velessa: (Josh & me 7)
Wishing a very happy 28th birthday to my wonderful husband, [livejournal.com profile] thomasj! ^___^ Love you lots!!
velessa: (Wedding - us)
Today is our first anniversary! Yay! The year just flew by, it's hard to believe it's been that long already. Tonight we're having dinner at La Fondue, yum!

Happy Anniversary, Josh! ^____^

I SURVIVED

May. 10th, 2008 11:53 am
velessa: (Golden Compass - Iorek WTF)
Last night when I got home I was ambushed.

Josh and his bike were out in the driveway, with an extra helmet and set of gloves sitting on the trunk of his car. Panic set in as soon as I saw those. I asked him what he was doing. He said it was a beautiful night and he'd been out riding. I asked why Deanne was here (it was her helmet sitting on his car), and he said she wasn't, he'd just borrowed it. Then he said we were going out for a ride!

Please note that while I think motorcycles look cool and everything, I am *terrified* of being on one. It's not so much the bike itself that scares me, but rather all the other drivers on the road. I have the same fear with regular bicycles - I like riding them fine, but if anyone or anything gets near me (pedestrian, car, another bike, fire hydrant, whatever), I panic and usually crash. So I don't ride bikes. Why don't horses scare me? Because they can't go 80+ mph, and if something is on a collision course with them, they'll get out of the way!

Anyway. This wasn't the first time I'd been ambushed and tried to be forced onto the bike, but I guess last night after more than two years of fighting it I just cracked. I was in a good mood after hanging out with some friends at the stable, and I guess I finally decided to face the inevitable.

I think I only screamed two or three times.

I don't know how long we were out, 30-45 minutes maybe. I had my eyes shut for much of the time in the beginning so I wouldn't panic, but it turned out to not be so bad; it was a little like being on a rollercoaster what with the wind rushing by. I just tried not to think about how fast we were going and to not look at the ground. Most of the time I was fine, just when we took some sharper turns and he sped WAY up it freaked me out.

So while I got through it and it wasn't horrible, I'll stick to horses, thanks!

Also

Mar. 27th, 2008 09:22 pm
velessa: (Josh & me 7)
While I've decided I'm fed up with not having a horse, Josh has decided he can no longer stand living without a motorcycle. He sold the two he had about a year and a half ago because they weren't doing his back any good. He'd been looking at a more ergonomically-friendly blue Suzuki V-Strom sportbike, and went out with his friend last weekend to get a good deal from a bike dealer his friend knows. Instead he came home with this )
velessa: (Josh & me 11)
Yesterday was my dear husband's birthday. Happy 27th, [livejournal.com profile] ibanix!!! ^_^

Anyway, a long time ago he had mentioned how he would like to have a surprise birthday party sometime. I've never planned a surprise party before, but I thought I'd give it a try. How hard could it be, right?

He had already asked to go out for sushi for his birthday dinner. I thought "well that's easy, I'll just invite a bunch of other people to dinner and be at the restaurant to surprise him!" So I made a reservation with the sushi place next door to us we haven't been to yet and sent out a bunch of online invites a little over a week before his birthday. Unfortunately I don't really have any email addresses of his friends, so I had to see what I could hunt down off of lj/wedding guest list/past evites/his cell phone. I think I managed pretty well, except a number of his friends either don't have their email addresses anywhere or he doesn't have their phone numbers. So it was kind of a crapshoot as to whether or not they'd even see the invitation/I could call them up. Most of his friends were unable to come. =( But I did manage to round up 8 people (friends/family) to make it on Friday night.

But then! Two days before his birthday he emails me at work and says "hey let's go to this other sushi place I like instead"! So I have to rush email/call everyone and let them know that the location has changed!! Thankfully they were all able to get the message in time, so they knew to go to the new restaurant. But it doesn't end there.

On the day of his birthday, he emails me again to say he'll be working late, "I'll meet you at the restaurant right at 8." Okay...no problem, I had told everyone to get there by 7:45 in order to be early enough to surprise him. And since I didn't want to drive all the way home then all the way back up to the restaurant if we weren't going together, I just stayed at work late as well.

