Quarry Lakes

If you're ever looking for a nice place to enjoy a picnic, boating, swimming, fishing, hiking, or even wildlife viewing, then Quarry Lakes Regional Recreation area is your best bet.  Quarry Lakes incorporates the historic boundaries of two Mexican ranchos and the former Mission San Jose lands. Alameda Creek was the original boundary between Contra Costa and Santa Clara Counties. Alameda County was carved out of these two counties in 1853 and was named after the creek that drains it. 
Z and I took the pig pug out here for a nice walk along the water-bank. Finnegan has this funny tendency to walk only in the shade when he is getting hot and/or tired. As you can see below, he tried to walk only in the shadows of the trees that we passed by. When we stopped to give him a little break, he seemed to enjoy the scenic view (and was probably thinking that his owners were pug abusers for making him walk more than the distance from his bed to his own food & water bowls back home).

Con-GRAD-uations

I feel like I've spent the past couple of weeks running from one graduation to another. Z has three younger sisters and two of them happened to graduate in the same weekend. Z's mom decided to split up their graduation parties and we held them one weekend after the other. The first graduation was held in San Diego where Sister #1 graduated from Z and I's alma mater: University of California, San Diego. Z and I haven't been back to San Diego for 2 years, so it was nice re-visiting all our past hang-outs. Z and I want to go back again and spend more time since we were only there for a couple of days.

The next graduation party was in Fremont  for Sister #2. Z and I helped with the set up, decoration, and food preparation. His sisters and I made Lemon cupcakes (with lemon curd inside topped with lemon cream cheese frosting and candied lemon zest) and Strawberry cupcakes with strawberries inside and a Crème fraîche strawberry frosting.

The cupcakes were a hit and we did not have many left over. There was so much good food at the party that I am pretty amazed at his family's catering-like skills. Here is what I wore to Sister #2's graduation party:

Outfit Details:
Plaid Songbird Dress // Madewell
Cream Knit Cardigan // Forever 21
Green Stripped Market Bag // Etsy
Sky High Peep Toe Sandals in Cognac // Swedish Hasbeens

Please excuse the expression on my face. I think Z was taking too long to take the photo I was about to make a snide remark when he snapped the photo.