Rock Stars

Last week I found these photos I had tucked away from my December LA trip. Shay, Barb (work colleagues) and I had just finished a quick hike when we found this cool tree... and decided to pose for an album cover shot... you'd buy our music, wouldn't you?

A few other scenery photos from our hike:

Shay and Barb:

The Santa Monica hills:

It was a beautiful day.

Summer of Weddings KickOff

In 2012 (from March to November) Binh and I have 12 weddings to attend to-- count 'em 12:


Andy and Danielle, Aaron and Sam, Dori and Andrew, Stacey and Pat, Lindsey and Dylan, Lizzie and Jess, Jelly and Kenny, Kristen and Matt, Tish and Evan, Pete and Sarah, Elle and Jeff, Bridget and Mike. Yup -12. Needless to say we don't have many free weekends or spare change.

(Dori and Andrew, 6/11/11, exiting Hendricks Chapel, Syracuse University)

But we love celebrating with our friends and family and we're hoping to make it to at least 7 of these shindigs... our dancing shoes are shined and we're ready to party. And to top it off, the wedding weekends are taking us to some pretty neat places, and we're spending time with some pretty special people.

The season kicked off with a bunch of bridal showers and bachelorette parties. Since one of the weddings (Stacey and Pat, June 25) is a family wedding, my mom, aunts and cousins were all involved in a wine tasting bachelorette in the Chautauqua/Northeast, PA region (see the beautiful grape country setting below)... I snapped a few shots of our day together.

While the day entailed some silliness (Bride Stacey laying in limo across our Aunt Chrissy and her Mom Barb below)...

There were many wonderful moments of preserving memories- great shot of Stacey, Alyssa (Stacey's step-sister), and Christy (Stacey's Stepmom) below.

The party at Johnson's - our favorite stop on the tour, and probably the only one I recommend trying out.

The bride and me, posing by the water (the first in this shot series).

Aunt Chrissy, me and Mom in our matchy-match outfits:

Momma and Me:

The bride and her Aunts:

A trek down to the creek:

Ladies in the Limo:

The wine tour gang in front of the limo:
The next day was the bridal shower so we got ourselves all dressed up and headed out to brunch together. (Aunt Chrissy, Stacey, Me and Mom)
(Plus Christy and Alyssa)

The girls in the family never get a weekend together, and we're constantly outnumbered by the guys. We had a fantastic time staying up late working on arts and crafts, drinking wine and telling stories:
Christy, Alyssa, Julie, Stacey, Lynn and Chrissy:
Once in awhile, only since he's Stacey's dad, we let Uncle Mike get in on the fun. Below- the siblings:

Great wedding season kick-off and a beautiful wedding just this last weekend. Have fun in Jamaica Stacey and Pat!

Winter

The winter season passed this year as quickly as it blew in... Amidst the snow days and holidays...

And bundled family traditions...

And outdoor pursuits (successful or not)...

Lots of fun was had.

And then my camera died-- and Spring was erased from it's memory. But alas, it has been repaired. Do not fear; early summer stories to come soon!

West Coast Whirlwind

Just before fall semester wrapped up, I made one last quick trip: LA by day, Seattle by night. Each city couldn't have offered a more different experience- but together they offered a sun-filled (with a few runs through those Seattle raindrops), reading for pleasure respite.

I was there for work, but with most recruiting done, was able to be present with my coworkers for some much needed fun.

LA with Barb, Liz and Shay:
We stayed in Marina Del Ray-- and for my first two mornings away, I woke up to this view before we all walked down the street for breakfast.

We held our first event at SONY Studios in Culver City-- it was neat to be on those movie sets.
One afternoon we did some rollarblading on the boardwalk. From left to right:
Liz, Dean of the iSchool; Barb, Director of alumni relations; Shay, Director of West Coast relations
And made it all the way to the Santa Monica Pier.

Just in the knick of time (I can only love being in LA for so long)-- we headed up to uncharted territory in my life: Seattle... and I LOVED it, what an incredible place.

SEATTLE: With Shay, Barb, Anthony and Kelly (and Sean)
I expected Seattle to be environmentally conscientious, a little hipster and obsessed with starbucks... on our first venture out of the hotel we see people petting police horses; the policemen/women wearing raincoats and carrying Starbucks. We had arrived.
We did some exploring of the famous kind:

(It was super fun to see the Public Market at Christmas)

And crossed the bridge to the north to get a better picture of the suburbs with our Seattle-based friend and huge Syracuse fan, Sean Keeley (http://www.nunesmagician.com/).

(Sorry for all the darker photos to come, but Seattle's a little cloudy and made for some cool photography)

Seattle from across the bay (Gas Works Park):

Sean, Julie, Anthony and Kelly-- Gas Works Park, December 2010.

Sean took us around his funky and contemporary town of Fremont known for its quirky attitude and belief to be the Center of the Universe -- as portrayed by the following sign:
We stopped at Sean's coffee shop of choice when blogging and we even found some Syracuse China. I knew I liked this place.

See ya Seattle-- hope to be back soon.

A thankful Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was a little different for Binh and I. Instead of the hours of football, family games, slow cooked turkey and cranberries, and lazy lounging-- we checked into the chaos of the command center at 8 Days of Hope- Nashville, a Christian mission, flood rebuilding project, with hundreds of other volunteers.

We spent three days and nights living in Christ Church in Nashville, and ate our Thanksgiving dinner surrounded by 800 others. This is the line for dinner that night:

And our very happy dinner table-- we had been working some long days by this point and we were grateful for the Thanksgiving meal provided to us that night.

Our days in Nashville looked something more like the following:

(clearly Binh and I know what we're doing in the below photo)

It was an incredible thing to be a part of something so much bigger than ourselves... to be just two in a body of hundreds making a mark on Nashville. It truly made me very thankful. And so cool to see the outpouring of support from businesses in and around the community-- from people and companies all over the country actually:

All sorts of supplies were donated for construction from everywhere:

And we worked with and were taught by awesome contractors who came to donate their extensive skills-- like Pete here (who was a very patient teacher).

Warehouses on one side of town were piled high with everything we'd need to help the devestated Nashville families- we'd simply pick up every morning.

Overall an incredible, put-life-in-perspective kind of experience, and so glad we went.