A Meline Day Out

July 23rd marked the one year anniversary of the death of Gabe's mom, Leslie. Bummer, right? Fortunately, the Melines are all vibrant, optimistic people and took the chance to spend the day having fun, celebrating life. In town this week are Gabe's sisters Summer and Sari, Sari's girlfriend Dre and daughters Qiana and Storey, and Qiana's boyfriend Jonny. We had a great day on Monday in San Francisco, doing all sorts of touristy things I never do.








I just love San Francisco. We stopped at the headlands before going over the bridge and I managed to take a photo of Gabe, Summer, Bob, and Storey.



















We met up with the rest of the crew near pier 39 and checked out the sea lions, the old penny arcade, the merry go round, ghirardelli square, and ended the day at a baseball game. Enjoy the photos from our adventure:
Somebody is apparently not very happy with the public transportation in SF right now. Some of my favorite graffiti ever.

I was drawn to take a photo of the crabs while equally disgusted by them.

The cutest couples of the day: Qiana and Jonny, Sari and Dre.

I love how Summer and Bob had the same serene expression while looking at the sea lions. Like father, like daughter I guess:
It was such a pretty day, I couldn't help myself but take pictures of blooming flowers as we were walking around.

This is the only picture i took of myself all day.
Penny Arcade! Such silly, silly fun!


My personal favorite "game": The Opium-Den. You put a token in and the high on opium person starts writhing around, a giant snake comes through a hole in the wall, and the chinese man starts chanting or something. Hilarious!
I love how Gabe sticks his tongue out whenever he is thinking hard or under physical strain. He lost the arm wrestling match.
Qiana and Jonny enjoy dinner:
We went to Ocean Beach before the game cause Jonny had never seen the ocean. This is what happens when you try to get the Melines to take a photo together:

We took the street car to the ballpark. Qiana and Jonny kept being really cute.
Storey OD'd on cotton candy during the game.

Waiting for the bus on the way back to the car (the giants lost, by the way).

Qiana and Jonny as reflected in the window of the street car:
It was a long, good day. I feel lucky to be a part of such a great family.

All dressed up for a celebration dinner...

This year for our wedding anniversary, Gabe and I went to an A's vs. Giants game. We have had a long running, if good natured, argument over which is the better team. When we first started dating I realized that I was going to have to find a way to live with his love of baseball (never having been a sports fan of any kind myself). Being an argumentative person by nature, I decided to root for the other bay area team, the Oakland Athletics. What started out as a way to make fun of him actually ended up turning me into a baseball fan. While I'll never be the kind of fan who watches every game and keeps track of stats and stuff, I do enjoy the super expensive beer and veggies dogs, and just being out with all those people, rooting for our team.

Anyway, the morning of the game, Gabe cashed in the bucket of change we keep by our bed. We have been putting change in it for maybe two years (it's a big bucket), and it turned out to be $150! A bet for who was going to get to blow the money was in order, of course. A's win=Liz gets a pretty new dress she saw advertised in the paper that morning. Giants win=Liz sits on the floor in the corner at Amoeba Records while Gabe spends hours browsing the Jazz LPs section. Needless to say, the A's won (you know, cause the Giants SUCK), and we went straight to the union square Macy's to purchase my prize.

This was in June, and I haven't yet had the chance to wear the dress, so we decided a celebratory dinner was in order. Gabe just got promoted to a staff writer/music editor position at the Bohemian, plus July 22nd marks five years since he quit drinking (I am still so proud of him). Of course I made him pose for some portraits before we went out:




We had a lovely evening.