Chalk One Up for Dave

No, we're not back in school again, but Dave had a GENIUS idea (if I do say so myself) to get a CHALK BOARD in order to help us display our photos! Over the last few years, we have struggled to find a way to actually enjoy all of the pictures Dave has shot. We all know how it is - you get a few frames, thinking you'll change them out frequently because it's "so easy" to print online...next thing you know, you've moved from Boston to San Diego to Raleigh to San Francisco and you still have the same 10 photos in the frames! So at long last, we have a solution. This is our new 8 foot x 4 foot "photo gallery"!



Another new addition is a piece of art we bought at a local art fair last month and has been in the frame shop ever since. The artist is about 80 years old and the name of the painting is "The Way It Was". The scene is her memory of how dances, including her Prom, looked 'back in her day'. She told us about how she loved the dresses and suits that people wore and that she wanted to capture the memory. We love it!


Our next addition was a lamp we picked up in Julian, CA (outside of San Diego) when we visited two weeks ago. The one thing our current dream apartment lacks (aside from a dishwasher, disposal and laundry) is OVERHEAD LIGHTING in the living room! It's like a séance in there every night with all of the candles, so hopefully this new lamp will help!


Our final addition is our coffee table that arrived early (as in pre-Jan. 2008)! It's by Knoll and we both love it. It's durable, adds some character and hopefully we'll have it for a very, very long time.


And if you aren't sure if our apartment looks like a florist or a funeral parlor, you can blame that on Mama Dianne. She believes in having fresh flowers every week and it's a habit that I have picked up. I love having them (gents, take a hint at how you can keep your wives happy on just $10/week), though I enjoy picking them out at the farmers market or grocery store myself!

Anyways, that is all for now. We still have to get one more rug and a set of curtains for our bedroom, but then I think we will totally be SETTLED IN! We moved to SF in January 2007...we're almost at a year mark and still getting it together!

So You Think You Can Dance? (no, they really can)

For three weeks, I've been counting down the days to the annual SF Hip Hop Dancefest. And no, I'm not kidding. Our friend Adrienne clued us in that this little slice of heaven (my heaven involves 24 hours a day of hip hop and daily performances by Marvin Gaye...) and we rushed to buy the tickets. Friday and Saturday nights were all but sold out, so we went with the blue hairs at 2pm on Sunday. There was a huge variety of people at the show - from 8-year-old preppie wanna-be-homies to people my parents' age to "I swear I am a rockstar dancer at the bar after 10 tequila shots" people like us. Yes, quite the mix. It's hard to describe how absolutely incredible these performers were, so I attempted to capture a mini video in order to catch even a glimpse.

The total video is about 30 seconds, so watch the whole thing!


There is a better "teaser" video on the Hip Hop Dancefest website:


Dave and I promptly went to the GYM after the show this afternoon. I have all but made a vow of celibacy from food (well, except wine....and martinis...and chocolate...and ice cream - but a STRICT vow other than that) in order to start working on my Hip Hop Dancer Body that's just screamin' to get out (or is that the tequila talking about my future career? Sometimes you just can't tell). Pass the turkey!!

Lions and Tigers and BABIES, OH MY!

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY, NATALIE!!!

I can comfortably sub in the word "Babies" for "Bears" because the two are equally scary to me. I went to North Carolina two weekends ago for my friend Natalie's baby shower and got to visit with all of the babies that have been born or grown since I left NC in January!

Natalie's shower was really great - I love seeing "the girls" and spending time together. As Natalie makes the move into motherhood, I'm really glad I could be there to celebrate with her. One of the highlights from the day was spending time with Nat's husband's mom and stepmom. I have kept in touch with Nay's mom over the years (she is the one that created our very cool "heart" piece of art), but I hadn't seen his stepmom since high school. It was a true joy to see her and catch up. She is a free spirit on firm ground and I really enjoyed seeing her. Nay's mom repainted the rocking chair that Nay had as a child and they are going to put it in the nursery for their baby to use. I thought that was really sweet and cool...what a great act of love!

Natalie looks glowing as a mom-to-be and it was really wonderful to see her and Nay as they prepare for the new member of their family. There are pictures of "the girls" at the shower posted here.

The other portion of the weekend was spent hanging out and practicing my photography skills on all the aforementioned babies! I'm pretty sure each of them have no idea that I actually have a face because all they saw of me over the weekend was a big black lens in their faces, about 4 inches from their grills. They were good sports though. Here are my favorite shots:

Rives Smith, son of Elizabeth (Mann) Smith

Emerson Lisk, daughter of Nicole (DeFeo) Lisk

Elizabeth Farmer, daughter of Mary (Tripp) Farmer

Dino Pirozzi, son of Meg (Koester) Pirozzi

The rest of the photos can be seen by clicking here.

We had a great, quick, 48-hour weekend. It was a long flight from SF to Raleighwood, but well worth every moment of it.

NBA Ballah' Style

I can now officially say, "I AM A BASKETBALL FAN!!!!!!!"


Taken with Dave's iPhone...must give credit where credit is due

At approximately 4:58pm yesterday, I found out there were 2 extra corporate tickets (no, Dave and I did not pay $400/ticket to watch a basketball game!) to see the Golden State Warriors play the Cleveland Cavaliers (read: LEBRON JAMES!). I called Dave to see if he wanted to go and we were off! I had to give up Book Club (we read "A Wrinkle In Time" this month and I was actually anxious to discuss it with the girls), but it was well worth it because the tickets were 3rd row from the bench!!!! Absolutely awesome. We made it to our seats about 10 minutes before tip off, so we had time to watch the players warm up, grab some beers and relax. We brought our "good camera" (the digital SLR) and snapped a few photos including these:



We didn't see any celebs except for Phil Hellmuth (the poker god) which was pretty cool. This picture was taken from about 3 feet away from him (Dave was paparazzi on this one). I don't watch much poker, but Phil is my absolute favorite player:


And as an homage to the company that GAVE me this opportunity, check out our sponsorship! It was all over the arena during specified times and is cool to see because a guy on my team (the guy that gave me the tickets) creates and runs this for Symantec:


The Warriors didn't win the game, but it was a great experience and we had a BLAST! I have only been to one other NBA game (Celtics vs. Lakers, which was pretty sick with Kobe & Shaq), but I have certainly never experienced a professional game like this! One last picture with THE Mr. James:


Yes, I could get used to this life! Ha Ha. The rest of our photos can be viewed by clicking here.