Reunite!

Lovely day & night!

Cultured.

Today we fed our brains and went to a museum. The Oakland Museum of California is one of my favorite Bay Area museums as well as one of my favorites in general.

I went here once with my pops when I was little which I obviously don't remember well. I have also gone several times in the past five years as a teacher taking her class on a field trip. 
Though from a student perspective I loved field trips, they bring me endless amounts of stress as a teacher. I wish I could think otherwise but a combination of the following prevents me from being able to do so : 

• Being in charge of a large group {"large" being more than one} of minors that are not my blood relations.
• Planning and organizing the transportation of said charges.
• Hoping and praying fervently that nothing goes wrong, no one gets sick or lost and that as many students that left also return. 
• Making detailed plans for the substitutes in the classes I left behind.

Needless to say, it was lovely to be able to enjoy such a cool place as an aware adult who's not completely preoccupied with the well-being of many young people. Mikey and our pal Eddie and I had a great time walking around the California history section of the museum. There are several other areas but this one is so chock full that it's enough for one whole visit.

The history section starts with Native information and goes to present-day California. 

This wasn't "modern-day" but I enjoyed it.

The whole exhibit also incorporates many interactive elements {which is awesome, as far as museums go if you ask me} one of which was this cool map.

There were little red dot stickers and patrons are invited to place one on the world map according to where they or their relatives hail from. There was also a guest book where folks can explain a bit more. It will all be incorporated into a formal exhibit some time in the future. I put one in Colombia since that's where my mama came from.
We had a great time and then the mister and I fed our tummies by buying a take and bake pizza from Costco so all-in-all it's been a fabulous Saturday and I hope that yours has been too! 
 xoxo, natty ♥

Magazines.

Since the age of ten I have loved magazines. Do you, reader, enjoy them as much as I do? 
I started my career with the American Girl magazine {which I loved} and the lesser known literary magazine for tweens called Cricket. It had no ads. It was kind of granola-y. I'd stay up late and read the whole thing the day it came in. Yeah, somehow, as a young child, I got hooked on a youth reading magazine. That about sums me up still.
Anyway, I ventured into Seventeen and Teen People for a bit. Oddly I only read Seventeen before reaching the title age. I may or may not have been able to sneak in a Cosmopolitan once or twice but {as it does still} that publication scared me.
I've been a loyal reader of Glamour for about ten years. 

There's no better feeling than having the promise of a whole issue ahead of me. 

Pages and pages of fun!

I usually save new ones for when I'm kind of ahead on my grading and don't have much to do.

That way I don't feel too guilty. 
Magazine reading appeals so much to me because of the quantity of material that is condensed into one place all at the ready for me to discover and enjoy. I'm also a huge fan of Real Simple which is way more home care fun than the clothing/love-life/miscellaneous that Glamour offers. 
I'm not going to lie. US Weekly makes an appearance every once and a while too.
You'll notice a lack of intellectual material here and of that I'm not too bothered. I like being able to escape for a bit into those thin pages and not worry about serious matters. I will delve into Mikey's New Yorkers but to be completely honest I sometimes don't have the patience {am I a victim of today's instant gratification culture? Probably.} to read through those really long articles...as interesting and informative as they may be. There. I said it. Please judge not.
I also like actual paper tomes. My green tendencies fight against this, I guess, but at least I recycle them. The appeal of non electronic versions is that there are zero links to distract me. When reading an online article there is always a suggested reading or bit of information to google which goes along with the main piece. Don't pull me in so many directions! Let me enjoy and focus on the topic at hand! Please!
What's your favorite magazine? Do you think it still counts as reading if it's not a book?
And do you LOATHE those inserts as much as I do?

Happy Day to you Reader!
xoxo, natty ♥

Crabby.

Last night we went to an annual dinner fundraiser at the school where I work. This shindig is not just any dinner but a Crab Feed. For those not from the west coast, now is dungeness crab season and lots of schools will do a crab dinner-fundraiser. The crustaceans look like this:

Via.

and provide plentiful white meat when cracked. It's a mild flavor made even more delicious with the addition of melted butter and lemon {meyers make it even better!} but also super tasty when plainly cooked with seasonings. 
The student servers bring out bowlful after bowlful of crab that's been cracked just enough to make it easy to eat. It's a fun night for all and the earnings go towards the school which is nice to know.

Also, you get to wear bibs; how fun is that? 

SO much fun!!

We're being crabs.

There's a raffle too which, if you're me, is draw enough. I would go to a roasted dung beetle dinner if there were a raffle {I would just sneak in my own food}. Since there are so many folks at this event we don't usually win anything. But last night, everything changed. That's right.

We're going to RENO!
Look forward to an interesting post about the Biggest Little City in the WORLD.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand:
Go Patriots {minus Tom Brady b/c he ditched a pregnant Bridget Moynahan for Giselle...BLECH!}!
xoxo, natty ♥

Some things I'm loving.

1} The towel I made this past weekend. It is made out of cotton calico  which is not traditional towel material but I made it and it's pretty and I love it.

2} The cookies I made tonight. 

It's a busy month so for my chosen baked good I went with pre-made! These were new at Trader Joe's and include some sugar to dip the top of the cookies into. 

They come out soft but harden up and get chewy real quick; yum!

Just my first ;).

3} Our wedding china; it's Fiestaware.

The bright colors make me happy every time I open the cabinet.
4} And this mini-brie. 

