Una mas por favor...

Finally got some of the pictures uploaded and cropped and all that...so here are some highlights. I'll be uploading them to OfotoslashKodakGallery soon so that people can buy prints...so I'll add the link to that later.

Somehow coming back to the daily grind (which has been grindier than normal the last 3 days with all day meetings *and* playing catch up) seems extra cruel when viewing these photos...ahhh!!! Where's that winning lotto ticket when ya need it.

View from our room balcony...how sweet was this.




Us at the rehearsal dinner...after a few drinkies!!


Some photos from the church where the wedding was held...it was so pretty.



Photos from the reception, we had a smashingly good time and went to bed at 5am. The beautiful thing about vacation you can sleep til noon and it doesn't matter!

Mango drinkie yum.


Palapa prettiness. Lounge area where we hung out before dinner.


Amazing view from the palapa open area just beyond the photo. The whole island was so lush...such beauty.


Verra tasty local place we grubbed at one night in town....mmm authentic enchiladas.


Other random moments captured with my Canon:

One fine morning at breakfast...my handsome husband.


Awesome view from the water on the 2 hour jetski ride we took with the Frenchies. 30 foreigners zipping around on the open water? Scary. Especially since we were riding them on the OCEAN. Yeah.


For those interested in more photos...here is our Ofoto link the wondrous many pictured album:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=cdxn47v.80sthcyf&x=0&y=-k2rzye

Home Sweet Home

We're back!!! Got in late last nite and actually had to work today, what is up with that noise? BUT I came in to a great surprise...my fabulous coworkers had decorated my cube and area for my birthday (our team is crazy about that stuff!) and there were numerous goodies waiting for me.

The cutest cupcake evahhhh!! Thanks Miss Brit for this one.



And the decor made me feel like I was still chillin by the pool in Acapulco...




There were also donuts and homemade cupcakes where the frosting is out of this world....Continuation of the gorgefest experienced on our Mexico trip (I can't even count how many times the words 'Strawberry Daquiri' crossed my lips!!) ....my trainer will see me tonite so I am afraid as to what she'll say!!! She'll probably put me on a lettuce diet or something. According to the scale in our room I 'gained' 2 lbs at the end of our trip (gosh only 2? I was GRATEFUL!), but my jeans fit me fine today so maybe it was just the equivalent of water ala tequila weight?? I can wish.

Massive amounts of travel pictures to come.

Frosting and Tropical Fun...

We've got cupcakes!! Finally uncovered the USB cable...here are the cupcakes from earlier this week in all their frostingy fabulous glory.



I had one or two of the chocolate frosting ones (with choco cupcake, not pictured here), but actually only ate the frosting part with a bit of the cake. It's all about the frosting...cake is for weenies!

And I yanked out the camera today and got this super cute shot of Princess P sunbathing on the new leather ottoman downstairs in the living room.

Doesn't it look like she owns the place??? When is she going to start paying the mortgage?



Yeah...so we're off to Mexico tomorrow...Acapulco for a week for my 33rd birthday (yikes!) and a friend's wedding. They have 80 guests coming, wowsers! Here's where we'll be staying. And it has a full exercise room. Not sure what that means, a lone recumbent bike from the 1950s? If so, I will burn that thing into the ground!! And it's got three pools. We'll be using those quite often I imagine.





A tan for Thanksgiving? Sweet. We'll be gone for a week..until then, adios!!

Cuteness overdose.

Going through some old photos on my computer...came across this and went AWWWW. The things that my dog lets me do to her, seriously. No wonder she neurotically bites herself when we aren't around.



I also have some amazing La Patisserie cupcake pictures from a birthday celebration (they are practically done weekly) we had at work yesterday...however I can't find my USB cable to post them. So I just have the memory to share for now. Chocolate buttercream frosting, YUM. Should be part of every diet.

Nesting Instinct..

Recently I went through a spurt of home decorating...the amazing part is that we don't have visitors coming (which is code for me to realize 'OH CRAP, stuff has to get done around the house!'). So, I am just calling it the 'fall nesting instinct', considering we'll be spending a fair amount of our future months in the house during the rainy cold season in California (don't laugh, it really is rainy and cold!)...I want to enjoy being indoors as much as possible.

So we finally got rid of the monstrous halfway dying ficus tree that has been the bane of my husband's visual existence for the last 3 years in our downstairs living/entry room. It went over to Mom's house to try to survive outside, yikes. Replaced it with a leather chair and ottoman from Macy's after much research...it looks beautiful esp when layered with comfy throws and pillows, but I don't have photos just yet.

