mystery pissers weekend

i had such a great memorial day weekend, and am finally getting around to posting a blog about it. friday night, eric and i got all dressed up and went out for dinner and drinks.

it's the first time i've been that dressed up in ages. i loved it and will be doing more of it! it was so nice to feel like i was being shown off all night. ;)

then our friends' band, the mystery pissers, hit northern cal for a little mini tour over the holiday weekend, stopping in sac on saturday night. their show ended up getting cancelled, but we had tons of fun bar hopping w/them anyway.

we hit the tavern, then benny's. also met a fun guy named shawn, and had my palm read by a frisky old man. it was a blast. ;)

l-r: shawn, john and chris (mystery pissers), sevgi, quinlan


since we didn't get to see the band play on saturday, quinlan, sevgi and i went down to sf to watch them play on saturday night. they performed at annie's social club with the white barons - man, they rocked!

annie, of annie's social club


mystery pissers on stage... l-r: john, nate, chris


since we were in sf, it only made sense for troy to make a special guest appearance...


chris did a great job of looking just like the crazy guy on this flyer. ;)


chris, me and q...


aaaww, me and my girl...


eric and i spent monday evening together, first taking a long walk all over midtown, then taking a long drive down the garden hwy. it was such a nice, relaxing way to end the wild weekend. i love long drives and it was so nice to be by the water.

all the pics of the weekend, including some of the white barons' performance, can be seen here, in the album titled "memorial wknd 07."

life is good. ;)

jason's grad party

this past weekend, jason graduated from uc berkeley as a mechanical engineer. jason is chanté's husband and it seems like these two have been through it all together. he's been on this education journey for a long time now (haven't we all), but he finally made it!

chanté and jason have struggled to provide the best possible schooling and experiences to their three kids, while satisfying their own needs for advanced education. throughout this journey, they've both taken turns working, but have always both attended school.

now jason is done and chanté's on her way to a second bachelors at mills college, then i imagine grad school will be next for her. these two are absolutely hooked on education!

they've been an inspiration to us all and we're so lucky to have them in our lives. here are some pics from the party...

this picture turned out interesting, very "album cover." (quinlan, suzi, troy)

chanté and jason's youngest, joaquin - isn't he stunning!

family portrait - shaye, chanté, jason, joaquin and shiloh. the second pic is of suzi and quinlan chattin' it up by the bar - of course! ;)

chanté and jason - to quote troy, "the couple of the decade." the second pic is of chanté and branimir, another old friend.

this is annie, who has been an amazing friend to chanté and jason. she's also hilarious. she has that wild british humor and keeps us all laughing. ;)

chanté and her dad in the first pic, the second pic is of branimir with his wife melissa, and quinlan.

troy w/quinlan and joaquin. doesn't he look so cute with the piece of the gold curtain as a headband. jajajaja!!

chanté and laura with the gold curtain, and a picture of shaye w/the balloons.

the next morning we all went to brunch. shaye w/uncle troy's sunglasses, joaquin refusing to put on mine. ;)

back at jason and chanté's to say our goodbyes... shaye and uncle troy chillin' on the lawn...

it was an amazing weekend with a group of friends that is more like family... i was feeling pretty emotional on sunday, after quinlan dropped me off back home, thinking about what an incredible group this is and how these times are going to become less frequent after quinlan and troy move. q's leaving for san diego in july, troy's leaving for spain in august...

we're all spreading out, but i have no doubts that these ties will remain strong and that now we'll just have more cool places to visit. ;)

san diego - thanksgiving '07!
madrid, spain - spring break '08!

you can also view videos of the grad party here.

poker night...

Jon, Carlie, Corey and I (along w/many others) have been doing poker night now for a couple of years. It's amazing how fast time goes by!

I hosted it last weekend and thought I'd post some pics of the night....

Here's one of Jon and his girls... ;)

Aaaww, me and my baby...

Corey and Ryan, being silly and looking cute as always...

More cute kids on the porch...
1st pic: Eric, Bill and Carlie
2nd pic: Crista, Carlie and Noah

Corey's the official dealer - he's so good at it! This was the first time in a while that I'd seen Ryan or his brother Noah. Noah had just gotten home from Kuwait that day! He was tired after a 22 hour flight, and ready to get messed up. We helped with that, Eric made him lots of appletinis. You can see that empty one in his hand. ;)

Bill, smiling like always, and Eric, trying to make one of those tough poker decisions. Can you see Jon in the background of the first pic, checking his myspace? ;)

Jon, Carlie and I usually seem to run out of money early, but I think we half plan it that way so we can get down to bull-shittin', which is what we do best. ;) The guys played poker late into the night, while Jon, Carlie and I sprawled out on my bed and got our gossip on.

The next morning, when I was cleaning up, I was amazed to find that we'd used all these glasses and not broken one of them. Way to go! We were pretty messed up, so that was a real accomplishment. ;)

Fun, fun, fun!! ;)

my trip to san diego...

Quinlan and I just took a weekend road trip to San Diego. It was a great trip, San Diego is just such a beautiful place. We left early Friday morning and left around noon on Sunday. It took us about 8 hours each way. We made lots and lots of bathroom stops. ;)

I took tons of pics, here are a few...

We stayed with Jason, he's an old friend of ours who we met through Troy. He used to live in Sac, but now he attends UCSD and has a beautiful condo w/an ocean view in Hillcrest, which is a really cute area of SD. We loved it. We also met some friends of his. This first pic is of Jason and Brandon, the second is Jason and Quinlan.

Later that night we went out to the coolest club called the Kava Lounge. They had some decent house music so I danced a lot. They also had an amazing live band, their name was Cmos Kipsy and they were from Amsterdam. They played great music and had turn table stuff mixed with instruments. The music was awesome, I wish I could find a web site, but can't seem to...

Saturday morning Jason was pumped b/c his furniture deal came through, it was a really good one he was working on through Craigslist. Two chenille couches in good condition for $200! So the first pic is after we moved out his old furniture in anticipation of the new and in the meantime had a little hippy pad. ;) The second pic is of the new furniture... Can you see me in the mirror?

Then we went to the Broken Yoke for brunch. It was a great place in Pacific Beach w/roof-top dining area and lots of flowers blooming everywhere. We met two more of Jason's friends, Curtis and Michael. Super cute boys, and fun too. ;) The first pic is of Jason, Michael and Curtis.

Jason's an amazing tour guide and after breakfast he took us site-seeing. San Diego really is such a beautiful beautiful city!

Mount Soledad, the best place in SD to see a view of the entire city...

Quinlan's new school, SDSU, and gorgeous homes along the way...

SDSU also has an amazing underground train station...

This was an incredible trip. The time spent w/Quinlan is always good for the soul, and I feel like we really need to make the most of our time together, she's only going to be here for a couple more months....

This trip helped to ease a lot of her fears about moving and answered a lot of her questions, also confirmed for her that this is definitely where she wants to be. For me, it confirmed that SF is more my speed, so I'll still be going that direction, even though it's so tempting for me to follow that girl wherever she goes. ;)

Thank you Jason, for being such an incredible host!