New Hair

After struggling and failing to color it myself I finally went to a nice salon a few streets down from us in Mountain View called Solstice Salon. The salon owner, Jenny, spoke to me on the phone and told me how I could wash out some of the color, and then told me to stop by the next day. When I stopped in, Soraya Moafi said she could take me that day. She expertly highlighted my dark brown hair with dark blonde, light blonde, and strawberry blonde. She saw immediately what would balance the colors and make my hair look beautiful. Then she gave me a stylish cut that I absolutely love! It made my hair look soft and shiny--no product added. She took her time and did everything with a careful, perfect hand. I really owe it to her. I am still getting used to the darker color, but I love the highlights and cut. Hard to see in this picture, but I have bold blonde streaks in the front that make me feel like Rogue from X-Men, although not quite so dramatic as hers. I will have to get some pictures in better lighting. If you are looking for a colorist you need to call her first--I definitely will. No more at home hair coloring for me!

Our First Year Update

I've never been on so many adventures in my life! One year of marriage has certainly been one huge adventure, from learning to balance our lives together to our trip to Lake Tahoe, we have learned and experienced a lot.

We took some trips: We've been to Miami  in January 2011 with Mia for a New Year's Celebration, and from there we went to Pittsburgh to spend time with family. I went to Pittsburgh again in April to welcome my dad home from his 400 day tour in Afghanistan. Eric and I went on our "honeymoon" trip to Lake Tahoe on our one year anniversary.

We had some guests: In March, Caitlin came to visit us from North Carolina and brought her friends Lizzy and Kim. The weather was gloomy and rainy the entire time, and we witnessed some accidents and got a 12 inch crack in our windshield--but also had fun! Collette came to visit us in May and the weather was much more cooperative. We got to see San Francisco and Collette got to go to the beach! And of course, some jerk in San Francisco made a dent in our car door while we were at Ocean Beach and didn't leave a note. If you want to see pictures of their visits the albums are on Facebook.

We had some exciting new projects: In April I looked into substitute teaching and got started with the application process, but then ended up taking an emergency nanny position with a family that needed help for a few weeks. From there I ended up babysitting more and I was kept very busy with that and with a new project. Since I was having a hard time meeting people my age, I joined meetup.com (as referred to by Aunt Elynn and Caylee), a social networking site that allows you to join certain social or professional groups. I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for--the woman's groups were book club based or far away, and the groups for younger people were "coed" but dominated by males (I feel like the whole Bay Area is dominated by males). So I started my own meetup.com group called 20something Ladies, which has been continually growing larger and has been keeping me busy. It's now up to 167 members--all young women from the bay area looking to make friends just as I was. We have one or two meetups a week now. We have a wine tasting meetup coming up on Sunday with 30 young ladies attending. I love organizing and socializing so it's a very fulfilling hobby. In June I became the assistant organizer of Silicon Valley Young and Fun Couples meetup group, and I am organizing my second meetup this Saturday with that group.

Even more exciting, is Eric's project. He has secretly been working for the past year on Google+, and it feels great now to proclaim it to the world! His work focused on Circles, which is an amazing organization tool for all of your contacts. It has been highly successful so far, so I hope all of our friends and family will join us on Google+ to help keep it going! It's a social networking site, and it's far better than Facebook in terms of privacy and professionalism. It's easy to share pictures, video chat, and keep friends and family up to date. I have loaded some pictures from our Tahoe trip already, but it also has a link to my Picassa web albums, where you can see pictures of all our California adventures. Now from Google, all conveniently placed in one  small bar on the left upper corner of the main webpage, you can access all of your main computer tools including your social networking site, gmail, documents, calendar, photos, blog, and much more. You can literally do everything on Google and then save it in the cloud (I am still learning). Eric worked many long days on this project, so I am glad it is doing so well. Since it is new, he still has a lot of work to do, but work has become considerably less stressful, which has been good for both of us. Eric is an amazing person--he is such a hard worker, I am so proud of him, and I love him so much!

We are continuing on: Both of us, after a long year of balancing, are working out more often to get in better physical shape. I guess you can say we let ourselves go a little, but watch out, because we are coming back! I am starting substitute teaching in the fall, and also getting going with my English degree. Our rent went way up, so to make us feel a little better, our apartment complex installed brand new appliances and refinished our counter top--and we did a little redecorating to make our apartment look fresh and clean. And the most exciting news...as a reward for all of Eric's hard work, we are going to Hawaii in September! Can't wait to blog about that!

Miss everyone!
Love,
Emily