TNT Fundraiser Picnic

 On Saturday, we had a fundraiser picnic with all of our friends. It was a HUGE success and we had a great time.We set up in the Panhandle Park around noon. We rented a bunch of chairs (found a great place that rents for $1.50 per chair!!) and set up tables for everyone. We had some purple and green balloons so everyone could find us. Our friends brought a volleyball net, cornhole, and wiffle ball.

 It was a great mix of friends and it was perfect for people to bring their kids and dogs. Everyone was just hanging out, running around playing, and having fun. Erik made a TON of home brew for this party and we asked for $10 for a cup of unlimited beer. Everyone loved the beer and it went fast!!

 The day started off foggy & overcast but we got lucky and the sun came out! It was sunny but breezy and we were actually outside until 7pm when it got realllly foggy.

 Our friend Owen, who we actually went to high school with, came to the picnic and we had a blast. It was so fun catching up with him.

 Here is me and my little buddy, also named Owen!

Here is Owen horsing around with Kelsey's kids. So cute!They loved it!

After the picnic, we all headed to Kezar Pub down the street. We stayed out until 2am. I could not believe it. haha. The party kept rockin and we were all having so much fun.

We are so grateful to have such great friends supporting us through this race. We are THISCLOSE to being done fundraising. Great day!!

I made a couple of dishes, courtesy of Pinterest, so I will post those because they were delish!

The Culprit

Well, I went to the foot MD yesterday and the doctor immediately was like, your running shoes do not fit you. Well, of course I did not believe her because my shoes fit and size smaller was too tight. I've been wearing the Asics 21 line for about five years now and they fit.



Asics made a big mistake with the 2170 model. Apparently, they changed the cut of the shoe. She explained to me that my foot is shaped like an inverted triangle (wider at the toe box, narrow at the heel) but the 2170 is cut like one long rectangle! Therefore, when I get up to mile 10, my foot swells, and can't go anywhere. It's like my foot is in a vice then cue the numbness that follows. Aha!

My foot doctor here is awesome and does something cool with Zappos. They picked out a few pairs of shoes that they think would be a better fit for me. I ordered them, they will arrive at their office, and on Monday, I will go back in. I will run on the treadmill at their office & they will pick the best shoe. How awesome.

I really hope this is the ONLY problem to the weird foot pain. Agree my hip is weak but hoping it's not causing the numbness. Yippeeeee!!

In other news, the weather here has been crappy. In the AM before work and right after work, it is foggy and wet. This AM, it felt like it was raining. After work, it is so foggy and windy! Last night, I had to wear my WINTER ear wrap to run :-(

Only about 2 weeks until race day!

Troop Beverly Hills Sing A Long

Last night, I did something really fun. Troop Beverly Hills is a movie we 80's kids all know & love...A movie theatre in the Mission did a Troop Beverly Hills SING-A-LONG. Oh yah!!
 

It was awesome!! There was a girl there from this awesome company called Hey, Cookie with FREE cookies for everyone that were her take on Girl Scout Cookie Flavors. People were dressed up in costumes and there was a costume contest!! They played the movie with subtitles so everyone could sing along. Too funny.

With our admission, we also got a free drink at the bar next door which we got afterwards. Hilarious night!

Wine Stop

On Tuesday, we had a little work outing at the Rosenblum Cellars which is right here in Alameda. I had no idea this little winery would be in this industrial area of Oakland.


We had the tasting room to ourselves which was nice. Sometimes in Napa, you have to wait to even get up to the counter, it is so busy.


Our Sommelier was hilarious! His name was Kenny G, and he called himself the "Vice Mayor" of the winery. Too funny. He was cracking me up. He also owns a Chinese restaurant, but is not Chinese. haha. Here he is -



We got free tastings due to our co-worker being a member and got a discount on the wine. It was so warm and sunny over in Alameda which was great! Nice break in the day at the beginning of the week.

Shakespeare Sunday

To kick off Sunday, Erik went surfing for the morning down at the beach. When he got back, I headed up to the Presidio for Shakespeare in the Park! This year it was Henry V. I haven't been to Shakespeare in the Park since about 2009 when I saw Comedy of Errors.

 The Griffin Family, Amy, and I met up in the Presidio to watch the performance today. Here are some shots from their Facebook page.

 There was a lot of singing in this show so that was entertaining. Also, there were a few funny parts which was great.

