Monthly Archives: January 2010

Thomas and Joshua’s visit

Early in the morning on t he first day of the new year we jumped in our packed car and made the drive back up to SF. Kevin’s brother Thomas and our nephew Joshua followed us in Thomas’ car to spend the weekend in the city with us! The trip hadn’t been planned more than a few days so it was a great way to end our trip.

Kevin and Thomas playing with Lola during a pit stop off the 5

After hanging out at our apartment for a bit we decided to head out to Fisherman’s Wharf (my favorite spot in the city…yeah, not really! haha) for some exploring.

I have to admit, it was nice seeing Fisherman’s Wharf at night
We were entertained for about 3 minutes by “Captain Jack Spareribs Pirate Show” (as you can see, we had to practically tear Thomas away from the show, haha)
We made another visit to the Musee Mecanique (antique penny arcade) and Josh made a little discovery (this photo was aunt/uncle inspired! 😉 )

For dinner we wanted to go to Goood Frikin Chicken or Balompie but unfortunately both were closed because it was New Year’s Day. So we ended up going to a Mexican/Salvadorean restaurant called El Patio in the Mission which had great food but horrible service unfortunately. Guess we should’ve read the reviews first, about half of them had the same complaint as us (click link above)! At least it was good food!

On Sat. 1/2 we headed out for more sight-seeing. We made our first stop at Buena Vista Park in the Haight which Kevin and I had passed many times and always said we’d visit so that day was good as any!

The boys race to the top of the staircase

Thomas, the victor

And of course the most fun the three of them had was in the kiddie playground!






After driving through some neighborhoods and popular spots we decided to get out of the city for a change so across the Golden Gate Bridge we went! We spent the afternoon in Sausalito, a really cute town just across the Bay.



Josh contemplating the meaning of life (or something along those lines, I’m sure…)



After Sausalito, Kevin and Thomas wanted to drive to Point Reyes Lighthouse but met some resistance with me because it was such a long drive and we had already driven 8 hours the day before! So we settled for a visit to Fairfax, a cute little town in Marin County. We spent some time on the major strip on Broadway checking out the cute shops and sipping on some coffee/hot chocolate/tea/coke (whatever our choice drink was 😉 ).

Thomas and Josh left first thing Sunday morning to make the trip back to Long Beach. Their visit was such a great way to start the new year!

Christmas & New Year’s in Long Beach

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!!

We’re back!!

Happy new year!!! Okay, so we’re now one month into 2010 and it’s been well over a month since my last post. After a great 2 week trip to Long Beach life has been nothing short of crazy around here so I apologize for not keeping our “fans” up-to-date with all that we’ve been up to! I’ll be updating all of you wonderful folks on what we’ve been keeping ourselves busy with and hopefully be caught up by this weekend.

Thanks so much for visiting!!!

Love,
Lisa (oh yeah, and Kevin too 🙂 )

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