Friends – Page 4 – kristilynk

You Want Flower? Five dollar….

My Kiah told me about a new”ish” nail salon in the area that boasts using natural ingredients whenever possible with their salon services. “Naturally” I was intrigued. At the soonest possible moment I grabbed my friend, Nicole, and we headed out. Well, technically..she drove so I guess she grabbed me..but whatever..we went here. (Thanks Kim for showing me the linkage ways..it’s fun, easy and I will try not to overuse it!!)

The wait was a little long, but..we did not have an appointment, they open at 0900 and we didn’t get there until 10:00 and it was a Saturday. The wait gave us a chance to choose our colors. While we were choosing, I noticed..these are regular nail polishes. Shouldn’t an “Herbal” nail bar have natural’ish’ nail colors? And then I got to thinking…does such a thing exist? I put a pin in that thought and it has stuck with me all the live long weekend…

The wait also allowed us to check out the scenery:

I love the colors and the plants and fountain in the middle of the area. See the nail “bar” off to the right? Pretty clever.. Kinda made me crave sushi..or a margarita 😉

When our wait was over, we scurried to our chairs, plopped down and hit the button for the massage chair with a sigh.

I’m feeling the pink colors these days…

We both chose the coconut spa pedicure. Yes, it was as delightful as it sounds! Old polish off (again..they used nail polish remover..that has to be toxic..hmmm), soak time, scrub time to rid myself of nasty feet, you know..the usual pedi stuff. With the addition of this pretty little tray set up:

Nothing fancy but a teeny incline above “the other” strip mall nail spas. I really like the use of the lemon instead of alcohol to remove excess oils..Fresh lemon smells so good and its cleansing properties are great! win win!!

They have two girly pedicure chairs ~ I so wanted to get my big butt into one and have Nicole take my picture..sadly..there were two little girls hogging up the chairs the entire time I was there…pshht.

They were something along the lines of this picture I pulled from the internet:

Here’s a little glance at their menu:

The pricing is pretty good, especially considering the extra services that are provided. I suggest going when you have a couple of hours to kill during your day. Drive time, wait time and pedi time you’re gonna need it!

This trip..I had time to kill, the need for a couple hours of pampering and reconnecting with a girlfriend who is just as (if not more so) busy as I.

Now it’s time to back track a bit..remember when I told you I got curious about “natural” nail polish? I was serious when I said it has stuck with me since..Today..I found online there are quite a few nail polishes that have been created without the five major ingredients that make nail polish toxic. (Not one of these brands were at the Herbal Nail Bar :/)

Now I know! Time for a little nail polish replacement on the home front!!

Trippin’ in Tucson ~

The worst part of each of my days is trying to get out of bed. Now that it is colder (and I live in Arizona and refuse to turn on my heater until at least January..) getting out of bed in the dark, cold morning is an even more difficult task! This Saturday it was a teeny bit easier..The Jason had brought me a cup of coffee and I was a little bit excited to get on the road.

Jason had plans on recording with a friend, Mike from the band Love Mound ~ listen and buy here: http://lovemound.com/lovemound/?page_id=119, in Tucson and Kiah and I went along for the ride so we could piddle around town. We piled into the Jetta..Poor kid barely had enough room to squish in. Jason had his drums packed in there pretty good!

BUT..where there is a will..there is a way and she slept like a champ the entire trip. It takes about two hours to get to downtown Tucson from our place.

Mike was waiting for us outside the studio..they quickly unloaded the drums and brought them into the room..Kiah and I said “See ya later!” and we were off to San Xavier Mission ~ one of, if not THE, oldest churches in the state of Arizona. It was founded in 1692! Here is the website if you want to read more.. http://www.patronatosanxavier.org/
In the meantime, this is what we see from the parking lot. Dont let the amazing blue cloudless sunny sky fool you..it was COLD.

Mike had warned us..the church is SMALL. I don’t think I realized how small until we walked into this room. The next picture was taken from just inside the entrance.

I have no idea who the lady on the right is..I did not get a disclaimer and I hope she doesn’t find my blog and sue me 🙂 OR…maybe it’s a GHOST???

Look how close the benches are to each other…people must have been A LOT smaller back in the late 1600’s ~ I could hardly walk between them and I am a small person..

The top of the door, on this shot, to give you an idea..is maybe four inches above her head. She is 5’1

Little nook for some holy water.

Amazing wood work..

All of the pictures taken above were just from the entrance. I started walking toward the front of the church and felt a little uncomfortable..I took one more picture and nudged Kiah, “Let’s get out of here”. She completely agreed..San Xavier is a functioning church. No, there was not a church service going on at the time but there were a handful of people paying respects, lighting candles, leaving flowers and sitting in the pews (I think that’s what the benches are called?) with sullen expressions and full of emotions. I was there for the history, the art, the architecture and felt like I was intruding on these peoples and their special moments.

