Pumpkin Carving 2005

I dragged Chris to the Pumpkin Patch to pick out a pumpkin. We got a pretty good pumpkin for waiting so late:


Chris's favorite part: Gutting the pumpkin


Then we picked the most DIFFICULT pattern to do! Here's Chris pin-holing the pattern... Can you see how intricate it is?!


Then you are supposed to connect the dots and carve out the pattern! Easy, right?! It really just looks like a bunch of dots all over the place!


Dinner, a headache, and an hour and a half later, we are almost half done...


Another hour later and we're done! Well, as much as we're gonna do...


We had to go steal a light from a neighbor's pumpkin to see it lit:


And here's what it was supposed to look like. As you can see, we didn't do a lot of the detail, 'cuz it was a small pumpkin and the detail was hard!

After being mad at Dan, again, we celebrated our friendship the usual way: Jumbo burritos at Taqueria Vallarta and a night of drinking at the Red and Blue Lagoon. Athena came, too!! We really wanted to remember to take pictures, but that's all we did all night. We took pictures of ourselves, laughed at them, and then took some more. Between the three of us, we took 156 pictures, spent about $170 and drank 21 drinks, 12 of which were shots (that number is a guesstamite from what I can remember).
Dan's picture of Pacific Ave:


Athena and my first drinks.. Midori Sours.. Yea, Star Sapphire rings! =)


The first of MANY pictures like this...


One of the NUMEROUS pictures that Dan took of himself...


Athena and Dan...


Athena and Me...


Dan and Me...


A cute one of the three of us..


Ok, you get the picture. Just imagine 156 simlar pictures sitting in a folder on my computer.. Except in half of them, I'm trying to be funny and making some weird face. It was a fun night. Walking back to my place, we met this guy who was a Girl Scout Camp Counselor (he even had the sweatshirt on!).. He was apparently supposed to meet up with some people from the camp who were going to pick him up, but he was so drunk that he couldn't even remember what bar he called them from (Dakota from the stamp on his hand). I'm pretty sure he got fired.

Dan's Birthday Party!

The Big 2-2!!!
Pictured: Sarah, Tony, Mitch, and Dan! (I think Dan's already had 2 jaggerbombs in this picture)


One more, this time with Chris...


Chris and I...


I like to call this one: Mitch, Sarah, and the 3rd Wheel. Poor Tony.


Athena, Tyra, Kelly, and Julian...


Mitch feels sick...


I have no idea what this is about, but Dan felt like a God at his party...


Oh yea, Trying to be modest now, Dan...


That's better...


Classic Dan and I:


Great pic of Dan and Athena!


The DD!! Thank you Chris. (He always does a thumbs up in pictures about driving. Funny)


The beautiful hostesses!! Athena and Kelly.. Thank you for some good food, and a great time.

Chris and I were supposed to go to LA this weekend, flying out Friday, but his sister's office had box seats to the Kings opening game, so we made a last minute change and flew out Thursday.. I had to convince Chris, 'cuz he didn't want to miss class.. (Get your priorities straight!) Here's Staples Center:

Our suite was just that - SWEET... Free food, comfy chairs, and an excellent view of the ice:

Here's Chris's sister, Sharyl (right) and her friend Becca (left):

Here's Chris and I, and about half of the suite:

Then, on Saturday night, we went to see our friend's band, 5606, at the Roxy:

You Me Iowa was really good. They had the mellow pop rockish sound that is getting popular recently. The Tom Jones cover band was awful, but provided for some interesting entertainment with their costumes:

5606 played incredibly well, possibly the best of the night. They're the most downloaded unsigned band people! www.myspace.com/5606 Here's a bunch of pictures of the band (Eric, Dave, and Kevin on drums):

Then came Jonny Was

aka Shane West... (You know, that guy from that cheesy movie A Walk to Remember and The League of Extrodinary Gentlemen? Yea, that's ok. He's not THAT big)

Anyway, Shane was pretty chill. Just a normal guy with a mediocre band. These crackheads came early (like 4pm) when we were setting up. We thought they were tourists who just needed to stop for a bathroom break, but then ended up staying til the show started and freaked out when they saw Shane. One 11 year old got up enough nerve to go up to him, he gave her a little side-hug and the rest of the van started screaming! It was funny. They were a family that looked like they'd abused drugs for a while, and they had a 2 year old kid. They stayed all the way through the show (Even with the baby!!!!! What bad parenting!) Oh well.