 Baby Oliver joined us for the show. He is only 4 mos old and so adorable. He is just so chill and happy. Look at him smiling!

 Please check out the sky in this photo, above. Sunny & blue sky! We were outside in the sun & it was great. This was the weather from 2-4 pm or later...



Now, check out the sky in this photo. The fog rolled in fast & furious and suddenly we were all freeeeezing! The fog was blowing and everyone was bundling up. Typical SF day for you. Around the 4pm hour, the fog comes in. That is why little Oliver had his winter hat on!

When I got home, Evie climbed on the couch with me and took a nap. She was falling asleep here while I watched some TV. Erik spent the afternoon bottling beer for our picnic!

In terms of how Evie is doing since her surgery, we can say - great!! She wants to run around, she wants to jump and play, and it's getting harder to contain her. We cannot let her on the bed because it's too high and if she jumps off, she will hurt herself. 4 more weeks until we have clearance for her leg!!

11 & 20 miles down

 On Saturday morning, we woke up at 6am to get ready to run. It was our longest run of the season up in Sausalito. I did 11 miles and Erik did 20 miles. The course was so beautiful and the weather was amazing - sunny and warm! The team also put out signs throughout the course motivating us all to run, like the one above. They said things like "I survived a transplant, you can survive this hill" and "Running is hard but having cancer is harder." When you see signs like that, you push yourself to go on.

 This week, we received a donation from my Aunt who let us know that her mother died of cancer and her brother died of leukemia many years ago. We had no idea but that was definitely in our thoughts during this run.

 I stopped throughout the run at the water stops and to take a few pictures. We're not running so much for time but for time on our feet. With such a pretty view, I had to snap a few shots.

 These mailboxes were all painted with different scenes on them. So cute!

Something has been happening to me lately when I hit the 10 mile mark which stinks - my right foot starts to go numb & tingles. I have to stop to shake it out and then keep going. Its soooooo annoying because it happens multiple times throughout the run. This means, there is a chance that for the last 3 miles of the race, I will have to run walk :-(

I talked to a Physical Therapist after our run - the team graciously has one there for us after long runs to chat about injuries. She did some tests with me and made some preliminary decisions about what could be happening. Turns out, my right hip is weak causing my right low back to do too much work which = back/hip tightening up. When this happens, she thinks my calf starts to take over doing the running and there is some correlation between that & the numbness! She gave me some hip strengthening exercises to do on a daily basis. With 3 weeks to go, I am going to dedicate time to doing this so I hopefully feel better for the race!

Grrrrrrr! I am going to try to see my Podiatrist this week because the PT thinks I might have a pinched nerve in my foot. She also said I could come into Presidio Sport & Medicine to run on a treadmill to have my gait analyzed. I would love to do that!

Erik said he felt good during his run but his legs were tired & starting to ache. 20 miles - I just can't even believe it!! 

We rested the rest of the day and then had a yummy sushi dinner together at our fave spot, Domo.

We are almost all done with our fundraising - about $400 to go. I am so proud of us for working together on this goal. We have trained and fundraised together to make this happen!! 3 weeks until race day!!

Hydrating Friday

Our weekend started off by hydrating and carbing up. On Friday, we spent the day making sure we drank a ton of water and gatorade to get ready for our longest run of the season on Saturday. We were set to run 11 and 20 miles. Yes, Erik geared up to run 20 miles. How crazy is that??

We had a spaghetti and meatball dinner on Friday night and just stayed home to relax. Unfortunately, neither of us slept very well on Friday night. I was thinking about the run and it was hot in our apartment. Oh well...at least it wasn't race day!

In Erik's world, he is working on shaping his own surfboard. This project just begs to be done in a garage somewhere but he started doing it....in our kitchen. This is reason #355 why we need to move NOW.

We have been talking a LOT about moving. We are coming up on being in SF for five years which means in our tiny place for five years. We really want to move. We talked to our realtor who works with our property managment company and asked her about rents. Her words were "it's all these techy people coming into the city & driving the price up." Basically, rents aren't coming down any time soon.

We are so thankful to live in an area where the jobs are plentiful however, everyone from Google, Facebook, Twitter, and those thousand other start ups in Silicon Valley would rather live in SF than SV. They can afford to offer more than the asking price for rent and that is driving the rents up for everyone else.

