Habitat for Humanity

One of our goals this year is to try to do more volunteer work. We finally got started on that by volunteering for Habitat for Humanity last Saturday. We had no idea what we were in for, just that we would be doing some manual labor. It was something I always wanted to try and I liked the idea of working outside and working with my hands. My dad was always one to be fixing up our house, but would pretty much never let me participate in his projects as he would worry that I would hurt myself or mess it up. =(

Anyway, this was my chance to finally explore the whole construction world while giving back to the community. We arrived at the site at 8:30am and were met by a friendly crew at the volunteer station. We put our name tags on and listened to the 10 minute orientation where they talked about safety and then split us up into teams. To be honest, I didn't really understand what all of the little projects were. The three I did understand were 1) installing windows 2) putting a roof on and 3) painting. The husband wanted to do the roof and I objected. I wanted to do the painting and he objected so that left us with installing windows.

The community being developed was made up of 26 townhouses. About half of them were done and the latter half were nearly complete. The two two-story houses we worked on needed windows installed. For some reason, even though the houses were two stories there were 3 levels of scaffolding. It was a little funny at first, how much work they were willing to let us do given none of us were professionals but the jobs ended up being pretty easy to pick up so it worked out well.

We had to carry these huge windows from one house into the house we would install them in. Then we had to caulk the frames from the outside while standing on the very unsturdy and at times scary scaffolding. Then we had to stick the window in and move out around within the frame to make sure it was set right. Then we had to measure it across to make sure it didn't get bent out of shape or anything. After that, we would hammer nails into the window all around the edges. Finally, we had to put flashing paper around the edges of the window.

It was a fun project, but after awhile it got really tiring! Mostly because a lot of the nails I had to hammer were much higher than my short little self and my arms and shoulders were aching!

When the day was over, we were exhausted but felt really good about the work we had done. I definitely would do this again!

Memorial Weekend: Birthdays, Barbeques, and Angels

Don't you love how even though there are four or five weekends in a month, every possible thing under the sun will fall into just one of them? Finally, a 3 day weekend to rest and relax and ours was jam packed with lots of fun-filled activities.

On Saturday night, we went to a friend's birthday dinner party at a very chill pizza joint in the Richmond district. The set up was very relaxing with big, comfy couches, coffee tables, and flat screen tvs to watch the NBA playoffs. The pizza was good and the drinks were erotically named (one of them being called "1-800-F*CK-ME-UP". I didn't order it because after my own birthday shenanigans, I promised myself I would not drink again and f*ck myself up.

On Sunday, we headed down to the South Bay for our Memorial weekend barbeque. Even though we drove a good 45 minutes, I was so glad we did, because it was so cold and overcast in our area, whereas down South were clear blue, sunny skies and very warm breezes. On top of that, the hosts had seriously gone all out at Costco that morning providing us with TONS of delicious food and plenty to drink. We sat in the hot tub and lounged by the pool while listening to some groovy tunes. Definitely a great way to spend the day.

After teaching my Cha Cha class, we headed out to another birthday dinner, where we enjoyed some good old Mexican food and pints. And we were so priveleged to have met a video game creator for George Lucas. How awesome is that? He created the light saber game for the Wii (which we still have yet to try!) It was so funny meeting him that night too, because earlier in the weekend, I decided I wanted to watch a Star Wars movie and randomly picked Episode 3. Probably not the best pick, because after that I wanted to watch the rest of the series!! Argh. And believe it or not, we actually did. In between all of galavanting, was Star Wars - Episodes 3,4,5,6,1,2.

