Stephanie is crazy over Tila Tequila
Ok, quick update as I sit here while in front of my laptop while Stephanie intensely watches the season finale of Tila Tequila Shot of Love 2 on MTV.
She liked the Bo guy, but he got dropped like a bad habit.
Now some other chick(yes, Tila is bisexual) named Kristy was actually chosen by Tila, but she is now unsure if she wants to be with another girl.
This is nuts and reality television scares me.
Actual quotes from Stephanie during the show:
“I feel like I was just broken up with…this sucks!”
“Tila Tequila must be SO shallow if she didn’t pick Bo…what is SHE THINKING??”
Wow.
:And now for Steph’s edit:
Ok guys.. this blog is screamin for some good ol’ Steph lovin.
For those of you that don’t know.. i’m somewhat of a reality show junkie. No, not the original reality shows like “Survivor” or “Big Brother” that have some sort of a meaning. I’m into the really shallow dating reality shows that have recently flooded our television, brainwashing, viewing enjoyment time each night. My latest craze as Ryan mentioned above is the lovely (shallow/cold-hearted/worthless piece of bi-whatever/reality show never findin love idiot) Tila Tequila. I didn’t have such strong feelings toward Miss Tequila until tonight in which she made the worst decision of her life.
You see, I have a bit of a running record with these fabulous dating shows. Without fail, every time I choose the winner (or loser depending on how you look at it). Ryan can attest to this. I chose the first winner of “Rock of Love”, I then went on to choose the winner of “Rock of Love 2″, Of course I chose the winner of the first season of “Tila Tequila”, and my all-time claim to fame is my choosing of the latest winner of “Flavor of Love 3″, in which Flave actually kicked the girl off that I picked and later brought her back into the game only to fall in love and choose her in the end as the winner. Amazing, I know.. you don’t have to tell me.
So, when this season of “Tila Tequila” premiered I knew right off the bat who the winner would be. It was blatantly obvious. Bo was the one for Tila, and everybody knew it.. why even continue with the show.. it was a done deal; not for stupid, shallow, pig-headed Tila though. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed really. 
It’s all good though, because like clockwork, Tila’s heart was broken again due to the fact that the useless blondie she decided to try to love was not feeling the same emotions towards the little Tequila girl as she had hoped. In the end, they all walked away with a tear running down their cheek. I saw this one coming.
Well Hello there… I’m actually here too.
Hey guys… It’s steph.. the other half of hupandsteph. The phenomenon sweeping the palo alto’an hills Ok, so maybe we’re not a phenomenon, but we’re definitely doin something crazy out here that’s for sure! It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted, and I promise I’ve not let it slip beneath the cracks, i’ve just been rather busy, as you can imagine.
Since we moved here I landed a pretty sweet gig as a pre-school teacher at The Whistle Stop Pre-school in Palo Alto. I’ve been working there for almost a month, and I honestly love it. Who wouldn’t love spending all day finger painting and playing outside in a sand box. It’s a pretty cool excuse for work if you ask me! Oh, and did I mention that every single day I come home with a crazy story of something that a kiddo has done or said. They really do say the darndest things… I mean Bill Cosby made a show of it right?!?
Since I’ve missed a few weeks of posting on our blog, I couldn’t possibly have the time nor the space to fill you all in on our crazy adventures out here so I’ll just do a quick re-cap of our past Memorial Day weekend. Angie- Ryan’s sister came out to visit us.. and fun does not even begin to describe the time that we had while she was visiting. We took her out to see the ocean, and down to Santana Row the first night that she arrived and wow did we rock that place out!! Here’s the proof.
After dropping Angie off at the airport, the sun actually came out from it’s cave that it had been hiding in while she was here.. haha geeeez. Ryan and I decided to take advantage of the few hours of sunshine left on our looooong weekend and headed out to the dish to do some hiking. We really didn’t know what to expect but as per our typical Californian exploration, we were totally impressed. This place had a 3.5 mile loop that when up and down and up and down and up ect. through the foothills just outside of Stanford. It was an incredible hike and an incredible workout as well. I can’t wait to go back and try to run the thing… ugh haha I’ll let ya know how that goes as long as my lungs or quads don’t explode while I try to conquer those hills Of course we made a video of the hike… we wouldn’t let ya down!
Bikes rule the roads in Palo Alto
If you all think hard enough, I’m sure that all of you can remember the days when your only mode of efficient transportation to any place outside of your neighborhood was to hop on your bike and pedal your ass off. I mean, pedal your ass off ALL day long and not even care about it. We were young, we wanted freedom and it’s way better than having your mom drop you off.
