birthdays were the worst days now we sip champagne when we're thirstay

this post today is being written while i listen to the new san francisco water cooler album. finally out on vinyl! it's so funny to me when albums are released in late july of 2010 but they've been in the works so long that they have 2009 on the artwork. anyway it's great and it's my friend david's band. this past weekend we spent a bunch of time with him when we were down in santa cruz.

but anyway, let me start from the beginning of the weekend. it was miri's birthday on friday! she is now three! we drove down to the monterey peninsula on friday night and spent a long weekend hanging out at my parents house.

for her birthday, my mom got her a bunch of books and jeremy and i got her a balance bike and a helmet. a pretty nice haul.

it was also my dad's birthday! presents for everyone!

meanwhile, ethel and my dad's dog homer played tug of war all weekend. they have another dog named baxter but he's kind of a grump and doesn't like to play so much. ethel and homer don't mind. when they get around each other they are in their own little world. btw homer weighs around 130 lbs and ethel weighs about 14.

while in monterey we also found a petting zoo for miri and took her bowling. growing up in that town, the bowling alley was called 'lincoln lanes' but now it's 'monterey lanes' and it's also kind of a rip off. charging for shoes for every game, not just the first one? sucks. whatever though because miri looked great in bowling shoes.

so after a few days in monterey we drove 45 min north to housesit for my uncle in the santa cruz mountains. his house is my favorite place in the world, with seriously no hyperbole at all. he grows pipen apples in the orchard in front of his house and it's super private and beautiful and just the most relaxing place ever. this is the view off of the main deck:

i took way more pictures with my actual camera and after they get developed i'll probably post some. when i was a kid, my mom and i lived in santa cruz and my uncle was a great father figure for me after my biological dad left. we are very close and have probably the most similar aesthetics out of everyone in our family. he was so, so nice to let us housesit for him and take care of his cat/plants/bird feeders. i <3 my uncle to pieces.

after coming down the mountain we hung out with david in the beach flats, ate a snack at falafel hut and napped/chilled out for a while. miri thoroughly enjoyed her apple from martinelli's. santa cruz!

we also hung out in watsonville and ate fish tacos with a bunch of friends but were too lame to take pictures. which is a total bummer because we got to hang with the cutest baby ever. oh well. next time.

you better run for your life if you can little girl

oh man i forgot that if you have a bloog it means you gotta bloog. well we've been traveling all around the central coast and bay area for the past week or two. this part of the world is just so beautiful. jeremy always talks about how i won the geographic lottery by growing up in these areas. i'm pretty content with california at this point in my life.

recently we went to albany bulb so i could shoot an album cover for a friends band. i took my official photos with film but here are some outtakes for mood (real pictures are TOP SECRET)

miri and jeremy and ethel all came along and we had a pretty great afternoon hanging out, taking pictures, getting sunburnt. now i just need to procure another copy of photoshop and get it ready for lp. i've been collaborating with my friend micah (in the garters above) for years now. he is a great artist and an awesome drummer and i <3 micah. he and miri are buddies too. someday miri is going to look at all these pictures and laugh about all these weird long haired rockers that were everywhere.

the next day we went to an awesome pool party! we spent the fourth at our friend dusty's parents house up in marin county. hanging out at parents houses without parents is awesome because they always have nice kitchens and clean bathrooms and it gets me into pretend-i'm-a-grown-up mode. it was a really good day with good and new friends, which is really nice for a party. we grilled more pizza (and burgers and the dudes ate steak and stuff) and hung out in the sun (don't mind the obscene sunburn that i had acquired the day before) and drank beer but never got drunk because we were eating and swimming and hanging out so hard.

bravest, coolest kid ever. none of the other kids there were getting close to the slide (which admittedly looked veryyyy high from the top of it and was very fast). she also fell at one point and got a cut on her leg and all the adults were like ACK and she just ate a cookie and let us hydrogen peroxide and neosporin her all up without any complaints. again, absolute coolest kid.