My Birthday Weekend - The Big 26

Well, I'm now closer to 30 than 20...bummer! Heehee. No worries about my age, though, because I still feel and act like I'm 20...and probably always will. :)
I had a lot of fun during my birthday weekends. I say weekends, plural, because my birthday fell on a Monday and I had to work, so I celebrated the weekend before AND the weekend after. How spoiled am I?! The weekend of the 18th, Scott surprised me by inviting our friends Robert and Liza down from Sacramento on Friday night. He cooked us all filet mignon and twice baked potatoes. Then the four of us went to "Date Movie" at a theater close to my apartment. We knew it would be really silly and retarded, but we just wanted a laugh. It was pretty dumb but we definitely got some good laughs in.
Saturday morning we woke up and drove down the coast to Monterey Bay - about 1 1/2 hours south of SJ. My surprise birthday present from Scott was supposed to be a day out kayaking and then a grape seed bath and massage at a spa in one of the nice hotels on the beach. It was a great idea, but it turned out to be a little too cold, so we decided to go to plan B and wait until later this summer when it's warmer. Plan B turned out to be fun too, of course. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which is supposed to be the best aquarium in Cali. It was really cool and the jellyfish exhibits were awesome. There were a lot of kids around that day, though, because it was a 3-day weekend for them (President's Day) and after awhile, we got tired of the kids and decided we needed a grown up break from them. So we headed over to one of the sports bars on Cannery Row (the main street next to the ocean) and had some drinks and played pool. We headed home later that night and relaxed. Unfortunately I had to work all day Sunday, so my nice weekend was cut short. But I guess it was busy season and I'm lucky I got one whole day off.
This past weekend, I took Friday off of work and celebrated being done with busy season (which officially ended for me on Wed. 2/22) by catching up on all the errands that I wasn't able to do for the past couple of months...you know - laundry, taxes, vacuuming, cleaning, shopping. On Saturday, Scott and I got all dressed up nice and went to the Lion King Broadway show in SJ at the Theater of Performing Arts. I bought the tickets before Christmas and we were finally able to go. It was great! I loved it (again - I got to see it in LA a few years ago, thanks to my aunt Salli)! Scott really liked it too...the performances, costumes and stage designs were amazing. If this show ever comes to a place near you, definitely drop the money and go see it! It's well worth it.

New Year's Weekend of Crazy in Tahoe

Well, all I can say is "we survived"! New Year's weekend in South Lake Tahoe was fun but a big adventure to say the least. Here is the story of our adventure...
To start off, as soon as I got off the plane in SF from Bozeman, I caught an airport shuttle to my apartment in SJ and immediately started unpacking all my luggage and presents onto my living room floor so that I could repack the few clean clothes that I had left. Once I had repacked, I loaded up my car and drove back to SF to stay at Scott's apartment. We got up on Friday morning and packed up my car with Scott's stuff, our friend Sara, and her stuff. Then we drove up to Sacramento to drop off Sara and pick up two other friends, Robert and Liza, who live up there. The four of us actually crammed all of our stuff and ourselves into my little Honda Civic! Off we drove to Tahoe with the rest of the traffic going there for the popular weekend. The drive up wasn't so bad, timewise, except for the fact that it had been raining ever since Scott and I got off the plane. We got to Tahoe Friday night and checked into the Super 8...which was the only semi-cheap hotel with an open room for the weekend. It still cost us $205 a night and it must have been the crappiest room there. Oh well, we wanted to go someplace we'd never been. Needless to say, the rain didn't stop all night or morning. Before it was even 11pm, the field in the grass courtyard of the hotel was a lake and some of the bottom floor rooms on the ends were starting to flood a little. Unfortunately, we also had a bottom floor room. We were at the casinos that night, drinking for free, so by the time we got back to the hotel at 3:30am, we were too tired to worry about the rivers of rain flowing past the car parked at the side of the building. By the time we woke up at 10am, our room had started to flood and the water was halfway across. An hour later, when we finally had all our luggage repacked and everything off the floor, there was a good 3 inches of water in the whole room. We opened the door where my car was parked and more water came gushing in. We waded through the ice water that was up to our calves and repacked all our stuff into my car. It was soooo freezing! It was basically just melted snow water! I was so afraid my little car wouldn't make it out of the parking lot and would float away and be ruined. We slowly drove out of the large lake and made it to safety on a higher up main road.
We were dirty, wet, hungry and needed some food in a dry place but IHOP was totally full of people. So we headed over to the only place with breakfast that didn't have a long waiting list - McDonalds. We had brunch, changed our wet clothes, and tried to heal our frozen toes. Good thing was, we got all our money for the room refunded and made it out OK. Bad thing was, we had no room to stay in and both highways back to Sacramento were closed due to flooding, downed powerlines, downed trees, etc. So we drove to the nearest hotel that looked dry and safe, the Holiday Inn and made Scott go in to flirt with the lady at the desk to get us a room. We finally got a room (the only one left because of a cancellation) after a couple hours of wandering around the board shops around Tahoe. It had finally stopped raining mid-afternoon and instead started snowing. All the rivers and lakes disappeared and it was really beautiful.
After we finally got a room and were able to take showers, we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. Whew! After that whole episode, we got rested and had a good New Year's Eve down at the casinos a couple blocks away. We met another group of friends at Caesars and got more free drinks gambling 10 cents at a time on $5. :) Hey, we are all pretty low on money and it was cheap that way. We never got to go into any of the clubs because we didn't want to pay $100-150 cover charges just to get in. It was pretty mellow for a New Year's in Tahoe, but we had more fun when we tried to leave the next day. Because of the disaster, many people opted not to stay any longer and since no one could have left the day before, everyone left the same day. It took us 2 hours just to get from one side of South Lake Tahoe to the edge of Tahoe - only 6 miles! It took a total of 6 hours to go 90 miles over the windy mountain road behind hundreds of other cars. We cheered if we went more than 20 miles an hour. How sad! We stayed another night with Robert and Liza in their apartment in Sacramento (more specifically Folsom). We made dinner, vegged out on movies, and thanked the Lord that we made it safe and dry. I guess the storm was pretty bad in other parts of Northern Cali too, because parts of Sacramento and Napa Valley got declared a disaster area by the Governator.

