Playing with my camera

So I have this friend, well, she and E have been friends for a long time. When we moved up here, she and I have become fast friends. She inspires me in a lot of ways but for now I will share how she inspires me with learning the ways of my digital camera. Said friend takes amazing pictures. I love looking at "her subjects" and the way she uses her digital camera to capture the moment. When we all were in Napa for our bike ride she shared with me basic tips on how to use our digital camera. Since then, as you can see from the changes of my blog, I have started to play with my camera. The header picture of the A's flag, I took :) Same with the side bar pics. Those are the roses from my backyard. So proud!
Last night, she and I decided to take advantage of the warmer then normal temps for this area and go have beers and mexican food outside. I really think it was meant to be. The resturant we went to is on the water and since it was so warm out we for sure thought the resturant would be packed. It wasn't! We had a 5 minute wait and received a "choice" seat outside on the patio. We sipped on Pacificos, stuffed ourselves with yummy mexican food, great conversation, laughter and watched the sunset. I couldn't have asked for a better way to end my weekend. On top of the E came home from his second IOE trip later that night.
Here are some pictures from our view at dinner.

My Best Friend's Wedding

Thursday I will be making the cross-country flight to OHIO for my best friend C's wedding. She is the last one of the 15 of us that are still friends from college to be married. I could not be happier for her and her soon to be husband. She has truly found her partner in life. C is the closet thing I have to a sister--her sisters are even sisters to me. Care--I can't wait to be by your side as you say "I do" to wonderful, wonderful man. It seems like only yesterday we were in Dana Point on a beautiful sailboat on cool SoCal Feburary day when Sergio proposed to you. I can hardly believe I kept that secret from you :) Cheers to you and sergio!!

martinis, pink penis pinata, vinyl NYPD cop uniform and toothless bouncers

In Chicago this weekend, we toasted/roasted one of my best friends in her last night out as a single girl. 25 people showered her with many wondeful gifts as we ate and drank champagne outside near the Chicago River.



Later that night we met up at a Martini Bar and the Bachelorette festivities began. Champagne and cosmos flowed...again We played the mystery panty game which we coined "panty dropper" in honor of the infamous drinks her husband-to-be created for his soon to be wife.


We had a trolley filled with penis balloons and a penis pinata. The bachelorette had to take a wack at the pinata after we roasted her on her past boy encounters.



Then what came to be the hit present of the night--a vinyl NYPD cop uniform. CA proudly put on that uniform and struted her stuff. Repeatedly.



Next on the bachelorette agenda was a country western line dancing bar. However, the country western bar wanted nothing to do with our bachelorette cuteness. We were turned away by two toothless bouncers. None of us could speak. We were in shock. However that did not stop our determination to find another location to finish out the night.

The bachelorette had a fun night--she was in rare form and took everything with class and grace. She gave us many laughs as we shared her bachelorette memories. Today she is a little hung over as she tried to recount the night festivities.

pictures to come...i promise

Back at the homestead

So I am back working from home. I drove up to LA on Friday, Monday and Tuesday. I had it by Wednesday. I set my computer back up at home--oh I forgot to mention that I was carting around my desktop back and forth. THAT topic is a discussion for another day. Anyway..back at home to where my life is no longer in danger. I got to witness a rear end accident on the way into work last Friday. The accident occurred a little too close to my car for comfort. For all of you who have to commute. I empathise so much. I understand commutes are all relative to where you live and if it sucks for you, I feel your pain.

I am excited for the weekend. No beach yoga this weekend. Darn! We don't have many plans or rather any plans. E has to work his normal double shift. I am sure I will find some trouble to get into on my own. Next weekend, I am heading to Chicago for my good friend's shower and bachelorette. I also FINALLY get to meet my niece. I will for sure have pictures to post.

***I am going private this weekend*** Please send me your email if you would like to continue hearing about our lives.

We laughed, we cried, we partied till dawn...well almost

The wedding turned out better then we all could have imagined. My brother and his new wife were happy as can be. There were many laughs, some tears-- tears seem to happen when our family comes together--our emotions run so close to the surface that the pure happiness evolves into tears of joy.

