Category Archive: Uncategorized

Burlesque show debut

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


On the home stretch!

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! 🙂

"Sex & the City" at the Kabuki Theater

Jessie’s boss purchased tickets for the Sunday 6/6 showing of “Sex & the City 2” at the famous Kabuki theater but ended up having to work so instead of letting the tickets go to waste she gave ’em to Jess to take out a couple of friends! Me and Carleigh were the lucky ones that got to join her 🙂

Me and Jess had lunch that afternoon at Ti Couz (where we went for dessert for my birthday…YUM!)

An impromptu photo shoot outside the restaurant

The Kabuki Theater is owned by Sundance Cinemas and is located in Japantown (as you probably could’ve guessed). It’s a really great theater that shows independent films and happened to be showing SATC2. The tickets we had were for the third floor which is 21 and over and has a bar and you can eat/drink inside the theater (pretty cool!) I had only seen maybe a couple of episodes of the tv show and had never seen the first movie but I had been told that I didn’t really need to see it to be able to understand the film…and luckily it was true. Overall I thought the film was really goofy and I’m not sure I care to see the first one, ha! I realized that this was the first movie I had seen in a theater in over a year (at least since living in SF), crazy huh?

We got some dinner and snacks at Nijiya, a great little Japanese supermarket (reminded me of home! My mom has taken us to Japanese markets since we were kids)

Jessie on the overpass leading to Japantown

Inside the theater (I’m a sucker for cool lighting apparently!)

Happy bloggin’ anniversary!

Today marks the one year anniversary from when I started this blog. I’m so happy to see that I’ve actually been able to keep up with it! This has been such a great idea (if I do say so myself, haha!) to keep family and friends updated with what we’re doing and I know it’s also become a great online scrapbook so that we can look back and remember all of the fun things we’ve done with ourselves up here.

June 19th will be my one year anniversary of living here in SF (Kevin’s is July 4th) and all I can say is that this has been one of the best decisions we could have made for ourselves.

Here’s to many more blog posts! 🙂

An amazing opportunity

I have some exciting news to share about an amazing opportunity that just recently landed in my lap! On Monday I am going to be starting my Master’s of Education in Teaching program through the university I work for…for FREE!!!

I knew that I would one day want to pursue my MAE degree, but never thought that it would happen anytime in the immediate future–mostly because of the cost. Being a staff member at Alliant, I am able to take one course per term for FREE and be able to apply them towards a degree. Amazing!! I feel so fortunate to have gotten this job that enabled us to move here to SF and now it’s enabling me to pursue a degree in higher education which will be extremely beneficial when I become a teacher (not only because of the things I will learn and be able to apply to the classroom, but because teachers are paid on a scale depending on the number of years you’ve taught and on the number of post-baccalaureate units, so with my MAE degree I’ll be automatically starting at a higher pay scale).

The program is all online, so it’ll be convenient for me and my work schedule. My supervisor is extremely supportive of my desire to continue my education through Alliant and I appreciate this opportunity so much! I’m a bit nervous to start school again (I didn’t think I’d have to do any homework for some time, but next week I hit the books again!) but I know I’ll do great.

Yesterday I worked at our campus’ commencement ceremony which was held at Fort Mason (a gorgeous venue for a graduation!) and I couldn’t help imagining myself walking across the stage in a couple of years getting “hooded” with my MAE hood, and receiving my hard-earned MAE degree!

I’m really excited to start this new journey…wish me luck! 🙂

Carnaval!

I had heard about Carnaval before we moved up here from Jessie who had been before and raved about it, so I was excited when the time had come for SF Carnaval weekend! Jessie was out of town at a yoga retreat in Joshua Tree (her graduation gift to herself!) and Kevin was busy working so I was afraid I might not go because I didn’t want to go alone. But a friend who I’ve met through the blogging world, Elisse from Vancouver, Canada, e-mailed me a few weeks prior letting me know that she and her friend Cindy would be in SF that weekend and wanted to check out the festivities!

Plenty of feathers, fish nets and thongs to go around! 😉

So many beautiful performers in the parade!

I got a little teary-eyed when I saw the baile folklorico de Nicaragua group approach–for those of you who don’t know, I studied abroad in Nicaragua in 2004 and had an amazing time. The huge woman you see in the background is called “la Gigantona” (the giant woman) and is popular in Nican parades and events, and I hadn’t seen “her” since my time there! I immediately had to text my good friend Erin who was one of my bridesmaids who I met in Nica 🙂

Beautiful danza azteca group

Benjamin Bratt was there too! (He’s in the white shirt in the back of the car, click photo to enlarge) He was there promoting the new film he is in that takes place in the Mission (the neighborhood that the parade was in and the neighborhood he grew up in), the movie is called “La Mission”.

Some kids watching the parade from their apartment windows

I just HAD to get a photo with these two! Their costumes were gorgeous.

Time travel on the cheap!

A friend of ours sent us this video and I thought it’d be great to post it on our blog! It’s a video taken from a streetcar just days before the big earthquake in San Francisco in 1906. I travel these same tracks everyday for work and I pass by the Ferry Building clock tower (where the streetcar in the video is headed) each day, so it’s amazing to see what it all looked like over 100 years ago (especially knowing that this was taken only 4 days before the big earthquake).

And you’d think that the streets of SF were pretty dangerous for pedestrians, cars and buses today…but just imagine living back then! All I gotta say is that the guy at 2:36 had a death wish, haha.

Enjoy!

Kevin’s new job!!!

Yup, you read that correctly…Kevin got a new job!!! He interviewed last week at Pet Camp in SF and on Friday he went in for a trial run to check out the job. Yesterday he got the phone call that we’ve been waiting for offering him the job!! 🙂 It has been such a huge relief and I couldn’t be more proud of him!

He started this morning and is there as I write this blog post. He’s their newest Pet Care Technician and he’ll be feeding & exercising the dogs and, of course, pickin’ up dog poop! hehe One of the coolest perks of the job is that we get 2 weeks of free boarding if we go out of town and need a place for Lola AND he gets to bring Lola in to work with him!!

This morning before his first day of work we went to celebrate with breakfast at Just for You cafe in the Dogpatch. We hadn’t been since Brianne & Brian’s visit in October and had a delicious celebratory meal together.

Congrats, Kevin!!!!!!

Maya’s farewell–Part I

My co-worker-become-friend Maya (who we’ve bonded over our love of game night, good food, and funny, too-inappropriate-for-blog-world television one-liners) has decided that she’s had her fill of California and is moving back to Boston in the next few weeks! 🙁 Her last day at work was Monday 4/12 so after work a few of us got together at The Red Jack Saloon up the block for some drinks.

Gin and tonic, please!

Sharla and Maya

Cybele, Sharla and Maya

Me and Maya

There should be lots more celebrating in the next few weeks, it’s going to be a bittersweet farewell!!

Proud wife

I just wanted to take a moment to tell the world how proud I am of Kevin. As you all know he’s in the Aviation Mechanics program at City College of Alameda (he’s in the middle of his second semester of four total semesters) and he has once again ACED his test! Each week they have quizzes on Friday and I think it’s only been 1-2 times he’s gotten lower than 100% (and then it was only like 98%). Tonight he got the results back from his mid-term that he took last Thursday and he got 100%!!!!

I’m so proud of him and just wanted to tell the world. 🙂

Kevin, the future airplane mechanic!
(I don’t pretend to know Photoshop so this is my sad little photo edit 😉 )
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