Enter... Exit... ????

I'm sure this combination of signs seemed perfectly logical to someone..... We however did get a little giggle out of it.

Things that make me laugh

Originally uploaded by jalderete

My friend Jen took this picture at a Bart station. I'm easily amused. What can I say? I still think it's funny. LOL.

December ...Now?

Well I guess so. The holidays have completely caught me off guard this year. Usually I'm just about done with holiday shopping and just putting the finishing touches on last minute gifts. This year.... I'm not sure I've really even started. I've got a couple craft projects in the works and a few items ordered, but I think it's gonna be a low key Christmas. We are trying though. Last weekend we headed off and cut down a tree. The pictures from our little outing are on flickr .

Happy Holidays!!!

Weekend in Sonoma

In need of a little get away we headed off to wine country for a little R&R and wine tasting. We stayed at the El Dorado Hotel in downtown Sonoma Friday and Saturday nights. Saturday we visited 4 of the local wineries, headed back for a quick look around town before dinner at the El Dorado Kitchen. I had the free range chicken breast for an entree, and we had coffee pot de crème for dessert. It was an excellent meal. We didn't take too many pictures this trip and this was the best picture we had of the two of us from the weekend.

I'm friends with a (tech) rock star!

The tech world is all a buz after Scott Petersen's presentation at Adobe MAX 2007 in Chicago this year.
He's even giving interviews now:
Ryan Stewart - Rich Internet Application Mountaineer » Interview with Scott Petersen on the C/C++ in Flash Player Sneak

A Room With a View

I'm not sure how my current obsession with the grand port-o-potty began, but they seem to be springing up everywhere!! As you can see this has been the view from our window for the last several months. I suppose it could come in handy: if perhaps you really just can't make it into the house hey there's a plastic receptical just waiting in the parking lot. And maybe even it could count towards the number of bathrooms in our place?? 2 bedrooms, 1 and 1/2 bath + a very special communal partial bath conviently located nearby? To be fair they've been doing construction in the complex, and it is a natural brown color that "almost" blends right it.

GambucciGirl.etsy.com Launch!!

I finally got around to launching an etsy site. Many of my most recent cards are for sale here. Please have a look.

365 Days of Marriage

Our first wedding anniversary was this last weekend. To celebrate we headed off to San Francisco. We started off our weekend at Burke Williams Spa. We then had a wonderful dinner at the CityScape Restaurant on top of the hilton. The view was amazing. And they gave us a strawberry cheesecake in honor of our special occasion, and back at the room we were supposed to get chocolate covered strawberries, but since they were out they brought us an amazing chocolate mouse dessert. Yummy!!! The next day we headed off to Alcatraz Island and a quick walk through Ghirardelli Square.

Home from Seattle

Oh it's so nice to be home. Don't get me wrong it's great to be on vacation too. I'd been looking forward to this trip for months then finally it was time to head on out and wouldn't you know it the morning we leave I wake up with every sign of a looming head cold. But off we went for our first leg of the trip 7hrs with an 8year old off to Grants Pass to meet up with Kyle's siblings. I felt a bit better for a few days and then we were off to Portland and then on to Seattle where my cold hit me full force. But I tried to hang in there as we toured the city. We did the day and night space needle tour, wandered around Pike Place Market, did a little shopping, ate and ate, visited the Bellevue Bontanical Gardens and stopped by the Museum of Glass in Tacoma all before heading back home. I am so glad to be back home. My cold is barely letting up and it's just nice to be in my own space again. The pictures from our trip are in the web album here.

Oregon Safari

Who knew there was a little piece of Africa in Oregon? On our way up to Portland we stopped at the Wildlife Safari in Winston. It was a lot of fun. Once up in Portland we were hungry for dinner and set out to find a brewery, our first try turned out to be more bar like so we set off again, and stumbled into Henry's 12th Street Tavern and OMG so amazingly delicious. Happy tummy headed back to the hotel and crashed.

4th Of July

Our long awaited vacation finally began July 3rd. Despite fighting a head cold, we picked up Sydney and were off for a 7hr road trip with an 8 year old. We made a quick stop in Davis at Dos Coyotes, a favorite since I attended college at UC Davis. After filling back up we were on the road again. We made it up to Grantspass OR in the evening and enjoyed some family time before catching some sleep for the night.

Up early for the 4th to eat at a local breakfast joint before heading to Hellgate jet boat excursions for the morning tour. A couple hours on the water full of site seeing along the Rogue River, lunch, then the trip back. The most amazing part of the trip was the bald eagle pair; the boat drivers has a relationship with one of them, he catches fish at lunch, wistles and lets the fish float downstream, and if the bird is hungry it will swoop in and get it.... What a site!!! We also saw nesting osprey and great blue herron. It was a blast.

