A Wedding Cake Weekend

Back in 2009, I posted some pictures of going to a steampunk event called Skeleton Key and my friend Nate took a liking to a girl who was in the picture.

He said something like… oh, new Facebook search, you can pull up your old messages, on September 9th 2009, he said exactly this-

“I've decided 2 things

1. San Diego needs to have events like skeleton key. That looks badass, and I'm sick of my goth/dark clothes collecting dust in my closet!

2. Your friend Saija; WOW. I am tres impressed my friend!”

I had just got my Blackberry sometime around that time and was going to copy and paste this to a message to her but through some outlandish twist of fate, I pasted it on her wall instead. A month later, they met in person and they were like 2 peas in a pod and the funny thing was, part of him knew, the first time that she Last year, he purposed to her and this Saturday past, put a ring on her finger.

When she friended him and he saw the post on her wall, he vowed that he get back at me for it and he did by making me the Best Man at his wedding and for my bride’s part, the Maid of Honor. Best. Wedding. Ever.

Saija was gorgeous, we all looked sharp in the tux’s and the girls were breathtaking. Goth themed wedding with a lot of personality, open bar, a great photographer (I haven’t seen her pictures yet but she was smooth) and good friends to hang with. Sorry I would have posted more pictures of the wedding party but was busy getting pictures taken of myself.

Congrats Saija and Nate, we're proud to have been the pivot to get you to this point and look forward to many many years of martial bliss between the two of you. And traveling to Finland!

Afterwords, I took some of the pretty flowers on a photo safari around Balboa Park to play with the 7d.

To top it all off, we knocked off the biggest bad guy on the planet and turned him into fish food! Last weekend rocked!

All around Arizona

Collin and I drove out to Arizona on New Years Eve and welcomed the New Year in with my sisters and nephews and nieces. It was sedate and quiet, had a beer and minutes after the clocked struck, we drove over to my mom’s and crashed out. 3 days before that we had drove from Sacramento to San Diego then San Diego to Prescott. I’ve had the Fusion since August and yesterday, it turned over 11 thousand miles.

(a stop over at Glamis with Collin)
Over the next few days, we visited friends in the area, Collin finally proved that he was able to kick my butt at Halo and he did, 25 to 2, ouch, I’m totally out of practice.

We went down to Phoenix Saturday night and stayed at a Motel 6 on Scottsdale road, good things about that place, they were cheap and allowed pets. Bad things were the beds squeaked and the blankets had an odd musty smell and unless you counted my son, I had no brought along a pet.

The next morning, we went out to breakfast with my dad and Collin caught a 9:25 Southwest flight to Sacramento and a little after noon, my wife flew in. We went out to pizza with my friend Swan at Patsy Grimaldi's Pizzeria‎, thanks for lunch, the pizza was great.

Afterwards we went stopped by my dad’s house then went by the hotel and dropped off Heathers bags. That night we went to a partial family reunion at my uncle Larry’s with 15 or so of my relatives, this was the first time for some of them had met my wife. I think it went over well.

(at my Uncle Larry's house)
Afterwards we stayed the night back at the M6 and the next morning, drove up to Prescott with a brief stop at the factory stores. I had reserved a room at the Prescott Resort or Bucky’s, it’s a hotel that was built by the Sheraton in 1989 on top of a hill overlooking Prescott and taken over by the Yavapai Indians a couple years later and turned into a partial casino. I’ve wanted to get a room up there since the place was built and it seemed like a prime time. It was one of the nicest rooms Heather and I have stayed in, I wouldn’t have minded having that bed in my apartment. Beers down in the casino were a dollar and we met up with my high school buddy Larry and his wife Jennifer and turned up a few and watched the snow fall down and not stick.

(my wife never caught snow before)

(my buddies Jennifer and Larry)
On the dresser in our room, there was a letter that said we could stay another day for 50 bucks (great deal), so we brought it down and they were booked up for the rest of the week due to a religious conference and it sounded like they were taking up most of the empty rooms in the town. So I called a place where this group was unlikely to have rented a room for the next night, the Hotel St. Michael. A historic hotel located on the corner of Whisky Row, built in 1901, we got a second floor room overlooking the town square, great atmosphere and the breakfast that came with the room was excellent.

