My cool, hip cousins!

When did you girls grow up so much, and get so mature and cool? I swear, this was the first picture where I've ever seen them as young ladies, mature, and totally cool! I guess we're all getting a lot older. On this particular day I was home in AZ for the weekend. It was a Friday afternoon, and I decided that I needed to spend some more time with Paige and Lauren. So...I got to pull them out of school for their "orthodontist appointments" and we hit up Desert Ridge! Went in every store they wanted to, ate like 50 cookies at Paradise Bakery, got Starbuck's frappacinos, bought some cool new blue nail polish, jewelry, etc. Then we ended up at Target...the greatest store on Earth, browsing the aisles, looking for anything else that we might "need". We found these cool headbands, and immediately thought of Jenn and decided to take a picture with them. What a fun afternoon with my favorite girls! I think they're looking forward to their next orthodontist appointments!

Valentine's Day with my Hubby!

This was one of the most fun Valentine's Days ever! Paul and I went shopping on Union St walking our way over to Washington Square. We then walked through North Beach over to the Ferry Building where we had dinner at Taylor's Automatic Refresher, a kind of spruced up diner on the water. We had cheeseburgers, fries, and a shake, and then walked over to the Embarcadero and watched the annual Pillow Fight. What a riot...people from all over the city come together, walking around with their pillows from home...and then take out all of their pent up frustration regarding love, or just have a blast hitting their loved ones and random people they've never seen before. It was a great Valentine's Day all around. I love you, Paul!

The rain returns!

The weather is still fun around here! Some pictures I took going through the toll plaza at the GGB on a rainy, foggy drive to work this morning!

Gotta love working in Marin!

Wednesday is early release day, and after school we get "all natural" popsicles. I like the pineapple! I also like looking out the window and seeing the deer run by! So fun!

Sick day

So I'm sitting at home with nothing to do. I went out to dinner last night with Elisa to an Italian restaurant in Burlingame. We had the greatest time! It was so nice to get to catch up with each other! Anyhow, the food tasted good at the time, but I awoke at 12:30am and did NOT feel good. Well, it's now 11:00am and I haven't been sick for a couple of hours, which is what makes me think that it was food poisoning as opposed to anything else.

So...my question is...what should I do now? I have the hardest time just sitting still. The house is already pretty clean, the laundry is done, and I have no desire to write reports. I could start to pack for my trip to Phoenix next week. I could scroll through the many options on daytime TV. I have emails I could respond to. I have a million people I could write letters to to catch up! I could waste time on Facebook. Or I could watch chick flicks all day! So many options of what to do on sick days. Perhaps this isn't the worst thing that could happen.

Dark Chocolate and Cherry Amazingness!

This recipe was my latest baking adventure and these cookies were amazing! They were basically dark chocolate chip cookies with dried cherries in them, but they had both vanilla extract as well as almond extract in them which made them taste so yummy! The cookies cooked to be very thin and crunchy. I brought them to work for our Friday lunch and they were a hit! I will definitely be making these again!

Are you happy?

I have to laugh whenever I hear Paul or myself saying, "Are you happy?" or "It's a happy day!" These are phrases that we've adopted from my cousins Luke and Paige when they were little.

The "Are you happy?" phrase came recently from my 2-year-old cousin Luke, who, sitting in church, concerned about the happiness of the stern looking older gentleman sitting next to him, asked him repeatedly, "Are you happy? You happy? Are you happy?" He was required to ask repeatedly because the cranky old man refused to answer him. (I think Luke was onto something and the man was not happy.) This story always makes me smile, and Paul and I tend to use this phrase randomly throughout our life now! It's a nice reminder of Luke every so often! And it always makes us smile.

The "It's a happy day!" phrase came from when Paige, who is now 12, was about 2. Every time she got up in the morning or from an afternoon nap, she would get a big smile on her face when she saw the sunlight coming in through the window and say, "It's a happy day!" We now find ourselves commonly saying this to one another when we get up in the morning and are trying to coerce the other person out of bed..."Time to get up...it's a happy day!"

It's definitely children who see the simple things in life!

Celebrating the Chinese New Year!

We went down to the Financial District to watch the Chinese New Year Parade. It included lots of marching bands, government officials, dancers, firemen, and dancing dragons! The night out afterwards was probably more exciting than the parade, but all in all, it was a fun, unique night!

Lazy, lazy girl!

So I joined a gym out here in San Francisco, and the paying of the monthly membership hasn't been enough to motivate me to use the membership! I've decided that, basically, I'm lazy when it comes to working out. This shouldn't be a surprise...this is something I experienced when I had a gym membership at LA Fitness in Scottsdale.

However, I'm determined to be better about going to the gym! Why? Because I want to be in better shape, to drop a few pounds, and to get stronger! I don't only want to...I need to.

So, here's the deal: I've increased my gym membership from 0 times per week to 2 times per week, but so far this is as often as I've been going, and this has only been for 3 weeks. And I haven't been able to "find the time" (a.k.a., be more motivated) to go more than this. So, I need to be motivated to increase this to 3 and then 4 times per week at least.

My goal is that in putting this in writing, I will be more committed to it. I have 3 more days left this week to make it to the gym 1 or 2 more times to reach my goal (of 3 - 4 times) for the week. We'll see if I can do it. My problem is that I tend to find excuses. Mine tonight is, I don't feel good. I have a headache and my right ear is throbbing and plugged. I kind of feel like I have an ear infection, not that I've had one since I was a kid! So, either I'm actually getting sick (like the numerous kids out of school today due to illness), or I create hypochondriac excuses so I don't have to work out! We'll see!