Travel Woes and Pizza Party

Last Thursday, I dropped Evie off at camp in the AM and went to work for the day. We worked all day and then hopped on our flight to NYC.  Our flight was at 9:30pm out of SFO to head back East. We connected in LAX and got delayyyyeed. We were supposed to land at 11 and leave at 11:30. We landed at 11 and left at 2am because we were waiting for a plane to come in from Chicago (where they had that huge blizzard that day!)

We slept on and off for the flight and got picked up by my Brother In-Law's girlfriend, Laura, when we landed at 10am(not 8am as planned). We headed up to Milford and went to Erik's parents house where we had some home made soup and fell asleep. Naps after red eyes are those in which you are dead to the world, so comfortable you can't move, and are slobbering on the pillow. haha.

 This is Erik's family's new cat - Lyla. She is a kitten and sooooo cute. She loves to play & lets you pick her up!

 On Friday night, we had a fun time because we invited our CT friends over to my parents place for a pizza party. My how times have changed from our bar hopping nights. This time, our friends brought their kids over and it was great to see everyone.

Got to meet our friend Tara's new baby, Emma!

We had my FAVORITE pizza in the whole world - Papa's Pizza. So so good. We had a LOT of wine which is always great. We also played some hilarious rounds of Loaded Questions. That game can get out of control and when it does, it's pretty hilarious. ha!

The night ended around midnight, which was pretty late considering we were up for half the night the previous night. It was all worth it to get to see our friends in one spot while we were home. Little Shea passed out on the carpet while playing with his trains. Too cute!

Holiday Rewind

We just had a great week in Connecticut with our families that I will share with you but let me rewind to an awesome meal Amy & I had prior to leaving for the holiday. The Tuesday before we left, we went to Allegro Romano. 



It is a small Italian restaurant in SF's Russian Hill neighborhood. It sits on a corner of a neighborhood next to a bunch of homes and apartment buildings, not in the middle of North Beach. We were seated immediately and had a great dinner. I have tried to go to this place in the past and it was PACKED. We learned that there are two seatings, 6pm and 8pm. So, now we know when to go however they did seat us at 7:30 because they weren't that busy!

Apparently, celebrities stop by this place frequently!


We shared a mozzarella, tomato, and basil caprese salad to start.


For dinner, I had the lobster ravioli which was SO good that I wanted to lick my plate.



Instead of dessert, we had a 2nd glass of wine. They have quite a heavy pour here! They even gave us free dessert wine.

So delish. I loved that I wasn't in North Beach with the tourists getting Italian food. I would totally come back here in a second!

Hello from Evie

Wanted to share a few recent photos of Evie...She is going to camp tomorrow, which always makes me sad. I miss her so much when we are away and feel bad leaving her on Christmas :-(

We took her with us for a ride this weekend and she couldn't really fit in the back seat because surfboards were in the car. She will sort of sit in my lap in the front sometimes. This time, she crawled into the foot space of the passenger seat and just rode like that. It was hilarious!!

It is cold here - 37 degrees this AM and only in the 40's today!! Evie LOVES the space heater. Put this thing on and she goes right to sleep. This weekend, it was cold out and the heater was on. She pulled the blanket off the couch and took a nap in front of the heater. Too precious!

 Here she is again, just watching our every move. She loved the cookie baking this holiday season as she loves to lick what drops and get a lick of the spoon. haha

Can you believe she is turning 7 in February? I cannot. People still ask us if she is a puppy!

Holiday-ness

On Sunday, I put on some holiday gear to do some errands. Oh yeah! Whenever I wear this bracelet, it makes me think of "my Christmas charrrrrm bracelet", from Santa Clause 2:

Holiday socks

My Ho Ho Ho! sparkle shirt

Even Erik got his holiday gear on. haha

We had a cookie swap at work on Monday and I made cranberry white chocolate cookies, my fave. I really don't like chocolate so this is one of my favorite cookies!

