Last-minute HH

On Thursday morning, Stephanie informed me that Mai was driving up for a 4-day weekend.  So we rounded up the troops and had an impromptu HH at Marc 49.  Mai stopped by the hospital during the last hour of work and then we all met up for some wine and cheese.

Afterward, Teresa, Steph, and I walked ourselves to the BART station.  The best part of DST is having just enough daylight to safely stumble home.  On our way, we stopped at Jack in the Box.  I don’t remember the last time I had gone there but my chicken pita was tasty that night.

Ballerina

My co-worker approached me a few months ago about taking photos of her.  She has been a ballet dancer since she was little and has been recently feeling her age.  She’s only a month older than me and wanted to get some photos of her while she was still strong and flexible enough to perform her leaps and poses.

So, on Sunday morning, we met up at Golden Gate Park and I got a bunch of shots of her in two different costumes.  It was so cool to see what she could do.  There was a little girl (~5 years old) and her dad and she was so in love with Renee.  We even caught her doing jumps and poses while her dad took photos of her off to the side.  So cute.

I love how many of my co-workers have other talents on the side.  We had a lot of fun during the photoshoot and Renee LOVED her photos.  Yay!  Here are the rest of the photos.

First Date

A couple years ago when Michelle and I went to the watch the movie “Up”, we saw a trailer for “G-Force”.  It’s about a bunch of guinea pigs fighting crime.  Sounds ridiculous but I actually laughed at their antics.  So, Michelle said that I was the official person to take Jack to see these zany kid movies once he’s old enough.

Well, he’s finally old enough so they enlisted me to take him to see “Hop” with Jack.  I actually wanted to see it so it worked out for both of us.  Michelle dropped Jack and I off at the Metreon yesterday afternoon and we were both super excited.  After buying our tickets and a small popcorn, we headed to Theater 12 for a fun-filled bunny movie.

Jack had a great time gobbling up all the popcorn and playing the “air drums” along with the bunny in the movie.  It’s a good thing he packed a juice box in his pocket cuz he ate A LOT of popcorn.

Afterward, we pretended to play some arcade games (playing with the wheel of the car game) and also took a little booth photo.

We also wandered the Yerba Buena Garden a bit before catching the bus home.

Jack did a great job through the whole movie and got a real kick out of riding the bus.  I’d say we had a pretty successful “first date”.  He also found the movies he’s gonna want to see next.  Sweeeet.

Here are the rest of the photos.

Bonfire!!!

It had been pretty warm in SF these past couple days so we all agreed to a bonfire on Saturday night. Dayantha and Krissy were coming for the weekend so we called up the Masayas and they came along too.  We all met up with the Sokol-Juns and Darbys at Ocean Beach to find some crazy wind, crazy waves, and a lot of sand…everywhere.  The Bangs didn’t make it since their little guy wasn’t cooperating and they were probably better off not braving the elements with him.

At the waterline, there was a collection of foam on the beach and the wind was so strong that it blew the foam into the air and across the sand.  We had a spectacular sunset and plenty of light to get the fire started and the hamburgers cooked.

Unfortunately the wind was blowing sand onto everything and I ended up with sand in my beer, sand in my burger, and sand in all of our stuff.  Just take a look at Michelle’s expression as she crunches on her sandy burger.  We’ve been home for 24 hours and I’m still finding sand in my stuff.  When I took a shower, I had sand in my ears.

Despite all that, we had a fun time.  Jack did a good job entertaining himself and I got a few shots of him being cute as ever.  Victor also taught him how to body-check Jes but Jack just ended up headbutting him in the leg.

I think he hurt himself more than anyone else.

Dog came along too and he got to dig in the sand and he barked at everything that walked by.  At one point a strange man walked toward us from the darkness while Koa barked at him.  Meanwhile, he said to us “Dimitri is gonna kill us all!”  So, we kept Koa on the lookout for Dimitri the rest of the night.

Here are the rest of the photos from that evening.

Off the Grid

We went to Off the Grid at Fort Mason on Friday night with the Masayas.  It’s basically a circle of street trucks gated off so they can serve alcohol too.  When we got there it was a madhouse.  It started at 5 but we didn’t get there until around 8.  We divided and conquered and got to try a bunch of stuff.

I snagged some pork satay from Sataysfied while Jes got empanadas from El Porteno.  Victor got us beer and wine while Susie stood in line for Senor Sisig tacos.  We also got to try the pork and chive dumplings from Happy Dumplings and masaman curry over tortillas from Zombie Curry.  For a warm sunny day, it really sucked once the sun went down.  It was as if the sun took off and opened the window wide open for the wind to blow you right off your chair.  All the food we had was tasty and we’ll probably be back but I think we’ll have a better plan.

Here are tips for next time:

  1. bring your own beverages
  2. divide and conquer just like we did this time
  3. get there before 7 (or at least before the sun goes down)
  4. take a cab or public transportation (so lucky that we did)
  5. all trucks are cash only
  6. bring a sweatshirt ‘cuz SF weather is really unpredictable

Lake Merritt

The girls and I started our casual running club on Tuesday and we ran the perimeter of Lake Merritt, which happens to be 3 miles around. I used to run this route while in grad school and it had been that long since I had last been there. They’ve made a lot of cool improvements and it was a great place to kick off our weekly run and the first sunny day in a couple weeks.

Unfortunately, I had some crazy knee pain the day after.  I felt a twinge in the morning but my job really exacerbated.  I’m kneeling, bending, and running up and down two flights of stairs all day and I really felt it when I got home.  Fortunately, after icing it twice that night and taking Advil before going to bed, I’m back to my old self.  That was weird.