SFSU Handbells in Half Moon Bay

Today the San Francisco State University Handbell Choir performed in Half Moon bay at The Shoppes at Harbor Village. I drove my motorcycle down early that morning. Doyle road, immediately after crossing the Golden Gate bridge was closed. Fortunately that early in the morning it was easy and the hour and a half drive south wasn't bad on my motorcycle.

We performed 11 songs:

Siyahamba - Arr Hal H. Hobson
Chopsticks - Arr Larry Sue
I'll Fly Away - Arr Tammy Waldrop
Requiem - Arr William A. Payn
Promised Land - Arr Anna Laura Page
Wade in the Water - Arr Sandra Eithun
Soon and Very Soon - Arr Hart Morris
Celtic Farewell - Arr Linda R. Lamb
Rock-a My Soul - Arr Valerie W. Stephenson
When the Saints Go Marching In - Arr Arnold B. Sherman
American Tapestry III Spiritual - Arr Arnold B. Sherman


Celtic Farewell is by far my favorite, it's just beautiful on the Bells. Here's a video of the handbell choir practicing the song; emphasis on PRACTICING! haha

Chopsticks is my next favorite as I have a great part- I open the songs with the chopsticks tune. Here's the choir PRACTICING Chopsticks.


After the performance I wanted to drive my motorcycle around Half Moon bay, but it was completely jammed up with weekend gawkers. So instead I headed back up north zipping through the traffic on my motorcycle. I really enjoyed the short stint on Highway 1 before the normal freeway picked back up again. It's a beautiful ride.

Sea Thai Bistro

Tonight Emma and Evan took me out for a belated birthday dinner (belated, because I was in Mexico!). We went to Sea Thai Bistro in Santa Rosa- it came highly recommended by Amanda. I had a spicy green curry with tofu. It was delicious! I look forward to coming here again. Before we left, they brought out a little birthday desert for me. It too, was very good. Thanks Emma and Evan!

33

Today is my 33rd Birthday. Crazy. I'm glad I made equally crazy plans to celebrate; travel from my home to Oakland, fly to Boise for the weekend, then to Houston, then five days in Cozumel, Mexico. I thought all that was a lot of adventure. However, I couldn't have foreseen the insanity and extreme FUN Erik had planned for my Birthday. Before we left for the day (around 9:00am) I took a picture of Erik's new house. It was such a beautiful place and he's putting a lot of work into it. He's in the middle of finishing up the backyard with a pool, plants and tiles across the counters. The inside is already very beautiful with the tiles and decorations throughout his house.

The first thing on the agenda; Zip lining! I've never done it before, and was a little nervous. There was no one else at the theme park which also had paintball, ATV and horse back riding. There were three towers from which we could zip line from one to the next, as much as we wanted. From the top, you could see across a large part of the island. Off in the distance you can see the cruise ships in port.

Here's a picture of Erik:

Our guide had me try going upside down- hands free. After all the instruction about "Always hold the yellow rope" and being very adamant about it he was like "Let go of the rope and point your hands towards the ground". Are you kidding me!? I was definitely scared, but it quickly turned to fun and I did enjoy it very much!
It was about 10am when we wrapped that up and had to get back to Erik's house to get ready for the rest of the day, and night. We packed light, only what we could carry on us for the next 24 hours and still move about easily. The first thing we did was take the ferry from the Island of Cozumel across to the mainland at Playa Del Carmen.

The ride was quick and easy. In my opinion the second most beautiful picture of the trip is this next one, taken upon arrival to Playa Del Carmen. It wasn't raining, but you can see the dark clouds in the background and the beautiful beach in the foreground.

Instead of taking the tourist bus to Cancun, Erik knew the local van system that only cost 7 pesos each for a 45 minute ride from Playa Del Carmen north to Cancun. Awesome. Other local people boarded the 8 passenger van and we all rode to Cancun. Once we got there, Erik and I grabbed lunch at a french style restaurant called Ty-Coz Baguetteria. They were known for their baguettes and croissant sandwhiches. We both had the tuna sandwiches but I had croissant and Erik had the baguette. Delish!

From the restaurant, we hopped a cab to where Erik had a wedding planning session with a man who was throwing a surprise wedding for his sister and her soon to be husband. Um... OK!? While Erik was doing that, I had a cappuccino (wow, I really had a lot of caffeine on this trip...) at Cafe Nader. When Erik was done, we walked downtown to the mall and did some window shopping. Then we decided to catch a movie. It must've been about 6pm? A lot of the movies were in English, with Spanish subtitles. I had to do some convincing, but I got Erik to see Wrath of the Titans with me.