I may have blogged about this good stuff before but I'll do it again at the risk of repetition, that's how strongly I feel about these things!
Our local TJ's carried these for quite a while but then stopped. I came across them in Arizona during break and this past week I discovered that they're back in the Bay Area; yes! They're the perfect luxurious addition to my lunch as long as there are some good crackers around.
What are you loving these days? Any delicious treats or fun crafting adventures?
xoxo, natty ♥

Wordless Wednesday™; you know you had a good an amazing the best time ever at your wedding when...

...and you kept on dancing ♥

xoxo, natty ♥

Scenes from a Savers

My grandmother and I went to Saver's today to get nylons so that we can make those stenciled Easter eggs and I saw a few things that tickled my fancy. There are some funny links too...enjoy.

 

 


Kate Middleton!
Will & Kate look-alikes...but not really!!!

xoxo, natty ♥

To where have you gone??

To Chicago. Well first it was to Lake Tahoe, then to San Jose, then to San Diego, then to San Jose, now to Chicago, soon to Milwaukee, then finally back to San Jose. Read on for an explanation...

Wowzas wowzas wowzas, it’s been quite a while. I decided to really take a vacation when we went to Tahoe, and take that vacation I did. It’s been a pretty great few weeks. We went to Tahoe for two weeks- well, almost…I left Tahoe a few days early to drive home to SJ and fly down to San Diego for my very first Jewish wedding.

The daughter of M’s dad’s very close friend got married and the wedding was great. Like I said, I had never been to a Jewish wedding and the couple and families oh-so-nicely included explanations of the Jewish wedding traditions included in their service. Said service was quite lovely and held right outside of our hotel on San Diego Bay. We (me, M, his brother and parents) also got to enjoy quite a bit of great beach and hanging out time, including many yummy eats! Even though it was a family vacation and we strived to spend every singe minute as a unit, I had to extract myself to get in my runs. I’m more than half way through my marathon training (eeeeek and eeeeeeek!) and my mileage has been creeping up. Oddly enough, I’ve been able to stick to the running and M’s family was also very supportive in making time for me to get in my miles. All in all, the trip was super-fun and it was great to have a visit (we all hadn’t seen each other since April)…thanks for a great weekend everyone!

  

Tahoe was fabulous and very Tahoe-like for us; my family (dad’s side; aunts. uncles, cousins, animals…) rents a house on the west shore, big enough to accommodate a double digit amount of people, we go to the beach most days, there are grocery (and other thing) runs into Tahoe City, big dinners are cooked but not often eaten until 9, people are sun burnt, maybe a bear is seen, fun is had. I didn’t take too many pictures since we do this every year, but I will post some. M and two of his college soccer buddies drove up for the weekend and we sauntered over to Emerald Bay…so pretty. We hiked to Eagle Lake the next day, though I have no photographic evidence; it happened, I swear! The boys drove back and I followed a few days later to embark upon aforementioned San Diego trip.

     

Sonic's in Vacaville; my first time ever and I (and Guinness as well) was a huge fan =)

     

Kind of gross for some maybe, but not for me. 

  

Ready for a big boat and beach day! Tired after a big boat and beach day! 

Put flowers in your hair...

Boat dog keeps the waters safe. 

Floor-of-boat dog does other things.

S'mores with GIANT marshmallows...yum! 

  

Sleeping wiener dogs...

Sunbathing beauties...

"OK" view from the beach...

A series: 

Some randomness: there’s been quite a bit of eating out recently, which I guess is fun, and the school year is RAPIDLY approaching and I’m staving off thoughts of what that entails. A very sweet coworker of mine died suddenly on Sunday (read about her here); she had been diagnosed with cancer in the past few weeks and things progressed very quickly.

I'm nowhere near wrapping my head around what happened to her. Her services are tonight and I can't be there since I'm currently on a plane to the Midwest for another wedding but I'm hoping that we'll do something at school with the whole community.

The wedding we're going to is that of one of M's college soccer buddies and we got to meet the bride last year at a different wedding; I wish many years of happiness to this very sweet couple...congratulations you two!

I'm flying in early to Chicago (the wedding is in Milwaukee this Saturday) to visit with one of my favorite people. We'll hang out tomorrow (Thursday) and I'll take the train (will Cary Grant be on board?) to and from Milwaukee and fly back to Cali-Cali on Monday. School stuff officially starts for me on Wednesday of next week so this is really the last hurrah...hurrah!

Hopefully this flight is over soon, I'm ready to not be hanging in the sky (which is such a weird concept, if I think too much about it, which I try not to) and I developed a strong pain in my back. I usually get this pain in my shoulder/neck, actually, every few months. I take ibuprofen and heat the heck out of it with a heating pad but for some reason it settled into my upper right back while I was at the airport and so I sit here, nursing a Chardonnay and leaning back on a water bottle as a sort of poor-girl's airplane massage chair.

Anyway, I'm going to include some photos of the past few weeks. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things and the fussy child of the irresponsible parents down the aisle (he can't even walk and they're giving him coca cola; that is slightly irresponsible, no? They bought several drinks so I think that they can afford something better…I’m thinking too much and being judgey…) will calm down and we'll land safely. Also, today is my step mom’s birthday- happy birthday Leah and many more!!!

Here's to the sausage I plan on eating in Wisconsin this weekend!

***I made it (woo hoo!). We're back from eating tapas and drinking sangria. Maeve has an adorable apartment and being in the center of our great country with it's humidity and architecture sure makes me miss my Minnesota days. I'm stuffed and ready for bed (couch...my choice) so toodle-ooh friends. ***