I’m joining the Marvelous Monday festivities this week!

Marvelous is/was…..my SUNDAY

A “field trip” out of the city to a suburb yesterday.  We went hiking on a really pretty path and walked around the town.  Ahhh, so relaxing and such a nice day.

Marvelous is….house hunting for fun!
We stopped by a few open houses after the hike and found one that we both LOVED.  It’s about, oh, a million dollars over what we can afford right now, but it’s fun to dream, decorate in our imaginations (hey- I would put this here and get this for this room, etc) and actually quite motivating (hmm, how can I make more money?).

this one was really cute and special inside!

Marvelous is….our engagement photos!

They came out really nice and we’ve had fun looking at them.  This is the only one I have that I can save to my computer so I’ll share more once we get the rest.  Charlie was a trooper.

Marvelous is….warm, sunny weather!

Or is that not so marvelous?  I’m really afraid that there’s a hug drought starting since it’s rained only like 5 times this whole winter, but the sun does feel nice.

Marvelous is….finishing our wedding errands!

We checked off two more tasks off our lists this weekend and now we’re pretty much done with all the “meetings” for a while! Whahoo!! I still have plenty to do, but I get to take a break for a little.

wedding venue

Marvelous is….Saturday date night.

With some weekends out of town, some weekend guests, just a lot of stuff going on, we hadn’t had a date night in a while.  Sooo we decided to change that and ate at a cute Italian restaurant I’ve been wanting to try.  It was really fun and much needed!

Marvelous is….Argo!

I finally saw it via payperview Sunday night!  Really liked it.  Plus, can’t get enough Ben Affleck.

Marvelous is….the Farmer’s Market.

Fresh fruits and veggies…plus it’s right across the street so I don’t have to go anywhere to do my shopping (yes, I’m lazy lately).

Marvelous is…..SWIMMING again.

Remember when I used to go swimming twice a week? Yeah well in the past three months, I’ve barely gone at all.  I finally bribed myself into going on Friday night (my bribe was time on the couch watching tv if I went to the gym) and it felt so good.  Welcome back, swimming!

Marvelous is….all the blog giveaways lately!

There’s some good ones lately and I want to win!! A bike? A blender? Yes, please! How amazing would that be?  I know the odds are against me, but fingers crossed……

So you tell me…

– Did you like Argo?  Ben Affleck fan?
– How’d you spend your Sunday?
– What do you usually order at a Greek restaurant?
– What’s something your dream house MUST have?
– How often do you have date night?

I took a day trip on Sunday!

Bright and early Sunday morning, we caught an early flight from SF to LA.   The flight’s a little over an hour, so not too difficult for a day trip (though usually makes way more sense to go down for longer given the airport time and plane flight costs.)  Driving takes 8 hours, in case you were curious.

I really wanted to see my great-Aunt and Uncle who are in their late-80s and some friends who I haven’t seen in way too long.  It was a last-minute-ish trip, but worked out really well.

The alarm went off at 5:30 (yikes, early for a wknd).  I showered, dressed, and ate a quick breakfast.  Almond Butter on Toast with a banana.  I was surprisingly really hungry for that early in the morning.

And then left by 6:30 to make our 8am flight.  We parked in one of the long-term parking lots and the airport was so empty luckily (Sunday morning of a long-weekend, so we missed the rush).

I needed coffee as soon as we got to the airport.  I was fading fast.

Virgin America’s in a new terminal that has really, really good restaurants….basically, a bunch of the really good SF restaurants all opened spots there.

I got my coffee at the Kara’s Cupcakes kiosk that shared its spot with a Napa olive-oil-jam-fresh-baked-goods-etc shop.  Everything looked so good!  Unfortunately, I wasn’t hungry.

My hair thing was weirdly wrapped around my finger all day….not sure what was up with that!

And then about an hour and a half later, we were in LA!

Rental car pick-up, quick drive to Venice beach, and a little while later…..it was 11:30 and time to meet my Aunt and Uncle for brunch.  We went to Rose Cafe,  a really cute cafe with a huge shaded patio area.  My breakfast was early, so I was def hungry for lunch by then.  I got a chicken pesto sandwich that was great, but way too filling (could only eat half).

