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Thursday, June 21, 2007
just for laura (aka pictures of my condo)
soo.... i bought this condo in january but it took a while to unpack the boxes (the ones in the house - there are still some in the garage to sort through!) and start decorating. so although it’s already june, i would like to introduce you to my new place =)
walking up to the condo (the garage is detached and is in the far left of the picture, and my car is parked right in front of the garage)
walking in the first thing you see is the staircase going upstairs, slightly to the left. at the top of the stairs is where the brand new maytag washer and dryer are hidden behind those doors, but let’s not go upstairs yet.
to the right of the entrance would be jill’s bedroom and bathroom. i didn’t take pics of jill’s bedroom but here’s a pic of her bathroom from her shower area. she is so martha stewart she made that orchid decoration and got all matching bathroom stuff.
continuing in past the stairs and into the living room i put up a hammock i got in ensenada, my chinese lanterns (the one with dark leaves from chinatown, the one with the white leaves from china) and my star lanterns from granada, spain.
but if you continue in you come to the living room with its faux fireplace. not true, it’s a gas fireplace, but you can’t burn real wood in there. not like i ‘wood’ with the white carpet… the decorations hanging over the sliding glass door are left over from the sweet 16 party we threw for jill’s sister (about 2 months ago!) and rita left her signature red on the back patio - we had breakfast out there one sunday in february and she said, “we should paint this red!” and so we painted it red that day on a whim!
the other half of that room would be the dining area - or my computer workstation, most of the time =) there are usually more papers out there but school is out so no more paperwork for me! oh, and auntie zenie gave me that table from her old house as my housewarming present. there’s a shadowbox in the middle of the table (currently housing orange scented potpourri) and it’s pretty nifty
from the other end of the room, you can see the barstools (gift from kuya garry), and the kitchen. it came with a brand new maytag dishwasher, refrigerator, and stove.
ok, then… going upstairs, you come up to a small hallway in between the two bedrooms. the view is facing what was rita’s bedroom
no pics of rita’s bedroom, but this is what it looks like after she vacated it
and her 1/2 bath, as viewed from her bedroom
that door in the background? that leads to my bathroom. since that bathroom is only a 1/2 bath, she would share the tub in my bathroom. so basically there are 1.5 bathrooms jack-and-jill’ed between the two rooms upstairs. so here’s my view of the bathroom from my room. i have blue and brown towels and matching rug, and i thought it was sooo cool i was matching before i saw jill’s bathroom. but hey, it’s mine and it’s clean =)
and last but not least, my bedroom. if you can tell, the lady before me had a ton of mirrors all over the place - at the headboard, lining the wall where i’m standing, etc. oh, and i’m standing in the walk-in closet. WALK-IN CLOSET!!! that still makes me happy =)
and the last pic is of the curtains i sewed to put a little bit more color into my room and also to hide the computer nook in the side of the room. the bookcase and the computer desk are behind this curtain but i don’t like staring at it every day and so i made this curtain =)
i still have lots to do (especially in my room, as the small tv is sitting on the box, i have a tv tray for a bedside table, and i have no lamps in there), but that’s what this summer is for! and it’s all mine! =)
i hope you enjoyed the tour!
grove graduation 2007
just a few pictures from last week’s graduation… yeah i know this post is late… but here are some pics from the last real event at that school
max (who’s going away to boot camp next week) and matt
jade and johnie
keigm, darryl, and trenton
dr. ian dinmore, bree, and mike playing ‘pomp and circumstance’
after the ceremony
celeste, traci, madison, and megan with jemma joining the bmc with her brand new red headband =)
kim with her son joey
mallory, lorraine, and shelby - visiting from last year’s grad class
i don’t know these students cuz they’re from before my time at grove but they’re math and engineering majors coming back to visit mike
sarah and vanessa
christy and chris
with celeste
grant and ellie
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
breaking and entering
so on friday i locked myself outta the house.
jill was already in laguna and wasn’t coming home till monday morning.
i was stuck outside my house, out of my car, with all my luggage already packed into the car, and with shelia waiting in grand terrace for me.
i quickly called up gary, my locksmith, but was going to have to wait an hour or two for him to show up, and so i called another friend to see if we could eat dinner at maria’s while waiting for gary to show up. thankfully, we were just able to break and enter into my place, and i was able to find my keys and everything was right with the world. i sooo desperately wished that gary had taught me a thing or two about picking locks....
and then on saturday, while hanging out at my brother’s apartment after taylor’s party, i got my wish!
his neighbor had a whole “learn to pick locks” set that he brought over to my brother’s place and amidst dark chocolates and cheese and crackers, my brother, ate donna, and i all learned how to pick a lock with 1-5 pins in it. here’s josh showing us the design behind a one-pin lock.
