Hello Fall!!!

I blame Facebook for my lack of blog posts. Its just so easy to upload photos on there. Although none of these photos are on there so I guess that's not an excuse.

Anyways, yea, a new post so you don't have to get tired of looking at the Nordstrom photo anymore.

Late September a few of us headed up for breakfast at The Griddle which is famous for their pancakes. I took the road less travelled and got the Nutella filled french toast which was soooo good and actually voted the best dish at our table. No pics unfortunately.

Seriously their pancakes are larger than the plate. One guy that was there had a stack of 6!!!

First weekend in October my old bible study celebrated Rose's 30th birthday at BJ's Pizza. We had taken Rose to BJ's for the first time months ago for a bible study dinner and it became one of her favorites.

Rose's favorite part - the pizookie. And we got TWO!!!!

The following weekend, a bunch of us celebrated my friend, Brandon's birthday at Lucille's (whoo hoo new restaurant for me) and a little bit of bowling at Lucky Strike.

the birthday guy!!!

Tim & Nickki sharing some ribs.

Rouven convinced me to share this two person platter with a sampling of everything. Not shown were the salads and dessert!!! The ribs and tri tip were delicious.

One of the Outlet's Service projects is Laundry Love. Every 3rd Thursday of the month, members of the Outlet go to a laundrymat in Hawthorne and pay for loads of laundry for the people that are doing their laundry and hang out with the community to get to know them and their families. This is our 2nd year of hosting the Laundry Love Harvest Party.

Here's Carla (dressed in the cow costume), our new Outlet Social Lead with two of the kids that attended. The little girl on the left of the picture won the costume contest. She organized the event with Rich (not pictured), one of our Outlet Service Leads.

This year the party was complete with pizza and drinks, desserts, bounce house, face painting, cake walk and pinata.

Me in the midst of the cake walk chaos.

One of the cake walk winners.

Good bye Summer

Just a quick look at what kept me busy this summer besides living life with Sam and Sarah and all the bike rides (remember the first summer blog post).

In July I went to the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale. The past few years I have gone with my friend, Shannon, but she was out of town this year so Allison went with me. No pics of us though. Only this pic I thought to take while I was standing outside on a conference call. Benefits of working from home - not really I actually had a vacation day but called in for this call.

Normally I get my eyebrows waxed but have a bunch of friends who get them threaded at this place in the mall so I figured I'd take the opportunity to check it out because I heard it lasted longer and was less painful. ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? It felt like I was getting a million paper cuts on my eyebrow area. I survived but did shed a few tears of pain (seriously).

Later that night we celebrated Jen's 30th birthday.

Travis and I were on grill duty.





We had a fun "anything you could possibly want on your burger" bar, but I didn't get any pictures.





Allison found a place in Atwater Village (North of downtown) that offers fun dance/workout classes so we headed up there for a Bollywood class. As rhythmically challenged as I am, I didn't do that bad. I'm definitely not staring in the next Bollywood movie though.

One of the moves we learned.

She's going to kill me for posting this...

Cool "new to me" restaurant in Silver Lake called Alcove after the class.

Biked to Taco Tuesday at Sharkeez in HB one evening with a few of the girls. Yum fish tacos and watermelon margaritas - my choice for the night.

Some of the girls grabbed some Lotus afterwards.

Little bit of hang out time at Starbucks before the return bike ride.

It was a "fun Jen" night with a bit of pole dancing.

Old cell broke so I splurged and got the new iPhone. I LOVE this thing.

For the past year and a half Angela and I would go to In and Out on her RDO Fridays. She lost the RDO Fridays a while back but we continued to find time to go especially February through August when her husband, Adam, was in Afghanistan. Fun lunches - who else sits at In and Out for 2 hours???

We welcomed Adam back at LAX in August.

Went to Shakespeare in the Park at Point Fermin in San Pedro. Such a fun evening - great location and what better way to spend an evening than watching a play outside on a summer evening.

The temp totally dropped as you can tell by the change in outfits.