From the mall we caught one of the buses that go to the hotel and tourist district of Cancun, closer to our destination. Downtown Cancun in the hotel/tourist district was exactly what I would have thought a Mexican-style Las Vegas would be like. Tourists everywhere, all dressed up, walking around with drinks and having a great time. We had dinner at Carlos n Charlies restaurant. The waitstaff did skits and plays and songs every five minutes- it looked exhausting. But they were all having a lot of fun; I think they may have been drinking? Click here to see a video from inside the restaurant immediately after the waitstaff had all vacated their posts and went out front for a dance. You can also see the crowd in the background are the people in line for Coco Bongo.

After dinner it was time to go to will call and get the tickets Erik had gotten reserved for us. Little did I know that we were going to be admitted as "Staff" of the Coco Bongo event, escorted past all the people waiting and sat at a table where all the drinks were on the house! Unbelievable! Here's a picture of the Coco Bongo entrance I took earlier in the night before the crowd started lining up. I wanted a shot of the Captain America signage as it is the most recently added skit in the Coco Bongo string of shows.

Even with the staff bracelets, seated table and drinks on the house; I had no idea the craziness that was in store for me. So... Coco Bongo opens at 10:30pm and it's like a studio 54 with huge screens playing the music video's. People are dancing and drinking and having a blast. Then at 11pm the "shows" start. They range from skits from movies like Passion of the Christ, Chicago, Moulin Rouge, Spider Man, Tron and Captain America to mini shows from vocalists like Elvis, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Usher, Beyonce and more. In between the music video's keep the crowds dancing all night long! The place doesn't close! INSANE FUN! The main bar on the center of the floor has many purposes, including but not limited to an actual bar for serving drinks, a place for dancers to perform, a place for partiers to get up and dance as well as a stage for the skits and high wire acts that come flying in. Here's a picture from prior to the skits starting when the crowd was still filtering in from outside and we were all just dancing and getting drinks.

There was also a main stage which had two huge screens playing the music video's and also served as the background for the various shows. Here's a picture of the main stage with a countdown showing of when the shows started.

The opening sequence was breathtaking. It was a tribute to the music of the 60's and specifically for the Beatles. It was at this point I realized the huge range of show this place had. The background had images and visualizations flying by while there were actors, dancers and performers on the main stage or flying overhead on high wires, rings and curtain dancers all choreographed to music. Amazing.

Here's a couple pictures to show what the club was like. Here's one of a large part of the crowd after the clown balloons had dropped from the ceiling and everyone was waving and dancing with them.

Here's a picture of the same area when the middle bar was converted to a stage (they do it so quickly you don't even see it happen). This one is during the spider man versus the green goblin show.

The pictures are all posted on my photobucket page and the video's are all posted on my YouTube page. Click the links to check them out. I will keep uploading videos as I have time- they take forever and so far I only have about 6 of the 20 uploaded.

I would definitely make a trip just to go to Coco Bongo in Cancun. Phenomenal. Sometime around 4am when the shows stopped and the lights had gone down and glow sticks were being passed around and thrown to the crowed Erik and I made our way out of the club to start the journey back to the island of Cozumel. Sorry, no pictures because my iPhone had long since died. I think we found a cab back to the local van route stop where we took that back to Playa Del Carmen. Then we took the 7am ferry back to Cozumel and I went to bed sometime between 9am and 10am only to wake up around 11am, pack and catch my 1:30pm flight back to the US. Best 24 hour birthday extravaganza ever!!!! Thanks ERIK!

Cozumel, Mexico Day 3

It's been 7 days since I left California. And it's been that long since I've jogged. After all the calories consumed yesterday and this big gap in jogging, I couldn't go any longer. It was time to run. This was the ONLY jog I got in on the whole trip. But I'm so glad I did it! Checkout the map on Runkeeper. I ran from Erik's house and ended up near downtown Cozumel before turning around. It was an exhausting jog; to which I'd attributed to the heat and humidity, but upon reflection... yesterday's pint of sangria probably didn't help matters!

Then I had to shower. For a looooong time. I never really did cool down the rest of the day. Erik and I went downtown along one of the main cruise ship docks. We had breakfast at the Hotel El Cid. It was a nice place to have a relaxing breakfast and watch the tourists come in off the cruise ships from a distance.