Jared got the french toast to the right (yum!) and you can see my Uncle’s oatmeal in the back (topped with a ton of strawberries and fresh granola!).   It was nice to see my great-Aunt and Uncle.  They can’t come up to SF anymore (too far, too hard for them- they’re in their mid/late 80s) and I don’t get down to LA often enough. Always fun to hear all their stories.

Afterwards, we were trying to meet up with one of my friends, but he ended up in a golf game that went longer than expected so the timing didn’t work out.  Instead, we enjoyed the LA sunshine (was cold in SF fri and sat last week) and walked along the beach.

Jared got a softie cone with sprinkles. The ice cream was too pretty not to photograph (and I held it while he paid, so couldn’t resist). What’s up with that hair thing on my thumb all day, ha!

BTW- Jared was a trooper– on Saturday, he had a double-brick for his ironman training.  His training has really stepped up in the past couple weeks and is going to be even more intense.  A double-brick means that he started at 7:30am and biked i forgot how many miles, let’s say 25 (so about an hour and a half), then they ran for 40 minutes, then they biked another 25 miles, then ran for another 40 minutes.  With all the transition time, etc, it’s really exhausting.  So it was awesome that he was still able to get up early and have such a busy day on Sunday.

We sat on the beach for a couple hours.  I read, napped, and played in the water.  It was heaven!  We don’t have beaches like this in SF and I so wish we did!

I bought a Pineapple-Coconut Juice from Starbucks to drink.  It’s the new Evolution Brand that I feel like “everyone” is talking about lately.  Have you tried it?  It’s pure fruit, no sugars or anything added.  I thought it was pretty good.  I don’t often buy juice, but the next time I’m in the mood for it, I’d probably buy it again.

I also bought TWO water bottles because I was so dehydrated all day.

Around 4, we met Jared’s friend at the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. We walked a while before eating an early dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

The promenade always has street performers (a lot of musicians, break dancers, this weird clown, etc) and is really lively. It was extra crowded on Sunday.  I shopped a little while the boys talked (didn’t buy anything) before we went in to dinner.

The restaurant was really dark inside so I didn’t bother taking photos, but I got a salad with chicken, avocado, corn, carrots, etc and ate one of Jared’s tostada appetizer.  It was all good and gets an 8 out of 10 for bar/Mexican food (I think this place is better known for it’s margaritas than entrees, so I was surprised….just sayin’)

And then before I knew it, we were back at the airport ready to fly home.  I randomly ran into a guy I went on a trip to Israel with like 4 years ago and hadn’t seen since then (love when that happens! and he recognized me first).

Virgin has direct TV and I watched Men in Black II for the entire flight home.

And then finally, we were home around 11.  It was a long day, but a good one.

Monday wasn’t too shabby at all either!  I’ll post it on Wednesday for WIAW, but it included a run, more shopping (good sales!), a really good lunch with friends at an outdoor restaurant on the water, and just mellow summer stuff.  I’m still not ready to go back to work after my nice long week off, but I do feel more relaxed and in a much better place than I was before my week off.  Staycation success.

Hope you had a terrific 3-day weekend!

– Are you usually hungry before an early flight? (I know a bunch of people who say they can’t eat…but I’m always hungry before)
– Have you taken any one-day trips via plane lately?
– Do you call your Aunts and Uncles “Aunt/Uncle” or just by their first name?
– Did you do anything summery this weekend? Any beach time?
– Have you tried the Evolution juices?

It’s race weekend again! Jared did the Silicon Valley Tri (half ironman) today, so I tagged along to be his cheering squad.

I spent Friday morning making funny signs

Even though the race is only an hour and a half from SF, we went down Friday afternoon to register and stay overnight.

Good thing we did because we hit ridiculous traffic. It took almost 3 hours.

Road trip!

Registration was at a reservoir (swim start) that was in a really, really rural area. I just hung out while they set up their stuff.

And then (finally), we went to dinner. Italian, of course. We sat on the patio. Since I had no reason to carbo-load, I stuck with a salad.

And then to the hotel for a quick visit to the hot tub before passing out.