On Memorial Day, we woke up bright and early and caught the ferry to head out to Angel Island. First time on the ferry and to the island (duh, because by ferry is the only way to get there!) and what a gorgeous island it was. We rented bikes and tried to ride as far around the perimeter as we could which was not very far at all as we had to meet our Berkeley friends back at the dock. But the views we did see from that road were beautiful. You could see Tiburon just next door, the Golden Gate Bridge, the city skyline. When we met up with our counterparts, we decided to hike to the top of Mt. Livermore. It was a nice, easy hike and when we got to the top we were sitting in the clouds. We pretended we were angels. =)

Surprise Birthday Dinner

The Husband planned a lovely, not so surprising surprise birthday dinner for me at one of my favorite Thai restaurants in town. Great friends in attendance along with my best cousin/friend and husband made it a really special night. There was even some embarrassing birthday singing along with some freaking awesome ice cream cake (my favorite!) Dinner was followed by drinks at our local Tiki Lounge. I won't go into too much detail about how the night turned out, but I'll say that I am waaaay too old for that stuff! I had one Mai Tai, tequila shot, and mystery bowl too many. =(

The Big Day!!

So turning 30 wasn't as horrific as I thought it would be. My cousin, who is also one of my best friends in the world, was in town visiting me from Canada. The Husband had taken the day off and planned a full, fun day for me. He kept me so busy and entertained that I didn't even have time to think about or feel like I was 30. =)

The weather was cloudy and overcast, but still warm which was perfect. We started the day early heading down to Ocean Beach by Daly City for the first activity of the day - horseback riding on the beach! After driving around in circles for awhile we arrived at the stables to the lovely smell of horses (we all know how that smell is, gag) and decided on the one hour ride through the fields down to the beach.

The ride took us through these gorgeous fields of every possible color flower you could ever imagine. I felt like I was riding through the hills of some European countryside, not Daly City, California! There were so many flowers that the air was filled with a sweet, floral fragrance all around us as our horses stumbled down the hills making their way towards the beach.

The sky was grey, overcast and cloudy providing an extremely dramatic and dream-like ambience for our canter along the wide empty beach. It was like something straight out of a movie. Again, not feel like I was right next to Highway 1, but off on some faraway island, the ride was very peaceful and serene. A great way to start off the day!

Afterwards, we were reminiscing about Filipino food and remembered, duh, we ARE in Daly City - Filipino food galore! So we found ourselves a Jollibee for lunch and chowed down on the family meal bucket.

We made our way back home, trying to recover from the bumpy ride and went to get ready for the next activity of the day - a trapeze class! I had been talking about wanting to take a trapeze class for MONTHS, but never got the chance to do it. Well, the time had finally come! We were signed up to go to the hour and a half mixed level class in Oakland.

The circus school is set up in this huge warehouse out in Oakland. When we arrived, I was a bit intimidated as there were a lot of really good people flying around on the trapeze, bouncing around on trampolines, and wrapping themselves up in ribbon hanging upside down 50 feet in the air! But the staff was extremely friendly and catered very well to first-timers.

My first swing on the trapeze was so much scarier than I thought it would be. I felt silly because I screamed the entire time I was swinging on it! They had us jump off the platform, swing through the air, and then hook our knees onto the bar. After that we had to let go of the bar with our hands so that we were hanging upside down, and then grab on again, take our legs off the bar, and then do a back tuck dismount!!

When they first told me I would be doing all that I was like "HUh? Excuse me?!" But after getting over the initial scare and shock of flying through the air, it was actually not as bad as I thought it would be and it felt really fun, free, and liberating! By the end of the class we were able to latch onto another person sitting on another bar with our arms, and then hang and swing with that person. It was amazing!

I haven't gone again since, but would love to go... there's always the possibility I could run off and join the circus =)

We finished off the night with dinner at a Burmese restaurant where we enjoyed duck, garlic noodles, and spicy chicken with basil. Delicious and the perfect end to a perfect day!

Day 2: Do Something You Love to Do but Haven't Done in a LONG Time

One of my favorite past times is going out dancing. It doesn't matter if it's at a hip hop club, salsa club, wedding, my parents friends retirement parties... where ever there is dancing, that's where I want to be, and whenever there is music on, I want to be dancing.