We spent some more time at El Postre Cito and I snapped this picture of me, Andrea and Erik out front of the store.

For dinner I wanted to eat once more at the Cucina Italiana before I left. I had the stuffed cannoli and it was great! I forgot to take a picture until I was mostly through; so instead here's another view of the kitchen area. If you look to the very far right, you can just barely see the Italian woman who owns and runs the restaurant.

That evening we went to downtown Cozumel and had drinks at Mararitaville and watched the sunset. It was a nice relaxing evening.

Typical with Cozumel, there was only a handful of others in the entire gargantuan restaurant. Here's a picture of the patio area as we were leaving- empty!

I was glad to get back to Erik's house so I could finish reading the third book of the Hunger Games series. It was probably my favorite, but the ending was really sad and it was hard to fall asleep about 2am when I finally finished it after starting the book that afternoon. Not the smartest move; as Friday was my birthday and we had plans that went for 24 hours straight starting at 9am...

Cozumel, Mexico Day 2

Today was one of my laziest days on the Island. I slept in until 1pm! Our first stop was at the Hacienda Casa Mission for lunch. It's a very large restaurant with a vast landscape of trees, flowering shrubs, fountains, walkways and caged birds.

The restaurant area was around the outside of the house, between the home and the gardens. Since it was raining sporadically; I was grateful the dining area was well covered.

Similar to the Italian restaurant, the owners live and work out of their home. Although this restaurant/home setup was a mansion compared to the Cucina Italiana. It was here that I first understood that there were different menu's for local residents. Erik and I got off on the cheap almost the entire trip because he got discounted prices for being a local. Lucky! Most meals were $20 for the both of us, including all drinks and tip. ^_^ I had the chille relleno and it was very good, definitely homemade. Erik had me try the Tamarindo water. It was like a sweet tea without the "tea" drying effect on the mouth or bitter. It was very sweet, almost as if sweetened by honey. On the way out, we walked along the garden areas and I took a picture of this toucan. It reminded me of the fruit loops comercials; I don't think I've ever seen one in real life before.

After lunch it was time for desert and coffee, right? We went to Erik's favorite hangout place in the downtown area called El Postre Cito. Which translates as "Small Pastry". It was a very cute shop that was well decorated with quotes in both Spanish and English around the walls. They made Coffee drinks to order and all the pastry's were made on site.

I had a carrot cake and cappuccino and Erik had a brownie with ice cream and latte. We relaxed there and chatted with Andrea who works there and is also a good friend of Erik's. We stayed for most of the afternoon waiting out the rain. It was also a great place to connect to the internet!

Then it was time for dinner; right? HAHA! I swear, all we did was eat this whole day! We went to an Argentinean restaurant called Del Sur (Parilla Argentina).

Erik recommended the empanadas and the waiter recommended the sangria- I just stuck with their recommendations. SOOOO glad I did. I've never had empanadas before. A M A Z I N G. They are like small calzones, but the outside is softer and flakier; like a pastry. You choose the inside.

I had so many different types, it's hard to remember. My favorite was the mozarella with jalapeno and pepperoni. There were two different dipping sauces (as was typical in most restaurants) one was mild and bland (in my opinion!) the other was extra spicy hot! I ate almost all of the extra hot one, seen in the smaller container with my empenadas. Then for desert, we had a dulce de leche and a banana and chocolate empanada and I had to roll outta the restaurant... Oh yeah, and the sangria; which Erik had none of... Ugh, if I'd known that when I ordered it! HAHA! I've no idea how I ate all those delicious empanadas AND drank the whole pitcher of sangria. I guess it was all just that good!

Cozumel, Mexico Day 1

For my 33 birthday, I wanted to go back to Cozumel, Mexico. When I last visited with Andrej, Wes and Ashley it was May of 2010. That's the trip we met Erik, a wedding officiator from Venezuela who was living and working on the Island of Cozumel. We all became friends and Erik was adamant we could come visit anytime; so I finally took him up on the offer two years later! I was so excited to have the opportunity to stay with a local and have my own translator with all the inside scoops about local things to do.

Erik picked me up from the airport and we headed to his place where he finished preparing for the wedding he was performing that evening. He generally officiates the wedding ceremonies, but he also does all sorts of other things for weddings as needed. For tonight's wedding he made the glasses for the sand ceremony the couple would be doing. The couple had met on a bus in 2009, thus the bus with 2009 and 2012 dates.

