2007 November « SKIP ALLUMS

Thanksgiving weekend

November 28th, 2007 § Leave a Comment

Meet Ava, my brand new little niece! A few more pictures here…

Eventful holiday break! We spent Thanksgiving with Olivia’s family in Concord: 2 20-pound turkeys, a large ham, and tons of yummy side dishes and desserts. Olivia made a bourbon-soaked pecan tart with chocolate drizzled over the top. Ate waaaay too much. It was also Olivia’s birthday! Pictures

Friday: we headed into the city around noon, not to get our shop on, but to go to SFMOMA for the Olafur Eliasson exhibit. He did installations all over the place, but mostly took over the top floor. We thought the crowds would be at Union Square, and that we could spend the afternoon getting lost in all the water, stone, ice and moss he uses. No chance – the place was more packed than I’ve ever seen it. The line for one installation stretched through 4 rooms. Still, you should definitely go see it before it comes down in February! We may try to go again, perhaps during a weekday.

We also marveled at the huge Joseph Cornell retrospective. They even had displays that showed how he put his boxes together, how he organized all his collage materials. If you consider yourself a pack-rat… trust me, you have nothing on this guy!

Saturday: rented a few movies (Transformers, Knocked Up and The Queen… weird combination huh?) and stayed in most of the day.

Sunday: cleaned house a bit, until Olivia started having weird back spasms (she’s a bit better now, went back to work today)

This week: finishing up the House of Shields calendar. I will have been there 2 years in February, and the bar itself turns 100 in April… so we have a big year ahead of us!

Anniversary in Monterey

November 13th, 2007 § Leave a Comment

Since our wedding had an aquatic theme, we decided to spend our first anniversary near the ocean! We didn’t really have much of an itinerary, opting instead to go where the moment took us…

Saturday: we took our sweet time leaving (also Olivia had to work a little bit before we left). Our bungalow was on the beach, and had to take a little golf cart to get there, leaving all cars at the main entrance. The little beachmobile was the source of endless laughter and a few close calls the whole weekend. Now I want one in our garage for trips to Whole Foods and for racing down Piedmont Avenue!

In-room massages, followed by a crazy steak dinner at the restaurant attached to the resort – AJ Spurs! It was like every restaurant in Texas: huge portions, taxidermy of all types & sizes mounted on the walls, BBQ everything, “eat our 52oz. steak and win 50% off your meal!”… you get the picture. To replicate our wedding dinner, I had the surf & turf. All meals come with free root beer floats. How can you beat that?

Sunday: Early rise to hit the Aquarium! I think Gary may have some sea otter in him. Bountiful sea life displays. I think I’d like to be reincarnated as a sunfish. Creepy hammerhead sharks! Wandered around for a few hours, then went back to our bungalow to play on the beach. Canceled our fancy dinner plans to stay in and watch Deadwood (we drove all over town looking for Season 3 ).

Monday: Checked out at noon, saying goodbye to our ocean view and our trusty golf cart. On the way home we decided to see the Winchester Mystery House! For some reason, I thought it would be further outside of San Jose down some long gravel road… but instead it is bordered by an upscale mall (Santana Row) and a Century 21 movie theater. This was the first of many misconceptions… many stemming from the the fact that all of Sarah Winchester’s estate was aunctioned off in 1922 – none of the furniture inside is original. The house & her surrounding 162 acres were auctioned in the 1970s. None of this takes away from the madness of the house itself though.