Category Archive: Sarah

Holiday visit to Long Beach 2011

Posted by Lisa On January 1st, 2012

Kevin, Lola and I were lucky enough to spend 9 full days in Long Beach visiting with family and friends over the holidays. Here’s a recap of our visit!

Christmas Eve with the Delmars

We spent Christmas Eve with my family this year so that Christmas Day wouldn’t be so stressful going back and forth between the two families and I think it worked out great!

Jess and Kevin trying to get Mars and Lola acquainted. I’m sure they’ll be best buds before you know it!

We had a non-traditional Chinese buffet for dinner that filled us up just right and a delicious assortment of See’s candies and brownies for dessert. Some photos from our evening…

Jess and Auntie Tina

Jess, Auntie Tina, and Uncle Joey

Me and Tina

Most of the group: Jess, Tina, Steve and his daughter Lacey and his grandson Christian, Uncle Joey, and Derek

Santas Jessie and Derek

Derek and his new ukulele

One of the highlights of the night was when the Delmar kids presented my mom with the gift of a song. Every year she tells us that all she wants from us is a song, no gifts, so this year we took her up on it. We decided to sing the theme song of the old cartoon “David the Gnome” that used to show on Nickelodeon and that we used to love as kids. After a couple days of rehearsing we were ready for our big debut! Here’s the link to the video of us singing on YouTube!

Christmas Day with the Edmonds

We woke up bright and early to accompany Thomas for a drive up the 91 freeway to pick up our adorable niece Sophie to spend Christmas Day with the family!

The little lady ready to celebrate with the Edmonds!

She loved taking photos with my camera, here’s a self-portrait and a photo of her dad Thomas in the rear view mirror (can you see her?)

Goofy picture of me, thanks to Sophie the photographer

Silly photo!

Say “Cheese!”

After making it home it was all fun and games until the feast was ready. Lola sure got a workout with Sophie and Katelyn around…

Sophie with Aunt Sarah and Rob

Me and my adopted kiddos, Joshua and Katelyn

We spent a good hour or so opening tons of gifts…

Kevin with his gift card to Best Buy…such a creative way to give a gift card (from our brother-in-law Luke)!

A few last photos outside before Sophie had to go back home…

Me ‘n Sarah with Sophie and Lola

Sophie showing off her Cinderella toy

Last goofy photo of the day!

Hike in Whittier Hills

Brianne, Brian, Brian’s sister Lisa, Kevin, Lola and I went on a nice long hike in the Whittier Hills the day after Christmas to burn off some of that holiday feasting we all took part of.

B & B overlooking the amazing skyline with Palos Verdes at one end (and Catalina even further off, out of frame) and downtown LA at the other end

Big hills and winding trails made for a very fun (and tiring) hike

A beautiful Buddhist temple in the Rose Hills Memorial Park

A quick little detour we took to visit a huge water tower…

…covered in graffiti.

The “slide” Kevin and Brian took down the hill (just kidding)

More fun with the Delmar family

On Tuesday night we made it to our annual Chinese massage with my mom, this time accompanied with Jessie, Derek, and my mom’s boyfriend Steve too. I didn’t get the full treatment this time around, though, because of the little bebe in utero but the masseuse did a mighty fine job of working out the kinks in my shoulders, arms, legs, and feet. Kevin got beyond the full treatment from a little lady who was working on him (NOT what you’re thinking…he was in the massage bed right beside mine of course). Here’s what I’m talking about…

Linda (yes, her name was Linda) walking all over Kevin

Then we went across the parking lot to chow down on some Vietnamese food (which, unfortunately, was not as good as we had had in years past. I ordered a crab soup and the pieces of meat were anything but crab and Kevin actually got food poisoning from it! Blech.)

On Wednesday I spent the entire day with my mom and Jessie. We spent the morning in LA exploring Grand Central Market–a really neat, open market with tons of food stalls.

Jess enjoying the market!

A really neat chalk drawing at MF Gourmet (where I had lunch)

Can you tell we’re related??

That night we met up with Derek, Steve and his grandson Christian at At Last Cafe in Long Beach for some grub.

The Delmar kids: Derek’s beer, Jessie’s wine, and my lemonade (can’t wait to partake in some yummy, non-pregnant drinks in the near-ish future)

Christian goofing off (encouraged by Jessie and Derek, of course)

Me, Derek, and mama (notice Christian’s photo bomb? Haha!)

Piggy back ride!

After dinner we dropped Derek off at his new place and took a quick tour through the house. We then took a gander at his motorcycle (he’s had it for a while but I had yet to see it for myself)…

Jess, Derek, and Vanna White checking out the bike

My mom: “Jesus, I have a big head” (hahaha!)

Fast-forward a few days…we met up with my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Clay (my dad’s sister) on Saturday morning for a nice visit. We always enjoy spending time with them and we were so happy we were able to squeeze in a quick visit with them. We talked lots about teaching (since they’re both teachers) and also about family history (since Kevin’s really interested in genealogy and my Aunt Kathy is a wealth of information). Afterwards we met up with my mom, Tina, Steve, and Derek for lunch down the street.

Kev, mama, Tina and me

Miniature golfing date with Joshua and Katelyn

Part of our Christmas gift for our nephew and niece was to take them out for a morning of getting their butts whooped in miniature golf (or at least that’s what I told them in the beginning). We used to spend a lot of time with those knuckleheads but since we moved up to the Bay Area we don’t get to spend as much one-on-one time with them as before and I miss ’em a bunch so it was a great opportunity to spend some time with them during our visit.