Before the wedding Erik took me to his favorite Italian restaurant on the island. It's called Cucina Italiana. It's ran by some Italian immigrants who migrated to Cozumel many years ago. They run it out of their home. The open kitchen and dinning area becomes the restaurant from noon to 4pm daily. Upon entering the restaurant, the patrons choose what is available that day and displayed on the kitchen table. Then the chef's go about preparing the item.

I had a spinach stuffed chicken with pasta. It was delicious!

Then it was time to head out as Erik had a wedding to perform on a smaller island off the main island of Cozumel. We drove along a dirt road for some time, and then came to the dock where the wedding party had already arrived. We took a small boat across the bay to the little island "Isla Pasion". Yes, it's an easy translation; Passion Island. This picture captures a lot of the main area; the dock, the Isla Pasion sign, the small Catholic church and some covered areas to the left for parties, weddings etc.

While Erik was officiating the wedding I explored around the Island. There were little tiny crabs in shells scurrying around. It was while I was wandering around that I took the best picture of the entire trip. It's on the Island of Passion, looking to the north out across the ocean. The Catholic church is behind me.

Several people have commented that it looks like a postcard, but I assure you; it's as real as real can be and taken by me! ^_^ After the ceremony Erik and I picked up his friend Oscar and Oscar's friend David who was visiting from the mainland. We went to the San Martin Beach and played in the ocean until it was dark. The water was warm and it felt great! We didn't go too far out, as this was on the eastern ocean facing side of the island and the currents are apparently strong! I slept very well this night; I was exhausted!

Midway

On my way to Cozumel I stopped halfway there and spent Monday night at Ashley's house in Houston, Texas. It was wonderful seeing Ashley and Jeremy and meeting their cute little puppy, "Texie". They took me to a mexican restaurant up the street that had the best fajitas and margaritas, too!

It was nice catching up with them, and I was so thankful for carting me around. The airport I flew into and out the next day "Hobby" was about 35 minutes away. Now they just need to plan a quick 'lil trip out to California! ;-)

Busy Boise Sunday

Sunday was a family fun packed day. It started out with breakfast at Goldy's with Chuck and Emily. We had a delicious breakfast!

After breakfast we spent the day at my parent's house, playing cards. Mom had made me a funfetti rainbow cake, my favorite! She also had a few other surprises like caramel and regular cadbury eggs and the white chocolate with milk chocolate lindt balls. How does she know me so well!?

That evening I met up with Kam to catch a flick at the Boise Edwards 22 mega-plex.

Can you guess what we watched...?

YUP! It was amazing. Yes, I was a crying sloppy mess. I hadn't watched this show in years, possibly since it was first in theaters. Kam was VERY kind to deal with me. haha! Thanks Kam!

Birthday Vacation Wine Tasting

For my 33 Birthday I took a trip that started in Boise, ID with a wine tasting excursion into the Snake River Valley with my closest Boise friends. We rented a hummer limousine that picked us up at the BODO PF Chang's. We had so much wine along for the ride already, it was a bit daunting!

From left to right there was my Brother Chuck, Chelsie, Sara and Jeremiah, Mike, Aida, Mary, Tiffany, Andrej, Chelsea, Kari and Emily. Phew! Large group, but sooo much fun! We headed straight to my favorite winery; Ste. Chapelle. They always treat us so well there.

After Ste. Chapelle we went to Koenig. They had my favorite wine of the trip, a medal winning ice wine that I ended up purchasing a bottle of at the winery. Unfortunately for the bottle, it didn't make it back to the limousine! haha

After Koenig we went to a new place that we were recommended; Fujishin (pronounced Few-jish-an). It was a smaller winery, but it had a large tasting room. Fortunately for the gal working we were the only group there at the time. The wines were ok, but hard for me to taste them at this late stage of the game! Here's a picture of the group.

After the wine tasting tour was over, we went into PF Chang's for dinner. Andrej, Mike, Chuck, Emily, Kari, Chelsie and Casey were there. We all needed some food after all that wine. As wine tasting adventures go; this was a GREAT time! Thanks to all my friends and family that made this such a special event for me! After dinner most of us took an evening nap, and then we headed out downtown Boise. I had a great night dancing with Andrej and Chelsie. Mike was very kind to drive me and Chelsie back to my house.

Anniversary Surprise!

