San Jose / San Francisco / Sonoma

Wow I can't believe it's been a full month since I posted anything! I'm so sorry about that. I'm working really hard to try and have some sort of a work/school and life balance. It's hard to do these days. I'm still constantly stressed out but I do see some light at the end of the tunnel and that makes things better.  Back in mid-June Ramin and I took a trip to San Jose as he had some business to attend at eBay headquarters. I decided to tag along so we could go to the Nascar race in Sonoma and also so we could do some sight seeing in San Francisco. Here are the highlights from the trip:

Golf

Ramin loves golfing. And I actually like it too. I didn't bring my clubs because we already had lots of luggage, but I did tag along with Ramin to two really nice courses. One was called Hiddenbrook and it was tucked away in the coolest neighborhood with a brook running through it of course. These pictures are of Ramin at the course - isn't it pretty? I'd totally love to live in a neighborhood like this!

This next course was in the coastal community of Pacific Grove. I loved THIS place even more than Hiddenbrook because of the small town/victorian feel of this place! The course overlooks the pacific ocean of course and it's set up like an old fashioned english golf course complete with a lighthouse! The weather wasn't so great that day but it added to the atmosphere of the entire place which was sort of old and spooky!

The Race

One of the major highlights and reasons for our trip was going to the Nascar race! We had already purchased tickets but when Ramin talked with his San Jose co-workers he found out that the company had already received SUITE tickets to the race - and I'm not talkin just any old suite - I'm talking about the Hendrick Motorsports suite!! This is the race team of Jimmie Johnson AND Jeff Gordon! By that time all of the main Sunday race tickets were taken, but we still were able to get suite tickets to the Friday activities. So on Friday we went up to the track and watched Practice and Qualifying. When Sunday came we made the hour long drive back to the track only to realize we'd left our tickets at the hotel!!!!  We also had purchased special tickets to have a Q&A session with Jeff Gordon (Ramin's favorite driver)...but we spent too much time finding parking and going to Will Call to have our tickets re-printed that we missed the session. But, all in all we did enjoy the Sunday race and we loved the track itself. BTW - my drive, Jimmie Johnson #48, ended up winning the race ;)

Winchester Mystery House

How convenient that one of the places I've always wanted to visit was literally a 10 minute drive from our hotel in San Jose!  If you don't know what the Winchester Mystery House is, just look it up online, they have a great informational website. Believe me when I say that I love, love, love walking around inside old Victorian houses and this was no exception. While it wasn't exactly what I had expected, it was cool and I think Ramin even enjoyed the tour as well.  We couldn't take pictures inside otherwise I'd have a lot more ;)

Alcatraz

The other must-do item for me on our trip was to visit Alcatraz. What an AWESOME experience. From the boat ride over to the cool audio-tour, this really was well worth the fee and time it took to visit! Seriously, if you're ever in San Francisco, you really have to visit Alcatraz and see what the history is all about. When you're on the island it's so weird to think that the island is just out there in the middle of the bay, it's so close yet it feels so isolated at the same time. By the way, it was insanely windy, which is evident by my crazy hair in all of the pictures!

San Francisco

So the day we toured Alcatraz was also the day we toured San Francisco. One of Ramin's friends from work recently moved to San Francisco and was kind enough to show us the major sites and drive us around. We visited all of the staples ;)

Diamond Heights, Chinatown, Lombard Street, Pier 39 and of course the Golden Gate Bridge

Payton Orion Palmer

Jill had her baby on Tuesday! I didn't get to see him though until Friday afternoon because he was stuck in the ICU for a few days. I did visit Jill Wednesday evening after work to check in on her and hear how the baby was doing. I guess he had a low white blood cell count after he was born and they were worried about him catching pneumonia or an infection. But, he's a tough little guy and was able to be released just 2 days later. 

It was SO fun for me to visit her and ask her all sorts of questions. This was by far Jill's hardest pregnancy all around. She's got a lot of after-birth pain and it's hard for her to move around right now. She has a lot of help from Paul though and the rest of the kids! 

Anyway, here are some pictures of Payton. He looks SO much like Elijah it's so cute!

Flowers, dogs and life!

Finally, an update! I've been taking pictures over the last few weeks, I just haven't had the opportunity to post them up - so now I'm taking that opportunity! Remember, you can click on these pictures if you want to see them bigger!

Work is by no means any less hectic right now. I've had some dreams of vultures lately and apparently the symbolism of them means that I need to keep my patience and be resourceful. So in terms of what I'm actually responsible for now, I'm being as resourceful as possible and working smarter, not harder ;)  And in terms of what will eventually happen at work, I'm just being patient ;)

Since it's actually acting like Springtime in Utah, I've been able to finally plant some flowers and Ramin and Chris have done some great work in the yard! I already posted the pictures of Chris and Ramin prepping the areas for the new trees to go but here are the pictures of the trees actually planted!

So we have a tree in each corner of the yard (East and West). And Ramin also attached some new trellis' to the fence. At the base of each trellis he also planted some Jasmine vines (Ramin really loves Jasmine because it reminds him of Florida). We also bought some Rose bushes we're going to plan sometime this weekend as well.

I love Springtime trees so here is what the tree in our front yard looked like a few weeks ago:

And as is my usual practice, here are the starter flower pots for this season. This isn't all of them because I just got started, but it will be fun to see how much they grow over the summer!

I also did some spring cleaning a few weeks ago as well. I wish I would remember to take some "before" type of pictures because if you could see the mess beforehand it would lend to more appreciation of the final product. But alas, no before picture. Instead, here's the final picture of my newly cleaned out pantry. I actually bought some new containers and shelving to go in there so it's been really helpful so far!

