A Giant Celebration

Last night Jeff was watching the final game of the World Series. As soon as the Giants won, I mentioned that we should call my mom to make sure she made it home safe. After the craziness of Fleet Week, I knew it would be crowded in SF.

Sure enough, she sent us these pictures of Chestnut St , immediately after the game.

Pure mayhem! The streets were filled with people just pouring out of the bars she said. The restaurant she was in ended up closing down immediately and only let their customers out, no new customers in.

Thankfully she made it home okay!

Pumpkin Patching

The other day Jeff and I went to Michaels and bought a few things to decorate the house.  We normally only decorate for Christmas but decided to change it up this year. 

I had some vases and those yummy smelling pinecones so we added some pumpkins, nuts and fake foliage to our collection. 

First up, our coffee table.  I love these pumpkins and they way the look in the clear containers.

The side table.

Our kitchen table.

Yesterday we decided to carve our pumpkins and invited everyone over for some dinner after.  Up first, Kalea’s pumpkin. 

We didn’t have any premade stencils this year so we picked the easiest things that came to mind.  For Kalea that was Hello Kitty.

While I worked on Kalea’s pumpkin, Crystal worked on Brooky’s.  You can see her sketching it out behind K in the above picture. 

As soon as we were done with the carving (everyone except for Danny) we headed inside for dinner.

After dinner I had one more project for the girls.  We were going to decorate a pumpkin with some tissue paper and glue, a la Young House Love. 

Each of the girls had a hand full of dots.  I coated the pumpkin and let them at it.  It was a bit of chaos, but they had fun.

After that, the girls had a mini dance party in the garage.

Even Noellie joined in.

The finished products…Crystal did a really good job on Brooky’s penguin pumpkin! 

And Danny’s unfinished pumpkin…to be continued.

And the dried patched up pumpkin.  I think it turned out pretty good!

Unfortunately I won’t be home to enjoy our pumpkins lit on Halloween, but Jeff will be! 

Surf City HM–Week 2 LR

If you don’t want to hear about our Half Marathon training, just skip this post-no hard feelings!  It’s really for our benefit to remind us what works and what doesn’t during training.

Long Run Recap – 5 miles

Last week I hit a rough patch at 4 miles and basically gave in the last mile.  Today was just the opposite.  This week’s LR was all rainbows and unicorns.

We woke up around 6am to wake up our legs and take care of *ahem* business.  We hit the road around 7:20am.  The weather was cool around the high 40’s but the sun was just starting to rise.  I wrote our goal times on my arm for easy reference. 

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The first two miles (as always) were rough.  My legs were cramping and I really really just wanted to turn around and go home.  But I knew it would get better during mile 3.  Prior to our run, I had decided to try what I did last week.  Run 2 miles and then walk 0.1, run 0.9 x3. 

Jeff was feeling good so we split up around mile 2, he kept running and I took a short walk break.  At 4 miles I ate 2 Honey Stingers and felt great until 4.5 miles.  My legs began to get tired but by them I was so close to being done, it was easy to push through it. 

5 miles done!  Jeff finished in about 58 mins. 

Now we are chillin’ in our twin socks.  Love those things! 

Morning Commute

There aren’t many perks about my morning commute but sometimes it is pretty to look at!

A Newport Evening

Although Newport Beach is relatively close to us, we never get down there. This last weekend though, my work had a function that let us spend the evening close to the beach.

The event was at the Hyatt Regency, and when we arrived there were a ton of things going on! There were a couple of reunions, a wedding (we saw the bride, she looked pretty!), a triathlon…and a weird“reconnection” seminar [foreshadowing].

We checked in but our room wasn’t quite ready. The hotel staff offered us a room in a villa that was only being partially rented out by another party. We figured it was just for one night so we took it. The villa was pretty cool. There were a total of 3 rooms inside the villa (each had their own door/lock) that if you rented the whole thing it would look just like a little townhouse.

When we walked up to our room, we had a view of the back patio and pool. And…those “reconnection” people. Yep, the main guy was below us and was doing some kind of healing in the pool area. There were camera men and a patient…very weird.

We couldn’t watch for long since we had to set up for our event that night (“we” as in I dragged Jeff along with me).

The room turned out pretty nice!

After set up we made a minor detour to Fashion Island since I forgot ALL my make up. I was able to piece together enough to make it through the night. We headed back to our room and finished getting ready and then headed down for some pictures around 5:50pm.

The next morning Jeff and I woke up to the triathlon going on right next to our villa. (Yep going to work that in as much as possible.) Later we looked it up online and it was only a sprint, definitely do-able for Jeff…sorry about that babe!

We checked out of our room and headed over to Mutt Lynch’s for some breakfast. I’d never been here before but Jeff has been a ton of times. It’s right by the beach and has crazy décor on the inside. We were carded as we walked in…yeah, during breakfast hours.

The menu was huge and I ended up ordering the Eggs Benedict (my first time trying) and it was pretty good.

With a side of bacon…because bacon makes the world right.

Since we were in the area, we decided to drive the Half Marathon route. *GULP* This was a bad idea. I same more hills than I’m used to and at one point Jeff goes “This is the turnaround” and I nearly freaked out. I thought we were already headed home…not just half way through the run.

I’m seriously panicking right now and we still have 15 weeks to go.

Brooky’s First Race Photo

It looks like Brooklyn is going to take after her Auntie Nini and not her Uncle Jeff.  Her first race photo barely captures her. 

But dang, look at that form.  She looks like a natural. 

It Starts Today

16 weeks.  Not how many weeks until Thanksgiving.  Not how many weeks until Christmas.  Not even how many weeks left in 2012. 

16 weeks.  The number of weeks until our Half Marathon.  HM training starts today. 

So of course for prep, I only ran 2 measly miles last week.  Why not make the next 16 weeks really hard right? 

So, when my legs want to give up…

16 weeks to go.

The Blue Angels

Picking  up from where we left off…The USS Makin Island tour took way longer than we expected and we ended up leaving right around lunch time.  Since our next Fleet Week stop was to Crissy Field to see the Blue Angels, we stopped for lunch in the Marina. 

Pacific Catch anyone?  This is one of our FAVORITE places to eat and we always try to squeeze it in while we are visiting.  We shared the poke bowl and fried oysters. 

But not the beer.  We don’t share beer.  #dealbreaker

On our way over to the field we could see the other shows going on overhead. 

It was CRAZY when we got there.  There were a ton of people, vendors and military personnel there.  We made it in time to catch the last showing right before the Blue Angels. 

And one of the America’s Cup judges going out to their spot.  Immediately following the air show was the America’s Cup boat race.  Yep, Fleet Week, America’s Cup, a Bluegrass Festival, Columbus Day parade, Giants in the playoffs, the 49ers were playing…all at the same time.

By now the crowds were out in force for the main event. 

And then here they were!

It was a great show!  Sunday we stayed close to home since I had an early afternoon flight.  It was a nice weekend away.