Mini golf courses crack me up

The creepiest metal monkey you will ever see

Pancho’s Fish Tacos, anyone?

Joshua taking his turn, Kevin looking dapper

My beautiful niece…she’s getting so big!

Nerding it up…me and Katelyn pretending to look out at the pirate using our golf clubs (although it looks more like Katelyn is playing the flute, but I’ll forgive her this time)

Working on my form

Me taking an awesome shot

Kevin and Joshua were obviously impressed by Katelyn’s amazing form

Our group’s rainbow assortment of golf balls

Proof that Joshua’s butt didn’t get whooped too bad (at least by me, anyways). Katelyn, on the other hand…

I love that these three always go along with my crazy suggestions

After a round of golf we met up with almost the rest of the Edmonds family at Lucille’s for a lunchtime feast at one of me and Kevin’s favorite places. Dorothy, George, Judith and Luke met us to enjoy each other’s company at the end of our week’s visit.

Ringing in the new year

We spent a fairly quiet evening at Kevin’s parent’s house with the folks and our good friend Alison as well. We enjoyed some dinner then got started on some board games that kept us entertained (and awake!) until midnight. On the game menu for the evening: Bananagrams and Sequence.

About as exciting as our evening got!

Lola, reluctantly waking up for the countdown

Clinking our glasses of Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider as the clock hit midnight (photo taken by Alison)

After a delicious breakfast of homemade waffles and pancakes (care of George), we packed up the car and made our way up Interstate 5 back home to Oakland. Lola sure seemed to enjoy her new ride…

Snoozing all the way back home

Kevin, Lola and I are very excited to begin a new year and we know that 2012 will bring some very exciting changes our way. Can’t wait to celebrate Christmas/New Year’s at the end of this year with the newest addition to our family!

Edmonds family camping trip!

Posted by Lisa On August 5th, 2011

The Edmonds gang spent months in anticipation for our camping trip to Taylor Creek and the time had finally arrived! Kevin’s family has been camping at this spot for nearly 30 years (!) and this was my third trip to TC. The last time the whole gang went camping together was at Granite Creek in 2009 (just a couple of months after moving to SF and a few weeks after adopting Lola, see the post here) and the last time we as a family were at TC was in 2007 so it was definitely time for another camping trip!

This campsite is about as rustic as you can get: no running water (except for the spring up the road), no cell phone service, and no toilets (not even an outhouse). But it’s got everything else that other campsites are missing: it’s quiet (rarely do we spot other campers when we’re there), there are unobstructed starry nights, we’ve got a private creek and private hiking trails. And that’s why the family keeps coming back after all these years.

Wednesday 7/27

Kevin, Lola and I woke up earlyearlyearly and got on the road at 7:30am.

Lots of fog over the Oakland Hills to greet us

Beautiful views of countryside and clear skies (somewhere off of Hot Springs Road)

Kevin and Lola in the car

We passed a ton of cows on the drive up the mountain…

Mama cows and their babies

Moo.

Lots of meadows–I think this one was aptly named “Big Meadow” (so creative, I know)

Pancake rock!

We arrived (9 hours later!) and were sad to find out that the family’s favorite spot was already taken. 🙁

We drove up the road a bit and found another spot that wasn’t as good but we were pleasantly surprised that it worked out as well as it did. Kevin, Lola and I held down the fort for a couple of hours before the next group arrived.

We read a couple of short stories to each other with Lola listening in

Beautiful day!

The swimming hole right next to our campsite…perfection!

The next group to arrive was George, Dorothy, Judith, Joshua and Katelyn and it was just us until the third group arrived on Friday. Our first evening was mostly just setting up camp, eating hamburgers and hot dogs (and veggie burgers/veggie skewers for the vegetarian in the group!) and hanging out around the campfire.

Kevin and George with the bonfire

Thursday 7/28

The group woke up bright and early for another fun day of camping. Except for this little girl who did not want to get up…

Lola, snuggled up

We were finally able to encourage the tired pup to get up and get the day started!

First thing on the to-do list? Gather fire wood. George, Kevin, Joshua and Lola were in charge of that item (thank you guys!)

Alley oop Lola!

While the muchachos and Lola went to get fire wood, the rest of us muchachas got dressed for some creek time…

Katelyn and her genius innertube

Dorothy and Judith hanging out by the creek

After the guys got back with the firewood it was creek time for them too!

Lola’s favorite thing to do was hop/jump/leap across the creek to fetch her ball (oh yeah, and shake and get all of us sitting on the bank wet too)

Kevin, George and Katelyn (the brave ones) in for a dip

After some time by the creek it was time for lunch and time to put up the hammocks! Kevin and I purchased these hammocks in Nicaragua in 2004 and had yet to use them so it was about time!

Can’t get much more relaxing than this

Bliss.

Kevin squished into the seat hammock (and his butt was about 1.5 inches above the ground, haha)

Dorothy and Kevin relaxing in the shade

Lola couldn’t wait to test out the hammock either, haha

Lola guarding our campsite (her favorite place to be: the kitchen)

Katelyn keeping cool in the shade

Friday 7/29

Another bright and early morning! After breakfast (breakfast burritos, mmm!) we went for a short hike to another swimming hole down the creek.

