The Not-So-Crazy Adventures of Dan and Jenna

Julie Comes to Visit

2012-01-29T18:09:00.000-08:00

When Julie asked if she could come have a girls-only weekend in December with me during one of our Sunday night chats, I nearly jumped through the phone and bear-hugged her. Of course she could come! We were so excited to actually get to spend some quality girl-time together!

I picked Julie up from the airport on Friday and the very first place we went was Bay Street in Emeryville.
There is no one I like shopping with as much as my best friend. In fact, I don't do a whole lot of it without her. We stopped at Pizza My Heart for lunch before our shop-til-we-drop event. And shop-til-we-drop we did. In fact, we may have kept going a bit longer than we had the energy to. H&M, Express, Banana Republic, Coach, Loft, and Ikea with a refuel at Teacake Bake Shop with some to-die-for cupcakes. We spent the evening torturing Dan with our girl talk and showing each other this and that on my laptop. You could not have shut us up if you tried. Our extreme fatigue finally did us in.

We woke up the next morning excited for something we share a great love of - Half Day Cafe. Hands down the best breakfast in Marin. After stuffing ourselves silly, we did more shopping. Yes, more. We hit up the Northgate Mall and stopped into H&M, Gap, Baby Gap, and Forever 21 before heading home for some napping and rest-time before our big evening.

First, we went to one of my favorite restaurants ever - Poggio in Sausalito. You might remember it from my office Christmas party posts (which I didn't go to this year in favor of hanging out with Miss Julie). It absolutely did not disappoint.
My lemon-and-ricotta-stuffed ravioli with dungeness crab

Julie enjoying her spinach ricotta gnudi with beef ragu and parmigiano

We had also had wood fired lamb meatballs in a marinara sauce and crostini to start...we ate it too fast to take pictures. :-)

After an absolutely amazing dinner, we headed into the city to see...
the SFB Nutcracker!

The ballet was beautiful, as always, and Julie loved it. I was so excited to share it with her. Not to mention our seats were baller.

We weren't quite over yet...we decided to get dessert after the ballet and I had a surprise for Julie. She had told me a few weeks before that she and Matt had gone to The Cheesecake Factory, got cheesecake, and was sorely disappointed in it. My shock was enormous. Cheesecake Factory cheesecake - bad?! So while she was on the phone to Matt as we drove back into Marin, I sneakily drove us to CF. She looked a little nervous and reminded me that she didn't like it, but I assured her I knew what I was doing. Thank goodness that girl is trusting (and too nice to fight me on it). We ended up deciding on the Godiva chocolate cheesecake and I am thrilled to say Julie's mind has been changed. I just couldn't have her going through life with such a bad impression of such good cheesecake.

Sunday morning was far too short as we went to church, ate our Poggio leftovers, and drove Julie back to SFO. We had the best weekend together and I am so grateful for the wonderful memories we made and the time we got to hang out, just the two of us. Making friends in Marin has been hard for me and having Julie here was just more than I could have asked for. A truly blissful weekend (and gorgeous weather the whole time to boot!).

Dan's Office Holiday Party

2012-01-29T17:29:00.000-08:00

You know I look forward to this party 364 days a year. Like, as soon as it's over, I'm waiting for the next one and for one reason only:

The food is on. point. Ready? Here we go:

Round One:
Clockwise from top: Chocolate tart, chocolate glazed creme puff, chocolate petit four, swan-shaped creme puff, chocolate hazelnut mochi (japanese ice cream-stuffed rice ball), pumpkin tart, and the chocolate mousse shooter with shaved white chocolate on the upper right.

Here's the thing: I love food and I especially love sweets. It's a miracle that I'm not on The Biggest Loser. Seriously. So when I see food that I want, my first thought is "I need to get that before someone else gets it and I don't." Because that - well, that would be a huge tragedy. So I got all the ones I wanted most first, which included (obviously) a lot of chocolate.

Anyway.

Everything was amazing, although the glaze on the swan puff was a bit too sweet. It was really adorable, though.
See?

Round Two:
Clockwise from top: Pizza-stuffed pretzel bite, white cake with strawberry, crostini with smoked white cheddar, creme puff, piggy in a blanket, strawberry kebab, cheesecake tart.

Really, I should have done this the other way around. Started with the protein and (somewhat) lighter desserts, then gone back for the rich stuff. Because making it through this plate was a little painful. Absolutely necessary, but painful. Oh well. It was worth it.

Just 320 days until the next one. I'll be there.

Early December

2012-01-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

-The cheer team had our annual wreath fundraiser and man, organizing that was more stressful than I was prepared for. Working with people who don't follow through on their word will do that, you know. Anyhoo, one of the things I had to do for the fundraiser was meet the delivery truck when it came into San Rafael with one of the team dads and the wrestling coach (who also participates in the fundraiser with his team). So, after tracking this truck all day, I finally got a phone call at 1:30am that he would be at the Home Depot in half an hour. I hauled myself out of bed, called the two guys and woke them up, drove down to Home Depot at 2 in the morning, and waited almost 45 minutes after we got there for him to show up. Good grief. I waited with the wrestling coach while he attempted to shove 144 wreaths into his small SUV. It took a while and a great deal of effort, but he finally did it and I was home by 3am. I told you this story to tell you this: I had my phone on loud as to not miss the call, I called the two guys on my way out of my room, and was gone for an hour and a half in the middle of the night. When I woke up later that morning, Dan gave me a puzzled look and asked, "Did your delivery guy never call you last night?" He slept through the whole thing. Never even knew I was gone. Good to know if I ever need to sneak out of the house. ;-)

-Our office exchanges names for birthdays every year and you make a dessert for the person whose name you get when their birthday comes around. This year, I got one of our hygienists, who makes some of the most amazing food and baked goods and despises any food that comes out of a box. Oh, crap. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday; she responded a pie would be nice and she liked things with fruit. Okay, let's see...it's December, what fruit is there around? Apples were pretty much the only thing I could think of that was readily accessible. The only pie I had ever made was a pumpkin pie and a chicken pot pie - both fairly easy. But an apple pie...from scratch? *gulp* Granted, she didn't ask for an apple pie; I got there on my own, but once I did, I was determined. Go big or go home, right? So I asked Dan to help me track down his grandmother's recipe, which he did (thanks to Helen and Naomi!) and I gave it a go. The result? Well...
Oh, dear.

I sent that picture to Dan in a panic; he suggested making a strudel to put over the top, but I was out of cinnamon at that point (Dan's grandma's recipe calls for A LOT of cinnamon) and I needed to get going if I was going to get this to work in time for lunch. So, I pushed the crush around a bit and came up with...
...this. Not so bad...right? In any case, it was better than before, so I prayed that my high-standards co-worker would forgive me the ugliness of it and hopefully it would taste right. (BTW, I was not so ambitious as to make the crust; it's the Pillsbury pre-made roll-out crusts that I use for everything. Love them.) Thankfully, said co-worker was touched and impressed by my ambitiousness, gave me some pointers on how to keep the crust together, and agreed that the pie tasted amazing - just like I remembered. Thank. Goodness.

-Naomi had her annual Cookies and Kinect party, which we both were able to make it to this year (I wasn't able to go last year). It was a lot of fun and good, yummy goodness. I beat the reigning Dance Central whiz-kid, which was extra-fun. I sure had to work for it which, to be honest, I wasn't expecting. I'm used to being the most experienced dancer in the room - not the best dancer ever, but certainly in the room. I sure had some competition that evening. Before we hit Naomi's, though, we stopped at the Oakland Temple to walk around and take in the spirit of the season.

Not the best photos of us by a long shot (indeed, I looked at those pictures and realized I was in desperate need of a haircut), but the temple looks gorgeous. Love the temple at Christmastime.

November

2012-01-16T18:55:00.000-08:00

Luckily, not much besides cheer stuff went on for most of October and November, so I am breezing through the blog posts. I'll be caught up in no time! (Allegedly.) Anything exciting happened on or around Thanksgiving.

-We spent Thanksgiving at Naomi's house in Oakland. I made baked brie and pumpkin pie. Both were delicious, if I do say so myself. Dan made fudge and gravy. Naomi made mostly everything else (including an apple pie) which is pretty darn impressive. We played lots of Kinect and stuffed ourselves silly.

-My car broke down. Like, full-on wouldn't run. I was so depressed and Dan started preparing me for the likelihood that it might be the end of the line for Baby Tank. I had her towed to Midas the day after Thanksgiving and joy of joys, they figured out what was wrong with it and fixed it fairly cheaply. Hallelujah! (Bad ignition coil and wires, BTW.)

-I actually went out on Black Friday. Not in the up-at 2am way, but in the fine-I'll-leave-my-house way. No discount is worth being awake when the sun is asleep and having to deal with hoards of people, most of whom are crazy, all of whom are sleep-deprived. It just sounds like a terrible idea. Dan was up at 5 to hit a couple of stores and then we hit a few more in the late morning/early afternoon. I did get some pretty good deals, so maybe I'll do it again next year.

SYTYCD Tour 2011

2012-01-16T18:13:00.000-08:00

This season of SYTYCD had some of my favorite dancers ever (if only they'd had some of my favorite dances too) so I couldn't wait to go see the tour. I took Dan (who went rather begrudgingly) and my friend Maria from the dog park, who did not realize Stockton was nearly two hours away. Oops.

We ended up sitting in the handicap section because Maria had broken her foot a few weeks earlier and couldn't climb up the stairs to our seats. No matter, because the handicap section is awesome.

My favorite girl this year was Jordan...yes, yes, I know everyone was gaga over Melanie and Sasha, but I never got into them. Jordan was my special little firecracker. The boys...well, there were too many to choose a favorite, really, but I loved Tadd, Ricky, and Marko. Seeing those four in person was incredible. We ended up getting there after the show started (boooooo) but what we did get to see was wonderful. I'm so glad we went, but please, tour producers, bring the tour back to the Bay! If for no other reason than I am stuck here!

(The pictures are quite terrible and I didn't get very many, but I'm posting them anyways so you can at least get an idea.)
The bird dance

Crotch shot!

Beautiful.

Blue Angels 2011

2012-01-15T18:47:00.001-08:00

In 2010, my sisters and I bought my parents tickets to watch the Blue Angels in San Francisco from the Red and White Fleet right on the bay for my dad's birthday. We had gone once before, in 2009, running down the Marina to Pier 39 to make it in time, just to see a pared-down show due to the ever-present SF cloud cover, then running back to the ferry building so we didn't have t osit around in SF for three hours. My dad loves planes and especially the Blue Angels, so I wanted to make sure he got to see them from the best view in San Francisco at least once in his life. He and Mom had such a fantastic time that he insisted the whole family go the following year.

Fast-forward to last October - both of my younger sisters bailed because, well, they are lame. So Mom, Dad, Dan, and I boarded our boat with about 75 other people and took a short ride out to the middle of the Bay.

I don't know if I'll ever enjoy another Blue Angels show off a boat now. It was so much fun! The planes were so close and they came from all sides...the view from on the water cannot be beat. I wish my photos captured the experience better but the darn things go so fast that you're lucky to catch them at all! (You can click on the photos to make them bigger and better quality.)

Flying upside down

Over the Bay Bridge

One of my favorite photos

Caught this one right after they flew right by our boat...scared me to death (in a good way)

I love this photo of the Navy planes over the Coast Guard ship

The money shot

Jenna Does Not Go to China

2012-01-08T18:33:00.000-08:00

Dan, who was originally irritated about having to go to China for three weeks, now can't wait to take me with him. However, I still have not been outside of the U.S. myself. Maybe someday.

Dan being gone for three weeks was tough. We've been seperated before, but usually for no more than a week at a time. There were the twelve weeks Dan worked in Santa Clarita when we lived in SLO, but he was at least home on the weekends. Tank had a worse time than I did, though - he missed Dan something awful and it turned out he really missed going to work with Dan. In fact, after Dan got back, if Tank had to stay home for the day, he would throw up out of nervousness. It took a while to convince him that every time Dan left the house, he would come home again.

Anyhoo, while Dan was away, we did a few things here and there:

-My cheer team started football season. Our first game, I ended up having to run - make that sprint - across the field during halftime because our CD didn't work and I had to get my iPod up to the announcer's box. I still think it was a little shady, but whatever. It tickled my kids to death to watch me expertly hop a chain-link fence - twice - and dash pass them faster than they've ever seen me move before. I heard about it for weeks.

-I made Chicken Pesto Flatbreads. They were amazing.

-I cuddled with Tank a lot. He spent most of his time on our bed sleeping with Dan's various articles of clothing he'd left behind.
-I watched a lot of romantic comedies.

-I went to an A's game with Mom and Dad - my friend gave us her awesome field-level seats again, and the A's won!
-I tore a muscle in my foot at a tumbling class with my team. Total fluke thing - honestly - but I spent two weeks in a boot and a month in physical therapy fixing it. Go big or go home!

When Dan got home, Tank would not stop licking him and slept good and hard for the first time in weeks. It was adorable how happy they were to see each other. Dan being gone really made us appreciate the time we do have to spend together.

Dan Goes to China

2012-01-08T16:50:00.000-08:00

The day after we got home from Oregon, Dan hopped on a plane for a 13-hour flight to China. No kidding.

Dan's employer asked him to go to their Shanghai offices to help train and teach members of his Asia team - or, as Dan likes to say, "They sent me there to teach people how to do my job so I don't have to" - so he took his first trip outside of the U.S. to do just that, not a lick of Chinese in his vocabulary anywhere.

To be honest, we were both a little nervous about this trip. China is a fairly extreme place to go for your first non-American experience, and Dan's employer didn't set him up with much in the way of guidance. Luckily, one of the guys in the Shanghai office, "Christopher" (his American name, of course), had come out to visit the San Rafael/San Francisco offices earlier in the year and Dan had been very kind to him: taking him out to eat, taking him to a drag race, making sure he felt comfortable while he was here. So, when Dan got to China, Christoper met him at the airport, helped him find the office, and generally did for Dan what Dan did for him. It's always a nice thing to have a friend in a foreign country - at least, I would guess it would be.

Anyway, the following are some photos from Dan's trip. (If you want to see all of them, they are on his Facebook page.)

The view from Dan's hotel into downtown Shanghai.

The view outside of Dan's cubicle

Dan's Hotel (the brown one with the rounded glass)

Dan found a restaurant with his name on it

HSBC Bank building

War Memorial. It is supposed to represent three rifles. You'll see another pic of this with Dan in front of it a ways down.

Postal Museum

Entrance into little town

Dan in front of his namesake restaurant

Just getting off the ferry

Dan in front of the HSBC Bank building

Dan in front of the broadcast tower

Dan in front of the War Memorial

This bridge was built in 1903. Pretty good looking for being over 100 years old, no?

Does this not eerily look like Tank?

A funny sign in a restroom...basically it is asking it's patrons not to urinate on the floor.

The church building in Shanghai.

Tiramisu in a cup

Old buildings

One of Dan's lunches

An eggplant dish

Angel food-type cake with ice cream

Mr. Stone restaurant. Basically, they bring you raw meat and a hot stone and you cook the meat to your liking. Food poisoning optional.

Third tallest building in the world/tallest observatory in the world.

View from the observatory

A different view

Looking down onto a shorter building

474 meters in the air (or, 0.3 miles). That is quite high.

A lion Dan thought looked less than fierce.

Hood to Coast - Day Six

2012-01-02T16:46:00.000-08:00

Day 6 = Tillamook Day!
The Tillamook Cheese Factory is so much fun. I was excited to go on a "working day" - aka, when people are actually making cheese, as opposed to the weekend, when the factory is still open to the public but all of the cheese makers are off for the day (as they should be, bien sur).

Anyhoo, we hit the outer gift shop first and saw the most. amazing. disgusting. product. ever.
That is not a joke. I was tempted to buy it but I couldn't bring myself to have to touch something that was once a cow pie. It's just too weird. Funny, though.

However, this truly was the money shot:
Oooooooo. It makes my mouth water just looking at the photo.

I was very happy.

After we had finished oogling cheese and tasting cheese and buying cheese and cheese-related toys from the inner gift shop (oh yeah, there are two), we went to the Creamery Café for lunch. We got grilled cheese sandwiches...is there anything else to get there, really? (I mean, there is - the cafe has quite an extensive menu - but how can you buy anything else at the best cheese factory ever?)
I got the Centennial Grilled Cheese Sandwich...it just looked and sounded amazing.

I mean, look at it.

No, really...look at it.

Sorry. Got a bit carried away.

After we finished up at Tillamook, we headed over to the Blue Heron Cheese Company. They have a petting zoo with all kinds of animals, a collection of large old vehicles, and big store with every cheese and sweet you can imagine. They even have an off-site chocolatier that brings in fresh truffles and other goodies every day, and they are incredible.

We ended up leaving with a half wheel of smoked Brie and a truffle apiece.

We made a final stop at Debbie D's Jerky and Sausage Factory. We picked up some smoked meats and some jerky from this little local meatshop. Debbie was there and man, she is fierce about what is "authentic" Tillamook and what is not. However, she gave us more samples than we even wanted - after samples at Tillamook Cheese and Blue Heron, plus lunch, we were pretty well stuffed - and was very knowledgeable about her product. It was pretty good stuff, and I'd go back for the food, but Debbie was a little...intense for my liking. Maybe I'll just send Dan in next time.

We spent the rest of our final evening at our amazing beach house on our wonderful deck watching yet another gorgeous sunset over Haystack Rock.

It was, truly, the perfect vacation. Cannon Beach continues to hold a very special place in our hearts and we really hope we can live there at least part-time someday. Until then, this last trip gave us plenty of great memories to think of when we miss it.