Quick holiday photo before our dinner at Wente.

Here is the top of our 9' tree...

Here is a shot of our tree lookin' a hot mess. Ever since it fell on Erik, we didn't really fix it. Hence, the ribbon all jacked up on the tree. Ohhhhh well. I don't see Better Homes & Gardens coming through any time soon.haha

Few more days of work to get through before some time off. We are feeling like we are in Finals mode - having a lot of work to do, not wanting to do it, etc....We're outta here on Thursday for CT.

Anyone heading somewhere fun for the holidays??

More Holiday Fun

On Saturday, Erik hit the beach and I watched Little Women and did some laundry. I think I've watched all of our holiday DVDs this season!



In the evening, we headed out to the East Bay to our friend Kelsey & Sean's house for a little holiday dinner. Kelsey made delicious spinach manicotti which was so good. We played with her kids who are 7 and 5 & hilarious. We played Just Dance 4 which is fun! Some good songs on that one!


After dessert and wine, we didn't leave until midnight but it was so great to hang with those guys.

On Sunday, we went out to breakfast at The Grind. Haven't been there in awhile and we both thought the food wasn't that great. We used to love that place :-( 

We headed back out to the East Bay tonight to the Restaurant at Wente Vineyards - our favorite restaurant. I've said it a gazillion times - amazing food, amazing service. Tonight was no different at all and was awesome! We did this as our little holiday dinner together before going back to CT for Christmas.



We had deeeeelicious dinner of:
dungeness crab with salsa verde, white gazpacho vinaigrette, almonds and piment d’espelette

butternut squash soup with brown butter, pistachios and parsley oil

baked 38 north chicken with barley, bacon, fall squash, preserved grapes, cipollini onion and rosemary

grass fed burger with cheddar cheese, housemade bacon, steak onions and fries

We also shared a bottle of my favorite - Riva Ranch Chardonnay.

There were so many homes in Livermore decorated for the holidays. We drove down a little cul-de-sac to see the lights. I told Erik how when I was young, we used to hop in the car as a family and drive down certain streets who always decorated their houses for Christmas. We used to sit there and say "oooohhh ahhhhhh" at the lights. Doing it now is absolutely hilarious and thinking back on doing it is even funnier. 

This was our last weekend in SF before we head back to CT for the holiday at the end of the week!

Cooking for the Holidays

On Friday, my office had our holiday party at a cooking class at Paulding & Co. I did a work cooking class with Terry Paulding back in 2008 and it was a lot of fun. This time was great, too!

We made a great meal of a Harvest Salad, home made pasta with shrimp & vegetables, and profiteroles. 

Terry Paulding (the Chef in the red jacket) is really awesome. Very down to earth and helpful. Top Chef Season 1 was filmed in her kitchen and she also taught the Pixar staff how to cook in order to animate the movie, Ratatouille.

 Making Profiteroles

 Making Pasta! Using the KitchenAid attachment was sooooooooooo easy. We made spaghetti in minutes.

 Here is our lovely Harvest salad with lettuce, persimmons, pomegrante seeds, and walnuts. I don't think I've ever had a persimmon before but it was very good. Tasted almost like a tomato.

Here is our homemade pasta with snap peas and shrimp. We made a light tomato, white wine sauce to go along with it. 

I haven't eaten shrimp in awhile because I think it tastes like chlorine sometimes. I asked Terry why this is and she said she only buys shrimp from the Gulf Coast, never from Asia. She said that for some reason shrimp from Asia tastes that way - it could be too much iodine in the shrimp or a preservant used on the shrimp before shipping. Ick! I will definitely only be buying Gulf shrimp from now on. 

We had a great lunch! It was a nice alternative from a regular happy hour or going out to lunch. 

Later in the day, I took Evie to Vet to get a simple Bortadella shot that she was due for. That turned into an ordeal with me trying to hold her along with another Vet Tech while the other one gave her the shot. What a baby!!! I had to feed her squirt cheese the entire time. Ughhhh. 