To start off my 9 day birthday vacation, I flew with Emily back to Boise to surprise Chuck for their one year anniversary! We had kept it a secret for over a month, one of the hardest things I've ever done! It was very worthwhile; Chuck had no idea. We planned it all out in advance so that after Chuck had picked me up (actually inside the airport!) when we were driving away, I told him I'd left my jacket in the airport. He was like "WHAT!?" and drove back around. When he went to drop me off, Emily was hiding behind one of the cement pillars and jumped out. He was VERY surprised! We went out that night and had a great time with drinks and dancing.

Easter!

This morning Emily came over to my house and picked me up so we could attend Easter worship together! It was a nice service, although I wasn't used to having water thrown on me during a service. Apparently that's what the Catholics do! There were several different rituals, but the Lord's Prayer was virtually the same and I knew the words to most of the songs. It was very nice.

Then we headed back over to Emma and Evan's house for Easter brunch with them and their friends Jessica and John. We all contributed something and it was certainly a hodge-podge mix of things, but good food and company for sure!

Then I got a call from Kali that she was available after a long weekend of preparing for the new Nokia Windows phone. So I headed to San Francisco to pick her up. I brought her back to Rohnert Park and showed her where I worked. We were so very lucky that Kevin and Jason were done with their Easter plans and Kevin was able to let us into the Green Music Center and show us around. We even got to go up on stage and Kali sang a number- it was so much fun!

We had just a few minutes after the tour to show Kali where I lived and then it was time to take her back to San Francisco. It was so much fun catching up with my cuz. Love ya Kali!

Marin Half Marathon

This weekend is the annual Marin Half Marathon in beautiful San Rafael, California. Since the Santa Cruz half was just last weekend, no one else wanted to do this one so close so I was solo! First race ever on my own. I did run into my friend Irene at the race. It was a gorgeous day for the run. The Sun was out, the runners were excited. I started the race right up at the starting line- never done that before! So for the first few miles the faster joggers were passing me. I'm used to being the one passing slower joggers as I usually start farther back. I made a good time, one 1:52:00. Right about par for my half marathon times. I met a guy from new york who was traveling across the US running marathon races. It was a great race, one I look forward to every year! :)

Santa Cruz Half Marathon

This weekend I drove down to Santa Cruz, CA with Amanda on Saturday morning. We were going for the Santa Cruz Half Marathon presented by Firstwave Events. Our first stop was for lunch; originally planned for an old Sushi haunt of Amanda's from her college years at UCSC. However, they weren't opened for lunch so we went to one of my favorites- Canton restaurant. I've been trying new foods and with Amanda's suggestion I tried the Kung Pao Tofu (instead of the chicken like I'd normally have). It was delicious! She had the eggplant so I tried that and it too was delicious!

Then we met up with Jeff and Trisha at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and picked up our race packets and did some shopping. After that, I went with Amanda to see the new movie The Hunger Games. Having just finished the book the night before, this was perfect timing. It met all my expectations. Of course, we spent most of the evening comparing it to the book but we both enjoyed it very much.

Then we had dinner at another favorite restaurant of mine, the Hula Bar & Grill. Normally I'd have one of their fabulous chicken burgers, but this time I tried the Tofu tacos. Mmm! they were done perfectly. I've never had Tofu tacos, but now I know they can be done, and done well! Just as we finished dinner it began pouring outside (again) and we had to run back to the car, with Amanda laughing at me as I tried pulling my jeans up so as not to get them too wet.

On the way back to the hotel we picked up some ice cream at Marianne's Ice Cream. I had the Cascade Huckleberry and it was perfect. We kicked back and watched Pretty in Pink with Jeff and Trisha before having to turn in for the night.

Race morning came quick and we had to be down to starting line about 7am for the 8am race to ensure we got parking. The crowd was pumped and the starting line hosts did a great job of making it feel very lively. I started off with Jeff for the first four miles, but he was running less than 8 minute miles so I paused for some goo and let him continue on. The view along the cliffs was beautiful, but my favorite views were at the turning back point loop. The ocean had some breathtaking swells that caused the white spray to shoot up along the coastline.
I ended up running the race at a pace of about 8:20 second miles, one hour forty nine minutes and thirty three seconds; one of my fastest half-marathon times ever! I posted the run and map on my Runkeeper including pictures. Afterwards, we were pretty exhausted! Amanda and I stopped off at a downtown taqueria for a burrito then headed back home. Such a great weekend with good friends!