Pictures from Jeff's Trip to Japan

Jeff spent his 30th Birthday weekend playing a show in Tokyo, Japan. He gives getting a free trip on his birthday 2 thumbs up!!! (picture taken at Tokyo Airport)

Tokyo

The Venue they played at for Summer Sonic

"Jeff Cam"

85 degrees and 90% humidity...at night!


Outside of the hotel

Riding the Subway

Jeff, just casually leaning against a pole at the subway station.

Shopping on Harajuku Street :-)

Jeff came home with some neat stuff!



At a shrine

Yummy Sushi!

And lucky for me, shortly after this picture was taken, he returned home :-) He had a great time in Tokyo, a very memorable trip! Plus he got to play a show in front of thousands of fans, which made the 14 travel hours each way worth it.

Gym and Class Time

Last weekend, Jeff finally gave in to me, and he got a gym membership. 24 hour fitness usually charges about 45 dollars a month for access to all of their gym facilities, plus a set up fee, plus a processing fee, plus first and last month's dues. So signing up for a membership can be pretty expensive (about 250 dollars!). But last weekend, when I went to the gym, there were signs plastering the walls that said "Add on a family member for $25 a month! No Hidden Fees" and so I looked into it. It was a one day only promotion, and so we signed Jeff up for only $25 a month, that's it! No processing fees or set up fees or anything like that.

I had kind of fallen away from the gym lately, choosing to focus on my distance running (I cannot run on a treadmill for more than 20 minutes, because my mind will turn to jello, I just can't focus) and biking...so this is giving me a good opportunity to fall in love with the gym again. There is so much to do there, it's like one big playground. We have been going late at night after dinner (about 9:30-ish) and there aren't many people there...so we kind of have the place all to ourselves. We don't have to compete for equipment...it's really nice!

On another note, this is the first week of my Micobiology lab and lecture. It is a really exciting class...I love it so far. Although it is about 5 hours, it doesn't feel like it. My professor is the biggest dork I have ever met, and that is what makes it so great! He is right there on my level. Last night, he presented a lecture about the father of microbiology, Anthony Van Leeuwenhoek...However my professor got a "guest speaker" to come in to present it (Himself in full seventeenth century costume, soundtrack and props, speaking with a dutch accent, pretending to be Van Leeuwenhoek). I really can't describe how funny it was. He hand wrote in cursive his hour long lecture on a bout 20 different scrolls (for authenticity). It was the most memorable lecture I ever listened too. I am sure there will be more experiences like this in his class! I actually took some pictures with my cell phone, but it doesn't capture the awesomeness of it, but you get the idea:





Next week I start at SDSU for my nutrition courses. I am really excited. I am enrolled in a surfing class right before one of my wednesday evening classes, but I am concerned about making it back to the campus form the beach on time, so I might end up droping that class. This seems like it will be a pretty fun semester! It will be hard, but rewarding too.

Broken Social Scene

For our wedding, a friend of ours got us gift certificates to The House of Blues. We kind of forgot about them until we found our that one of Jeff and my favorite bands, Broken Social Scene, were playing there. They don't come around here often (the last time was in 2003) so we were really fortunate to be able to see them.


Friday night after work, we went downtown to see them. After enduring the pretty lousy opening act (Menomena, wannabe hippies from Oregon) Broken Social Scene came out and sounded even better than I ever imagined. They have been around for about 10 years, so they have had a lot of time to refine their talent together. It is a very large band (as you can tell from the photo) with multiple guitarists, keyboards, drums, and an entire horn section. The cool thing about the band is that everyone will play different instruments and take turns singing. You could tell that they were having a lot of fun too.

As part of their encore, the guitarist/saxaphonist/keyboardist presented his "side project." I forgot the name, something like "The Happiness Project." It was pretty awesome! He interviewed his neighbors and recorded it. Because everyone's voice has a natural melody and tone, he then had another saxaphonist come out and play along with their voices in the exact tone. The interview that he presented was of his old irish neighbor. It is hard to translate how cool it was on paper...but it was really pretty incredible.

We had a really great time at the show, it was a nice start to the weekend. If you ever get a chance to listen to their music, I suggest it. Most people would really enjoy it. They rock, but it's also pretty mellow at the same time. Good stuff!

One Year Anniversary Trip to Santa Barbara

I tried to send out an e-mail with pictures from our anniversary, and they kept coming back to me as undeliverable (to every one!). So here are pictures from our trip. We had a lot of fun. The fourth of August seems so long ago now!

This is us making the long beautiful drive up the coast of California.

We went to Pea Soup Andersons for Lunch (shortly after I almost ran out of gas! I was on a Mission to go to "dutch country" and I didn't realize how far away it actually was from Santa Barbara)

Our cabin. It was very comfortable. It even had free WiFi (score!!!) We ended up renting a movie on iTunes...Talk about roughing it!

We went on a hike up to an organic garden...and Low and Behold, we found goats and Llamas!! It was a lot of fun. Jeff made friends with the billy goat (he was pretty awesome!)

We also spent a lot of time down on the beach. We were able to check out these neat little beach cruisers.

One of the best things about the trip was sitting around our campfire at night...roasting marshmallows and hot dogs! We also were able to enjoy the bright starlight sky...something that we don't usually see at home. We also got to make several wishes on the shooting stars that we caught.

Before we left, we horsed around a bit outside...We had fun...

The End

Welcome

Hello!

Welcome to my blog!!!

I will offer you a quick disclaimer: I am not good with these things :-) I don't post often and when I do post, I am not the most colorful writer...

...But I have decided that I am going to try to keep this thing in "tip top shape" and make it worth checking out. Life is very busy, yet also very fun and exciting right now. Hopefully I will provide you all with lots of great pictures and stories of all the happenings at the Hibshman household.

Thanks for thinking of me and checking out my little world.

Love,
HibshManda