Erik and I also went to look at an apartment in Tiburon yesterday. It is twice the size of our current place in a much quieter area so we'll see....

We went to Waypoint Pizza afterwards. Cute little pizza place that had fun, nautical salads on the menu including "Block Island" salad. We headed home after the pizza and called it a night. Quite the busy & emotional day...

Heart Breaking

This is hitting me hard. I know we have been through this with VA Tech, the movies, the mall, Columbine but this was a half hour from my home town.

WE know people who are teachers in CT, who might have kids in these schools, and the fact that over 20 people are dead is just shocking. It is terrifying that you could go to work one day and you might not have a child when you come home. What if this was just one town over or one town 30 mins south?

I thought of all of those parents who work in NYC and heard about this - how do you get home to see if your child is ok on a 2 hr train ride?

I think this one is really hitting me because of how close to home it is. It's also hitting me because Erik and I could have kids one day and the fact that this could happen to one of our kids, is sickening. Terrible. Heart Breaking.

I think of those parents with a closet full of presents for their kids at Christmas next week. The older siblings who lost their little brother or sister. The future of all of these young kids and parent and families - ripped away.

The only thing to do is live openly. Freely tell everyone how much you care about them and how great they are. Because...you never know if today is the last day you will have with them.

:-(

Book of Mormon

Last night, my friend Nicole and I went to see Book of Mormon. The theatre was PACKED and we had balcony seats. Our friend Carrie got us these tix on an Amex pre-sale day when tickets sold out in a matter of hours. Crazy!

The show had one of my favorite Broadway stars, Gavin Creel, as the lead character - Elder Price.


He was amazing! He is such a great singer and performer.

The Book of Mormon was Tony Award Show of the Year and has won a ton of awards. I have to say, I didn't love it. There are a ton of fun songs and dances with some very talented people. I just think this is a strange premise for a show making fun of Mormons.

Overall, I felt bad for the Mormons.

I know the South Park writers wrote this and they have quite the sense of humor. This was just really over the top. Not really knowing much about Mormonism, this show pointed out that apparently there are some things they believe in that seem a little strange. Maybe this show was really making fun of all organized religion.

I guess I just walked out of there feeling like we made fun of people for 3 hours and who deserves that? How does this help anyone accept other people & their personal choices? I guess over the years I really believe To Each, His Own and this show was far from that. I really do just prefer Broadway shows that are happy and uplifting. I like to walk out of there singing and happy which is why my favorite shows are Hair, Hairspray, Wicked, etc. I've seen Les Mis and Phantom - terrible! hah.

BOM had a lot of talent, some great theatrics, and songs which I have been singing. I just didn't like the message which is why I'm buying my next tix to Anything Goes and Jersey Boys!

Tonight

This is happening....TONIGHT. Cannot waittttttttttt!

Evie News and Falling Christmas Trees

Tuesday was a day of driving around like crazy. I was up very early and drove out east to Pleasanton for a meeting (about 45 min away). Drove home to SF for a few hours. Then drove up North to Mill Valley for Evie's doctor appointment. Whew. I was tired.

Here is Missy Miss sitting in the weirdest way. She was propping herself up while I ate lunch & she begged. What a weirdo. She did her usual antics of whining and panting when we GOT OFF THE EXIT. She was panting like a madman in the Vet. We waited 20 min, they took her for an x-ray, and she was done in about 5 min. I promptly put her back in the car so she could calm down. 

I looked at the x-ray with the doctor (who is so awesome - Dr. Sams!) and we got news that Evie CAN GO BACK TO CAMP!!! Yippeeeeeeeee. He said she has to "ease into running around" and will be super tired but this is big news. Now, we will feel much better leaving her over the holidays knowing she can run and play. 

