Musical Genius..

..runs in my family!  My Dad sent me this video of my brother Pavel playing the violin with one of my Dad's music groups.  The song is called the "Czardas (pronounced char-dash)" and it is a song I knew by heart by the time I was at least 3! I grew up with this music and to now see my brother playing it really warms my heart.  My Dad is so proud of him and it is really neat to see them all play together.  I am not sure how invested Pavel is into the violin but it is a skill that will benefit him the rest of his life whether his teenage brain realize's it or not yet.  I was so impressed that I wanted to share with everyone!

My Summer Bucket List

I saw a suggestion for this and I just thought it was a great idea..I recommend everyone to make one, that way you can plan summer accordingly.  Thought that I would share mine and put everyone in the summertime mood, plus it will give me something to blog about later ;)

SUMMER BUCKET LIST

• Go to a few concerts (including one of my Father's)
• Take a BYOB paint class with Niki (we have been seeing a ton of these around where you bring some of the materials, wine and appetizers)
• Get an 'A' in Spanish
• Read 3 books for pure recreation
• Awesome-ify my resume
• Finish my short story & Write at least 3-4x a week
• Lose 5lb (starting small)
• Camp or take a mini vacation
• Make a list of long term goals
• Wear my Del Mar floppy hat :)
• Try a new ethnic food
• Do a double kayak tour with Charlie (we have been seeing a lot of these deals also for around here, some go through sea caves, we've been wanting to do this a while)

Make sure you all enjoy the summer before it's gone!

A Little Bit of Everything..

My semester is officially over!  I was getting so exhausted by the end I kept thinking to myself, "am i sure i want to keep going on in school?" But I made it!  I feel like I am done and graduated but I am taking a condensed Spanish class over the summer, one more online next semester along with another online class for a minor I added to my degree.  I would have been all graduated with my BA in the summer but after some miscommunication and misinformation it turns out i had two classes, and so I would not lose a grant i had for last semester (had to be a full time student but only need two classes at the time) I decided to add a minor to my degree.  Fall of 2013 I will graduate with a Liberal Studies degree, depth of study in Sociology and minor in Sociology.  In about a year or so ( I want to get some experience working in the community specifically focusing on education in underprivileged communities) i plan to go on for a Masters in Sociology.  The year will also buy Charlie and I more time to decide if we are staying in CA and NY..Yes we still don't know... Anyway the whole point of that was to say that now i have some blogging time!  And i guess to let everyone know what's been going on with my school :)

I uploaded picture from my phone recently and have a lot of good random ones so I thought it might make a good post!  Some of these are on instagram with it seems like everyone except my Mom has one but hey it's a technological era right?


A few months ago when Kyle was in town we went to visit everyone in Huntington Beach.  They have a huge dog beach so we skated and biked around with Johnson (who was dog tired by the end of the day) and he got to hang out in the water and then sunbathe.

These two are getting too old for our shenanigans. 

Unfortunately as timing would halve it, their weren't much waves when we went up there but I know these guys still wanted to get in the water so they tried to longboard for about 30 minutes, at least they got some bro time in.

 This is the only time i have ever seen Charlie drink starbucks but in his defense it was more like a milkshake, Adam went to get us some coffee and they messed up the order so he brought an extra and the guys all shared it.

Surfer pose, -whatever it is Kyle is doing. 

 Until I got to this picture i couldn't remember the time of year it was but it was Easter! This was before we all went and had our Easter dinner at a burger place called Slater's 50/50 lol..I love in this picture out Kevin is smiling while the other two are so serious..

At dinner!

Over his spring break my brother took it upon himself to organize our boxes of photos which have never been put into albums.  It was such a huge project that no one ever wanted to do it but it finally got done!  I stumbled on a few gems..

I love this one because my Dad looks straight out of the motherland.  I remember when we went to Czech Republic the first time when i was in like 9th grade, so 2000, all of the guys were wearing these sports pants and matching jackets with, no joke, sandals and socks.  Hilarious. 

I just love this one to pieces.

                                                                  My "bunny" pose.

I grew up with Regina.  She is the daughter of my Dad's guitar partner Fred Benedetti.  We've been friends since we were babes. We've been to Hawaii together 3 or 4 times and we went to Europe together for our first time.  She is one of my favorite people on this planet.

Our cool denim dresses. 

