Busy Weekend

I think weekends should *always* be 3 days. By the time Sunday evening rolls around, I'm beat and need a day to just do nothing. That's what Mondays should be for. Some would argue that people actually do nothing on Mondays, even when they're at work.

On Saturday, Greg played in the AACO Sports Day volleyball tournament with some friends. When he got home, the first words out of his mouth were, "I'm too old for this stuff." I don't think it was the volleyball as much as it was the beer and sangria that he drank between games.

While he was having fun in the sun, I was volunteering at a Pound Puppy Rescue adoption event in the morning. There were lots of puppies; I'd guess about 30 puppies. I didn't have a foster puppy, but I helped out with the sign-in sheets and making sure everyone got interviewed. The majority of the people came to see the mountain bike litter, 8 lab mix puppies; 4 yellow and 4 black. They are C-U-T-E! If I was fostering this litter, I might have to keep one of the yellow lab pups so Tachi could have a little brother or sister as a playmate.

In the afternoon, I took Tachi to the Fort Funston with Ann, Newton and their dogs, Buttercup and Muffin. Tachi LOVES Fort Funston. We love it too because he always comes back really tired and messy. (Okay, we don't really like the messy part, but it's worth it).

On Sunday afternoon, we went to the Mountain View Obon Festival. A friend of mine was working the corn dog and french fry booth. I'd never been to the Obon festival, even though in college, I went to lots of parties/dances that happened in the evening after the festival. Greg told me he used to go the Obon festival at the Buddhist Church in Sacramento, where he spent most of his time at the game booths. We ate corn dogs and shaved ice (the line was super long for shaved ice), played Bingo (didn't win anything...boo), checked out the exhibits and watched a Taiko performance. We didn't stay for the Bon Odori dance, which seems to be the highlight of the festival. Maybe next year, we'll check out the San Jose Obon Festival, which is supposed to be bigger than the Mountain View festival.

California Academy of Sciences

Last weekend, we went to the California Academy of Sciences with our friends and their 4 year old son. We've been wanting to check it out for a while, so we were pretty excited.

We got tickets for the planetarium show in the morning and the 3D bugs movie in the afternoon. Greg enjoyed a nice nap at the planetarium, which was surprising. Guess he's not that into stars and planets. I really liked the rainforest sphere with all the animals and butterflies. One of the giant butterflies with blue wings landed on my camera lense! And then it quickly flew away. Boo.

The aquarium was a pretty neat too. I think I like the Monterey Bay Aquarium more. Although it's probably not a fair comparsion because the Cal Academy of Sciences is more than an aquarium. We really enjoyed out time there and plan to go back. It's a great place to take kids...even big kids like Greg! Next time we plan to try the pho a the cafe because our friends raved about how good it was, but they didn't have any noodles the day we were there.

You can check out pictures here.

AVP San Francisco

Greg and I went to the AVP San Francisco this past weekend. It's not suprising that we ran into quite a few of our volleyball friends: Mark, Mee, Emi (Mark & Mee's 9 month old daughter), Henry, Marvin, Susanna, Ang, and Ryan. Mark was actually volunteering for the tournament, which is a great way to get in to the tournament for free and get some cool free schwag!

It was a little strange to be watching beach volleyball with the city skyline and Bay Bridge in the background, especially since there's normally no beach! They must truck a bunch of sand in for the tournament. I wonder what they do with the sand when the tournament is done. Do they dump it into the Bay? It's also a bit odd watching beach volleyball bundled up because it's overcast and windy outside. While it was overcast in the morning, the sun broke through and it turned out to be a pretty nice day...until the wind picked up.

We watched a lot of matches, including all 4 US Olympic teams. Kerry Walsh and Misty May-Treanor, Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs, Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser, and Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal. I hate to say it, but the Walsh and May-Trenor match was a bit disappointing to watch compared to the other matches that day.