Hood to Coast - Day Five

2012-01-01T22:37:00.000-08:00

We only had two days left and the next day we were heading out to Tillamook, so it was the perfect day to go to one of my favorite places in the whole world - Pig 'N Pancake.

The Pig never disappoints. I don't remember exactly what I had but I do remember it was delicious. And, of course, the cocoa is so adorable!

We spent most of the day lounging around and enjoying the beach that was just steps from our front door.

We were looking for a really awesome place to eat for dinner...Cannon has a few okay places but we had yet to find anything truly spectacular (and semi-reasonable to boot). We found a place on Yelp called Irish Table. I was a little wary because they didn't have a website and I like to look at menus beforehand, but the Yelp reviews were glowing so we decided to take a chance. We walked to downtown, found it inside a coffee shop (which was slightly disconcerting), told there would be a thirty-to-forty-minute wait, walked around downtown (which was almost completely shut down at 6pm), and finally got in to eat.

It was 100% worth it.

It was a good sign that when we first got there and heard how long the wait was and were deciding whether to wait or find somewhere else to go, the couple sitting right next to the door looked at us and said, completely unsolicited, "The food is amazing. Wait the thirty minutes and you won't be disappointed." What they had did look very, very good, so those two things convinced us to stick to our plan. The place was very tiny (located inside a coffee shop, it was to be expected) but cozy and warm with dark wood walls and furniture. We got a cheese course to start, which was delicious and exciting, as much of it was new to us. I got a wild mushroom shepherd's pie, which was out-of-control amazing, and Dan got a flat-iron steak that he loved. We wanted to get dessert so bad (which is a big deal for Dan, as he is usually ambivalent about dessert, if not flat-out against it), but we were so full that we just couldn't do it. If you are ever in Cannon Beach for any reason (and after reading my many posts about it I don't see how you could not want to go), you have to go here. HAVE. TO. GO. I wish I had pictures but it was so dim and tight in there that taking a photo with a flash would have been a major distraction and probably a big nuisance to the other diners. We enjoyed a nice, leisurely stroll back home, taking in the sound of the ocean and enjoying the beautiful little town that we love so much. It was a truly perfect evening.

Hood to Coast - Day Four

2011-12-19T08:53:00.000-08:00

The next day opened bright and sunny - hooray!

Tank and I spent some time outdoors - me perusing a Bon Apetite magazine I snagged from work (they were done with it) and Tank exploring and sleeping in the sun.

Dan and I took the opportunity of a whole day with nothing to do to explore the Outlet Mall and thrift stores in Seaside. (Dan is a major thrift-store junkie; he likes looking for old ties and furniture that makes no sense with the rest of the furniture we own.) Cheap prices and no sales tax? Yes, please!

We shopped until I dropped (I told my friend, Julie, this weekend that Dan could outshop me any day of the week and she could not believe it, but it's true) and headed back home to spend more time staring at the ocean from our kick-butt deck.
Sunset

It doesn't get much better than this.

We took fifteen or so pictures like this and I hate my face in all of them. How is that possible?

Goodnight, sun. Thanks for visiting.

Hood to Coast - Day 3

2011-12-11T20:13:00.000-08:00

Dan woke up the least sore of any year he's run H2C - yay! It's always so much more fun when Dan isn't in major pain.

We started our day with a quick visit to our favorite bakery, Waves of Grain, then took a walk down to the beachfront with Tank.
Tank, you are going the wrong way

Have you ever seen such an adorable shaved back on a dog?

Although the beach looks a bit chilly, it was nice to just sit and people-watch and listen to the ocean crash. Tank didn't enjoy it near as much as Dan and I did, but that is what happens when you are a doggy on restriction.

We met up with the whole team + family members at The Lumberyard for a final lunch/yay-we-did-it-and-didn't-die celebration. Those poor waiters/waitresses. I'm sure they saw our (huge) group and had to use every ounce of willpower they had no to run for the hills.
Most of the group - all of the runners

Tank slept under Dan's chair most of the time.

Richard giving me one of his famous camera faces

It was sad to see everyone go, although I didn't have to spend 30+ hours in a van with all of them. :-) Haha, just kidding. We got to walk around downtown Cannon Beach with Helen and her family for a while, which was awesome, and then they had to go, too. I miss them a lot and wished we lived closer to them. I made a bid to move up to Portland shortly after this trip but Dan's employers were not on board. Ugh. Corporate life.

Anyway, we pretty much just chilled at the beach house for the remainder of the day. The day continued to be gray (it is Oregon, after all) so it was nice to be cozy indoors in front of our little fireplace and look out the big picture windows at the ocean whenever we wanted.

Hood to Coast - Day 2

2011-11-21T20:09:00.000-08:00

After a restful night's sleep, Mitch, Rachel, and I loaded up our respective vehicles with luggage and dogs and drove out to Cannon Beach. I'm still kind of in awe that I drove the truck all that way. In years past other people have driven whatever vehicle we brought and I either rode along or went in someone else's car (out of necessity). I've only ever driven the Volvo long distances. Anyway, it was a gorgeous drive and much easier than I had originally anticipated.

Once in CB, Tank and I picked up Piggle from Helen and Mitch's place, picked up the keys to the beach house (oh yes, I said beach house), and headed back towards downtown in search of said beach house.

Oh, baby.

Get the heck out. We knew it was going to be cute and close to the beach, but we had no idea - at least, I didn't - that it would be drop dead awesome. I could not believe we would be staying here for five whole days. (Spoiler: it was magical.)

So I dropped off the dogs and luggage and headed back south to meet up with Helen, Mitch, Richie, and Maverick for lunch at Mo's. Mo's is a CB staple and their chowder is decent (though nowhere near as good as Splash's). The decor is awesome - just old, tacky, silly beach-town stuff - and it sits right on the beach so you can watch the windsurfers or whoever/whatever happens to be out there. We all drove back up to our place and hit the beach for a bit with the dogs, even though it was really, really windy and rather cold. We loved walking around the tidepools, though, and saw some really big crabs running around. We usually only see the little baby crabs and starfish and sea cucumbers, so it was sort of exciting to see "real" sea-life.

Tank, Piggle, and I explored our little house for a while, then I set the dogs up for a quiet but comfy evening and headed back to Helen and Mitch's to wait for Van 1. And wait. And wait. Finally, somewhere around two hours late, Van 1 came rolling in. Yay! Then it was all about coordination - getting Dan home, getting Piggle back to Naomi, getting everyone to their respective lodgings, getting the whereabouts of Van 2, getting everyone down to the beach at Seaside in time for Van 2's triumphant arrival via Miss Morgan, who was running the final leg. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. There had been a few...oversights in planning H2C this year, it seemed, and it took Van 2 an insanely long amount of time to even get to the beach. We very nearly missed our team photo and didn't get to run through the finish line together. Sad! It was all rather disappointing and we were all exhausted and hungry, so we didn't stick around for the celebrations but instead headed back to CB for pizza. We did get to see the fireworks on our way out.

Pizza was fun and it was great to have everyone together (finally) but exhaustion took over and we all called it an early night.

Hood to Coast 2011 - Day 1

2011-11-20T19:30:00.000-08:00

Oh, how I love Hood to Coast. Probably because I refuse to actually run in it. :-)

First, before we even left California, I decided I needed to contribute more to the runners. So I decided that I would make three different kinds of cookies for twelve runners. The day before we left. While also running Tank to a physical therapy appointment in Rohnert Park and having a cheer practice in San Anselmo the same day. But I was desperate for them to be fresh and yummy, so I baked on and off from 8am until probably 10pm. My house smelled amazing.

The drive to Oregon was beautiful, as always. We spent our first night at Helen's house, which is always so much fun and even more fun this time around because Shawn and Lisa and Dan's friend Amy stayed there too! It was like a giant HTC slumber party. We had a late start time this year (which the runners hated), but it meant I got to go with Helen to drop off our runners at Rachel's house in Portland.
Pre-race gun show

In a moment of pure snarkiness a few months ago, I referred to Mark as The Angry German. (Not to his face; I do have manners, you know.) And he has never let me forget it.

Van 1!

It was just a few hours later when Mitch and I were headed back out to Portland to drop off our Van 2 runners and pick up Rachel Gold for our volunteer shift. We picked a good one this year; not too late/early, not too far from Sherwood, and we got to see our team come through our exchange point! I love love love volunteering at Hood to Coast because the runners are (mostly) so awesome and grateful for us and I get to do one of my favorite things: boss people around with total authority. :-) One of the teams brought doughnuts for all the volunteers (which was so awesome because I was starving halfway through my shift) and so many fun and cool teams came through. I love seeing the team themes and the witty mottos and nicknames scrolled on the side of the vans. We hit Five Guys Burger on our way home and a burger and insane amounts of fries never tasted so good.

August

2011-11-20T18:40:00.000-08:00

I have been so busy lately...I have had a nervous breakdown that has been going on across the last ten days because I was so overloaded. That's never happened before. Even today, I was still getting a little teary-eyed at the mention of cheerleading at all, and in front of people I would never, ever, under any other circumstances, show any sign of emotional turmoil to. My blood sugar was also outlandishly low (diagnosed after I ate four Starburst candies and immediately felt better and significantly less light-headed), so that couldn't have helped.

Anyhoo.

August was largely spent in anticipation for Hood to Coast (which will take up several future posts), but a couple of cool/fun/semi-interesting things happened along the way:

-Off The Grid: I don't have photos from this, and it wasn't the first time we went, but Off The Grid is basically a food truck party that travels the Bay Area over the course of the week and converges on Fort Mason every Friday night. 30 food trucks and booths? Yes please! It is so much fun and I have always been amazed that everyone there - from the vendors to the attendees - is so friendly! We took a new couple in our ward and while I think they were a bit overwhelmed (because it's pretty crazy), they seemed to have fun. It has shut down for the winter but I can't wait to go back.

-Dan Goes to Sonoma: Dan had a work-related leadership training conference in Sonoma for four days, which meant I got the house to myself for four days. I always miss Dan when he is gone - I like having someone to come home to, and it tears Tank up when Dan is "missing." Dan had a good time and now he is more of a leader or something. It was especially bummerish that he had to be gone on our five-year anniversary. Boo.

-Our Five-Year Anniversary: So, obviously, Dan was gone the day of, but we went out that weekend to celebrate. Dan, in true Dan fashion, didn't make reservations anywhere, so he scrambled around trying to find a place that would take us at a reasonable time (i.e. not 9pm). Lucky him; he found a cute Italian place in Tiburon that was really good called Don Antonio Trattoria. After dinner, we wandered around downtown Tiburon (so cute) and the waterfront (so cold) and picked up chocolates from a local candy store. It was a nice way to spend a special evening together.

-Tank Gets Off of Bed Rest: Tank's bed rest was so much worse the second time around. The first time, he knew his back legs were compromised and he didn't try to move around too much, plus we were running from SLO to Oregon and back again, so we were all pretty distracted. This time, his back legs were fully functional but he still had to be on bed rest for 30 days. Ho-ly goodness. He would do anything just to take a few steps. I had to take him back up to Davis for his follow-up while Dan was in Sonoma, and my car nearly died on the way there. It just started shaking and jerking everytime I tried to accelerate and it barely made it into the Vetrinary Hospital parking lot. I've never been so happy to get somewhere safely. Tank's attending neurologist thought he looked fantastic and cleared us for walking and for physical therapy (which we ended up only needing one session - yay!) and the car, thankfully, made it the rest of the way home just fine. (Bad spark plugs were the culprit; easily fixed once Dan got home). He's made another spectacular recovery and is already back to his post-surgery status. He never ceases to amaze me.

The Rest of July

2011-10-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

Geez. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed with how behind I am on this thing that I just want to forgo the catching up and just get to what is going on now. So, I'm knocking a whole month out at once.

Dan Turns 30: Dan isn't keen his birthdays, and try as I might, I couldn't convince him to do anything, even for his big 3-0, outside of going to dinner. We hit a nice Mexican place in Mill Valley for dinner and I bought Dan a hammock. No, we do not have room for a hammock, but Dan has wanted one for a long, long time, so I threw reason out the window and bought him a really nice hammock. I heard he set it up in the living room the entire week I was at cheer camp.

Tank Herniates Disc #2: When we hit Tank's one-year anniversary of his herniated disc from last year, I drew a sigh of relief. He was doing great and it was just such a blessing to have him happy and healthy again. Less than a month later, he woke us up at 5:30 am crying and not being able to stay still. We thought at first he just needed to poo, then we thought it was a tick we found on him, then we went to the vet when he didn't want to lift one of his legs to urinate, then, finally twelve hours after he first woke us, he stopped being able to use his back legs at all and we realized he had herniated another disc. We headed up to the UC Davis Veterinary Hospital immediately Another early-morning emergency surgery, another quick and impressive three-day stay, another month of bed-rest. We were floored. The recovery time was much faster this year, due to the location of the disc, and Tank's already back to near-normal. He's more restricted than ever, but hopefully that will mean this is the last time we have to go through this. I sure hope so.

Cheer: Cheer came back with a vengeance in July. Car washes, restarting practices, and cheer camp, along with still trying to figure out where I was going to get absurd amounts of money at a moment's notice, made me a little bananas. Camp was a fantastic experience for everyone; my kids had a great time, and I lost four pounds and maybe slept a total of twelve hours over the course of three days. I made the mistake of not taking the whole week off of work and went into work Friday a total zombie. Our camp buddy was phenomenal. It's tough to get a really great buddy. My ENTIRE TEAM was nominated for All-American. That is basically unheard of. Plus, we earned a slew of awards: Spirit Stick every day (the only team to do so), the Herkie Award, Top Team Game Time Award, a bid to NCA Nationals, four All-American recipients, and the Rookie Coach Award for me. Out-flipping-standing.
And...July wrapped.

4th of July Weekend in Mendo - Part 4

2011-10-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

Our final day of vacation (the 4th, no less) was actually spent driving home from Mendo with lots of stops along the way.

First, Dan took me down to the "beach" our lodge said it had "access" to. Yeah, if by "access" you mean running across a busy highway and treading through brush dangerously close to that same highway for about a quarter of a mile.

Anyhoo, the "beach" turned out to be a quiet, beautiful cove. For most of the time, we were the only people (and dog) on the beach, which was amazing. It was like being in a secret bubble for a little while.

After our final warm-muffin breakfast delivered to our door, we headed southbound to Manchester Beach for horseback riding. Yay! I was, somehow, determined to be the most "experienced" rider (uh, okay) of the group and therefore given the most "spirited" horse. I won't lie; I was so excited to get the horse I got because it was easily the prettiest and "spirited" usually means "likes to run." And I like a horse that runs.
My horse - I think his name was Ty

Dan on his horse

We were so glad we wore our heavy coats that day, because while it was just windy up where we started, it was totally socked in and freezing on the beach. I was getting a little frustrated because my "spirited" horse kept lagging behind everyone else, until I realized he was doing it on purpose so he could gallop a bit to catch up. I started holding him back a little and then giving him the signal to go, and we both loved it. We had to make sure the guide didn't catch us, although I suspect he knew what we were up to and figured I could handle it. I'd signed a release form anyways. Despite the cold, the ride was incredible and Dan and I really enjoyed it.

We drove on for a bit after that and saw signs for the Point Arena Lighthouse, so we decided to stop there. Had we known it would cost $15 just to get in, we might not have stopped, but oh well. At least at this lighthouse, you got to go to the top. Again, had we known how far that was, we might not have done it. LOL.
The original light, located inside the museum

View from the museum window - such a gorgeous day

View from the top

It was such a beautiful (albeit chilly) day, and the view was spectacular. Definitely a must-see - yes, even for $15. It's for a good cause.

Our last stop was a stop of necessity that turned out to be the discovery of a gem - Bone's Roadhouse in Gualala. We were starving and bbq sounded good - even flavorless Bay Area bbq. Were we in for a surprise.
For one, this was the view. Get. Freakin. Out. I hadn't been in a restaurant with a view like this since Maui. And what's more...the food was fanstastic! Oh, the service was slow, as our waitress looked to be about 16 and completely clueless, but the food and the view made up for it. I cannot wait to go back here. It will probably be a while (if ever), but it was awesome.

And that's it! We had a fantastic time and relaxed more than we had relaxed in ages. It was easily one of the best vacations we've been on together.

4th of July Weekend in Mendo - Part 3

2011-09-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I know...it's been a month. To say we've been busy is an understatement, and Dan has been gone most of this month in China, and I broke my foot last week. Okay, that's not true. I might have a stress fracture, but more likely I have severe tendinitis caused by two extra bones that shouldn't be in my foot. I won't know for sure for another week. But that's another story another time (probably three months from now at the rate I'm going). Back to Mendo!

Sunday we went to church in Fort Bragg for Sacrament meeting and found a ward even crazier than our own. We didn't know it was possible. It was...an experience, to say the least.

We were pretty hungry when we left so we headed to downtown to hit up a place we'd had our eye on all weekend: a hot dog place called Relish. Yeah, baby.
Dan and I both got the hot dog with bacon, cheese, and barbecue sauce. Go big or go home, right? :-)

Such a cute place.

Dan's allergies were in full swing due to the elements in Mendo. Can you tell?

Brilliant.

We loved this place, and there was a great ice cream parlor next door so we just made a big junky meal out of it. The ice cream was absolutely fantastic. Man, I love food.

We decided to just drive north for a while and sight-see. There isn't too much in the way of civilization just north, but we found another beautiful beach/coastal point to spend some time at.
Just so beautiful.

Finally a photo of me!

Can you spot the bird?