Unbelievably and unfortunately so, I haven't been dancing in ages!! Even though I teach dance for a living and am often practicing at the studio or dancing at the studio's social dance parties, I can't remember the last time I went out dancing for myself just to have fun.

So on Cinco de Mayo after grabbing some authentico Mexican food in the Mission District, we didn't end up at a Salsa club, but we did end up at a Swing (dance) club, which was just as good!

I don't often swing dance, but the place we went to totally sucked me in. There was a live band playing and the people hanging out at this place really dressed the part, with the ladies in puffy, poodles skirts, and the men in fodora hats, and pin striped vests, and everyone in their dance saddle shoes. I loved it!

So we bopped around to some awesome swing music, dancing Lindy Hop, East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, and some blues. I got to be a Follower again! (At the studio I am often required to Lead because there are always more ladies wanting to dance then men) and I was happy, energetic, excited and all sweaty and having a great time. =)

On the list of things to do in my 30's: Go out dancing waaaaaaaay more often!!

Day 3: Go Somewhere Nostalgic

My husband and I got married in Napa Valley on October 6, 2007 and haven't been there since. We finally found the perfect opportunity to go when some of my cousins were in town to visit and it was right around my 30th birthday. So we packed up the car and started the 1 hour road trip from the Bay Area out to the beautiful Napa Valley.

Upon entering the valley and seeing the sprawling vineyards with surrounding mountains in the backdrop, I was flooded with so many memories of the wedding and the one hundred and one times we went up there to even just plan the wedding. I loved the beauty of the area, the smell of grapes in the air, the peaceful, quaint feel of the surroundings. I loved all of it way back then and I loved it just the same when we went back again this time around.

Except there was nothing to stress about this time! We went to the Robert Mondavi Winery and took the two hour signature tour which gave us some wine making education and a little bit of history on the Mondavi wines. The tour was topped off with a private, guided wine tasting which was delicious but unfortunately, being the lightweight I am, I ended up slightly buzzed.

That didn't stop us though. We went on to V. Sattui winery, where we tasted another 6 selections and then had a small picnic on the benches outside with some bread, cheeses, and deli meat we purchased in their shop. At this point, I was definitely crunk drunk but still managed to fit in a delicious sushi dinner at Go Sushi!

Day 4: Do Something Touristy

Since my cousins had only been to the Bay Area once before (and that was just for my wedding so they didn't really get to do much sightseeing), we decided to spend another overcast day doing something touristy. We had just spent a good part of the day eating a ton of food and wanted to do something to work it off, so we decided to head into the city and attempt to bike over the Golden Gate Bridge.

We got into the city at a pretty decent hour, around 3pm, but then spent so long walking around and trying to get onto the trolley down at Market Street to take us all the way across town to Fisherman's Wharf where we would begin our biking journey.

The trolley was definitely a fun experience and a must do for all who visit San Francisco. I particularly liked hanging off the edge of the trolley as we went up and down the hills of this romantic city.

When we got off at Fisherman's Wharf we found the Blazing Saddles bike rental company picked up our bikes and ready to go by 7pm. We worked our way out of the wharf, through the park (at which this point I might add is not for the faint hearted!) onto the marina, and out along Chrissy Fields with the majestic Golden Gate Bridge standing bright ahead with the dark clouds looming overhead.

We biked uphill to the entrance of the bridge and the views to be had from her were absolutely breathtaking. The Bay area really is absolutely gorgeous with all the little islands, broken up by areas of big blue water. We managed to bike halfway across the bridge and almost made it to Sausalito but being that the sun was going down we decided to head back. Just as well as we were all exhausted anyway and were pretty sure we burned off all the calories we had piled on that day!

The bike back was in the dark for the most part but was quite enjoyable as we headed towards the city skyline dotted with lights. I don't think I'll ever get over how beautiful the Bay Area is. This city is definitely growing on me.