Category Archive: Lola

It’s true what they say about Dolores Park…

Posted by Lisa On March 1st, 2011

Don’t know what I mean?  Well then take a gander at this Dolores Park Bingo card:

On Saturday 2/5 we were lucky enough to spot some of those wonders: speedos, dog crap, ice cream cart, tiny dog, giant dog, tightrope walkers, and the “cold beer, cold water” guy.  Not enough to make a Bingo, but pretty darn close.

Documentation follows:

Giant happy dog (AKA Lola)

Happy yogis doing crazy stunts in the park

Disco Stu walking the tightrope

And an extremely intoxicated anonymous dude making a fool of himself

And there’s this young lad named Kevin being entertained by all of the sights of Dolores Park

Rainy day at Golden Gate Park

Posted by Lisa On March 1st, 2011

On Saturday 1/29 we decided to spend the gloomy, rainy day at Golden Gate Park with Terri, Scott and their two pups Madeira and Ihna!  We had a yummy picnic with meats, cheese and crackers along with fruit, veggies and homemade hummus.  And what picnic in the park could be complete without red wine drunken straight from a plastic mug!  🙂

Terri opening up the bottle of wine

Scott getting some kisses from Ihna

Madeira relaxing after a good round of fetch

Me and Kevin’s mandatory photo opp 😉

After lunch and playing fetch with the dogs we went on a nice little hike on Strawberry Hill.  Terri and Scott are quite the hikers (we went and hiked Mt. Diablo with them back in July, see the post here) and although Strawberry Hill isn’t much of a hike, it was nice to enjoy the fresh air and the gorgeous views amongst the occasional cold raindrop.  🙂

Terri, Scott and the pups after the hike

Concrete slides, Corona Heights, and campfire

Posted by Lisa On February 9th, 2011

On January 15th Kevin, Lola and I went on another city adventure.  Our destination?  The Seward concrete slides!  These 40-foot concrete slides are side-by-side down a pretty steep hill in the middle of the Castro.  We had already gotten our thrills on the Bernal Heights slides (see the post about that visit at this link) and we’d been dying to check out these slides.

Lola, patiently waiting to get out of the car

Seward St. and Douglas St. in the Castro

“No adults unless accompanied by children”…oops.

[Insert holy music here]

It’s a long way down!

Kevin preparing the piece of cardboard he went down the slide on

Watch a video of Kevin and Lola going down the slide (click the link)!

Our beautiful day in the sun wasn’t quite over yet–we then made our way to Corona Heights dog park which we could see from the slides (the hill in the distance in the photo below).

Dangit, we brought the doggie shampoo and everything.

A gorgeous pit bull we made friends with

That night we had Carleigh, Scott and Bailey over for some homemade (from scratch!) pizza and a campfire!  Perfect way to end the day.


Day trip to Muir Beach

Posted by Lisa On January 20th, 2011

On Sunday1/16 Carleigh, Scott, Bailey, Kevin, Lola and I piled into Carleigh’s little Jetta and took a day trip to Muir Beach for an exciting day in the sun!  We had every  intention of spending our day at Muir Woods but were sad to find out that John Muir hated dogs the park didn’t allow pups.  So we drove another five minutes down the road to beautiful Muir Beach and were not disappointed!

It’s a short two minute trail walk to the beach–the beach itself is expansive with lots of room for friends, families and doggies to play around.  We saw some folks had put up tents to spend the whole day there and Kevin and I would love to go back and do the same some time.  The water was a nice, cool temperature (not ice cold like the beaches in SF) and it was pretty shallow water for a good 40 feet or so.

Bailey showing his mama some loving

Lola, the happy camper!

Bailey resting up for the big day on Scott’s shoulder

Lola, the helpful navigator

Muir Beach on a gorgeous, sunny day!

Lola playing with another doggie in the water

Some random kid with a stick

Some random pup in a tent

Bailey boy

After a half hour or so of hanging out on the beach, we decided to take a hike to Pirate’s Cove.  We climbed up and up and up some very steep hillsides and when we thought we were finally at Pirate’s Cove, we found out we weren’t even half way there!  So we settled for a view of Pirate’s Cove off a beautiful cliff.

Kev, Carleigh, Scott and the pups

Carleigh switched spots with me so I could get in on the photo action

View of the beach we had just climbed up from

Kevin, Lola and I decided to walk out to that ledge for a better view

Can you see Carleigh & Scott?  They’re that tiny spec in the middle of the photo.

