Christmas in Whistler!

We had a great time in Whistler skiing over Christmas. It snowed almost every day and we had a White Christmas! We skied at Blackcomb & Whistler and loved the tree skiing!

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Karl's bro, Mark, me and Karl

Happy Holidays!

We're officially on vacation!! WOO HOO!! We're headed to Whistler tomorrow to ski for a week with Karl's family. We've been watching the snow report and we're due for a White Christmas so I can't wait! There's nothing like being on the slopes and skiing in the groves of trees at Christmas! We're all packed...4 bags...160 lbs worth of stuff ready to go. We'll be in SA the week after Xmas for Mema's 80th birthday bash and to see all my family. I can't wait! I feel like I haven't seen Riane, the new, crazy Brit, in forever!

We were so busy with work, etc, this year that I didn't send out Christmas cards this year (slacker, I know.) I hope everyone has a great holiday and rings in 2008 with lots of laughter and fun (and a drink in their hand ;) See ya in 2008!

Nutcracker!

This year was our second time to see the San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker. We have so much fun just hopping on the bus and shooting down to the opera house where everyone is walking up the big steps. It's so fun to get all dressed up and go watch my favorite- The Nutcracker! The show is always awesome and I love the music. I was able to see the clarinet section from my seat! Haha. (I wonder if I could still play mine?) Another great performance this year!

Oh the crazy holidays...

This week has been completely crazy with holiday events, parties, happy hours, wrapping, packing, etc! Weeks like this I wish there were more hours in a day. I feel like I just can't get everything done that I need to and enjoy the holidays at the same time! My group at work decided to have our Christmas party the same day as the flurry party so that was a bummer I had to miss theirs but alas...something has to give. At work we had parties all week! Lunches, eggnog parties, sushi dinners, secret santa parties, Christmas tree decorating parties, etc. We don't hold back when it comes to celebrating. Karl and I are both exhausted and ready for the holidays and vacation to begin..and we can sleep and sleep and sleep. Lovely.

Cirque du Soleil!

The BEST show we've EVER seen. Hands down. Karl & I walked away from this show completely amazed at what we just saw. We didn't know what to expect going to the show other than all our friends who had been to a show highly recommended it. We went to Kooza which is playing in San Fran right now. Their shows normally only play in bigger cities so we thought this would be the perfect chance to go check it out. We went in completely open-minded and didn't know what to expect. It was AMAZING. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who might go see it but here's a little glimpse...

This was probably one of our favorite acts. The contortionists in this show will do things that you never thought humanly possible. All perfectly choreographed to cool music too. I seriously thoughts these little person's spines were going to snap. At the end of this act, as our mouths were permanently dropped open, the girl basically lays down on her stomach and flips her entire body over itself and walks around her head on the ground..unreal. Very cool but we were thinking "OW!" the whole time.

The "wheel of death" was another one of our favorites. These dudes were just crazy and the main thing to point out on this act is there is no net to catch them if they were to fall...which one guy almost did. We were so glad to have taken advantage of Cirque being in town to experience our first show. We're now hooked and already looking up other Cirque shows to go see!

Karl's 30th!

The old man hit 30 today! (which is very weird to think about considering we've been together since we were 17!) I wanted to take him somewhere to celebrate the big 3-0! We decided San Diego would be the most fun for the cheapest plane ticket, least amount of time off work to get there and we have some of our best college friends living there so it was a perfect spot! It was an easy 1.5 hour flight from San Fran so we took advantage of cheap Southwest fares there and back. Friday night Mark & Marina, James and us went to eat our favorite food- Mexican!

The restaurant was very San Antonio Market Square like with a big patio, yummy food and ritas. We braved the very chilly weather and sat outside on the patio huddled next to a space heater and ordered our favorite- cheese enchiladas! It was a really cold weekend and even rained some...not the San Diego weather we were used to but we had a blast despite the weather. Saturday we decided to do something mature and non-drinking related and went to the Animal Wildlife Safari. We had fun walking around, harassing random animals.
... not the petting zoo, mind you

Karl & Mark of course, walked around the park memorizing the names of every random species of animal there. (Both Animal Planet junkies) Karl told me that he liked going to the park with Mark because Mark could identify all the weird animals and Karl knew their behavior. Dorks. Anyway, the park was really cool and we even *splurged* and did the tram safari ride through the wild serengeti to get up close and personal with these animals. Excitement.

...baby giraffes

...notice the baby monkey hanging on for dear life

...does life get any better than this?!

It was a freezing cold ride but pretty cool. Saturday night we went to eat at this cool restaurant near the Culyba's house right on the ocean, which had a really cool view. We had drinks and yummy seafood. After dinner, and Karl and James wrapping up an intense Wii tennis match, we obviously had to refresh our beer pong abilities to see if we could still hang...Harris' v. Culybas and we won! We bundled up and played in the garage and eventually had to go inside since since we were frozen and one game of shrub and one game of two cup, couples style is all our husbands' old bones could take.

...old man & bank robber

If anyone knows Karl they know his fascination with weather & temperatures. He was inspired by Mark's refusal to turn on the heat in their house despite it being in the 40s outside. So, fun game- Karl decided to see how cold it could actually get in the house at night. For us, this included sleeping next to a turkey thermometer probe by our pillows to get the lowest overnight reading. Turns out- one morning it got as low as 52 inside! Fascinating.

December Already?!

Karl & I had a pretty relaxing weekend this weekend. I can't believe this will be our second Christmas in SF already. Time really flies. We decided since we'd be gone for almost two weeks over Christmas and New Year's we should get our Christmas tree this weekend so we could enjoy it! (a real tree, of course) We walked down to Polk Street to the neighborhood hardware store and had all of 4 trees to choose from. Being in the middle of the city they could only display what they could fit on a tiny piece sidewalk in front of their store. Anyway, we found the perfect sized tree! It's about 4 feet tall and with the new star topper I found, about four and half. Karl lugged it all the way up our big hill up to our apartment and it's perfect!

We set it up right in front of our big window in the living room so you can see it from the street, which seems to be what everyone does here. It's pretty cool driving around the city to see all different sized trees all lit up in windows. We had fun getting into the Christmas spirit decorating our tree with lights and ornaments we've collected in California over the past year and a half. I actually have a Christmas box started here, which surprised Karl. I don't why since this is my FAVORITE holiday :) We have a whopping 8 ornaments some of which are almost as big as the tree! We have a couple from our trips to Disneyland, a couple from Napa and of course a Nutcracker from when we went to the SF Ballet we went to last year. The decorating wouldn't be complete without my cowboy boot stockings my mom sent us last year which I love!

While I was decorating around the apartment Karl was completely content with his cup of eggnog watching the Harry Potter marathon that's been on all weekend. I had to run to the store to get eggnog and as I was pulling out of our garage, I confirmed if you looked up at our apt from the street you can see our tree in the window. Yey! I LOVE Christmas time and even though we miss putting up lights on our home and a big tree with our collection of ornaments, we love Christmas time in the city!