Pine cones covering the ground

George, Kevin and Lola trying to find us a nice spot to sit and relax

Lola again loved jumping over the creek to catch her ball. We got her in the creek for a bit too, here she is jumping to catch a ball.

Beautiful skies!

Can’t get enough of these rock formations, trees and sky views

Lola looking back at Joshua and Kevin

My favorite photo of the camping trip! Lola in the foreground, Joshua and Kevin in the background.

Can you spot Lola?

Back to the campsite to wait for our third group to arrive (Sarah and Rob!) We spent the time eating lunch and putting reading glasses on Lola (just what any normal family would do, right? You can blame Katelyn for this one, haha)

Lola, the librarian

We were expecting them mid-day so when they hadn’t arrived by mid-afternoon we started getting worried and sent out a search party. Ten minutes later the search party spotted their car and back to the campsite they went.

Just a little after they arrived the group got dressed and took a 20 minute hike to what the family calls “Flat Rock”–a really awesome spot where the creek has a waterfall and it flows down huge, flat rocks making great spots for sitting and relaxing.

Flat Rock

The girls: Katelyn, Sarah, Judith, Dorothy and me

Tall rocks and bright blue skies

Sarah and Rob

Lola biting the mini rapids

Katelyn and Josh building a damn, Lola biting the rapids

Kevin, George and Joshua decided to hike up the mountain a bit while the rest of our group made our way back to the campsite. Here are some photos that Kevin took on the hike…

The view of Church Dome (where we’d be hiking to the following day, yikes!)

I love this miniaturized (is that a word?) photo that Kevin took

Lola with her hiking backpack

After the two hikes and three swimming holes that day Lola was pooped!

Proof of above statement

What makes a good evening while camping? Talking around the campfire of course…

George and Sarah

Dorothy and Kevin

Sunset

Saturday 7/30

Another early morning camping (our last full day, waah!)

Kevin putting on his shoes, enjoying the view out our tent

After breakfast the group packed into two of the cars and made our way upupup the road to the trail head for our hike to Church Dome.

Joshua, Sarah, Kevin, Rob and Lola sizing up Church Dome

Lots and lots of water breaks…

My cute little hiking husband

Sarah and Rob

Family photo! Me, Kevin and Lola

What a view!

Beautiful flowers in between rocks

Kevin and Lola looking out onto the meadows and forest

After hours of hiking upupup we finally made it! Time for lunch.

Group shot at lunch (thanks Sarah!)

While half of the group was satisfied with the hike and ready to make our way back down, the other half didn’t get quite enough and wanted to push on a little farther. Can you guess what group I was in? 😉

While Judith, Dorothy, Katelyn, Lola and I stayed back to take a short nap, the rest of the group made their way up to the top of Church Dome.

Lola digging a hole (first time I’d ever seen her do that!)

She was trying to get to the cooler soil for her nap, so adorable.

From our spot down below we could see a few ants walking at the top of Church Dome–they looked a lot like the rest of our family (click the photo to zoom in; Sarah, Rob and George on the left, Kevin and Josh on the right).

Once the other part of the group met up with us it was time to make our descent off the mountain. But first…a group photo!

Beautiful.

Although the hike down was much faster, it wasn’t necessarily any easier (let’s just say that a few butts slid down the rocks).

Lola was pretty exhausted too. I had never seen her so tired before! Every few hundred feet she’d make her way to a shady spot and lay down. Poor girl!

Lola’s 198th break

So Kevin, being the great dog dad that he is, decided to help our little girl out by giving her a piggy back ride!

She only stayed on for about 10 minutes but I think it helped the tired pup out a lot

View of Church Dome…I can’t believe that just a couple of hours before we were on that peak!

Happy (and tired and sore) hiker Lisa

Not five minutes after backing George’s truck up on the road his back tires got stuck in the soft dirt. D’oh!

The group trying to get the truck out by digging holes and putting in big rocks behind the tires.

When that didn’t work, George had the whole group (minus me and Lola) pile in the back of the truck to weigh it down and hopefully get the tires to grip the dirt to move on out. That didn’t work either! So the last resort was hooking Rob’s Ford Escape SUV up to the front of George’s truck and with luck we were able to pull the truck out of the dirt! None of us could believe that the little Escape could pull out such a huge truck but hallelujah it worked!

No one can say that we didn’t deserve a nice dip in the creek by the time we got back to the campsite and that’s exactly what we did. We can’t say that the creek wasn’t any cleaner after we got out, but at least we were. 🙂

Dinner was massive burritos and dessert was peach/blueberry cobbler (well-deserved after our long day of hiking!)

Judith serving up the cobbler…yum!!

Our last sunset

And we spent our last evening around the campfire enjoying each other’s company…

Joshua, Katelyn and Judith

Joshua, bright fire, and grey skies

Writing with light in the dark–that’s me writing out “Taylor Creek” using a flashlight (I was writing in cursive backwards while Kevin took the photo, see our “Earth Hour” post with other photos like this here)

Sunday 7/31

The rain finally decided to make its full appearance on Sunday morning as we were packing all our stuff up. Although it didn’t make for a very pleasant last morning (especially since we were trying to keep all our junk dry while packing it up) I’m just happy it otherwise stayed dry the whole week!

On the drive home…until next time Taylor Creek!

Trip to Long Beach!