Kevin and Lola on the ledge

Lola then ran up the hill and we sat down for a photo opp

Carleigh enjoying the views after the treacherous hike!

On our way back we came across two women on horseback with their dog–Lola, turns out, is not the biggest fan of horses.

Scott, Carleigh and Kevin at the bottom of the hill ready to grab some lunch!

Sunset over Bernal Hill

Posted by Lisa On January 19th, 2011

Last Friday, Kevin, Lola and I made a trip up to Bernal Hill for some fresh air and to watch the sunset.

From our front door we look directly across the freeway to Bernal Hill, so it was cool seeing our house from the top of the hill.

“Hillbilly Dental: We Loan you our Toothbrush”

Lola looking regal

There’s our house, in the wee little red circle!

Walking up the hill

Me and my favorite pup

I love this girl.

One of my favorite photos ever.

There’s the hill we were just on, this photo was taken from our front door

Christmas: The SF Edition

Posted by Lisa On January 8th, 2011

We were back in town for Christmas Eve–Kevin had to work but I was lucky to be able to spend part of the afternoon with the Julian family who were in town for the holidays visiting their son Brandon (he lives in San Bruno). The Julians are really close friends of my family’s who we spent Thanksgiving with in 2009 (see post at this link). Me and Lola met up with the gang in Golden Gate Park at Stow Lake, one of my favorite parts of the park. We walked all around the lake and up Strawberry Hill for a good hour or so–it was such a nice, crisp day, perfect for a walk in the park!

Diane, Dave and Lola

Just as I was taking a photo of this squirrel, Lola decides to…

Jump in mud. Gross.

Playing fetch with Brandon

Me and my second mom Diane

After saying farewell (we were going to spend Christmas Day with them) we ran back home to pick up Kevin and made our way to Carleigh & Scott’s place for Christmas Eve dinner.

The fixins

Failed photo attempt #1–Totally cut out Scott, oops!

Not-so-failed photo attempt, but not a great photo overall. Oh well! We were hungry and didn’t have any more patience to try it a third time. 😉

Bailey got Lola a squeaky duck for Christmas! Surprisingly, she’s still got the duck but it looks nothing like it did on day one (photos soon).

Pecan pie, straight from Carleigh’s kitchen…mmm!

Carleigh & Scott bought us a new game for Christmas as well called Bezzerwizzer (a trivia game) and we had a good time playing although trying to remember the name of the damn game was difficult because you were supposed to call it out occasionally and none of us could ever remember what the name of the game was, haha.

Pretty much sums up the whole evening!

Christmas day we were able to sleep in and enjoyed a yummy pancake breakfast, just the two of us. Jessie joined us mid-morning and we video-chatted with the Edmonds family to do our annual sibling gift exchange (thanks Rob for the AWESOME vase and New Orleans messenger bag!!) Jessie and I went in on a gray pea coat for Kevin which he absolutely loves and I got myself a little surprise (that I’m sure most of you already know about) that I’ll write a whole post about soon. Chatting with the family was fun–having just been in Long Beach with family it wasn’t as difficult spending Christmas day away from everyone.
That afternoon we met up with the Julians again at an apartment in the Castro where Brandon was house sitting for dinner, drinks and games (Catch Phrase). Lots of food and lots of wine was consumed (no photographic proof but you’ll just have to take my word for it).

Diane, Brandon and Jessie (the three blondies)

Jessie…being Jessie 😉

Photo bomb!

“Act natural”–Dave, I guess, was the only one who follows directions 😉

We ended the evening being treated to a movie by Dave and Diane–True Grit! Most of us LOVED it (Jess wasn’t too much of a fan) and it was a great way to end the Christmas season! 🙂

Christmas: The Long Beach edition

Posted by Lisa On January 7th, 2011

One of the biggest perks to working for a university (me) = two weeks off at Christmas!

One of the biggest bummers to working for business that is busiest during the holidays (Kev) = not able to spend Christmas day with family 🙁

BUT we were able to finagle a few days before Christmas for a quick, shotgun trip down south. We decided to surprise Kevin’s mom Dorothy so she was the only one in our families that didn’t know we were coming down. We had a good week or so of talking up how sad it was that we weren’t able to come down at all for the holidays…if only she knew…hehehehe.