This was another old one we stumbled across going through our photo albums.  For a while when i was in school we would do camping trips with my Step Mom's sister in Yosemite.  One year when my cousin came up (I think it was 2001) I went back to SF with them.  We went to a Giants game, ate sushi, Half Moon Bay (where the Maverick's contest is), and Santa Cruz.  This picture is of my cousin Ryan and I in Santa Cruz.  Ryan and I were always friends but he recently moved from Iowa (I guess recent as in a few years ago) and him and Charlie have become real close.  

Sushi!

This was from another sushi date I had recently with my friend Kristen!!

I had a TON of family come into town at the end of April.  I think there was maybe 12 people, mostly related through Kitty and Kitty's sister Frankie.  We all went to a Padres game one night, this is from that night.  Me and my Brother, Pavel. 

This is a mini lighthouse down at Oceanside harbor. We went for dinner a few weeks ago with our friends. 

At the harbor, beautiful sunset & handsome man. 

This is an old picture i stumbled on for a "throwback Thursday."  One time when i brought Hercules up to Huntington Beach.  Matt was using him to lure women over and I believe it worked..Too cute. 

Texas lake house.  Charlie getting air. 

Me and some lady friends at one of our favorite places to go for happy hour.  We were celebrating the end of school!

Richie, Erin, Zeke & Ez came for a quick sleepover last week.  It was fun to see how much Ez has grown.  He is so sweet and happy.  When i woke up the next morning and came to say hi he looked at me and gave me a huge smile, just melted me.  Melted me almost as much as the cute outfit Erin had him in for a wedding they were going to. 

He looked so dapper!

Being the dog people we are, this next portion is all of our old baby Johnson.  As usual his most photogenic poses are his positions on the couch..

When I was going through some of my old photos I found a few of Johnson when I first started coming to NY. 

But this is him now..And he doesn't seem to give a hoot.

Snuggling.

I sent this picture to Charlie when he was at work one day.

It has been getting warmer here!  We have had some days where it is 90 degrees but it has been fluctuating a lot.  I have a little fan set up for Johnson that he usually will lay in front of, this is how he copes with no AC. 

This is on the Oceanside pier, as you can see in his old age he doesn't seem to care about the rules..

And this picture was from this morning!  I thought it was so funny how he utilizes the pillow.

He was over me taking pictures.

And this finally came for Charlie!  Mesa College finally sent him his official assosciates degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences, language studies and humanities-Spanish.  The school was a totally pain in the rear towards the end but he did it!

And that is all.  Happy summer all!!!!

A Day at the Getty Villa.

Over a month ago we went to the Getty Museum in Malibu with a few friends.  Since Charlie and our friends are all transplants to Southern California they had never been and after a conversation about it one night I was set on taking all of them!  It is such a gorgeous place filled with an array of beautiful art.  On this particular occasion there was a lot from the Etruscan period, Mesopotamia and Rome.  We even saw a tiny piece of paper where Homer wrote the original "Iliad" which i found so amazing.  That little bit of text was so ancient and has been so monumental in literature if was just fascinating to see it.  There was also a lot of art depicting Olympic games, a section on glass art and blowing, old coins, jewelry and a mummy that was found near Egypt but it was a clear mix between Mesopotamian culture and Egyptian.

I didn't take a ton of pictures but I haven't blogged in a while and this was such a great day so I thought it was worthy.  After we spent a good 3 or 4 hours at the Getty we decided to grab some lunch (and after driving around for an hour trying to find parking on a gorgeous day) we decided to head to the Santa Monica pier for fish and chips!  Unfortunately I don't really have any pictures from that, even though the pier is great.  Restaurants, rides, games and arcades, so much fun.

I didn't take any pictures of the inside really, I think that you may have been able to but it sort of slipped my mind.  These were some pictures i took of one of the outdoor gardens. 

Charlie isn't really into museums and I know he was really humoring me by going.  He made a joke to my Dad saying I am taking him to get cultured.  In spite of not really wanting to be there he had a great attitude about it and I know he learned and saw a few cool things, no matter what he might say (haha).

There is a great viewing spot out to the garden.  This was all of us looking at at it and the next picture is a view from the opposite end. We were standing in the middle of that tiny looking window on the second story!

There was a TON of beautiful jewelry which was one of my favorite things to see.  My friend Kristen took this picture of one of the many pieces we saw. 

And here is my beautiful friend Kristen trying on a Medusa hat in the gift shop.  She is going to make an excellent teacher one day. 

Tickets to the Getty are free so if you are ever coming to this area i would highly recommend going, especially if you can get a babysitter :)