E and I hung out with my cousins all weekend long and we managed to close down the bar both Friday and Saturday night. Seattle is beautiful depsite the rain.

We visited my friends T and S who now live in Seattle. It has been a few years since we have seen each other. I am so grateful for their friendship. I also met their cute little boy, Owen. He filled me up with cute baby smiles and sent me off on my way with a cute little wave of his hand.

It was a very good weekend! Here is my favorite picture of the bride and groom.

Strugglin....

My brother's wedding is a week away. I am sad to say I am not sure how I feel about it. I will back up and let you in on the fact my brother and I have never been close. I was your typically bratty teenager and he was your typical aloof teenager. Never did we see eye to eye. I went to college, he visited me once. He went off to college, I never did visit. I moved to Chicago. I flew him up from school to surprise my parents when they were in town for my mom's birthday. In college he joined ROTC which after graduation he went to Korea for 18 months. He did Army Ranger School, became an Army Ranger. He went off to fight a war in Iraq, twice. He came back-he visited me in Chicago. He moved to Seattle. I am now going to Seattle for the first time next weekend for his wedding.

I barely know his soon to be wife. My husband is in the wedding. I am not. My brother and I were raised Jewish in an inter-faith marriage. My brother converted to Catholicism for his soon to be wife. My husband was asked to do the ceremonial Jewish prayer over the bread and wine for the rehearsal dinner. I cried when I found this out as this is something my grandpa would normally do but what crushed me was that I wasn't even asked to be apart of something that was the only thing my brother and I had in common. I looked at my wonderful, loving, caring husband through my tears and he asked me to stand next to him and we could say the prayers together. He said he would even try to teach me to sing them. This pulled a smile out of me b/c he and I both know I cannot carry a tune.

My mom says she needs me next weekend to be her rock. I am not even sure I can be a rock for myself let alone her. At least I have a cute dress and awesome shoes :)

cocktails and baby fever

There are 17 of us that are still friends from college. We all keep in touch via an email list serve and try to see each other as much as we possibly can. Most reside in IL and Ohio,however, there are a few us out in WA, CA, GA and NY. We all converged on Hilton Head Island for M and B's wedding weekend.

There are two places that I go with these friends which never are a relaxing vacation--Vegas and Hilton Head. In fact these are two places that I need a vacation from the vacation. All us girls ever seem to do is drink and lay out in the sun. This last trip to HH was no different except we had 5 new babies and 2 more on the way!!!

Friday was a great beach day and we all indulged in the various fruity drinks from the Tiki Hut. Saturday--another great beach day. Indulged in drinks from frosty frogs and yummy champagne ( we had a little wedding shower picnic on the beach). Saturday night we celebrated with the beach bride to be and danced into the wee hours in the morning listening to a phish cover band.
Sunday was the beach wedding for M and B. It was a lovely wedding! Everyone was in great spirits. The bride was the happiest bride on earth that day!

After holding, playing, cooing with all the little babies this weekend--It has happened I have caught baby fever. I realize however E and I need to wait a little longer before baby fever can become baby making.

I finally have slept off my 4 day weekend hangover. Ready for this weekend for another chance at relaxing. My MIL will be in town and her and E will be heading to Chicago on Sunday to see little Rae Rae. Unfortunately with my schedule, I can't go until the first weeeknd in August. We will see if baby fever becomes contagious.

Pool Bar Jim's Here I come..

I am off to Hilton Head Island, SC. I leave tomorrow night on the red eye from LA to Atlanta and then Atlanta to HHI. I am going for a wedding of a college friend. None of the guys are going, it is just us girls and the kids. This wedding kicks off the last of my 3 remaining girl friends (from College) to get married. M could not have picked a better place to celebrate her marriage. HHI is a little sleepy town. The people are friendly and everything is cheap! And it is where every Ohioan goes for their summer vacations. During the summer months on this little island all you see are minivans with Ohio license plates. Ohioans literally invade the place!

I had the pleasure of being introduced to this little getaway when I was in college. I lived there for a summer with 7 of my best girl friends. That was the best summer of my life. Waitressing and laying out on the beach EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I even managed to bring home some money for the next school year. ahhh such the life.