Dipping my toes in the ice cold water

I had to run away; the water was getting too high!

Tanky enjoying another beach day

As we were walking down the beach, a lab ran up to Tank and started sniffing him. No big deal, until the owner walked up and grabbed his dog just as his dog bit Tank's ear. Tank cried, but we just walked quickly away. A closer inspection showed Tank was bleeding from the bite, so we just headed back to the truck as quickly as we could to rinse it out with some bottled water, then headed back into town to get first aid stuff from CVS. Poor little guy! He was such a trooper, though, even when we were dousing his ear in rubbing alcohol to clean it out.

Dan was eager to get his antiqueing on, so we stopped at a few places on our way back to Mendocino. He loves that stuff; I couldn't care less but I try to be good about it because I know he loves it and he puts up with a lot of my stuff he doesn't understand.

I had been dying to check out the Point Cabrillo Light Station since we first got to the coast, and we decided to make a stop, even though we had had a full day. We had to park about a half-mile away, which didn't sound like too bad of a walk, except 1) we were already a bit tired, 2) it was enough uphill to make it more of an cardio workout than a leisurely stroll, and 3) the elements had combined to give Dan a full-on allergy meltdown. We made it, but since Dan was in a complete sneezing/itching frenzy and really miserable, we only stayed for about ten minutes (enough time for me to use the restroom and take a few pics).

So cool.

We hit up downtown to get a less-than-stellar dinner at Mendo Burgers (I seriously don't know how this place has four stars on Yelp; it was mediocre at best) and wandered around the Mendo Arts and Craft Fair for a bit, but we called it a night pretty soon after.

It was nice to get back to our lodge that evening. We watched another movie (Transformers 2 - meh) and ate some truffles we had bought earlier that day.This was the Santa Rosa...I just can't escape the North Bay
A fabulous and full third day. What an awesome weekend this was turning out to be.

4th of July Weekend in Mendo - Part 2

2011-08-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

My vacations keep getting in the way of blogging about my vacations.

We woke up Saturday morning to a stunning view - and a shower we couldn't figure out how to get hot water out of. Drat. I hate a cold shower. I was very encouraged, though, by the fresh-baked muffins waiting in a basket outside of our door. The owners have a local bakery deliver them first thing every morning, and they drop them off to each room. They were still warm, for goodness sake! Dan figured out the shower so we would at least have hot water for the rest of our stay, so things went back to being fabulous.

Later that morning, we headed north to Fort Bragg. We first stopped for breakfast at a place called Egghead's. It had great Yelp reviews so we thought we'd take a chance.

First off, the entire restaurant has a Wizard of Oz theme, right down to the yellow brick road painted on the linoleum floor with tempera paint. It was kind of funny. There was Oz paraphenalia all over the walls - photos from the movie, an afghan in the design of the movie poster, murals...it was kind of a trip. Almost everything on the menu was named after a character or an idea from the movie. And their specials menu had Wicked-inspired items!
The place was teeny-tiny - maybe room for 20 people - and the service was painfully slow. I was glad we'd had those muffins to eat before we left for the day or I would have been doubled over with hunger pains. Thank goodness the food ended up being phenomenal, or our fabulous vacation definitely would have been tainted. There are two things that will turn Dan and I into evil, mean people: lack of sleep and lack of food. It was a fun place to visit and I'm glad we went there.

We went casually walking around downtown afterwards (it was so wonderful to have nothing to do and nowhere to be) and found a couple of fun things, the most interesting being:
a Baptist church that looked remarkably like a Catholic church. It was very pretty, though.

We headed to the north side of Fort Bragg and hit up Glass Beach. Dan and I were both wearing winter coats and the locals were all in shorts and t-shirts, if not in swimsuits frolicking in the (very cold) ocean. They looked at us like we were so weird. Whatever, NorCalers. We're used to much warmer weather where we come from. The day and the locale were absolutely gorgeous, though.

We had a beautiful, relaxing Saturday. Mendo was certainly living up to expectations.

4th of July Weekend in Mendo

2011-08-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

Gravy, am I behind.

Dan and I live just minutes from the Marin County Civic Center. Great if you have jury duty, want to visit the dog park or the county library, or work at AutoDesk. Not so good during the Marin County Fair, which takes place over the 4th of July long weekend. People park all the way back to our street and basically make traffic around our home a living nightmare. Luckily, Dan and I had successfully avoided the fair for the past three years:

2008: We moved to Marin just after the fair ended. Close call.
2009: We spent Fair Week traveling to Utah and Montana to visit various family members.
2010: We made a last-minute decision to join Dan's family on the Oregon Coast for a few days (nothing to do with the fair; it just sounded fun).

So, with no pre-planned events in place this year, I started talking about possibly doing a little Dan-and-Jenna getaway - specifically, away from the fair. At first, Dan wasn't into it. He didn't see how it could be that bad, and there was plenty we could be working on around the house or for our various jobs. Plus, it needed to be fairly cost-effective, and lodging is always steep, plus fun activities usually add up quickly. I begged and cajoled and he wouldn't budge. Until...for some odd reason, he did. I think maybe realized how insane this fair thing would be, plus we both needed a break from Marin County and everything here that stresses us out (and there's a lot of that, trust me). So, we started throwing around different places: Tahoe, Ashland, SLO, Russian River, and Mendocino. A coworker of mine often talks about going to Mendo with her husband and how beautiful it is and the great times they have. We wanted to try somewhere we both hadn't been before, and Mendo seemed very pet-friendly (a must for us - Tank goes with us more often than not), plus we found lodging that wasn't that expensive and had ocean-front views from every room, so Mendo won out. (As for the other locations, we decided that Ashland was too far; Tahoe is quite popular among the Marin crowd, thus defeating part of the purpose of our getaway; SLO was kind of far and we had just been there in December; and Russian River was pricey, not very pet-friendly, and a little farther than we wanted.)

When we pulled up to the Seafoam Lodge, we weren't quite sure what we had gotten ourselves into. It looked a little sketchy from the outside. Maybe affordable, pet-friendly rooms with panoramic ocean-front views were a little too good to be true.

And sometimes miracles happen.

Our room was smallish but very prettily and recently renovated. Oh, the bedspread was a little dated, but so what? And when this is your view from your king-sized bed (or your private porch):

do you really care what the bedspread looks like?

I didn't think so.

We settled in and immediately went exploring. After a good-but-hippy-dippy-trippy dinner at Frankie's Pizza, we visited Van Damm Beach as the sun went down.

It was such a pretty evening and a fun little beach to explore. All three of us we thrilled to be back at the shore.

One of the awesome things the lodge boasted of was its extensive movie library. WOW - they really had a ton of movies to choose from. Neither of us had seen The Proposal yet, so we settled into our cute little room and enjoyed a long-overdue movie-night-in. (The movie was just okay - not our favorite, not totally horrible.) It was a really nice first day and we were so excited for the days to come.

Jenna's 27th Birthday - Part 2

2011-07-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

So after my Top Chef experience, we found a mall and went shopping for my birthday present - new sunglasses! I've been searching for new sunglasses for ages and I have the hardest time finding ones that fit my face properly. We tried a few stores and got close, but nothing that wowed. Then, we walked into a Sunglass Hut, told the guy what I was looking for, and he pulled out the perfect pair on the first try. Perfect shape on my face, perfect color, polarized (which I haven't had before and I LOVE)...perfect perfect perfect. I love them. It's all about finding the right person who knows their stuff.

After cruising around the mall a bit longer (including a stop into Love Sac, which has some of the most comfortable furniture I have ever sat on), we made our way to downtown San Jose to wander around before our early dinner. We noticed that there was a huge, gorgeous cathedral that happened to have tours going on that day, so we decided to stop in. I love old churches; they are just so beautiful and you can see the love and care the people put into their place of worship. I was not at all disappointed here. The name of the cathedral was Cathedral Basilica of Saint Joseph and it was absolutely stunning inside and out. I just got two pictures of the outside because there were people inside actually meditating in the spirit of the church, so it didn't feel right to be snapping pictures. (It didn't really feel right to be taking a tour either, what with it being so silent and peaceful except for our tour guide chatting away, but I guess that's how it goes.) Anyway, the first two pictures are mine; the rest I got off of Google Images.

There was just so much history here; it has been rebuilt and renovated several times since its original construction in 1803, but they saved an incredible amount of the original building - stained glass windows, an entire Italian marble altar, the original organ built in 1883...it goes on and on and it was amazing. If you are ever in or near San Jose, you have to go. Seriously.

For dinner, Dan took me to The Grill on the Alley. Oh. My. Gosh. This place was so cool. Dark woods, old-fashioned lighting, 50's music playing in the background, and the food...oh man. I wasn't too hungry, even so long after Top Chef, but that was before I got my pasta - Penne Pesto with Chicken that was absolutely to die for. It was the perfect end to a really perfect day.

Jenna's 27th Birthday - Part 1

2011-07-07T21:38:00.001-07:00

I love birthdays. I love them more when they happen to be my birthdays, and I always try to do something fun and special and interesting. Why the heck not?!

After missing the Top Chef tour last year, I was determined to go this year, and it just so happened that the final stop of the tour was not only in San Jose, but also on my birthday, so I watched the tour website like a hawk and scored two tickets for me and Dan to go. We had no idea who would be there (I was expecting Jamie and maybe another local chef), but I was excited anyways and was holding out hope for Richard Blais or someone equally awesome. When Dan and I walked up to the tent to get in line, I thought I saw Richard's picture, but it turned out to be Ryan Scott, which was fine. The picture next to his, however, sent me into a fan-girl frenzy:

Fabio.

I couldn't believe it! I love Fabio and never guessed he would be there at all. It was such a great surprise!

The format of the tour changed this year: two chefs facing off in a Quickfire-esque challenge, with the audience getting to taste both dishes, plus a few booths to taste stuff and play games. But, obviously, the main event was the Quickfire. Dan and I made sure to get seats in the front, right next to Fabio's cooking station. The host came out and explained the challenge, then announced that in addition to the Michelin-star chef they had there to judge, they were going to pick two judges out of the audience. I bet you can't guess what he said next...

"Is it anyone's birthday today?"

Well, my hand shot up so fast I nearly dislocated my shoulder (it did hurt a little). After convincing the host that it was, in fact, my birthday, he invited me to be a judge! I was so, so excited....so excited, that when he asked me where I was from, I couldn't remember and had to ask Dan. Oh well, at least I remembered by name. ;-)

Both Fabio and Ryan were hilarious; their banter was insanely entertaining and Fabio was both charming and bitingly sarcastic. Topics ranged from Fabio's turtle to Ryan's childhood (turns out not only did he live in Los Banos, but he was a senior at my high school when I was a freshman - go figure!) to Top Chef behind-the-scenes to Fabio trying to say "canary" (he kept pronouncing it "canarian," which was hysterical)...it was great. On top of that, all three judges got the patented "Fabio Sauve" treatment: kisses, sugar snap peas to snack on while we waited for the dishes, winks...if you've seen Fabio do it on the show, he did it there, and then Ryan kept trying to one-up him in the charm department. I was a total flustered mess and loved every second of it.

And the dishes were awesome - both of them! I was set to declare Fabio the winner even before we got the dishes, but they honestly were both amazing. Fabio ended up the winner by a small margin, and he lauded it over Ryan like the true gentleman he is. We made sure to stop by the AT&T store to get a photo op for me before we left, and it totally completed the experience.
Best. Thing. Ever. And my day wasn't even over yet!

Bay Bridge Series - Game One

2011-06-26T22:18:00.001-07:00

As you can tell, Dan and I are still crazy-busy, plus my laptop had to go back to Best Buy for four days (ack!!!) to get fixed again. At least it wasn't my fault this time. Anyway, sorry for the lack of posts after our much-fanfared return. It appears I spoke too soon.

Dan and I met up with my mom and dad last Friday for some A's Baseball at the Colliseum. Even better that it was the first game of the Bay Bridge Series in Oakland. I had on my new A's tee from Old Navy, my green zip-up, and was feeling good. Mom was similarly dressed, but Dad was decked out in full Giants gear, including his World Series Champions hat, much to my dismay (more because I am so sick of seeing Giants gear on a daily basis). Unfortunately for Dad, things went the way of the A's that evening and we soundly beat some Giant booty. Yeah, baby.

It was a really fun game (and not just because watching my Dad get more and more frustrated as the Giants played more and more pooly was really funny); watching Lincecum melt down was classic, watching Weeks play like a rockstar was awesome, and dodging foul balls proved to be much more, uh, real than I had originally expected. Humor, excitement, and a slight bit of danger, plus the weather was pretty great and we won - what more could a fan ask for?

Thanks for letting us come along, Mom and Dad! We had so much fun with you!

May In a Nutshell

2011-06-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

Hello? Is anyone there?

We're back!!!!

Well, we didn't go anywhere. As predicted, cheer took over my life in a major way in May - moreso when I found out a good chunk of our funding was getting cut right before I went to order, um, everything we need and pay our camp tuition. It was looking pretty dire for a while, but the kids and their parents did a fantastic job pushing our two May fundraisers and we worked a few things out, so I think we'll be okay for now. I had a few weeks of severely high stress, though, and it definitely took it's toll. I walked away from my College of Marin classes and a few other things to put my full attention towards the team, which absolutely demanded my full attention at the time. Practices are out until mid-July, so I'm hoping I can relax a little bit. We had a parade in Fairfax today and have a carwash next Saturday, but those are small potatoes compared to what we were doing.

We got Dan's results for his second try at the Professional Engineer's Exam yesterday and - hallelujah - he passed! Now we have to wait a few more days to find out if he passed the seismic exam. If so, Dan will be a fully licensed Professional Engineer! He's also been out on a CalTrans project on 680 a few times, working on his thesis, so that's going as well as can be expected (it is CalTrans, after all). And...Dan's boss told him he will be going to Shanghai! We don't know when, but we know it is going to happen. Crazy crazy!

I took a cupcake decorating class the Saturday after tryouts...I had to do something other than cheer just to keep my sanity. It's wasn't all that educational or informative, but I got more cupcakes than I knew what to do with and they were quite good, so I guess it was okay. Here are a few of my favorites:

We watched Piggle for a couple of weeks while Naomi and Mark were in Germany. She was sad at first, but going to work with Dan and having Tank to play with kept her occupied. All three of us enjoyed having Piggle stay (she's pretty funny) and Naomi and Mark brought us back a cuckoo clock and some German hot chocolate. It was so sweet of them to do! Dan's niece, Morgan, and her boyfriend, Maverick, came down to California for a road trip after school got out, so we met up with them, plus Matt and Rachel, at The Melting Pot for dinner one Saturday night. No one but us had been their before, so it was a fun and new experience. Everyone agreed the food was to die for and we had a blast trying everything and all of the different cooking options.

Dan and I took a quick trip up to Calistoga in search of some suitable barbeque in the vein of our beloved Firestone's and Mo's in SLO. The barbeque was okay (although not what we had hoped for), but we also got to go explore the winery one my co-workers lives at (she and her husband own it). It is an small, adorable place and it was nice to walk around in the quiet of early evening and explore the beautiful grounds.

We held our annual Memorial Day Barbeque and it was again a smashing success (if not incredibly loud). Dan's bbq is unparalleled in its awesomeness.
We had so much fun and were especially glad to spend time with our friends who recently graduated from dental school and will be moving on and away next week. It was a nice last hurrah for everyone.

Our friends Julie, Matt, baby Alina, and Ken came to visit us all last weekend. To add to our fun, Shawn, Greg, and their kids Nancy and Adam were able to join us Saturday afternoon. We had soooo much fun and ate soooo much food: Melting Pot, Half Day Cafe, and The Counter Custom Built Burgers were the highlights, plus we did a bit of shopping and lots of catching up. After a crazy month of cheer, their visit was a welcome respite from real life. I wish they all could have stayed longer!Five of my cheerleaders from last season graduated on Thursday, so we are off to parties and such this weekend to celebrate their achievements. The crowning glory (for me) is that one of the cheerleaders not only decided to go to Cal Poly (yay!) but made the Cal Poly Stunt Team (double yay!!). I am so thrilled and I can't wait to go to a football game this fall to watch her cheer.

That's the May rundown. Hopefully I'll get back to regular posting again; we have some fun things coming up this summer that I am much looking forward to.

The Calm Before the Storm

2011-04-15T20:55:00.000-07:00

Ha. Like our life has ever been calm. However, cheerleading tryouts are a little over a week away and as of tomorrow, you may never hear from me again. (Just kidding. I hope.)

Dan had his second go-around at the Professional Engineer exam this past weekend. Tank and I always miss Dan when he is gone for the evening, but it is much easier for Dan to stay over in San Mateo than to drive back home and then back again the next morning. Dan says the test seemed much, much harder this time than it did last time. We are hoping he passed at least one more section of the test. We'll find out in two or three months.

As the post title suggests, we haven't been doing much this week. Dan taught his final Berkeley class for this session on Thursday. I've just been working at the perio office and enjoying the downtime known as Spring Break - no community college classes, no (immediate) cheer stuff to do at Drake. I've been taking care of little things here and there, but the majority of what I have left for myself will start tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it. My goals for tonight include finishing a book I started weeks ago so I can return it to the library (it's not very good but I hate not finishing a book) and folding all of my laundry so I am not digging through laundry baskets or burrowing through giant clothing piles next week when I am losing my mind.

Dan and I had a little date tonight: dinner at Boudin and shopping the Borders going-out-of-business sale. I am so glad I will never step foot in that horrible store again. I got some cheap books, though:

Dan got some building books; he is poring over them as I type.