I left work a little after 7 so I could get the restaurant really early and have plenty of time to make sure things were taken care of before he was supposed to get there at 8. But then disaster strikes! As I'm driving over there, Josh calls me and says "hey traffic wasn't as bad as I thought, I'll be there in about 10 minutes"!!! What?! It was only 7:20!! And since I'm completely incapable of lying on my toes, so the only thing I could think of to say was "ummmm...okay..." We were both already on the road, and I couldn't think of any excuse that would delay him long enough for the guests to get there before he did.

I ended up getting to the restaurant a little after 7:30 and was shown to our table set for 10. I put my present down and went back to the entrance to wait for Josh, who got there about 5 minutes later. So it was only 7:40, and I tried to stall around by saying our reservation was for 8, but he could easily see that there were plenty of open tables and there shouldn't be any reason why we couldn't be seated. Finally I gave up and brought him over to our table. Of course that was when the light went off when he saw all the chairs "Oh!!" That was also when our guests started arriving and he was surprised and happy to see who all came. So it was a sort of success in that he was definitely surprised, just not in the way I had wanted! Oh well. =/

The food was delicious! And they had all kinds of awesome rolls to choose from. I had my favorite, a catepillar roll, plus their calamari roll and tamago roll. Josh had the crispy dragon roll, tuna roll, and then one of their specials, the Pirates of the Caribbean roll. This thing was HUGE, and by that time he couldn't finish it. The chef also made a sort of "birthday cake" out of stacked California rolls to share with everyone. It was all really yummy! All in all I'd have to say the dinner was a success. =)

Pictures! )
velessa: (Default)
Because I do! ♥ ♥ ♥

Tonight he took apart my computer and installed a wireless card so I could use the internet again, even though it was already 11pm. So happy to be back online at home!

Tonight after work I went riding, which was lots of fun, then I went to my parents' to pick up the cats and bring them home to the new place. Rembrandt started exploring everything immediately; Serenity hid under the bed and Cricket hid in a corner. But a little while ago I heard a sort of crashing sound and got up to check it out (which is what I'm doing up at 6am on a Saturday!). Turns out it was just Serenity playing on the new cat tree. All three of them are now out and about checking everything out; I think they'll like it here as much as we do. =)
velessa: (Default)
So yes, my husband and I were married on July 7th, 2007 (yeah, I was one of those ^_^ ). I could not have asked for a more beautiful, wonderful, fantastic day. Everything was just amazing, and aside from a few very minor snags, pretty much perfect! I actually was very relaxed and at ease for most of the day; the only time I really got nervous was right before I walked down the aisle.

The Good, The Not As Good, and The Advice )

And now what you're really here for, pictures! )

Well I think that's about enough of that. Check out our Picasa album for pictures from our honeymoon cruise to Alaska! =)
velessa: (Default)
Josh took me out for my first manual transmission driving lesson tonight. It didn't turn out to be as scary or difficult as I was expecting. We went to the junior college parking lot where I had learned to drive the first time and just went around in circles while I tried to get a feel for shifting. We stayed for about an hour until the campus police came by and shooed us away. But by then Josh felt I was doing well enough to drive us home, which included going on the freeway! =O I was pretty nervous, but we made it home in one piece. I need to practice, practice, practice, but at least now I'll be able to move his car if I need to!

Hey I just noticed today is our one month anniversary. ^_^ I can't believe it's already been a month since the wedding!
velessa: (Josh & me 11)
Josh sent me roses at work, awww! *^_^* Lots of bouquets were being delivered and I kind of wished I would get one, too, and then I did! That made my day. He also got me what I suppose is now our "traditional" Valentine's gift, Sharks tickets! =D And they're for a night when they're playing the Anaheim Ducks, too, so it's sure to be action-packed. I got him a case of imported beers (I guess that's not very romantic, but I was pretty sure it was something he'd like!) and a neat-looking glass penguin paperweight thing I've been hanging on to since last May when I bought it on our trip to Connecticut.