It will be a nice 4 day weekend to be with my girls and now their little additions--we were laughing as we were planning out our next few days and that we are now planning our mayhem around naptime---my how things have changed :)

It will be a nice getaway--as things are changing again at the Robbins' Nest. I can't talk about it now but will be able to talk about it in few months. Nope, not preggers. (sorry mom)

No barf bag needed...

After a slow start this morning--aka...low cloud cover. Eli and I were finally able to take our first plane ride together with Eli as the pilot. First off, let me tell you these little cesesnas are not for the weary. It is a tiny-ass plane. About the size of a two-seater car. We flew from Long Beach Airport to Catalina Island. Catalina is just off the coast of Long Beach, California.

One thing I did learn is that my cute husband is a very safe pilot--very thorough on his pre-flight. He walked me through everything that he was doing during the pre-flight. He also pointed out the various instruments and what they do/mean. We borrowed a head set so that we could talk to each other. I also was able to hear the control tower chatter--very cool! Take off was pretty cool--I had to get used to the wind knocking us around a bit--I felt like I was on an amusemnt park ride--especially at times when my stomach dropped. We climbed to about 6500 ft and cruised.

Landing at Catalina was good. I usually get nervous when a 737 plane is landing so I wasn't sure how I would handle this. I did good! After we landed and park the plane we had a picnic and went for a hike. The scenary was gorgeous. It was nice to spend sometime with him this weekend..we've or rather he has been going non-stop since we moved out here and our time together is so limited now and will be even more limited starting next week. It was nice to finally talk about our thoughts about SoCal, ideas for us in the next 1 to 3 years..etc.We only got to hike for an hour due to the guy I borrowed the head set from was flying at 5pm.

The flight back was good as well. The wind was knocking around even more. This time I did get a little nervous and was holding onto my shoulder belt. Eli had to ask me a few times if I was okay. All he kept saying to me was babe--you are doing good. I had to remind myself that Eli was in control and it was just the wind. Once again the landing was great. I logged 1.2 hours of flight time!!!

To top off the great weekend, we made scallops wrapped in bacon and shrimp all grilled on the BBQ and we opened and finished a bottle of red wine. hee hee!
Here are some pictures of our adventure...

Eli pre-flight checking the plane


Pulling the plane onto the taxi way



Leaving Long Beach, CA


Catalina Island



Coming in for a landing at Catalina Airport


Pilot-Eli and Co-pilot-Heather

Still Sore

I am loving the encouragement! I am so thankful that I have a new found friend and someone who is more gym motivated then I will ever be in my life time! However, it is quite funny that I am still hobbling around like I am 9 months pregnant or just had a wild eveing with my husband..unfortunately neither of it is true. I mean seriously folks, my under butt cheeks hurt. I didn't realize that COULD hurt.

E and I are starting to have a social life!!! Last night, I met Lacy for our workout..thankfully my upper body is not as sore as my lower half. I came home and met up with E and a friend of his from work and we went to the batting cage. Still not sore and can still hit a baseball and a softball!! Haaaaay! Then went out for apps and a beer--totally ruined the workout on mozeralla sticks, nachos and honey blond beer--mmmmm good! It was good to get out and socialize!

This weekend--E is home with me!! YAY!!! We get to start the morning off with my routine of going to Yoga and my favorite teacher is teaching so I am more then excited. After that we are headed up to LA to meet our friend who is doing the Aids Ride. It is 500 and some miles ride from San Fransisco to LA to raise awareness for aids research. She arrives in LA so we are going to greet her with Fat Tire Beers and a huge hug. E did this ride two years ago and his experience inspired her to do the ride. I am hoping she enjoyed the experiene b/c the texts that she was sending E did not sound like she had a good time. Hopefully she did.

Sunday-we are going to fly. :) Very excited about that. He said he has the plane rented from 10-4pm so hopefully the weather co-operates-meaning no clouds or very little clouds because he isn't instrument rated yet and can only fly when the sky is clear. Come on SoCal weather!!!!

