renegade craft fair

on sunday after we spent the better part of the day at the flea market we headed back across the bridge (the bay bridge - which I have a total love/hate relationship with) to check out the renegrade craft fairwhich is down at the fort mason centre on the waterI'd describe it as a living and breathing esty store - awesome!
I bought a print from this cute store - The Black Apple
Lost on the Midway - Emily Martin

and I think it goes perfectly on my wall :)
I got lots of comments about the top picture on my wall collage post. isn't she lovely? I won her here and you can buy her too from Kelly Murray's Etsy Store

sunday at the alameda flea market

yesterday we spent about 5 hours at the alameda flea market in oakland, which seems like a long time, but we hardly scratched the surface... it opens at 7:30am and we had good intentions of being there bright and early but 10am was the best we could manage on a sunday morning. the line up was quite long to get in, but I really didn't notice as I was too excited by my celebrity sighting :) see that great yellow floral coat - that's Victoria from sfgirlbybay! but silly me, I was too shy to say hi, and all I could muster was a smile :) check out her great photos hereonce inside the gates there are isles and isles of tables full of beautiful, kooky and vintage things
we had fun with these geeky glasses

the day started out with the usual bay fog making it quite chilly

but as the fog cleared the sun shone down making it hot in the city! (and bryce and I have the sunburns to prove it)

we didn't go too crazy buying things, I bought 3 retro scarves at $1 each and a little red stool/plant stand for $10 and bryce bought a fat tire neon sign for the garage for $30 (although I think he really wanted to take one of these vintage bikes with him too)

but pretty much anything you could think of you could probably find at this place and if you haven't been, and you live in the bay area I really recommend this as a great way to spend a sunday

oh and this guy: I forgot to ask how much they wanted for him, but this is a real live (dead) bear (poor guy), and he really was this tall - we are standing at the same level. his paws were the size of my head! imagine walking into someones house and seeing this guy standing there???

sunday brunch

avocado, bacon, poached egg and melted cheese on top of an english muffinwith freshly squeezed orange juice (from our tree)= perfect Sunday brunch!

poodle (and pooch) parade

on sunday we headed out to the annual poodle parade which as it turns out wasn't exclusive to poodles, there were doggies of all shapes and sizes all over the place!

Hannah with mckenzie, max and cooper poses for a picture while we waited for our turn on the red carpet
gino goes head to head with a french bulldog

we got bored while we waited, there must have been 150 dogs all lined up to strut their stuff, so I thought it would be a good idea to get a cute group photo of gino, charlotte, cooper, mckenzie and max sitting all in a row... here's how that turned out

this was the only cat at the parade - a sphinx cat at that (hairless) and their owners really got into it all dressed up as vampires... I must say I like their umbrella though - I have never seen an umbrella built for 2 (or 3 in this case)

Hannah and Max (awww)
and it was their turn on the red carpet
lots of dogs had to be helped up those stairs, but not little Max, he's a determined little guy
they worked the catwalk and did a trick where Max jumps through Hannah's leg and the crowd was very impressed!
quick stop for the puparazzi (I'm so funny... :P)
dog modeling is so exhausting...
Cody and Gino were up next and he was almost the biggest dog there (so many small fluffy types)
all for the reward of the treat though, hey Gino?awww
ok that's enough now...
this poodle was dressed up like Mr T, I think
we won a $30 gift voucher to a local pet store in a raffle - yay mckenzie!

and now it was Coop's turn, and we were determined to show up clever Max with a combo of tricks :) first high 5
then shake
dance
and then through the leg - yay!
quick photo opand then it was McKenzie's turn which her trick was just making it through without getting too scared (the poor skittish girl)... family portrait

and then they're outta there!
it was so hot so we didn't stick around for much after that, so we cooled down with some frozen yogurt yumminess

sunset celebration weekend and a give-away

I know it was a month ago, but here are my pictures from the sunset celebration weekend held at the sunset magazine headquarters in menlo park. much the same format as last year but still so many cool things to see, great foods to taste, wines to sip and gardens to see :)

first stop for us was some food and wine and then we found these tillamook love loaf buses which bryce instantly bonded with

they were pretty cool - and so nicely fitted out

then it was on to the glam camping area

this was the Paws Up tent, a place where you can camp without roughing it, a place where you can have your own camping butler... I kid you not!

the airstream was more my idea of glam camping

and if I wasn't so claustrophobic this little guy might work

they even rigged up an outdoor shower

Hawaiian airlines had a station to make lei's, which I planned on going back to but ran out of time

Richard Branson had a stall advertising tickets for flights into space
on this plane here - for about $US120K (bargain!)
then it was on to the test garden. I thought this idea for garden beds was genius and so simple.
love their little glasshouse
we met the sunset chickens

the grounds are really gorgeous - be a great place to work

in the test kitchen we learned that the people who work there aren't chefs but real people who cook the family meal. once the recipes have been created they all have to try them out and give feedback before they are published. doesn't that sound like a cool job?this little guy was the messenger on how the recipe went - if the flag is green you can help yourself to the food
if this flag is flying... well I think you can probably figure that one out for yourselves :)I guess this is how they decide what travel articles they'll write for the year - people just stuck pins on this map
then we were off to the courtyard for some wine tasting

this was our favourite wine we tastedwe really didn't get enough time to see everything and they started packing up before we could see it all
so we snapped some pics

and called it a day - next year we'll go earlier!

and now about that give-away... I have a 1 year subscription to Sunset magazine to give away to a lucky reader in the USA (sorry rest of the world, doesn't seem like they ship to you). All you have to do is leave me a comment below to say hi and tell me what city you're in (just for fun) and I will pick a random winner on Sunday 18 July, 2010.

:)

Kate