Happy Birthday Domino!

Today Domino is 3 years old! Domino is our Catalhoula, and might I add, pretty much the cutest dog ever (okay I'm a little biased).  

Rappy Ruffray Romino!

6 Months & Counting!

Today was our 6 month anniversary! Wow, that came fast! Roger had a romantic dinner and evening planned, complete with a glass of Carmel Road chardonnay (the white we've enjoyed for years and served at our wedding), and re-reading our vows to each other.  It's funny how things work out perfectly.  I accidentally left my rings on the bathroom sink this morning.  Roger re-proposed with my engagement ring when I walked in the front door!  And he tied up our wedding bands in the little nest we used as a ring pillow....awwww, so sweet :)  I might argue that I have the best husband ever...swoon.

We also watched our wedding video, which was provided thanks to our friend Craig's mad videography skills ;)  AND....I have the wedding photographs (by Lisa Myers-Gonzales)!!! yay!! I can't wait to look at them!

My Best Friend's Wedding

November 7th 2009

My best friend, Jen, got married to Kris!!!  I'm so happy for therm. I couldn't believe how fast their big day came.  Jen was glowing and beautiful in her dress and Kris, her new husband, was all smiles.

Their wedding was flawless, thanks to some quick work behind the scenes (good job, Kristen!).  It was so much fun that I almost forgot I had to give a speech....and I got almost as emotional as Jen did when she gave one at my wedding. 

Weddings are such wonderful events.  How much better does it get than celebrating love with all of your close friends?

An Engagement Celebration for Karla & Chris October 24th, 2009

Our friends Chris and Karla wanted to throw a fun little engagement party get-together with their friends.  It was a casual party that was pulled together quickly with the help of Chris and Karla, and the bridesmaids, including moi :)  We had hosted the event at the Avalon at Cahill Park Apartments Clubhouse.  Relaxed atmosphere, simple dinner & appetizers; a well suited celebration of our friends' happiness.

Invitations by Bloem

 

Volunteering for Thanksgiving

Rogér and I thought we'd have fun this Thanksgiving holiday and volunteer our time to help provide others with a wholesome Thanksgiving meal.  We didn't expect it to be so hard to find someplace to welcome our free services!  We found a few websites that match you with the volunteer service that you'd like to provide. Some of these sites seemed like a great idea, but they didn't have as much as we hoped for.  The Salvation Army website points to Volunteermatch.com.  Here we found one of the places that we are trying to work with the week before Thanksgiving, the Mayfair Community Center Thanksgiving Dinner, for head injury victims and their families. We also checked with our friend's mom who works for the Chamber of Commerce.  She hears about a lot of goings on and turned out to be a great resource!  We are really looking forward to some of these events!! I'll keep ya posted on how it goes :)

Hip Buckles from Gunslinger Studio

Just had to share a couple of Rogér's really cool belt buckles! He etches the copper to get all kinds of intricate designs.  Similar buckles made an awesome personalized gift for our groomsmen :)  More buckles will be available soon at Gunslingerstudio.etsy.com.  You can also order custom!

This tiger was one of three wildlife designs.

Custom buckles for the founder of The Clarity Project

Rogér made these belt buckles for Shane Rogers, founder of The Clarity Project.  The Clarity Project designs and fabricates jewelry using only fair trade diamonds and reclaimed precious metals.  Profits from The Clarity Project are invested back into mining communities,  providing education, mentoring and nutritional support to African mining schools.

Almost a Year Since we Adopted Ronin

I was helping move my best friend's sister into her dorm room last winter when I got the call about a horse that had been abandoned and was in desperate need of a home.  I'd been thinking about getting a horse.  It was more like wishful thinking, really.  I rent a house in a little suburban neighborhood in San Jose.  I have a yard the size of four office cubes, and we were already the proud parents of a 3 year old myers parrot and a 2 year old catahoula (a large, athletic dog that is meant to live on a rural farm and have a real job).  We had our hands full.  "Well, he probably won't live more than a month if he doesn't find a home." my friend was telling me over the phone, "If you want him, he's yours for free, but we'll have to go up tonight to take a look at him."  Tonight?!  I rushed home to grab Rogér and my friend who had called about the horse.  We drove to Sunol that night and hiked a big hill to find the tall, bedraggled mess of a bay thorouhgbred horse.  He was skin and bones, but he was sweet natured. 

Rogér with Ronin a couple weeks after we got him

He was supposedly 8 years old.  There were no papers. The rules I know about horse trading are: 1) The horse is never as young as the seller says it is, 2) Don't buy a horse before you try riding it, 3) Make sure the seller gets on the horse before you do, 4) Have the horse checked out by a vet before you purchase, and finally 5) there's no such thing as a free horse.  Of course, I disregarded pretty much all of these!  I made the call the next day that I would take him.  Turns out, he was only about 41/2 years old (What?!), which I found out thanks to the helpful people who keep their horses at Indian Hills Ranch in Milpitas.


It took Ronin a long time to put on weight.  We did a lot of slow exercise to build up his muscles.  For the first few months I didn't even put a saddle on him because I didn't want him to have to carry the extra lbs.  Here we are almost a year later and I can't even believe the difference!  He looks great and he's doing great!  We've also been taking lessons which is really helping me to become a better rider and helping Ronin learn what's expected of him.  He's turning out to be an amazingly good horse and he seems to be pretty happy in his new environment :)  A very gratifying success!

Rogér with Ronin about a month ago