Birthday 2015

So my birthday came after a lot of activity in my home just before. I was ready to just mellow out and have a proper vacation from all the insanity that is the 4^th of July for my family. I mean, that holiday is as big as thanksgiving for us. Huge holiday.

Which is the only disadvantage of my birthday being when it is. It comes right after a big holiday. Which when I was younger wasn’t a big deal, but now it’s more of a hassle simply because I need to entertain guests for so long before my birthday and it wears me out in a big way.

So the Monday before, I was worn out, but actually worked. My body was still sore from the 4^th of July. But Monday night I spent the evening cleaning up. I just didn’t want a messy kitchen or messy room or messy living room bugging me on my birthday. I wanted all house chores settled and taken care of before I celebrated my birthday. So I stayed up past midnight cleaning and organizing.

On my actual birthday I took the day off. And I was able to relax by myself at home, which was awesome. I got pizza from Zorbas (small pesto & pineapple) and got myself a smoothie from Jamba.

M woke me up early (when he left for work) and he gave me an IPad for my birthday (he also gave me a huge chunk of money to help pay for my trip to Colorado. Which was very kind) which was pretty awesome. I played with it some. Downloaded a bunch of games onto it, but I also watched “So I married an Axe Murderer” while eating pizza and just relaxing. Plus I got some Hagen-daas ice cream to enjoy as well (chocolate and peanut butter thank you very much. SO GOOD!) . I played “Gat outta Hell” on my Xbox some and had a fire going in the fireplace and well as candles lit in the house. It was really nice me time.

I also got assorted gift cards from my brother and his wife and family (along with see’s candy), my aunt and uncle, and a very long time family friend.

I started Back to the future. Then M got back from work and we hung out some. Then I started to get ready to go to dinner with him and the boys. I got dressed up some and we all went to the Fog City Diner for dinner. M and I took BART to meet them there and we were running a little behind so we took a rickshaw bike ride from BART to the restaurant. And we were there with plenty of time. Thanks to M who paid for it.

The food was quite tasty and we ended up getting 4 glasses (because they were pretty cool looking. $15 for a pair. No too bad.) And once again, M footed the bill. Which was very sweet of him. We then went home and I opened the gifts from the boys (a purple Chrome Xbox 360 controller and some candles that have a ring hidden in them! Super cool. I loved it!! Along with some purple stoneware little bowls, and a book on CD.). So sweet of them to gift me.

And then I was super tuckered out and ready for bed.

Friday (the 10^th) I had a party planned for myself. Pizza and Pajamas themed. I didn’t have a huge crowd invited, but big enough. (about 12 or so were invited? 10 came.) I picked up a few prizes for playing Let’s make a deal again (like last year) and I worked on Dianna trivia (which was no easy feat coming up with 60 multiple choice questions. Which each included a bonus question. All about me.). I also pre-ordered a cake for myself from Mazetti’s bakery with purple whipped cream frosting, chocolate cake (which had chocolate chips in it) and chocolate mousse insides. I just didn’t want to bake my own cake, and was willing the foot the bill this time around. 

I cleaned up from my birthday and vacuumed and brought up needed props in preparation for the party.

The first few guests arrived and we waited for a few more in order to start the first game. The pizza lady got a little confused about where to deliver the pizza but eventually figured it out. I then let people Know we could play the game and eat pizza! (I ordered 4 pizzas. 3 XL’s and 1 large. Pesto & Pineapple (which went over real well, because hello it’s the best) , Pepperoni, Hawaiian, and Supreme in Zorba’s version. This was a lot of pizza. And I asked If I could get 3- 2 liters of soda for free with the order. Thankfully they said yes, and then soda was covered as well!)

The game was Japan World Cup 3. Which if you don’t know what it is, well, you should watch it on you tube. It’s bizarre. It’s a bunch of strange horses racing. I had everyone pick a card and that was what horse they rooted for. Pretty awesome actually. It was great for those in the group who didn’t want to play lots of games. All they had to do was watch and cheer. And with each winning horse, we played let’s make a deal with the winner. Lots of fun. Went over well.

I had fun prizes from -  $5 gift certificates to places, Candy from Trader Joes, to gag gifts from the $1 store like “tea with the queen”( kids tea set) and “new glasses”(slinky eyeball glasses). I think it went over well.

Then we moved the game to play Dianna Trivia which we broke into teams. The Bearded Bards, Barrel Horse (a reference to Japan World Cup 3), And Purple Spackle Bots. I loved the names they came up with! So fun!

We played that for a while and then took a break to have cake and open presents. But for the winning team, they got to play let’s make a deal yet again. One last time.

Then we had cake and did presents. I actually told people to just bring their lovely selves and not worry about gifts, but regardless, gifts happened. I got Snake Oil (a pretty cool card game like apples to apples except you have to sell the product combination), A nice bottle of Olive oil and a strainer for a frying pan (because you’ll LOVE it!), a GC for Amazon, Candy in purple mason jars with a GC to Target. It was pretty awesome.

Some stayed after for a while. We had a cool group that stayed around pretty late going over the rest of the trivia cards and hanging out. And then eventually it ended up just A and I hanging out till 2 am! She spent the night in order to go to bed bath and beyond in the morning.

All in all I think it was a great success. I had a good time. A fun group was there and a really fun way to celebrate my (37^th… whoa) birthday. J It was some work to put together, but worth it for all parties sakes. What a great group I had to Party with.

I’m sharing the candy & pizza love at work. I did eat a lot of the left over cake though….. soooo tasty! And I’m fairly pleased with the results of the day and weekend. Sadly now back to normal un-birthday life….