While walking from the main place of worship to another side alter building Kiah and I both noticed an elderly Native American woman following us, pretty quickly..it kinda freaked us out so we turned around, headed straight at her, smiled and walked the other way. Turns out..she was only headed to the bathroom. We watch way too many scary movies..as I may have mentioned in the past..

To the east of the missionary is a hill with a cross on the very top. Before take the little walk up the hill…someone has to stop and be silly..

Better her than me..after all..I am the mom 😉

While walking up the hill..I spotted something really strange..

Obviously, it had been a muddy day..who is out walking up hills in the rain or mud barefoot?

While we were walking up this way..a nun was following us. Or for a few minutes anyway, we ditched her pretty quickly. It was a nice little walk around the hill and it didn’t take us too long to get to where we started.

This kid was waiting for us on the other side. Sorry for the instagram photo but it was much faster to “shoot” him with my phone 🙂 He was patiently waiting for all of the tourists to get out of his way so he could ride his bike down the hill.

He was kind enough to wait for everyone to clear the path and sped on by never to be seen by us again. Once we were at the base of the hill, Kiah spotted a cute, dusty black mutt dog. She looked like a black lab mixed with another breed, cute pup! Roaming the Missions grounds with a dirty nose and a collar. Kiah was trying to take a picture of the tag to call the owners but the spunky mutt ran down the path and into the little store selling candles before she could get the picture.

We hurried into the store and asked if the dog that ran in here belonged to the church or did we need to find her and call the owners. To which the shop worker replied, ” I didn’t see no dog come in here but if it did..she belongs to the community and might be taking a nap”.

Kiah and I both looked at each other like…”what?” but instead said, “O.K,” turned around and walked back to the car laughing the entire time. It was the statement combined with the accent that made us laugh so hard…you may have had to have been there…but I’m still laughing.

The ride back to downtown was quick. We managed to get a parking space right in front of the studio, parked and walked around downtown.

It was around 11:30 in the morning, on a Saturday and there was only one place open to grab a coffee..Brueggers Bagels. I don’t think I have ever been to a cities downtown area where nothing was open on a Saturday…have you? Hot coffee in hand we set back out to the cold streets of DT Tucson. Kiah spotted a big church down the way so we walked thataway…

Inside, we have a Jesus

And Kiah gives Jesus a LOW FIVE 😉

and a HIGH FIVE to the baby jesus in his golden fleece diapers!

That was the extent of our fun here so..we left and continued to walk the sleepy streets of downtown Tucson.

We met up with Jason and Mike and walked to a local eatery called The Hub Restaurant and Creamery : http://www.hubdowntown.com/

The website is not that great but you can download the menu and see for yourself..good selection!

Mikes wife Karen and their youngest daughter met us there, cheeseburgers all around (with the exception of the one who ordered the veggie burger), we ate, talked and had a nice visit. 🙂

So many missed opportunities at the Hub for the blog. I should have taken pictures of the restaurant, the ice cream bin display, the ginormous mug of coffee, the burgers and our friends. On the upside of that notion..I was fully enjoying myself in the moment and not thinking of my camera or phone or internet..weird 😉

A strange concert experience….

A friend of mine invited me to go with her to watch the mid 1980’s British Rock group, The Cult, play at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix this past Thursday night. Normally, I would not go to a concert on a “school” night nor would I pay an outrageous amount of money to see The Cult play…BUT..I didn’t have to work on Friday AND my friend had a hook up so we were able to buy tickets for only ten dollars opposed to the sixty to eighty dollars a seat the venue was asking!

I picked Denise up at six and then went to her friend Bubba’s house, he was coming with us. I had never met Bubba before so introductions were done and before we left he wanted to show me The Scottsdale Beer Museum. Basically, it is a wall in his garage dedicated to beer ~ of all the beers, in all the world, Bubba’s favorite is Pabst Blue Ribbon ~ Yes, you read what I wrote ~ Pabst Blue Ribbon. He has a little shrine specifically for all things PBR. There is not much more I can write about the “beer museum” so if this type of thing interests you…you can read more here: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/jackalope/2011/03/bradford_whickers_beer_can_and.php

Moving on, we piled into the Jetta and rolled on out. When we pulled into the parking lot of the Celebrity Theater..there were maybe ten cars?? Confused, we walked up to the box office to get our tickets and figure out what the deal was. Well, turns out we were like two hours early. What to do, what to do?

Bubba has a friend who works with The Papago Brewing Company in Scottsdale where there are beers o’ plenty and Bubba tells us the pizza is amazing.