Race Day was pretty typical. We woke up ridiculously early with two cell alarms and a hotel wake up call

Drove to the swim start. I said goodbye to both of them

Sat in the warm car for 20 minutes or so (much better than just standing around the lake) and ate breakfast. Banana and yogurt

Before watching the swim. I caught up with Jared before he went into the water and then was in the sidelines when he got out. He did great! (photo not of him

I saw them out on the bike and then got into the car to drive to the second transition spot (and then race finish). It was a nightmare! A rural narrow road and they put the cars on the same road as the bikers! It was horrible and i had to constantly be going around them (dangerous), plus I didn’t get service out there and my gps didn’t work and I got super lost. Took me an hour instead of 30 minutes. Ugh!

When I finally parked, I was still all frazzled from the drive. Luckily, there was an ENORMOUS Whole Foods down the street and i still had 2 hours to kill, so I walked over there. There’s something so calming about walking around whole foods (sad but true!).

Confession- I broke my no coffee streak and ordered a soy cafe au lait. I felt a little guilty, but my intention was never to give it up completely, just to stop having to rely on it, and that’s still true for sure.

I must have looked exhausted or something because I ordered a small, paid for a small, but then she handed me a large! Ha. But oh well, I drank every drop.

Sipped my coffee while I wandered around the store.

I walked back, wandered around the booths/festival thing for a sec, and saw him start the run

The run was a loop, so I walked about a mile to a spot on the run course and found a bench where I could wait for him to pass/cheer/relax in the sun. There were a ton of pedestrians out for a dog walk on a nice day and they all stopped to talk to me about the race- kinda fun

Yes, I wore my “I heart my triathlete” shirt (compliments of Jared), took photos, and rang my cow bell (annoying sound, but I do think it’s motivating). I tried to read too, but only got through 5 or so pages.

I saw Jared pass twice (mile 5 and 8) and then walked back to the finish line to see him and our friends finish. Yay! He did great. PRed for half ironman! Proud of him. (scarf in photo helps prevent an asthma attack when he finishes- weird trick, but it works!)

We hung out in the sun for a little while and then drive home (luckily only took an hour). Now, I’m sitting on the couch trying to motivate to go downstairs and swim laps in the pool. Cheering is exhausting (no joke!) but I need some real exercise too…..

Exciting Saturday night plans include pay per view

–Anyone do a race this weekend?
–What do you have planned for this weekend’s workouts?

I’m back!  It was hot, crowded, and fun!  Logistically, camping and a triathalon is totally hard….I was one of the few non-racers in the site, so I have a different perspective (and was subject to a TON of triathalon talk this weekend…), but all in all, everyone who raced seemed to have a blast.  It’s def a full weekend EVENT, in a way that other races are not.

Friday-  The drive took about 3.5 hours.  The car was packed solid.

It was beautiful once we got to the park

Went to the expo

Set up camp– it was super crowded, people we literally putting their tent anywhere they could find a little space.

So you can get an idea how packed it was, this is what the grounds looked like- cars & tents everywhere!

Friday dinner- I carb-loaded for spectating   while swatting bugs

And then everyone literally went to sleep at 8:30pm.  I was exhausted, so had no trouble with that!

Saturday began early and was filled with spectating.  The day looked a lot like this:

Spectating:

And laying in the sun:

But spectating actually makes for a pretty busy day (not just relaxing the whole time)– I always feel like I’m running around all day and doing match calculations trying to figure out when they’ll be at the exact spot I’m at.  It’s also pretty boring, there’s a ton of down time and this race didn’t give good advice on very many places where you could go to see them.  Luckily though, I have a nice tan from the day.

The swim:

While sipping coffee

The bike:

The run-

I sorta messed up spectating here.  He was a lot faster on the bike than I thought, so I must have missed him by 2 minutes (was filling up my water bottle…), but obviously, I didn’t know that, so I stood in the hot sun for TWO hours waiting for him to cross.  Of course, toward the end when almost everyone had gone, I realized there was no way he could have been THAT slow (even with a hard course), so I must have missed him.  And sure enough, only like 20 minutes later, he was crossing the finish of the race.  Haha, happens!  But unfortunately, that took up a huge chunk of my day.

And then I chilled with him post-race– there was band, etc and we hung out in the grass until he felt well enough to walk back to the campsite.  It was 6pm by then, so I grabbed dinner from a food vendor.  It looks gross, but it was a taco salad with beans, lettuce, chicken, and salsa.