Monday 12/20
After Kevin got off of work that afternoon we jumped in the car and made our way down to Long Beach. We got in around 1am Tuesday morning and after quickly saying hi to my mom, we hit the sack to get ready for our big surprise the next morning.

Tuesday 12/21
Kevin’s dad George helped with the surprise telling Dorothy that he had a doctor’s appointment that morning that he wanted her to go to with him. So our plan was for Kevin to call Dorothy on her cell phone and have her on the phone when we knocked on the door. Here are two videos of Operation: Surprise Dorothy for Christmas 2010! 😉

Kevin trying to make small talk with Dorothy as we prepare to get out in the rain and knock on the door
As you can see, we didn’t plan it out as well as we had hoped but we surprised her nonetheless! If you look closely in the background you can see Lola tear through the house running after their cat Sebastian! Hahah, poor thing!

Thomas was there and Judith, Joshua and Katelyn came over for a yummy breakfast of waffles, french toast, and bacon.


They were enthralled with the story Kevin was telling.

A little gift exchange…

Katelyn showing off her new shirt
Josh showing off his new shirt
Dorothy and George fighting over who gets to open the gift 😉
The bicycle glasses we got them!
Family photo! Kevin, me, Katelyn, Joshua and Judith (and Lola too)

We spent the whole day with the family and enjoyed a yummy spaghetti dinner together too.

Lola relaxing at the Edmonds’ home with Kevin

Wednesday 12/22
We met up with Thomas and his girlfriend Ashley for breakfast at The Potholder Cafe in Long Beach.




That afternoon we spent a few hours hanging out with my mom (like old times!) and then met up with my brother Derek, our friend Brian, my mom’s boyfriend Steve and the Chinese student living with my mom while he studies at CSULB Jeremy for dinner at Lucille’s BBQ (me and Kevin’s favorite chain restaurant!)

Lola and her new roommate Luke

Thursday 12/23
We woke up early so that me, Kevin and my mom could go to Westminster for our annual Chinese massage (annual for me and Kev, more often for my mom!) It was EXACTLY what we needed and we enjoyed it so much. My mom asked the guys to snap a few photos of us for proof, haha!

Kevin, the mummy
My mom and me

We then went to fill up our tummies with some yummy Chinese food at Seafood Cove #1.



That afternoon around 4pm we jumped back in our car and made our way back to San Francisco so that Kevin could be at work the next morning at 6am.

We were in LB right when the crazy rain was happening, but the clouds parted for us on the last day and the sun poked through, seemingly taunting us and begging us to stay! 😉

Pre-Christmas festivities

Posted by Lisa On January 7th, 2011

We had lots of pre-Christmas festivities leading up to the big day–here are some of the highlights!

Cookie Exchange party
I was invited to my boss’ Cookie Exchange party. I had to bring 6 dozen cookies (or the equivalent–I brought 6 pounds of Mexican Chocolate Fudge!)–I shared 1 dozen at the party and then got to take home 5 dozen cookies! Yowzas. There was a taste contest too and my fudge won Most Delicious! Not bad for my first time trying to make fudge. It really did turn out amazing–the recipe is at this link if you’re interested (super easy!)

I made one version with sea salt…mmm!!!

Decorating Carleigh & Scott’s Christmas tree
This year Carleigh got her first Christmas tree ever! Since we don’t have the room in our apartment to put up a tree, I let them borrow some of our ornaments and we enjoyed decorating the tree, eating dinner and baking cookies together–and you know we had to include a doggie photo shoot (with doggie costumes and everything!)

The final product
Lola gave Bailey a pair of antlers for Christmas and they enjoyed modeling them for us
The antlers didn’t last long, as you can imagine…

Christmas card photo shoot
This year we decided to join the club and send out Christmas cards and I knew I had to take a cute photo of Lola to include. I wore her out at the park playing fetch so that she would wear her (homemade, bootleg) antlers and not fuss with them. I posed her on a red blanket on our bed with a little “Reindeer Food” bag I’ve had a few years and -voila!- adorable Christmas card. 😉

Dinner with the Dobsons
Jessie came into town for dinner with the Dobson family–the family she used to nanny for and that we had gotten close to in the process. They’ve got four boys under the age of 10 so any family gathering is entertaining when the Delmar girls join the mix! 😉 Lots of laughs (and lots of wine) made for a wonderful evening.

Dog pile Jessie!

