New Year's Resolution #37- Blog out!

Happy 2009 everyone! Holy moly it's been a hectic holiday season. Jeff and I went home to San Jose for a whopping 10 days (!!) this time because Christmas and New Year's Eve are so inconveniently spaced. We had lovely mellow Christmas activites (well, mellow for me. Jeff's arm was all bruised up from playing too much Wii. Seriously.) and really nice time spent with the family and a few friends. Everyone seemed scattered this year and I wish we got to see more of our friends, but we got hang-out sessions with Matthew, Erika and Max and Lauren (FINALLY I MEET LAUREN! just as wonderful as I had envisioned), the Elders/not Elders anymore because they're both married now (!), and Jake and Chris. We threw a NYE party (taco-themed) at Sue's house which was a great way to ring in the new year.

So pictures! Here we go:
This is Mandy and her final project from her flower class! Check out the level of difficulty in that one... she got extra points for it.


This is our newly acquired Natalia Fabia original! Natalia is crazy talented and I was thrilled to pieces when Jeff told me she wanted to do an artwork trade with him. He gives her his, she gives us hers. Winners all around! You can't tell from this picture, but the blood on the lion's mouth and on the zebra fur is red glitter paint. Roar.


This is my mom's new race car! We ganged up on her over the Christmas break and made her give up her old Izuzu. She loved her I-Mark, we all did, but it was time to say goodbye to the old, and hello to the new. This one is zippy so if you are in San Jose and you see a streak of silver flash in front of you but you can't tell what it was, it was my mom. In this.


Jeffy and my mom with the doggies:



And lastly, probably the best ladies luncheon there ever was. This past Saturday, Mandy and I drove up to Malibu to visit Erika who just so happens to live in a beach front mansion in Malibu. Not too shabby, let me tell you. It was a lovely 80 degrees out, but really windy (damn you Santa Ana winds!) but we still took advantage of the balcony overlooking the ocean to have a feast prepared for us by Erika. She catered to my pickiness perfectly. A delicious salad with feta and pomegranate seeds, pasta with tuna, peas, basil, tomatoes, and parmesan, and roasted aspargus, paired divinely with a crisp white wine. Now that's how you do lunch.



I lied. One more. For the cat fans...


By the way, if you're digging the polaroid layout of my pictures, check out www.poladroid.net. Free application to download and convert your pics to look like polaroids! My favorite part is that it includes the sound effect to make it sound like you just took a polaroid picture, and the picture fades slowly into the frame, just like a real one! Shake it!