A late Mother's Day

For a Mother's Day present I took Mom to the DeYoung museum for an exhibit and it was awesome!

Listen kids - this lady is gonna teach you to appreciate art and will take nothing short of perfection. Got it? Brace yourselves for hours in museums.

All over the country, any chance she gets. 

Dee Came To Visit!

Diana has been a sister to me my whole life and while every minute of our childhood wasn't spent skipping down the street arm-in-arm she is one of my oldest, and best friends. She just finished her first year of law school in San Diego (whoot whooot!) and flew up here for a visit.

When i picked her up from the airport we headed straight for Monterey to go kayaking in the bay (someone forgot the GoPro..) and we saw at least 10 sea otters and some jelly fish and a whole bunch of sea lions.

Friday we made our way to San Francisco

A requirement 

Pretty sure this is not the same "bush man" from my childhood..

Monterey

Last week Matty had work down in Monterey for 2 days so we got a hotel for the night and it was adorable! It's right on Cannery Row, the main street that a bunch of cute shops are on as well as the aquarium. The Spindrift Inn has been there forever and i love how not much has changed in the rooms and lobby. Everything was quite a bit smaller than standard hotels today, which i like. In every room there is a wood burning fire place that makes it seem so cozy! 

 i love a good window seat with a view

The back of the hotel was a small cove

i wish Matty and i could have been out on a small sail boat since it was such a beautiful day!

Different than a view in Hawaii, but good to be back by the beach!

Towards the Monterey Bay Aquarium

The water temp is still in the low 50s so we will have to wait to go scuba diving till summer, but we can't wait to go kayaking with otters and jelly fish!

Be You

Before you came along..

When i was in high school i'd occasionally ask my mom what she did with friends when she was in high school or college because rumor has it she was quite a riot.. Maybe i was gleaming for ideas or it's possible i wanted a to have something in my back pocket for those rare times your parent says "You did What!?" and there really isn't a good excuse or any type of reasoning that makes it a rational choice, but the fact is you i did it and what's done is done. So by knowing a silly (stupid) thing your accusing parent did makes it not so bad. Right? Apple doesn't fall.. that sorta thing

Possibility #2 is that i wanted to know my parents had a life. You know, in their past life.

Hahahaha that sounds so terrible out loud!

But seriously, Once kids come parents are too wiped out to do something for fun right? So i've heard..

So to my kids, here is proof that your parents would in fact have fun and did a thing or two before you came along and were a black hole of time and energy.

Two weeks ago we flew into SFO and began our search for an apartment. But what's a trip to the Bay Area without a trip to the City!?

(note for others. When you live anywhere up in NorCal and someone says "the City" they are talking about THE CITY as in the only one that matters in California. Don't get me wrong, i love where i grew up, i love Los Angeles, i love San Diego and most everywhere in between, however The City is my favorite, and none other than San Francisco. Glad we got that cleared up.)

Good heavens! How did we live before Yelp?

This is a lovely chocolate store we found in Noe Valley and could have spent all night frolicking through, as well as the better part of our savings. We ended up with some dark chocolate with chili, a local bar, and 2 from Cuba & Trinidad. The owner said he has chocolate from 96 different suppliers from around the world and has hundreds of different kinds. Some he rotates and others will always be kept in stock.

 

I think our favorite was the dark chocolate chili. It lets you know about 30 seconds after you eat it that it has other plans for your mouth and lightly sets it ablaze. (This would be a horrible but funny trick to play on someone since you cant see the chili)

From there we when to dinner at Lers Ros Thai which was wonderful! Any place that has a good green curry is good for me.

After that we drove to the DMV people said to park at for The Independent and walked the 2 blocks to the venue. 

 We got SO lucky!

(sound check up stairs)

Imagine Dragons was doing a benefit show and was completely sold out!

However we don't take "No" for an answer so we busted our way in!
"We don't take no prisoners!"

(not really. Just a good friend who we are very thankful has a big heart and got us in)

We could also get used to the VIP area..

After a night that good how do you let it end? So we didn't.

We drove from the show to the Financial District to Pier 1to Bay st to Marina blv to The Palace of Fine Arts (you know, to pick out our future house) for a very cold photo stop for Matty's favorite place in the City. Then up and down the steepest hills we could find and finally back to our hotel.

Oh yeah.. The whole reason for our trip. We found a place we liked and move up next month!

(-side note- please don't try to keep up with my present/past tense flip flopping in this post or ever, i sure as heck don't so it's not going to do you any good to try. Like i said this is to my future kids) 

It's been a year!

 i can't believe it's already been a year since i first started this and it makes me sad how little i've documented! This year i promise to do better and try to diversify the posts. Since i've got some catching up to do i'll cram a lot in now and i'll start with Matty and i getting the Christmas tree this year. When ian, Troy, and i were little we would play hide-n-seek in all the trees while our mom picked out the best tree. We all came home smelling great :)

Matty and i got Troy a scratcher map for Christmas to keep track of all his travels; it was a huge hit

After Christmas Troy and i drove up to LAX to pick up his girlfriend Hannah and we met up with ian & Lauren at the Hollywood sign and Griffith Observatory for the day. It was incredibly clear!

Deet found our house!

For Matty's birthday we headed to AZ for a few days and he got his birthday wish!

it snowed!

We all went to Disneyland for a day and it was super fun!

Hannah got to drive on Indiana Jones

Glad the decorations were still up

 

Stylin TOMS

You know those projects you start and have every intention of finishing?

And then life happens... we moved, started school, job hunted, doctor visits, squeeze in some exercise, and every other thing that takes up the day.

Normally i'd say i love art projects and can get sucked in so fully that hours will go by and the only thing to bring me out of a trance is seeing that the sun has moved and now i need a light on. Then as i get up to turn it on i notice my knees are stiff and i've lost feeling in my feet

As i wobble to the light switch i take note of the time.. How on earth have i been sitting for 5 hours and not moved!? (if only math were like this) At this point it wouldn't be uncommon for me to realize i haven't eaten since breakfast and now it's almost 7:00 pm. Oops.

Meet said project.

i started these a long time ago for my cousin and bit by slow bit they have come together

A big problem for me is knowing when to call it quits. Sometimes things just don't feel as if they are complete and heaven help me if i'm going to let part of me walk around unfinished! i think this is one of those "artist's problems" once you're so invested in something if feels as if (phony as it sounds) it's part of who you are as a person. Maybe because it's the style in which someone draws/ paints/ photographs/ writes (whatever your medium is) shines through and it's possible to identify the the person by the art. You certainly wouldn't confuse a Monet with a Picasso right? That little piece of me can't be judged till i'm done with it and that is a hard conclusion to come to after a while.

Now i can call these done and get them sent!

ps - if you don't know what the (Harry Potter) theme is i do apologize you had no childhood.

Troy read the first four books to me and then we fought over the rest. My mom would literally have to set her strawberry twist timer for allotted time we each had to read. Can you say NERD children? Who fights over reading a book? Well if you read them you do understand and possibly had a similar experience and if you didn't.. Like i said, i'm sorry.