I know Phil Dalhausser is tall, but when you see him in person it's ridiculous how tall he is. At 6'9" tall, he's almost a foot and a half taller than me. His height makes him a monster at the net. I managed to get this shot of him blocking a ball. His freakin' arm pits are above the net! When I jump, my finger tips barely get above net...and that's on a women's net! I'm glad that I don't have to play against someone like him in any of my volleyball leagues. =)

If you want to see more photos, click here.

Chihuly @ the De Young Museum

We checked out the Chihuly at the De Young Museum exhibit over the weekend. Chihuly is an artist works with glass. His work is on display in the lobby ceiling of the Bellagio on Las Vegas. I saw his Chihuly in the Park: A Garden of Glass exhibit at the the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago several years back.

This current exhibit was really cool. It was pretty crowded, and the exhibit was smaller than we expected. It had many similar pieces to the one i saw in Chicago, but they were displayed differently. In Chicago, the pieces were displayed within a natural setting, which provided a unique contrast to the pieces. The one at the de Young wasn't set against a natural setting, which made the pieces more dramatic. There were also some new pieces that I haven't seen before, like the baskets. If you'd like to see our photos of the exhibit, click here.

After the visiting the exhibit, we walked around the park and grabbed a late lunch at Park Chow before heading back home. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Spring Fever

This past weekend was probably the most active weekend we've had in a long time. The weather was fantastic, and we took full advantage of it. It felt really good to be outside, moving rather than being sedentary on the couch.

On Saturday, we went for a road ride from our house in Santa Clara to the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto. We had lunch at Max's Cafe and met up with our friends volunteering a doggie adoption event at a posh doggie boutique, Bowlicious. We rode ~30 miles, round trip. It may sound far, but that's a typical distance and route I used to ride on a regular basis (when I was more active). I honestly can't remember the last time I was on my bike. And I could *definitely* tell it had been a long time. When we started the ride, my seat felt too high. I know it hadn't been adjusted and my legs haven't gotten any shorter. My legs felt like lead on our return ride, and my bottom was sore from sitting on my bike saddle. After the ride, my legs, arms, shoulders and abs were sore. It's really sad if you think about how hard it is to get into shape, but how easy it is to get out of shape.

On Sunday, we met up with some of our friends at the park to play grass volleyball. It's the first time this year that we've gone out to play grass volleyball. Quite a few people came out to enjoy the warm afternoon and hang out. It was a lot of fun! We're looking forward to more active weekends, especially since Spring is here and the weather is getting better.

The Library

Yesterday afternoon, I took a field trip to the Santa Clara library. Why? Well, several weeks ago my co-workers and I were talking about Barak Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope. Both of them had read the book and were supporting Obama in the Democratic primary. In fact, one of them said that the book reminded him of all the reasons why he loved living in this country and being American. He is an immigrant from India. I was intrigued and made some offhand comment about having to stop at the book store to pick it up. To which, my other co-worker remarked, "Buy it? Why don't you just borrow it from the library."

The library? I couldn't remember the last time I had stepped foot in a library. It was probably college. That got me thinking about why I hadn't visited a library in such a long time. When I was kid, I used to go to the library every Saturday morning. It was one of the many things I looked forward to. And my brother and I participated in the summer reading programs sponsored by our local library. Of course, it helped that there were prizes and Choose Your Own Adventure books counted as part of the program.

In junior high and high school, the library represented a sort of social freedom. Studying at the library was a way to hang out with friends and boys outside the ever watchful eyes of our parents. In fact, I know some of my friends would tell their parent's they were going to the library, but really they were at some boy's house. Really in between all the goofing off and white lies, we did manage to do some homework and research for papers/projects.

In college, the library was part socializing, part research for papers, and part actually studying (generally around mid-terms and finals). Sometimes studying at the library was even a pseudo-date. But now that I'm not in school, I didn't need to study or write papers anymore. And my friends and I socialize at different venues now: Starbucks, apartments/houses, volleyball.