Here are the roses:
Pretty! )

And I just realized my camera's had the wrong date on it all this time! Phooey! I changed it to 2007 now. I'll have to remember that any pictures I took that say January or February 2006 may actually be from 2007!
velessa: (Josh & me 11)
I met with the florist this morning to re-do the colors for the flowers now that we HAVE colors (changed around things to ivory instead of white, dark purple and lavender mix, pinks instead of blues). I was late and I took the wrong exit on the freeway, so I called to let them know. I was told they had a walk-in customer anyway, so I had plenty of time to get there before they'd be done with her. It turns out she wasn't a walk-in, someone had double-booked the 10am time slot. The other girl was also named Christine (or some variation), so the florist thought it was me and was confused when I arrived, thinking she had already finished that appointment. So when I got there I ended up waiting around for 10 minutes or so, not really a big deal.

Then this afternoon Josh and I went to Santa Cruz to see a movie and go to the Tea House Spa (you get a private room where you sit in a hot tub and drink tea and the scenery is sort of Japanese-ish). It's very relaxing, and the jasmine tea was good (better than the spearmint tea we tried last time, I thought). The movie we saw was Pan's Labyrinth (although the real title in Spanish was just "The Labyrinth of the Faun," so I don't know why they bothered changing it to "Pan's Labyrinth" in English). It's a Spanish film (English subtitles) that takes place during the Spanish Civil War in 1944, and it's pretty much a portrait of a young girl dealing with the horrible life she's having to live with her mother and new evil step-father (a Captain in the army and the guy in charge of the base where they're living). She's obsessed with fairy tales, and there are these weird ruins next to the base (it's in a forest), and she kind of creates her own fantasy world as a sort of escape from her real life. In it, she's the reincarnation of the long-lost princess of the underworld, and in order to return home to her kingdom, there are three tasks set to her by a faun in the labyrinth (the ruins) to prove her purity (non-mortalness) before she can be allowed back.

I will say this: the fantasy creatures and settings are truly stunning to look at. But aside from that, everything else about her fantastic adventures is rather, well, SCARY. The creatures, both the good and the bad ones, were just plain creepy looking. So I was both fascinated and horrified watching this movie. I was wary of it from the start, as it is rated R, and with GOOD reason! Only some scenes here and there are the actual fantasy story; the rest of it is quite a horrific war story, and violence (including gory scenes) abounds. I ended up shutting my eyes through a good chunk of the "real" story. So while this movie is very creative and interesting, bizarre even, it's also quite graphic. If you have a weak stomach for violence (like me), I don't think I could recommend it. Otherwise, I'd call it a twisted new spin on an Alice-in-Wonderland-type tale and worth seeing.
velessa: (Default)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY [livejournal.com profile] thomasj!!! ^____^
velessa: (Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne - Maron)
*sniffle* No more Ouran or Higurashi! =( The only series left I'm still keeping up with is Nana. I really, really loved Ouran; does the manga continue past where the anime left off? I'll have to read it if so. Higurashi confused me a lot, but I still enjoyed it for its incredible weirdness.

In other news...I have no other news. I go to work, get covered in dirt, come home incredibly tired, watch tv, go to bed. I had to get new boots yesterday because the zipper on mine kept popping open, grr. So I went back to ones that have laces, which I didn't want anymore because the laces break all the time. I guess broken laces are easier to replace than fixing broken zippers, though. Bah.

Oh wait, Josh and I did go to a Tom Petty concert on Saturday. The show was good, but I didn't care much for the venue, an outdoor theater at the UC Berkeley campus. Pot smokers _everywhere_! Having to smell so much of it was giving me a headache. The lack of parking and bathrooms and sitting out on the lawn in the cold wasn't very agreeable, either, so it's a good thing the music was good. I thought I only knew two Tom Petty songs, but then I realized I actually knew more than that as he sang them, I had just forgotten about them. At least Josh thoroughly enjoyed everything since he's a big fan of his.