So what is coming up this week? Here's a rundown:
*I'm super-behind on my homework. Can't imagine how that happened. I also have a project due in two weeks, but I'm going to try to do it in a week because trying to do it during tryouts means I either fail or die trying not to fail. Not pretty options.
*Grocery shopping. Not entirely sure when.
*One last marketing/organizational push before cheer tryouts. Re-posting fliers, updating the Facebook event, visiting the local middle school, confirming room reservations, confirming judges, establishing a community ed class so we can practice over the summer, finalizing cheer gear options, learning the tryout material (as an emergency measure), confirming our tumbling classes with the gymnastics center, and making sure we get our mats back from the PE department, along with 100 other little things that I haven't thought of yet. And making a Staples run to get my own organizational materials.
*My regular job. Duh.
*Two ballet classes.
*Young Men/Young Women joint Easter Egg Hunt on Tuesday night. That reminds me; I am teaching the Young Women's lesson on Sunday. I should look at that.
*Did I mention that I also agreed to put together a Napa vacation package for the Woods Humane Society annual gala? Which means I need to get accommodations, activities, and meals donated and properly documented? Yeah, most of that needs to get done this weekend.
*And I'm going chocolate-free for a week, starting tomorrow.
*Oh, no, wait...we're watching Naomi's dog Piggle while she is Germany starting Monday. That's what I was forgetting. Thank goodness Dan will be around to care for her. He just has work (which the dogs can and will go to), tutoring, bishopric meeting on Tuesday, and observations at CalTrans in Oakland. And maybe going to Davis on Friday. Lucky bum.

And Tank? Probably a whole lotta this -
- and playing with Piggle. I'm so glad he will have a playmate for a couple of weeks. He's going to need one!

Okay, back to my final hours of comparative relaxation. Enjoy your week!

Opening Night

2011-04-13T20:28:00.000-07:00

Dan and I got invited to Opening Night at the Oakland Coliseum for the A's first regular season game in those super-sweet seats on the field. You better believe I jumped on those tickets like Tank on a wild turkey. Unfortunately for my beloved A's, their first Friday night was not their night. Kouz made two errors alone, Suzuki got run over by a scoring Mariner and nearly had to leave the game right there (watching him crawl away from the plate was one of the most surreal things I have ever seen), and the ending score was dismal. However, there were some highlights: The start of the game (which did start out well)

Trevor Cahill (who threw an incredible 100+ pitches before being taken out)

Cahill in action

One of my favorites, Coco Crisp

David DeJesus

Josh Willingham

Kooooouuuuuzzzzz

Ryan Sweeney (very cute)

Very old banjo-playing A's Megafan. We had been told about him but never seen him before tonight. His cape looks like it was made when the MLB was founded.

One last shot next to the field

Even though the loss was sad, we had a really fun time. I got to deck myself out in A's gear (including my A's Snuggie), we got hot dogs and kettle korn, and we got to sit closer to the field than almost anyone else. We'll be back soon enough.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

2011-04-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

Or, rather, it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Last week was absolutely gorgeous; this week has gradually gotten cooler and now tomorrow is forecast to be 52 degrees. Fifty-flippin'-two degrees in April. Oh Mr. Sun, you are such a tease.

Anyhoo, back to the beautiful day. I was struck by the refreshing warmness and how lovely everything looked under a fresh springtime-blue sky and not the gloom that the marine layer usually envelopes our surroundings in, so I grabbed my camera before walking out of the door with Tank for our morning walk.

The neighborhood next to ours really is cute: cute houses, well-maintained (for the most part), lots of greenery and flowers. And although it scares me to walk by it because of the hoard of bees that infest it every spring, I really love when this tree blooms.Just down from the tree, we encounter a long rock bed that we have adopted as part of Tank's walk on the recommendation of his physical therapist. Well, I have adopted it; Tank still fights me tooth and nail because he hates it. The instability of the rocks forces him to engage his little doggie abs, which helps support his back and improves his balance, plus it forces him to rely on his recovered (but not perfect) back legs instead of making his front legs do all the work.To get over to the Civic Center, we have to cross through a small open space clearing and then over a little stream. Tank like to stop on the foot bridge and look for ducks.I love walking around the lake at the Civic Center. It's one of the few things I have ever loved about Marin, along with Drake Cheer, Pearl's Phatburger, and the regular 2-4 crowd at the Field of Dogs dog park. It's just a pretty place to walk and relax.
However, Tank takes a lot of that tranquility away by becoming a crazy dog anytime he sees a bird, so instead we walk around the grassy little hill right across from the lake.Exciting, I know.

After looping the Civic Center, we head back into our adjoining neighborhood. I think one of the more subconscious reasons I love this neighborhood so much is the name of the main street in it, the one that we walk down to get us to the Civic Center - Come on. That is fabulous.

We weave in and out of various roads and streets through the neighborhood on our way back home, and then we get to Tank's favorite part of the walk (outside of terrorizing the ducks near the lake) - the creek behind our own neighborhood. Tank loves this part because he finally gets to be off-leash just for a bit and can wander at his leisure while easily keeping me in eyesight. Since it was so nice and enjoyable that morning, we hung around a little bit longer than normal.

And thus concluded probably the most enjoyable solo walk we've ever had. We're on our way out for another, but it is much colder this morning. Drat. It was nice while it lasted.

Vomiting, Not Vomiting, and A Crazy Leap of...Something

2011-03-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

So much has happened this week, it feels like a whirlwind. And, of course, no pictures. I had made it a goal this week to take one picture every day, but I didn't. I got some good stories, though, so buckle up.

The week started out with a bang, with Tank throwing up first thing Monday morning. His pre-vomit hacking woke us up, and I got him into the bathroom just in time (vomit is so much easier to clean from linoleum than it is from carpet). Vomit, even the kind that wakes us up before the alarm, is just a minor nuisance with Tank; vomit with little blood clots in it is another story. He seemed fine otherwise, though, so we figured we'd let him fast for the day and put him on a bland diet for a week to help his stomach calm down. (Tank seems to have a sensitive intestinal system, which is why we weren't concerned about the blood. It certainly isn't the first - or second - time this has happened. He'd had a stressful and unusual week between the storms and Dan's illness, so we chalked his stomach problems up to that.) I called the vet to ask what dosage of antacids we should give him, and they immediately recommended (demanded) I bring him in that day. Long story short, our wonderful vet, Dr. Kim, couldn't find anything wrong with him (despite what she thought was quite a bit of blood in the vomit sample we brought in), so we were sent off with a stomach coating agent and a Pepcid regimen for the week. Tank is doing well and has loved his diet this week (brown rice, chicken, and low-fat cottage cheese). He goes back on his regular diet tomorrow.

Tuesday brought the most bizarre scene I have witnessed since I've lived in Marin County. This woman got hired to work at our office last week a new receptionist. Everyone in the office loved her during her working interview, but I got a weird vibe from her. I couldn't say why, but I felt it, and I'm pretty sure she felt it towards me, too. On paper, she was great and she was plenty nice, but something was just off for me. Unfortunately, the doctors couldn't deny her a job solely based on their part-time back-office worker's "vibes," so they hired her. Our primary receptionist, who was training her (and who had been her biggest advocate) started noticing odd behaviors here and there on the first day, like being on her phone pretty constantly without even trying to hide it and not greeting patients (her primary job), or saying she would "try" to be back from lunch at 2, but Tuesday took the cake. She "had" to get her car windows tinted, so she had the tinting guy come to our office, plug his giant, commercial-grade extension cord into one of our outlets so we couldn't close our back door all the way (and, uh, it was cold that day), and work on her car in the parking lot for about two hours while this chick went in and out of the office to check on it like she was just hanging out and not like she had a brand-new job to be training and making a good impression at. What's more, when he was done, he came inside and they both started measuring our office windows because she "needs" to get her house windows tinted as well, and apparently our office windows are about the same size. Do I even need to say this is the first job (outside of being a Marin-mommy) she's had in at least eight years? Or does the story speak for itself? Here was a woman - a mother - who had absolutely no clue - or didn't care - about how to behave at a real job. Scary.

Needless to say, the doctors figured out that she wasn't going to work out, so they let her go on Wednesday. However, there is another piece of this story that took place over the weekend. On Friday, after work, the regular receptionist and financial coordinator and I were sitting around chatting (gossiping) about this woman and how there was no way she was going to work out (this was pre-window-tinting). The receptionist mentioned that I should take the position - that I should go from my sweet, three-to-four hours a day, whenever-I-wanted-to-saunter-in-and-out setup, to working three full days a week at the front desk (while she worked the other two) and then us sharing the job I was currently doing, with me still coming in for part-days the two days a week I wasn't up front. Make sense? It would look like this:

Monday: Full day (front desk)
Tuesday: Full day (front desk)
Wednesday: Half day (back office)
Thursday: Half day (back office)
Friday: Full day (front office)

I told her no way, she was crazy; why would I give up the arrangement I already had? It allowed me to take classes at College of Marin whenever I wanted, fully and easily worked with my (insane) cheer schedule, allowed me to sleep as long as I wanted almost every day, and made taking unlimited vacations a total non-issue (something that was pretty essential for me last year). I had zero reason to take this job.

So I took the job.

I'd being lying if I said money wasn't part of it. Dan and I are doing just fine and we don't need the money (one of the reasons the part-time thing worked so well). But it's always nice to have a little more, whether to pay off some debts or pad a savings account or increase my annual Banana Republic spending budget. The real reason, though, isn't as obvious. Look at the description of that part-time job. I have been skating easy for nearly three years. I've been lucky enough to have any job I wanted since - well, forever - without having to worry about how my income would affect my family. I've basically been playing while Dan has been working his tail off at his main job while also holding two other small jobs (tutoring spoiled high school kids and sporadically teaching at UC Berkeley) and getting a doctorate degree all at the same time. It sort of hit me that I hadn't done anything to deserve this kind of privilege and freedom, and that I didn't like. Yes, it was part of the incentive package Dan offered me in exchange for moving here, because I was hell-bent on not leaving SLO or our brand-new home and Dan really wanted this job. I figured it was high-time I started to pull at least some of my weight again. So, after one day of training on Thursday, I started my brand-new job last Friday. It went okay, thanks to the help and patience of the financial coordinator (who was the receptionist when the main receptionist was on maternity leave). I have all of Monday and Tuesday before I can get some more training in this Wednesday and Thursday, but I didn't lose any large amounts of money (we had a patient pay her $1650 balance in cash) or burn the building down, so that's a good start, I think.

That said, I'm on a three-month probation period, because, really, this might not work out. I still will have to leave early two of those three full-days a week to make cheerleading practice when it starts in May, and it remains to be seen if we can actually make that feasible. I would be happy to go back to my old job, but I really am hoping we can figure this out. We shall see.

Dan taught his second class at Berkeley on Thursday, and we are happy to report he had no vomiting episodes this time around. He is definitely on the mend, which means he is back to teasing me like it is a competitive sport. I liked him better when he was sick. Since he is better, however, I bought a cross rib roast yesterday at the grocery store and am eagerly awaiting Dan making it for dinner one night. I have had way too much of my own sub-par cooking lately. And, not to be overlooked, Dan vacuumed the house, cleaned the kitchen, did the dishes, cleaned the toilets, and bleached the shower in the two-and-a-half hours I was gone shopping yesterday. That is an amazing husband (even if I was mad at him yesterday, which is why my grocery shopping took so long - I was procrastinating going home).

So, as usual, it has been a busy week at Chez Kuhmann. Next week will definitely bring some more fun and crazy, and I can guarantee at least a few pictures. 'Til then!

When One Sickness Ends, Another Begins...

2011-03-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

Oh good grief, where even to begin?

How about with a Sickness Update? I am finally healthy again, after what may have been the longest sickness of my life. I find myself each day noticing the ease with which I breathe or the absence of that horribly painful cough. It really has made me grateful for my good health. Dan, on the other hand, has finally contracted my illness and is pretty worn down himself these days. Not worn down enough to slow him down the way I did, but pretty beat nonetheless. We'll get back to him in a bit.

I've sort of made reference to it in previous posts, but I don't think I've said it officially until now: I will be taking over the Drake High School cheer program effective immediately. The former head coach put in an amazing five years transforming the program from four timid girls into a full-fledged competitive co-ed varsity program. She has agreed to help me with the management side of the program during this first year and I am grateful for her help. There is still so much I don't know! We're on a break now (we had our end-of-the-year party two Thursdays ago) and tryouts will take place the last week of April. I certainly have ideas on how to keep the program growing and moving forward, but my biggest goal this year is to get through it intact. We shall see.

Dan started teaching his UC Berkeley Extension class this week, despite the fact that he was pretty darn sick on Thursday. How sick, you ask? Well, he came home from work after two hours, decided he should still go teach his class, then ended up throwing up halfway through it, only to continue teaching until the 9 o'clock release time. He looked like death warmed over by the time he got home. He also helped his sister, Naomi, with some moving on Saturday. It's tough to get Dan to stop, as many of you have been witness to. I certainly can't stop him. He's feeling better today, but is still pretty tired, as I said earlier. Tank is taking advantage of Dan's downtime by snuggling with him as much as possible. Nothing like a snuggly dog to make you feel better.

All of my classes are going well, despite the setbacks from my own illness. I've been able to keep up and even a little ahead of schedule. It's nice to know that I didn't totally shoot myself in the foot.

Our good friend, Ken, and my sister, Jamie, stayed with us last weekend, which was fantastic. They both were going to a wedding in Napa for a mutual friend, so the obvious choice was to stay with us. Duh! Jamie was here half of Friday through Monday morning, while Ken came up Saturday afternoon and left Sunday evening. My parents were also here on Friday, so we definitely had a packed weekend of good fun. We didn't do to much - Jamie, Dan, and I went to brunch at my favorite brunch place, Half Day Cafe, where Dan ordered a brownie sundae for his 10:30am meal, and we went to dinner with my parents at (where else?) Outback Steakhouse on Friday night - but it was fun to hang out with everyone while still being able to relax. I would love to have guests who didn't have to stay-and-dash (so to speak); hopefully someday we'll get to do a real tourist weekend around the North Bay and SF with some guests in the near future.

Does anyone else find the new Arby's commercial as irritating as I do?

And...I ran my very first 5k last Wednesday! It's wasn't a race - I did it on the treadmill - but I still consider it a legitimate 5k, and I ran (jogged) the whole thing. It certainly wore me out! I couldn't really believe it, but I'm really excited about that particular accomplishment. Mine is not a body built for running, so it feels really good.

That's our update. Hopefully there will be more pictures next time. Being sick makes you not so inclined to exert any extra effort, so the camera has lived in it's case for quite some time. Make sure to stay warm and dry this week!

How Time Flies When You Aren't Sleeping

2011-03-04T19:48:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's been two weeks since my last post. I mean, I can believe it, but with as much as I've been stuck to the couch, you would have thought I'd have updated by now.

Both the Drake girls and boys basketball teams lost their first-round NCS playoff games last week. The girls were playing a higher-seeded team, so that was expected, but the boys was a bit of a surprise. We should have beaten our opponent (San Rafael High), but we had two starters out with pneumonia and another one one his way (although he still played), so we just didn't have the strong team we are used to. It was kind of a bummer end to our phenomenal season, but end it did. I'm already looking at camp clothes for July and brainstorming my post-tryout parent meeting agenda.

Last Wednesday, I took a quick trip down to San Jose to visit my friend and co-worker, Regina. She is in hygiene school and needs a patient for her upcoming board exams. We were hoping I could be her patient, but apparently my teeth don't have the right kind of plaque. Bummer. But, since I was already in San Jose, I got to have lunch with one of my Englishies, Jen! We had lunch at this great place in Santana Row called Pizza Antica. It was so good!
We also did a little Borders shopping because a) it was one of the stores that is closing so everything was on sale, and b)um, we both have English degrees. It's what lit nerds like us do for a fun afternoon together.

On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, I noticed my throat was really sore and I was pretty hoarse. I figured both were direct results of lots of yelling and cheering at the basketball game, so I didn't worry about it. I was also coughing a lot, but I attributed that to my permanent winter post-nasal drip, figuring I'd drained a bit into my lungs. Again, not worried. That was before Friday night...when I stopped sleeping. My coughing kept me (and Dan) up all night. It was so bad Dan went downstairs to sleep on the couch. I had hoped it was a one-off, but nope - Saturday and Sunday nights were the same (and I slept on the couch of my own accord; I figured one of us should get a peaceful night's sleep). I saw the doctor Monday; she said it was just a cold and my asthma was causing all of my coughing. I hadn't even thought to take my inhaler. She sent in a codeine prescription which took - wait for it - two days to fill. I hate hate hate the Safeway pharmacy. So, after five sleepless nights in a row (and the beginnings of losing my mind and control of my emotions), I am finally getting some rest. And it. is. AMAZING. (I mean, the cough syrup tastes incredibly terrible and I have to shove an Oreo into my mouth immediately after drinking it - and no, that is not an excuse to shove an Oreo in my mouth, I don't need an excuse for an Oreo - but I will take that nasty taste for a nearly-full night of sleep any day. Night. Whatever.) I am still coughing during the day and a lot in the evening, but it seems to be improving. Maybe someday all of my upper-body muscles will stop hurting too.

Dan, of course, has not been sick a day from this, but he did have to move to a new office (still in San Rafael) and has spent the last week on phone conferences. Tank
has been acclimating to his new work environment, but it sounds like he is finally getting comfortable with it. Both Dan and Tank have spent the rest of their time taking care of me like the wonderful boys they are.

One of those nice things Dan did for me was take me to Powell's Sweet Shoppe for gelato last Friday.

