Happy Dirty 30 Kerry!

Atheists saving the world!

Isaac and I recently heard about Kiva.org, a non profit website where anyone can make micro loans (any amount you want, but $25 is the default amount) to people in third world countries who need loans to improve their living conditions. Isaac and I donated $25 to 2 different groups of borrowers, each in Cambodia. Isaac and I have seen Cambodia's poverty first hand and I can imagine that getting a loan to start a small business is make or break for a lot of people there. We also saw that you can join a group of lenders, where whatever you lend is added to the group's total. The coolest part is the second largest group is an atheist/freethinkers group, who are out to prove that Atheists are altruistic and not the nihilists we are often made out to be. You can check out the group's blog here. They are called Atheist-Monkey, how perfect is that?! So please consider making a micro loan today, and if you feel inclined then join the atheist group first (we didn't join until after our first loan, so that one doesn't count toward the group's goal. Learned that after.) I won't go on and on about how it works, but the main point is you get paid back, which you then can keep (it's your money after all) or you can lend to someone else. So basically you get to keep helping people at no extra cost. If you want to help out the group of borrowers we helped, the link is on the right hand side of our blog. After they get all the money they need the picture will be replaced with another lender's profile.

Thanksgiving, part 2

Here we are with my dad, Marc and Lisa, and my grandma and her new boyfriend. Yeah, you read that right, my 92 year old grandma has a new boyfriend, and he's awesome. And she's awesome. Don't believe me? Here is a photo of her in 1933 on her high school's women's basketball team.



I'd like to see what your grandma was up to in 1933. Because I bet it wasn't shooting hoops.

Thanksgiving

Tired of seeing pictures of me and Isaac? I didn't think so! I know you bitches love to look at us- that's why you read our blog! Well, I have a special treat for everyone. We went home for Thanksgiving so here are lots of pictures of us, and our families. You're welcome.

Obama ♥

"Red stickers mean "I Voted!"


This was by far the most amazing election ever. Isaac and I always vote, but this time it really felt like it mattered. Seeing the lines at my work (we are a polling place) was incredible, and my coworkers and I kept running down to peek all day. It really felt like everyone cared this year. After work our neighbors Layla, Merritt, Pierre and their twin babies came over for homemade pizza, big salad and champagne. I like to pronounce it Cham-pag-ney to Pierre, because he's French. He doesn't mind. Being French I mean. I think he might mind my pronunciation. Anyways, we watched the news and tracked the results on the web (see the picture with the guys looking at the results- even the baby is happy!)and when it was announced that Obama was the winner, we all ran outside shouting and laughing. Every car on Valencia street was honking it's horn and everyone on the street was yelling, singing, and high fiving complete strangers. It was magic. Then we went back inside and watched Indiana go blue, for the first time that I can remember. Merritt is from Indiana too so it was special for all three of us to see that. Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Halloween!

Isaac's costume is Billy Mitchell from King of Kong. Mine is a pumpkin.

Karaoke!

We FINALLY rented a Karaoke room with 8 of our closest friends on Saturday. It was a lot of fun and everyone sang as loud and as drunkenly as they could. I think we all agreed Ed and Isaac's duet of "Dick in a box" was the evening's highlight. And we all got a kick out of sneaking flasks of alcohol in, since everyone in the room was well over 21. ahhhhh... high school memories. The first picture is Jess before and immediately after knocking a light off the wall. Fortunately the guys were able to reattach it and no one was the wiser. After karaoke we went to Kat's house and almost set her house on fire because we started a fire in the fireplace with the flu (sp?) closed. we had to use a fire extinguisher to put it out. Oh yeah, and before that we almost got kicked out of BAR, BAR for god's sake, because people were getting a little bit naked. Just a little so they ended up not kicking us out. Crazy kids!

