obama for is president!

i know it's a little past inauguration day, but i just wanted to congratulate our new president in my own, very non-public way.  it's such an amazing time to be living in this country.  despite the current state of our economy, i'm very excited to see what's in store for our country.  

on inauguration day, the entire surfrider staff hovered around the television in our conference room to be able to watch that moment in history.  hopefully, years down the road, i'll be able to tell my kids exactly where i was when the first black president took office.  and if i can't remember, i can refer back to this blog for a refresher.

to say that he has a lot on his plate is HUGE understatement.  he certainly has a long road ahead of him and will have to make some difficult decisions over the next few year to help remedy the problems he inherited.  of course everyone will be hovering and picking apart everything he says or does to bring the u.s. out of this slump, but i have no doubts that we have better times to look forward to.

i just wanted to share my hope that we will survive the next few years.

i also wanted to share this picture i found on another blog that i read regularly (cry it out: memoirs of a stay-at-home dad) that just made me smile.  this is bush street in san francisco which someone took upon themselves to rename: obama street.  love.

lost in lost

if you have ever watched a single episode of this incredible television series, then i do not have to tell you how AWESOME it is.  even you watched an episode and had no idea what was going on, the suspense still kills you and leaves you wanting more.

for the past month, this has been mike's and my obsession.  a friend from work lent me the entire first season on dvd.  needless to say, we watched every juicy episode as if the world were going to die the next day and watched all 24 (count them, 24) episodes in a few days time.  i know it's a little lame that we did nothing but watch episode after episode, but it's just so tempting when you know the next one is sitting there ready to go.  no need to draw out the suspense of the cliffhangers the writes put into each episode, just push a couple buttons and voila you find out what happens next.  

anyway,  after we finished the first season, we waited patiently for another surfrider employee to watch season 2.  then we got ants in our pants and though we might try to netflix the second season.  the only problem with that is that we have the "one dvd at a time" level so you have to wait days in between sending back one disc and waiting for the next one to arrive.

i decided to check out the lost website and what did i find?  every single lost episode ever aired is online.  AND you can watch them all for free!  i only wished i had found this out sooner.  you do have to sit through a few commercials, but if we watched it on tv we'd have to do the same so i can't really complain.  we are getting into the third season now and hope that we'll be able to catch up to already-in-progress season five.  

this is my shout-out to all you lost fans reading this blog.  but if you do not watch this show, i'm sorry, but there is no shout out for you today.  you should be watching it.  i HIGHLY recommend it.  SOOO GOOOD!!  and maybe someday soon, we can bond over the steamy love triangle between jack, kate, and sawyer.  

the holidays and the new year!

well, the busy holiday season has come and gone and it's a new year!  hard to believe that 2009 is already upon us and i still find it amazing how quickly the year passes by.  

our holidays were great.  mike's been off training for about a month now, so he had to work xmas eve, xmas, new year's eve, and new year's day.  i made all the holiday rounds solo this year.  i felt bad that mike had to be at home by himself on xmas eve, so i put up a few decorations to make our apartment feel more christmasy for him.  so, i spent christmas eve with mike's mom and stepdad in vista.  we had a wonderful dinner and it was great to see everyone.  shelby even got some of the mother-in-law's delicious chicken scraps to enjoy.  

after dinner, i headed down to my parents' house in rancho bernardo and sam and i got to open one gift each.  like every year, they were new pajama bottoms.  it's funny because i know exactly what i'm going to open on christmas eve, but i still look forward to it to see what kind my mom picked out.  oh, how i love the holidays.  we watched the end of 'a christmas story' and went to bed early.  i know i'm not five anymore, but i still had trouble sleeping that night--it could have been the fact that christmas was the next day, it could have been the fact that shelby was taking up most of the bed, it could have been that i wasn't sleeping in my own bed, but who knows?  i like to think that there is still that kid in me that can't wait to see what santa brought me!!

we opened all our gifts on christmas morning and my mom made "monkey bread"--a delicious cinnamon roll type creation with plenty of sugar and what seems to be a syrup glaze that gathers at the bottom.  yum!!  we lazed around during the day and went to dinner at the bradley's house up the street.  it was a full house this year with many of my friend aimee's relatives--some i hadn't seen in 10 years, and others i had never met.  it was a fun evening.  i scooted out early to exchange gifts with julie and sabrina--my two saviors from high school.  i love seeing them and it's too bad we all live far apart and i can't see them everyday anymore.  

after gifts with them, i drove back to san clemente and woke mike up to say hello before he dozed off again and had to get up the next morning to work.  when mike got home after work that day, we did our own xmas.  we only exchanged stockings this year since we're on a little bit of a tight budget, but it was still fun and i got to see mike open the gifts from his mom and my family.  

new year's was really uneventful.  like i said, mike had to work new year's day so we didn't make any plans and i didn't have any plans of my own to ring in the new year.  mike and i hung out at home and i was in bed by 11pm.  no ball drop for me! oh well.  maybe next year we'll get to do something more exciting.  

and since the start of the new year, we haven't really been up to too much.  mike's been working his new schedule and i've been trying to find the motivation to keep running--that's about it.  mike and i don't have any days off together anymore.  i have weekends off and he had tues, wed, thurs off.  it's been weird trying to get used to that, but at least he works during they day so i still get to see him every night.   

that's my story for now.  happy new year everyone!