J and C in California » ginny

Visit with Ginny

christen — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:08:18 +0000

Last weekend Ginny came to visit us in the bay area. Since we only have a 1 bedroom place, she stayed in a hotel right next door. It was great to have her so close by that we could giver her small taste of what our day-to-day is like in the south bay. She and Jesse did some touristy stuff up in San Francisco on Saturday. They visited Golden Gate park and the California Academy of sciences. Then we all went out for dinner at a great Indian restaurant in San Jose called Amber.

Sunday we went shopping at Lululemon (she spoiled us rotten!!!) and went on a short hike up to hunter’s point for the view. We were then joined by Ginny’s colleague Deb for dinner at a Steakhouse in San Jose. It was an extremely tasty meal, however, this most likely may have been Jesse’s last steak… EVER. (More on that to follow in a later post. :)

Monday, I got to accompany Ginny and Deb to their visit with alumni at Google in Mountainview. I accompanied them as the “photographer” and got to see first hand what the Google cafeteria is like and feel the vibe in there. It was great. After that we toured around Palo Alto and the beautiful Stanford campus. Monday night, Ginny came with me to my absolute most favourite Gentle Yoga class at Santana Row. We basked in relaxation.

Tuesday, Ginny and Deb had more meetings with alumni in Dublin, CA. In the afternoon, they accompanied Parker and I to the local dog park. This was definitely the highlight of the visit for Parker. Tuesday night, we got Ginny to ourselves for a quiet dinner at home. It was great to just hang out. We let her listen to some embarrassing tracks we laid down using the “I am T-Pain” iphone application. :)

It was a great time!!!

View the whole trip on Flickr Ginny’s visit to Cupertino or a few select ones below:

Ginny and Charlie’s visit to the Bay

christen — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:04:29 +0000

Jesse’s mom had a conference in San Francisco this past week. They decided to make it a little vacation so Charlie came along too. Poor Ginny was sick with a terrible cold as soon as she got here. We were lucky she was able to come out with us on Saturday to tour the city. I’m sure she would have been much more comfortable with a bowl of soup in bed!

The two of them took the Powell-Hyde cable car to meet Jesse and I by Aquatic park and we then walked down by Pier 39 to see the seals and eat some Mexican food.

After that, we headed out in our car for the “defacto” Golden Gate Bridge photo opportunity and an hour long tour of the city by car.

Jesse drove, while I did my best to remember all the famous sites I’ve learned from going on many walking tours during our time in SF (I can’t say I didn’t consult my iphone google map more than a few times). We felt a little bit of nostalgia, even though we’ve only been out of the city for a few months. It’s a really beautiful place and it’s kind of sad it’s not our home anymore.

On Sunday Ginny and Charlie rented a car and drove down to visit us in Cupertino. They told us the car rental place offered them a PT Cruiser and they flat-out refused it. We had to laugh, cause we would have too, we HATE those cars.

We showed them our little apartment and then toured them past Apple, Google and the Nasa wind tunnel. Jesse has a fascination with wind tunnels ever since he did his Masters research at UWO.

There were no tours of the NASA wind tunnel available (due to increased security since 9/11) but Charlie managed to find a road around the back of it where we could see the massive “intake”. It was really huge. It’s hard to believe they test whole air crafts in this wind tunnel. (I remember that’s what I expected to see when Jesse showed me the wind tunnel he did his research on at UWO for his thesis. I was greatly disappointed when it was only 20 feet long and sat on a table.)

Ginny and Charlie flew home on Monday, we were so thankful we got to spend some quality time.

Photos from Saturday

Most shots were from inside the car and didn’t turn out to well!

Mom Dybenko in Canada’s top 100 Most Powerful Women for 2008

christen — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:07:37 +0000

Jesse’s mom was named one of Canada’s top 100 most powerful women by the Women’s Executive Network. We are so proud of her! This week there was a reception to celebrate her success. It was amazing to watch her in her element and see the impact she’s having at that school.