It was really good and helped my throat feel better. It was as yummy as it looked.

Last Saturday, Dan and I got tickets to go to SF Ballet from a couple from church who couldn't go anymore. We saw Program 3, which was a compilation of three short pieces. All of the pieces were much more modern in their interpretations and really interesting to watch, and of course, being in the San Francisco Opera House is always a treat. It is so beautiful!

Unfortunately (and rather embarrassingly), I had a coughing fit right in the middle of the first piece. After trying unsuccessfully to stifle it and praying for a break in the dancing, I made a run for the door, only to have an usher grab me by the arm, wrench me away from the door, shove a peppermint into my hand, and push me back towards my seat. I tried to tell her I had to go, but she wasn't having it. You should have seen the looks the people around me had on their faces as I made my walk of shame back to my seat. It was as if I had shot their puppy. In front of them. And their grandchildren. I was so humiliated; not only had I been a major disturbance at one of the world's finest ballet programs, but I had broken a rule by trying to leave the show, further disturbing the program. I wanted to curl up and disappear. Never had I wanted teleportation to be real as much as I did right then. During intermission, the usher headed up my way. I thought I was in for a serious lecture and starting apologizing and explaining as fast as possible. Turns out...I didn't break a rule at all; she just didn't want me to miss the piece (which I didn't watch after that whole ordeal anyways, being too preoccupied with my shame and failure as a dancer who should know better). I was so frustrated - I could have left and hacked to my heart's content without bothering anyone at all, and she made me stay and humiliate myself and piss off everyone around me! - that when she walked away, I started to cry. I don't cry often, especially in public, but the lack of sleep already had me on the emotional side and I was too overwhelmed at that point to do anything about it. I made it through the rest of the program with minimal coughing, and I did enjoy it, but I will never, ever go to the ballet with a cold or cough again.

We went out to dinner tonight at one of my favorite Marin restaurants, Gaspare's Pizzeria. If you haven't been here yet, you should definitely go. Get a pizza to share and any appetizer or salad - they are all good. It was a bit loud tonight (a large group near us had a quite a bit to drink and were, shall we say, rather enjoying themselves), but it is usually pretty quiet and enjoyable. The food is great and the customer service is fabulous, plus the bread they bring out is always hot and smells divine. I could seriously just go there and eat the bread.

It has been nice to have my weekends back from cheer; I wish I hadn't spent the first two sick but it is what it is. I'm looking forward to crashing out courtesy of my codeine tonight and tomorrow Dan and I are off to a flea market in Oakland. No rest for the crazy!

A Spoonful of Sugar (or Mac and Cheese, or Pork Buns, or Hot Chocolate) Makes the Medicine Go Down

2011-02-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

It's been quite the week here in Marin County. The rain seems never-ending (though we did get a bit of sun today), the cold seems more bitter than before (Tank and I walked across frozen - not frosted - grass at 8:30 this morning), and Dan and I ran around even more crazily than normal. That, my friends, is no small feat.

Last Saturday, I met up with Jen and Megan, two of the three other Englishies, in San Francisco. Megan was up visiting Jen in San Jose, so they came up to the city to meet me for lunch and...Giselle at the San Francisco Ballet!

I can't remember where we had lunch (Jen picked it out), but I remember that it was gorgeous enough to sit outside on the restaurant patio and that the macaroni and cheese I got was really yummy. We also got a few baked goods to share; the chocolate-cherry cookie was amazing. The ballet was really, really beautiful, and it was especially fun because Jen had never seen SFB before and Megan had only seen the SFB's Nutcracker when she was a little girl. They both loved it, too. I hope SFB does Giselle again next year!

The Marin County Athletic League basketball playoffs were this week. Our girls team was eliminated in the first round, unfortunately, but the boys went all the way to finals, which meant we had games Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday nights. We lost in our final match, but being second in the league is certainly nothing to sneeze at, especially since this was Drake's first trip to finals in quite some time. We start Northern California Sectionals this Tuesday...go Pirates!

Games were not all, however. On Wednesday, I had a ultrasound-guided biopsy of a fibroadenoma. I didn't say much about it because it really was just a precaution and I didn't want anyone to freak out about it. The funny thing was, my OB/GYN found it and said it was a fibroadenoma but wanted me to get an ultrasound just to be sure, then the ultrasound tech and radiologist both said it was a fibroadenoma but they wanted to biopsy it to be sure. Why did I need to have a biopsy if everyone - including me - was confident in what it was? Who knows. I was nervous about it but figured if I didn't do it, it would bug me to death, and I don't like going against doctor's orders. The procedure went well, except for the local anesthetic. I. Freaked. Out. I nearly passed out, and I was lying down! I couldn't believe how white I was, even ten minutes after the biopsy was over, and I scared the daylights out of a passing nurse in the hallway on my way to change back into my regular clothes. I had an amazing ultrasound technician for the procedure; she held my hand the whole time and made sure I was okay afterwards. Turns out she used to have the same problem as I do with passing out around needles, and it was a blessing to have someone there who understood what I was feeling and knew to trust me when I said I was feeling worse or better. I made sure I got myself a treat afterwards...an amazing chocolate frosting-filled cupcake from Susie Cakes!
I got the result back on Friday and guess what? It was a fiboradenoma. LOL. I am so glad it is over.

I spent the rest of Wednesday - and most of Thursday - resting at home. It was a very strange and difficult thing to do, as it always is when I am sick or injured or otherwise needful of rest. It is a very different thing to know you can't do anything instead of choosing to not do anything. While I was resting, however...it started to hail!

It hailed for quite some time; these pictures are from the first few minutes. It did entertain me for a while.

Dan had to work in the city all day Thursday, so it was up to me to make sure Tank got walked. It was pouring rain all day long, and though I managed to stay pretty dry, I can't say the same for my little buddy.You can't really tell, but he is sopping wet. And although Tank is not a huge fan of being wet, he loves being toweled dry. I tried to get a little video of him getting excited when I pulled out the towel, but his aversion to the camera trumped his excitement. As soon as I put my little pink camera away, though, he was running around like crazy. It is so cute.

On Thursday night, Dan and I went to San Francisco to have dinner with some of his family at a Chinese restaurant called - wait for it - Heaven's Dog. I wish I was kidding. The restaurant actually had big head-shot-type paintings of dogs all over, and it was really cute. Dan's cousin Suzy was in town from Utah for a conference, so it was fun for all of us to get together and hang out while she was in the Bay Area. Dan and I were pretty beat, though - Dan from an exceptionally long work day and me from surgery the day before - so we cut out a little early.

Dan ran up to Davis on Friday for a meeting with his thesis advisor and the other students working on the thesis, only to find that the meeting had been cancelled and no one had told him. Terrible! He was able to get some stuff done anyways and even got to go home early from work that day.

On Saturday, I went up to Petaluma to have breakfast and do some shopping at the outlet mall with a few girls from work. We had breakfast at this diner called Pete's Henny Penny. It looks pretty sketchy on the outside but the food was fantastic, the portions were huge, and the staff was super-friendly. I got a hot chocolate and linguiça and eggs, and everything was really yummy. It's hard to impress me with linguiça, and I loved it! I wish I would have known about this place when Dan worked for PEI and I would come up to Petaluma to hang out with him when he was up here on business.

It makes me tired just thinking about it all again. I gotta go to bed. Goodnight!

Academics and Relaxation (Wait, What is Relaxation?!)

2011-02-09T20:48:00.000-08:00

It's been a month since my last post. After I finally got better, I had to do a lot of catching up - at work, around the house, and at the gym for sure. On top of that, Dan got sick, so he was out of commission for a few days too. Time to catch up on the blog now too!

I decided last-minute to sign up for classes at College of Marin again, just for fun. I've come to realize that I love to learn, I seem to have an unquenchable thirst for the world around me, and I am always striving to make myself a better person in every way. I watch Dan continue to grow academically and see him get excited about new things and it inspires me (and makes me a little jealous). So, I signed up for not one, not two, but THREE new classes this semester.

First, I signed up for Ballet II. I tried taking it a year ago, but I was still dealing with my knee injury, plus taking two other dance classes at Santa Rosa Jr. College, and I just couldn't cut it and ended up taking an No Credit in the class. I'm excited to finally get back into dancing after eight months of a self-imposed break, and I'm taking it with a friend I met at another COM dance class. It's a lot of fun but very tough! My calves were quite stiff after yesterday's class!

Then, I signed up for Algebra I. That one doesn't make sense to anyone but myself. Call it unfinished business. I had been taking Pre-Calculus at Cal Poly my freshman year - again, for fun, because it certainly wasn't required for an English major - and doing very well when my Grandpa Frank died. It was the first time a close family member had passed, and I didn't really know how to deal with it. I thought I could still do just as well academically without any help or extra time, even though I was driving back to Los Banos several times that quarter, and I was wrong. I passed, but I didn't learn much. I've always wanted to make it to Calculus and after ten years of no math study whatsoever, I am chasing Calculus again.

Finally, I signed up for Intro to Sports and Exercise Psychology. More than anything else, I am always trying to improve myself as a coach. I am a young coach and I didn't have the best coaches in high school, so there isn't a whole lot to draw on besides what I think is right. I am so excited for this class, to learn how to get in the minds of my young athletes and help them enjoy themselves and exceed their own expectations. Plus, the professor is a former cheer captain like me!

Dan's thesis has been going fairly well, or as well as can be expected. He goes to Davis every Friday to work on it, meet with the other students involved, and sometimes with his thesis advisor. Anytime you have other people involved in a project, things can get a little complicated. What matters is the thesis is moving forward and Dan doesn't have to drive to Davis nearly as much as he used to. Hallelujah.

Alright, back to fun stuff. Dan and I have had a hard time finding decent barbecue in the North Bay, but there is a place in the Northgate Mall called Roadside BBQ that gets the job done well enough when we have barbecue cravings. Anyway, we went this last weekend and noticed some minor changes in our food, and in our glasses!
How cute is that? I love it!

We have been planning our trip to Oregon for Hood to Coast, and I am so pumped about going back, especially after seeing the movie last month. (By the way, there will be an encore showing in several locations on 2/10/11 [yes, that is tomorrow/today, depending when you are reading this] around the country - check out hoodtocoastmovie.com if you are interested in seeing it. You won't be disappointed!) Dan and I have stayed in a large beach house with his family in the past, and it has always been a lot of fun, but we will most likely be getting our own hotel this summer. Since we are not taking the arsenal of summer trips this year like we did last year, we will have more time to spend in Cannon Beach/Seaside and so getting a hotel made more sense. At least, it does right now. No final decisions have been made. Whatever, I am just excited about going!

To be honest, Dan and I have been boring as usual (as evidenced by the lack of pictures). We obviously don't have a lot of time outside of our multiple jobs and academic pursuits. I wish we were more interesting, but we don't have time! I guess what matters is that we are interesting to one another.

Count Your Blessings

2011-01-16T12:41:00.000-08:00

I've been wallowing in my head-cold-derived misery for the better part of two days. I was thinking today, why do I have to have an oversized middle nasal concha (look it up) and why didn't I have the surgery to correct it? It makes head colds so much more frustrating. Then I was thinking about all the ways I can tell I have a fever, like how I can sit in our house at 65 degrees in a light sweater and jeans instead of a sweatshirt, long-sleeved shirt, sweatpants, and house socks and still be comfortable; or how my hands, which are usually freezing even in warmer temperatures, are on fire and clammy; or how I am vaguely dizzy any time I am not sitting or lying down. And that's a low-grade fever. Women always talk about how men are such babies when they are sick; I am a total spoiled whiny child whenever I have a head cold. Thank goodness I haven't had the stomach flu in years; I'm sure I'd be absolutely unbearable to be around.

Anyhoo, in the midst of my self-pity, I started thinking of all the blessings I have. A head cold, in the grand scheme of things, is such a minor inconvenience. So, since I copped out of church today, I went around my house and took pictures of everything I have that I am really thankful for.
My Ugg boots. (I didn't say some of these weren't a bit silly.) My feet are always cold, and my Uggies keep them warm. I'm well aware that these are a luxury and I make sure to love them appropriately.

I don't think there's a night that goes by that Dan and I forget to give thanks for Tank in our prayers. Even when he is being a bratty dog as he was last night (I woke up one time with a paw on my face, then another time when he wanted to get under the covers but was too lazy to move and then got huffy when I gave up on him and he decided he was ready to move. Too bad, little buddy!). He is so much fun and such a loving, loyal dog and we adore him. I sometimes think about the family that lost him and wonder if they ever miss him and wish they could know that he is happy and loved.

The space heater is my new best friend. As much as I complain about being cold, I am so thankful for heating appliances like this one to keep our home comfortable. There are a lot of people out there who don't even have a home to shelter them, much less keep them warm.

This one is a two-parter. I am so happy to have Dan in my life, even when he is cranky. He's my sounding board, my partner in weirdness, my at-home chef, and my support in every way. He does so much to make me happy and I'm not always aware of it, but I do appreciate it.

The second part is that this photo of us always reminds me of my friend, Julie, who took it. I was told that the friends I made in college would be lifelong friends, and while that turned out to be wonderfully true, Julie has turned out to be my lifelong best friend. I look up to her in so many ways and am thankful that she is such a good listener and such a selfless friend to let me yak her ear off all the time. She has been a wonderful support and encouragement to me, and I am incredibly grateful to have her in my life.

It's no secret that I love food, but now, more than ever, I have come to realize what a blessing it is to have the kind of access to food that we have. I never have to worry about if I'm going to be able to have a meal or even a snack, and I take that for granted a lot.

Dan and I often talk about the things we miss about SLO and our condo; one of our most-missed things are our front-loading washer and dryer, bought brand-new (but at a discount since they had a few superficial nicks and scratches). That said, just the ability to have fresh, warm, clean clothes whenever we need them is an incredible blessing. There is a Tide commercial in which a traveling Tide washer/dryer truck goes to areas affected by natural disasters so people can wash their clothes. It's one of those things you don't think about until you don't have it. What's more, we don't even have to take our laundry to a laundromat or a shared laundry room; it's right in our house. They aren't the best laundry machines, but I am more than willing to overlook that.

Oh, Kleenex. It seems like such a little, insignificant thing until you have a cold or allergies. I was thinking, what would I do without Kleenex (or tp or paper towels) when I had a cold? I know there's that whole handkerchief thing, but when you think about it, disposable is so much more sanitary (at least, I think so).

Honestly, not a day goes by that I don't think about how lucky I am to have so many clothes to keep me warm and covered. Again, it's one of those things we don't always think of, but it is something I try to be very aware of. So basic, but such a blessing.

Modern medicine has saved me from myself more times than I can count. Like I said before, I'm a total baby when it comes to sickness and discomfort, and things like basic painkillers are so awesome. Even shots, which I cry and panic over whenever I need one, are far more desirable than the diseases and conditions they prevent.

Of course this list isn't all-encompassing: clean running water, a water heater, electricity and gas, our vehicles, things like toilets and soap...can you honestly think of how life would be without these things? So, yes, having a cold is no fun. But after giving it a good, long thinking session, I can think of a lot of things that are much less fun than a simple winter virus.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel (or Behind the Clouds)

2011-01-15T12:38:00.000-08:00

It has - shockingly - started warming up a teeny-tiny bit it Marin this week, and I am praying the weather will continue to warm. Preferably into summer, but when I start celebrating the promise of 60+ degrees as I am now, I'll just take what I can get.

Monday brought another three-hour cheer practice. It's hard to believe that even though we just started basketball season, Senior Night is four short weeks away, and the end of regular season the week after that. We (the head coach and I) are already starting to think about spring tryouts and summer camp locations and dates, not to mention our end-of-the-year awards dinner. This first year has gone by so fast!

Tuesday, Dan and I went down to Emeryville to see the one-night-only showing of the Hood to Coast documentary.
We went a little early so we could have dinner at Pizza My Heart first, then met up with Dan's sister Naomi, her boyfriend, and few more of her friends. Dan's brother Matt was supposed to join us too, but he was sick. Sad day! Naomi, Dan, and I wore our team shirts from 2009 (the last time we ran and the year the documentary was filmed) because we had submitted our team photo to be shown before the movie and wanted to represent. We never saw our photo, but the movie itself was fantastic. Now we are even more excited to participate in the race again this August.

Friday, Dan spent most of his day in Davis working on his thesis project. I, on the other hand, spent most of the day at home wallowing in the misery of a head cold before I went to coach at a basketball game that evening. Dan was super-sweet and went to pick up Chilpotle to bring home so I could eat before I went to the game. I got through the game okay, even though the sound system would not work for our halftime music but was figured out in time for the home team's halftime music...strange. The funny thing about the cold was, I really started coming down with it on Thursday, but I didn't recognize it. My throat just felt really dry, and since I'd had a personal training session that morning, I figured I was just really dehydrated and kept drinking more and more water, even though that didn't seem to help. Needless to say, I haven't been back to the gym this weekend. :-)

Dan also found out that our water pipe under the kitchen sink was leaking last night, so our landlord is here now and it turns out the entire pipe is rusted out. Good gravy. He and Dan are working on it now, and after they are finished, Dan and I have a few errands to run. I'm still nursing a low-grade fever and a stuffy/runny nose, and I'm exhausted from barely sleeping last night (due to the pressure in my sinuses - ouch - and Tank constantly moving around), but I hope that this bug will be mostly over and done by tomorrow night. Wish me luck!

New Year, Slightly Different Story

2011-01-09T22:48:00.000-08:00

Dan and I have never been big on the New Year celebrations. We made some effort this year and had a couple friends over on New Year's Eve, then got takeout P.F. Chang's and watched Inception on New Year's Day.

