Summer Recap

So apparently not only did I not survive June, I let July fly by as well. Here is a rundown of the craziness of this summer.

Lulu's mast cell tumor.
This was of course the one that threw us all for a loop. Right when I was getting comfortable with my financial plan and getting everything in order, life takes me, chews me up, slaps me around and spits me out. All about Lulu's fight for cancer here.

iPhone 4 for everyone. And their moms.
I love and hate my iPhone 4. Love everything that it is, hated that I waited 11 hours in line for it. I reserved my iPhone 4 at the Manhattan Beach Apple store since I wasn't able to get through to purchase online. Little did I know, so did a thousand other people so the line for reservations took all day. Somewhere in between I had Aai wait with me for a couple of hours, take my place for another couple of hours, Milton bring me lunch and then ended the day with Milton and I finally getting our iPhones at 7:30pm. That day I ordered Aai's online and Max did the same for him and Ivan. Later that week (when it was clear stores would never have unreserved stock) I put mommy and Vina on the waitlist. It's been several weeks and now we all have iPhone 4s. Well, except for Yona who is saving herself for a white one.

Backyard grilling.
We had our first backyard grill yesterday, although there wasn't much "backyard" happening except for Max grilling steaks while keeping Shadow and Cora away to prevent them from knocking over the grill. Vina, Henri, Aai and I were inside preparing the rest of the meal: broccoli puree soup, trufflex mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. It was the perfect meal. The steaks were from Robinsons Prime Reserve and the tastiest ever, Max snuck open a bottle of Overture and the side dishes came out perfect. (Except the potatoes could have used more cheese + salt) Now I'm dying to finish out outdoor area so we've been shopping around for patio sets. Though based on outdoor furniture pricing, we will likely be shopping around for a while.

Work is busy.
But when is it not? I am still the only "experience architect" at the agency and this week started being shared across all accounts. That's not fun when you take into account all of the institutionalized knowledge attributed to each business. The COPA laws associated with marketing to young children online. The bank's seemingly hundreds of products and features associated with mortgages. Investing advice for retirees over 50. My brain is tired.

Things are about to get crazy.

There are so many things "about to happen" that I feel compelled to write a pre-cap. The weekdays have been pretty dead at work, so much so that it has prompted me to update my resume and start a collection of samples for a portfolio. There are a lot of transitions happening, the largest being that I am back to being a department of one. This is good in the sense that I have full control of developing how UX will integrate with the agency's creative and strategic process, but bad in that I am now stuck with the busy work of our more monotonous clients. But, starting this week I have begun to feel the effects as I am spending less time at my desk and more time doodling in meetings.

So in addition to being spread thin on all accounts + the occasional pitch, I'm also bogged down handling life stuff during work hours. I spent three hours on phone/e-mail/texting arranging auto insurance for all three sisters. I spent a good part of today working out business license/tax stuff for Closet Therapy. (Darn you City of Los Angeles for trying to make money off of me!) I will be spending the next two mornings at the doctor and dentist. And my lunches are booked for random co-worker birthday lunches, baby showers and a creative happy hour.

This Saturday I am taking Max to a surprise event, so more on that after the reveal, but the next morning we are flying to Vegas to spend a long weekend at the Wynn. We'll hopefully get some good eating, shopping and photo-taking done! After that it will be a short week at work and then doggie beach on the weekend.

The week after will be a huge week (hopefully) with the release (announcement?) of iPhone HD. Hopefully the new iPhone will be available right away so I can have a functional smartphone for the rest of June's planned trips! So that brings us to mid-June, where Max and I will be going on our 3rd NorCal trip. It'll be my first time staying at the W and I am really looking forward to spending a day in the city alone capturing photographs while Max is at his conference. We are ending the trip with a short day in Napa -- mostly to have brunch at Ad Hoc.

Then at the end of June I will be returning to Las Vegas solo on a journalists tour for my blog. 4 days all expenses paid -- sounds too good to be true. I don't have all of the details yet but I've checked out the PR company and so far everything sounds legit. Now it's just getting over the fear of spending four full days with a bunch of strangers... nerve-racking yet exciting at the same time!

The tour ends on Friday so I'll be back at home just in time for a 4th of July BBQ if we decide to have one. If we do, that means we'll have to get a patio set and grill for the backyard ASAP.

Oh boy, will I survive June?

Weekend Recap

I had an interesting weekend full of babies and puppies. After all, it is Spring time right? On Saturday Olivia Zee had her red egg & ginger party. I think red egg parties are traditionally celebrated when the baby is 1 month but in Livi's case, it was her 100th day party. The brunch was set at Descanso Gardens and deliciously catered by Patina. After watching the baby festivities we took a nice stroll through the gardens to enjoy the roses in bloom among other cool plants.

On Sunday we had a puppy reunion at Runyon Canyon. Bori (Lady) and Dulce (Soda) came out to meet Cora for a hike. The route we take is getting pretty easy (probably because we walk it so slowly) so it was more of a hectic dog walk than anything else. It's so interesting to see how each of the puppies grew into their own personalities. Bori is territorial and protective -- and what a barker! Soda is such a sweetie and the smallest out of the three. So, what does that make Cora? She's still the crazy one...

Yard Work

So the hardscaping project is almost done, less a few blotchy areas that our landscaper needs to fix. We started to fill in with plants and flowers, experimenting with perennials and annuals (which have all pretty much died by now) and trying to figure out a proper place for everything. I'm surprised at how much purple we ended up with... the shrubs and flowers in the front planter all bloom purple as well as most of the ones in the pod by the driveway. We were also suckered into picking up some Asiatic Lilies for the back -- such amazing color intensity. Now it will just be a game to see which flowers will survive the summer, and then which will actually come back next year. :)

Trees and Disneyland

This past weekend was very outdoorsy, well, as much outdoorsy as I ever do. On Saturday we went to Sunny Slope Tree Nursery to pick out trees for the backyard. It was basically one long row of different types of trees. It got to be terribly boring until I started noticing some trees had interesting leaf patterns. I came across these two trees that I absolutely had to have!

The tree on the left is the Gingko Biloba, a slow-growing tree with fan-shaped leaves. Even though our contractor warned us that the nuts "smell like poo", we decided the extra care was worth it for such an interesting tree. The next tree is my favorite, the Liquidambar Rotunda. Its gummi shaped leaves immediately reminded me of dinosaur paws, hence it has been dubbed our dinosaur tree. This tree is probably the one that worries me the most as it typically grows to be 75 ft tall. Hopefully with careful pruning and shaping we can keep the size of ths one under wraps.

After a few hours at the nursery, we ran errands around Cerritos. We stopped by Best Buy to take a look at iPad cases (I can't stand my incase) and left disappointed. We had a ridiculously sized lunch at TGI Friday's for just $20 -- an appetizer, two entrees and a 1400 calorie dessert. After that we walked it off at the mall and Target.

On Sunday my sisters came down to check out the backyard. Then we drove down to Garden Grove for some Boiling Crab. The last time I had Boiling Crab was on my birthday. The wait wasn't too bad (about 40 minutes). I've noticed that I am much more into shrimp lately than crab. After stuffing ourselves silly we spent the evening at Disneyland. I wish I used the annual pass a lot more this year but so far have only gone a total of 3 times (I think). In the 3 hours we were there we rode Tower of Terror, Toy Story Midway Mania, Captain EO, Casey Jr. Circus Train, Pinocchio and Peter Pan.

I am partially terrified at how boring this post is. I guess when you're not in the mood to write, you can't make even Disneyland sound exciting. :P