Posted by Lisa On July 22nd, 2011

Thursday, June 16

That afternoon I set off on a week-long trip down to Long Beach. Lola and I jumped in the car and made our way down the too familiar 5 freeway. This time, though, we went a slightly different, more scenic route–we went down the 101 until we hit Gilroy and then took the Pacheco Pass (highway 152) through beautiful winding roads and around the San Luis Reservoir State Recreation Area until we got to the 5. This was at the suggestion of Carleigh and I’m glad we did it since it made the drive a little more bearable. 🙂

Our only real stop on the trip down was at Casa de Fruta (also at the suggestion of Carleigh) which is a huge compound with a farm, train track, pond, and tons of fruit/nuts/gift shops. Lola and I walked around a bit and then quickly jumped back on the road.

Casa de Fruta farmhouse

Casa de Fruta railroad

Casa de Fruta peacock (that Lola desperately wanted to get a hold of, haha!)

Casa de Fruta rusted and beat-up jalopy

Casa de Fruta carousel

Casa de Fruta’s Casa de Choo Choo

Friday, June 17th-Sunday, June 19th

The main reason I went down to Long Beach this weekend was to join my niece’s Girl Scout troop (the one that I used to be a co-leader for) on their trip to Catalina! I took a ton of photos so I’ll make a separate post for the Catalina trip. Stay tuned!

Sunday, June 19th (Father’s Day)

As soon as I got off the Catalina Express I was off to my in-law’s house to celebrate Father’s Day with my dad-in-law George and my brother-in-law Thomas (dad to Sophie). With me to celebrate were my mama-in-law Dorothy, sis-in-law Sarah and her boyfriend Rob, a good family friend Judy and Sophie! Sarah and Rob had just returned from living in New Orleans and it was so so so good to see them. And I realized that I hadn’t seen Sophie (my other niece) since Christmas 2009 (1 1/2 years!) so it was a special treat to see her after all this time. She has grown SO MUCH!

She had lots of fun playing with her buddy and cousin Lola…

Sophie and her sidekick

Sophie gave Thomas an adorable gift: the card was in the shape of a fish that said “Dad, you’re a great catch” and inside was a fishing pole with a bag of fish bait (trail mix) attached. So cute!

Sophie and her Auntie Judy playing with the iPad

Mmm…strawberry shortcake!

On the way back to her mom’s house, just chillin’

Monday, June 20th

The weekend following the Catalina trip was my 10 year high school reunion so I asked my boss if there was any way I could work from home (Long Beach) during the week so that I could stick around for the event and she graciously said yes! Lots of appreciation for my job that week. 🙂

Here’s my view from my laptop each day in my mom’s dining room:

Aren’t those stools so cool?

My work buddy

I worked a full day (with a few walking breaks here and there with Lola) and that night I met up with Brianne & Brian at Open Sesame on 2nd street. I’ve been to this restaurant a handful of times before and I can’t get over how amazing their food is! Their dolmas (grape leaves) leave a little something to be desired but other than that the food is incredible. It was so nice catching up with two of my favorite buddies too! Lots of laughs and story-telling was shared over dinner as well as plans to catch up again during the week.

Tuesday, June 21st

Vacation detour: I actually came down with a really painful health issue so took part of the day off work to visit the doctor’s office. After seeing the doctor, though, I didn’t feel any more confident about the condition and had to anticipate another doctor’s visit the following day in Norwalk (with Dorothy) and then another doctor’s visit again in Norwalk on Thursday (with my mom). After being bounced around between doctor’s offices and feeling scared because I didn’t really know what was going on luckily the issue cleared up on Friday evening and the rest of the trip was spent much more comfortably. The main lessons I learned from this experience: advocate for yourself with the doctors and receptionists/phone operators and read any online forums about the issue that you can find! That’s where I read about the at-home treatment that ended up helping with the problem.

After going to the doctor’s on Tuesday I spent the rest of the afternoon resting up so that I could meet up with my brother Derek that evening. We went first to visit my lovely Auntie Tina which included a couple of hours of hilarity (both by Derek and Tina and even the nurses at the front desk!)

Tina and her favorite nephew

Wednesday, June 22nd

Like I mentioned earlier, Dorothy accompanied me to my second doctor’s appointment and after getting the run around again we spent the rest of the afternoon/evening together. We checked out a couple of new (to me) scrapbook stores and then spent a couple of hours just hanging out in the garden with Lola and talking. I was invited to dinner with her and George and I had an amazing shrimp and asparagus pasta…mmm, mmm, mmm I can taste it right now! 🙂

Thursday, June 23rd

My mom accompanied me to my third doctor’s appointment and we then spent the rest of the afternoon/evening together. She took me to Ranchito, an AMAZING Mexican supermarket in Westminster. At first we went there specifically to get a giant fresh squeezed juice but then ended up buying a bunch of food and inviting Derek over for dinner at my mom’s house. This supermarket is incredible–they have an entire counter dedicated to the jugos naturales (natural juices). There are a few options available to order–I got the Azteca with orange, spinach, nopal (cactus), pineapple and honey and it was SOOOO GOOD! My mom got the Vampiro with pineapple, orange, beet, celery and apple which was good but a little too beety for our taste. The woman behind the counter throws the entire piece of fruit or veggie into the juicer so no nutrients are lost. I wish there was a Ranchito by our place in Oakland! We’re on a mission to find something like this since it sure beats Jamba Juice!