Then upstairs in the master, we are replacing our old wood wide blinds which have not held up AT ALL the last 4 years, with Hunter Douglas Duette Honeycomb linen textured shades in an off white. These should be quite pretty, but I'm a little concerned about it being too bright in the room when they are installed on all 4 of the windows. Our room gets so much light...but as G pointed out, not so much in the morning....so as long as it doesn't disrupt my beauty sleep, I am a'ok.

Here's how the master looks now:

New Hunter Douglas Duettes

Then we finally got artwork for the master and the master bathroom...it's only been what ? 4 years? and we'll probably move in the next year or so. But there's no time like the present! The master artwork for over the bed came from, all places, Cost Plus...4 square 15x15 canvas painted mahogany and white swirly floral prints that work fabulously with the dark wood and light blue we have in the room right now. They will go in a square over the bed.

They look a lot like this but imagine the cutouts painted white and the pieces are square not rectangular and there are 4 not two. Confused yet?

And the master bathroom artwork from my absolute fave online shopping decor site ever, Ballard Designs...these will go over our tub in our master bathroom and they will just barely fit!

Further East...

Since it had been a few years since we last visited the East Coast and Greg's fam...we took a jaunt out there in May of 2007 after our trip to Raleigh, NC...we just kept going. A 6 hour drive later, we were somewhat cranky but glad to arrive. Within the next week we covered a lot of ground and caught up with a lot of people!! While I wouldn't call it a 'vacation' (to me that term is reserved solely for lounging around on the beach with a drink in hand kinda days)...it was awesome, and the weather was beautiful. We even got a freak thunderstorm one day while driving back to Greg's Mom's house....which was REALLY COOL. Sheltered California girl here....!

Photos.

Snuggles with Greg and Lucy


Everyone loves some meat.


SuzyQ, Greg, Mara


Anne, Leon, Greg


Greg w/Tom and Kathy's kidlets. Look at that grin. SCARY!


Greg & Tom...could be brothers?


We visited Greg's college campus, Lehigh University. The most beautiful old buildings and amazing hills to hike. We went up and did two 5 mile hikes while there, gotta burn off all the BROWNIES Greg's Mom kept making for us!!!


Beautiful Campus Church


Winding Drive on Campus (why didn't my college look like this???)


Like Mother like Son.

Trip to the South...er North?

In consideration of moving out of California at some point (speculation is fun)...we decided to visit North Carolina...specifically the Raleigh area, and determine if we felt like we could see ourselves living there in the near future (code for : does it have enough diversity and fabulous food for us to be happy?)

While we LOVED the area, it's beautiful and quite lushly green, and the food was definitely worth consideration, it's unfort too far from Greg's family for us to consider it any further. The idea is if we decide to move out of the warm bosom of my fam in the SF Bay, we have to go somewhere that is at least fairly local to G's family. Otherwise we'd be too much like a lone ship at sea...we need some connection to a home base.

BUT...while we were sad about it being too far (don't ask why we went in the first place...we thought somehow it was 1/2 the distance it actually was)..we had a wonderful time visiting the area and trying all the fabulous restaurants around there. Who knew the locals were SO DARN FRIENDLY????

And that they had such fabulous BISCUITS? I ...umm...ate a few more than 2.


Other photos...

Us at Mura Sushi in Raleigh, recommended by a friend!


Another great recommend, 115 Midtowne in Raleigh


and yet another recommend @ Second Empire...a beautiful historic house with organic food!


In my internet research on the area I discovered Tyler's Bar and Grill in a small town near Chapel Hill. So of course we HAD to go there. The town also had the cutest co-op market, gosh is this California in North Carolina?!?!


Just one of the many beautiful houses we saw on a long walk through the neighborhoods. This particular home had a stunning rose garden off to the right.

Pictures from Vivian and Bill's Wedding!

Fun times in Sonoma, June 2007. This was definitely one of the best local weddings we have been to and it didn't break the budget, bonus! Food was YUM, they even had a dessert table *just for me* (scary!) and the Bride looked beautiful.

Mr and Mrs Nuckols!


Num Nums!


After a little champagne...


Budding beauties.


Mr and Mrs Tyler

Tried to move this one up but I'm still learning!

The Gang...can you believe it's been 6 years?!















Aww Vivi is so radiant!















and...what group wedding is complete without Kenny hamming it up?

For Shame...

So, I'm an internet junkie who loves spending time reading other people's blogs online...why didn't I think of doing this sooner??? Thanks Mrs. Morgan for giving me the light bulb at 7:30am on a Thursday morning when I saw your blog link in my email....ding ding! So here I am. Updates to come....man it's sucky that it won't let me modify the 'date posted' so my updates all have today's date! Whose bright idea was that?