2014 in review
*Happy New Year! - Dustin and Nate had their annual NYE party, Mike was actually really sick, so we ended up watching the whole Lord of the Rings Trilogy over those days, which was pretty fun. We watched one of them NYE and then I put him to bed at about 10:30 and went to the party. Maybe I should have stayed, but he was sleeping and it seemed silly to sit at home....
*The first two months were consumed with wedding plans. Sending out invitations, keeping track of responses, bachelor parties (mine was an awesome weekend in Napa Valley with the boys) dealing with all our wedding coordinators du jour from the Hilton (Carol Sass then Kelli Black then Alvin Prasad), finalizing details with the Redwood Grove, Kristin, DJ, Kat, shuttle bus, flowers, outfits, photobooth, coordinating plans and flights with family and friends.
The wedding itself was amazing, it was everything we wanted and I wouldn't do it any other way. The happiest day of my life. :)
After recalling the wedding, it's hard to remember the rest of the year, I better consult facebook. Ah yes, here we go:
*Lots of events for work.
*Jeff & Don's wedding. They got married in the same venue, the Berkeley botanical gardens redwood grove. They actually reserved it before us, but ours came first. And we didn't copy them. I actually tried to prevent Mike from finding out about this place, because I knew he would want to do it there. He found out about it through other ways, though. Sigh. Whatever, I'm glad he did, it was great.
*The year was filled with lots of Miss Smith classes - the open mic, and she really helped me improved my performance style
*Trip to St. Louis to see Cathy and the Indigo Girls Symphony show, which was amazing!
*Lisa, my boss who stole me for this position, left. It was surprising but ended up being very good for me. They replaced her with a portfolio manager, so I am the only fulltime management at my building, and Diana is the manager, but has other properties to deal with as well. I also got a nice pay increase after Lisa left, which is very nice!
*Church. Kristin and Sara left this year, and moved to the east coast. Mike and I were both very sad to see them go. But life goes on. I've been playing the accordion and having fun with that, I gave a reflection on Good Friday, and we enjoy the community there so much.
*Trip to Klamath Falls, Oregon over the 4th of July...well, actually the woods to the East of it. Tons of fun with the boys at Nate's parents cabin in the woods. We ate, played games, bbq'd, hiked some crazy ass mountain, went off the trail and almost became a news story when we couldn't find the trail again. We are planning to do it again this year!
*Dustin and Nate's wedding. Tons of fun, both Mike and I stood up, I sang a song with Dave, Walter and Brian, it was such a fun and wonderful day. A beautiful wedding and a wonderful couple. We were thrilled for them and to be part of it.
*We moved! Our place in El Cerrito got sold and the new owners jacked up the rent 30% or something like that. We ended up finding a place in Berkeley that is part of a duplex but feels like a home, for the same rent we would have been paying had we stayed in El C. When we were looking, it was very disheartening, all these overly crowded open houses for very expensive dumps. We had just about given up when Mike found an ad for an "open house Sunday" for this place that is in a great neighborhood and the ad said "gay friendly." He emailed the people and said we couldn't come Sunday, and could we see it before? Cut to us, seeing it that night, taking it right then and they canceled the open house. I guess that's how you gotta do it around here. Took some adjusting, but we are very happy there.
*Chorus. Summer Pops was fun. We did "Home" for our small ensemble and I sang a special farewell duet with Stephanie (Miss Smith) as she left. Carl came on in the fall for the Christmas concert. I took over doing the newsletter. It's been a year of transition, but overall a very good year.
*Trip to Paso Robles for Brian's 40th birthday. Lots of fun, we went to several wineries, beaches, although I had to leave early for Lee & Adam's wedding.
*Yoga. Steady as she goes... It was good trying the different hot yoga for a time. If it were more convenient, I actually would prefer to do that regularly, as I think it is more well rounded and does more with the upper body than bikram. Ah well. I also introduced Walter and Dustin to bikram and both of them have stuck with it, so hooray!!!
*Hawaii. Oh my gosh, I had such a great time, I cannot wait to go back. It was beautiful, the place we stayed was fab. Dave's parents have a timeshare they weren't using, so he invited the boys. Me, Dave, Brian, Dustin, Nate, and Craig. We went on a helicopter ride, did a crazy ass hike to this beautiful huge waterfall and swam under it.
*A lot of friends came in November for Krista and Patrick's wedding. Peter, Katie and Craig stayed with us the night before and we had a great time. The wedding was beautiful at a winery in Napa. Mike & I got into a stupid fight, that always seems to happen at my college friends' weddings. But we made up shortly after.
*December was filled with work events and holiday parties, as usual. One really fun thing, at my work, we rented a baby grand piano for the lobby for a week and I played during the morning rush and at lunchtime. Got lots of compliments from tenants, it was really fun.
*This was my first year not going home for Christmas. Lots of reasons, but mostly the obvious one. Instead we are going in two weeks and will see as much family and friends as we can. On Christmas we hiked a mountain, had a nice time and went to a movie. A quiet but very nice day.
*Theater. We continued our theater subscription and saw Once, Pippin, Motown, Chicago, Kinky Boots. They were all fantastic, loved loved loved them.
*Books. I wish I had documented all the books I read this year, because I have read a lot. Let's see, I read lots of memoirs: Andy Cohen, Swoosie Kurtz, Roger Ebert, Amy Poehler, Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Handler (well, not so much a memoir as her safari story "Uganda Be Kidding Me"), I read Divergent and Insurgent, the first book of Game of Thrones, started The Power of One (not done yet), The Racketeer by John Grisham, I may have read another one by JG but can't recall right now. I've come to really enjoy reading on my ride to and from work.
