The Chronicles of The Ride Home: Volume I

My passengers: Mom, Janelle (age 5), and Tates (age 4).

Tates: You know, my mommy let me and mama go to nanay's house and I fell.
Me: Hahahaha... (i like to mess with her)
Tates: Thas not funny!
Janelle: Teachers say you shouldn't make fun of children.
Me: Well it's a good thing I'm not a teacher. Muahahahahah....
Janelle: You should make good choices.
Me: I do make good choices. That's why I don't have children. Buahahaha....
Janelle: That's not funny...

Savings!

I really just can't get enough of FRIENDS. It's one of my all time favorite shows. I love watching the re-runs, and I still find myself cracking up! They are just too funny. Tonight's episode, Ross had some important event and none of the friends were ready to go. The funniest part of the episode is when Chandler and Joey fight over the chair.

Chandler was sitting on the chair first, then gets up to go to the bathroom. When he comes back, he sees Joey sitting in the chair he just deserted. They argue about it, Chandler hides Joey's underwear, Joey wears all Chandler's clothes, Joey takes the essence of the chair (the cushions, duh!). It was just too funny.

It reminded me of my childhood. No, no one hid my underwear and no one wore all my clothes! When I was little, whenever we left a chair we intended to return to, we always said "Savings!" And that was that...no one could touch that seat. And if someone did, we argued, "But I said 'savings!" It's funny how we made that the rule that everyone had to obey. 20 and some odd years later and we still use that magic word and it works.

Relief Efforts for Typhoon "Ondoy" Flood Victims

So I'm going to share something with you that not many people know. I'm a pro when it comes to tuning out bad news/uncomfortable situations. I'll deal with things in my own way but if at all possible, I'll just pretend that it doesn't exist.

When I started hearing the news about the typhoon in the Philippines, I just thought, "Wow...that sucks!" I asked my mom if our family there is effected, and she said that the province that majority of my family lives in is safe and high enough that they don't have to worry about floods. So I just tried to not think about it, because I knew my family was okay. One day last week, my mom was chatting with one of my cousins in the Philippines and asked them how they were doing. She lives in a different area from the rest of my family, and she told my mom that their entire downstairs is flooded. I figured, "Hey, she's on the computer so it can't be that bad, right?" So again, I just put it in the back of my mind.

Last night, my uncle who lives here emails me and a few of my other family members asking for donations. It turns out that one of my aunts in the Philippines is in need of help. Her entire house is flooded. My uncle never asks us for help, so that's when it really finally hit me. I could not stop thinking about it.

So the next morning, I bring up the idea to organize a donation station. A place where people can drop off items to help the victims effected by the flooding. There is supposed to be another major storm hitting the Philippines this weekend. I started reading articles and looking at some pictures and realized that I could not just sit here and do nothing while hundreds of thousands of people have lost everything.

If you live in the Bay Area and would like to participate in our donation, please contact OndoyRelief.Payumo@gmail.com for details.

To find out more about how you can donate to help the victims, please visit the Philippines National Red Cross website.

Introducing my Muses

You've seen them time and time again, but I thought I'd give them a proper introduction, especially since they are the two people who are always willing to strike a pose. Anytime I want to test lighting or different settings on my camera, they are always ready and smiling. I seriously think we turned them into camera-hogs, I've caught them many of times with my digital camera taking pictures of themselves. And if I didn't catch them in the act, I'll find out later on when I upload pictures and there are mysterious pictures of their eye or forehead (they are totally into taking self portraits of themselves...just like their auntie!!! ha!).

Well, without further ado, I'd like to properly introduce my nieces, (dun da da dun!) Janelle and Caitlin!As a 'thank you' for putting up with me, I took them out for a Day-O-Fun! They're still young, so hanging out with me is still considered cool. And this Day-O-Fun would not be complete without an impromptu photo session. Of course, right? Here are some highlights from that day.

This is Janelle, the older of the two. She's a total girly-girl and I absolutely love that! On the day of this session, she had a fit about wearing an Elmo and Cookie Monster shirt out because she said it was a pajama shirt. If you know her, then you can imagine how stressed out she was! And she gave me specific instructions on how to braid her hair, including the matching green hair ties.




And this is Caitlin, aka Tates. She is probably the total opposite of Janelle. Tates is a dare-devil, tomboy, and messy. Don't get me wrong, they have their similarities, I mean, they are both goofballs, but that just runs in our blood. Her instructions for her hair that day was basically not to braid it (because it takes too long) and she just wanted one ponytail (so it's out of her face). If she ultimately had it her way, she would skip the ponytail altogether and just leave the house lookin' a mess! Haha...



