leaving my heart in the bay area

all over again.

yep, i took a trip out to the 'left coast' (as my father so lovingly refers to california) this past weekend to visit my loves.

i was SO GREAT!

I went to berkeley to visit Jess and eat frozen yogurt. I took a trip to wurster to visit a professor, and went up to the 8th floor for my favorite view of the bay.

I stopped by the house Ellen and I used to live in, and the former residence of the purple velvet couch. the couch has since moved to Stanley Hall for safe keeping. Sadly, I was not able to visit it. :(

oh how i miss you, 2539 durant.

and i found this outside our house: weird?

It was great to visit Carolyn's new 'hood, and I think I know my way around south bay prettyyyy darn well.

look at my little law student, all grown up.

and we of course had to pick up the school newspaper and try the sudoku... none of us could finish it. :/ but the santa clara library is hella tight.. you should check it out.

on sunday, we got all swanky and set out on a surprise adventure...

to a tea house!

mmmmm so good..

this past weekend was a much much needed retreat from tx and the job search. i am coming home refreshed and re-energized (except for the migraines that keep attacking me). i love you guys so much, and miss you like crazy. Maybe the job search will lead me out there and then i will never have to leave you again.

and i have to mention coopy somewhere:

i loves him the most.

rainbow cake!

yesterday, i embarked on the crazy experience of the making rainbow cake.

the gel colors my dad purchased for me (thanks dad!) turned out to be more My Little Pony rainbow rather than Rainbow Brite... but thats ok!

even dakota liked it!

with that chocolate frosting, it tasted GREAT!

if you want to try and make your own rainbow cake, you can get the really easy recipe here

the recipe says to double it.. so I did.. but it made the cake rise really high in the middle, and i figured if i cut the top of one to stack them, i would cut some of the color off. So, I decided to just make 2 separate cakes. which turned out fine because i had one with chocolate icing, and the other with vanilla... but my family isn't picky at all so it didn't matter.. ha
Also, I made this cake using the low-fat recipe (which calls for clear diet soda instead of everything else) and I think the soda made the cake a little flimsy and crumbly. Usually my box cake doesn't do this, so i am attributing it to the use of soda. One of my cakes completely fell apart as I took it out of the mold.. I ate some of it, and stacked and mushed the other parts together as best I could and then covered it with frosting. In the end, you couldn't even tell!

nerd alert

So, a long time ago, probably high school bio, i learned about some special mushrooms and what they can do to your brain. jk! i learned about their root structure. its SO COOOOL. I learned somewhere that the part of these mushrooms you see are actually the 'fruit', and the entire plant mostly exists underground. Their root systems are CIRCULAR! Ever since I learned this I've been on the lookout for an entire ring or mushrooms, but I have never seen one.

until Today.

behold the magnifcant ring of mushrooms.
found not so far from my own home.

cool huh?

soo.. i googled this just now, and figured out they are called "fairy rings" because people used to think they were put there by fairies. but, actually, it is a fungus that has eaten up all of the nutrients in one area of soil, so it expands outward. the mushrooms that you see on top of the soil are on the edge of the ring i guess? interesttingg....

acl

last week, my uncle told me he could get us last minute tickets to Austin City Limits. So guess where i was on friday?! My poor cousin is really sick, so she wasn't able to go. but some friends and i drove over to austin friday morning for a great afternoon and evening of laying/dancing in the sun.

i got to see phoenix (who, thanks to dons, cafes, XM, and Cadillac, will never ever get out of my head), thievery corporation, andrew bird, and kings of leon. i made you a little mix at the bottom. ;)

i also decided i realllyyy wouldn't mind living in austin for a while.