and then i tried to pick open my brother’s front door. and i tried in vain! i couldn’t do it.
but… i’m hoping that if i ever lock myself out of my house again, then i potentially have the skill (and the bobby pins in my hair!) to be able to do it.
actually, i’m just hoping that i never lock myself out of my house again =)
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
my brother's cat cody
looking all pear shaped and fuzzy
and reminding me of snoopy looking like a vulture
what a cutie
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
super macro rocks!
i was just playing with the super macro in the small garden in front of my mom’s place… some of these pics you can enlarge by clicking on them
and then i found this ant crawling all over the flower…
Sunday, May 27, 2007
and i'm posting pics again!!!
i was headed out to rita’s on thursday night for the long 4-day weekend (that’s right, i scheduled all my parent teacher conferences on thursday to add an extra day to my memorial day weekend!) and then i realized my camera was gonna be delivered on friday sometime, so i decided to wait at home for it to be delivered so i could use it for the whole weekend.
and so i’m gonna share alot of the pics that we took =) i’ve had a 5 month drought and i’m so excited we took 169 pics already just learning how to use it =)
indoor lighting at the blue beet
kerry, rita, and me
kerry takes more pictures than i do! but she also is starting her new photo business, so i guess she has a valid reason to
the view from upstairs at the blue beet
playing with the super-macro and taking pics of the carpet from an inch away
marlene, shailu, and me on rita’s stairs
we walked around, went grocery shopping and carried it home
marlene eating at our “picnic” on the floor in rita’s living room
shailu and rita
marlene and rita enjoying the bonfire we ‘inherited’ from some random youth group
and the view from the other side of the fire
i do like my new camera, i love all the settings and options, and i can’t believe i got it for only $99! yay!!!
i should be posting more regularly again =)
Monday, May 21, 2007
jill is graduating with her MFT
and we celebrated in style by going to grad nite 07!
actually, i had to chaperone my seniors and i dragged jill (see her brand new blog here) with me so that i could run around disneyland with someone… we got there on thursday night (may 17) and stayed till friday morning 6am, so we got to run around the park for 6 hours free, since we were chaperones!
we mostly ran around acting like we were seniors though =)
taking goofy pictures
actually, goofy is in this pic =)
hahaha… aren’t these stuffed animals so cute? pluto’s the funniest, just one big orange circle… i love it!
i didn’t want to brave the 2hr line to get on space mountain, but i rode star tours, drove through autopia, visited the haunted mansion, rode the pirates of the caribbean, survived the teacups (and alice in wonderland) did the big thunder mountain railroad twice, and of course, rode the matterhorn. we had free breakfast in the chaperone lounge, and it was just an all ‘round fun experience....
yay for grad nite! and yay for being chaperones!
Sunday, April 08, 2007
i love my roomies!
rita, jill, and i are the roomies for my new condo… the bachelorettes version 4.0. now that rita moved out to balboa jill and i are gonna have to go visit her out there. darn! we -have- to go out to the beach to hang out… =)
anyways, here are the pics of my roomies =) compliments of jill’s camera
i love ‘em!
yay for craigslist!
when rita moved to the beach she took the tv with her… so for the past 2 weeks we’ve been watching tv off jill’s 14inch tv, which is definitely hard to watch when you’re in the kitchen one room away. jeopardy was especially hard to watch cuz i couldn’t read the ‘answers’ on the screen.
so last night when i looked on craiglist there was this ad for a ’32" SONY FD Trinitron WEGA Television w/ remote - $175‘ right here in redlands!
i picked it up today!
how fun! i’m so excited and watching from my kitchen right now!!
Monday, April 02, 2007
drinking outta a plastic bag
a couple of weeks ago my student had a 2-liter bottle of soda and i was dying of thirst so i asked if i could have some. we couldn’t find any cups and so i found a baggie in the kitchen and made him pour some into there, after which i bit a hole in the bottom and drank my soda that way. all the students stared at me and the next thing you knew, there were 5 students trying to drink outta a bag too!
they were like, “how’d you think of that?!?!” and “i never would have thought of that!”
and i told ‘em, “what?!?! the rest of the world drinks stuff this way! you can’t take the bottle out of the store because they don’t really recycle, they just refill the bottles.”
anyways, while in mexico, i ended up drinking the coconut juice outta the bag so that they could cut up the fruit and give me the meat while i was drinking, and i thought of my dear sheltered students at home who have never seen this before. this picture is for you guys:
and then after this we decided to go atv-ing on the sand dunes. this was the most fun ever! you HAVE to go try it! kilometer 38 on the highway 1 to ensenada!