We completed our day with an ice cream run to Maggie Moo's. And you better believe that Tates' nice, clean white shirt was covered in chocolate by the time we got home.

Summer....what's that?

Summer used to mean sleeping until noon. It used to mean getting Jamba Juice in the middle of the day and chatting with friends for hours (well...I guess that still happens every now and then). It used to mean weeks of doing absolutely unproductive and time-wasting activities. That is, until this thing called "work" entered my life. *sigh....

When iHeartFaces posted that Week 30 would be their bye week for contests, and in its place would be a photo sharing week about summer, I thought, "Oh...should I share photos of my cubicle, because that's where I'm spending my summer."(I actually may do that one day!)

This has been in the back of my thoughts for a few days now, and finally thought of the perfect summer post!

Every year, for the past couple years, me and my sissy try to hit up different festivals during the summer. I mean, that's one of the great things about the Bay Area; we're so diverse! There seems to be an Arts and Wine festival in every city, there was the (unsuccessful) Great American Food and Music Festival, and I can't leave out the famous Gilroy's Garlic Festival. But the one that I want to focus on today, is the Aloha Festival at the Presidio.

I look forward to this festival every year! What more can a girl ask for? If I can't go to Hawaii, this may be the next best thing. Live music and dancing, great food, and shopping!

We took our nieces this year. They were a little cranky that day, and it might have been due to the fact that they were out late the night before (no really....they go out! haha)

Ahh...the food. It's probably the main reason we go. Lomi Lomi, Laulau, Poke, Malasadas, and of course Spam Musubi. (and did I mention Hurricane Popcorn?!?!?.....it's heaven)
Here are the girls with two of the performers. Aren't they adorable!?
I still have a few more weeks of summer and I'm going to end it with a bang. I've got a few mini-vacays up my sleeve, so keep an eye out for those posts!

TGIF!

Thank goodness it's (almost) Friday! I'm so looking forward to the weekend (it's just been one of those weeks). Not only do I have a half day of work tomorrow, but I also have a 75 minute facial scheduled (ahhhh.....). Did I mention it's a free facial? A while back, my former manager gave me a gift card to this local day spa, and in typical Ryree nature, I lost it and just recently found it! Ooh yeah...I'm going to enjoy this one. I'll let you all know how it goes. *crossing fingers*

There really isn't a point to this blog entry (just one of those random ones...*shrugs*), but I was going through some of the pictures I took last weekend, and couldn't help but laugh when I saw this. He, by the way, is my nephew. I was testing out action shots and he was more than willing to help me out. From the look on his face to the awkward way he's jumping, this pic just makes me L-O-L!

Finally...it has happened to me...

Finally, I bought my first digital SLR camera! If you know me, you know I love pictures. I carry my handy-dandy Casio Exilim digital camera with me everywhere. There are things happening around us all the time, and I want to be prepared to capture it!

I know a few photographers and I am always so envious and inspired by their work. I've taken a couple photography classes back in high school, you know, the black bags and dark room type class. I really enjoyed it, but at the time, my focus was on graduating, and then college. Fast-forward to now, I find myself being the go-to person in my family for pictures and my desire for photography has resurfaced. Of course, right now it's just for fun. I need to get the hang of it again and get to know my camera. So don't mind me if you see me snapping away...I'm just trying to find my flow.

Here are some random pictures I took this weekend. I'm sure my family (especially my nieces and nephew) are tired of me taking pictures already, but they'll thank me 20 years from now when they get to look back at all these memories.

I can always count on Jenny to be my muse.

Tates loves her some chocolate.

Janelle is so fresh and so clean...clean...

Just Let Me Lay Here in the Sun....Until My Dream is Done....

Don't wake me up, Don't wake me up if I'm dreamin' California Dreams, Just let me lay here in the sun Until my dream is done.....

I know you all remember that show! I went to Santa Cruz a couple weeks back and while I was sitting on a bench watching my nieces on one of the Beach Boardwalk rides, I looked over to the houses on the cliff side and saw a seagull fly by and the California Dreams song popped into my head! Haha...am I corny or what?!

It was a fun-filled day full of arcade games, deep fried twinkies, ribs, and rides. In the midst of all that fun, me and Tates sneaked (random fact of the day: did you know that "snuck" is was not even a word? Due to common usage, the dictionary now lists the rather vulgar "snuck" as an option, but sneaked is the original past tense form.) off to the beach. Later we found out that was her first time touching the ocean! Here's are some pictures I took of her.

And for those of you that don't know what California Dreams is...here's their theme song. Enjoy!

Congratulations, Jenny!

My dear, dear cousin graduated from FIDM this week! And I got carried away with editing her pics. Here are three of my fave pics. ENJOY!