I was back to both of my jobs (periodontics reception and cheerleading) on Monday; Dan was a lucky bum and got Monday off. He spent it cleaning up his office (which deserves its own episode of Hoarders) and getting ready to start his PhD thesis. CalTrans may be interested in assisting with funding Dan's thesis, so that is exciting (even though Dan's employer will cover the expense). We are so glad those weeks of daily drives to Davis are over and Dan can get more involved in what he is actually interested in.

But back to my work. Our office got so much chocolate during the holiday season that we decided to keep a box of chocolates on standby until the New Year. They are handcrafted, printed chocolates with unusual fillings that one of our patients makes. Last year, the doctors got us each a box for Christmas (and my mom's dachshund ate all of mine when I took them home to share last Christmas...evil booger). I have been waiting with baited breath to get my hands on this box, and let me tell you...I chose wisely.
There is never any indication what flavor each chocolate is, so you have to pick on visual appeal alone. This one was adorable and delicious - a ginger-infused caramel filling welcomed my taste buds into 2011. Ah-mazing. I consider myself especially lucky because I heard a few of the others were just plain weird.

My first week back to cheerleading was a doozy: a three-hour practice on Monday, a basketball game on Tuesday, two basketball games on Thursday, our semi-annual cheer clinic Saturday morning, then two basketball games Saturday night (we cheer for both boys and girls varsity teams at home; just boys when we are away). One of our fall cheerleaders is on the girls varsity team, and it is really fun to watch her play and cheer her on. All of the games were great and our teams are starting out the season on a high notes, especially the boys. It was a lot of fun this week, but it was definitely exhausting.

So, we are still in Marin, Dan is still in school, and I am still working/coaching, but the slight changes are keeping things fresh. We are looking forward to our new challenges (and hopefully warmer weather!) and excited about what is in our near future.

Christmas 2010 (And Then Some)

2011-01-01T09:01:00.000-08:00

First of all - Happy New Year!

We went out to dinner with Naomi, Matt, and Mark (Naomi's BF) at DreamFarm the Tuesday before Christmas. It was a lot of fun and the food, as always, was really good. I really enjoy our dinners together and finding out more about Dan's past from his family. We were really disappointed not to spend this Christmas in Oregon with most of Dan's family, but we were glad for the opportunity to get together for dinner before we all went our separate ways for the holiday.

Dan and I started our Christmas celebrations a day early on Christmas Eve. After going with the missionaries to pick out gifts for a needy family (and thank goodness I went or those poor girls would have ended up with Tonka trucks for Christmas), Dan and I opened gifts from each other and from his family. Dan has been wanted a pneumatic framing nailer for three years and I kept screwing it up, but this year I got it right.
I've been wanting new Ugg boots for a while now as well, and Dan pulled through at the last minute and got me the pair I wanted most.
After gifts, we scrambled to pack and run out the door to my parents' house in the Central Valley.

Christmas at my parents' place went as it always has: stockings, then gifts from mom and dad, then quickly getting ready for brunch. Luther really enjoyed the stocking opening this year.
My mom has been doing Christmas brunch for as long as I can remember. It's always really good food and a wonderful time to spend with my family. It was wonderful to spend the morning with both sets of grandparents and to see my sister Jamie, who was home from Utah and is moving to New York in a few weeks. We opened gifts from our grandparents after brunch and then just lazed around...that nice, post-Christmas-morning feeling. My parents bought a Wii for Christmas; Dan set it up and we played Wii Sports and Just Dance for a while. (I am no good at Just Dance, I think because that game was made for non-dancers.) We had an early Christmas dinner and then played some more Wii before Dan and I were on the road again, heading even further south to...

San Luis Obispo!

On Sunday morning, we went to our home ward. We didn't really mention where we were going for our Christmas trip because it was really a last-minute decision, and it was really funny to see some of the surprised faces on some of the ward members. It was wonderful to be back in our ward and we do really miss it...hopefully we will be back soon!

After church, we headed out to Pismo Beach to walk along the oceanfront with Tank. The sand was packed from all of the recent rain, so it was really enjoyable to walk on, even though it was pretty chilly. We tried going to original Splash Cafe in Pismo, but it was packed (as usual) and we didn't want to eat outside, so we headed back into SLO for our favorite clam chowder.

It was so good and such a nice way to warm up after our chilly beach walk.

Monday started off with a trip to Margie's Diner. I usually order a Fat City Mini (egg, bacon, potatoes, and biscuit), but I decided to go with something different and ordered "The Winner" omelette (sausage, tomatoes, and cheese topped with a ton of whole sautéed mushrooms). It was really good but really huge, and I barely made a dent in it. It didn't help that the omlette also came with potatoes and a biscuit...After breakfast, we wandered around downtown for a bit and got some frozen yogurt at Bali's. We went back to the hotel to rest a bit before we went to dinner with the Kiahas at Woodstock's Pizza. We love the Kiahas and were so excited to spend some time with all of them. Of course, Dan found this sign to be particularly funny:
Gotta love college-town dining.

After dinner, Dan, Tank, and I drove down to Avila Beach to walk along the beachfront. We tried to get Tank to walk down the pier, but he gets really scared of the gaps between the planks on the pier, so we gave up on that when he started shaking. It was a beautiful evening and listening to the waves crash as we walked and talked was so amazing. I miss the ocean a lot.

Tuesday was our final day in SLO. Dan took Tank to the nearby dog park so he could run around and get some energy out while I was getting ready. While they were there, a wild turkey wandered in and Tank wasted no time in attacking it. He chased the turkey up trees and around the park until the turkey was so exhausted that it gave up and lay on the ground. Dan says Tank went straight for its throat (eek!) but only managed to tear out some feathers before Dan got there and pulled him off. The turkey was okay and wandered back in wooded area where it came from. Needless to say, Tank was pretty tuckered out the rest of the day.

After that crazy episode, we checked out of our hotel and went to the best place for hot chocolate I have ever found, Linnaea's Café. This place is so freaking good and so awesome...I absolutely love it. There is an outdoor patio area with a koi pond for nicer days, but we decided to sit inside. We both got the coffee cake (absolutely to die for), I got a Mexican hot chocolate, and Dan got a white hot chocolate.
It took every ounce of willpower I had not to eat my entire coffee cake before Dan got back with our hot chocolates. It was probably only five minutes before he came back but it felt like a lifetime.

How perfect is that?

I mean, come on. Not a drip to be found. It was almost too pretty to drink. Almost.

Dan loved his white hot chocolate...

...and I love my Mexican hot chocolate. It tasted as good as it looked.

We drove up to campus and walked around, looking at all of the new construction (holy cow!) and talking about memories we had in the old buildings. It's something I always love to do on every trip to SLO, and it is the perfect place to walk Tank around. A tour of Cal Poly is a workout in and of itself.

Our final stop was Firestone's for pulled pork sandwiches. While Dan was ordering, I scored a table in the sportsbar area, and if you've been to Firestone's, you know how difficult getting a table anywhere there can be. The sandwiches and fries were incredible as always. If I could pick up that restaurant and plop it in Marin, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

All in all, it was a wonderful holiday. Dan and I really enjoyed the time to relax and be together and to spend a little time with our families.

Holiday Storm

2010-12-19T17:58:00.000-08:00

Besides the fact that it has been raining non-stop for three days, it seemed like all of my holiday plans came crashing together this week. It was a lot of fun, but it was also really hectic!

First there was Dan's company Holiday Dessert Party on Wednesday. I made myself so sick on sweets, but it was totally worth it.
Round One (clockwise from top): Ice Cream Mochi (Japanese Ice Cream Ball), Chocolate Swiss Roll, Chocolate Petit Four, Mini Fruit Tart, Skewered Pineapple. The Mochi was by far my favorite, followed closely by the Swiss roll. The tart was a little tart for my liking, but still good.

Round Two (clockwise from top): Chocolate Mousse Shooter, Skewered Strawberries, Chocolate and Peppermint Petit Four, White Chocolate and Strawberry Petit Four, Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake, Chocolate and Spearmint Petit Four (center). The shooter was to die for (dark chocolate mousse on the bottom, milk chocolate in the middle, with white chocolate flakes on the top), the chocolate/peppermint petit four was surprisingly good, and the chocolate/spearmint petit four was weird.

I made myself so sick that even though I was stuffed to the point of puking, I had to eat some Brie on a crostini to balance the sugar out in my system. Darn. :-) That was also incredibly good. Don't you worry; I hit the elliptical for forty minutes right after to try to work some of that ridiculousness off. I don't know how many calories I burned, but I definitely felt better after.

Thursday, Dan and I ran up to Target in Novato for some last-minute holiday shopping before Jamie flew in on Friday. On our way up, we saw this house in Marinwood from the freeway because it was so lit up. I told Dan we had to go find in on our way back, so we did.

This doesn't even come close to capturing everything that was on and in this house. You really need to get out and walk around it to take it all in, which the owners have made possible to do. They hang out outside and talk to people who come up to look at the window displays and get a really good look at everything around and on the house. Definitely cool.

Friday was my office Christmas party, held at Poggio, an incredible Italian restaurant in Sausalito. I love love love this place, and I promised one of the dental assistants I would try everything we ordered this year. Thankfully, most of what we ordered for the table was fairly recognizable.

Anyhoo, here's the rundown:

First Course - Three appetizers, including burrata (Italian cheese), polpettine (Tuscan meatballs), and granseola (crab salad). I could only get a quick picture of the granseola; everything went so fast!

Second Course - My friend Catherine (who used to do my job but went to nursing school and is back helping out with sterilization) and I decided to share two entrees: A costata (rib-eye steak) with yukon gold potato gratin, and a gnocchi with in-shell clams, a spicy sausage, and some green leafy vegetable that I can't remember the name of. All of it was incredible. The steak was to die for, as were the potatoes. Probably the best potatoes I have ever had in my life.

Third Course - The doctors ordered one of every dessert to pass around the table. Included was a chocolate lava cake, an apple crumble crisp, a peach tart, a vanilla bean and huckleberry panna cotta, and a few others. It was awesome. I didn't get any pictures of the desserts because we were doing our White Elephant gift exchange at the same time, and let's be honest, I was too busy eating.

Jamie made it into Marin Friday evening; Dan picked her up as I was stuck in traffic from Sausalito to Larkspur and couldn't make it to the bus depot in time to pick her up. We spent the evening relaxing (which Jamie said she definitely needed after her finals), which included making hot chocolate and watching the old Rudolph Christmas Special.

Saturday morning, Jamie and I went to our favorite Marin breakfast spot, Half Day Cafe. I go to this place every chance I get. We both got scrambles and scones with orange butter; everything was so, so yummy and filling.

We went to the Northgate Mall afterwards; my Christmas gift to Jamie was anything she wanted at H&M (within reason). Of course, after an hour in H&M, she didn't find anything she liked, so we went to Forever 21 instead. She found a cute coat and a cozy sweater she loved, so we got those. We then shopped around the Victoria's Secret Pink store and bought my mom's gift at Macy's. We were exhausted by that point, so we headed home to rest before...

...we went to the San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker! Dan and I took Jamie out to CPK first, then Jamie and I drove into SF while Dan went to his sister's Cookies and Kinect party in Oakland. Jamie and I got there early, so we were able to walk around the War Memorial Opera House while we waited for my parents, youngest sister, and her boyfriend to arrive.

The rest of the family made it just before the doors closed, and we ran all the way up six flights of stairs to our bleeder-section seats and slid in just as the lights dimmed. Whew! The ballet was beautiful as it always is and we had a great time.

I have been relaxing today and gearing up for our last week of crazy before the holiday. Get that shopping done and enjoy the remainder of the season!

Holiday Cheer and Revelry

2010-12-12T22:13:00.000-08:00

Friday night was the Drake Holiday CHEER party. One of our cheer families were kind enough to open their (enormous) house to the team and their families, and they were wonderful hosts. Good cheer parents are hard to find, so it makes me appreciate them even more! We all had a really good time and the kids enjoyed the white elephant exchange and relaxing outside of practice and games. And, of course, I look awful in all but the last one, which is a silly one...such is my life in non-professional photos.
Team Pic 1

Team Pic 2

Silly Team Pic

Extreme Cheer Facials...we need to work on those

On Saturday, Dan and I went into Oakland to see a play/variety show put on by the California Revels. We got free tickets from Dan's employer since it is a major, MAJOR sponsor of the show. It was a fun show and there was definitely a ton of talent there. The only part we didn't like was when they made the audience sing along (or, in one case, dance down the aisles...we put our foot down on the dancing). Personally, I just don't like being engaged in what is going on onstage and then having that spell broken by being pressured into doing something uncomfortable. Some people really enjoyed it, but we just didn't. We are such Scrooges.

Below are some pics from the show and the gorgeous theater at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland...try not to mind the seat-jumper's head in the second picture...so annoying.

Christmas Time is Here!

2010-12-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

The Christmas season has officially begun in our home, and I couldn't be more excited. It means that this is the last week that Dan has homework ever, that my tickets to the SF Ballet's Nutcracker have arrived in the mail, that I am pretty consistently on a sugar overload, and that holiday parties are in full swing. I love it.

I started things off myself by supervising the Drake Cheerleaders' Wreath Sale on Saturday afternoon. The girls asked if they could use my car as a display, and I said sure.

Poor old girl. It was pretty funny, though, and we sold a bunch of wreaths. Woo-hoo!

Dan and I continued with our ward Christmas party last night. We brought a salad (that Dan put stale croutons in) and red velvet cupcakes. Dinner was good and we got a good group of friends to spend the evening with at our table. The Primary children's Nativity scene was cute and funny, but the caroling sing-along was uber-awkward.

Tonight, after we fed the missionaries, we put our Christmas tree together and put up our Christmas decorations while listening to classic Christmas music. Per-fection.

And now we are relaxing with a little TV and our trusty space heater. I love looking up and seeing our little tree all lit up. I can't wait until we have gifts under it too!

General Update #2

2010-11-29T08:43:00.001-08:00

November has proven to be a crazy month for us. Here's another general update until we actually do something interesting and that I remember to take pictures of (December should be full of those).

We had Tank's final appointment with his physical therapist a little over a week ago. She was very impressed with his progress and will just be keeping in touch with us over email. She gave us suggestions so that we can fine-tune his motor skills over the next few months, but he is about 90% done with his recovery. When his body will actually finish progressing is anyone's guess. Our therapist said she has seen other dogs with similar injuries finish their progress within a year of their injuries, and others she has seen improvement all the way through two-years post-injury. We will continue to work with him, but it is such a relief to know everything is going just the way it should with Tank's recovery.

A few weeks ago, my chest started feeling tight on and off. Not wanting to repeat last year's lung fiasco, I made an appointment with my doctor right away. She thinks I have asthma (bah), and so prescribed me an inhaler. The first one didn't work as well as she wanted, so I am on to my second inhaler (Symbicort, which I think is working much better, despite tasting like pesticide) and also have a course of asthma pills (Singulair) if I feel like this inhaler isn't doing what it should. I don't think the pills will be necessary at this point, though; the Symbicort seems to be working well. I had asthma as a kid, but it was so mild that I hardly ever needed to do anything for it. Imagine my surprise when I learned it was back and much worse than before!

Dan is busy as ever, but today is his last day of classes at Davis...hallelujah! From here on out, he can focus all of his school-energy on his thesis, which I know he is looking forward to. It is Dan's busy season at work as well, and his company is giving him more responsibility than ever before. More on that later...

We spent a chill Thanksgiving at my parents' house in Los Banos. We just went down for the day and had a really nice time. Dan made fudge that was a hit, and Mom's turkey (and pretty much all the other food) was awesome. I stuffed myself ridiculous. We both took full advantage of the time we had off (five days for me, four for Dan) and had lots of fun shopping, having the missionaries over for meals and to race remote-control cars, and generally just relaxing. I hope it is enough to gear us up for the weeks to come.

Both Dan and I are missing SLO (and SoCal in general) something awful lately. It has been crazy cold for the Bay Area and we miss our warmer, classic California weather and surroundings. We talk about going home or further south often these days, but when that will become a reality, we have no idea.

December is looking to be absolutely bananas for us. There is not a single weekend up to Christmas that I don't have something to do, and a lot of those things include Dan as well. From five different holiday parties to a play and the Nutcraker to a fundraiser delivery to my sister flying in for the holidays...my head spins just thinking about it. We cannot wait for Christmas to get here.

Stay tuned; we have lots of exciting stuff coming soon!

SYTYCD Tour 2010

2010-11-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

Fabulous.

That's the word that instantly pops to mind when I think about the show. Absolutely fabulous. But back to the beginning.

I went with two friends I met at the dog park pre-Tank-injury. Laurel is a long-time Marin resident with two black Labradors; Rachael is a SFSU paralegal student with a pit/doxie mix. We left early enough to beat most of the commuter traffic and grab some food at Mel's Diner in Sacramento.

Mel's Diner: Where the burgers are as big as your head.

We were just about to pull out of the parking lot to go to Arco Arena when I realized I had left our tickets at the diner. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Thankfully, they were still on our table. Crisis averted.

We had floor seats, which I initially thought were going to great. However, unless you are in the first seven rows or so...not so good if you are short. Rachael had the awesome idea to sit on our purses, which made all the difference. However, next time, I will be a little smarter with my ticket choices.

