Adventures with Lisa & Kevin

I don't have much to report but wanted to post something since it's been a while! Here are some fun photos/videos of our Lola girl...enjoy!



Here are a couple of videos of her playing with a huge cardboard roll that she's in love with. She's intrigued by how our voices are thrown when we talk into it:

I just wanted to take a moment to tell the world how proud I am of Kevin. As you all know he's in the Aviation Mechanics program at City College of Alameda (he's in the middle of his second semester of four total semesters) and he has once again ACED his test! Each week they have quizzes on Friday and I think it's only been 1-2 times he's gotten lower than 100% (and then it was only like 98%). Tonight he got the results back from his mid-term that he took last Thursday and he got 100%!!!!

I'm so proud of him and just wanted to tell the world. :)

Kevin snapped this awesome shot of Lola today through our kitchen window. He peeked out and lo-and-behold Lola fell asleep on her basketball! What a crackup. That girl never ceases to make us laugh!

I had President's Day off so Kevin and I decided to get out of the city, take advantage of the sunshine and take a day trip to the Marin Headlands. After checking out some of the views over the cliffs, we got hungry and had a nice little picnic in the car.

Then we headed over to Battery Wallace (a battery is a place in which a group of guns/missile launchers are operated together in one place, there were quite a few out that way).






After checking out the old abandoned military bases, we went to make a visit to the Marine Mammal Center which is free and open to the public every day of the year except for a few major holidays. We got lucky because President's Day wasn't seen as major enough for them to be closed!

Jessie had a fantastic get together at her apartment last Saturday (2/13) called the Beatles Brunch! She's got quite a talent for cooking, especially breakfast foods, so she had a bunch of friends over for brunch that she made all on her own!










That night we had a rare night out on the town because my friend Alison and her husband Seth were in town from Irvine! Alison is originally from Walnut Creek (in Contra Costa County) and she and I met at Redlands. Seth is in a PhD program at UC Irvine so they're living in Orange County for now but are planning on coming back up to the Bay Area when he's done (3-4 more years). She and some of her friends from home came out to the city for the evening. In the early part of the evening, Alison, Laura, Kevin and I went to dinner at Papalote's Mexican Grill in the Mission (they have the most unbelievable creamy salsa you've ever had!) We then met up with Seth, Daniel and Eric in the Castro and spent a few hours at The Cafe, a really fun gay nightclub.





We spent hours dancing away and we had a blast! I can't wait for Alison and Seth to move back up to the Bay Area so we can get together more often! :)

Me and Kevin have been keeping ourselves pretty busy these past few weeks which is really great. Slowly but surely we've been meeting new friends and I think it's been helping a lot. Nothing's worse than not having a social support network, so we're pretty lucky in that we're slowly building up some friendships!

My co-worker and our friend Maya (who I've spoken about a few times on here) has been hanging out with us a lot lately (and sometimes her room mate Katie joins in on the fun). We've had quite a few game nights at their place which have been a blast (anyone who knows us, knows that we love playing games! :) )

A friend of mine from Long Beach, Cynthia, came up to visit her friends that live in Oakland a few weeks ago and invited us to tag along one day she was in town. Her friends Mika and Matt have been in the Bay Area for a while and they're a lot of fun to hang around. We met up with the three of them at Dynamo Donuts, which is a gourmet donut shop in the Mission. Cynthia really wanted to try the Maple Bacon Donut which was advertised on the Food Network (she was raving about it so it must've been good!) The donuts really are good, but be ready to spend a pretty little penny on each one. Then they did some sightseeing during the day and we met up with them that night at their home for some dinner and games (what did I tell you, we love games! haha). Matt and Mika made homemade pizza (BBQ chicken pizza and a potato/onion pizza, yum!) and spent a good chunk of time playing Scattergories. Since that first weekend we met them we've gotten together with them another time for a Super Bowl get together at their house. Though there's talk of them moving out of state it's nice to have some married friends in the area!

This upcoming weekend we were actually invited by one of my college friends to join a cooking party that gets together once every 1-2 months to eat yummy food together! Last month's theme was Italian food and this month's theme is Fat Tuesday: Comfort Foods. We'll be preparing some delectable dessert and an update will surely follow after the event. :)

Another little something that I've been getting more involved in is the Buddhist organization that I grew up with. Each member of the organization is part of a district (neighborhood groups that get together once a month for discussion meetings), so I'm part of the Glen Park district and it's been really great getting involved up here in SF. A couple of weeks ago I was honored by some of the Young Women's Division Leaders (members who volunteer to help care for other members) and asked to become the Diamond Chapter YWD leader (a Chapter is made up of 3 or more districts, so I'll be in "charge" of the young women in the three districts that make up Diamond Chapter, one of which is Glen Park district). I was a little hesitant to take on the position at first but am happy to say that on 2/7 my appointment as the new leader was announced! My goal is to really help develop the faith and practice of the young women in my Chapter and it's my hope that by the end of the year (I know, pretty ambitious timeline!) I'll have YWD district leaders for each of the 3 districts (at this point we don't have any YWD district leaders). I just feel really proud that in such a short amount of time people here have faith in me to take on such a responsibility and I'm looking forward to the challenge and rewards of taking on this position! :)

On Saturday 2/6 we were lucky enough to get to spend some time with some of Kevin's family for the day! His parents, George and Dorothy, were spending some time near Coarse Gold (which is near Yosemite) and on Saturday made a visit to George's sister's home in Turlock so we met up with them there. It was really great to be able to see them even if only for a day. We spent a few hours chatting and catching up with each other at Kevin's Aunt Jayne's house and then went to lunch at AJ's Cafe and Grill in town which had some pretty good sandwiches (typical diner style food). We were able to spend over half the day with them which was a great little visit in between the months we go without seeing them! Unfortunately I didn't take any photos during our visit so you'll just have to take my word for it. ;)