finally it exists!

Rob 'broke down' and started a blog today, folks!

Here she is:

http://www.robfoxsblog.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

the shenanigans continue...

Since we're always game for a good ol' "my friends love me more than yours love you" competition, the weekend of August 14th marked the second bachelorette party for Elissa. This time, Santa Barbara was the victim of our wrath...

To say we'd be planning for weeks would be a horrific understatement. "Planning" doesn't quite cover it. Obsession, hilarity and covert coordination are much better words. Lis keeps mentioning that she felt a bit left out of the hundreds of emails that flew back and forth conspiring against her, and this was the big show. Talks of who/what/when/where started in early June, and the pace was breakneck. I counted no fewer than 416 emails and 7 spreadsheets related to this very weekend, and it paid off big time. Our bride-to-be was in the dark as to our weekend plans...all she knew was that we were going to SB, who would be there, and a few things to ensure she packed (per a spreadsheet from me...I know, I'm a total nerd).

(sidenote: there were many "hey dumbass, you should be an event coordinator as a career" moments during this extravaganza, so we COULD call it career-path-research, right?!)

Now you know that. Here's what actually went down: The NorCal crew made way for Santa Barbara on Friday afternoon, road-trip style. Cool Ranch Doritos, NutterButters, Goldfish, and a spilled Starbucks made the journey along with us as we hauled ass down to SB. We arrived and met up with the SoCal crew around 6p and all hell broke loose pretty much immediately. Mind you, I'm not typically a girly-girl, but this was damn FUN! No pillow fights, fellas, and we didn't give each other makeovers, but some quality time in the estrogen ocean can be pretty awesome. It's a new-found practice I hope to keep up (b-party #3, anyone?!).

Lindsay and I had been quite thorough in thinking through the beverage aspect of our weekend, knowing that we'd need enough cups to accommodate seven thirsty girls. The four teeny glasses in our hotel rooms weren't going to cut it (glass plus booze equals danger - eeek!), so we made these bad boys, personalized of course:


Friday was dubbed our out-to-dinner-and-mellow-hotel-room-slumber-party night, but we were so starving that we didn't make it out of the hotel (which we would learn was a BIG mistake, thanks to the worst service I've ever experienced in any dining establishment):


On Saturday, we'd hooked up a rad seven-hour wine tour of four wineries. Win. Because I love any excuse to be crafty and make things for people I love, I made customized wine glass tags so we could keep our glasses straight as the day wore on. Along our tour, we passed the house where the Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing recipe was founded, the far border of Neverland Ranch (I saw buildings, people!), a miniature horse ranch and the little Dutch town of Solvang.

our best buds for the day...they egged us on, made sure that pics were posed to perfection, and made some recommendations for embarassment of our bride-to-be

Jen, Molly, Louise, Elissa, Lindsay, me, Morgan
and some very delicious wine and sausage

Saturday evening consisted of lounging by the pool, a Trader Joe's beer run, take-out pizza, drinking games, and finally, a jaunt over to State Street. A few of my favorite moments from the evening:

• The BEST $8 cab ride ever from Brenda, complete with the Matrix on DVD and playlists galore
• Swearing up and down that we'd only have one beer while out, which was immediately foiled by Joe and his amazing Cafe, where they may make the strongest drinks I've ever tasted (seriously, they rival Rob's...)
• The guy with lightning bolts expertly shaved into his hair
  
• Meeting and harassing Batman and a cowboy, who were in the club to spy on Batman's fiance's bachelorette party
  
• Linds and Molly toppling into the street outside of Tonic immediately after the club closed for the night
• Louise BOOKING it and diving into a cab after realizing that a tie she'd pilfered belonged to a guy on the street, and that he wanted it back

Morgan's RAD party trick...if only I could impress future employers with such talent

Tonic, stop number two of the evening, and stop of no fewer than THREE other bachelorette parties! I still maintain that we were having the most fun!

if only I'd caught the fall on film...dammit

Sunday morning was only slightly less rough than that of the previous b-party...we headed back to "the crime of the scene" (per Louise) and had a late breakfast/early lunch at Joe's Cafe with Andrew Firestone. Yeah, we're breakfast buddies. HAH!

SHOUT OUTS:

• All - thank you for being a huge part of such an amazing weekend...*sigh*
• Diane Lane, Diane Lane, and Steven Segal, Steven Segal - hah!
  
• Elissa - I love you, friend. I love celebrating you. Could you maybe get married on an annual basis, please (to Lee each time, of course)?
• Molly - you effing rock. Thank you SO much for hooking up the sick-ass hotel and the rental car. Our warp speed email exchanges make me smile...Molls, you got the key, babe?!
  

the amount of happiness that this pic brings me is completely and totally indescribable

Rob's in Costa Rica!

I know that its been ages since my last post, and I do have a lot to post about, but I'm choosing to use this as a posting board to let everyone know that Rob has arrived safe and sound in Costa Rica!