Christmas in Montana

Scott and I finally got to go home this Christmas. We were home for 2 weeks and it was so relaxing and fun. It was so great to see our families that we love so much! I spent a few days in Helena with his family and he spent lots of time with me and my family in Belgrade/Bozeman. Although we didn't get to see all of our friends while we were back, we got to see a lot of them. I got to see two of my best friends and their cute kids. Scott and I got to see his brother and sister-in-law's newborn and young daughter. So I got my kid/baby fix as well as getting to see plenty of family. Scott's mom was very glad to see him as it's been a whole year since she saw him last. My mom was happy to see me as well partly because I'm her baking partner! We cooked and baked up a storm while I was home! As usual we overdid it on the food and treats. I swear I gained atleast 8 pounds...which part of my New Year's resolution is to work it off in volleyball. I'm still working on it. :)
All in all though, it was a wonderful vacation away from the city and work. Can't wait for next year already! Maybe next year we will be able to have a real sized tree.

Christmastime around San Jose

There's a cute little park in the middle of San Jose where they always set
up holiday and special event stuff. Every December, they have a big Christmas display set up. It's really cute with lots of lit up trees that have been decorated by various groups around San Jose: school classes, charities, families, businesses. They also have lots of sets and displays with holiday themes like Santa, snowmen, skating bears, ginger bread men, and giant presents.

Across the street they have carnival rides, a huge ferris wheel, and even an ice skating rink where you can skate in between the palm trees. In case you can't see the palm trees in the picture, they are the skinny sticks holding up the lights. I always thought it would be cool to ice skate in a place where tropical plants grew. All I know is...you don't have to get a pair of ice skates that are 2 sizes too big so that you can wear 3 pairs of socks so your feet won't freeze!

There are also various fake snow machines that spew white flakes of soap all over. The kids dance around and yell, "Look mommy, snow!" I think it's hilarious, as most of the kids have never seen snow. Unless, of course their parents are rich and can afford ski lessons in Tahoe. That's one thing I miss during Christmas...snow. I don't know so much like the cold - San Jose weather is wonderful - but having no snow around the holidays is just plain weird. Good thing I get to go home for Christmas - I'm leaving this Friday (the 16th) and will be home for 2 weeks. :) Can't wait to see snow and especially my family and friends!

Pictures around San Fran

Here are some random pictures of various places Scott and I have visited around the Bay area this summer and fall. We are keeping track of all the cool and beautiful places we've been to so that we have good places to show people when they come and visit. ;)

Thanksgiving at my apartment

Happy Turkey Day! I had a nice relaxing, long weekend with some Montana friends. Me, Scott, Robert (one of Scott's best friends from Helena), Robert's girlfriend Liza (from Fargo), and Sara (another of Scott's friends from Helena) all cooked up a storm in my little apartment kitchen. Robert bought a 20lb turkey for the 5 of us! Needless to say, we ate a lot of food. We cooked the turkey using a really good Martha Stewart recipe and it turned out great. Thanks Martha! I made my usual favorite sides (mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole) and pumpkin pie. Sara brought the yummy homemade cranberry sauce and Scott made the gravy from scratch that was awesome. I love cooking and baking and it was sooooo nice to cook for some one other than myself.

After Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, we used most of the weekend playing lots of fun games and watching movies. We also took a tour of the Winchester Mystery House (which is about 6 blocks away from my apartment) and then went window shopping at a ritzy place called Santana Row. It's a street full of expensive shops, hotels, and cafes. It's really pretty during Christmas time and they had put up all the pretty lights and there was a live band playing. We could only window shop because it's the type of place that has Bentleys and Lamborghinis (no joke) parked outside the hotels...even though they don't belong to anyone - they are from the dealerships and are parked there to attract the rich people and make it look swank. Someday soon I'll be able to walk in one of those shops and pick out whatever I want without looking at a price tag. That'll be about the same time that Scott gets his Lamborghini. :) We also drove down to a horse ranch about an hour south of San Jose, where a friend of Robert's dad raises, breeds, and sells Morgan horses. Liza really loves horses are she grew up on a ranch and it was fun to pet horses again. It's been awhile...maybe next time we'll be able to ride.