We were greeted by this fella:

I took this picture off of their website: http://www.papagobrewing.com

We ordered a T-Rex pizza ~ Pepperoni, sausage, bacon, ham, red sauce, and mozzarella on super thin crust..DELISH! I was driving so I was not able to over indulge in the beer but I was able to buy a half pint of the Orange Blossom Ale and it was oh so good!

I don’t think I have been able to get a half pint anywhere? It’s the cutest little thing and it made my mouth happy!

We ate, drank and scootched back to the concert event.

We should have stayed at the brewery a little longer. I have no idea where the promoters found this group but the opening act was so boring! Isn’t the opening act to be a lively group – you know – to get the old people in the audience pumped up for the main event? I was and still am so confused as to why this trio was able to go on tour with The Cult? I will let you decide for yourself..here’s their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/WHITE-HILLS/90476409450

I actually could not sit in my seat for another song ~ Thoroughly confused we three went outside. Denise was just as confused as I was but Bubba?..He may have been the only one in the theater who actually liked them.. The bass was droning and never ending – repeating the same line over and over..blahhhh I’m becoming irritated right now just remembering so let’s move on. 🙂

The Cult was supposed to have started their set at nine-forty…supposed to have…they didn’t come out until ten-twenty. I have never seen The Cult live and I have been told by many “how great they are live”…I was not impressed. It was obvious something was not right.. the performance of the entire band lacked energy and you could feel bad vibes emulating from the stage. I made up this scenario in my head, which is probably not far from the truth:

I think..there were sound issues or equipment issues or maybe it was Ian Astbury wasn’t provided with the exact eyeliner color he requested. “I TOLD you I needed black ONYX..this is not Black ONYX…this is Black NOIR..I am NOT going on stage with this shit, you MORON!”

I don’t even remember what song they started with but after the fist song, Ian Astbury ripped up the set list from the stage floor, crumbled it up and threw it..yes..threw it at the sound guy. I bet the sound guy wrote the set list in blue ink and had to re-write it in black onyx.

Fervently, the sound guy did what he was told, jumped on stage to re-tape the new set list to the floor and in the process..he bumped into Ian Astbury ~ ..no doubt that was an embarrassing moment for the “rock star”.

I sat through the entire first half of the set fascinated with what was going on up there…it was the most bizarre scene I have ever witnessed on the stage of a professional, once accomplished, touring band.

Meanwhile, Denise and I had noticed Bubba has been gone quite a while. I asked, “Where is Bubba”? Denise replied, “He went to the bathroom but that was kind of a long time ago.”

Hmm, ok.

Bubba came back and after a few minutes says, “I found some seats that are closer..wanna go”? SURE! We followed and proceeded downstairs to the front row. 🙂 Yay for Bubba!

The energy on the stage was a little better this second half ~ not much better ~ but they were starting to get into the groove a little. I know it didnt have anything to do with the eyeliner fiasco because Ian was still wearing his sunglasses. 🙂

Oh, so yes, we were in the front row – just behind the sound guy – I felt so bad for this man! Through this second half of the set, it was the guitar player who started in on berating him. What made the situation all the more sad was..even through getting a set list thrown at him, being screamed at by Ian and then continued yelling from the guitar player..this poor sound guy was singing along to the songs of The Cult. Broke my heart for a minute.

I had a great time with my friends and the event was..fascinating.. but I am pretty sure I will not go see The Cult live again.

It’s My Birthday…con’t :)

This past Friday made for a long long day! After getting to sleep late Thursday night and getting up early to see Jason off to the airport Friday morning, 03:15 to be more precise. I did get a little nap in before I had to be to leave for work at seven A.M..don’t worry, I stopped off at the local convenience store to pick up a GIANT Red Bull so I made it through the work day.

Being excited to go on a road trip to visit my friends the Snyders with my friends Amy, Danny and Brian also helped get me through the day!

After picking Danny up and dropping him off at Brians, I went home to shower and throw a few things in a bag and waited for Amy – poor girl had to work until four.

The drive from Weedville, AZ to San Diego, CA was pretty uneventful and not nearly fast enough, we rolled into town around ten P.M ~ we had to make a quick stop at the 7-Eleven though because Danny had to go to the bathroom so bad, especially after Brian and I busted out in our best Kareoke version of “Love Shack” by the B-52’s – he was laughing so hard he almost peed himself. 🙂 WIN!

Onward, I dropped Amy and Danny off at their friend Tracys house and off to Shane and Kims we went to start our fun-filled weekend!

Thankfully, Shane and Kim were both still awake 🙂

We hung out and talked for a while with some drinks and called it a night, the little one was sure to wake up early and we wanted to get a good start to the day anyway so all was good.

