Uploading The Wrong Photos + Nothing Better To Do = A Posting About New York

Silly me! It wasn't my intention do a posting about New York (not right now at least), but I accidentally uploaded pictures from the wrong folder. Since they're here, what the heck? I might as well say a little something about them. Last month Pat had to go to New Jersey for work and then to Florida, so instead of him flying all the way home to California in between the two trips, I flew out to meet him in New York City. This was my very first trip to the Big Apple. We stayed with our ever-so-talented friends Jared and Karen in Brooklyn. As we rolled into the Marcy Street Station we were greeted by this busty lady in the background. At first glance you might think we have nothing in common, but turns out we both have taco fever.

Our first day in town we met up with Jen and Bryson (we foolishly took very few pictures during this trip, so you'll have to look at links to see pictures of all our buddies). Jen was a trooper walking all across the city with us for hours on end while 9 months pregnant! They took us to the Met where we saw the Egyptian exhibit.
We also saw the Dance Festival/Parade. Apparently one of my coworkers, Kevin Smith, has a secret that he's been keeping. Who would have thought that he was one of the pioneers of break dancing!?!
Later we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge...
and waited to eat dinner until I could safely shower my food with sodium chloride.

I love salt. I also love this other place we visited. Yum! New York is not a bad place.

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = Unfair Advantage

My cousin Victoria just graduated from high school. (Congratulations Victoria!) In order to celebrate the occasion appropriately, a bbq with friends and family was in order. The weather was nice and Pat, having a little soccer fever from watching the Gold Cup matches all weekend, decided to get a little pick-up game going. In order to make it fair they split the teams by the sum of their ages. That left Pat against everyone else.
Some people might think that 5 against 1 is an unfair advantage, but not for my Pat. He managed to dominate the Munchkins in the first half. So much so that they had to reevaluate their strategy. Jonathan was the first to try some new moves.
It seemed to slow Pat down a bit, but apparently not enough. It wasn't long until Kyle began implementing phase II of the new strategy.
This seemed to even up the competition, but it didn't satisfy the Munchkins. They were out to win.
Just when Pat started thinking they couldn't pile anymore players on him they launched the sneak attack from the back. (I'm still not sure how she got there!)
In the end, it was draw. The Munchkins managed to slow Pat down enough that he couldn't score, but unfortunately for them, they had no players left to put one in the net.

A Blackberry + A Blackberry (Camera Phone) = A Berry Good Time

Last weekend Julia, Elva, Cat and Kat went to Pescadero and spent the day picking pounds and pounds of little blackberries. Fortunately for me, I had nothing to do with such atrocities. But Julia (the mastermind behind the mayhem) found this at her desk when she returned to work:
I felt so bad for the loss of Mrs. Blackberry's children that I told her she could hangout with me for the day. She insisted that she help me with my work so she could keep her mind off of the sad events that had transpired over the weekend. Mrs. Blackberry turned out to be a very good helper.

She screened my calls...
double-checked my math...
entertained P.C. Head and MERLIN...
edited my grocery list...
and perhaps most importantly, helped me to better understand cardiovascular science...
Thanks Mrs. Blackberry! You're the best!

Pee + Poo = A Happy Birthday

I wanted to do something extra special for Elva's birthday, so I decided to make her a cake. Because Elva looooooves karaoke, I thought a microphone cake might be nice. But it just sounded so bland and predictable. Julia suggested I make a cake with pee and poo (I know what you're thinking) because Elva has been obsessed with these two cuddly creatures out of Sweden.

What a perfect idea! Flavors? Yellow cake with lemon filling for Pee and chocolate cake with fudge filling for Poo. Needless to say, she was very excited. So excited, in fact, that she refused to eat her new friends. Seriously. She wouldn't let us eat them. Ever.