The huge counter dedicated to fresh juices!

Take yer pick!

Mmm, mmm, mmm!

Although I didn’t buy anything from the meat counter I couldn’t help but take a photo of the HUGE chicharron–they fried up the entire skin of a pig! Crazy and so gross at the same time, hahah.

Friday, June 24th

I had intended to go to my friend Alison’s yoga class in Irvine at Yoga Shakti (she teaches a few times a week, check her out if you’re in the Irvine area!!) but my health issue became extremely painful that day so I slept for a long time that afternoon. When the pain didn’t subside I finally followed the advice on the online forum posts I had found and after taking a second nap the issue had begun to clear up! Again, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of doing your own research and trying to heal yourself naturally.

That night I met up with Dorothy, Brianne and Brian at Judy’s house for some dinner and games. We used to go over to Judy’s to kick each other’s butts on Wii and hadn’t done that in a long time so we had a blast.

Saturday, June 25th

I was so happy that I was down in Long Beach for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Manazar Gamboa Community Theater! I was honored to have known Manazar through my mom (he was my mom’s writing mentor at the Homeland Cultural Center in LB, directly behind the new theater) and it was so perfect that I was able to attend such a wonderful event honoring his life 10 years after his death. Here’s a Press-Telegram article which talks about Manazar’s life and the theater (and my mama’s even quoted!)

Beautiful mural of Manazar on the side of the theater

The entrance

The program–see my mom’s name? 🙂

My beautiful mama

Mom with some of the Homeland staff

The growing crowd

African drummers

A very cool belly dancer who shook her hips while balancing a sword on her head. Now that’s talent.

My mom reading Manazar’s biography and two of his poems

She is at home in the spotlight!

Right after my mom finished talking I had to take off to meet Carleigh at the Long Beach airport! She flew down for the day so that we could go to our high school reunion together. It was lunch time so we rushed off to Open Sesame (yes, the same Open Sesame I went to on Monday) for some more amazing Mediterranean food. Then we took a stroll around Colorado Lagoon with the Lola-meister. It as such a beautiful day and I had never walked around the entire lagoon before!

Carleigh and Lola

We dropped Lola off and went to get our nails done for the event. I’ve only gotten a pedicure a handful of times and I always forget how nice they are! Then we went home to get dressed for our reunion!

Me and Carleigh all dolled up

The reunion was interesting but definitely not the highlight of my week in Southern California. It was nice reconnecting with a couple of folks and I just hope that more people attend our 15 or 20 year reunion. 🙂

Sunday, June 26th

Carleigh, Lola and I packed ourselves into the car and after a quick breakfast at Grounds we were on the road! 7 hours later we pulled into San Francisco to unpack and ready ourselves for another week in the city.

Sarah’s visit

Posted by Lisa On April 25th, 2011

Kevin’s sister Sarah came up for a shotgun trip on April 10 and it was so good seeing her even if it was for only a few hours! We met up with her and her friend Dave who lives in SF at Toad Hall bar in the Castro for some drinks (and a few new friends as well).

Beautiful flower on our stroll to the bar

After throwing down a few drinks on such a lovely Sunday afternoon we took a quick cab ride to Chilango (yes, the same Mexican restaurant Kevin and I had gone to just the week before with my mom and Steve–it’s THAT good!)

Dave and Sarah

Me and Kev

D & S

We ended the evening afternoon at Blackbird bar for some final swigs. 🙂

Beautiful mural on our walk back to the car

Even though the trip was short and sweet, we had a blast catching up with Sarah since her move back to LA from New Orleans!

The Edmonds family visit

Posted by Lisa On October 22nd, 2010

The second week of August brought us the entire Edmonds family for a visit. Unfortunately the circumstances weren’t the happiest as we were gathering for Kevin’s Grandma Margie’s funeral in Half Moon Bay (see earlier post about her life here).

Dorothy and Thomas flew up Friday morning 8/13 and we spent some time driving through the Presidio. We also spent a bit of time in the lobby and gift shop of the Walt Disney Family Museum. We were going to go into the museum but for $20 a person (!) we decided to just explore the huge lobby and gift store instead.

That night George flew in and we had an amazingly delicious dinner at Zante Pizza. The Edmonds family were pleasantly surprised by how delicious Indian pizza can be and I think we made fans out of them (or was that the huge Taj Mahal beers talking?? 😉 ).

On Saturday morning 8/14 we joined the rest of the Edmonds family (Judith, Sarah, Joshua and Katelyn, Uncle Dave and Aunt Ellen, and Uncle Bob) in Half Moon Bay for Margie’s funeral. It was a foggy day but it seemed fitting for the occasion. It was so peaceful and quiet at the grounds and the only sounds we could hear were the few birds chirping in the area in between those who said words at the grave site.

Margie’s beautiful urn and American flag

The peaceful grave site

Kevin reading a poem

The program that Kevin made

After the funeral we all caravaned back up to Daly City for brunch at the Boulevard Cafe (at the recommendation of Carleigh). We had a really great time spending time together and reminiscing about the amazing life that Grandma Margie lived.

Me and my adorable nephew and niece

Dorothy showing Joshua some family photos from the scrapbook I made

Dorothy saying a few words

Katelyn, Dorothy, Judith, Sarah, Joshua and Thomas

After spending the afternoon at our apartment catching up and soaking up the sun that decided to come out we went out to dinner at Balompie (our favorite Salvadorean pupuseria) and once again the food was a hit!