Should go to the Nor Cal Ren Faire sometime soon before it ends. It's still on for another week or two, right? Maybe this Sunday; I'm not working for a change because I switched shifts with someone else. I'll be working Friday the 13th instead. ;)

(Which, just so you know, doesn't bother me in the least; I was born on a Friday the 13th! ^^ I'm inclined to like them.)
velessa: (Labyrinth - Jareth - the horror)
Yesterday when I got home from work I found my computer in an odd state. For the most part it looked fine, except that one of my hard drives said it was no longer formatted! It acted as though it were completely empty, totally blank, nothing on it, when I KNEW that wasn't the case. Needless to say I was freaking out since I had TONS of stuff on it that I needed to get to. Thankfully I live with a wonderful computer geek who fixed the problem for me. ^_~

I guess there are some errors somewhere on the drive, but I haven't run into them yet. At least everything on it is recognizable again so I can actually access it. Today I ran out after work and bought yet another external hard drive to back it all up on. I don't know what happened to screw up the thing in the first place, but I guess I'll be leaving my computer off from now on while I'm at work! Damn machines can't be trusted to be left on their own.
velessa: (Josh & me 5)
Hehe, 3 new pictures on my user info. ^_^

The first one is from last year when I went to a group dinner with Josh and his motorcycling friends from South Bay Riders. The next two are from our trip to Connecticut, one in his family's backyard and one in his grandfather's plane (that his grandfather built!). Shameless plug, in the third picture I'm wearing this shirt, with butterfly design by my incredibly talented artist friend Shellie. Check out her store! =D
velessa: (Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne - Maron)
My brother graduates from college today. Congrats, Ryan! ^_^

Garrod girls, for the new horses: Pablo is Spencer from last year, Gambler is Poe from last year, and Tonto is Tonto from two years ago. The rest are new to me.

Also today, I'm leaving with Josh to go to Connecticut for a week and meet his family for the first time. O_O Wish me luck!
velessa: (Bleach - Hanatarou - yay!)
As of tonight, Josh and I are engaged! ^_______^

Apparently he had planned on proposing after the play we're seeing tomorrow night (Peter Pan), but nervousness/jitters got the best of him and he decided to ask tonight on our 6 month anniversary. Of course I immediately accepted!

I'll post a pic of the ring later. The only thing certain about the wedding right now is we want to have it in San Jose. As for anything else, I have no idea yet. There'll be plenty of time for that, right now I'm just incredibly thrilled!!! ♥ ♥ ♥
velessa: (Josh & me 2)
Josh and I are moving into an apartment together at the end of the week! ^_^

It's a two bedroom place in a nice area over by Oak Grove High School, near where Blossom Hill and Snell meet in south San Jose. They allow pets, which is cool; my stupid last apartment didn't. I'll also have a slightly shorter drive to the stable by being able to just go straight up 85.

This means I'm going to be very busy for a while! I have so much stuff...I won't be taking it all with me, but I'll still have a ton of packing to do. Time to get busy!
velessa: (Bleach - I WIN!)
I got to go to TWO Sharks games this week! And they won both times! ^_____^

Thursday night I went with Josh to the game for my Valentine's Day gift. We had really good seats and the game was a lot of fun. Sharks were playing the Oilers and they won 5-2. There was no scoring in the first period, then they tied 2-2 in the second, and then the Sharks got 3 more in the third. It was really funny during one of the intermissions, they had some kids playing Musical Chairs on the ice with inflatable chairs. They kept leaping for them, so of course they went kersplat on the ice while the chairs flipped over and slid away. Hilarious! As an added bonus, Josh may be starting to like hockey. *g*

Today I went to the Sharks game with my family for my early birthday present. Sharks were playing the Predators, and holy crap what a wild game. There were a bazillion penalties and a couple of big fights broke out in the first period, which ended up in a bunch of guys on both sides getting really long penalties and game misconduct calls against them. In the second period a couple of them even threw a few punches at each other over the glass barrier while on their benches. No scoring again the first period of this game, then they each got 1 in the second. Sharks got another goal on a power play in the third and held on to the lead for a long time, but then with ten seconds left to go in the period the Predators scored and tied it up again. So the game went into 5 minute overtime, and the Sharks managed to get a third goal. The game was very edge-of-your-seat, though, because the Sharks had tons of opportunities to score throughout and couldn't manage it well. They seriously outshot the other team, like 40-16.

