hi ho, hi ho, it's off to cut a christmas tree we go!

ya, cheesy title, I know. I am very very aware.

So, today Jeremy and I went to cut down a tree for his condo! We tried to on Tuesday night, we made hot chocolate and everything

turns out they close at 5. Guess they don't want people sawing away at tree stumps in the dark. The whole cutting down your own tree thing was very exciting to me. I remember my dad used to cut ours down back in the day, but my sister and I never got to go with him. Not sure why you wouldn't want to bring a whiney kid along with you to complain about being cold and wanting hot chocolate :)

Anyways, we regrouped and decided on today instead. We drove through the entire tree cutting area, looking through lots L, J, G, D, B...A. We found 'the one' in A.

Jeremy starting the cut-down

me, getting prepared

me, trying to saw the tree, but not being very successful (but I do have a look of determination, or frustration, or constipation...

Jeremy being all 'manly'


The stump

I reassured the tree it would have a good home for its remaining days.

sister sister

Ok, I'm going to say it. I'm lucky to have Sandy as a sister. I'm happy that we are able to get along and hang out. I was psyched to have her extend her work trip from the LA area and come up to SF to spend time with me. I even got to score a day off work!

So, we didn't make any solid plans, we took things as it came. Saturday I was having a craft party, so we started in on the gingerbread house that my parents has sent in a care package. That icing proved difficult to use tho! What didn't help was that a couple of the walls were cracked from shipping it 3,000 miles. We were almost done too, when it finally caved. Oh well!


Sunday I took Sandy to the infamous Mama's, which is basically a staple that I MUST TAKE EVERYONE WHO VISITS ME TO.
At least it seems to be the case. I don't mind though!
Afterwards we went to Golden Gate Park, to walk through the Botanical Gardens
and hit up the Conservatory of Flowers.
The conservatory was pretty awesome. It was broken up into five different rooms, each with various fauna for the region. I'm just going to post some pictures that I really enjoy from the day, but if you want to see more, check out the full album.

I like this one because the leaf was so huge!
Cool tortoise shell like plant


orchids (they had a lot of orchids actually!) i didn't realize some orchids grow on trees

some carnivorous plants

Ah yes, the obligatory face cut-out picture wall

After the conservatory, we happened upon a roller skating party complete with pumpin' jams and people doing hula hooping tricks! I know there's more video that Sandy has on her camera, but for now, this will have to do for your enjoyment, (oh and I apologize, I do not have the software needed to rotate them upright. You can always turn your monitor!)






The last one is obviously the finali! I'm pretty sure Sandy has one that shows me looking even MORE awkward if you can believe it.

A day at the park that ends in hula hooping is a damn good day!

Gallery 1988 Luke Chueh and More

More art fun around SF. This weekend I caught the opening reception at Gallery 1988. Erikka told me about this artist Luke Chueh and I thought this would be a great opportunity to check his stuff out. He only had three pieces there among a bunch of other really fun and talented artwork.


I'll try to write who did what, but for those I don't remember, I'll just post them for some visual entertainment/stimulation.

Amy Sol


Peter Gronquist


Robert Fayze Pellicer


Walt Hall


Paul Barnes


Phil Holmes


Mari Inukai


Here are others I couldn't find the artist for:





Oh, I also wanted to mention Luke Chueh was there with another LA artist doing FREE one of a kind sketches, for their fans. I wanted to wait in line, but realized it would be at least 1-2 hours before I got my own drawing, so I moved on with my night. I just thought that was really great.

Then, I didn't make the opening of this, but did get a chance to head on over to check it out this afternoon: Post Postcard 11 @ The Lab.
It is basically a small format art sale. It was fun to see various work from local artists and I even bought a few.