First comes love...

Bev, Judy, & I all as 'fiancees'

Then comes marriage

Bev, Judy, & I all as 'wives'

Then comes....
Uh. Not yet. :)

Baby Talk
Seems like everywhere I turn nowadays we're talking about babies. I guess a handful of people here at work are expecting and I guess it's naturally the next thing to talk about once you finally have your wedding and get married. So who's next??

Busy year!
Alan and I just found out that we have about 3 more weddings that we know of this year to go to (and 2 next year), lots of graduation celebrations, a camping trip, a new musical to go see that's coming to SF (Alan bought me tickets for my birthday.... well, actually, I bought them but they are really his present to me hehe), and the usual birthdays, showers, and holiday parties.... I love being so busy with events, but it doesn't leave much time on the weekends to work on decorating the house. It's ok, we don't have much extra money anyway, and it takes time to do. But I think Alan is seriously thinking about buy his new lens now...

On the hunt...
...for a new camera... for me! :) Anyone have any suggestions on a relatively small, but very good camera that uses a compact flash memory card?

Poker night for the guys
I'm getting booted out of my house tonight since Alan is his hosting a poker night with his co-workers. So instead of wandering aimlessly, I asked super6rlee to plan something! :) I think we're going out to the city for dinner and bar-hopping :)

Happy National DNA Day!
To celebrate this occasion, our company is having ice cream and cookies at 3pm :) I'm glad to celebrate that thing which my career has been based on... DNA is very important. Read more about its discovery here.

Congratulations Judy & Alvin!
The wedding we went to this weekend was absolutely beautiful... I loved their reception location - The Palm Event Center in Livermore. The weather was beautiful and so was the bride :) They had a whole wine/grapes theme going on, from their favors to the programs to the centerpieces. Congrats to a great couple! Have fun on your honeymoon :)

Reminiscing in Durant Square
Sunday, Kitchie wanted to go get some Cal gear in Berkeley, so we drove over and walked around the campus area.... I can't believe how much I miss that place! We walked around Telegraph and went into the Student Union store and ran into Alex! :) Then we headed over to Durant Square to have some classic Berkeley food - La Burrita, Thai Basil, and Steve's Korean BBQ. Yummm, loved all those foods in college. Can't wait to go back :)

When was the last time you had a Pop Tart?
I just went upstairs to toast 2 cherry pop tarts and am currently eating them at my desk. I don't think I've had one of these for years... and for some reason they taste really good! Cherry filling with frosting and red sprinkles on the top. I'm thoroughly enjoying my breakfast... It's good I grabbed them on my way out the door this morning.

Has a book ever made you cry?
Before last night, my answer to that would be "No". I finished reading The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks (of course...) and I actually started crying towards the end of the book! It was such a touching story... if you loved The Notebook, I think you would love this one too. It's sort of a continuation, but not really... it's about Noah & Allie's daughter and son-in-law. Go read it! Up next for me... The Guardian by who else... Nicholas Sparks.

What's up with all the questions?
Dunno... guess I'm just in an inquisitive mood... or maybe it's because I haven't been getting too many comments these days. ;)

Viva il Papa!
Looks like a new pope has been elected, based on the white smoke and the chiming bells! Can't wait to see who the new pope is and what his background is...

Live Music
A couple of my co-workers formed a band and they performed on Saturday night at this small club on Geary. Alan and I had seen them before at our company party, but this was their first public gig. It was pretty cool seeing them on stage and hearing the crowd cheering for them. Check them out here : 1501.

Raw footage
We finally got a miniDV camcorder to play all the raw footage tapes of our wedding. It's funny seeing the parts that didn't make 'the cut'. They did an awesome job editing the final video from all the footage though. Our wedding DVD is currently Alan & my favorite movie to watch these days... :)

Straw-less
I went to BK for lunch today and got the chicken tenders with honey mustard sauce this time and it was actually pretty good (I usually get Sweet & Sour) I didn't notice that the guy didn't give me a straw until I had pulled out of the drive thru. I never realized the importance of a straw more than that moment. I tried to open the top and drink my lemonade from the cup, but found it hard to do while driving.... so remember - always make sure you have a straw!

Deals
Ever wanted to join blockbuster.com for DVD rentals? Now here's your chance to get a month of free rentals, not just the 2-weeks you get for your trial period... just type in the promo code "friends" while signing up. Also, do you shop at Aaron Brothers? Click here for a 25% off anything coupon. Alan and I bought lots of our big wooden frames from there a couple months ago, and maybe we'll go back and get some more stuff. I wonder if they have professional leather wedding parent albums.....

