June Activities!!!

The last couple weeks have been jam-packed with so much fun!!! First of all, my cousin and his family - Marvin, Ila and Izzy - came to visit for the first time in forever! This is the first time I met Izzy, so it was a lot of fun!

We all got together on a Sunday and visited the Oakland Zoo. It was a lot of fun, and the first time WE were part of the parents and grown-ups. Marvin had his daughter, his sister, my cousin, Presmarie brought her two adorable girls, my sister had Savannah, and my brother and the very pregnant Angela were there as well. We essentially had kids (all girls) of all ages - almost 10, about 4, almost 2 and almost 1.

The hubby and I were the only ones without any kids!

It was fun, though, chasing the kids around, passing the babysitting duties around to the closest adult to the escaping child... VERY different environment and life than what I was living just within the last couple years! I know some people enjoy a life free of responsibilities to others, unburdened by kids...but I've never been that. I enjoy spending time with my family since I grew up with large family gatherings, paper plates instead of china, and dodging the occasional game of indoors "tag" while maneuvering my way to the family room. Its exciting to see how us "kids" are now starting to be the adults.

Here's a picture of the fam! (backrow) Izzy, Marvin, Ila, Eliasib, (frontrow) Jun, Angela, Abigail, Brad and Savannah)


Here's a picture of the hubby and Angela. Cute!

The hubby loves to be in the air...free-falling, if possible, but since it was not possible, we opted for those sky/ski-lift things. I am not going to admit that I was still scared of heights while riding, though the picture of me cringing may give that away a bit. =)



June 3, 2009 represented our two year anniversary. Could you believe it? It feels like just last year I was posting pictures of the wedding and honeymoon...crazy!

So, to celebrate our anniversary, we planned a nice, local trip. I took three days off of work and we had such a wonderful time! We started out exploring San Francisco a little more. We had lunch in Berkeley at this yummy Japanese restaurant. On our way into the city, we stopped by and spent a couple minutes enjoying the great weather and views.


We also stopped by the Japanese Tea Gardens. If you have not gone, go! It's a little small thing, but everything is so wonderfully cultivated and kept! After following the path around, you end up where you started - at this little place to order and sip tea while enjoying the beautiful scenery. Imagine and very content Eliasib and Val sipping tea in that hut-thing. Fun!

Afterwards, we spent the rest of the day and night in San Francisco. For our anniversary dinner, Eliasib brought me to this awesome restaurant up the block from our hotel named Asia de Cuba. Fitting, no? Get it - Asia de Cuba??? hehe... unfortunately, no pictures since it was dark and oh, so romantic in there, but the food was VERY good!

After dinner, we went and saw Spamalot. Oh, it was quite silly and fun! I like Monty Python, but its not everyone's humor. Still, even Eli, who normally doesn't thoroughly love MP, enjoyed himself a lot.

The next morning, we hopped in the car and drove down to Santa Cruz. We met up with my sister and family before reaching the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. I have memories of going there when I was younger. I remember our 8th grade trip to the Boardwalk... we had so much fun running around, riding the rides...ah, memories. Anyways, here are a couple pictures of the gorgeous day! ...And to think that the weather people were forcasting rain and a dreary day!

Here's a picture of Brad and Eli stretching before getting into "THE VAULT!" When you go in the next room, it is all black with lazer beams criss-crossing throughout the room. The point of the game is to make your way to two specific spots without touching the lazer beams. I took video and tried to upload...but for some reason, its not working. It was hilarious watching them on the monitors trying to wiggle their way around those lazer beams!

Awww... here's a picture of Eli carrying his niece, Savannah. Look at her, all protected from the sun in her cute little hat! Oh, and no, Eliasib didn't all of a sudden get white hair - that's sunblock!

Another "awww..." picture with Savannah and mommy!

Oh, yeah - couldn't NOT take a picture of the hubby and his dark socks and flipflops.

The boys chill-axing!

The next day, we all went to see the Winchester Mystery House. The house was large and odd. There were several theories on why it was so. The most prevalent one is that Mrs. Winchester, who married and then was widdowed by Mr. Winchester of Winchester Rifles, felt guilty for receiving a lot of money as a result of the success of the business - selling Winchester Rifles! She was very into spiritualism, and was supposedly told that, if she was constantly constructing something on or in her house, she would receive absolution from those many, many people killed by the Winchester Rifles.

So... she started building...and building...and building! Her house was not one I would consider beautiful. It was, odd! There are so many peculiarities about the house that it is now known as the Winchester MYSTERY House. There were stairs build up to ceilings, doors leading no where...I think it had something like 160 rooms, though many of those rooms were tiny! Here are a couple pictures:

Since she was a very rich woman, it didn't seem like cost was a hinderance to her. Here is the room where very expensive stained glass and other things were kept. Lots of Tiffany's windows... pretty!

Here is the happy group quickly taking a picture on the tour.


Stairs built up to a ceiling! See... definitely odd!
Marlows in the garden room...


Abigail walking up this very odd stairway. Mrs. Winchester was very short (not above 5 feet) and had arthritis, so she built all these little tiny steps that were probably three or so inches high. Eliasib had fun ducking throughout the whole house since the ceilings were very low in a lot of areas.
Here they are looking up into...who knows! Here's a "window..." or door to the story below???

We had a lot of fun that week. This week was my birthday. My camera died right after we took this picture during my birthday dinner, but it was a great birthday!!! Now I"m looking forward to my 31st year. Yay!