Followed by a margarita back at the campsite.  No s’mores though, can you believe it?! We brought all the stuff but no one (including me) felt like eating them.  Oh well, now that we have the stuff, we’ll have to roast marshmallows at the bbq one night soon!

The night was filled with a LOT of triathalon talk and all the details of everyone’s races.  For a non-triathlete, I def know a lot of the language, how to “transition” well,  and what’s “good” or “not good” practice.  And not surprisingly, most of them were exhausted and went to bed pretty early again.

Sunday-  This post is getting long, so I’ll make Sunday brief.  They were closing the road for Sunday’s Olympic Tri, so we had two options– leave before 8am or stay until they opened it back up again at 3pm.  We ended up waking up early on our own, so we left early.  It was the right decision.

Turned it into Sunday Fun Day!  We stopped at fun places all along the drive back.  It was still HOT out (mid-80s) so this truly felt like the first weekend of Summer (can’t believe it’s here ALREADY!).

On the drive back….

Outlet Shopping-

Mini Golf:

A street fair with Funnel Cake

Hot tub and a loonnnngg shower

And a few hours of tv.

I slept really good last night– love all the fresh air.  It’s another 80 degree day here and soo nice.

– Have you ever camped before a race?
– Would you choose funnel cake or a softie cone at a street fair?
 – Are any of your significant others super involved with something that you end up supporting?

Life feels like it’s been all over the place for me lately.  A lot of balls up in the air, a lot of negative/glass-is-half-empty type energy.  It sucks. But enough of that.

Sometimes in life, you just have to be thankful for the little things.  They really add up, but if we close our eyes to them, it’s easy to forget they are there.  This weekend was full of many little things.

This weekend, I am thankful for pedicures with good friends who make you laugh.

Massage chairs.

The local nail place that offers you baked goods, candy, champagne, and wine….EVEN at 10:30am.

Which of these would you pick?

And for the newest little friends who come on their first visit to the nail salon and fall asleep in your arms while their mama finishes up her pedicure.

Sleeping while his mama finished up her pedicure

And sometimes in life, the simple things are all that matter.

What is something you are thankful for from this weekend?

On Friday, Jared and I were planning to go to Tahoe for our last ski weekend of the season.  As I mentioned in just about every  post last week, it’s been raining HARD around here.  And of course, Rain in SF = Lots of Snow in Tahoe.  We knew it was going to be a slow drive up, so we both took a half day of work and left the city at 3pm.  It normally takes 4 hours to get to the cabin.

6 hours
4 random gas station bathroom stops
and
1 surprisingly tasty McDonald’s salad later……

It was 9pm and we were JUST reaching the base of the mountain.  It was raining hard the whole drive and had quickly gotten dark.  At our dinner drive-through stop, we thought about turning back, a little intimidated how our little two-door car was going to handle the upcoming snow, but decided we wanted to go and trudged on.

Half an hour later, the rain turned to slush—big, drops of slush– and the roads were slipperly.  And then the slush turned to snow.  On the already dark, curvy highway, the power was out and it was pitch black.  The headlights were shining into the snowflakes and instead of making it easier to see, it was almost blinding.  We couldn’t see the lane lines either.

We were going only 20 miles an hour…..and still had another 20 miles before chain control kicked in so we felt like we were going to slide all over…..and even after that, we still had 60 miles to go.

I know all you mid-western and east coasters are probably thinking we’re babies for being freaked out of snow, but let’s just say….it’s a windy, curvy, dark, mountain road and def not salted or cleared.  And yes, we’re Californian and Floridian and def not used to driving in snow!

So after only 5 minutes of it, we both looked at each other and said, “let’s turn around.”  I think I held my breath on the ride back.  I should have taken photos, but frankly, I thought the car ride was going to be the least eventful part of the weekend and so wasn’t even thinking about it.

Though I did think to take this random photo. lol

With Jared’s trust hotel.com app, I looked up hotels in the area and we found one sort of close by in Grass Valley.  So Tahoe/snow/ski trip aborted……and off to an old-west gold mining town we went.

It was after 10pm by the time we got to the hotel….over 7 hours in the car and we were more than ready to relax.  Turned into a spontaneous weekend trip!

