Visit from AZ

This past Wednesday, I got to see a few old friends from my junior high/high school days. Quentin and his wife Didi were up here from Arizona visit family and friends while trying great food up in the wine country. I was lucky enough to be a pit stop on their way, and they got a slight taste of Palo Alto. Didi is expecting and is about 4 months along, so super cute. She was rockin' her lil' bump.

Another friend, Terri came to join us from the East Bay. We all headed to NOLA's for drinks before a very yummy dinner of Japanese-style tapas at Gochi.

Terri and Quentin proved they hadn't changed much from high school - which Didi and I got to witness:)

It was nice to take a break in the middle of the week and spend it with friends.


Photos courtesy of Didi - thanks Didi!!!

Really bad wax figures

Pretty funny...

Julia Roberts looks like a man dressed in drag. That can not POSSIBLY be Cher (not in THAT dress anyhow). Poor Sandra Bullock looks more like Chris Angel, the Vegas magician. Tom Cruise could use a better wig....and Barack Obama...REALLY? Oh they are all so bad, but it makes them so good!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/31-really-bad-wax-figures/

Apartment Living

Still adjusting to being back at work after a vacation, but more so, apartment living again.

Since we had one crazy week before leaving on vacation, I had almost forgot that we sold our townhome and that we would be returning to the apartment we moved into shortly before we left.

It's been quite awhile for us having lived in an apartment. This is also the smallest apartment I have ever lived in since it's a one bedroom. We did put alot of furniture in storage and sacrifice closet space.

There are many upsides though:
1. It's cozy (no sarcasm...really, I like cozy)
2. When I need to get a glass of water, I don't have to feign dire thirst to guilt Leon into making the trek all the way downstairs to the kitchen. I can open my bedroom door, make a left, and viola!, the kitchen is at my disposal
3. Less to clean
4. No stairs (except to get to the garage for my car)
5. A shared gym? Haven't used this feature yet
6. Short commute
7. Close to alot of restaurants (including some of our fav Taquerias....hmmm, on second thought, that can be a downside too)
8. Closer to alot of friends for more impromptu dinners, lunches, drinks...whatever
9. We are paying 1/3 in rent of what we used to pay in mortgage! This is affordable Palo Alto living.

and last but not least....

10. We get a HOUSE after moving out of here :)

Yeah, those are all really good reasons for apartment living. It also is kind of nostalgic like the old days when Leon and I were first living together.

Sand Drawing

Long...but amazing to watch.

Granada & Estepona

Ahhhhhhhhhhh....that's how I felt today. As relaxed as ever. Spent the entire day at the beach, reading a book and occasionally napping. I will miss this!

I do miss Tank alot though, and by some coincidence, every book we brought on this trip contains a dog as a major character! Can't wait to see him.

So, we spent one day in Granada (that was Wednesday) and the one thing to do there is see the Alhambra. Before then, we were itching to try paella, and it was GOOD.


This was some beans and pork fried in olive oil, and that lovely paella. YUM! We were a bit spoiled by the food in Paris, so it was nice to have something like this on our plates.


These are from the Alhambra, which one day used to be a Muslim mosque before the Christians invaded the area. It was quite beautiful and we were glad to see it. Then we were off on a 3 hour drive to Estepona.


As you can see from the above photos, Estepona was all about relaxation and not really site seeing. It's been nice to do nothing here and to get in a little relaxation before we know we have to head off to the real world again.

So tomorrow we have a very early start in the morning and will be spending our 4th of July on a plane. Hope everyone else is BBQ-ing :)