Wednesday, February 22, 2006

sisters rule!

Haylie & I had such a fun rest of the weekend. I'm super sad she had to go! :( :(

I love my little sister so much. She always surprises me with her amazing patience, overflowing love and sweetness (she holds my hand all the time and gives me spontaneous hugs all day!! I love that!!!), and her respect for right and wrong. She's such a good kid. She's such a good sister and friend!

Saturday night we decided sushi was in order. Haylie had been craving it and I can personally never say no to sushi! :) I wanted to take her to Godzilla initially, but I looked online and found this new sushi place that caught my eye: Minako Organic Japanese Restaurant. Right on Mission, between 17th & 18th - so it was closer to us, too! So we showered, and headed out for a yummy dinner.

Luckily we got there before any rush & didn't even have to wait! We ordered hot tea, miso & edamame right away. All 3 were delicious... the miso soup there is apparently all organic (I think everything is) and they make it there! It even had mushrooms in it, which I love, but I learned Haylie doesn't... which meant more for me all weekend! :p

me, haylie & part 1 of our delicious sushi dinner! yummm!

Our dinner was AMAZING. The rolls are HUGE. You have to eat them with your hands. Huge chunks of delicious fresh fish, avocado, cucumber. YUMM. We were impressed! They have ton on their menu, too - I wanted to order everything! Also, apparently if you call about 2 hours in advance, you can request brown rice for your sushi! I'm SO doing that next time! The wait staff was really friendly and patient, even when it got busy. One of the main girls there (daughter of the owners?) was really nice and talked to us for a little bit about how the FedEx their fish from Japan, and how they've become popular all by word of mouth. I shouldn't even be posting this here, as the rule is to keep the good places a secret in this town! :p But honestly I got such a warm fuzzy feeling from the place, and our meal was SO delicious, I can't help but sing about it from the rooftops. Go check it out.

After dinner Haylie & I went to the video store and rented two "classics" that I insist she see: The Breakfast Club and Pump Up the Volume.

Hopefully I didn't pollute her innocent mind too much. haha! Watching these two movies made me realize maybe I was more of a rebel growing up than Haylie is? :p Either way, they're both such awesome movies about finding yourself in High School. Reminding yourself that everyone has issues with their parents at that age, and that if they can just hang on, it will get better! Watching Pump Up the Volume again after all these years was soooo fun!! I used to LOVE Christian Slater, and probably watched that movie 20+ times in HS with my friend Drew. It's the movie that turned me onto the Descendants, The Pixies and more. SO RAD.

Sunday we got up, picked up Ali & headed over to Trevor's in the East Bay! We went for breakfast at this Thai Buddhist Temple that serves every Sunday. You have to buy tokens and then they buy you helpings of curry, soup, mango sticky rice, etc. yummmmm! I was really happy Haylie liked it, and luckily it wasn't toooo cold or rainy, cuz it made for a very unique experience. :)

cutie haylie at the thai temple breakfast

After breakfast we headed over to the Albany Flea Market, where we ended up walking away with 5 belts! 3 for me and 2 for Haylie! All for maybe $16? Awesome! I also got a cheapo car charger for my cell phone that I'm a little geeked about. I needed one.

Our flea market scores! (see more in Ali's photos of the day)

Ana, Trevor, Ali, Haylie & me after grabbing coffee

After that we cruised over to Albany Bulb, one of the main reasons for our jaunt across the bay. See, it's currently in danger of getting shut down & turned into some corporate place (see the link to the story above). And the bummer about that is, besides the obvious reasons, is that currently people can roam around this big open area, letting their dogs roam and play AND a bunch of artists have created all these amazing pieces there. Paintings, Rock and Wood Sculptures, Junk Art and more. I wanted to go before it got torn down, so I made it a point to have us take the field trip.

Luckily Trevor had been there before, so he was an awesome tour guide!

It was awesome to get out & walk, explore the art, see the views of the city and hang with my friends all day!

Ali, Haylie & I drove back to the city & decided we should finish the great day off with an ice cream cone. :) So we headed to Swensen's, near Ali's place, and indulged.

Sisters Rule!!

UPDATE: Ali posted her photos! And here's her blog post about the day, too.

::::

Monday we did a few things around here & headed downtown for some power shopping. I got a new jacket I'm pretty excited about & Haylie scored a few jems, too! yay! Us O'Brien girls know how to shop! I have a few more photos on my camera from Monday that I need to download, but there's a ton of new ones from Saturday night & Sunday in the photo album!