We love Marin county(north of SF) but the rentals are very few. The cheapest area, where we can rent a HOUSE, would be the East Bay. We would have to get creative with how Erik could still surf but we are sure we could make it happen. We decided to check out some areas of Oakland and see what we think. Ideally, early 2013, we can MOVE. We love love love SF but with Erik gardening, beer making, surfboard making, and me working in Oakland - we need a bigger place that the city can't give us.

We'll see!

East Bay Wednesday

Tuesday and Wednesday, I was out in the East Bay for a conference for work. After the day ended on Wednesday, I stopped by Trader Joe's and headed to Tiffany's for some wine and cheese happy hour. She has an awesome back yard and patio so we just chilled out there which was nice. She has the cutest dog, Marley. It was also Marley's birthday!!

I also stopped by our friend Sean's house to pick up a folding table we are borrowing for a picnic we are having. We are going to have a picnic in Golden Gate Park that will double as a fundraiser for our Team In Training fundraising. Erik has been making a ton of home brew for it and it should be a great time.

Nice break in the week to see friends!

Did anyone see Parenthood last night? OMG about the news with Kristina & so sad. :-(

Nopa Monday

I kicked the week off right by going to a birthday dinner for my friend Nicole at NOPA, with our friend Andrea. Her birthday is Tuesday so it was perfect!



We shared two appetizers of:

Tomato Salad, Cucumbers, Cilantro, Mozzarella and Spiced Chickpeas  
Warm Goat Cheese, Pluots, Frisée and Crostini 

For dinner, I had the <gasp!> burger. I have had beef a few times in the past few months after not eating it for about five years. I don't love/think about it/crave it but I decided to have the burger because apparently, it's supposed to be one of the best burgers in SF. Here it is:

Grass Fed Hamburger, Pickled Onions and French Fries
 
It was realllly good and I could only eat half of it. We also split a bottle of Edmeades Zinfandel and literally rolled out of the restaurant. We had a ton of food but it was delish!!

I think my new favorite night to go out to eat is Monday. When you think about what you have to do that night after work and think, "Oh! I get to go out eat!" and then you suddenly love Monday! haha

Sweetwater Brunch and Book Signings

Sunday started out great because I drove up to Mill Valley (same area where Evie had her surgery) to meet my friends Sarah and Lisa for brunch. We went to this great place called the Sweetwater Music Hall. It's this awesome place that always has live music, including at brunch.
 
We also walked around the cute Mill Valley downtown area and stopped by Alpha Dog and Tyler Florence's store.  

After brunch, I headed to Omnivore Books in SF. Jenna Weber, the author of one of my favorite blogs, just launched her first book. She is on her book tour reading from the book and signing books for everyone. Her blog, Eat, Live, Run is pretty popular so there was a great turnout!

I jumped right into reading when I got home so can't wait for the ride to work tomorrow where I can read even more. It was so nice meeting the author behind a blog you read. She was really cool. Fun Fact - I started reading her blog after finding her linked to my college friend FANNEtastic Food blog. Small world!

While I was out  doing all of this, Erik was brewing beer. He is brewing for a picnic we are having at the end of the month that will also act as a fundraiser for our Team In Training race!

Such a fun weekend!!

Wine in the Sun!

 Saturday was another fun day, just Erik and I together. We went for our run on Saturday AM and then we headed down to La Nebbia Winery. It was one of their "Bottle & Cork" days where you bring your empty wine bottles and they fill them for $5. We picked up five bottles of 2009 Merlot from Paso Robles.

We brought some sandwiches and had some wine. The winery has a big picnic area so we just relaxed with our food in the sun - which was awesome. This winery is in Half Moon Bay - on the coast, south of SF. It's a beautiful town.

Check out the wine label on this bottle. These guys take your bottle and fill them with the wine from a machine. Then, this other machine corks them. As for the label, someone puts them thru this little machine to make them sticky and they slap them on the bottle. ha. I'm sure they are like, ehhh $5 bottle, just get this label on there. Too Funny.

The rest of our night wasn't too exciting - we got pizza and stayed in. It was a good day!

Inner Sunset Friday

We had such a fun filled weekend! Friday started off by going to Social Kitchen with Erik, Tiffany, and Nicole. They had never really been to the Inner Sunset neighborhood so we took them to one of our favorite spots!