All in all, 2014 was a great year. 2015 is kind of starting on a good and bad note, and will begin a time of transition, but such is life. Cheers!
*The first two months were consumed with wedding plans. Sending out invitations, keeping track of responses, bachelor parties (mine was an awesome weekend in Napa Valley with the boys) dealing with all our wedding coordinators du jour from the Hilton (Carol Sass then Kelli Black then Alvin Prasad), finalizing details with the Redwood Grove, Kristin, DJ, Kat, shuttle bus, flowers, outfits, photobooth, coordinating plans and flights with family and friends.
The wedding itself was amazing, it was everything we wanted and I wouldn't do it any other way. The happiest day of my life. :)
After recalling the wedding, it's hard to remember the rest of the year, I better consult facebook. Ah yes, here we go:
*Lots of events for work.
*Jeff & Don's wedding. They got married in the same venue, the Berkeley botanical gardens redwood grove. They actually reserved it before us, but ours came first. And we didn't copy them. I actually tried to prevent Mike from finding out about this place, because I knew he would want to do it there. He found out about it through other ways, though. Sigh. Whatever, I'm glad he did, it was great.
*The year was filled with lots of Miss Smith classes - the open mic, and she really helped me improved my performance style
*Trip to St. Louis to see Cathy and the Indigo Girls Symphony show, which was amazing!
*Lisa, my boss who stole me for this position, left. It was surprising but ended up being very good for me. They replaced her with a portfolio manager, so I am the only fulltime management at my building, and Diana is the manager, but has other properties to deal with as well. I also got a nice pay increase after Lisa left, which is very nice!
*Church. Kristin and Sara left this year, and moved to the east coast. Mike and I were both very sad to see them go. But life goes on. I've been playing the accordion and having fun with that, I gave a reflection on Good Friday, and we enjoy the community there so much.
*Trip to Klamath Falls, Oregon over the 4th of July...well, actually the woods to the East of it. Tons of fun with the boys at Nate's parents cabin in the woods. We ate, played games, bbq'd, hiked some crazy ass mountain, went off the trail and almost became a news story when we couldn't find the trail again. We are planning to do it again this year!
*Dustin and Nate's wedding. Tons of fun, both Mike and I stood up, I sang a song with Dave, Walter and Brian, it was such a fun and wonderful day. A beautiful wedding and a wonderful couple. We were thrilled for them and to be part of it.
*We moved! Our place in El Cerrito got sold and the new owners jacked up the rent 30% or something like that. We ended up finding a place in Berkeley that is part of a duplex but feels like a home, for the same rent we would have been paying had we stayed in El C. When we were looking, it was very disheartening, all these overly crowded open houses for very expensive dumps. We had just about given up when Mike found an ad for an "open house Sunday" for this place that is in a great neighborhood and the ad said "gay friendly." He emailed the people and said we couldn't come Sunday, and could we see it before? Cut to us, seeing it that night, taking it right then and they canceled the open house. I guess that's how you gotta do it around here. Took some adjusting, but we are very happy there.
*Chorus. Summer Pops was fun. We did "Home" for our small ensemble and I sang a special farewell duet with Stephanie (Miss Smith) as she left. Carl came on in the fall for the Christmas concert. I took over doing the newsletter. It's been a year of transition, but overall a very good year.
*Trip to Paso Robles for Brian's 40th birthday. Lots of fun, we went to several wineries, beaches, although I had to leave early for Lee & Adam's wedding.
*Yoga. Steady as she goes... It was good trying the different hot yoga for a time. If it were more convenient, I actually would prefer to do that regularly, as I think it is more well rounded and does more with the upper body than bikram. Ah well. I also introduced Walter and Dustin to bikram and both of them have stuck with it, so hooray!!!
*Hawaii. Oh my gosh, I had such a great time, I cannot wait to go back. It was beautiful, the place we stayed was fab. Dave's parents have a timeshare they weren't using, so he invited the boys. Me, Dave, Brian, Dustin, Nate, and Craig. We went on a helicopter ride, did a crazy ass hike to this beautiful huge waterfall and swam under it.
*A lot of friends came in November for Krista and Patrick's wedding. Peter, Katie and Craig stayed with us the night before and we had a great time. The wedding was beautiful at a winery in Napa. Mike & I got into a stupid fight, that always seems to happen at my college friends' weddings. But we made up shortly after.
*December was filled with work events and holiday parties, as usual. One really fun thing, at my work, we rented a baby grand piano for the lobby for a week and I played during the morning rush and at lunchtime. Got lots of compliments from tenants, it was really fun.
*This was my first year not going home for Christmas. Lots of reasons, but mostly the obvious one. Instead we are going in two weeks and will see as much family and friends as we can. On Christmas we hiked a mountain, had a nice time and went to a movie. A quiet but very nice day.
*Theater. We continued our theater subscription and saw Once, Pippin, Motown, Chicago, Kinky Boots. They were all fantastic, loved loved loved them.
*Books. I wish I had documented all the books I read this year, because I have read a lot. Let's see, I read lots of memoirs: Andy Cohen, Swoosie Kurtz, Roger Ebert, Amy Poehler, Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Handler (well, not so much a memoir as her safari story "Uganda Be Kidding Me"), I read Divergent and Insurgent, the first book of Game of Thrones, started The Power of One (not done yet), The Racketeer by John Grisham, I may have read another one by JG but can't recall right now. I've come to really enjoy reading on my ride to and from work.
All in all, 2014 was a great year. 2015 is kind of starting on a good and bad note, and will begin a time of transition, but such is life. Cheers!