Dirty Thirty

Isaac's Birthday! Woo-hoo! We went bowling with Jen and Garland. Lunar bowling. Being the birthday boy, Isaac pooled all his birthday super powers and easily won every game. we were all suitably impressed. And even though I was a bad girlfriend and didn't get even one birthday-themed balloon or hat, the group in the lane next to us was coincidentally having a 30th birthday party for one of the bowlers. So there were "dirty thirty" signs and balloons everywhere. See? No need to decorate! The universe takes care of these things. Unfortunately, Isaac's birthday luck had run off by the time I bought him a bowling-alley lotto scratcher. Oh well.

Muir Woods!

So as I sit here writing this in... ummm... August or late June or something... we just went to Muir woods with dad! yeah! It was a lot of fun. Dad had never been so it was a nice drive up to Marin over the bridge. Parking at Muir was terrible but once we got parked we were able to wander around for several hours. After we ate some delicious Pho and garlic noodles at Sunflower (Turtle Tower is not open at night). Dad tried to get the waiter to tell us what the "secret ingredient" in the garlic noodles was. Silly dad! they won't tell! Not ever. Isaac says fish sauce. I say crack. I think I'm right.

errr.. forgot to add a few things

sooooooo.... Isaac and I have been really busy and haven't blogged in awhile. time to play catch up! that means you need to ignore the dates of the next few posts and pretend they are from a few months ago. So sit back,crack a cold one, and pretend that you are scared to death that Palin will be president in a few years.

Busy Weekend

Last weekend we had an extremely busy but fun weekend. we were all ramped up to go to the opening of the new Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park, but when we got there it was sold out. bummer. We decided to stroll around nearby Hayes Valley and as soon as we parked the car, we saw our friend Bryant walking up to us. Bryant moved to Philly about a year ago, and was in town for a few hours during a long layover from Vancouver! None of us could believe our luck that we would run into each other. It was so nice to have a drink with him before he left for the airport. That's him in the picture above, drinking a comically huge latte.




Later on Saturday we celebrated our friend Ed's birthday at a BBQ at his apartment. Ed and Ineka have a video game called Rock Band, which I know will need no introduction for about half of our 6 readers. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it's like karaoke but with instruments that you get to play too. The photo above is Isaac rocking out until late into the night. :)



On Sunday everyone at the previous night's party decided to meet up at Folsom Street fair, a yearly San Francisco institution where S&M meets street fair. There were naked people who probably shouldn't have been naked. It was not sexy. But it was interesting, and Ed and Ineka had German friends in town who had fun taking lots of pictures that they won't be able to show their family back home. Sunday night we had dinner with our Indiana friend Rachel whose folks were in town (her dad fixed my car brakes in college, shout out Steve and Cathy!). overall an exhausting but fun and event packed weekend! I'm off to take a nap......

Great Times

After a long period of not seeing Lisa and Marc it was like a much needed drug fix for a junkie complete with the aftermath of withdrawal. We, as always, had an amazing time. On June 21st we took a nice long drive down to Big Sur stopping whenever any of us felt like stopping to soak it in and take some pictures. The shot above is at one point were we could see a huge thunderstorm heading to the coast from out to sea. That storm that you see Lisa pointing at is the one that started this gigantic fire on one of the hill tops. Once we were down in Big Sur, we actually almost didn't get to drive back through on Highway 1 due to all of the fire crews and helicopters trying to start their attack on the blaze.



On that following Tuesday, we decided to test a theme park here in California to see how it measured up to the epic coaster-filled mega-parks of the Midwest. Of course, the park turned out to be much smaller in almost every measurable scale, but since it was a really slow Tuesday with little to waiting for every ride and Perfect weather, it made for a really superb day! In the day we also discovered that we are all losers in comparison to Lisa. At times when the rest of us would need to stop and let the dizziness wear off so we wouldn't yak all over the place, Lisa was calmly sitting back with a Buddha smile, soaking in the gentile sun and breeze, wondrously curious as to why we were having such a hard time. The image below pretty much sums up the day.

We can't wait to see them again...