hip hop, spoken word, contemporary dance, rock band, and not to mention the theater group! 🙂 The show lasted 2 hours and there were 20,000 people in attendance and performing/back stage–youth filled the entire LB Arena! It was pretty remarkable and extremely inspiring seeing all of these youth working together for world peace.

After the show I met up with Jessie and our old family friend Molly Scarpine who I hadn’t seen in years–we had some dinner and drinks at Rock Bottom and then met up with the Mitchell family in Naples.

The next morning after a visit with my Aunt Tina I jumped back in my car for the 6.5 hour drive back to SF. It was a really great, inspiring trip and it felt great to see all of our months of hard work worth it in the end with the great performance!

All of the performers on stage for the finale–I’m in there somewhere! 🙂

Derek’s visit

Posted by Lisa On August 29th, 2010

My brother Derek came up to visit in early July and we took the opportunity to explore the Sutro Baths which is a place that I had been dying to go for a while. The Sutro Baths are the ruins of an old bathhouse right off the beach in SF (check out some great photos of the bathhouse when it was in full swing in the early 1900’s on the web link above). It was an absolutely gorgeous, clear, sunny, warm day and it was the perfect opportunity for the Delmar kids + Lola to go exploring.

Derek, Jess and Lola
View of the old bathhouse from the top of the trail



Can you spot the four of us??




A view from within the caves.

So Lola, in her typical nerdy ways, rolled in some dog poop (or possibly coyote poop??) and so we had to go down to the beach to wash her off (gross!) So me and Derek had some fun running around with her on the beach.


Derek, Jess and Lola


I absolutely LOVED going to the Sutro Baths and it was especially fun spending it with my two siblings and Lola!

A couple other shots from D’s visit…

On our way to eat…can you tell this was posed?? Haha.
Cheers! Lunch at El Majahual Restaurant in the Mission–great Salvadorean food!


Can’t wait for your next visit Derdo! 🙂

Spanishtown (Half Moon Bay)

Posted by Lisa On August 29th, 2010

Way back in late June we took a day trip to Spanishtown which is just outside of Half Moon Bay. We did an internet search of “things to do in Half Moon Bay” and Spanishtown was one thing that people kept talking about so we couldn’t resist the quick detour!

Our little navigator
Gorgeous rose gardens

The main attraction? Dinosaur sculptures off Highway 92…random!





There was a great garden sculpture/fountain store that we enjoyed exploring as well.



It was a nice little day trip in the southern part of the Bay Area that we don’t frequent often.

On the home stretch!

Posted by Lisa On August 11th, 2010

So if you haven’t noticed it’s been far too long since my last blog post! I’ve got a ton to update but not a ton of time to do it! This time of year is the absolute busiest for me but this is the last week of my first Master’s class and so I feel like I might get a grip for the two week break before my next Master’s class starts so I’ll definitely be updating SOON! 🙂

In loving memory: Margie

Posted by Lisa On June 26th, 2010

On Wednesday June 23 we lost an amazing woman who I was lucky enough to call my gramma-in-law, Margie.

She leaves quite the legacy: Born in 1918, she was educated at the University of West Virginia, served during WWII at the Pentagon and was a career secretary serving the education system. She leaves behind two children, four grandchildren (and a granddaughter-in-law!), and three great grandchildren.

I met Margie around 2001 when my husband and I started dating. The most amazing thing, though, was that she and my own grandma were friends before Kevin and I got together! They happened to live in the same rest home facility and would play bridge together! Margie was the resident journalist and actually interviewed my grandma for one of their monthly newsletters before I had even met her.

She was so incredibly welcoming to me and I will never forget that about her. I also will never forget all of the visits me and Kevin made to her apartment where we’d sit around and look through her old photo albums (which she put together and wrote captions for beautifully) and I’d write down notes as she told stories about the photos. Kevin’s been working on saving all of the hundreds of photos digitally and transferring the originals to an archival photo album for posterity. Now that she’s passed, we’re going to make a huge effort to get them done before the funeral.

She and her husband Neal made a home up here in Northern California so he is buried in Half Moon Bay and she’ll be buried right alongside him. Today Kevin and I decided to spend this extremely rare Saturday that Kevin didn’t have to work visiting the cemetery and paying our respects.

The grounds are absolutely beautiful, including this huge waterfall

And as we were driving along we happened to see a deer running through the grounds!

I think she sticks around because of the “free food” that people leave for her 😉

Kevin’s grandpa Neal and his great-grandparents (Margie’s parents Gladys and Dale) are all buried in the Veteran’s yard.