And last, but certainly NOT least, WE GOT A NEW DOG!!  His name is Dingo and he is 2 years old!

Isn't he super cute?!?! He is an Austrailian Cattle Dog mix...we think he may be mixed with Border Collie because of his black coloring and face mask. He is so sweet and smart!

We got him exactly one week ago today. Lady went to the vet last Friday for her usual comprehensive exam. When we went to go pick her up at the Petsmart Banfield vet, I noticed that the adoption people put the animals in a different section of the store, right next to the vet!! Usually I avoid looking at the adoption animals because it breaks my heart too much, but this time I couldn't avoid it. And the first thing I saw was Dingo looking at me from his cage.

For the last few weeks I'd really been thinking about Belle and how we need a companion for her since Lady doesn't play with her at all and because Lady is getting so old. To make a long story short, we brought Belle into the store and introduced her to Dingo and they've loved each other ever since! They are always play fighting or making out with each other - I'm serious!  I'm going to have to post the videos of them doing both because it's hilarious!  They cuddle with each other and just love it - they are basically the same size.  The only issue we've had revolves around the toys. Belle is SUPER possessive so we'll have to work with her hard over the next few months getting her to adjust.

Lady is sometimes annoyed with both of these crazy dogs but otherwise she is fine. She has developed a heart murmur that the vet informed me about, but I can't really do much about it. As long as Lady is comfortable and acting like her usual self I'm not going to stress too much. At least now she gets more attention because the other dogs are usually outside playing around in the yard :)

This is Belle's classic look - like she's mad at you or something!

The dogs play fighting - one of them always has their mouth on the other!

Jill's Baby Shower

So back in mid-April I helped to throw a baby shower for my best friend Jill :) She is due in early June and is expected a boy that she and her husband are naming Peyton. This is Jill's 3rd pregnancy and really the first one that I've actually helped throw a shower for. The shower itself was held at Jill's sister's house - Kristi. I coordinated with her for all of the arrangements. It was a fun shower and I think Jill really enjoyed it! Here are some of the pictures. The ones captured of me and Jill are on her camera so I need her to email them to me :)

First we have the set up - the favor/cupcake table!

Then we have the hanging decor - Jill wanted blue, green and brown for her colors, to match the invitations!

The drink table - Kristi did the awesome drinks!

This was the banner I made especially for the shower - I used my Cricut Expression I got for Christmas!

Here is Jill with her cousin Tiffani and her sister Kristi

Jill's step-daughter Alicia, her daughter Aireonna, and her niece, Maya

This is Jill with her Grandma Coates

Jill's Aunt and Mom

The food table once everything was served

I had some fun word games for everyone to play - a baby word scramble game and then an alphabet game - we gave prizes away - it was pretty fun :)

So those were all of the pictures I got during the party - I should have gotten more but I was busy taking care of stuff during everything :) It was a great day and I'm glad it all turned out well!

And I DID take more pictures this weekend but I'll post those up during the week since I'll have time now that school is off for this week.

Wow...really long time!

I know I know, it's been a month since I last updated the blog. I feel really bad about that. Things are progressing at work - I'm hoping in a few weeks I'll be able to share some updates for that I've been waiting to happen. I'll just say for now that I'm still HELLA busy. This week we started our new calibration program and I'm facilitating 13 calibrations/meetings a week with between 5 and 20 people at a time. It's actually fun but it's also time consuming because of all the preparation that goes into each one AND the after meeting work like compiling notes and sending them out. But anyway, that's silly work stuff!!

I plan to take loads of spring update pictures this weekend because it's supposed to be sunny. But for now I just have a few things. First, we have some seriously cute pictures of Lady that I took last weekend when I caught her sleeping soundly on the couch. I actually got within inches of her to take these and she didn't even notice - poor girl can't hear anymore :( But she is really peaceful looking in these pictures and I just love it!

Next we've got Ramin and Chris working in the back yard. We bought some new baby trees - they are called Pear Trees but they don't produce pears :) Instead they are just shaped like pears as they mature. These are the ones that turn REALLY pretty in the fall - I've noticed them around the valley during the fall and have always wanted some. The guys planted one in each corner of the backyard for some added privacy :) When I take pictures this weekend I'll actually take some of the trees planted in the ground :)

So that's all I've got for now! I know it's not much but its better than nothing. School is also done for the Spring semester and I did really well again in my classes - I just love school - cause I'm a nerd. :)

Dubai Pictures

So don't hate me but I'm incredibly lazy (and still sick) right now and I don't have the energy or motivation to post all of the Dubai pictures on the actual blog, but I'm fairly certain anyone who reads this blog also has a Facebook account, so that is where you can find all of the Dubai pictures we have:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2091618&id=29005970

Here is one picture for you though, it is of our custom artwork Ramin and I had done made out of wood. While wandering around one day we happened upon a cute little artsy place with alleyways and cute little shops. We found this guy's shop, his name is Hadi and we did get a picture of him in his shop. We loved what he was making and so we left thinking about possibly getting something done for us.  A few days later we want back to him and asked if he could make something of us even though we didn't have a picture for him to work off of, instead he just took pictures of us with his cell phone. Three days later we went and picked it up. It's made of wood mounted on black velvet, all handmade. It's AWESOME! Ramin has a cute crooked smile and I sort of look asian because I was squinting in the picture, but all in all you can still tell it is us - it was the best item was picked up in Dubai :)