I can honestly say that I haven’t consistently ridden a bike since back in the day when I was fifteen years old and had acne that even Proactiv would be scared of. Back in the day when I would dream about being behind the wheel of a new ride as I rode my bike to Drivers Ed each morning at 6am. Man, those were good times, but the days of peddling, peddling and peddling some more have been long gone up until I moved out here to Palo Alto. Now the bike is back and it’s back in a BIG way. Old people ride bikes, young people ride bikes, girls ride bikes, guys ride bikes and this one guy even rides one of these bikes and I have no idea why.
After becoming part of the biking community I came up with a few reasons of why so many people around here choose the bike as their main mode of transportation around town:
- It’s safe and very bike-friendly: There is a bike lane on EVERY road out here besides interstates. There’s even a Bike Boulevard that runs through the middle of the city and cars are only allowed to travel on a very small portion of it.
- Palo Alto is a VERY environmentally friendly place: It’s amazing how much people care about the environment out here on the West Coast. The only reason why I can think of why they’re so far ahead in the ‘going green’ game is that out here in California you have the most beautiful landscapes that you could ever imagine, which everyone loves and appreciates. When you have mountains, oceans, bays, amazing forests and everything else I think that you tend to want to protect it.
- Healthy and fit is the way to go: I rarely ever see anyone who is overweight out here in Palo Alto and I still have yet to eat any fast food at all. The amount of health-conscience people out here is amazing, which explains why people don’t mind taking the bike to work, etc. My landlord rides his bike 30 minutes away to work every single day and doesn’t think twice about doing it. Amazing.
Anyways, as you can plainly see, the bike definitely rules the road here in Palo Alto and even I ride the Brown Beast (my loaned bike) about two miles to work each morning, which I have totally grown to enjoy over the past few weeks or so. It gets you moving, it’s always amazing outside and burning a few calories in the a.m. never hurts, right?
I will try my best to give you updates on all of our biking adventures and I’ll keep trying to add a few photos like the ones below as well. Enjoy!
UPDATE: I was just reading the Palo Alto website and it appears that we are only one of four cities who have been designated with a ‘Gold Level’ designation. Sweet!
In May 2003, Palo Alto was designated a Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists. This three-year designation ranks Palo Alto with only three other “Gold Level” communities (Portland OR, Corvallis, OR and Boulder, CO). The award is only presented to communities with remarkable commitments to bicycling. The League cited Palo Alto’s strong commitment to education efforts and model policies in their commendation.
Stephanie cruisin’ on a beautiful day
The beautiful Brown Beast
Me and Stephanie trying to ride the Brown Beast at the same time….very, very tricky
This way seemed to work better…but, still very tricky and very, very dangerous
Abdo has his bike up in a tree, but not real sure why
Getting physical in the morning
I have officially finished off the week with yet another morning workout. Amazing. You know, I have always wanted to do the whole morning workout thing, even when I was back in Indianapolis, but now I have officially dedicated myself to the cause and I feel so much better because of it. It’s not always fun getting out of the bed at 6:00am, but by the time I hit the gym and especially when I’m done I feel a million times better about doing it. My gym of choice here in Cali is 24 Hour Fitness in San Carlos, which is only about a 10 minute drive away. It’s actually closer than the gym that I used to frequent back in Indy.
I’m so freakin’ happy that I’m starting to get into a routine that makes me feel awesome throughout the day, lets me hang out after work and that is all around a better way to get my workout in. But, don’t take my word for it - here’s an article that points out a few benefits of gettin’ a little physical in the a.m. - enjoy!
It just keeps getting better
Just when I think things can’t get any better… another fun night rolls around and a new experience completely knocks me off my feet with excitement. Tonight Shannon took us to a fabulous restaurant in San Jose. Straits is a restaurant/nightclub that offers tappas style eating, a bar, and fabulous dancing.
We were completely blown away with this place. The atmosphere was unlike any other. I felt like i was walking down the street to the restaurant with my mouth wide open…. it’s just breathtaking. Straits is right on Santanta Row which is an incredible shopping, eating, and living experience. High-end shops and restaurants line the street and a mass of people flock to the area every night of the week.
The dj was incredible and we ended our meal with some sweet dancing to work off all of the incredible food that we ate. I can’t wait to take our friends to this place to hang out when they come and visit…. You know you wanna go don’t you!!
I “Digg” Nerds!
One of my favorite parts about moving is experiencing all of the fun and exciting events and happenings of a new city. Lucky for us we are only a short 20 minute drive away from one of the coolest cities I have ever been to, San Francisco. It’s truly an incredible city and the options are endless for fun things to do.