Only got to one Concert in the Park at Polliwog this summer. The Mo's organized this since this is Lauren's favorite - Neil Diamond cover band.

Found out that the Pantages was having a student special on the play Legally Blonde. Basically students could come and purchase tickets for the play at $25/ticket with a valid student id at the theater. Lucky for me I had Sam, Sarah and Michaela and was able to "use" them and purchase a few tickets at amazing prices. I took Sam and Michaela up there one day and then took them to lunch at Pink's Hot Dogs and then a bit of thrift store shopping. Orchestra seats!!!!

On August 28th, a few of us headed up to Hollywood for dinner at Katsuya, asian fusion sushi bar restaurant that Nickki had been raving about for a while and was on my list to try. It was really cool and they gave us this sort of private area that was a bit separate from the main part of the restaurant.

The non-fish eaters. Their chicken dishes were really good though.

I loved the presentation of the food. This is a MUST have if you ever go to this restaurant - its the creamy rock shrimp appetizer.

and the fish eaters...

Fun picture of us before we headed inside for the play. There were people dressed up in lots of pink.

Got to try The Habit, El Segundo's newest restaurant, prior to the opening. Sam and I were headed to Chipotle and noticed that people were at The Habit on Saturday, August 29th so we decided to check it out. We entered, they were VERY friendly (which hasn't stopped in the subsequent times I've been there), said that all proceeds from that day's sales went to El Segundo's schools, ordered, went and sat outside to wait for the food. Moments later I saw the manager turning away customers. Apparently it was only open for two hours and the real opening was the following Monday.

Got a season pass to Disneyland.

Had a family and friend pasta night on the last Sunday before Sam and Sarah left.

Michaela and Sam posing for a picture. They are such good sports and good at the active shots.

Sarah and a couple of her friends

Shot of the beach on a bike ride on Labor Day.

Disclaimer

So it has come to my attention that the last picture that I posted of Sam and Michaela brushing their teeth could be interpreted to be a morning picture BUT rest assured that Shannon's House Rules stayed in tact this entire summer and that was actually an afternoon picture because both of them for whatever reason really like to brush their teeth. Being raised in a household where my mom, the dental hygienist wanted 3 brushings a day and flossing (which I'm not so religious at doing every day still), I say brush on!!!

For those who weren't privy to Shannon's House Rules here they are in case you find yourself in a situation with teens:

1. No persons of the opposite sex in the house when Shannon isn't home. (Sitting outside on the porch until she gets there and watching the tv through the screen door was okay - they got creative).
2. No persons of the opposite sex in their bedrooms with the doors closed. (It is amazing what they will try with the door open....)
3. No sleepovers of the opposite sex. (Watch out for the parents that do allow it though...)
4. No going horizontal. (I don't know how many times I said "sit up" this summer)

When I was a teen, these rules were outrageous. And look at me now...

Sarah

So Sam's gotten the last two posts so I figured I'd devote a post to Sarah. Sarah came out from London a few weeks after Sam as her school got out later and she spent a few weeks hanging out with Claire and touring the England countryside. Since she's gotten out here, she's been busy hanging out with friends, babysitting a lot and a week long dog sitting job.

Last year despite my urging because she had a ton of split ends, she opted for an "air cut" which is what my hair dresser calls it when its not even a trim because she didn't want to lose the length. This year she was more game to get an actual cut so that her hair would be healthy.

Bye Bye 6 inches.

She was in mourning the loss of those 6 inches the entire drive home and the next day. BUT its so much healthier.


Its now been 3 weeks and she's used to the length. Two days ago she came home and it was dyed black (yes Elvira jet black). Some pics she took with her computer.

Really cool picture of her although she looks WAY TOO OLD!!!!

Sam & Michaela

So Sam met a great girl when he was here for spring break. They talked alot when he was in London between spring break and summer and when he came back for the summer he asked her to be his girlfriend. But this really isn't a post about the relationship, rather I just want to show you that in the 9 weeks that I've gotten to know Michaela, she's changed her hair multiple times and she's one of those girls where any color looks good on her. Up until a year ago (her mom showed me pictures) she had long curly blonde hair.

