We just got back from a whirlwind tour of our friends and family back home in Southern California.  It was quick, but it was actually one of the least stressful trips back that I could imagine.  The weather, for the most part, was glorious.  GLORIOUS.  Friday and Saturday were both warm- high seventies to low eighties- and sunny.  After months of living in the arctic tundra up here in Seattle, I cannot tell you how good the warm sun felt on my skin.  And this coming from an honorary albino.  I’m not dumb- I loaded up on sunscreen- but I most certainly appreciated the warmth more than ever.

The first day back basically consisted of me being reminded of how incredibly random our lives our.  For starters, what started out as my typical morning run turned into a dog rescue.

Poor thing!  Just a few blocks from my parents house, I found this pathetic little dog running around in the middle of the street, almost getting run over by multiple cars.  He had a leash but no tags.  I didn’t know what to do really, so I grabbed his leash and rang the doorbells of some houses near me to see if they recognized him.  Sadly, nobody knew who he belonged to, so I took him home and found a no-kill shelter who would come take him.

After that little adventure, my mom took Mike and I down to city hall to take care of some paperwork on our house.  My dad got all excited when he saw Tom Daly, the Couny Recorder, in the office, so he came up with some excuse to go make smalltalk.

Yeah, my dad is a major dork.  Who knows what their county recorder looks like?  Who thinks it’s exciting to talk to them?  Who tells their daughter to post a picture of them talking to the county recorder on their blog?

After the joy that is beaurocracy we went to have lunch with Mike’s mom.  Of course, lunch with Mike’s mom is never your typical lunch.  Mike ended up getting solicitations for business advice regarding her latest idea, which somehow combines a health expo with a bikini contest (don’t ask), while she shared her newest skin cream with me.  Of course, she only told me the secret ingredient AFTER she had me rub it all over my arms and hands.  And the secret ingredient was fish sperm.  Awesome.

After chatting with my old co-workers and saying good-bye to Mike’s mom, Mike and I parted ways so that I could go get my hair done.  A little random, but my old hair girl had an opening and my roots were way out of control.

Hawt.  Too bad I forgot to take an after picture.  But it’s much redder than before.  It’s gloomy in Seattle- I need something bright to combat the grey.

That evening, my parents offered to barbeque for us.  A couple of our friends came over to feast on grilled chicken, carne asada, and lots of sides to make Mike happy.  The ability to cook and eat outside all year is definitely one of SoCal’s greatest virtues.

An recounted stories for us.  Mary was super interested.

Part of the meal included a huge platter of grilled veggies, which prompted Derek to eat zucchini for the first time ever.  After he thought about it for a while, he decided he liked the “burned vegetables.”

There was plenty of delicious food, which the boys dug into.

Mary and I dug into the wine.  (See the red hair?)

As the night wound down, my parents decided to really get the party started and tried to put their karaoke machine to use.  Yeah, my parents have a karaoke machine.  No wonder I married an Asian guy.

Thankfully, they couldn’t get the machine working, so we took the opportunity to take off before any singing started and went to the movies.  We saw I Love You Man.  It was eh.  But Friday was good.