We woke up the next morning to our free hotel breakfast.  I absolutely love breakfast in the hotels.  I have no idea why (and Jared thinks I’m crazy), but something about it all being free and so cozy, I just love it.

French toast station (aka, what Jared ate)

I had oatmeal with half a banana and two cups of coffee.  Plus a glass of oj.

The weather seemed better and we considered trying to go back up the mountain now that it was light out, but realized we would have gotten into the same issues coming home on Sunday (which was when the worst snowstorm was going to hit), so decided that staying was a better option.  So off to sightseeing we went!

We started at the Empire State Park, which is one of the oldest gold mines in California, established in 1850.  It was a huge gold mine back then and now a preserved state park.  They have a little museum and you can walk around and see how everything worked, even go down into the mines.  Really interesting and such a big part of California history.

The mines

Really pretty grounds

Where they weighed the gold

The "cottage" (aka, house of the guy who owned the mine)

We went down into the mines

Jared on the track that took the miners underground every morning. Geez, what a dangerous life that way

After our mine tour, we went to the little town of Grass Valley and walked around.  It looks just like an old west town. 

There’s the oldest hotel in California (filled with Mark Twain stuff), and cute little shops and restaurants.  It’s nice to find a town nowadays with no chain-stores.

We had lunch at Main Street Cafe & Bar, which turned out to be SUCH a great choice.  It’s Mediterranean and was really cute inside.

We had the best waiter.  And we both loved our meals.

I got a grilled chicken salad with buckwheat noodles and a peanut dressing on the side.  It was delicious.

After lunch, we drove over to the neighboring town, Nevada City (yes, randomly Nevada City and Nevada County are in California….not Nevada).  It’s also a historic gold rush town and slightly bigger than Grass Valley.

It’s adorable—and my kind of town—there were 4 ice cream and candy shops within 4 blocks!  We stopped for hot cocoa and goodies at the candy shop.  I got a caramel and dark chocolate dipped marshmallow.  It was AMAZING!  Sorry, my pics of it didn’t come out.

And then, we started the drive home, which luckily only took 2.5 hours.  We  made bbq chicken pizza (recipe tomorrow!) for dinner and hung out on the couch watching Hancock (Will Smith is so great) and Outbreak on tv.

We were going to grab drinks for St. Patty’s day…..but as happens a lot lately, it was super late before we knew it and so we nixed our plan.  We turned off the tv and played cards instead.  I lost and am still mad about it!  Now it’s Sunday and I must say, it’s been sooo nice to have the whole day with nothing planned (went swimming, caught up with long-distance friends on the phone, cleaned my whole apartment, and did a kajillion errands– feel so productive!).

Anyways, so that’s the story of how my ski cabin weekend in Tahoe turned into a random hotel-gold mining-old-west trip instead.  Random!

Do you like hotel breakfasts too or am I the only one?
Have you ever changed plans mid-trip before?
Any green beer for st patty’s day?

Hola, Happy Monday.  Good weekend, everyone?

Tahoe was really nice.  It snowed all last week, but it was in the 60s all weekend– meaning skiing in t-shirts (or many with no shirts!) and a tan.  Also meant 13 people in a 3 bdrm cabin and crowded slopes (ran into a handful of people I knew- love that!)

Instead of telling you what we did, thought I’d just show you.  I didn’t take too many pics, but enough for some highlights.

Left Friday after work.  Stopped in a small town for the most random Texas bbq.  It was totally random…..and really fun.

Best bbq was an overstatment, but this was the vibe of the place, lol

Yes, I went to a bbq place and didn't get any meat.....sorry to disappoint. This sounded better to me (and it was awesome)

Luckily, I was eating with two meat-eating guys

Bathroom pic.  Full length mirror, couldn’t resist.

Saturday morning SKIIING

Awwww, prettiness

Lunch in the lodge.  Notice the 6 glasses of water in the background.  Yes, I drank them all!

Few more hours of skiing and then Post Skiing Beers.  Ahhhhh, yes please!

Breakfast Sunday morning in the cabin.  Always an event when 13 people are there.

These got eaten in less than 12 hours

Rules for breakfast: Sit where ever you can find space. Drink as much coffee as possible. Laugh.

More skiiiiiiing.

