2010: What Happened?

I was woefully lacadaisical this year in posting to my blog so before I write about 2011, let me recap the year that was 2010.

We celebrated Shmoopie’s 50th birthday in March with a party at the beach in Aptos, CA. We stayed at a resort called Seascape. Andrea’s parents and their partners came as well as her sister Karen and her family. All of the planning was worth it because the weekend went off without a hitch and Andrea was really pleased with her birthday weekend. She ate her annual bacon and eggs breakfast surrounded by her loved ones. We got really fun party favors for the everyone who attended: reusable shopping bags with a cartoon drawing of Andrea printed on them and the phrase Would you trust your mental health to this woman? (She’s a psychotherapist.) Everybody loved the bags!

In early April my folks treated our family as well as my brother’s family to a week at a resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We celebrated my parents 50th wedding anniversary there. Everyone had a blast! The weather was great and we did lots of fun activities like jet skiing, zip lining, boogie boarding and just plain being lazy on the beach. The only down side of our Mexico trip was that it happened to coincide with the Women’s College Basketball Play-offs. I still can’t believe I told my parents that it was okay to schedule the trip during play-off season! I must’ve been multi-tasking when they asked me.

My brother Eric and me in Mexico

Shoreline Amphitheatre was my home away from home for the summer. I finished my 24th season there. Highlights of the season included meeting Elvis Costello, the return of Sarah McLachlan and Lilith Fair, and meeting the American Idol Finalists. Their publicist is an old friend of mine so she invited Natalya to hang out with the Idols before the show. When I asked Natalya if she wanted to hang with the Idols her eyes bugged out of her head. She was speechless (very rare). Needless to say, Natalya had a blast backstage with the gang (and so did Andrea and I). The Idols were really sweet to Natalya and talked to her about following her dreams etc.

Hanging out with the 2010 American Idol finalists

Natalya spent her summer days at school (Bowman is a year-round school). However, she did spend one week at the Stanford Women’s basketball camp. I was just as excited for her to attend the camp as she was -- maybe more so. She had a great time and got to meet and play ball with some of the Stanford players. The week of intense basketball definitely improved Natalya’s game.

Natalya and her favorite Stanford basketball player, Kayla Pedersen

We took Natalya to Disneyland for her ninth birthday and after that, began our search for a dog. We’d promised Natalya several years ago that she could have a dog when she turned 9 -- so we had to make good on our promise. After weeks of searching we rescued “Olive”. She was 4 months old; a Lab-Basenji mix. We really lucked out because she’s a fantastic dog. Very sweet and well-behaved for the most part.. We’re taking her to puppy classes and having lots of fun with her. Now if she would just stop chewing everything in sight life with Olive would be perfect.

Olive at the park

And finally, a moment I will never forget,  the Stanford Women's Basketball Team beat the UConn Huskies on December 30th at Maples Pavilion. The win ended UConn's record-breaking winning streak of 92 games. Shmoopie and I were so elated by the win that we opened our New Year's Eve bottle of champagne a night early to celebrate. Go Cardinal!

Stanford celebrates its big win