He said that although the campus of INCAE is only 15 minutes from the airport, he didn't pass a single business establishment along the way to campus this morning....eeek! He's chosen to refer to this time at INCAE as "summer camp", since they'll have meal tickets for the cafeteria, there's rumored to be gigantic cockroaches, and thunderstorms are more common than not. Sounds FUN to me!!! So far, he's got a room to himself (fingers crossed that no other roomie slithers in) and internet is a little spotty in the house (yet they'll have internet in the rooms soon if all goes well!).

Classes begin tomorrow morning, so his lazy days are effectively over...

Eight weeks at INCAE will be followed by an eight-week consulting project elsewhere in Latin America. I can't WAIT to head down in a month...this time's going to FLY by!

ring around the rosy

((hehe...right after raggin' on myself for only posting on weekdays about weekends,
here's a weekend post about weekday happenings...))

Since Rob has a little free time this summer, and he's preparing to embark upon a four-month trip to study in Costa Rica and elsewhere in Latin America (tbd), I've done my best to suck up every available moment possible with him before he takes off. Our new favorite thing is to have weekday (!) picnics at the San Jose Rose Garden near my office.

Although most of the roses have tapered off and are out of season, there are still a few buds here and there, and tons and tons of colorful big ol' open flowers. It's a total escape from my usually lame workdays, and reminds me a lot of when we were traveling, and would eat prosciutto, salami, mozzarella and bread like it was a job. (PS: walking five-plus miles a day dramatically helped to keep all that meat and cheese and bread from catching up with us...now, not so much. So we don't eat it often.) I know I'll look back happily on these picnics when Rob's galavanting around on the lower half of the continent and I miss him like crazy. (pssst, are you done yet?! : ] )

Since everyone loves the long-arm smooshy face shots, here are a few from our most recent picnic:

I saaaaaid, we don't eat it that often. if it wasn't so delicious, we'd eat it less often than that!

let them eat ice cream cake!

Clearly, my new blog-trend is to only discuss weekend events. This can be attributed to a few things: 1 - weekdays are boring by nature (work, gym, dinner, bed, repeat), 2 - weekends equal time with friends, 3 - no one wants me to rant and rave about my job every single day (though I have PLENTY of material).

This weekend was rad. On Saturday, Rob and I headed to Monterey for a picnic, to visit the seahorses at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and to score some locally grown artichokes. Wins all around...except the Aquarium was crowwwwwwded. We expected that it'd be busy on the weekend, but it was Sardine-ville, population: 150 bodies/square foot. The highlight of my day was easily the fried artichoke hearts that have weaseled their way into my dreams. I quadruple heart fried artichoke hearts...

*sigh*

On Sunday, we snagged Summer and were northbound for the DubC (Walnut Creek, to the layperson) to celebrate with/surprise Katie after getting engaged that morning. John completely and totally ROCKED it...he called Sum last weekend to let her know that it was game time, and asked that we all come up to be a part of the day (very sweet).

With Katie's sisters in town, John had to be extra-sneaky about getting Katie alone. He recruited Julie and Shannon to 'take Katie on a hike on Mount Diablo' on Sunday morning, where he'd have a super-romantic picnic set up (complete with an actual "Bottle of Wine and Two Dixie Cups", Katie's fave song). Katie is not a morning person, nor is she very prompt, so you can likely imagine the shenanigans that ensued getting her up the damn mountain. After the big speech (documented perfectly by the sisters), alligator tears from Katie, and that three-letter word John had hoped to hear, they headed to John's parents' house to "tell them". Little did Katie know, she was the last to know about he proposal and a group was waiting to (loudly) congratulate her. More crying -and a snot bubble or two- followed. So damn cute.

what do you yell at someone who's just gotten engaged and has no idea that you're there?! "ahahaaaaaaah" seemed to be the consesus

Sum and I made it a personal mission to find the ugliest, stupidest lookin' veil thing humanly possible. I think its safe to say that we succeeded, and Katie was a good sport and rocked it for a bit...

Cuz we're classy and growed-up like that, Sum brought a bottle of Patron to celebrate with...!

ice cream cake #1 of our day (notice that John's name is a bit larger and bolder? yeah, that's because the cake originally said "Congratulations Katie & Sam". awk-ward.)

potentially Rob's fave pic of Summer ever. EVER.

I don't know when I became such a girl, but even I shed a few teardrops. There, I said it. It was absolutely amazing to see my good friend so happy. Congrats again to Katie and John - thank you for making us a part of your special day! Love you!

Lastly, but certainly not least(ly?), we made our way to my Mom's house for more celebrating, this time the birthdays of my Unkie Glenn and The Stepdad Brian. As usual, a kick-ass dinner followed by cake and presents was a terrific way to wrap up a loonnnnnng (but never long enough) weekend.

Unkie Glenn & Mimi (a.k.a Aunt Amy. YOU try saying 'Aunt Amy' at the age of two...!)

ice cream cake #2 - sugar coma, anyone?!

cha cha chaaaa!

Ennnnd scene.