When I first met her it was strawberry blonde


Then she showed up one day and it was dark brown. Here it is curly.

Then some blue streaks showed up.

You can see them better here.

And now its light brown with white blonde streaks.

You can see the blonde better in this pic. I promised them this one would never get out but I thought it was funny and its not going on Facebook so I don't think they'll ever know.

Summer

So this summer has been pretty crazy. Really just plain busy with work (we are going through a reorg of the consulting division and layoffs both of which are alot of work behind the scenes), having two teenagers for the summer (more on that later if you haven't heard the jaw dropping stories and parenting according to Shannon already...) and all my fun summer activities with friends. Again I've been negligent on the blog...

Anyways the first thing I want to share (partly cuz I'm proud of myself) but mostly because I'm really proud of Sam is that he got his license. Brigitte had been wanting him to learn to drive since he was 14 (I think in France maybe that is okay and mostly for emergencies) but I convinced her that he really couldn't but that as soon as he legally could, I would teach him to drive. His dad mainly because he lives in London doesn't know how to drive so Brigitte wanted to ensure that was something that he could do. So last year a little after she passed, Sam (16) and I worked through the process of getting him his permit.

On July 28, 2008, here he is after passing his permit test.

The same afternoon he had his first 2 hours of behind the wheel (he had practiced a little bit prior to that in parking lots - good thing since they immediately had him driving in rush hour traffic on busy 4 lane roads) so he could legally drive with me. Next day we were leaving on the roadtrip to Oregon - great opportunity for driving in lots of different conditions.

When Sam was back for Christmas Break and Spring Break and summer, we drove ALOT. On July 28, 2009, he took his driving test and passed. While he was taking the test, I was seriously nervous for him. After he passed, I was still seriously nervous but now it was because he was going to be driving alone in my car.

Sam and his girlfriend ready to head off for their first drive without me in the car. He looks so grown up...

So this is just one experience in my crazy but wonderful summer with the kids. Its crazy to think that while I haven't been blessed with my own kids, I've experienced this terrifying yet proud moment and probably one of the milestone moments in a teen's life and that of a parent's as they have to learn to trust that the kid will be responsible and safe and have so much more freedom while I've got friends whose kids are just starting to get their permits and just starting the terrifying process.

Some of my driving tips and rules that I think are working:

- if possible wait until they are 17 - worked for Sam and I think he's a bit more mature; planning to do the same with Sarah

- lots and lots of practice in all different conditions (it may be easier, faster and less anxiety for you to drive but the better prepared they are the better they will be when they are driving alone) over and above what they will make them do during the driving test (we did lots of freeway driving especially in traffic, parallel parking, frequently doing the routes that they will be driving so they learn)

- lots of commentary from me (are you surprised?) on why to do something, why not to do something, anticipating things that new drivers just don't see and experienced drivers now take for granted

- driving with the radio on - I know some will say WHAT??? but hear me out. Initially when they start driving and you are heavily instructing them no radio but as they get more comfortable driving turn the radio on. They are going to have the radio on (and loud) when they are driving alone or with friends so better to prepare them for how they are truly going to be driving when they are alone. Today there are so many more distractions than when I learned to drive.

- I didn't let Sam take his test until I was comfortable NOT that he would pass but that I was comfortable with him driving by himself safely and responsibly and with my car

- Post License Rules - no ipod, hand holding or kissing the girlfriend at stop lights for 2 weeks; no going out of the South Bay unless I'm aware, select people are allowed in the car when he's driving.

Its now been almost a month and Sam has proven to be responsible and trustworthy as a driver and with my car. The anxiety has lessened considerably although I do still pray that he will return safely every time he takes the car.

Last thoughts are to my mom. I remember like it was yesterday, taking my driving test while you waited at the curb (yes the one that I went over and they still allowed me to finish the test) with the other parents and the minute we got home I had you out of the car and was on my way to my friends feeling on top of the world with the biggest amount of freedom that a 16 year old can feel. But I do remember you standing in the driveway waving as I drove away and even as I got to the end of the block, I could still see you standing there. Such a different feeling for the adult than the kid.