After the Vet, we stopped to drive by an apartment we had seen on Craigslist. It looked awesome - great complex, garage, etc. The woman called me back for the place and said those awful words "you can have a QUIET dog". Yah that will never happen. What is a quiet dog anyway? I think Craigslist should have a box to check for Kids, just like cats and dogs. They don't ever ask, do you have a baby that will cry and keep the neighbors up? 

Anywayyy, we got this super cute ornament from Kimmy this week commemorating our wedding anniversary!

Erik also knocked over the tree last night. haha. He was climbing underneath it to fix a plug and pushed the tree somehow, onto his back. Next I hear, Heather help me! My first words were "Oh no! My ornaments!" haha.

To wrap up the day, Betsy and I had a pie date at Chile Pies. I had a slice of pear cranberry that was delish. Nice alternative to the usual meeting up for drinks and got to try out a new place!

Dipsea Cafe & Alta Plaza

Heyyyyy from Evie! What a pose.

We had a great lunch with our friends Lisa, Justin, and their 7 month old baby, Oliver today up in Mill Valley. We went to the Dipsea Cafe, which I have driven by many times but have never been to. Dipsea Cafe has a huge menu with everything from breakfast to big dinner-esque entrees.

Oliver was so good during lunch. He is such a good baby - so calm. It was great to see these guys. Lunch was also delish. I had the GRILLED VEGETABLE sandwich  on a rosemary roll, with pesto, eggplant, zucchini, portabellas, roasted peppers, spinach and Gouda cheese and Erik had the VEGGIE GYROS eggplant, zucchini, portabellas & peppers. Delish!

After lunch, Evie and I went for our Sunday walk. Her Vet was out of her food so we tried her old vet up in the Pacific Heights neighborhood. There is a great park right near that Vet so that was a great double duty trip. We stopped at Alta Plaza Park which is a cool park that has different levels you can climb.

 Great views from the park

 Evie had a great time running through this grass. It was the strangest grass. It looked like long strands of hair and it was soft!

 Running, panting, rolling in the grass = successful walk

 Here she is on the ride home. Happy Dog!

 Here we are in the car - stoplight shot!

It was sooooo nice out. Must have been in the 70's and sunny all day. Great December weather which makes up for the fact that we deal with 55 and foggy weather in the summer!

Tonight, I am getting the Christmas Cards addressed! Can't believe Christmas is in two weeks!

Holiday Party Day

On Saturday, we had three holiday parties to attend. I really didn't know if it would really happen, and it didn't. There is no way you can jam three events into your day and truly enjoy yourself.

We started the day with Erik heading to the beach and I went downtown to pick up some things. We are seeing my friend Lisa and her baby, Oliver, today so I wanted to get him a gift. We have our "Jingle Beer Run" next week, so wanted to make sure we had fun shirts for that, and also picked up some holiday stuff for the house at Bath & Body Works.

Downtown was a zoo, of course. It was "We live outside of the city and want to make a day of shopping in SF" day so that meant long lines and crowded sidewalks. Some people really like the hustle and bustle but I don't. I prefer ordering everything online and spending my time with friends for the holidays. But, I digress. Bath & Body Works was having "Buy 2, get 1 free" sale plus I had a coupon for a free item which was great. Got the gift and the shirt so all was accomplished.

After shopping and surfing, we headed up to Novato to our friend Vic & Katy's home. They have a new house in Novato that is awesome. They have a nice big deck that we sat out on all afternoon. There were some other people from the hockey team and their wives, so it was great to see everyone. It was SO nice to chill, eat delicious food, and just relax. The time came where we would've had to leave for our next party and we decided not to go. We would have had to drive down into SF, taken Evie out, and then headed over the other bridge east. We would've been late and not there very long. :-(

 Here's the view of the sun setting from the deck!

Instead we swung by Bailey's party on the way home from Marin which was on our way home - perfect! We were so tired when we got home but it was such a great day. We feel so happy to have great friends!