All of the dancers were fantastic, although Billy seemed to be off his game a bit. I wonder if he was sick or something, because his movement just didn't have the energy I expected from someone so talented. Nevertheless, the whole show was packed with all the best routines from the season: Billy and Lauren's shoe dance, Lauren and Kent's prom dance, Kent and Anya's "First Kiss" dance (with Lauren subbing in for Anya), the baseball dance, the "My Chick Bad" dance, the stabbing-your-friend-in-the-back dance, the three hip-hop boys dance, the black and white group dance to "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and the Bollywood group dance, even the Twitch/Alex hip-hop dance (which they showed on the giant screens above the stage)...that dance got more cheers and applause than any other dance that night. There were so many other dances, too, including solos from the top four dancers. It was so much fun. I was most excited to see Kent, Billy, Domenic, and Courtney (who I saw the last time I went), but Robert finally convinced me of the amazing dancer he is too.

Pictures (that aren't very good; the stage lighting made it impossible to get a good picture from where we were)
Domenic and Jose after their "Sword in the Stone" dance. Domenic is holding up the stone.

After the "Every Little Thing" group dance

Ditto.

Kent and Courtney after their "sexy" dance.

Three hip-hop boys' dance.

Jose's incredible one-handed rabbits (hand-hops)

Russell crumping

Group disco dance

Like I said, way too much fun. I think I am going to have to make this an annual thing. :-D

Jenna's Baking Method

2010-11-07T19:50:00.000-08:00

As I was making a double-batch of pumpkin bread today, I noticed I have a very odd prep method. After each ingredient goes into the bowl, I clean up any spilled ingredient and refill any container than I can before moving on to the next ingredient. I realized that this takes up a lot of time and I could just clean up everything at the end...that lasted through the next ingredient. It just drives me crazy!

As a result, my baking area looks like this:
And lest you think I was simply hiding my secretly dirty baking area...
This is the right side of the stove...spotless

This is the left side of the stove, conviniently taken up by my laptop, on which the recipe I use was displayed.

Weird, I know. Slightly OCD...probably. I really hate anything being dirty.

General Update

2010-11-07T18:30:00.000-08:00

Dan and I have had lots of minor events going on lately, so here's a quick rundown:

Dan took his Professional Engineer's License exam. Two days, sixteen hours. Ouch. He thinks he did well enough to pass three of the four sections, but I am confident that he made a clean sweep of it. We will find out the results in January. You can get a better understanding of what the exam is here.

Cheer at Drake HS has been keeping me busy. We had Homecoming a few weeks ago, which brought a fair number of festivities and events, as well as lots and lots of rain on game day. We had our final football game of the season yesterday, and we have our first competition next Sunday. It has been crazy, but I still am loving every second of it.

My great-grandmother passed away a week ago, and I was in Los Banos last Friday for her services. Although the occasion was sad, it was nice to see so many family members and friends.

Between school, busy season at work, the PE Exam, his callings of Executive Secretary and Financial Clerk at church, and tutoring on the side, Dan has been insanely busy. He is handling it as best as can be expected, but we are both looking forward to him getting some time off around the holidays.

We found out that we are IN for Hood to Coast 2011!!! We are both super-excited about it; I can't wait to be back at the Oregon coastline!

Tank's recovery is still going well. He seems nearly normal, but there are still small things here and there - like his inability to scratch himself with his back left leg or his probably permanently-altered gait - that suggests he had an injury not too long ago. We see his physical therapist later this month.

I am going to the SYTYCD tour next Tuesday and can't wait for that either. Thank goodness it is soon! I will definitely be posting pics from it.

And that's it! Our boring little life in a nutshell. We love it.

A Day of Rest?

2010-10-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

This is the first Sunday in at least a month that I didn't have something major going on. Thankfully, today was Stake Conference and church was just a short two hours. Okay, sure I coached for five hours in the rain yesterday, then ran home to shower and go to Petaluma for the Adult Session of Conference (thank you again for the ride, Erin!), but it still felt amazing to have a whole Sunday open and not a thing to do (and not so exhausted that I couldn't move).

So how has it happened that, in five short hours, I have washed and dried a load of laundry; folded three loads of laundry (two of which were done last week but I never got around to folding); picked up the three piles of laundry around my house; washed, dried, and inventoried an ex-cheerleader's bag of returned gear; updated the Drake cheer team's Facebook page; ran the dishwasher and put away a load of dishes; sorted and stuffed bags for Goodwill; and baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies? I am still planning on washing some pots and pans and making dinner and getting my various outfits ready for the week...

I think I am officially crazy.

Nike Women's Marathon

2010-10-22T20:33:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday, I was up at the crack of crazy to get ready for the Nike Women's Marathon in SF.

Oh heck no, I didn't run it. Are you nuts?!

Nike "hired" the Drake Cheer team to cheer on the runners in the Safeway Cheer Zone at about Mile 4. We had to be at our location at 6:30am. That meant I had to meet the entire cheer team (minus the head coach, who lives in the city) at the San Rafael Bus Depot at 5:15am to catch the bus into San Francisco. Yikes.

The kids were in pretty good spirits despite the early call time, and we made it into the city without much trouble. We met the head coach in SF and walked to the Marina Safeway where the Cheer Zone was set up.
And no, that's not what it looked like at 6:30 in the morning. It looked more like this:
The event organizers were nice enough to provide muffins, granola bars, waters, and sodas for everyone, which the kids desperately needed, and Safeway was handing out free doughnuts and coffee, which the kids desperately wanted. We were also lucky enough to get the the Wild 94.9 radio station right where we were cheering, so we got a lot of fun songs to dance to while we cheered on the runners.

That's right, we. Coach Christian and I donned pon-poms and were cheering right alongside our team. Thankfully, there is no evidence of it. I may have been talked into dancing for the team. I also may have been told that some random person was showing me up and busted out some...street moves in response. We'll leave it at that.

Anyhoo, runners started coming through at 7:30, and we cheered up until the last one came through around 8:45.Truth be told, everyone had a lot of fun. I had forgotten how much fun cheering was, and I had a blast. I also think I was starting to get a little delirious from the lack of sleep, but I still had fun.

We took a few pictures in front of our pretty but gray backdrop...

Can you make out the GGB in the background?

We headed back to the bus stop a little after nine, which was about when it started to rain. We didn't get too wet, but a couple of girls improvised some rain gear for themselves...We caught the bus back to San Rafael and, after making sure every kid got a ride home, got back to my house around 11. Truthfully, I could have showered and gone to church, but I was so exhausted I couldn't even walk straight. I went straight to bed and slept until Dan got home, then slept another two or three hours. Seriously, I was wiped.

All in all, a really fun experience and a great day. And, for our efforts, Nike paid the team $500 (which helped pay for our competition choreographer) and everyone the team, including us coaches, got brand-spankin-new Nike Air Pegasus running shoes...which happens to be my favorite sports shoe in the world.
Fabulous.

Magnoliophyta Mondays

2010-10-18T18:54:00.000-07:00

Party at the Mulkays'

2010-10-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Dan, Tank, and I made the five-hour drive down to Bakersfield. Our friends Matt and Julie welcomed their brand-new baby, Alina, and last Sunday was her baby blessing. People would ask how long our drive was, and often would then say, "That's a long drive." Not really, we would say. We are used to making those crazy twelve-to-fourteen hour treks to Oregon. This one felt like a breeze!

I have to mention that we stopped at House of Bagels in San Rafael on our way out because I was too crazy Saturday morning to eat at home. And I have to mention this because, even though there are a lot of things I really dislike about San Rafael, Marin, and the Bay Area in general, I love, love, love House of Bagels. I will miss it when we are finally out of this insane place.

We checked into our hotel, met up with Ken(!), and headed over to Matt and Julie's for the afternoon and evening. It was so awesome to see them again! I really do miss my favorite SLO trio. We met Miss Alina, and she is absolutely gorgeous. She looks just like her mom! She slept most of the time we were there Saturday, but we did get to see her smile and her her laugh once or twice. She is such a blessing! Julie's family was also there, so we got to spend our time with them as well. They are all super-nice and easy to be around, and Tank loved Julie's brother, Charles! He also had a lot of time playing with Matt and Julie's Yorkshire terrier mix, Teddy, and exploring their backyard. Tank had a fabulous weekend!

We had dinner at a Tex-Mex place that was so good; I wish I could remember what it was called! Julie and I had a few minutes alone while we saved tables for the rest of our crew, and it was so nice to have some girl-talk face to face instead of over the phone. I really do miss her! We all had some good catching-up time and lots and lots of laughs during dinner. I haven't laughed so hard or so much in a long while. We headed back to the Mulkays' house to watch the new Karate Kid movie before we headed back to our hotel and bed.

Sunday morning was Alina's blessing! It was definitely an exciting morning and seeing our three SLO boys together in the blessing circle was amazing. Alina was awake but perfectly behaved throughout. It was a lovely, spiritual meeting.

We took some pictures at the church before heading back to the Mulkays' for lunch and hanging out. This time, Julie was in front of the camera more than she was behind it!

Julie and Matt had put together an amazing spread for lunch; I don't know how they did it all but it was fantastic and Julie and Matt were perfect hosts. I would have been crazy-stressed out! The house was full of happy people, the weather was perfect, and you really felt like you were at a celebration. It was an amazing Sunday afternoon, and I was really sad when we had to leave. I can't wait to see all of my SLO friends and my favorite baby girl, Miss Alina, again!

Pacific Pinball Expo

2010-10-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

The Pacific Pinball Expo was last weekend. Dan's employer is one of the major sponsors of the expo, so all employees and immediate family get in free. We thought we probably wouldn't have time to go this year, but we managed to squeeze in an hour between Saturday conference sessions. There are over 300 pinball machines from 1950 - 2010. (We like the old machines best.) It is so much fun, and we had a blast. Thank goodness we get in free!

This may be the worst picture of me I have ever seen. Thanks for trying, Dan.

Pinks! All Out

2010-10-03T18:18:00.000-07:00

Just six days after we got back from Hawai'i, we went to Infineon Raceway for the Pinks! All Out drag race and show taping.
I bought the tickets for Dan for our anniversary. We went two years ago and had a blast, so when I heard they were coming back, I knew we had to go. The weather was perfect, the racing was even better than last time, there was a bit of controversy in one of the qualifying races, and we had a fantastic time.
The Jelly Belly display car...they also gave us free jelly beans.

Starting line

Close race!

The cars were ridiculously fast...a lot of them were even faster than this.

Po Po shut you down!

Not a close race.

Gorgeous day

(If you pay attention to the progress of the photos, you will see that we had cloud cover first [from about noon to four], then it cleared up [and didn't come back]. I will never understand the weather here.)

Maui 2010 - Days 7 & 8

2010-10-02T20:57:00.000-07:00

We had big plans for our final day in Maui, but not near as big of plans as Dan's kidneys had. But let's start from the beginning...

First, Dan did a little surfing.

I guess he got up a couple of times but I missed them. I was busy relaxing on the warm, gorgeous sand.

Next, the resort had arranged for a Hawaiian Shaved Ice cart to come out to the pool area, so we hit that up. We had been waiting all week for some good shaved ice, and it was good. The view wasn't bad, either.

I had a terrible crick in my neck from the sofa bed, and I had been playing with the idea of a massage all week, so I decided to go for it. There was a spa at the resort, so I just had to run downstairs and I was good to go. The masseuse was really nice and chatty and she worked on my neck and shoulders especially. I had no idea what a toll carrying Tank around all these months had taken on my upper body. It was a perfect preface to our big finale of the trip...

The Feast at Lele.

I had been looking forward to this all week. The food on the website sounded divine, and the dinner and show had gotten fabulous reviews, so we were super-excited about it.

Not to mention, the view was phenomenal.

We found out that there were several virgin drinks available for us, so the first thing I went for was the Lava Flow.
Best. Drink. Ever.

So the way the dinner went was this: it was a five-course dinner, with the first four courses coming from one of the Pacific Island communities. With each course, the traditional dances of each culture were performed. It was, far and away, my favorite part of the entire vacation.

First off was Hawai'i...

Next was New Zealand...

Then Tahiti...

And finally, Samoa (whose dancers moved so fast I couldn't get a good picture!)...

Some other pictures from the evening:

Dan had been feeling uncomfortable throughout the evening, and finally, he admitted that he was sure he had a kidney stone and we needed to find a hospital. He went to the restroom while I told our waitress (who had been absolutely incredible all night) that we had to leave early and called my parents to come get us. Okay, fine, I might have ate a few things from my dessert plate too, but he wasn't even out of the bathroom by the time I got out there.

It took my parents a while to get to us (they had been at their own dinner when we called), and in the meantime I found out that the nearest hospital was forty-five minutes away. Oh. Crap.

As soon as my parents showed up, Dan started vomiting into a shopping bag. (Don't worry; he took the items my mom had bought out before he started puking.) Dad drove as fast as he could, but it seemed to take forever to get to Wailuku. Of course, it took a while to get through all the ER room paperwork and registration, but they seemed to get Dan in quickly. We were admitted at about 10pm, and Dan looked near death's door. His hands were turning blue and his face had absolutely no color. I have never been so thankful for Western medicine as I was right then.

Nearly four hours later, after continued vomiting and excruciating pain for Dan (at one point he begged me to push him off the roof), serious sympathy from me (who didn't dare to push him off the roof), four painkiller injections (that didn't work), four anti-nauseau injections (that also didn't work), a saline drip, an xray, a CAT scan, and finally, a serious sedative injection, we were discharged. Dan had passed the stone by the time the CAT scan was done, and there was nothing more the hospital could do, so they sent us on our way with their blessing to fly home just nine hours later. Dan was still in pain and still throwing up, but they told us the worst was over. Easy for them to say.

We had to hit up the pharmacy before we went to the airport in the morning - talk about time management. Our flight departed at 11am but no pharmacies opened until 8, and the airport was an hour away. If two trains leave the station...

Anyhoo, after a display of my mother's scary-good negotiation skills, we got the pharmacy to put Dan's prescription order in front of everyone else's and were in and our in about fifteen minutes. We made it to the airport in plenty of time and had a fairly smooth sail through security (although they did make Dan put his barf bag through the x-ray machine...seriously?). I got our seats moved to the back of the plane in case Dan needed to use the restroom (because when you have kidney stone you don't have the time or patience to walk all the way down a 737 and then wait in line, and your fellow passengers don't really want to get puked on), and we had an uneventful flight home. By the time we landed in Oakland, Dan felt much better, and we were able to go pick up Tank from Matt's house (thank you again!) before heading home.

Dan is feeling much better these days, though we found out a few days after we got home that Dan was allergic to the antibiotic the hospital prescribed for him (Sulpha, in case you were wondering. I'm allergic to it as well).

It was a wonderful vacation, and though it ended crazily, we are grateful the stone came on before we were on the plane, instead of during the flight home. I can hardly wait to go back and feel so blessed for the wonderful and relaxing time we had and the memories we brought back with us. Oh, and the dark chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, too. ;-)

Maui 2010 - Day 6

2010-09-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

We wanted to explore a little bit more of the island outside of Ka'anapali and Lahaina, so we went for a drive with Mom and Dad on Thursday. We headed west; first stop was Honolua Bay.

I love how clear the water is. It is crazy to me that we were standing on a cliff fifty feet above the water and we could still see the coral.

We hopped back in the car and continued northwest to a secret blowhole. It's a pretty intense little hike from the road to the blowhole, and one should be wearing more substansial shoes to hike it. Flip-flops are not appropriate for this hike. (I speak from experience.) It was hot and I was sweating like crazy and Dan left me because I was taking too long, but it was totally worth it.

We went back to Honolua via a ten-minute walk from the road. I was hot and tired and cranky from the blowhole hike, so suffice to say I was not super-thrilled.

We headed back to the resort soon after; Mom and Dad went out on a sunset dinner cruise and Dan and I stayed in and watched Project Runway (you can't seperate us from our Bravo reality competition shows). While we were watching, the most gorgeous sunset was going on, so I kept going outside during commercial break to snap pictures. I took over thirty pictures of one sunset. That's how gorgeous it was.

We went out to dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall place in Lahaina called Four Sisters Kitchen. Amazing authentic Hawaiian food. I had this green mango/chicken soup that was to die for. The woman told me it was also called "Hangover Soup." LOL. Whatever; it was so good. Find it and go there next time you are in Maui.

The highly-anticipated last-day post is coming up...I don't know when but it is the only day left so get excited.

Maui 2010 - Day 5

2010-09-20T21:16:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was another kick-back kind of day. We lazed around the resort all morning, then decided to go lunch at Aloha Mixed Plate. I like getting good, authentic Hawaiian food, and this place promised it. Plus, the view was unbeatable:I got the Lau Lau plate, which looked a little something like this:It was amazing! Definitely try Lau Lau at some point in your life.

My parents went back to the resort for the afternoon while Dan and I walked around the Lahaina Cannery Mall. I found an adorable pair of earings and a ring to wear when I can't wear my wedding rings at cheer practices. We took the shuttle bus back to Whaler's Square, where we got some frozen yogurt to cool us off (it was pretty hot and muggy that day). We took a leisurely stroll along the ocean back to the resort, then found the new Top Chef on! Whoo-hoo!

For dinner, the four of us went out to Lahaina Pizza Company in downtown Lahaina. We were all super sleepy, probably from the warm day. The pizza was very, very good, but it only made us that much more sleepy!
Well, apparently Mom was still awake.

Maui 2010 - Day 4

2010-09-17T20:04:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was a very special day: ziplining day!