Lola’s special delivery
Among all of the wonderful Christmas cards we received in the mail, there was one that was just addressed to “Lola Edmonds” and we were delighted to find an edible Christmas card for her made out of rawhide! She LOVED the card and thoroughly enjoyed tearing it to pieces. 😉
Thanks Judith and Dorothy!


Christmas in San Jose
Jessie invited us and our friend Lisa to enjoy some Christmas spirit San Jose style.

Mars getting some well-deserved attention…


Festive wear was donned…

First, a hooping show by Jess…


Then a drive downtown…


Nothing says “Christmas cheer” quite like a frightening 8 foot rat

Ice skating…

Not only do I suck at ice skating, I can never lace up my own shoes! Thanks Kev for tying my shoes for me. 🙂

Jess showing off her moves
The only time I wasn’t hugging the wall was when Kevin took my hand. Reminder to self: Save the $20 ticket and shoe rental and just watch from the sidelines next time! haha

Action shot! This picture cracks me up!





Christmas in the Park…




And to end the night? A bottle of champagne at Jessie’s wine bar, Enoteca la Storia in Los Gatos…


All it takes to get Kevin to smile in photos is a little bubbly, apparently. 😉


If our pre-Christmas festivities were any indication of how Christmas itself would actually be, we were in for a good time! 🙂

North Beach, Coit Tower & Levi’s Plaza

Posted by Lisa On November 9th, 2010

Now that work isn’t crazy busy anymore I’ve made a goal to get out of the office once a day and go for at least a 30-40 minute walk. Generally I just walk down Embarcadero but that started to get boring so I looked up how close Coit Tower was and it turns out it’s only a 15 minute walk to the base of the staircase. Twice last week I walked up to Coit Tower and was amazed by how beautiful (and strenuous!) the walk was.

A random, funny mural at the base of the staircase: “No Dogs. Toy Poodles Okay.“

Middle of the staircase (total number of stairs going up? 358. And yes, I counted them.

Gorgeous flowers in someone’s front yard–anyone know the name of them??

Filbert Steps

I would LOVE to live here, what a cute little “street”!

Someone’s adorable front yard

Almost there!

Thar she blows!

After raving about my lunch-time adventures, on Kevin’s day off on Saturday we decided to take advantage of one of the city’s last sunny days and go explore North Beach for brunch and then hike up to Coit Tower.

We really wanted to go to Mama’s Cafe for brunch but the line was ridiculous and we were starving so we Yelp app’d across Curly’s Coffee Shop. It didn’t look like too much on the outside…

But it ended up being a yummy breakfast spot! And turn’s out it’s a Japanese diner as well–interesting mix dontcha think?

Walking through North Beach we saw them painting over my favorite mural (see photo in old blog post here) to celebrate the SF Giants’ recent World Series win. I guess I’m okay with them painting over my favorite mural…


With bellies full and Lola in tow, we started off on the Barbary Coast Trail (aka Stockton Street) to the base of the tower (never really knew what those street markers were for all this time, but looked it up and you can see the info. at this link if you feel so inclined).

We took a slightly different path down the hill and saw some more really neat homes and yards.



Kinda funny, kinda creepy at the same time.

We ended up at Levi’s Plaza which I pass by everyday on the way to and from work and hadn’t spent much time there before. Lola was in HEAVEN with the grassy hills and the shallow river and since there weren’t many people around we let her off leash to explore.




I actually got a close-up of this fly! Not the prettiest insect, I’ll admit, but I thought it was cool that I got this shot before it buzzed off.

Video of Kevin and Lola playing around

Like a couple of kids

Posted by Lisa On November 8th, 2010

Last Wednesday as I worked from home and Kevin had the day off we took a quick little lunch break trip to Bernal Heights mini-park slides that Kevin had heard about on SF Secrets (if you’re ever in need of a good laugh, watch some of this guy’s videos, they’re hilarious!)

We were not disappointed!

There she is, in all her 40 feet of glory (or so someone online says, not sure if they got out there with their measuring tape or not…)

Lola racing Kevin up the hill

Kevin and his partner in crime

Me and my Lola girl

Me in front of the camera for a change

My oh-so-handsome husband

And to finish off…a video of Kevin and Lola going down the slide (if you watch closely you’ll notice Kevin lands on his rear at the bottom but he was pretty smooth with a quick save. And he thought no one would notice, ha!)

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