Later that day it was off to purchase fireworks, and head back to Kelli & Rich's for BBQ, beer and fun. We spent the evening with good food, good people and good fun.

iPathetic

For those of you living under a rock Apple released the iPhone. Since it had been a horrible week, Kyle really wanted to go people watching. So off to Valley Fair Mall we went to watch the countdown, unveiling, the black curtains drawn and the iPhone displays revealed. Among the anxious customers was Steve Wozniak co founder of apple. There was a countdown to the big reveal and lots of cheering (you'd think they were giving something away). As we moved to a better vantage point to observe the sea of geeks one girl asked "what's everyone looking at?", to which I replied, "watching people buy iPhones". Yup we were that pathetic.

LAINE's PAPETERIE Blog

Check out LAINES Blog. Second row, third column. I didn't make the design team, and I guess this isn't quite a full fledged publication, but that's OK. I still think it's pretty cool.

A Fish Tale

My brother and sister-in-law are in town for the week and I was able to take a day off work to spend some quality time with the two of them. We headed down to Monterey to the Aquarium. The freshwater otters are the current special exhibit, but I must admit I'm a sucker for the jellies. I can't get enough of them!! It was a perfect day along the Monterey Peninsula. I couldn't have asked for a better visit. The rest of our aquarium pictures are here.

Life is Rough

Especially when you are our cat. It's soooo tiring spending days basking in the sun by the window. But isn't he cute? If only my life could be so easy!

Cute as a ......

Oh I do love buttons. They are so perfect, symetrical and functional, cute and adorable, perfect in every way My mom gave me a huge box of old buttons to use in my scrapbooking. I'm in heaven. So I had to go out and pick up some containers (one of my other favorite things in the world!). I got a 6 pack of embelishment containers from Making Memories. And they are already almost full!

Flower Power

We finally got around to sprucing up the patio this weekend. For my birthday Kyle helped me replant the "front yard". It has been in a state of flux for the last 5 weeks as we've been waiting for them to replace the fence for our unit. They finally finished last week, almost a month behind schedule and after leaving ours wide open for several days. It's so nice to have a clean beautified patio again!! :)

Beautifying a Port-a-Potty

This is much better ;) In my parents neighborhood they've implemented a building regulation that forces people to beautify the port-o-potties on sight during construction. Any version seems to work, this is a nice example of a lattice enclosure, but straw (think big grass skirt for the toilet) among others have been sighted. I love the matching lattice garbage can (overflowing of course.) Perhaps it's my sick sense of humor but each time I see one of these decorated potties it makes me giggle.

Wedding Weekend

May 12 finally came, and one of my best friends said "I Do" to Alison. Here I am before the ceremony. I was honored to be one of the groomsmen. The pictures from the big day are here. It was such a beautiful wedding.

Kyle in front of Morro Rock

For Kyle's birthday we took a long weekend down in the Pismo Beach / San Luis Obispo area. Here's a pictures I took while we were wondering around Morro Bay with Morro Rock in the background. We spend the weekend at The Cottage Inn by the Sea, ate at F. McLintocks for a huge meal but so good, and spent time wandering around SLO, Morro Bay and Pismo. More pictures can be found here.

Sister in Law in NY Times

When the horrific events took place in Virgina it hit a little too close to home. My brother and sister-in-law are living back there as my brother pursues his PhD at Virginia Tech. As part of the grieving/healing process the knitting community has come together to create squares that will become blankets for the victims families as a show of support. The NY times covered the story here:


Torn by University Shootings, Virginia Town Turns Inward to Mend - New York Times

Bachelor Party - Catalina Island

Here we all are in front of the "Casino" on Catalina Island. It was a great weekend with all the guys celebrating Scott's last weeks of bachelorhood.

Purse Gift Bag

I made this gift bag for a friends birthday. I absolutely love how it turned out and it was so much fun!! I have a feeling I'll be making many more of these.

Inked Up

Kyle got his second tattoo over this holiday weekend to commemorate the nine years of service he'd put in on the Ben Lomond Fire Department. Those days are behind him, but he wanted a tattoo in honor of his time there. I think it's become a bit of an addiction, getting tattoos, so who knows how many more there will be.

Wii-tastic

Over the holidays we managed to snag a Wii (thanks to Nintendo Finder, and an early morning hunch) Ours arrived the Wednesday after Christmas and it's AWESOME. While my brother and sister-in-law were in town we all had fun playing.

Holiday Photo

 

Weekend in Monterey

 

In need of a little time away we took off for an overnighter to Monterey and a trip to the aquarium. A nice couple from SF was kind enough to take our picture for us.

Out Little Monster - Pixelstein

 

Flat Stanley Takes on Downtown San Jose

"Flat Stanley Takes on Downtown San Jose"

As part of a school project for our nephew we took flat stanley around the sites and sounds of downtown San Jose. Here he is in front of the Knight Ridder building. Flat Stanley Pictures