So, how was the library? The Santa Clara library is a rather new, contemporary building with many modern amenities. There's lots of great natural light and spaces to read / work. They have computers with internet access available for use, free of charge. The tables have power plugs hidden underneath the table tops so you can plug your laptop in. There's even a cafe in the library! Although I think you have to consume your food/beverages at the tables around the cafe and not in other parts of the library. I'll have to double check that the next time I go. In addition to books, you can borrow DVDs, CDs, videos, and audio books.

I got a library card and started to look for a book to borrow. Borrowing a book instead of buying it actually makes a lot of sense (unless it's Harry Potter). I rarely read a book more than once. And when I'm finished with it, it just sits on my self collecting dust. But as I was looking up books that I had wanted to read, I realized what I disliked about the library. They didn't have any of them available. They were all checked out! Hmpf.

Kooza

Friday night we went to Kooza, the newest Cirque du Soleil show, in downtown San Jose. Greg is a big fan of the Cirque shows and tries to them when they're touring in San Jose. I'm not as big a fan, but think that the shows *can be* pretty interesting. I really enjoyed O, but felt that Corteo and Quidam were not as entertaining.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Kooza. As we were driving to the show, I looked at Greg and said, "If I fall asleep during the show, will you be upset?" Greg made a face and said, "Yes." Hmm...I made a mental note: be sure to caffinate before any Cirque shows. I wasn't sure I'd have time to get a Diet Coke or even if they'd let me bring it into the tent. I was seriously hoping Kooza would be entertaining for me.

And it was! I really enjoyed the clowns and the comic relief between the acrobatics. My favorite acrobatic acts were the Wheel of Death and Balancing on Chairs. The other acrobatic acts were good too, but these two really stood out for me. I think it's because I hadn't seen acts like this before.

Body Worlds 2

We spent the afternoon at the Body Worlds 2 exhibit at the Tech Museum in downtown San Jose with some of our friends. I know some of our friends decided not to come with us because of the gross out factor. But we were intrigued. Apparently so were a lot of other people. The exhibit was packed with people - adults and kids.

The exhibit was really interesting. We spent quite a bit of time looking at the hip and knee joints. They had one that was healthy and one that had been replaced. I was especially interested in the hip joint display because my mom had one of her hips replaced a few years ago. And I got a glimpse into what my brother, the orthopedic surgeon, does. Kinda cool!

I was a bit surprised by the number of kids at the exhibit. I figured parents might think that this exhibit is too scary, graphic or intense for their kids. But most of the kids seemed really fascinated with some of the displays - mostly the ones of the human bodies in different poses. I think the fact that we were looking at real human bodies was lost on most of the kids. The kids at the exhibit did make some pretty funny comments though.

Inside one of the display cases was a sliced cross-section of the thigh. As we walked past this item, we overheard a young girl say to her dad, "Dad, it looks like ham!" We started to chuckle because it did look like a slice of prosciutto. And shortly after Greg said, "Too bad they don't allow food and drinks in the exhibit. It'd be pretty funny to walk around the exhibit eating beef jerky," we overheard another kid say, "Dad, I think I know why it looks like beef jerky." Nice to know that my husband and a 5 year old have similar thoughts!

Walking with Dinosaurs

We just got back from Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience. It's a cool show about dinosaurs that showcases life-sized animatronic dinosaurs. It's about as close as we'll get to seeing real dinosaurs. The dinos were very detailed, and their movement was really fluid - not robotic at all. Even their eyes moved! And they roared! In fact, the ushers were handing out ear plugs because some of the dinos are really quite loud. Our favorites: brachiosaurus and utahraptors.

There were lots of kids in the audience, including one little boy in front of us who proclaimed, "I want to be a dinosaur!" at intermission. It's a family-friendly show, although I wonder if some of the younger kids might have nightmares about the big, scary dinos. As we were walking back to the car, Greg turns to me and says, "See, I'd say something like 'Be careful. I hear that the dinosaurs sometimes escape at night when everyone's sleeping.' to our kid." I replied, "That's mean! You're not allowed to talk to our kids after things like this." When I shared Greg's comments with our friends, one of them just shook her head at Greg. I'm sure she was thinking, "Poor Cheryl."