Some of the creepiest statues ever! These are in front of a house just a block up from Balompie. Creepy!!

So of course Joshua took this as a photo opp 😉

Like father, like son!

Noogie time!

The girls

We then decided to ditch our cars and take the F train from the Castro to Fisherman’s Wharf. We took a quick stop at the Ferry Building and then made our way to Ghirardelli Square for some late night sundaes.

Katelyn, Judith and Josh on the F

The Ferry Building in all its glory 😉

A girl’s bathroom photo opp of course! 🙂 That’s me, Dorothy, Judith and Katelyn in the reflection of the hand dryer.

(Almost the) whole family on the F! It was kind of funny riding this with them as I ride this every day to and from work.

George and Dorothy’s choice: banana split!

Kevin, the anti ice cream guy, chose to enjoy a nice big coke. Sarah and I split a dark chocolate mint sundae. AMAZING!!

The next morning we said our goodbyes to Judith, Sarah, Joshua and Katelyn as they made the drive back down to Long Beach. George, Dorothy, Thomas and us then made our way across the bay to eat some Casper’s Hot Dogs in Albany.

Now THAT’S what I call a hot dog.

I had only had them out of the fridge before and I was excited to experience them straight from the restaurant since I’ve had to hear the family rave about them for years! Although the turkey dog I got was tasty, I still am not a huge fan of the crunchy exterior of the hot dog but all the fixins were great nonetheless! Shortly after that we said our goodbyes to Mom and Dad as they caught a plane back to LB and we spent the rest of the day with Thomas (I’ll update in another post shortly).

All in all, even though the circumstances weren’t happy, we had a wonderful family reunion nonetheless and we really enjoyed hosting the family up in our neck of the woods.

Christmas & New Year’s in Long Beach

Posted by Lisa On January 28th, 2010

Kevin and I were fortunate enough to be able to spend a nice chunk of time in Long Beach visiting with family and friends for the holidays. Kevin was out of school early so flew down a week before Christmas. Lola and I held down the fort at home while he was gone and with Jessie drove down at around 2am on Saturday 12/19. That morning we had a delicious breakfast with Kevin at Nick’s Burritos in Seal Beach (haven’t had Nick’s yet? You must!!) And that afternoon we were lucky enough to be in town to celebrate Sophie’s 3rd birthday!

Little miss Fancy Nancy in all her glory!

Me and the birthday girl

After most of the party people left, we decided to introduce Lola to Kevin’s parent’s neighbor’s dogs Tango and Cash, two cute Boxer puppies.

The majority of our time in LB we stayed at my mom’s house. We were a little worried about how Lola and Luke (my family dog) would get along. The first day we took extra precautions when introducing the two of them because we know how territorial Luke can be so we introduced them in the front yard. They immediately were interested in each other and when we took them in the backyard they were sniffing around and sniffing each other and just getting a feel for each other. Luckily, they ended up getting along just fine! They were quite the duo–Luke the small, old fart and Lola the big, rambunctious bundle of energy–but they quickly became close “cousins”. 🙂

The week leading up to Christmas was full of catching up with folks we hadn’t seen in a while. My mom hosted a holiday party on Sun. 12/20 which was a lot of fun. On the 22nd we went out to dinner with our good friends Heather and Gabriel (Heather and I met each other working for the OC Girl Scouts) and we had a delicious meal at Outback Steakhouse and it was even more enjoyable because of the great company we had! My brother Derek and his friend Emily also joined us for some shenanigans that night. 🙂 On the 23rd my mom took me, Jessie and Kevin out for our Christmas gifts…Chinese massages! It was such a nice treat and I wasn’t in quite as much pain afterwards as I was last time we got them! We definitely need to find a place like that here in SF. Christmas Eve we spent with my family–my mom, Jessie, Derek and my Aunt Tina–and we had a really great time making homemade pizzas and sharing gifts. That night intead of staying at my mom’s which we had been doing we stayed the night at Kevin’s parent’s house to be ready for the festivities in the morning!

Christmas Eve (I think I was being forced to watch some weird Japanese movie with Kevin and Thomas, haha…go look it up “Big Man Japan” and you’ll know what I’m talking about)

On Christmas morning Thomas and I drove out to Riverside to go pick up Sophie to celebrate Christmas with the family. It was so great seeing the little munchkin after almost 6 months of not seeing her! The morning and afternoon we spent at Dorothy & George’s house, hanging out, opening gifts, and snacking on holiday treats.

Josh & Sophie showing off their hats

Even Lola got some gifts (thank you Judith, Luke, Joshua and Katelyn)!

Christmas night we went over to our good friend Judy Rotty’s house to celebrate with her and her daughter Lisa. We had a delicious dinner and had a great time playing the Wii.

Sophie distracting Aunt Sarah while playing Rockband

Cowgirl Sophie!

Kevin playing Sophie’s favorite game: Toss up! (though it was more like a workout for Kevin than a game!)

Check out that hair!

One of the best parts of the day was that the Sophienator spent the night at the Edmonds’ house and we did too! It was great being able to see her in her pj’s playing fort with Thomas before bedtime.

