Holidays in southern California
For Christmas this year, Pierre and I went to southern California to see his parents, my parents, and my family and friends. We spent the first four days in Beaumont with his parents and the last four days in San Diego with my friends and family. I got to visit with my favorite kitties in the world, Shnowy and Chessie. They are living with my mom now, and they are going to turn 17 in March. They are content senior citizens, and spend all of their time laying on the couch and demanding attention. Chessie is the orange tabby. She is getting senile in her golden years, and will just cry at everyone and everything.
Here is the plump and cuddly Shnowy. He still follows everyone all over the house and purrs constantly.
Shnowy putting his face in Pierre's camera.
I got to visit with a few of my Peace Corps friends when we were in San Diego. We met my friend Mike for breakfast in Ramona. Mike is helping us plan our honeymoon trip along the Oregon coast. Pierre and I are going to bike from Portland down to Florence or something like that. Mike is helping us plan our route and loaning us equipment. He might also be available to drive us to our starting point and then pick us up when we're done! Woohoo! Mike has also volunteered to DJ our wedding. He is a very talented musician and we have similar taste in music, so we know he will be the perfect MC/DJ =)
My mom wanted to go to the Wild Animal Park when we were in town to see their Holiday Lights display. Whenever we go to the Wild Animal Park, we always have to see the marmosets, since they are my mom's favorite animal.
The meerkats are also adorable.
Lots of egrets hang out at the Park too. I liked the crest on this guy's head.
Here's Pierre seeing how he sizes up against a gorilla.
My mother doing her best gorilla impersonation.
The famous cock on the rock! You can see these guys in Mindo in Ecuador, but I never was able to get up early enough to see them whenever I stayed in Mindo.
Another star attraction at the Wild Animal Park is the hyacinth macaw. I had never seen a parrot that large. He was a brilliant blue and seemed to enjoy all the attention he was getting. Look at all those cameras!
We visited Lorikeet Landing, where people can buy a cup of nectar for $3 to feed to the rainbow lories. The birds are pretty friendly and will land on you even if you don't have any nectar. This guy landed on me as soon as we walked in, and stayed for a bit even though I didn't have any food for him.
This poor little boy got mobbed by the lories. I don't think he liked that one bird sitting on his head!
Pierre and I near the cheetah exhibit.
My friend Michelle from the Peace Corps and her boyfriend Eddie met us at the Wild Animal Park. It was a meeting of the half-Asian club! From left to right is the half-Filipina girl, the half-Chinese guy, and the half-Japanese chica.
The Holiday Lights exhibits were cool, but hard to photograph. I really liked this tarantula because it seemed like it was lurking in the bushes, waiting to strike.
Pierre and I met up with four different groups of people on the day after Christmas. Breakfast with Mike, Wild Animal Park with Michelle, dinner with my aunt, cousin, and her boyfriend, and then karaoke and clubbing with some of my high school friends. My itinerary is always jam-packed when I am in San Diego because I like to see everyone when I'm in town. Here's us at dinner. From left to right is Addam (Alex's boyfriend), Alex (my beautiful cousin), my Auntie Ging and Pierre and me.
Me and Kristin singing Katy Perry's I Kissed A Girl at the Whiskey Girl bar and club in the Gaslamp Quarter in downtown San Diego. Next time we go there I am going to sing Shut Up and Let Me Go by the Ting Tings with Cindy. I love the Ting Tings!
On Saturday night we went over to my friend Jamie's house for dinner with all my high school friends. My friend Carla just had a baby 3 weeks ago. Here's Cindy holding little Everett.
Kristin sitting with the new mommy Carla and Everett.
Our host Jamie excited to give out wonderful Christmas presents!
Pierre singing the Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. He did a good job, better than me!
Pierre and I discovered that we really suck at karoake and will probably only do it when we are in San Diego.
When we were with Pierre's parents, we visited Santa Monica to meet one of Pierre's friends. We happened to be near the boardwalk when a fire hydrant got busted, leading to a geyser in the middle of a downtown street. It was quite a sight!
I hadn't seen something like that since I visited Yosemite and saw Old Faithful!
Lots of fire trucks and other emergency personnel showed up to fix the fire hydrant. Many people crowded around too to watch the free show.
The very wet firemen eventually got the geyser under control.
I liked this cute little frog on a lilypad decorating a drinking fountain in Santa Monica.
Pierre's friend Chris Ruth is an Illini but is now working in L.A. Chris is 6'6"! I look really short in this picture. . .
Here are some other random pictures. I dressed up as a Nanny for our annual Nanny Night at work. A bunch of volunteers and staff dress up as Nannies and kids visit Westbury House for games, arts and crafts, activities, Santa and songs. I kindof liked my Nanny outfit. Sasha thinks I should wear it for all family functions.
Last month I also ran my first 10k. I've been wanting to run a 10k for the past 7 years, but I finally had the motivation and time to train for it this year. I ran in the Jingle Bell Run in DC with one of my grad school friends Carrie. Pierre and Rakhi came to cheer me on but then unfortunately missed seeing my cross the finish line. I just ran too fast! I was happy with my time. At best, I am a 10 minute miler, and I finished the 6.2 mile race in exactly 62:05. Maybe next time I will try to finish it in under an hour!
The Jingle Bell Run is fun because all the runners get jingle bells for their shoes and people wear santa hats, antlers, elf costumes and othe crazy get-ups. A bunch of Carrie's friends ran with her too. Here are all the lady runners at the end of the race.Happy New Year! Thanks for reading =)
posted by Unknown @ Thursday, January 01, 2009
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