My 24th Birthday Weekend Recap!

I had a great birthday and a great weekend! Thanks for all of the birthday wishes :)

On Thursday after my fun "work" birthday I headed home to my parents house for the weekend. We hung out and had dinner and then headed to bed, a simple nice relaxing night.

On Friday, which was my real birthday I slept in late, hung out in my jammies, and even took a nap! It was glorious! Then at 5pm we had Bocce Ball reservations at Campo di Bocce! We've been there before and had a great time, and you can play for free on your birthday, so we headed on over!

The Bocce Ball Court

Dad, Clay, and my Mom walking to the other side of the court

Josh and Clay being dorks

Beautiful Livermore Valley

Joshy and I :)
(wearing my new clothes from my shopping trip last weekend!)

We played in teams - Old People vs. Young People and my parents killed us, their score was 2X ours haha... we even tried cheating but nothing worked.

After Bocce we went out to dinner and then got some frozen yogurt at TCBY! Then we headed home so I could open my gifts!

My parents gave me a certificate to have the Jetta serviced! Thank goodness because she hit 75K miles awhile ago and is in dire need of an oil change and 75K mile service! Yay!
My brother got me the board game Balderdash!
And Josh totally surprised me and got me a new camera!!!! I have been wanting one forever! I'm so excited because my old Canon was 6 years old and only had 5 mega pixels hahaha... can you say ghetto??! The new one has 14 mega pixels and panoramic picture options! Such an improvement! :) Thanks Joshy!!
After presents we headed to bed because we had big plans for Saturday!

We got up bright and early and headed to San Francisco. We have already seen all of the major attractions in SF so we thought it might be fun to give the Duck Tours a try.

It is this old war time vehicle that can go on land or sea.

Josh, Dad, and Mom waiting to get on it!

On The Duck!

The tour took us all over SF!

We saw Alcatraz

"Rice a Roni" Hill

Fun Murals

China Town

All the while we quacked on the nerdy quackers they gave us haha

Then we made our way into the SF Bay

And I even got to drive it! I made a huge turn too, it was pretty neat!

We drove past AT&T Park - Home of the SF Giants

Joshy and I

Dad and Mom

Saw a bunch of ships!

Then after the Duck Tour we headed over to Pier 39 for some lunch!

We ate at WipeOut, which was yummy and had HUGE portions!

The we had to get ice cream! :)

After walking Pier 39 for a bit we headed over to The Walt Disney Family Museum which is also in SF

They only allowed pictures in this one room, which displayed furniture from Walt's Disneyland Apartment

The museum was interesting and really informative, but because the weather was abnormally AMAZING for the city it made being in a museum kinda over rated so I wasn't as impressed as I would have been on a boring rainy day haha, but we got to learn some neat facts about Walt and his family so not all was lost.

After SF we headed home. Josh was kind enough to drive while my dad, mom, and I all took naps in the car haha. When my brother Clay got home from work he had his new 'girl friend' come over so we could all meet her. She was really nice and stayed for dinner - which my mom had made French Dip YUMM!!!

Then after dinner we played a game of Balderdash up in the turret of my parents house. We had such a great time and almost peed our pants a few times from laughing so hard!

Then it was funfetti cake time, and then bed!

On Sunday Josh came over to my parent's house and we went for a bike ride in the vineyards!

It was 95 degrees out - so beautiful!

Cheese!

We even saw the neighbor's baby cows

The house with our flag out for Memorial Day!

Then Josh and I watched/sorta helped my dad renovate his camper, I got a sunburn, and I gave the dogs a bath.

Then we filled up their doggy pool for them to cool off in, Bo was really happy :)

He loves laying in it!

After playing with the dogs a bit we headed home, unpacked, ran a few errands and then called it a night because I had to work on Monday.

All in all it was a WONDERFUL weekend!! I had such a great time seeing my family and relaxing away from work! I hope everyone else had a great Memorial Day Weekend too!

-Katie

Mother's Day Weekend

Weekend Recap!
On Thursday I drove to Novato to pick up my friend Lauren from work and from there we drove to San Francisco to meet up with our other friend Alexis for dinner. We went to this neat restaurant called Spork. The food was soooo good! I had the in-side-out burger and for dessert I had the warm brownie with vanilla gelato -- DELISH! After dinner I dropped Lauren off at her place and then drove home to my parent's house in Livermore for the rest of the weekend.

On Saturday, my brother Clay, Josh, and I went out in the vineyards behind our house to have a little Mother's Day photoshoot. It was really hot, so we made it quick, and were only out there for about 20 min, and luckily we came up with two decent shots. Sorry they are sorta small, I don't have the originals because they are on my brother's computer.

Yes, I am fully aware that I need a tan.

After the photoshoot we got the pictures printed and enlarged at Costco, and then went to get them framed. They turned out really nice, and my Mom loved them :)

Then at 3:30 on Saturday we had Bocce ball reservations followed by dinner reservations at 5 at Campo di Bocce. We had never been there before, let alone play bocce ball, so it was fun to try it out! We broke up into teams, my parents vs. my brother's** and I. At first we were winning and then my parents tured it around and completely dominated us. But it was still a lot of fun!

Clay throwing the bocce ball.

Dad and Clay taking measurements to see whose Bocce Ball is closer. (They got really into it)

The beautiful view from the Bocce Ball Court, the Livermore Valley is very pretty.

Final Score: 8-15 Parents Win.

Mom and Dad.

After Bocce ball we ate a wonderful dinner in the restaurant, and then we went to TCBY for some fro yo, YUM!

Sunday I washed the Jetta and helped my brother completely clean and organize his whole room, it was a typical 17 year old boy's room: a pigsty- with piles of laundry and about $8 worth of change lying in various places. We also gave my Mom her gifts and then had some yummy BBQ ribs and potatoes for dinner.

Overall it was a nice weekend and I was really happy to get to see my family and our dogs! Now it is back to the grind of job searching and making hard decisions -yuck. I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend too!

-Katie

**I know some of you may be thinking, wait you have two brothers? The answer is I only have one brother, but we sorta adopted our old neighbor Kevin when his Mom passed away a few years ago of Lou Gehrig's Disease.

He is a great/funny kid, and has been a part of our family for about 5 years now. He just turned 21 and loves to team up with my brother to pick on me/annoys me- just like a real brother. So needless to say, we all consider him a part of our family, and he is like a brother to me... just a bit asian looking. haha