Yatta!

Hooray! Vacation has officially started for Gina. I spent all day Friday doing laundry and cleaning out the den so that it could be habitable, then on Saturday Cj and I drove to Ojai, picked up his friend Jordan (), drove up to Santa Barbara and had an excellent sushi dinner before picking up to see Shrunken Head do Fiddler (which, although it clearly needed help with tech, finding its subtlety, and "To Life", was still quite good with some AMAZING choral work, as well as phenomenal acting on the part of Josh, who played Tevye. The costumes were also quite excellent). I'm so very proud of Elle and Sarah. I was really sad I had to leave during intermission to drive home, but even with that we still didn't make it back until three in the morning so I'm glad I did. Ryan, you'll have to apologize to Andrew and Sarina for me, and hopefully Jessica's mom will tell her how great she was. Ach... my little group.

It was predictable, then, that most of us slept late and then loafed about the house for most of today. We headed out in the late afternoon and went shopping downtown at this excellent little resale store that carries lots of used designer clothes. In some sort of miracle (they must not have known what they had), I found a Chanel bag with only minor scrapes on the bottom for

$12.50.

I thought it MUST have been a fake, but I checked the hardware and all the hallmarks were there... so now I am the proud owner of one, slightly scuffed, Chanel bag that should still look nice for the next ten years at least.

We went to a few other stores and Cold Stone's along the way (try the Pumpkin ice cream, it's EXCELLENT), but I guess the night before was leaning on us because we all decided to head for home. When we got there everyone pitched in to cook a pretty fancy meal consisting of:

~ Sliced tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella, olive oil, and basil
~ Curry rice with potatoes, carrots, shrimp, sugar snap peas and banana squash
~ Warm Sake (of which I definitely partook).

I had pasta instead of the curry... I just can't handle the spicy. ;_; What a wimp I am.

Tomorrow we're taking Jordan up to campus so he can check out the place, then probably come back home where I HAVE to start work on the handmade section of Xmas, or I'll NEVER get it done.

For now - LOTR: The Two Towers and wedding magazines. :)