Just Another Day at the Park

It is summertime which means baseball time. I'm not a big baseball fan, not at all in fact. I've been to a handful of Giants games. I was with friends so I could occupy my time fine enough. However, my first A's game was super close thus allowing me to actually watch and enjoy the game. Hey, did you know baseball games can be fun? There are two rules to make baseball games fun. 1) Sit at least this close. And 2) Have a guy that looks like this sit in front of you and hit on you--awesome!

Matchy Matchy Brown Squared

Here are Erica and Courtney in matching adorable brown dresses at Kara's wedding. Being Mormon is super great, it really is. And temple weddings are wonderful. I can't imagine my life any other way...but this also means that I rarely get to attend any of those fancy weddings that grace the pages of Martha Stewart Weddings with the bride walking down the aisle at a vineyard and everyone is in pretty dresses and then you eat awesome food and dance all night. So, you can only imagine my delight when Kara invited us to her wedding. Her big fancy, in a vineyard, pretty dress wedding. She looked gorgeous. The weather was gorgeous. It was storybook. It really was. Here she is walking down the aisle.



And here is the beautiful Vicky Hill as a bridesmaid. She set up Kara and Adam and look how that turned out. The two of us get to visit teach each other which is awesome! Plus, she looks gorgeous in her dress too.



I have to say that driving for over 2 hours to cover just about 35/40 miles was well worth it when we got to go to the wedding. Thanks Kara for letting us come and for the beautiful wedding. Plus, it gave me a chance to wear my shoes that I'm still totally in love with.

A Hiking We Will Go

I woke up really early on Saturday to spend the majority of the day staring at this:



Don't get me wrong, Gnu's got a great little toosh, and I'm sure his adorable fiance Whitney loves it. However, it was really early on the start of a super long day. We went up hiking near Pt. Reyes. If you haven't been there, go, it's gorgeous. I bet Gnu would even join you if you want to stare at his toosh all day!

Hiking along the coast line made me super glad that I live in California. Sure I had gorgeous mountains in Utah, but they weren't right next to the ocean.



We hiked up a really steep hill that reminded me that I'm not as fit as I once was and even made me consider passing out along the trail thus missing my opportunity to see this:



You may notice that I am still out of breath in that picture and barely standing up. Thank you Amy for preventing me from falling to my death. I don't think I fully recovered until I was down at the beach.



and able to jump this high:



Thank you Gnu for my first ever jumping picture. I'm really proud that you were able to get it on the first try when I used about 35 pictures to get you jumping--at least you aren't in the film era anymore, right?



I got some well needed rest eating lunch on the beach and was ready to book it the 5.5 miles back to the car in order to get home in time to shower for Courtney's graduation dinner at the Gingerbread House.

It didn't take me long on the 5.5 miles back to the car to realize how stupid we were to keep hiking past our original 4 mile turnaround point. The out-of-shape factor was definitely starting to play a bigger role in my tired level. With the help of adorable new girl Tori, I was able to make it back to the car with 0 seconds to spare. Gnu and I jumped in, pawned off our carpoolers on other people and headed for dinner. (Home to shower first and then dinner--yes, I showered and got ready in about 10 minutes, I'm amazing!)



Ever since Courtney and I first discovered this little gem by the freeway on our way to the tube to Alameda, we have often wondered what it would be like to actually eat there. Courtney's graduation was as good an excuse as any...and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. I do hope that Courtney blogs about it because she has all of the pictures. It was definitely an experience.

True to form of late, last Saturday was exhausting. I miss the good ol' days where I could sleep in until 11 and then watch an ABC Family movie marathon all day. When did I sign up for this event filled lifestyle? It's fantastic.

Blogging from the Bus

Today I saw a pale man with white hair. Imagine this. A pale man with white hair. He didn't have white hair just on his head. No. In fact, his arm hair was white too. Are you imagining this? Contrasted with his black t-shirt and black jeans, I was freaked out by this phenomenon. He was so white...it made me look tan by comparison. I hope I see that man again so we can become friends.

As the title of this blogs states, I'm blogging to you all now from the comfort of the bus. (Well, it was a lot more comfortable before some man thought he could sit next to me. There are plenty of other seats available, why would you sit next to the person with a computer open on her lap and her bag next to her only to make her move her bag and type on the computer all awkward like? Jerk!!) Anyway, back to the story: Technology is awesome. I'm on the internet on the bus. Who would have ever thought that we could live in a world where such luxury was possible? I wonder what fine things will be next? Teleporting? I sure hope so!

Stealing the Show

As many of you may recall, Courtney and I began serious rehearsal of the Air Supply classic, Making Love out of Nothing at all, several weeks ago. I told you all that we were trying to perfect it for open mic night or other such opportunities to showcase our talent. Well, to be quite honest, I wasn't planning on ever letting a performance of that song leave the apartment. Much to my surprise, Courntey was. Last night at acoustic night at the institute, we held nothing back and performed our best to date performance of the Air Supply classic.