Lunch #2.  Healthy food, I was impressed.  It’s a vegie/tofu/chicken stirfry.

Post-ski Fro yo, of course.  I only ate a little because it actually wasn’t very good.

Left the resort at 5pm, went back to the cabin to shower and eat a quick dinner, started home around 6:30.  Busy day!

Long drive meant we had to stop for ice cream at the halfway point, of course.

Would you believe it was my FIRST Dairy Queen experience?  Oreo blizzard.  Not impressed, unfortunately.  One bit.  Not very good.  Sorry to offend anyone who loves it there

And then back home at 10:30…….and asleep by 11!

Come on weather, SNOW MORE so we can go skiing again!

Do you like Blizzards or Dairy Queen Ice Cream?
AND I know people in NY do Hamptons houses, Michigan gets leases at the Lake, Boston at Cape Cod, and SF does Tahoe ski cabins……What do they do in your area?   

Despite the sunny, blue skies out my window

My car is filled with these

Goggles and warm jackets have been pulled out of storage

Healthy food/ everything I didn’t want to leave in my fridge…..is all packed up

It’s time for a Tahoe weekend!

Leaving later tonight. It’s been snowing up there all week (finally!) so should be jam packed on the slopes but a blast.

Whoo hoo! Fun stuff.

Who’s been skiing this year?

How’s that for a random title?

Do you like the flavor of lemon?  Even a little bit?  If so, then you MUST make this.  Trust me.

My mom loves everything lemon: lemon tarts, lemonade, lemon chicken, etc.  So for her birthday, this was the perfect recipe. I got my bake-on yesterday afternoon.

This was a fun, not-so-difficult recipe.  My only fail was that my mixer somehow broke JUST when I was starting the frosting.  At first, it got a mind of it’s own and started increasing speed without me touching anything– speed 1-7 in ten seconds and no control.  Then it just stopped working alltogether.  I’m so bummed.  I love that thing, use it all the time, and it’s not very old (2 years).  I have to check the warranty.

Notice that my mixer was working here

Oh well.  Despite the frosting looking a little funny, the cake still came out delicious.  Fluffy, sweet, lemon-y.

Cooling cakes next to lemons used for the frosting......oh so good.

I would make this recipe again.  It’s gluten free, by the way.  NO ONE NOTICED (and I didn’t tell them! haha, sneaky me).

We celebrated her birthday last night with a Murder Mystery Dinner!  It was circus themed.

Started with circus themed appetizers– Mini Corn-dogs, flavored popcorn, peantus, etc.  My sister did a great job with the apps.  My dad put circus decorations all over the house.

Corndogs, popcorn, peanuts. Where's the cotton candy??

We dressed in costume for our characters.  I was the bearded lady (who it turned out was actually a man!).

See the strong man?

Even Charlie had a character

Ate dinner inbetween clues.

Plus chicken and rosted veggies and a yummy roll

And then, of course, dug into dessert.  Luckily, we let the murderer eat dessert too.

Especially because the murderer turned out to be the birthday girl!

The birthday mom in her gypsy circus outfit ready to blow out candles

This was a fun way to celebrate.  Happy Birthday, Mom!

Like lemon?  Think I should have told them it was gluten-free?
Have you done a murder mystery party?

Happy Weekend!!

I have 3 random weekend things for you today:

Random Thing # 1)
I think the groundhog might have made a mistake. It looks a lot like spring already around here. Does this mean summer will start in April? Yes, please.

Random Thing # 2)
I was at Costco the other day. Check this out– a very, very lazy person’s burger. The meat, bun, cheese, lettuce, and tomato are already frozen together. All you do is heat it up.

Bun, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and meat--- all frozen together. All you do is stick it in the microwave.

Is it just me or is this disgusting not appetizing?

Side note: they also now have exercise clothes at Costco. Nice job, Costco!

They sell them at your Costco too?

And lastly, Random Thing #3)
Today is National Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk Day. (I’m not making that up, it really is).

Source

So whatever happens today, don’t let it bother you. Take a deep breath, smile, and pour yourself another glass of milk.

Are you good at not crying over spilled milk?

Anyone know how they pick what gets to have a national day? Like, who decided it would be a national day to not cry over spilled milk on feb 11th? I would like that job, please.