Susie for St. Baldrick's

One of my good friends at work, Susie, had been talking for awhile about shaving her head for a charity (St. Baldrick's).  Apparently it is something that Susie has wanted to do for quite awhile and even asked our General Manger when she was getting interviewed a few years ago if she could wear scarves to work if she shaved her head.  Our manager had never heard that request before and had to think about it before saying that yes, she could haha.

So, today was finally the day that Susie picked to shave her head and had people come to her mom's house and also did a Pampered Chef get-together so that people could buy things and a percentage of the proceeds would go toward the charity Susie was representing.  Myself as well as a few friends from work went and donated for Susie's cause and then watched as Susie's husband, Mike, excitedly began to shave Susie's head. 

Mike doing the first few swipes at Susie's hair

Susie's mom getting in on the action

Half shaved, half mullet

I had to leave for work before Susie was completely finished and apparently they took it even shorter, but I thought she looked great and I thought it was very admirable of her to do this for charity.  I can't imagine shaving my head so it's very selfless of her and awesome that she has been wanting to do this for so long and finally achieved her goal.

www.stbaldricks.org

Christmas is Officially Over

So, yeah, it might be the end of January, but of course our Christmas tree is still up and our friend Erik came over last week and even complimented us on how great it was that we still had it up haha.  But alas, the time has come to take it down and yesterday was the day.

Kevin thought it would be a genius idea to just throw it over the balcony, since now we have one.  

I didn't really want to do any of the work so I just went along with what Kevin thought was a good idea.

Big Bear!

After I got off work Sunday night (later on after the Bears game), Kevin and I were talking about what to do on Monday since we were both going to have the whole day free.  School was going to be starting on Tuesday and the craziness was about to begin with the whole school, work thing so we wanted to do something fun on Monday.  I had heard that a few people at work were going snowboarding and my parents had just brought all of our snowboarding gear down to us during Thanksgiving so we jumped at the chance to go because we weren't sure if we'd have another chance to go.

Devin, Kev and Uly on the first run of the day at Big Bear

Me and Kev - it was a beautiful day (though it was a little icy and the conditions weren't the best, but it was still perfect)

My hair do - apparently I'm incorporating the Snooki look on the slopes :)

My action shot :)

After I lost my gloves on the lift, Kevin went back and rescued them for me 

The guys on the trip - Kev, Devin, Uly, Lev and Randy

We hadn't gone snowboarding in two years and it was really nice to go snowboarding again - even though it was icy and hadn't snowed in quite awhile.  Sometimes last minute trips are the best, and this was definitely one of the times when everything just worked out perfectly and we were able to go to the snow and enjoy ourselves for the day before our schedules got super crazy.

Now, on to the next semester of school and all the papers and reading and studying to be had!

Play-Off Game

Kevin, the ever die-hard Bears fan, was very excited about the play-off game on Sunday against the Packers.  He invited lots of people over to our place to watch the game and our good friend, Nick (the Packers fan) came over to watch the game before he went to work.

Nick (the Packers fan), Kev, Keith, Anthony and Dave

Nick, sporting his team

Danny, showing his support for Kevin and the Bears, wearing one of Kev's shirt

Jules and I on the cool beach chairs Keith brought over (we were low on seating)

Danny, so overwhelmed by excitement that he took a nap

Nick put his Packers hat on top of the TV and therefore resulted in Kevin throwing it off our balcony, across the fence and into the neighbors drive-way

Ultimately, the Packers beat the Bears and Kevin took it sort of hard but is slowly getting over it.  At least now he won't be super stressed out during the Super Bowl!

Griffith Park

This morning we took a drive to Griffith Park in Los Angeles and went on a hike up to the observatory.  It was pretty cool to see the Hollywood Sign from the top of the hike - even though it's something that is shown in lots of movies and all over the place, there is still some kind of thrill and excitement at being able to spot it.

Apparently it is a 2 hour hike to the sign from where I am standing.  Seems so much closer haha

The Griffith Observatory

The view of L.A. from the observatory

It was a beautiful day once again and so nice out.  Sadly we had to leave to get back to the South Bay to prepare for work but maybe on a day when we don't work we could take longer to go on more trails and possibly make it to the Hollywood Sign.

The Mountain of Magic

On Martin Luther King, Jr day we decided to visit Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia with Nick, Rani and Shannon and Keith.  Rani was really wanting to visit this amusement park and since Monday was technically a holiday the park was open and I still had a week until class started so we decided to visit the Mountain of Magic.

The weather was gorgeous, in the mid 80's, and the park was relatively unbusy, though everyone was probably at the beach and not sweating at this amusement park haha.

Me, Shannon and Keith after getting off X2

Rani, Nick, Shannon and Keith in line for Goliath

Me and Kev in line for Goliath

Rani and Nick with their cool stickers from my kiddie lunch

Shannon and Keith's stickers

The group: Rani, Nick, Kev, Me, Shannon, Keith

The picture is blurry but still shows us all at Marie Callendar's, partaking in the new tradition of having a schooner of beer after a long day at the park (first happened two summers ago with Jared, Abbey, Martin, Ash, Nick, Erik, Lindy)

The ladies

The guys

The whole day was a blast and we rode every ride we wanted to (usually twice) except the Riddler because it was either too long of a line or broken down.  Now school is about to begin again and all the fun days will be postponed.

Kincaid's Team Dinner

Thursday was our team dinner at Kincaid's, which means that we had a competition at work with about 7 people on each team and my team won :)  Well, it was actually Lupe's team and she chose me and Kevin to be on her team (which is the first time we've been on a team together and won).  The next day, Friday, was our 10 year dating anniversary, so we thought it would be a good idea to incorporate our team dinner and our anniversary celebration.

This is Kevin driving the Porsche on the way to dinner.

Me in the car.

Playing with different settings on my new camera during sunset.

Some wine and cocktails at dinner.

Our General Manager pouring Kevin some champagne

The view from our restaurant for sunset

1st course - Ahi

2nd Course - Cous Cous salad with prawns

A cherry & brie grilled cheese waffle sandwich and some greens

Bacon wrapped lobster tail and macaroni and cheese

Filet mignon over potatoes with a blue cheese sauce and onion strings

A churro-style strawberry and a chocolate brownie

Ramon, the chef of our dinner

Our team:  Billy, Lupe, me, Kevin, Matt, Kellyn and Phil

The dinner was delicious and we all had such a great time.

And to top it off - I discovered that my fellow teammate Billy is also Portuguese!  My first Portuguese finding in the South Bay :)