(view out our window)

(and of our window)

But before we went to the Hotel St. Michael that night, we went out for another family met up hosted again by my uncle Larry (thanks again Larry!) at the Prescott Airport, he flew in from Chandler with his wife Michele and my cousin Amy, my Aunt Lynda and Uncle Phil and daughter Diana drove up from Tucson and my cousin Jenny, her husband Elijah and daughters Emily and Jessica drove up from Phoenix to see my Grandmother Heatherbelle who is staying with my half sister Crystal. Oh and my sister Sarah and her two kids were also there. A good time was had by all, grandma has happy to see everyone and remembered the names of her kids.

(cousin Diana, uncle Larry and my sister Sarah)

(Mason is the one with he crazy face, Corbin and Emily are the ones with the cheeses on)

Made it safe to San Jose

The traffic driving up here was actually went smoothly after I expected to drive through the storm of the century and lots of accidents. It did rain but not till after I was on the Grapevine and then it wasn’t too bad. Glad I missed the big one. I suffer a fear of getting snowed in while on leave or away for the weekend. It happened to me once in the 90’s but I did make it to work on time but the dread still sticks with me. Laugh all you want, just let me enjoy my fears. Have a great weekend, I’m signing off for now and going to spend some quality time with the wife.

Thanksgiving 2008 take one

I woke this morning (actually Thanksgiving morning) to the smell of a smorgasbord of pies baking in the oven, crashed out on my mom’s couch, my nephews Corbin and Mason were sitting on the floor looking up at me. “Uncle Sean, you snore!” Yup, I’m home.

My mom’s a restaurant owner, she did own a dine in place up in Seligman, a small town on Route 66 but sold the place a couple of years ago to retire for a while, that plan lasted a little over a year before she got bored and she opened up a takeout Thai food restaurant in Chino Valley. Low overhead and she had all of the equipment just sitting around, waiting to be put back to use. Like me, she hoards tools that can be used towards a future endeavor so setting up was simple.

Her and my stepdad had came down to San Diego earlier this week serving the dual purpose of driving my Tacoma to San Diego and renewing her Thai passport. The closest place to do this was the Thai Consulate in LA. I requested special liberty on Tuesday and drove them to LA during which time, I introduced her to Audio Books, specifically, a story by Orson Scott Card called Ender in Exile. After finishing in less than an hour, we went out to lunch at a local Thai place and voted on a stop by Knott’s Berry Farm since I could get the three of us in for a total of 15 bucks using the Veteran Day Tribute.

I wasn’t able to talk either of them onto any of the roller coasters but did ride Bigfoot Rapids and a train ride through a mountain, got to show the small town folks the big city when I get a chance. Wednesday, after work, I drove them to Prescott and plugged in the Audiobook again. I have turned my mom into an junky, when we got to her house that night, we didn’t go to bed until we finished up the last half hour of the book.

Thanksgiving day, we had 6 pies, 2 turkeys, a ham and assorted side dishes, maybe 15 people in the house which is actually a light Thanksgiving load for my family. The last time I was here, it was standing room only, new parties would show up eat their fill only to have new people pop in and take their seats. This year was just a family affair. It’s good to be home, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Lessons learned this trip, Sprint sucks out here, if you live here and have Sprint, don't even think about getting wireless internet, it's slower then a herd of turles stamping though peanut butter.

Before the Sun

We rose and showed up at 5, just the 7 of us on this bonding exercise and drove down to the pier. We went on a charted trip with H&M Landing, military rate 55 bucks.

The sunrise off the ocean that morning was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in years. But I’ll let you see for yourselves.

Below is my favorite picture of the day

We pulled out past Cabrillo and went north a short ways right off the coast

and after a brief instruction on how to deep sea fish.

Ahhh, coffee...

Mike's second cup before leaving the bay

I'm still not awake

We stopped and they said to drop lines. Basically, each person has a deep sea fishing pole with a 4 ounce sinker and a minnow that you hook through the upper mouth out through the top of the skull. Drop the line till it hits the bottom and yank when you get a hit or when you think you get a hit. During the morning, I had pulled in 5 fish, 4 were keepers and they were all red rockfish (which I found out later, were very good eating).

It just looks like Bud Light

Some pictures of all of us.

for good luck

And some of the fish we caught (this one was tasty)

Mike's tasted fishy, mine was way better.

He was so happy to have finally caught something that I didn't have the heart to tell him it was too small.

I thought it was going to choke on this fish

The crew cleaned the fish for us on the way back

and the seabirds went nuts, forming a chain of flying feathers on the side of the boat.

At the end of the trip, we were bushed but I had to stay strong and awake and get pictures of everyone passed out.

It was one of the best days I’ve had in a long time, it’s been a couple of years since I went fishing. I think I’ve had a long enough break from the water, H&M Landing, thanks and great job!