Both were very exciting games and a lot of fun to see in person!
velessa: (Gravitation - Eiri & Shuuichi)
So I'm working on getting my computer up and running the way I want it again. I hate having to reinstall a million things...so far I have AIM, IRC, and BT back to normal. Where does Firefox keep its bookmarks? I know they have to be here somewhere because none of my files were lost, but I don't know where to look for them.

I'm also trying to figure out my new mp3 player. It has 8GB of space, but I didn't realize that that's a surprisingly small amount! At first I was just throwing everything on it, but then I ran out of room and had to delete a lot of stuff and replace it with only the songs I really want. Now I have to organize my playlists and figure out how all the buttons and menus and whatnot work...

Yesterday Josh bought a truck from a friend of a friend. He's still going to ride his motorcycles the majority of the time, but now when the weather gets nasty he won't have to get soaking wet and/or ride in more dangerous conditions. I took a picture if anyone is interested; it's a 1992 Ford F150:

truck )

We also watched the movie Crash last night, the one that won Best Picture this year. It was very good and pretty interesting, despite the fact that I'm not particularly fond of movies that leave you with a lot of loose ends. One thing that bugged me was I think Brendan Fraser looks too young to be the District Attorney of Los Angeles. =P

Tonight we're going out with Jennie and Jani to go to dinner and see The Hills Have Eyes, some sort of horror movie. From the commercials it seems to be a lot like Wrong Turn, except set in a desert instead of the woods in West Virginia. But I like horror movies and Ted Levine is in this one (he's awesome), so this ought to be fun.

One more thing. I saw this in a McDonald's today and couldn't resist taking a picture; gotta love Engrish! ;)

The Coke is what? )
velessa: (Josh & me 2)
Day(s) because I sort of had two of them. Valentine's Day morning I dropped Josh off at the big computer security conference they're having this week in downtown San Jose. It was the perfect chance to show off my "I ♥ MY GEEK" t-shirt from thinkgeek.com, so that's what I wore. =D Anyway, the conference is where his father and friend [livejournal.com profile] thespatula are working, so he got to hang out with them all day and collect tons of free stuff that various computer companies were giving away. When it ended at 5pm I picked up him and [livejournal.com profile] thespatula, and we all went over to Japantown for dinner. Japanese food, yay! The fried banana and green tea ice cream for dessert was especially good. I gave Josh a few little trinkets for the actual holiday: a plush penguin wearing a sweater with hearts on it, a penguin keychain, and Jamba Juice card. I also managed to find a Valentine's Day card with a penguin on it! Anyone notice a theme here?

The next day on the 15th we did our actual Valentine's Day dinner date thing. We went to a fancy little Italian restaurant in Saratoga called The Basin that Josh's aunt and uncle had recommended. It was a really nice place, super friendly and fast service, low-key atmosphere, interesting selection of food. I had one of their specials, a sort of spaghetti dish with fresh crab on top, and it was just a touch spicy and really good. Dessert was a molten chocolate bomb, or something like that, which was also very yummy. We exchanged Valentine's gifts at the restaurant, too. I got him this cute penguin candle holder with various penguins in snowy scenery, one of which is in an actual snow globe (someone explain that one to me...you use the thing to hold a LIT candle!). But I thought it was pretty anyway. Josh's present was tickets for us to go see a Sharks game!!! I'm super happy about that because I just love going to Sharks games, and he's going to come with me even though he has absolutely no interest in hockey. Awww, isn't that sweet? I love my boyfriend! ^_^

Edit: I forgot to mention I also got an lj rose from him! ^^ It's in my userinfo, hehe.

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