The week after Christmas we went to lunch with our good friend Susan (Susan and I also used to work together at the OC Girl Scouts) to Open Sesame in Long Beach. That week we were also reunited with Shige, a student from Japan who lived at my mom’s house a couple of years ago while he was studying English at CSULB. It was SO great to see him after such a long time away! One of the things we had to do while he was in town was make a visit to Island’s Burgers which, when he first came to visit, he called his burger “The #1 burger of my life”. And they sure didn’t disappoint!

Kevin, me, Shige and my mom at Island’s!

Mmmm…burgers…

For New Year’s we took Shige along with us to hang out with friends at JJ’s Karaoke in Tustin! We spent 4 hours singing the night away with Alison, Seth, Brianne, Brian and Allison. After karaoke we went to Allison’s new apartment in Costa Mesa for the countdown!

Creating an awesome music list takes lots of concentration!

Alison and Shige

Alison & me singing our signature song “Proud Mary” by Tina Turner! (We were “rollin’ down the river” at this point in the song!)

About two minutes after the countdown we rushed home to catch a few hours of sleep before our looooong drive back up to SF the next morning (we left the house at 6am!) Overall it was a GREAT trip to Southern California!!

October trip to Long Beach

Posted by Lisa On October 27th, 2009

Kevin and I had a great time back at home and can’t wait to go back!

Thursday 10/15
We landed in Long Beach early Thurs. AM and Kevin’s mom Dorothy came to pick us up. Kevin went to visit some friends at Yamaha where he used to work so Dorothy and I went to lunch together at Grounds Cafe (they have delicious sandwiches!) That afternoon we hung out with Kevin’s family and then that night we went to spend some time with my mom. We went to dinner at Lola’s Mexican Restaurant (they have the BEST cilantro salsa I have ever had and great molé!) and had a lot of fun just spending time with my mama.

Friday 10/16
We took it easy Friday morning and just hung out around my mom’s house visiting with my family’s dog Luke (who’s an old fart now!)

Then my mom took Kevin and I on an adventure in Little Saigon–Chinese massages! My mom’s a big fan of getting these so for our birthdays last year she said she’d take us so we finally made some time to do it! It was quite the experience. We enjoyed it a lot and felt pretty refreshed (and a little beat up! haha) afterwards. We treated ourselves to some Vietnamese noodles and soup afterwards at a small cafe in the shopping center.

After that adventure (thanks again mama!) we went with Kevin’s parents to our nephew’s high school football game to see him perform in marching band. Josh is a sophomore at Mayfair HS and he just started band this year playing the trombone.

Josh is the one in the middle wearing the glasses

We met Kevin’s sister Judith and our neice Katelyn there and had a fun time just hanging out at the football game!

Dorothy, me, Katelyn and Judith

George, Kevin, Dorothy and me

After the halftime show we went to spend some time with our friends Brianne and Brian (the ones who visited us a few weeks ago). We went to eat at Lucille’s BBQ (one of our favorite restaurants!) and then went to hang out at their apartment. We got to meet their little kitty named Eva (sooo cute!) and we watched “I Love You, Man” which was quite entertaining (yay Jobin! haha) We used to spend a ton of time with them because they lived only a few blocks from our old apartment, so it was great feeling like old times again. 🙂

Saturday 10/17

Saturday morning we went to visit my Aunt Tina and had a great visit with her. She’s looking really great and was in the greatest of spirits when we saw her (it’s been a long while since I updated her blog, but in case you’d like to see it here’s the link!) She’s actually going to get her tracheotomy removed soon and will have a wheelchair that she can maneuver on her own in the next couple of months! She’s making amazing progress and I know that she’s only going to continue to improve by great leaps and bounds. 🙂

That afternoon we spent some time at the Edmonds’ home having a barbecue. Dorothy made my favorite ribs ever and it felt like old times again hanging out in the backyard with Dorothy, George and Thomas.

That night came the long anticipated Oktoberfest! We had gone three years in a row while living in LB so wanted to continue the tradition while we were in town. Kim, Frank, Alison, Seth, Brian and Thomas joined us to drink some beer and do the chicken dance. 🙂

Kevin, Brian and Thomas (pretending they’re too cool for the chicken dance!)

Alison & Seth (good friends from Redlands)

Kim & Frank (Kim’s a really close family friend)

Bet you can’t guess what we’re doing…

We’re such German-wannabe nerds!

Me ‘n Kev

The group

Sunday 10/18

Sunday was our last full day in town and Kevin’s family hosted a joint birthday party for our neice Katelyn (her birthday was Oct. 11th) and mine (my birthday was Oct. 20th). Sarah, Rob, Judy, Lisa, Brian, Brianne and the rest of the “regulars” came to celebrate.

Yummy cookies with funny Katelyn-designed quotes written on them

Kevin, Judith and Thomas

Rob & Judy

Katelyn opening up her gift from me and Kevin. We didn’t have any gift bags so we put it in a Christmas stocking. As you can see, she was pretty excited about the stocking itself…then she opened it up to find a pair of socks (haha, gotcha Katelyn!)…then she was pleasantly surprised to see a real gift inside. 🙂

The birthday girls

That night we went back to my mom’s with Brian, Brianne and Thomas and spent time hanging out with my mom. We had to hit the sack early that night because of our early AM flight the next day.