Before the show, I noticed a tear in my shirt, which started to spread all the way across, so I had to walk down Sunset Blvd to Hustler Hollywood and buy a shirt for the night! =(

Drinks at the Roxy were $9 for a little 5 oz glass with lots of ice. Rediculous! Eric smuggled beer from their back room for us. Then we went down the street to Frankie & Johnnie's NY style Pizza place which had some good pizza and GIANT calzones:

Then we went upstairs to the club On the Rox (above the Roxy) for a little bit. It wasn't as great as we'd hoped.

On Sunday, Eric and the band left Chris's house and Chris, his sister, Becca, and Jon all went to the Kings game, again. No box seats this time, but instead we were in the 11th row, so pretty damn close to the ice! It was awesome (thanks Jon) 'cuz we could see their facial expressions and when they were talking shit to the other players, etc.

Before the game started, I went to get food and when I walked to the stair aisle, I looked up and was face to face with Keifer Sutherland!! Keifer Frickin Sutherland!!! I froze and blacked out. He continued to walk to his seat, probably didn't even see me.. WHERE'S MY CAMERA FOR THIS?!?!?! His seat was like 10 seats down the row from us and I stared at him for most of the game. He caught me staring at him twice! Whoops. But it's Keifer Sutherland for christ's sake! He looked really good in real life (not like some actors who need lots of make-up to look good). He's such a bad ass.

Anyway, Kings won, again! Whooo! After the game, we went straight to the airport where our 50 min flight was delayed an hour.. =( Oh well. Back in Santa Cruz, back to school again. =(

Alright, So you are always wondering what I'm writing in that diary of mine... Well, here is a piece I wrote yesterday. Admittedly, most of my entries are not this contemplative or dark. Hard to believe it's been 14 years...

Friday, August 12, 2005 2:39 PM

I guess money doesn't buy happiness, but I'm trying to think how life would've been different if the insurance company hadn't screwed us after the fire. Or if we had sued. If we had sued, it would've taken years probably to do so, but wouldn't we have made out big time in the end? Sure, it wouldn't ease the pain then or make up for the loss of my grandma, but maybe my parents wouldn't have been struggling so much today. Maybe they wouldn't have this huge complex that they do about money, always trying to catch up, never being enough, working for the rest of their lives. It's never good enough. I just want them to stop worrying. Stop worrying about money and not being able to retire. Wouldn't suing the insurance company have helped that? Or would life still be the same? Would it still not be enough? They live at such a high lifestyle that maybe it wouldn't have made much of a difference. And maybe they were right. Maybe suing was not the answer and would've caused us years of unhappiness. Ultimately, I think they chose not to because they just wanted to move on, get back to normal as quickly as possible. But maybe, could it be, that it was too soon? We moved back into our similar house, on the same hill. But the scar was still there. We were alone in a neighborhood full of charred ruins, almost still hot from the smoldering remains. And life got back to normal, I guess. As normal as it could be. But there has always been this unending sense of urgency to return to "normal"... Normality I guess meant distraction filled with busyness, a constant movement from one thing to the next, and that movement hasn't stopped. Perhaps because if, when it finally does stop, when we must finally look at where and how the dust has settled, we will still feel the scars. Is that what they are afraid of? My mom once told me to write down everything I could remember about our car accident, so that I wouldn't forget it later. It was 10 years ago, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. But there are some memories you don't want to remember. Maybe my mom wrote her book about the fire so that she wouldn't forget about it. Maybe they have forgotten some of it in the everyday lives they hide behind and they don't want to remember the scars.

I forgot to post the 4th of July PV Golf Tournament!


Team Witte was composed of Jim, Terry, Chris, and they recruited Blair and Jon to play, which got them a 0 handicap, even though Blair was hurt! =( They played a Five-person Team Scramble, which means you play from the best ball, but you have to take at least 3 drives from each player... There's Blair and Jon:


Here is Chris, his mom, and dad.... I took more pictures on Mrs. Witte's camera than I did on mine, so they could see their swings and how perfect Blair's was...


Here's my favorite picture from the bunch.. Jim, concentrating hard on someone elses putt.


The ducks and Terry at the end of hole 7...


Afterwards, they had an awesome BBQ and cute mini golf course set up on the putting green... It makes this kid look like a giant!


They also had a "water slide".. Blair and Jon said they would go down it if they won! Well, Team Witte did win despite the no handicap!! Blair won the longest drive challenge on Hole 1 and Jon almost won the closest to the pin challenge on Hole 5(?), but they didn't actually go down the slide. Oh well! =)