After dinner, we headed to a wine bar called Innerfog Wine Bar. It was packed when we got there but the owner helps to seat everyone which is awesome. We sat down on a comfy couch and got a bottle of wine to share.

Guess who we think we saw at the bar....Tracey Chapman. She was sitting with a bunch of friends but looked just like her. Of course, we had to google her and compare photos. hah. I would say it's her but who  knows. We had a fun night!

Corner's Tavern

Corner's Tavern did not disappoint! The restaurant has a very open, Restoration Hardware, feel which was great.

We shared the heirloom tomato salad, burratta, wild arugula, pink peppercorn salad. It was so good, I seriously wanted to lick the plate. 

For my dinner, I had the mushroom corn ragout, chantrelles, romaine puree, poached egg which was pretty good but wasn't amaaaaazing. Tiffany had the burger and loved that! 

Dessert was definitely something to write home about! We shared the butterscotch pudding AND these mini cinnamon donuts with a banana carmel sauce. Ummm SOOOOO good!!

Dinner was delicious!!

The restaurant is in Walnut Creek, which is a cute town. They have every shop you ever need in a cute downtown area. FREE parking everywhere and it's sunny & warm there. Yes, it was a great break from city life. It was a great treat to see my friends on a Monday night. Since we live far from each other, we usually only see each other on weekends!

Downtown Walnut Creek

Starving

Ever since our 10 mile run, I have been starving. I eat every 2 hours and every 2 hours, I am starving for food! I'm excited because tonight, I am going to meet Tiffany & Kelsey for dinner at Corners Tavern. The menu looks awesome and since I will be starving when I get there, I am already picking out my meal!



I'm already drooling over:

heirloom tomato salad, burratta, wild arugula, pink peppercorn

mixed greens salad, strawberries, ricotta salata, balsamic and almond oil

mushroom corn ragout, chantrelles, romaine puree, poached egg

I'll report back as to how the dinner was!

Sunday Streets

It was soooo nice out today. Sunny & warm-ish! Today was "Sunday Streets" near our neighborhood so we hopped on our bikes and rode over. Sunday Streets is something the city does in different neighborhoods in an effort to close down streets to traffic and give everyone the chance to get outside! There are sidewalk sales, bands, bike riding, kids in strollers, and everyone just out & about.





We stopped for a coffee and then rode to Golden Gate park where we heard....Opera! The SF Opera was having a free Opera in the Park event to kick off their 90th year. It was a nice surprise to stumble upon!

 

When we got home, Erik started brewing beer (a pumpkin beer!!) and I took Evie out. I tried to get her to just sit outside for awhile to relax in the sun but it's hard for her to sit still.

This is her "Can I Help You?" look

In Evie news, she is doing great - again. We felt like she had a bit of a setback after Tahoe. She definitely overused her leg and was being really cautious with it. By Friday, she was back to using it. When she is outside, she wants to go fast but when she tries to walk fast, she skips and pulls her bad leg up. Sooooo, I have to make her walk on her leg which means slower walks. We are in our 3rd week of recovery. Woohoo!
 

 Here she is, napping in a pile of clean laundry that I was about to fold. What a life.

Good weekend - good run, fun, and relaxing!

10 Mile Saturday

On Saturday, we started off the day with a ten mile run with our team. It was one HARD run. We started at Ocean Beach, up into Land's End, UP even further through Seacliff neighborhood, and back down to the beach. Then, we continued UP into GG Park where we finally turned around to go back to the beach. WHEW!! This is definitely great training for the NIKE course because we WILL encounter some hills.

Another beautiful run

Overall, we both felt pretty good during the run. I tried out a "Stinger Waffle" at about an hour into the run. I was starting to get hungry and was so grateful to have that on me. So delish & easy to eat = will be eating those on race day.

I was running through the park thinking we had to go to a certain point but that was for the people running 11 miles. Imagine my surprise and DELIGHT when I saw this 10 mile turnaround!! I basically skipped back to the finish line. haha. Erik has been having some calf pain but he felt good during the run too.

After the run, I had to get home to get ready for my friend Sarah's wedding shower. It was held at her friends beautiful apartment. It was nice to meet more of her friends & family. Can't wait for the wedding this fall!!

 

After the shower, I came home and took a nap! I was so tired from that run. Erik went and got a massage so we both had relaxing afternoons. 

We both  had a lounging evening. Erik made us a delicious dinner and we fell asleep early. Full Saturday!