I had a great weekend and my body is still trying to recover from all the parties :) Here are the highlights:

Cha Cha Cha birthday
Went for tapas and sangria at my favorite restaurant in the Mission for Rowena's birthday... I didn't realize that they take reservations for parties of 8 or more (which is good to know, since whenever I got with Berkeley folks we always wait for 1+ hours) Anyway, got there first and decided to order a drink - good thing Michele showed up soon after so I wouldn't have to look sad and drink alone ;) Then others came, got some free drinks at the bar from these 2 old men (hehe) and then got seated in the back room. Ordered great food and had a really good time, just chatting it up with the girls. We even started a book club in the process.

Then went bar hopping around the Mission. It started raining and all 10 of us were trying to cram under 2 umbrellas. We hit 3 different bars and stayed at the last one for the longest. It was fun dancing and seeing the birthday girl (a mother of 2!) having fun with the girls! :)

Judy the Bride & Judy the Bachelorette
Went to Judy's bridal shower in Union City on Saturday - played lots of fun games like Toilet Paper Bride (I was the bride and had some cute shoes made for me, lots of bling bling, and off-the-shoulder dress, and even a GARTER!), how well do you know the bride, the memory game, how well does Judy know her groom, name the bride (celebrities faces pasted on bridal gown pictures from magazines), and others. Ate lots and lots of really good food and had fun seeing the bride open her girly gifts ;)

Then went home to change for the bachelorette party that same night! Went into the Mission for tapas and sangria again (I love those two things!) but this time to a restaurant I've never been to - Picaro. It wasn't as crowded as Cha Cha Cha and they had similar tapas. I actually liked the sangria there better - it was sweeter, seemed like it had a tiny bit of carbonation, and it was really chilled. Judy wore her purple crown/veil thingy the whole night - which was very brave of her, I have to say ;) Then headed over to Velvet Lounge where we danced the night away as we got the bride intoxicated :) hehehe. I think she had fun though, right bride?? :) I definitely had fun!

Run Forrest Run!
I got home at 3AM on Sunday morning, and Alan woke me up at around 6:30am to get ready for the SJ Mercury Run! Suffice it to say... I wasn't in that great a mood to go running, but I eventually got up and had to - since we registered for the run and I knew the night before what I was getting myself into if I stayed out too late. Anyway, it was a beautiful day to run! I was actually awake and ran the 5K straight without walking! (just quick stops at the 2 water stations). I saw Lisa on the course and we ran together the whole way. I think she kinda motivated me to not walk, which was good for me :) Then the famous Lunardi's food fest afterwards - where they had so much food that we were all full by the time we left... Ate lots of sausages, bread, tortillas, salsa & chips, brownies, blueberry cake, lots of different sports drinks, fruit, and much more!! I swear people could just go there for the food and no one would care.

Happy Birthday Dale!!
Since it was Dale's birthday, we all went to hang out at George & Ruby's new house afterwards. We had ice cream in waffle bowls, ordered pizza, watched their wedding DVD, and played some good old Texas Hold 'Em. We started playing on their backyward patio table until we started getting attacked by bees. There were a few small beehives or something on the table umbrella and when George started spraying them with Raid, I swear all of the bees started gathering around us. So we all got scared, ran inside, and took our poker chips with us ;) We played for 6 hours! Rex finally cleaned us all up, even though he was supposed to be a novice player. Then we listened to some old school mp3s playing 'Name That Tune' :)

It was a great weekend. Too bad I didn't take any pics! :(

Packed weekend!
TGIF... I'm looking forward to this weekend! Tonight - Cha Cha Cha in the city/bar hopping in the Mission for a friend's birthday; Saturday - bridal shower and bachelorette party; Sunday - SJ Mercury 5K run and food fest afterwards ;) Hope the sun stays out!!

Taxes!
Haven't mailed in my taxes yet... I wanted to see if Alan got his refund so I could use that money since I have to pay, but it hasn't been deposited yet. We'll see... if by next week it's not there yet, we're just gonna have to pay for it upfront.

Have a good weekend!

Roll over
No not minutes... but little baby Aaron!! We hung out with the fam this weekend and we all watched in awe as baby Aaron rolled over from his back to his stomach. It was so cute! He did it once while no one was looking and then it took a while for it to happen again since everyone was watching - his arm kept getting stuck, but he did it and everyone cheered! Funny how you can watch a baby all day long and not get bored, huh?

Spring Forward
Pros: It's still bright out at around 7pm when Alan gets homes. :) Longer days!
Cons: Feels like I'm waking up at 6am and I always feel sleepy at work. Kitchie is now 3 hours away, not 2 anymore.

Sick
Alan is sick today and woke up in the middle of the night. He left the lights on at 5am and I couldn't sleep even with the pillow on top of my face... Maybe that's another reason I feel sleepy too.

Wedding Video marathon
I swear we've watched it about 10 times since we got it last week. We watched it the first night we got it until 1am, when we showed our families, we left it on all day Saturday as we were cleaning the house, and just random parts here and there. Can't wait to see the raw footage that we got... we need to find a miniDV camcorder to borrow, since Alan's is broken. :(

Happy Birthday Bev!!
Have a great day! :)