A Good Long February (and some pictures to prove it)

AND HELLO!

Everyday I tell myself "yep, I'm going to update that blog today" and then promptly forget what I had planned to do.  Unless it's work and then, of course, I don't. Anyway, what is today? Today is March 20th, 2012.  My watch doesn't seem to want to accept that leap day happened and keeps resetting the date on me.   I swear I've switched it back a day at least 3 times now... and then the next day when I go to look at what the date is, it somehow has sneaked back up a day!  It's a mystery.  Current solutions include:

• A) My watch is possessed
• B) I keep on leaning on the same reset button and don't want to admit that's the simple solution
• or C) Jimmy is changing it in the middle of the night like the little prankster he is

We're concocting another pizza tonight with the random ingredients we have in our fridge.  Right now I'm thinking of using the olives, sundried tomatoes, onion, mozzarella and barbeque sauce for a change in pace from the traditional pizza... but there is also pesto, goat cheese, parm, fake chicken and red sauce.  Either way it's going to be delicious because we're going to match it with a wine that my thuperduper Daddy-o left in the care of Jimmy and I.

Which obviously leads me to telling you that my parents visited California (a month ago now? whoops...) and it was lots of fun!  Not only did I do more with them in 4 days than I do in 4 weeks but we did things I hadn't even known existed out here until the day before they got here! Just to give you an idea, here's a quick timeline of their visit:

• Thursday evening: Arrived, met Jimmy and me in San Jose and we all went for a delicious dinner at Morocco's (middle eastern food, local jazz and, if I remember correctly, south american wine)
• Friday: Day trip to San Francisco with Mom and Dad action packed with suuuper steep hills, curvy slopes, persistent fog, mermaids and art galleries and then back to Santa Clara for dinner at a nearby Thai place with Jimmy
• Saturday: Mom and Dad met me in Los Gatos at 1pm as I finished up the morning shift at work then off to Santa Cruz for Classic Beachtown, CA, more windy roads, Pacific Ocean, BUTTERFLIES, natural stone arches and tapas
• Sunday: Mom and Dad head back to San Francisco to see even more cool things and erm, buy an amazing painting by Gottfried Salzmann, and then hurried back to Santa Clara to pick up Jimmy and met me in time for Greek dinner in Los Gatos after work
• Monday: I made sure to get the day off and Jimmy made sure to get ahead on his work for the week so we could ALL pile into the rental car for a trip to Sausalito in the morning for yachts, expensive shops and seals and then spent the afternoon in Sonoma, sipping wines and letting Dad buy a few... several... bottles for our small wine "cellar" in Santa Clara. 

And now of course, a few pictures just in case you're more of a visual person:

walking down Lombard St. to get some pictures... before we made Dad drive down

Lombard looking up

jus' being his best dafter in the whole world

on top of telegraph hill, birds will sit on your head if you're not too careful

coit tower silhouette

the infamous fog doing its very best to hide the only bridge worth looking at

lunch and beer at the blue mermaid

POOF! NEW DAY! the boardwalk into the monarch sanctuary in Santa Cruz

mom looking for the source of the little croaking we were hearing

green swamps

mom's artistic eye caught this

butterfly!

and more!

taking pictures of pinecones with dad

the last natural bridge in Santa Cruz (all the others have been destroyed in various earthquakes)

Californians tell me water here is cold. I tell them to go to Maine and stick their feet in that water

AND SWOOSH! NEW DAY! dad driving over the golden gate (at last not shrouded in fog) on the way to Sausalito

tiny coffee intermission

the yachts along the boardwalk in sausalito

THERE ARE SEALS EVERYWHERE IN SAUSALITO! 

walkway right along the water where seals swim around watching the people watching them

and off to Sonoma! this is the view from Arrowood - the first winery stop

everyone heading into Arrowood

Second Stop: BR Cohn Winery and mom telling Jimmy stories 

BR Cohn

Third Stop: Sebastiani. I swear mom and I did not coordinate our outfits. just happened to wear the least common color either of us ever wear on the exact same day.

the front door at Sebastiani

the tasting bar inside Sebastiani

I think he's having a good time

decorative barrel room in Sebastiani

a little blurry but, look who i found!  

YUP THAT'S IT! We look pretty busy don't we?  Those parents of mine are, like, world travelers or something. Wink Wink.

In other, less exciting news, February rolled on at a leisurely place.  I started working at that boutique store in Los Gatos, obviously.  I spent most of my time for the rest of the month working to try to quickly fill in that gap in my savings... but even working has its down moments (see below).  The store is a nice place, even if it is a bit off my usual path.  The girls there seem to be constantly amused that I hate the color pink, prefer cold weather and think tanning is the devil... but otherwise they're a nice bunch.  I already have a few loyal customers who let me plan outfits for them and then drop big bucks to buy everything I pick out.  The Banana Republic actually called me the other day too, just to see if I had any free time to put in a few hours there. It was a little weird honestly and I decided not to go for it, just because I've heard terrible things about the manager and I'm guessing they won't be interested in my help when they find out I'm leaving this summer.

I'm going to end this post with just a few glimpses at the store in Los Gatos and then move on my merry way to make a photo journal post about our camping trip and me cooking more eggs on top of things. READY? SET? GO!

watching time crawl by

playing with mannequins

bizous,
Meg