Overall we had a wonderful time back at home! It was a bit strange having not been back in three months, not having a car to drive ourselves around, and thinking of Long Beach as a vacation spot for us after having lived there all of our lives. Thanks to everyone for chauffering us around town and taking the time to hang out with us! When we’re down for Christmas we want to see more of you!! 🙂

Sarah & Rob’s visit (Sept. 25th-27th)

Posted by Lisa On October 11th, 2009

Kevin’s sister Sarah and her boyfriend Rob came up to visit Fri. 9/25-Sun. 9/27. They drove up Friday night and after hanging out a bit we went out to dinner to Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack (a delicious and fun Italian-inspired restaurant whose menu changes occasionally so you can never get tired of their food and it has a great atmosphere that even includes a DJ on the weekends).

On Saturday I unfortunately had to work from 8:30am-2pm in Oakland so Kevin took them sight-seeing and then I met up with them near Golden Gate Park and we headed out to the Golden Gate Bridge to check out the sights. We made a pit stop to Bi-Rite Ice Cream Shop (a MUST for anyone visiting SF!) and enjoyed some honey lavender, raspberry white chocolate swirl, salted caramel, balsamic strawberry, and mint ‘n chip ice cream (are you hungry yet??). Mostly we just drove around the city and it was nice for Kevin and I to be tourists for a change. 🙂 Saturday night we were fortunate enough to be wined and dined by Sarah and Rob who made us a delicious dinner. And then Kevin and I surprised Sarah with some yummy strawberry cupcakes for her birthday.

On Sunday we went to our trusted brunch spot, Zazie, and I think we made two more fans outta them. 🙂 They had to leave that afternoon to drive back down to Southern California so we didn’t have a ton of time to spend with them that day. Overall it was a really great visit from them and we were so happy that they came up to visit!

The big weekend

Posted by Lisa On July 12th, 2009

Hi everyone! I know it seems like forever since I last posted and I know a few people have asked us when our next post will be…since the move I’ve felt more tired than I think I’ve ever felt before. It’s now finally starting to feel “normal”, the past three weeks have been so intense and I’m just happy that we’re finally getting to a normal day-to-day routine.

Packing it all up

On Friday July 3rd I flew back down to Southern California, arriving at the Long Beach airport at 8:30am. Kevin picked me up and we had a wonderful, long-awaited reunion after not seeing each other for two weeks. We immediately went to Budget truck rental to pick up our 16 foot moving truck and then drove over to our apartment. Kevin’s parents, George and Dorothy, were there with us to help pack. Starting at 10am and not stopping (not even for lunch!) until 6pm, we packed up our moving truck. One of our good friends Brian helped us for part of the day as well, but Kevin’s parents were with us from start to finish, they’re real champs! We can’t thank them enough for helping us…we honestly could not have done it without them!!

Kevin, Brian and George trying to figure out how to fit it all in the truck

Kevin and George packing up the office

Me and Kevin taking a break

Party time!

My mom was hosting a going-away party for us that started at 6pm, but we barely finished locking up the truck at that time. So Kevin’s parents rushed home and we attempted to clean ourselves up at our empty apartment and then rushed off to my mom’s house for the festivities! There were so many friends and family there to send us off and it was so great spending time with everyone that night!

My mama, Kevin and me

Claudia and her daughter Isabella (Claudia and I used to work at the Girl Scouts together)

Me and Kevin with two of our closest friends Brian and Brianne

The Redlands gang: Romina, Allison, Monique and Byron

Me and Emily

The Edmonds gang: Sarah and her boyfriend Rob, Thomas and Dorothy

Me and my Uncle Joey (my mom’s brother)

The Millikan gang: Jenny, Neil and Lindsay (and her bundle of joy Addison in the baby carrier)

Our first weekend in SF

We left bright and early on Saturday, July 4th at 5am and drove up the I-5 to our new home. Dorothy and George came along for the trip and the drive was really smooth and it went by pretty quick. We arrived at our new apartment around 1 pm and immediately began unpacking the van. Luckily, it went so much faster taking things out of the truck versus putting them in! After a few hours of unpacking, we decided to go out and get some food to nourish our tired bodies! We went to a yummy Mexican/Salvadorean restaurant on Mission called El Patio and it felt so good to get some food in our systems.

The night view from our street

The next morning we met my sister Jessie and went to one of her favorite breakfast locations called Zasie. It was DELICIOUS! It was a wonderful way to end our long, crazy weekend.

Dorothy, George and Kevin waiting outside Zazie

My unbelievable french toast!

Walking back to the car

Edmonds family send-off dinner

Posted by Lisa On June 20th, 2009

My last night as a Southern Californian was yesterday, so to celebrate the whole Edmonds gang (plus the Rotty family) went out to dinner to Sweetee Thai in Cypress. The food was delicious (as always) and we had a great evening together.

Wor Wonton Soup/Katelyn checking out the menu

Me and Brianne

Joshua & Judith/Thai decorations

Me and Katelyn/Katelyn and her lemon slice pet (don’t ask!)

The whole gang!
(L to R: Thomas, George, Kevin, Dorothy, Joshua, Sarah, Judith, Katelyn, Brian, me, Lisa R., Brianne, Judy)

The surprise of the evening came as we were standing around outside the restaurant. George (Kevin’s dad) started lining everyone up and passed out little pieces of paper. On his count, the whole group started singing a song that George had made up the lyrics to that went to the tune of “California, here we come!” This was such a surprise and one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for us. As you can see in the video below, it was a really great send-off! 🙂

Adventures with Lisa & Kevin