Tonight we had the opportunity to go to one of the top-rated night clubs in the United States, Mighty in San Francisco. Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht of diggnation.com hosted their live tech/web culture show at the club and wow was it an experience.
As you can imagine the show brought quite the crowd of nerds out to see the two digg guys talk all about techie stuff that I personally don’t understand a word of. Of course, Ryan and Abdo had a blast and felt right at home!
After the show was over we had a chance to meet both Kevin and Alex ( see above photo where they obviously wanted to leave Ryan out of the picture ) and then later show off some of our sweet dance moves!! I can’t wait to go to more of these awesome events and meet more and more incredible people in this great city. Have I mentioned recently how much I love California?? Well… I do… A LOT!! It keeps getting better and better!
Yee-Haw!!!
For the past week, I have been enjoying some good ol’ Texas fun with my family down in Houston. It’s pretty exciting down here in the hot humidity of the Lonestar state I’ve experienced a great deal of what Texas has to offer including some great shopping, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and the beach at Surfside!
My dad and Shannon have definitely kept me busy with all of the site-seeing and fun activities that they’ve planned. I love it down here, and there is so much to do and see, I feel like I haven’t even scraped the surface of seeing what Texas has to offer. It is a pretty big state I guess. Speaking of big… EVERYTHING is big down here; it’s just the texan style really. If it’s not big then it’s not worth anything, or so it seems.
I’ve had a fabulous time here in Texas with my dad and Shannon and it’s good to finally have a picture of what their life is like down here since I’ve been hearing about it since they moved back in January. I can’t wait to make more trips down here, but I think i might wait to let the hot HOT summer pass before I head back for another vacay.
I head back home to beautiful Palo Alto tomorrow, which I miss A LOT!! Texas is beautiful and lots of fun, but I’ve gotta say that Palo Alto still holds my heart. And I’m beginning to miss that one tall guy a little bit too 
‘Hiromi is my Homi’… Meeting our new “foster family”
Out of all of the excitement of moving to California, there was one thing in particular that Ryan and I were eagerly awaiting…. meeting the Kelty family. After many phone conversations and detailed emails, we finally had the chance to meet our new (what we like to call) foster family,Kurt and Hiromi,and their two daughters Nina and Emma.
Now, everyone knows that a custom designed t-shirt makes any occasion cooler x’s 10 so we decided to make t-shirts that said, “Hiromi is my Homi” and made them appropriately the color green seeing as the Kelty family is very environmentally friendly Needless to say the shirts were a hit and provided just that little bit of extra humor necessary for a warm and friendly introduction into the family.
After being here for only two short days Ryan and I definitely feel at home. Our new little community of cottages has welcomed us like none other, and we eagerly await getting to know the Kelty family as well as our neighbors just a little bit more within the next year. I couldn’t dream of living anywhere else in Palo Alto. We really hit the jackpot when choosing to live with this fabulous family.
Cali Road Trip: Krazy Kansas Edition
Well, ” I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore Toto.” and THANK GOODNESS that we’re not! Yesterday after leaving Neenee’s house we headed out into the great rolling and also BORING plains of Kansas for a day full of driving with scenery that included the following and absolutely nothing more… cow…. farm…. hill…. cow…farm…hill….(repeat, then repeat again, ect.) Yep, there’s not much more to Kansas than that, and after a good 10 hrs of it, I think we were pretty thrilled to be out of that fabulous, wind tunnel state. Did I mention the wind? It was unbearable. That’s all I have to say about that.
Now, despite my terrible review for the state of Kansas, somehow, someway, Ryan and I had probably the best day of driving yet yesterday. I think there’s something to say about a couple who can spend a good 18 hrs in the car and still have the time of their life in the most desolate and boring place in the world. Check out our video below, and be prepared to witness what the state of Kansas has to offer….. cows, farms, hills, and oh yea… WIND!
Check out the video below or check it out over here on YouTube.
So now I sit in my second favorite state, Colorado. If we ever get tired of Cali (which odds are prooobably won’t happen)
then I told Ryan that we’re moving to Colorado because this place takes your breathe away.
Now it’s time to hit the road, judging by our two hour late departure again, I’m guessing that it’s about time we headed out with hopes of Reno, Nv on our mind!!!! Maybe one of us will hit it big on the penny slots and just retire when we make it to Cali. That sounds like a good idea.
links for 2008-04-06
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This guy is traveling all over the nation…amazing.
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16 million views…hilarious!