strike a pose

Bret likes to withhold information. He'll deny this and say that he just forgets to tell me things. I can tell you what he ate for lunch every day last week and about really dull conversations he had with people, but he'll forget to tell me things like, "A few weeks ago I got roped into a project at work and now my face is going to plastered in 1,000 Walmarts across America".

If you think that that is the only instance, it's not, I have a whole arsenal of them. One time after being married for awhile, and knowing each other for years, we were talking to a friend about rabies and Bret said, "Well when I was bit by a rabid dog, I just had to get a lot of shots." WHAT? How the heck do I know the name of every kid that lived on your block when you were seven but you forgot to tell me that in your early twenties you were bit by a rabid dog?!

I can't wait to see what else he has up his sleeve.

the times they are a channggginn

I like constant change. Unfortunately, or actually fortunately, I live in a place I like and am married to a person I like and I semi-enjoy my job (are there people who love their jobs? If so, who are you? and what do you do?). With that being said, the only thing I can think of to change is my hair. Constant change. I think all of these pictures were taken within two years.





The only picture I didn't include was from a 4 month time period where I had a serious mullet. If you have any ideas of what my next hair do' should be, please let my hairstylist (Bret) know.

"I hear soccer in the suburbs is really aggressive"

This weekend Bret and I went to the beach to shoot hoops. What is that? Oh, you didn't know that I play pick-up games at the park? My favorite spot in all of Northern California is Stinson Beach and there is a great little park there with a perfect little basketball court. Bret and I played an intense game of 2-on-2 verses a father-son team. I found that my basketball skills are on par with boys ages 10-11 (but only if I have 7 inches on them).

(This is the only pic of Bret and I playing any kind of sport I could find, please disregard the fact that it wast taken in 2005)

Whichever

Year of the Creative Mind has got Bret and I using our space (very limited space) creatively. I turned a corner into a sewing corner, but it's actually the entryway to the apartment so I guess it could be called either a sewing corner or a nuisance.

2010 in List

I had almost forgotten that I started out the year looking like Peter Pan:
In fear of forgetting more about 2010, I've decided to do a recap in list form, so here you have it. Even though it is in "top three" format, it's more like 3 things i liked, not #1, etc. This is mainly me (Whitney) speaking with bret's opinion taken into consideration.

Top 3 Movies Watched:
1. Son of Rambo
2. The Brothers Bloom
3. Breaking Away

Top 3 Meals Eaten:
1. Ike's Sandwich in SF (pic below). This place blew my mind, I was almost in tears my sandwich was so good.
2. Chicken Macademia Nut sandwich in Hawaii
3. Curry Pasta Salad from this lady

Top 3 Albums that debuted in 2010:
1. Suburbs- Arcade Fire
2. Age of Adz- Sufjan Stevens (I may or may not have gotten into a verbal altercation with the girl sitting in front of me at this concert, but who the freak spends $50 on a concert ticket to scroll through facebook during the show? I thought she should be informed that this was a poor decision and the light coming from her phone was driving everyone behind her nuts).
3. Contra- Vampire Weekend

Top 3 Books Read:
1. Strength in What Remains- Tracy Kidder
2. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down- Anne Fadiman
3. Hunger Games Trilogy- don't judge me, you know you loved it

Top 3 Bummers (not to be confused with hardships or tragedies, those don't need to be hashed out in a top three list):
1. Bret breaking his ankle
2. Me denying a somewhat good job to then go on a never-ending search for full time work... 3/4 time isn't cutting it.
3. The sky rocketing rate of car insurance after you total your car. real bummer.

Top 3 Shows Watched:
1. Pushing Daisies (maybe for a second time)
2. Friday Night Lights
3. Modern Family


Top 3 Documentaries:
1. State of Mind
2. Man on Wire (I fell asleep at the very end and apparently it got a little racey, but the first 1hr30mins was fantastic)
3. Babies

Top 3 Vacations:
1. Hawaii
2. Chicago
3. Quemada
I don't remember why we were making those faces, but I love how we're in the most beautiful place and we look miserable.

Top 3 camping sites:
1. Leo Carillo in Malibu
2. Sequoia Nat'l Park
3. Milk Lake, somewhere in the Tahoe Nat'l Forest
(That's Leo Carillo, and a lot of that white we're looking at is the ocean but since my camera is from 2003 it doesn't really capture how great it was, maybe I shouldn't have included this pic)

If you have your own take on any of the above categories, I'd like hear it.

the hills are alive

In case you were thinking, "Man it has been too long since I've seen Bret or Whitney in a helmet" well Merry Christmas. That little speck halfway up the road is me and I'm glad you can't hear through film because my huffing and puffing was as loud as a 400lb man.

If you're ever looking for a beautiful place to ride your bike in Northern CA, I'd recommend Tamales to Dillon Beach, it is beautiful. And if you huff and puff all the way up the mountain, you're not alone.

It's Turkey Time

I don't mean that in the Thanksgiving sense, I mean, I look out my window in the mornings and there are turkeys wondering around my front yard. I keep trying to tell them that this is a really bad time for them to be flaunting their stuff. Bret almost hit one of the turkeys on his bike the other day. I can't imagine how rugged he would have looked had he hit it, then tied a little rope around its neck and brought it home tossed over his shoulder.

The Turkeys have become so popular that they made it into the Oakland Tribune, you can read about it here.

Get World

I was going to get Whitney a gift for her birthday, but there's a 98.4% chance that she would just take it back. So instead I gave her a card that read...

So we're gonna go on a trip. Any suggestions on where in the world we should go? The only exclusions are Antarctica and Las Vegas, anywhere else is fair game.

and by odd, I mean awesome

Today I saw a man driving a motorcycle that had 3 flag poles welded to it. I thought that was a little odd and then I saw that riding in his side cart was a golden retriever wearing goggles.

WORLD CHAMPS

When I saw the Giants bandwagon coming about two weeks ago, I decided to jump on. And boy did I! I had never watched a baseball game until two weeks ago and in the past few weeks, baseball is all we talk about in this part of town. Today a six year old won a coin guessing game and ran around the classroom doing this famous Brian Wilson pose, while another student chanted "FEAR THE BEAR, FEAR THE BEARD"
Those two six year olds aren't the only Wilson lovers, Bret too has an affinity for the beard, so much so that this was his pumpkin this year:
While I am now a big Giants fan, I thought it was kind of funny that the headline in the Tribune, in size 340 font, read WORLD CHAMPS!! The Giants have proved that they are the best baseball players, but can they really declare themselves world champs if they played another American team? Maybe they can, I'm new to this baseball business.