Sunday, April 01, 2007
what happens in mexico, stays in mexico
so susan and i are both on spring break....
susan
y yo
we first stopped at pacific beach in san diego and saw the dolphins swimmin’ south. got a few pics of that but you couldn’t really tell that they were dolphins in the pics, so instead i’ll just post the pic of the beautiful sunset that we saw
the next morning as we were headed into mexico, we saw this sign. why are there three sss’s in the name of that city? ssso weird....
on the road to ensenada
where we saw these boys playing ‘futbol’ near the carnival cruise ship
and susan enjoyed her caramel filled churro
as did i!
under the shadow of this extremely huge 50mx22.5m and 250kg flag
our room is just down the street from all the nightlife and we have a view of the beach too!
and the only thing we’ve had to eat all day was tacos. fish tacos, carne asada tacos, and more tacos. oh, and the churros, of course. but then, more tacos =) they’re so tasty here!
and that’s all for tonight…
gnite!!!
Sunday, March 04, 2007
you'll shoot yer eye out, kid!
several months ago, when i was talking to the guys from the japanese church, i heard them discussing a potential men’s ministry activity - they were gonna go duck hunting or something cool like that!
“oooh! i wanna go!” i begged them.
“dude, it’s MEN’s ministry!” they rebutted. “you can go to the WOMEN’s ministry.”
yeah, and drink tea, eh? that’s what the ladies had scheduled.... tea and crumpets or something else like that.... SOOOO not as cool as hunting, at least to me =)
when i went to school that week some of my students and i were talking about the injustice of it all, and they decided to invite me to go with them! they invited me last weekend but i couldn’t go because of all the hot air ballooning and festivities, so we rescheduled for this sunday. i met them at school and then had to go back to their house to pick up the guns cuz they couldn’t have a gun without me in the car =) and then we went to inland fish and game.
that’s me! and that’s john to my left and seth to my right!
so they’re REALLY good, i think they missed 5 or less while i only hit 3 total. out of a box of 25 bullets. i guess really, i hit 6 out of 2 25 rounds, so i was consistently bad =) hahahha… but i had so much fun doing it. i realized AFTER the whole affair that i was shooting right handed and using my dominant left eye to aim and that’s why my eyesight was off! hahahhaha! silly me…
so then we went over to the other side where all the rifles were at and i tried shooting at the gong all the way in the back and i used my -right- eye this time and was way more accurate. although that could also be because i had a stationary target.
but man it was so fun! even though i only got 3 clays each time, i -did- hit the gong several times. and i don’t think i bruised my shoulder =) so tx seth and john for bringing me!
Saturday, March 03, 2007
went to joe's....
and what an experience it was! laurie got real excited when i said (erroneously) that there was a joe’s crab shack on hospitality. so then we had to go find the closest one, which was in rancho cucamonga. and she really wanted me to try eating crab legs… -shudder- so even though i didn’t really want to, i went ahead and tried it. i just tried to not think about it too much, and then i discovered that i really enjoyed it!
see?
besides the messiness of it, it was pretty fun working to find the edible parts =) hahhahah! yeah, it’d be a great first date - no pretentiousness at all as you pull the legs apart and dig out the meat =) i’m pretty proud of myself for eating it - not just tasting it, but -actually- eating it. pretty good for someone who was taught to be a picky vegetarian for the first 16 years of life, eh?
Monday, February 26, 2007
hot air ballooning for my mommy's 60th birthday
the one request my mom had for her 60th birthday was that she wanted to go hot air ballooning. so our family went to temecula and had alotta fun shooting up in the air in the balloon and skimming the terrain when we were flying low.
right after we landed my brother hopped out with my cell phone and took this picture of us =)
and while i was standing in the basket this is the view of the balloon i had right above me! btw, cell phone cameras rock!
Thursday, December 28, 2006
christmas in maui
i did say that my family went to maui for Christmas, right?
well, yesterday, my brother, andy, and i took kealani and kainoa up to kapalua bay to frolick in the waves…
we stopped by the side of the road and saw whales in the water. you can’t see em in this picture but this was our view of the beach that we ended up at. it’s the beach for the ritz-carlton, the one that will host the mercedes benz golf tourney on jan 1
walking thru the jungle trying to find a beach
and arriving at kapalua bay
you can’t really tell in this pic but the waves were huge!
see… they were huge! and yes… that IS what i looked like… and kainoa too! hahah…
my brother trying to be superman:
grabbing dinner at the bj’s pizzeria in lahaina
so plum tuckered out by the ride home!
