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 :)

26th Birthday Celebrations

This month has been going by so fast! With my birthday, valentines day, school (emphasis on that because its amazing that all classes have papers due the same week), and Charlie going to NY to work for about 10 days, I feel like I blinked and next week it will be March.

This year my birthday fell on a Wednesday which happens to be my longest day at school.  I am out of the house by 7am and usually not home till about 3:30pm so I was in a bit of denial about my birthday because of that.  Charlie's job for the painting company sort of came to a halt about a week prior to my big day, no more jobs, i.e. no more work, so lucky for me he was home when I got back from school.  I was a little emotional when I got home, tired, irritated and overwhelemed with school, and reallly not giving two hoots in was my birthday but sweet Charlie can change my mood at the drop of a hat.  I plopped down on the couch and he says something like "did you see what was in the alley" and i looked at him a little perplexed and got up to go look through our bedroom window to find this..

It's not the best quality but anyone in the Psillos family knows exactly what this is :)  I had 26$ up there and other goodies.  Sure sign that I was overwhelemd and emotional that day because I instantly started crying because of how sweet I thought it was.  After some hugs I was able to get it together (ha) and opened my presents.  Charlie had a mimosa in hand for me and got me exactly what I wanted for my birthday (I did tell him exactly what I wanted so it made his life a little easier:), a new tea kettle (very excited about this), a trunk organizer (another thing i have been wanting for a while) and a few storage baskets.  Later that evening we went to have dinner at the macaroni grill.  We have been here a few times and the food is usually pretty good and has a sort of romantic atmosphere. We must have come on a bad night because we waited an hour and a half for our food!  At first I didn't mind because we had wine and it was nice to just sit and talk (for me at least haha) but after an hour we were filling up on bread and getting anxious.  Once we received the food it was sort of disappointing and cold.  The waitress was good to us though, she comped all our wine and gave us a free desert so we only spent about 25$! 

Birthday Flowers

I decided to be stubborn and selfish this year and extend my birthday to the weekend.  On that Saturday  our newest couple friend (she is pretty much the closest friend i have made at school and her husband and Charlie seem to hit it off too so it is nice that we have at least a few friends in this area! :) came over to our house and we were heading down the street to the Amtrak to take a train to San Juan Capistrano.  I am upset at myself for not taking pictures on the train (numerous snapchats but didnt think to take an actual picture) because it is so gorgeous along the coast.  It was a little chilly but the sun was out and shinning and I couldn't have asked for better weather.  Our destination was the San Juan Capistrano Mission.  This is one of the few historical sites we have in California and it is the Missions, they are all over the state and they were built to try and assimilate Native Americans to White culture, well that didn't go so well but lucky for us they are great tourist spots...Kristen is from Fresno but hadn't had the opportunity to visit any missions and her husband Brian is from Nebraska so he also had never been.  Charlie was in the same boat as them so I was really excited to take them to this specific one.  It is a lot larger and more scenic then many other ones.  On top of the mission, the town is really cute and artsy.  There are shops and restaurants, great atmosphere to just walk around in.

People joke with Charlie that he has a Jesus-esq look about him.  Here he is indulging in that idea..(please forgive us)

Really neat architecture to the Mission but a lot of it has been restored over the years.

Not sure what was going on here but I like his expression..

Later we all came back to our house to play some jenga and trivial pursuit.  Johnson was also having a good weekend because my mom let me borrow her pug for a sleepover.  Kristen and Brian (esp Brian) bonded with Hercules very quickly..

Then the next morning I caught some cuddling..

On Sunday I headed down to my Dads to pick up my brother.  I am taking a theatre arts class and one of the requirements is to go to a play and write a review.  We had just read this excellent play called Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris and they happened to be performing it at the Lyceum in Downtown SD.  Plays are not Charlie's thing so rather then pay for him to be miserable I thought I would have my brother go with me which turned out to be a lot of fun.  The play was excellent and comical, I think that my brother even may have liked it.  It was nice to do something cultured (ha) and to spend time with my brother while doing that.  He is getting so old and will be a senior next year, its really freaking me out..

Anywho after the play we headed to dinner with my family.  We went to an Italian restaurant called Pietro's.  We have been going there ever since I was a tyke and the food is incredible.  Awesome pizza, salad, and bruschetta.  I was showered with some more gifts and cards (not sure what I did in my past life to have such a wonderful family) and blessed to have a great meal with my family.