I do (since I've now lived through it), but at the same time don't know how you did it. Like everything else this summer, I appreciate you more for it.

Cruisin'

One of my favorite things to do is ride my purple beach cruiser. Luckily I have lots of friends who also love to do this so this summer has been filled alot of bike rides. A few of us got bike lights so there have been some late night rides too. There have been a ton (essentially anything happening in the Venice or South Bay area is attached to a bike ride) but just a few pictures from some.

Back on Sat, June 27th Taylor organized a late afternoon bike ride to South RB. We checked out the street fair and then grabbed dinner at Creme de la Crepe.

Day before 4th of July I did two really long rides. First one was in the morning - destination the Omelette Parlour in Santa Monica (meals stops are always fun cuz you know you're going to at least work some of it off on the ride home).

Got home, rested for an hour and then headed out on an afternoon ride with my bible study girls to Venice. Of course stopping at Baja Cantina for some margaritas and happy hour food specials.

So in addition to loving riding my bike, I love to (despite how dangerous it possibly is) to take pictures while I'm riding. Most of the time I've mastered the art of taking pics while I'm riding. Its kind of like a selfy shot but really can't have me in it to get everyone else when we're riding. I'm going to coin it Riding While Taking Pictures (RWTP). Unfortunately none of my friends do it so I'm really never in the pics.

Lauren's sister, Tracy, was in town for 6 weeks and joined us on the ride.

How can you not love beach rides with views like this???

This year for the first time I attended the Hermosa Beach Concerts on the Beach. They are only 3 Sundays in July with some relatively popular bands. Here's some shots of the first one.

Jen and Travis

And the second one when Rebelution (reggae) was playing. It was PACKED!!!! Definitely different atmosphere than Manhattan's Concert in the Park. Lots of red cups and interesting smells...

Allison's family came down to visit and she arranged a bike ride on a Wednesday early evening to ride to El Torito in Marina del Rey. We met up with her mom, dad and Noah, her adorable 2 year old nephew. Not bad for another "RWTP" shot.

Beautiful sunset on the ride there. RWTP shot

Fun with Friends Outside of 90245

Got together with some friends in June and July that don't live in my little South Bay bubble.

My friend Dana who moved to Ohio at the end of last summer was in town for a few days with her husband and Adam, her 6 month (at that time) old. We got to have some girl time and got the toes done. This was my first time at Relaxation Nail Salon (is it crazy that in the small town of El Segundo and like 4 block radius they have 5 nail salons). Not my favorite but I did love those chairs which are by far the best of the 5 nail salons.

I convinced Dana to get blue nail polish which she is pondering even as the nail lady is putting it on her second foot and trying to convince her it looks good.

Blue toes - took her a day but the color grew on her. I hope they have blue nail polish in Ohio.

Met up with the boys for some mexican food at Teresa's.



Susie was also in town from Ohio with her husband and 3 girls and I got to spend the day with her.

Got together with Heidi and Cindy (and her son Travis), roommates from college at the Sherman Oaks Galleria Cheesecake Factory - kind of a midpoint for all of us.

New combo of whipped cream and bread. Good thing I hate whipped cream.

Travis thought it was the best thing though!!!

It was done a long time ago.

Whoa its been a long time...Get ready for lots of posts...

So here was step two of the picture project. Pictures loaded in the frames and ready for hanging.

Ta Da the finished project. My hallway is too narrow to take a straight on picture so the angled shot is the best I can do.

Picture Project

So with digital pictures, my blog and Facebook, I haven't printed a picture from my camera in forever. I've been wanting to do a picture collage wall for a while with some of the picture frames I already have and a few new ones. Here's the picture frames ready and waiting for Kodak to send them to me. I should have used Costco - cheaper and I'm getting antsy.

Next decision will be which wall...

the hallway?

or my bedroom?

I'm thinking probably the hallway.

I hope the pics get here soon.