Thank you

Thank you to all you who gave a "shout out" of congrats to E. He is very excited!
This Sunday we are planning to fly to Catalina Island and go for a hike. He is flying us!! I am excited but a little nervous. It is a tiny, tiny plane we are flying. He brought home barf bags from SW so that if I do get sick, I have some place to get sick in..Told you he was a keeper :)

I am brining my camera with me on Sunday so I will share all the fun photos.

coffee twalk

I am sitting here with my second cup of coffee for the day recapping my morning..it is only 11:15am..though I have to say here in my little tiny world I had a big morning. you might be asking, so what did she do that is so big...well.. I had a gym date! Yes, I made a new friend, her name is Lacy. WHOOT! WHOOT!

We decided to meet up to do some cardio this morning before our Yoga class (Lacy and I met while waiting for a Monday night yoga class). We did some cardio and chatted. We got on the subject of real estate--she is a real estate agent. We both were commiserating on the market out here. She did give me some great insight to the market that is ridiculously inflated out here in Southern Cali. We then go to YOGA--holy cow--did we get our butts kicked! I am still trying to recover from this class. I got such a great workout then I came home and just devoured my leftovers from last nights dinner out. I was so hungry! sheesh, who knew yoga and a little cardio in the morning could kick your bootie to the point you cannot control your hunger.

Last weekend I was in Chicago for SIL baby shower. The shower was nice..lots of people turned out and she received great gifts for the baby. What I really want to talk about is the house, I mean MANSION the shower was held. So I have never been in a $4MM dollar house and I do not believe I will ever be again. So I decided to take myself on a self guided tour of this place and take some pictures. The level of architecture and detail and the size of the granite counter tops literally blew me away. The house had 4 levels..downstairs had a whole nanny quarters and kitchen for their live in nanny. There was also a rooftop deck that you could see the beautiful Chicago skyline. I included some pics down below.

This week we also went to look at a few properties..OMG! THEY WERE HORRIBLE!!! I am more shocked at the level of horribleness that people allow themselves to live in and these are not dirt poor folks. I guess if we had more money we could take into account a fixer upper and see past some of the crazy things people do to their homes. I don't know my head is spinning with what is the right thing to do.

One thing I should mention is that "we are still free to move about the country" as two guys from E's work at Southwest stepped up b/c they didn't want him to quit and the three of them are going to shift trade. YAY!!! So which means E can still work at Southwest--two days a week, those 2 days will most likely be doubles which = money coming in--and we don't have to dip into our savings as much. This also means E can do the fast track program for his pilot training. AND the best part of it all (at least for me is that I still can retain the flight beneies) Those Flight benefits are my saving grace to get me back east. Those flight beneies are the reason I agreed to move out here so that I can get back to see my folks and friends at my pleasure. Deep breathe of relief that everything is working out. I am sure the "buy or not buy" question will figure itself out as well.

I am starting to smell up the joint so I must take a shower..we are heading to SF today for tomorrow Bay to Breakers and the SF youth orchestra reunion.

Here are some pictures of the 4MM house....












My girls-Corianne, Ashlee, Me and Cari

Happy Dance cuz it's FRIDAY!!!

wow-what a week! I am ready to get the heck out of dodge. My clients are crazy, my associates/candidates are crazy-I need a serious break.

I am heading to Chicago this weekend for my SIL baby shower. My SIL is also one of my good friends from college so I am looking forward to hanging with the crew this weekend. The downside is that my cute hubby's birthday is tomorrow. It's his 29th so I don't feel too bad missing it and I am already planning his 30th birthday party. I just hate not being around on his actual birthday. I do know he will be in good hands with all of his boys in the bay area-they have a poker and baseball filled weekend..So I guess it's better that I am not there??

We celebrated last night with the two hours of awake time we had together. He was out of town all week. I was sick on Monday night and then I had a networking event last night that kept me out until 8:30pm so I half watched grey's to finish up some last minute work needs and pack. So 10pm rolls around he opened up his cards and gift..then he needed to pack and off to bed we were.

I am cutting out of here (fingers crossed)around 11am so I can catch the nooner flight and land in chi-town at 7pm instead of 9pm.
Happy weekend!