A beautiful statue that overlooks all who have passed and are laid to rest there

Kevin’s great-grandparent’s headstone

A carnation (his favorite flower) for Kevin’s grandpa Neal

The two headstones beneath a lone tree

The family will be heading up here in the next few weeks to lay Margie to rest. It is a beautiful cemetery that we will definitely be making trips down to more often to always keep Margie and her family in our thoughts because she was such a big part of Kevin’s life and had quickly become a big part of mine as well.

Margie–you are loved dearly and will be sorely missed.

One of my favorite photos–the three of us at our wedding in July ’06

Good eats: Ike’s Place

Posted by Lisa On June 26th, 2010

So anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE sandwiches. Lunch is my favorite meal and honestly, if I could eat a sandwich for breakfast, lunch and dinner…I would.

Me and Jess decided to check out Ike’s Place, a sandwich shop both of us had heard of in the past and luckily we were both craving sandwiches at the time so we decided to give it a try.

Let me just start out by showing a pic of the line we were in:

That blue building towards the right? Yeah, that’s the sandwich shop.

From start to finish we waited for one hour to get a hold of our sandwiches. Now that’s dedication! And apparently they are always like that.

Their sandwiches are not cheap…but they are huge. I ordered the Manage-a-Trois sandwich (Halal Chicken Breast, Real Honey, Honey Mustard, BBQ, PepperJack, Swiss, Smoked Gouda) which was highlighted on that show Man vs. Food (see clip below!) and Jessie ordered the Jessica Rabbit sandwich (Vegan Breaded Chicken, Stuffed Jalapeno Poppers, Franks Red Hot, Ranch).

Our thoughts? All I can say is that we had to force ourselves to not eat the second half of the sandwich because we were both extremely full from the first half but the sandwich was SO GOOD that we didn’t want to stop!

Was the sandwich worth the $11.11 (which included a bag o’ chips as well)? Hell yes.

Game night and doggie play date

Posted by Lisa On June 26th, 2010

On Saturday 6/12 we were invited over to Carleigh & Scott’s place for some food, drinks, games and doggie play time. 🙂

Scott & Lola (Lola would sift through all of Bailey’s toys and pick out her favorite of the moment)

Kevin & Bailey (isn’t that face so sweet??)

The kiddos, begging to be let in

Scrabble! I think Kevin won that round.

Me & Carleigh (and a bottle of Maker’s Mark, gotta love that being front-and-center of this photo, haha)

Road trip down south

Posted by Lisa On June 26th, 2010

On Friday 6/11 Kevin and I had the rare opportunity to spend an entire 24 hours together uninterrupted by work or school! 🙂 Kevin not only had the day off from work and wasn’t in school at the time but it was a furlough day for me so we decided to take advantage of the day and take a road trip (just like old times!)

Instead of going north to Marin County like we always seemed to do in the past, this time we set our sights further south: to Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Pescadero and Half Moon Bay.

Lola has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of her comfort level in the car–no more car sickness and scaredy-dog! She’s up and about sniffing out the window like a normal dog now and she’s now discovered how much she loves being right between us on the armrest

Lola, our favorite co-pilot

Beautiful view off the 9 Highway towards Big Basin

The state park was gorgeous–we loved all of the fresh smells and how quiet it was driving through there. We were a little frustrated, however, by the park once we got there though. On their website it said that dogs were allowed on some trails (some trails) but didn’t distinguish which ones. When we got to the park’s HQ we were surprised to find out that dogs are only allowed on one trail and it’s a paved road! 🙁 Then we found out that parking was $10 and the trail map was $5 (neither of whose prices were on the website, of course) so since we could only go on one sad little trail with Lola we decided to skip the fees and just drive through and enjoy the sights. We’ll be back though (without Lola in tow of course) because it was so beautiful!

After driving through all of funny small towns (Bonny Doon anyone?) we ended up on Highway 1 and drove up the coast towards home. We stopped off at a small beach to do some exploring.

A little video of our rock-climbin’ pup


Lola, the beach bum

Can you tell it was w-i-n-d-y?

Apparently my chin smelled like food, haha

One of the stops off PCH that we knew we wanted to make was to Pescadero that my mom and her boyfriend Steve had visited on their last trip up to SF.


Arcanegli Grocery is a really cute little supermarket that has some of the most amazing breads and spreads.

There wasn’t a ton to do so we just walked up and down the main drag and I took some random photos…

…like of this rusty fire hydrant.

…and of this person’s garage that I was really into, haha.

Our last stop before home was Half Moon Bay which we actually weren’t super impressed with! Maybe it was because we were tired and starving and the restaurant we ate at (Spanishtown Mexican Restaurant) was less-than-stellar (great service but bland food!) I guess we’ll have to give it another shot in the future. 🙂

It was so nice spending some daylight hours with Kevin! Can’t wait for another day like this to come along (hopefully it won’t be too long!)

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