4th of July 2015

While this post says it’s about July 4^th, in reality it’s about the week leading up to July 4^th and such. There has been a lot going on.

So my niece came out for her usual niece week on Monday June 29^th. I picked her up after work in the city from the cal train station. She was arriving mega bus, which was pretty late (about an hour and a half I believe) which kind of screwed a lot of things up. We grabbed a burrito there and came home afterward.

Day 2 I went to work and afterward we had dinner at the Japanese restaurant Akagi in San Bruno. I know she does not get a lot of Japanese food so it was nice. Then went home and watched Lt. Robin Crusoe.

Day 3 was when the real adventures began. I took some vacation time and we went to Pier 39 / Fisherman’s wharf for the day. The original plan was to go to Alcatraz but when I looked a month before we would go, tickets were already sold out for the week. No joke. And they were sold out through august. So no Alcatraz.

We did however go to San Francisco’s “The Dungeon” which I got for the local discounted rate of $16 a person. It’s little performances by live in actors in little spaces about San Francisco’s history. I got to be a Narc at one point, and I was Sweaty Betty– a drunken lady who stripped her clothing off on top of a bar while dancing. They had a little booklet of pictures at the end for $60! WOAH! But I did get one of the pictures for $10. Why not.

We then had lunch at Bubba Gump’s (since I had never been, and she likes seafood.) I probably will never do that again since I was not very impressed with my meal. Not as tasty as I had hoped. It’s fine, it just cost a lot only to be disappointed food wise. The atmosphere was nice though.

Then we found out that for only $10 more, we could go to Madame Tussauds wax museum! Which has replaced SF’s old wax museum. And in many ways this one is cooler. Simply because you can actually walk around and touch the figures! How crazy is that? We took lots of pictures. I’m sad it had no house of horrors though like the old one….

We walked around pier 39 a little, looking at the magic shop and the chocolate shop. Walked to Ghirardelli square and got a hot fudge Sunday to split. Which was super good by the way. Walked around there and looked at a few art galleries and by then my feet were more than ready to go home.

We walked back to the car and headed out. We then went to Chevy’s for dinner since my niece had never heard of them, let alone eaten there!

Day 4 was also a big day. We started off by taking BART and taking a free tour of SF’s City Hall. They just celebrated their 100^th anniversary. And it was very interesting to learn about.

After that we went to Straw to have lunch. It’s a carnival atmosphere eatery. It was pretty tasty actually. We got the popcorn cauliflower and She got the chicken and waffles sandwich (it said Monte Cristo, but really it was a chicken and waffles sandwich) while I got the Cajun chicken alfredo. Also good but could not finish because of how creamy and spicy it was.

We then hopped onto BART and headed to Union Square to get on a cable car to go to the cable car museum. It was a little over an hour wait to get on, but we did. The cable Car museum was free however. Loud, but interesting. Learned how they were almost gone for good, but people voted to keep them. They had an interesting video playing about how they worked (dated 1984!)

Then we walked over to the Chinese history museum (also free that day) and that was very interesting as well. Particularly the racism at the 1915 world’s fair exhibit. They had pictures that were talking about opium dens in Chinatown in the city, and they fought against it saying that wasn’t all there was to Chinatown. They just changed the title, but kept the exhibit (at the world fair).

Then we walked around Chinatown a bit. Tried to find the fortune cookie factory but no luck. Then we walked down the street with all the lanterns on it and eventually wound up at the arch at the end (which is pretty famous, although it has only been there since the 70’s), where we met up with M.

He walked with us to BART where we traveled to Urban Putt. A mini-golf course located in the city inside a little building. Pretty neat-o. Lots of creative holes. Dia De Los Muretos, an Earthquake one, musical ones, lots of creative things they did with the golf balls. Pretty cool.

From there we walked to Limon. A Peruvian restaurant located just a couple blocks away. The food was quite tasty. We three enjoyed it very much.

Then went back home to relax (and get a $40 ticket from BART for parking in the wrong spot. I didn’t think I had, but I guess I did. Pretty annoying.).

Day 5 we were supposed to go to the Winchester Mystery House, but I was super worn out. My feet were killing me and I just couldn’t walk anymore. And if I didn’t I just didn’t see how I could play volleyball on the 4^th. Consequently it because a rest day. We went to Red Robin for lunch, but that was as exciting as it got. Then Paul and Joseph came into town for the 4^th of July festivities.

For the 4^th of July I purchased some arm bands (really calf sleeves) to wear while playing volleyball. I just get so banged up on the 4^th I wanted to try and somewhat save my arms this year.

So the festivities were typical with playing volley ball for probably 5 hours or so. Maybe 6? Long long time. Then afterward, my brother and his 2 kids went with me to Pacifica to light the fireworks I had picked up earlier that week (I spent like $100…. Should not have… but did). That was fun. Then went home to bed.

They stayed in Sunday to hang out. They slept in some and we played Gloom as well as Disney Scene it. We went out to lunch /  breakfast at Denny’s, and then had Dinner at Chevy’s since my nephew had never been before. This just seemed crazy to me since I have known them to be there for so long and they are a chain.

Anyway It was nice but I was extremely worn out and almost sad I didn’t have the Monday off. Just for resting purposes. My body was so stupidly sore it was hard to move. So much jumping and hitting the volley ball with my arms. They were better though than when I did not use them (the arm guards). Still hurt but not as much. Honestly it was my legs and knees that super hurt. It was painful to walk.

And that’s the basic rundown of niece week and 4^th of July this year. I will get to my birthday in a separate post.