Alien invasion in Lathrop, CA!

During our holiday visit back to the Central Valley, David and I made a Christmas Eve pit stop at the famous UFO Crash Site, aka "The Alien Gas Station" as I used to call it, at the Tower Mart in Lathrop, CA. For those of you who have never been to Lathrop, it is a small town of about 15,000 just West of Manteca and South of Stockton off of HWY 5 (and oh yes, you're missing out on so much!) ;). I remember when this gas station/liquor store was first built back when I was in high school.....it created some big excitement for us and was definitely the topic of conversation in this quaint little Valley town!


The following text is taken from the Roadside America website:
"From the gas island, you can spot spindly green ETs whooping it up on the saucer's edge. Inside, it's even crazier -- scores of saucer men are suckered on to every flat surface, scuttling along counters in every aisle, squeezing milk cartons and extracting the yolk from all of our eggs. The other half of the saucer is visible poking through a blistered hole in the ceiling, the craft badly damaged. They won't be going home any time soon...

And why should they? The locals hardly notice now. As far as they know, every grocery store in America looks like this. And the Tower Mart, seizing opportunity, employs images of the cute aliens in all their in-store signs and posters, waving slices of pizza near the frozen foods and juggling meat near the butcher.

Roswell, eat your heart out."

Here are some pics I snapped during our visit:

Christmas Vacation is here!!! ;)

So its FINALLY December 21st, and that means my vacation will officially begin in 6 hours! I plan to leave the office early today around 2pm in order to come home and clean up, decorate, and prepare some food for our holiday party tonight. The Career Center will probably be a ghost town today anyway - students finished their finals yesterday and the University will be shutting down all of next week for Christmas....so it is kinda pointless to be at work this afternoon (that's my take on it anyhow..) :)

So beginning tomorrow I will have 16 DAYS OFF!! This is the first real vacation that I've taken since I started working at Berkeley back in August 2006 - so needless to say I'm ready for a break! No big travel plans - I just plan to relax, catch up on some of my creative projects, spend lots of time with family out in the Central Valley, party in the City, watch lots of movies, sleep in, workout, and just enjoy the freedom! ;)

Happy Holidays to everyone!

This kitty has skills! ;)

Check out Nora, the piano-playing kitty! Now only if she could play Jingle Bells....what a great Christmas treat that would be! :)

The clip is about 4 minutes long....but totally worth it! I love how she rests her head on the keys at the end.....too cute! ;)

I heart San Francisco!

David and I saw this beautiful murial of the San Francisco skyline while out in the city this past weekend - painted on the walls inside a Best Western Hotel of all places! Another reminder of why I love this city so much. ;)

Sick.... :(

Boo, I've come down with a yucky cold and I'm feeling pretty @#$! this morning. But I MUST go to work today - too much to do, and plus we are having an end-of-the-semester Pizza Party for the 9 Peer Advisors that I supervise at the Career Center. I don't want to miss out on celebrating with them and finishing off a very successful Fall semster!

But I wish I could just snuggle in bed like this sick little kitty....

Ahhhh, but at least it's Friday....I think I can hang in there. (Achoo!)

Crafty little birds.....

Check out this video - what intelligent little birds! Hey, I guess you gotta get creative when you're hungry. I definitely give these birds some credit for the ingenunity! (Warning - the video quality is low, but you'll still get the point)

http://hallpass.com/media/smartbird.html

A lovely Sunday in the Haight...

David and I spent our Sunday afternoon shopping and exploring along Haight Street - one of our favorite places to play in SF. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and the streets were filled with busy shoppers and a positive, carefree holiday buzz. We enjoyed a lovely lunch at Blue Front Cafe, and we bought a few treasures including some new incense, a hair clip, black boots, and stockings for me, and new earrings for David. :) We also browsed through the bins at Amoeba and stopped to appreciate some colorful grafitti along the way.

Here are some pics from our lovely day. Cheers! ;)

I love my kitties!

David and I take SOOO MANY pictures of our kitties, so I thought I might as well share some of them with all of you. Molly, Aimee and Oliver are definitely crazy and hilarious, but most of all they are beautiful and sweet little additions to our life. Enjoy!

Hayden comes to visit!

Leah and Lukasz brought our little niece Hayden over on Friday night for her first visit to Auntie Sarah & Uncle David's place. She was a good little girl - slept a lot and of course got hungry a couple of times. She is an angel and we love her so much!

What's in YOUR cereal bowl??

I'm sure most of you know how much I LOVE cereal and breakfast foods....so I couldn't resist sharing this with you. Don't underestimate the power of your pancakes....they're wathing you! (and perhaps conspiring with the soy milk....) ;)

My BEAUTIFUL Niece Hayden is HERE! :)

I am finally an Auntie! Little Hayden Ruth Pason was born on Saturday, 12/01/07 at 12:31pm. She weighs 8.1 lbs and is 19.5 inches long! She is healthy and absolutely gorgeous! Mom and baby are both at home doing well. SHE IS SUCH A DOLL!!