Time with Eden and Nevie

I went up to see my brother for his birthday this past week, but while he was still at work I got to take my nieces to the park. We had SO much fun! (I was pretty exhausted afterwards, though, I have to admit)
Nev, Eden and Aunt Tati
The garden of Eden...
And...SOMEhow I don't have any pictures of my brother. I guess that's what happens when two little girls distract you!

Blog update

So I finally joined Facebook. Yes, I'm "on it." So because of that I've been slacking on my Blog posts. I realize that not the whole world is on or will ever get on, Facebook (mom...) so I have just updated. A string of bdays, a karate test and the annual Quadbooza.

What can I say, life can be hard. After all, it kills you...
It has been quite a year so far, with lots of ups and downs, but here, we'll just be posting highlights of the "ups." :)

QuadBooza IV

We grabbed the beachcruisers and headed out for the 4th annual QuadBooza beachcruiser pub crawl in Hermosa beach. This pubcrawl of course is honoring 4 friends' birthdays (hence the "quad") that happen close to each other in the months of March and April. The boys are Dan, Phil T, Doug and Wayne. Kyle's bday is also close and was also celebrated, so it should be called QuintaBooza. Marlon's bday also falls in the same timeline but since he couldn't make it it doesn't count.

This year the shirts were a nice pepto-bismol (pepto-Abismal) pink. One pink shirt would not have worked. But dozens of them in a group works pretty good! Gearing up to hit the boardwalk: Dano, DJ, Doug and Jaci

People kept asking us, "What is this? What do the pink shirts mean?"
And I finally said, "It's the race for the cure."
"...OH, cool. The cure for what?"
"The cure for sobriety, of course!"
Beer me.
Destini looking stylish in pink shirt and pink bike
My BFF Jeff came all the way down from Camarillo to partake in the festivities.
Dano and Jeffro
Des and I with Dan the man
Oh, and I recognized Micheal-Raymond James at our first stop, which was Naja's. He played Rene in True Blood season one.
This wig made it around a bunch of head throughout the day


Dan and I with Kimlicious and Phil T. It was SO nice to see those guys!
The crawling ended at The Poopdeck. We forgot to take this picture right at sunset. Every year we say "this is the last year we do this" but we all know that's simply not true. :)

My Green Belt Test

After a long hiatus away from Karate (because I have too many hobbies) I finally decided to go back to school. Kenpo Karate school, that is.
I had gotten my Blue Belt years ago and after things settled down after our wedding I found a great school (Bob White's Karate studio http://www.bwkenpo.com/)

Eight or so months later I was up to test for my Green Belt. This is my buddy Keith and I waiting for the test to begin. (He was going up for first Brown).

Mr. White taking us thru a series of drills and running us thru all our self defense techniques.




It is an honor to receive this belt at this school. Mr. White is amazing and I feel blessed to have found such a great Kenpo family here.