All four of us drove up Haleakala to the Skyline Eco Adventures course. It's a five-line course and the guides inform you of several extinct or nearly-extinct birds along the way; they also tell you about how white people and eucalyptus trees killed Maui. True story. It's sounds awful, but the guides are actually really funny and the lines range from cool to moderately exciting (at least for us). The best part is observing your fellow zip-liners; we had a very colorful/obnoxious/psychotic couple in our group. For example, on the first line, Dan asked the guide which hand held the carabiner and the husband-half of the couple responded, "Use the hand you use for [masturbation] (edited for language)." That kind of couple. Anyway, we had a good time. We probably wouldn't do it again, but only because we don't have much fear of heights, and without the adrenaline rush, it's just okay. That's how they get you down off the last line. You fly down the line, then back up a bit, then back down, then the guide jumps up and grabs your feet, pulls you down a bit, and puts a large rolling stepladder in your path. I was a bit less than graceful getting onto the ladder; I had a large bruise on my butt and hamstring from running into it.

A couple of videos will demonstrate what we did. First up is Dan on the first line:

Me on the second line. Explanation needed; I start flapping my arms because, while I was waiting to go, the guide at the beginning of the line told me to go faster, I should lift my elbows really high, then push them down to my sides as hard as possible, then repeat over and over. Haha, Mr. Tour Guide whose name I don't remember. You are just so funny. But, I decided it would be funny if I actually did it. It's not as funny as I thought it was.

After we were done, we tried to drive the rest of the way up Haleakala, but ten miles from the top, the volcano/mountain becomes a National Park, and you have to pay $10 to get in. No, thanks.

We went down into Kahului and to the Queen Ka'ahumanu Center to get some Maui Taco for a late lunch. I love love love Maui Taco. Best fish tacos I've ever had...pretty much the only fish tacos I will eat. We drove around Kahului for a bit looking for this bakery my mom wanted to get malasadas (Portuguese doughnuts) from, but we never found it, so we just headed back to Ka'anapali. We spent the rest of the evening at the hotel, and Dan and I went hot tubbing again...just because we could. ;-)

An Old Memory

2010-09-16T09:07:00.001-07:00

Dan and I were talking about Cal Poly last night and I recounted a memory from my sophomore year. I find it kind of funny (now) so I thought I'd share it.

I was taking the second English major core classes, which covers the time period of 1485-1660. Lots of King James Version Bible analysis and Paradise Lost from what I recall. Anyhoo, I was a model student in that class. I was always on time, sat in the front row (more to keep from falling asleep than anything else, which didn't work), and never, ever missed a class. The professor was Dr. Marx; I know my fellow Englishies didn't care for him but I didn't mind him so much. He was nice enough, but maybe a bit too dry and rather long-winded.

We had a ten-page paper due at the end of the quarter (mine on Paradise Lost, which is probably why I remember it), and on the day before it was due, I woke up sick as a dog. I literally could not get out of bed for a couple of hours; I just lie awake, panicking over what I was going to do about this paper (which was done, thank goodness, but needed a final revision). I finally got the will to crawl out of bed to my computer, where I sent off a quick email to the professor, explaining that I was incredibly ill and that in no way would be making it to campus that day. Could I have just a teeny, tiny, one-day extension?

Fine, came the not-so-happy answer. Too many students seemed to pull this kind of stunt, and the professors were rarely merciful to anyone claiming to have come down with a killer bug the day an assignment was due. And lest you think I was just a random student in a class of a hundred or or, know that he knew exactly who I was; we had nice, small class sizes for our major courses, and hello, I sat in the front! My spotless record bought me little. If I absolutely could not come to campus (which he strongly suggested I do, since we had class that day as well), I could email it to him, but no later than 5pm. Period. (And believe me, that was one of the kinder responses I ever heard of from people in similar predicaments at CP, or that I ever received myself.)

I went back to bed for most of the day. I then had to fight with my boss at my living complex's dining hall, who also didn't believe I was sick and was totally pissed at me for not working my shift, even though I had found a sub. I was so fed up at that point with people not believing me that I took back my "sick person" tray (they made packaged dinners you could take back to your room) myself instead of asking one of my roommates to go for me, even though I could barely walk straight. When the staff and managers saw me, they finally believed me.

It's funny, because I thought that was the norm at all colleges. I was thrilled to be given such a generous extension of, oh, seven hours. I knew it had been a long shot to begin with. Apparently I was wrong about figuring this was how everyone's college experience was; I tell this story to non-CP students and they are shocked. I don't remember what I got on that paper - maybe a B or B minus - but I know I was grateful for it. I never, ever left a paper for the last minute again. Mostly.

And, for added humor, here are my LiveJournal (yes I had one...didn't you?) entries from that day and the next day.

Sick
I'm feel so awful I just want to curl up and die. Or at least sleep. I can't even sleep. Blech.
Comment from my friend, Andrew: Are you deading? Hehehe

Day 2 Of The Sickness...
Still sick. As Andrew puts it, I think I'm deading. I think this is the longest I've been away from my bed all day (we're coming up on 45 minutes). Didn't go to Linguistics (big loss there), got an extension on my paper that was due tomorrow (yea Professor Marx!) and pretty much lied in bed all day, except for a few instances where I got up, like to pee and eat. Oh, and since my boss thought that I was fibbing about being sick (jerk) I took my sick tray that Pam brought me back myself and made him eat that tone of voice. I've had about five people tell me I look like hell or some form of that phrase today, so I know that I definitely looked sick enough to prove that I really am sick. Boo on everyone who lies about being sick to get out of crap so no one believes me. I'm definitely NyQuiling it tonight. I wish I had more to say, but since I've lied in my room all day, there isn't much to say really. Enjoy the lovely weather (if it hasn't melted you sissies yet...hehehe) and pray that I get better! Love ya!

Maui 2010 - Day 3

2010-09-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

We really just hung around the resort on Monday, spent some time in the sand, researched what we wanted to do. Yes, we had to research what to do in Hawai'i while we were in Hawai'i because we didn't have time to do it in California. We made a last-minute decision to take a sunset cruise and ran out the door to go book it.

Of course, after we had bought our tickets (just 30 minutes before the cruise left), I realized I had left my camera at the resort. Dan, being the awesome guy he is, ran (literally) back to our room to grab it for me.
We had time to kill.

I loved hanging out on the mattresses. It was so relaxing!

We decided to go up on the captain's deck for a while. The captain was really nice and made conversation with us, and the view from up there was pretty.

We went inside to order some appetizers, which promptly made Dan seasick. We tried going back up to the captain's deck, but that didn't work, so we made it downstairs where the boat moved the least and we caught a nice, cool breeze...which turned into an impromptu rainstorm. I finally had to go inside, but Dan stayed out because the rain made him feel better. I brought back a ginger ale for him and a Diet Pepsi for me. We thought the worst was over, so I was talking to Dan from the mattress and Dan turned around to look at me, which was the wrong thing to do. He handed me his glass, turned back around, and threw up over the side of the boat. Well, he actually threw up on the side of the boat, but he tried to make it over. He felt much better afterwards.
The sun started setting about the time Dan finished puking, so we both got to enjoy to sunset (although it got pretty darn cold out on the water...I definitely could have used a sweater).

We had a quick dinner at the Beachside Grill at Leilani's on the Beach, then went back to the resort and relaxed in the hot tubs. All in all, a very relaxing, non-stressful day.

Maui 2010 - Day 2

2010-09-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

We were up early to attend the Lahaina 1st Ward Sunday morning. Going to church in Hawai'i is easily one of my favorite parts of visiting the islands. There is such a sweet spirit in these meetings and the ward members are so welcoming and kind. I also love seeing the chapel and overflow completely packed. It was an older building and in need of some updating and a few minor repairs, but the people act like it is the most wonderful, beautiful building they have had the honor of being in. I always learn so much from just observing the members during the meetings.

After church, we changed into our beachwear and relaxed out on the Marriot lawn next to the beach. Relaxation is something neither Dan nor I have had a lot of lately; it was a wonderful thing to sit next to this beautiful ocean, look up at the palm trees against an impossibly blue sky, and do nothing.

We went and waded in the ocean for a bit, then found a nice hammock to relax in.

I'm telling you, it was blissful. Dan liked it so much that he wants to put one in our living room. I said no.

The four of us decided to go to Cheeseburger in Paradise in Lahaina for dinner. The food is good, but the view is what you go for.

We walked around Lahaina Town after dinner, where I developed some very painful blisters. I haven't worn flip flops that much for quite a few years and my feet couldn't handle it. Oh well.

Dan had swung on the hangings of a banyan tree on our honeymoon in Oahu, so I had to give him a sterner warning this time.

We watched the sun set sitting on a little stone wall that sits right above the beach in Lahaina. It was perfect.

Dan's favorite part of the evening was the discovery of a giant yellow fisherman in the shopping center where we parked the car. He insisted I take his picture standing next to it.

More pictures at the Facebook Album.

Maui 2010 - Day 1

2010-09-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

We've been in Maui for the past week. Let me tell you, it is tough to come home to the fog banks and cold nights of the Bay Area. And I miss hot tubs. A lot.

Anyhoo, I'm going to have to take this one day by day. We start out a little slow but the end is very exciting.

We flew out of Oakland at the butt-crack of dawn (7:45) and landed in Kahalui, Maui at 10:30am. It was a very long flight and we were thrilled to get off that plane. We couldn't check into our room at the Marriott Maui Ocean Club Resort at Ka'anapali Beach (Ka'anapali means "rolling hills") until 4, so we started by getting lunch (Quizno's) and buying food for our week. We hit up Costco, Walmart, and Safeway to get everything we needed. At one point, my mom tried to play a joke on me by putting a bottle of wine in her cart. I, being fairly oblivious and not very observant, never saw it. Dan did, and he was a little weirded out, but when he told me about it, I just figured Mom was getting it for a friend or something. She was so bummed that I not only missed it, but didn't get it. Hahaha, that's what you get for having such a sweet and loyal eldest daughter.

We walked around Whaler's Village, which has a mix of shops (everything from Louis Vuitton to the ABC Store) and a few restaurants. It's a nice place to walk around, and there is a free little Whaler's Museum that Dan and I explored later on in the week. We still had to wait a little while after we got to the resort to get into our rooms, and we were all tired and cranky by that point. Thank goodness it turned out to be worth it.
The view from the living room/our bedroom

The view from my parents' bedroom

Best pineapples ever

Kitchenette

Eating area
We were thrilled. Sure, Dan and I had to sleep on the most uncomfortable sofa bed ever, but being able to sit on our balcony and look at that ocean view was worth any discomfort in my opinion.

We didn't do too much more that day; we had dinner at Outback Steakhouse and Dan and I went down to the superpool and the hot tub to relax before bed. It had been a long day and we were still on West Coast time, plus we were planning on going to church the next morning, so we didn't stay out to late. It was a good first day.

P.S. There are more pictures in the Facebook album. I'll post the link at the end of each blog post. That will also be updated daily.

Facebook Photo Album

Good Enough

2010-08-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

Most of you know that I have been sorely missing Bali's since we moved to Marin. Dan and I had tried a couple other yogurt places here before: one in Larkspur that was obscenely expensive, not self-serve, and had few toppings and flavors, and one in Novato, the kind that has just the tart flavors and natural toppings - gross.

Then Northgate got all renovated and Berry Twist Yogurt came to town.
It's not Bali's - not by a long shot - and I wish there were more toppings, but it's good enough. And on a night like tonight, when it is actually warm enough to sit outside (without a sweater or jacket) and eat frozen yogurt, I do love finally getting my frozen yogurt fix.

Tank rather enjoyed it too; he got to go to the mall, sit outside with us, and got a little yogurt of his own.

Four Year Anniversary

2010-08-19T08:39:00.000-07:00

First off, let me say that Dan and I surviving each other for four years is a major accomplishment. One we both take very, very seriously. :-) Anyway, we always make sure to celebrate to the max. If you lived with either of us, you would know why.

This year, Dan planned the whole evening, but didn't tell me anything about where we were going or what we were doing. All I got was "You need to dress up, and we need to leave by 5:15." O-kay. I got two more clues out of him as the day came closer: we were going to SF, and there would be dancing involved. Now I was frightened. Not of SF, but of the dancing. It is vague enough of a term to make one scared.

I had a mini-crisis the two days before Wednesday looking for shoes to go with the dress I wanted to wear. I finally found them at Nordstrom's on Tuesday:
When you wear a sage green dress, you don't have a lot of color options with shoes.

Around three o'clock yesterday, Dan let one kitty out of the bag: we were going to a restaurant called Indigo in the Civic Center district.
Don't even bother with the Yelp reviews: this place is fantastic and if you live in the Bay Area, you should go. Here's a rundown of dinner:

First Course
-Jenna: Salad of Baby Greens, Almonds, Mozzarella, with a Citrus Vinaigrette. To. Die For.
-Dan: Sweet Corn Soup with something spicy on the top. Also to die for.

Second Course
-Jenna: Grilled (Free Range) Chicken over Basil Pesto Israeli Cous Cous, Summer Squash, with a Brown Butter Sauce. I ate myself sick on this one...I have got to find some brown butter. And I am a cous cous believer...just incredibly good.
-Dan: Pan Seared Pork Tenderloin with Sweet Potatoes Au Gratin and Braised Greens in a Red Wine Reduction. Also very, very good. We laughed because I usually get the sweet entree and Dan usually gets the savory entree, and this time we were switched.

Dessert Course
-Jenna: Apple Cranberry Crisp with Dulce de Leche ice cream. I picked wrong on this one. Not because it wasn't good - it was very good. It was also very warm and very heavy...not something I needed on a summer night (that was actually not cold - shocking) or after stuffing myself on the entree. I ate as much as I could...all of the ice cream and half of the crisp.
-Dan: Sorbet Trio of Raspberry, Pina Colada, and Orange Sorbets. Dan loved the first two and was so-so on the third. The raspberry was very strong (in a good way) and the pina colada was very subtle. I didn't try the Orange because I was getting to my danger point (as in danger of not keeping my food in my tummy).

Like I said, go here for a special occasion, or at least expect to pay a bit in the higher ranges. Dress is listed as casual, but I would suggest dressy casual.

During dinner, Dan made me guess what part two of the date was. He had dropped a few more hints: my green dress was appropriate for it, his co-worker had taken her tween daughter, it was near where we were eating dinner, and the place started with an O. I didn't want to guess what I really hoped it was; Dan had adamantly protested to ever, ever go to what I hoped it was, so I didn't even want to let myself think it. He finally made it seem like it was so obvious, so I took a deep breath, prepared to be shut down, and ventured my tentative guess: Wicked?

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been dying to see Wicked since it returned to SF two years ago. It is closing in a couple of weeks and I had been trying and trying to figure out a way to go, because I didn't want to go by myself. Most of my friends here had already gone, and Dan, as previously stated, would. not. go. I saw it in LA with the Englishies a few years ago and loved it, and now it was so close...

Anyhoo, the show was good and we had a good time. The Orpheum is a gorgeous, gorgeous theater and it was a treat to be there. The real surprise came when we were walking back to the truck. Dan had parked seven blocks away, closer to where we had dinner, because it was free and the parking garages are not. So, we started our walk...and continued our walk...and eventually I started to worry that 1) we were lost and 2) we were going to get shot. Hey, if it can happen to two German tourists, it could happen to us. In the back of my mind was the fact that we were walking through some incredibly thick fog, but I was less concerned about cold and more concerned about living long enough to drive home. Yes, I'm a little panicky, but even Dan agreed that next time, we would park in the garage.
It's been a wonderful, crazy, at times frustrating, adventurous, surprising four years for both Dan and me. We take the bad with the good. We believe in the importance of forgiveness and the belief that while we can't change each other, we can watch the other grow and encourage personal progress. Dan has always been incredibly supportive of my little dream to be a cheer coach at the high school level, and I try my best to support his own professional goals, like his upcoming PE exam and his doctorate at Davis. We drive each other to be better. We drive each other crazy. We aren't the perfect couple - not by a long shot - but I think we are pretty good together and we have a lot of fun. I couldn't ask for more. Happy four years, Dan!

P.S. Just remembered...Dan got presents, too! I bought us tickets to the Pinks! All Out drag race next month at Infineon, plus a new sweater for Dan's sweater collection, and ear buds to replace the ones I stole from him six months ago. :-D

Magnoliophyta Mondays

2010-08-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday. Shoot me.

Ballin' at the Baseball Game

2010-08-15T18:54:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine from the dog park has season tickets to A's games in some of the best seats in the park. She had offered two of them to Dan and I and two of them to another couple from the dog park for an A's/Royals game in early August. The weekend before the game, the husband half of the other couple got pretty hurt (he fell into a pit at the dump trying to dispose of something), so they were unable to go and gave Dan and I the two other tickets. I immediately called my parents to see if they wanted to go. They were the ones who got me excited about the A's so long ago, and I loved the idea of being able to repay them for all of those games when I was a kid and the memories I have from them. Luckily, they pulled some strings and were able to come!

We had an idea of where the seats were, and we knew they were in the first two rows, but we had no clue of how great they would or would not be. Well...
...they were incredible. I think all four of us were blown away. We had never, ever had seats like these. We were sitting right above the box where all of the sport photographers sit; that's how good they were.
See?

It was a great game, even though we lost. There was a terrible call made and a good, old-fashioned coach/official argument, the kind where they get in each other's faces. Do you know how fun that is to watch when you are this close to the action??? So fun!!! It was a close game, too, so the whole experience was just a lot of fun.

Well, hello there.

Mom hates this picture, so don't tell her I put it up here.

Of course, I think I look horrible here, so it's fair.

So yes, it was freezing cold and yes, we lost, but it was not only a free game, on free parking night (score!), but the seats were just awesome and I don't think I have ever had more fun at a game. Truly, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So Maria, if you ever read this post, thank you so, so much. This was absolutely amazing.