Sure enough! It was about five-thirty in the morning and I hear the lil one talking away, ready to get out and play. Thank goodness she wakes up in such a happy mood, her big smile makes the lack of sleep not seem so bad 🙂

Shane made us all coffee and Kim made us a delicious egg breakfast with toast covered in avocado. Talking and playing and relaxing before we left Shane with Kaili while Brian, Kim and I drove to Campland on the Bay for a little stand up paddle board action!

Brian went along for the ride and was nice enough to get some pictures of us on our adventure – thankfully we did not fall in! I was more than a little nervous getting in – I thought I was going to fall and crack my head open on the pier..that didn’t happen. 🙂

I did what exactly what the man told me to do, sit on the pier while he held the board and climb onto the board – hands and knees. Slowly got up and all is good, about five minutes go by and I was a little board of it – mostly because I was afraid and not really sure what to do but I was ready to go back. I hear Kim off in the distance say, ” Wow look at all the jelly fish”!!

I hadnt seen them and finally..OH MY GOODNESS..now I was really ready to go back..If I fall in on top of a jelly fish??? That would ruin a day.. Kim convinced me to stay out and I am so glad she did because once you get paddling at a faster pace…S.U.P is F.UN!!!

We ventured off to a little inlet in the bay away from the general population and it was so pretty. A couple of bridges off in the distance, big trees with roots exposed due to weather and water erosion, weathered white boat docks and river rocks with a small beach area. Next time I do this I am definitely bringing a small water proof pouch or something to take a camera. I am sad I did not get evidence!

A watch will be another item I put in the water proof pouch because we had no idea what time it was, we only rented for an hour and we ended up getting back too early. We lost twenty minutes of play time! Oh well..lessons learned and it was still a great time!

Here we are! Photograph courtesy of Brian Warner

Docking these boards was NOT easy! We both crashed and almost fell in and cracked out heads open..Almost…but we didn’t 🙂

Back to the house we went but on the way had to stop at Vons for wine, champagne and Bud Light (for Brian, smh, haha)

Enroute, we saw a mariachi band playing in front of a Del Taco, what? Yes, a mariachi band..playing..in front of a Del Taco..

It was at Vons, two miles from the house, Kim realized the guy at Campland forgot to give her ID back! Good thing Campland really wasn’t that far away AND on the way back Brian would be prepared and be able to take a better picture of the mariachi band – see everything does happen for a reason 🙂

Didn’t happen…mariachi band was on break by the time we rolled back around…boo!

Kaili was still napping when we returned, the grown ups had a DELICIOUS Vanilla/Coconut cake (that was HOMEMADE courtesy of Kim – she wasn’t impressed with herself but I..loved it! And with champagne..mmm mm delightful!

Mid bite of my delicious slice I realized…OH NO…we were supposed to wait for Kaili, she was so excited about the cake I wanted her to be there when we cut it but…oops! I made up for it by getting her out when she woke up from her nap and PROMPTLY…sat her down in front of a glass of milk and a slice of cake..who wouldn’t be happy to have a wake up like that?? 🙂

Soon thereafter, we all went to the train station into downtown San Diego…

I brought my camera BUT forgot to put the battery in it – I was more than a little disappointed. At least I had my phone to document some of this day.

When we stepped off the train there were so many people! Apparently Comic Con is a big deal – later we found out the event was sold out and they sold over 181,000 tickets! Carazy!

I would like to get tickets to next years – we could have sat there all day and walked around and people watched in awe..

We walked a ways, were all hungry so we went to Hodads..I had never been to the downtown Hodads – only in Ocean Beach in the past – this one is off the beaten path (perfect because anywhere else and we would have never been able to eat…sooooo many people) and we only had to wait five minutes! Score! AND I ran into more friends – unexpected, welcome surprise as our friend Martin usually works at the OB location.

There was a mini protest march regarding the Zimmerman trial that put me in a bad place for a minute or so but I won’t get into that for two reasons. 1) I am TIRED of hearing about this trial and 2) That issue is a WHOLE other blog..

All I need to tell you is the food was great, the service was great and we all enjoyed ourselves. OH, and Kim and I got Hodad tank tops (of which I either left at the wine bar, on the train or at the Snyders house…boo00…)

On the way back to the train Kim wanted to take us to a wine bar she likes but it was closed for a private event — we wondered if Alexander Skaarsgaard (sigghhhh) was in there!!

En route to the Fallbrook Winery, which most likely was the better spot anyway (so many crazies to watch!!) we found the Ghostbusters mobile!!

Next door to the winery..there was a whole set up for Sega mega nerds — it was awesome – the people playing looked like they were in HEAVEN!

I think we all pretty much agreed that we should buy tickets to next years event!!

Tomorrow..I’ll tell you about my Sunday! 🙂

Until then blogworld!

Kristi