We moved many in the audience to join in and sing the chorus. Look at the smiles of happiness and glee from those who could witness the spectacle.



Now, to be completely honest, it was mortifying. I don't sing in public and I'm pretty sure Air Supply is the only band that could inspire me to do so ever again. We did fall apart a little at the end when I couldn't control my giggling when I was supposed to be doing the "Making Loves" but we were able to pull it together and finish on a very lovely "Out of nothing at all."

Even better were the not so subtle promptings to join the choir that were focused in my direction all day at church. Sorry Mackenzie, I don't do the choir. I'm going to go ahead and hide that "talent" under a bush. We'll save the choir for the real singers.

Copying Natalie

So, my life coach posted this on her blog, therefore, I must follow. This is actually pretty funny. I went to Google and typed in "Alisa needs" and pressed enter. These are the top nine things that I need:

1) Alisa needs a home without children (this is so true, I have sticky issues. I love my nieces and nephews but prefer living with adults)

2) Alisa needs to quit working (again, couldn't be more true if I made this stuff up))

3) Alisa needs to think through the issues (like I'd admit if that one was true))

4) Alisa needs food every couple of hours (preferably chocolate!) (I didn't even have to add in that last part, it was already in Google, so true about the food though))

5) Alisa needs help...and not just the psychiatric kind (now this is getting a little self-destructive))

6) Alisa needs to get her own (don't even ask))

7) Alisa needs to wait for Annette to not be around because she doesn't want her...(again super true, I don't know what comes after her...but I know it has got to be true. I don't want anything to do with Annette, I can't stand her.--if an Annette is reading this I'm not talking about you, promise))

8) I'm not saying Alisa NEEDS any enhancement, but her size seems to vary (ha ha ha ha ha, awesome!))

9) Alisa needs to sing deeper more (how perfect is this because it leads me to my next blog subject))

Thanks Natalie, that was fun!

You Should Never Tell a Lie

Before you all head out for a weekend of fun, please keep this following lesson in mind:

Other People's Kids

Okay, I'm sick of looking at my feet every time I open my blog...yuck...what was I thinking when I decided to post my feet on the internet. I've reached an all time low. The shoes are great, but next time I will refrain from showcasing my feet with them. They are much cuter from my angle anyway (looking down from just over 5 feet away).

Anyway, I've recently become an aunt for the 5th time. I love being an aunt. It is so fun to spoil little children and dress them up in adorable little clothes. I am also lucky that I get to live by one of my nephews and the baby in utero (Heidi Anderson--no mom and dad, Stephanie and Erik aren't going to name her that, but I think it would be funny).

Berkeley, my adorable nephew, just loves animals. I went down to Stanford to go to the local carnival and study math with Stephanie. It was an awesome day. Here is my adorable little nephew:



I never knew how much of a Dr. Dolittle he was. He is riding that pony like a John Wayne natural.









After that horrible experience was over for Berkeley, we decided to test his love for animals out in the petting zoo.







The whole ordeal was so traumatic that it took a Capri Sun,



a sno cone,



and another Capri Sun to help the poor kid recover.



We eventually went back to Stephanie's for so much needed naps. Berkeley is a good kid and I'm sure he's going to be a great big brother in August.

I'm in Love

That's right mom, I'm in love. Don't start planning the wedding though because it's not like that. When I was in Portland I got distracted by all the fancy shops and got sucked into a Nordstrom only to fall in love with these:



My feet have never been more happy wearing animal bi-products (although I'm pretty sure that no zebra's were killed in the making of my shoes). I hope you all enjoy the nice shot of my feet, they look white and big at this angle.

Remember the Cheesecake?

Well, awhile back we went to Tahoe. It was wonderful. We still talk about it. In fact, I just got back from Ali's house where we laughed about the awesomeness that was that weekend. You may remember that I made the most delicious cheesecakes, yummmm. Well, Erica was talking about the cheesecakes and then Elisa piped in and said, "Bret [Gnu] totally watched me eat it...off my chest." The entire room broke into laughter. She was referring to her fall while skiing and meant the "eat it" as in fell and wiped out. However, this was right after cheesecake talk...it was amazing. My stomach still hurts a little bit, as do my cheeks.

Oh, good times.

I know this doesn't truly appease Leslie, Amy and Natalie. I did promise Amy a good 30 minutes devoted to the blog this weekend. However, this story was truly funny.

It's Bathtime in Berkeley

That's right tomorrow is the first Friday of the month and that means everyone in Berkeley takes a bath.



I was walking around the Cal campus a few weeks ago when Brett was in town and someone had filled it up with bubbles. Awesome. I was so tempted to jump in.