Belated Pictures

What are these you might ask? Just some dinosaur statues for sale on the side of the road near Half Moon Bay. We stopped here right before finding a little winery to enjoy before heading back to SF. 

One weekend we decided to play around with the camera in the Presidio, near Land's End. 

Our first morning in Hawaii, just after sunrise. We took a drive up the coast and did some exploring.

The view from our condo complex, with Molokai in the background. We laid out on beach chairs here quite often, or walked a few minutes down the road to get to the nearby beach. It was beautiful!

The only real "activity" we did all trip was a sunset cruise off of Kaanapali Beach, and it was amazing. We were serenaded on the way back to the beach by Jordan T (not to be confused with Jordan R), who even played the song I walked down the aisle to!

 This is Black Rock, where every night at sundown someone lights the torches and dives off the cliff. There were lots of people trying the diving all day, which was fun to watch!

Before our fancy dinner out at Roy's, we stopped in Lahaina to take pictures under the famous banyan tree. 

Stay tuned for stories and pictures from our July 4th trip home!

Hello Again

So, it's been about four months since I've posted anything, and apparently a few of you noticed. Sorry! Work got busy and I was convinced only my mom read it (hi mom!). Thank you to those of you who yelled at me about keeping up with it. I will do my best to not let it be another four months before you hear from me! Here's a quick recap of what's been going on since mid-February:

• Busy season got busier. I worked a lot and was exhausted on the weekends, but I made it through! 
• Jordan bought me a nice camera for Valentine's Day. Well, "we" bought ourselves a nice camera (since I didn't actually get him anything). 
• Jordan's friends Mike and Megan came to visit for a week to see SF. I wasn't the best host considering I didn't get home until 10:30 most nights, but it was still fun to see them.
• Jordan's mom also visited during March, and although it was crunch time for work, we still got to spend some quality family time with the Bay Area Raetz clan. 
• Then my mom came to visit right after busy season ended for a few days. We shopped, as only we can do.
• We went down to Half Moon Bay for an overnight trip. Cute little beach town that's just a short drive away! We came home with a dessert wine bottle shaped like a half moon, but have yet to open it. 
• I spent a weekend in Napa with my friend Jordan. I fall a little more in love with wine country every time I go! 
• Jordan started training for the SF Marathon in July, while at the same time I got tendinitis in my ankle and couldn't run for almost two months. 
• My friend Jess from Seattle came to visit a few times, since her boyfriend just got a job in San Francisco. I'm hoping she moves here permanently soon! 
• The we went to HAWAII. It was amazing, so relaxing and beautiful there. We pretty much just hung out by the beach, ate delicious food, and drank fruity drinks the whole time. I can't wait to go back again! 
• I went to Seattle for my sister's 30th birthday. There was an epic karaoke party on Friday night, where I got to also hang out with Pamela and Ryan! If you didn't know already, my sister LOVES karaoke. The rest of the weekend involved golf, dinner with friends, shuffleboard, farmer's market, wine tasting, and finished off with a dinner at Pamela's new house where Kimberly also joined us. Great weekend! 
• Last weekend Jordan and I spent the weekend in Napa with our friends Jordan and Sean, which was amazing. We of course went wine tasting, and joined our first winery! So any future visitors are welcome to join us for free tastings :) 
• And to wrap it all up, last week it was our one year anniversary on Tuesday and Jordan's birthday on Wednesday! We are having a little party to celebrate tonight, so I should be doing many things instead of blogging - but oh well! 

The rest of my summer looks like this: Michigan > Vegas > training somewhere > Freels family visit > Arizona for 3 weeks. Busy busy!

Whew, feels good to get all that out. Maybe I'll post pictures of above activities sometime in the next few months! Just kidding :) They'll come soon!

Fun Facts for History Buffs

So we live in the Marina neighborhood of San Francisco (as you probably already knew), which is the northernmost area in the city and borders the Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge. I really like the neighborhood - there's plenty of shops, restaurants, and bars within walking distance but it's also a bit of a gateway to the outdoors. It's flat, so it's really easy to go running and you just can't beat the views from running along the Bay on a sunny day. We are just a few minutes from the Presidio, which is a national forest that we really haven't even explored yet. And just a few blocks the other way is Fort Mason, an old military fort that hosts the Farmer's Market and other functions but is also a huge park. Plus, we're literally a 4 minute drive to the bridge so we can escape up to wine country pretty easily :)

On my run today I ran through Fort Mason and stopped to read one of those historical markers. I knew that San Francisco hosted the World's Fair in 1915, with the Palace of Fine Arts still hanging out a few blocks away, but I didn't know much else about it. It turns out, the whole Marina area housed several different buildings, all called "Palaces" for different expositions. Fillmore St., which is where we live, was known as the Avenue of Progress and the surrounding blocks, from the Bay to Chestnut St., housed the Palace of Machinery. According to some random website, the Palace of Machinery was the world's largest wooden and steel building at the time and apparently the first-ever indoor flight occurred there. So that's what used to be here before our apartment! Of course the only downside to these World's Fair fun facts is that the Marina was built on landfill to make room for all these Palaces, so in the event of a big earthquake, well, things might not go so well.

A map of the World's Fair grounds above, and the Palace of Machinery below. These images were stolen from Google. Don't report me :)

Anyways, that's just a little trivia for you. I've just finished up my first busy season week on my main client and am enjoying a nice relaxing weekend at home, without Jordan! He took Friday off and went up to Seattle for the weekend. I'm a little jealous, and can't wait to hear the details about the masquerade he went to on Friday for a charity my sister is involved with. Now that I'm working late most nights, weekend time is very precious to catch up on all the random things I have to do. I spent most of yesterday cleaning and today I have a few more errands to get through! I do plan on taking some time to bake Valentine's Day treats and maybe do some shopping as well.

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you!

No January Slump, Here!

I remember hating January growing up. Christmas was over. I had to go back to school. It was cold, dark, and there was just not that much going on. But I'm happy to say that I very much enjoyed January this year! It doesn't hurt that we're gotten very lucky with the weather. Everyone keeps telling us that it's usually chilly and rainy this time of year, but we've had warm and sunny weekends the whole month. I think I've only gotten my winter coat out a few times.

So along with our warm and sunny weekends, we've been able to have some fun. In early January we spent one warm Sunday afternoon walking across the Golden Gate Bridge. I still have a hard time believing that we live so close to such an icon sometimes. It took us a few hours to walk across and back, but we stopped a lot so I could take pictures, and once we got to the other side we spent some time just staring out over the Bay. The views are incredible! I highly recommend it for any future visitors :)

Two weekends ago we joined Kimberly and Jason for one of their quarterly trips up to Napa to pick up their wine shipments. We had tastings at the two wineries and then tried out another, just for fun! We also stopped at the Napa outlets for some quick shopping. Those outlets are quickly becoming one of my favorite places to shop in the area. I do kind of miss malls and going shopping where everything is in one place. I know there are a lot of advantages to the "boutique" type shopping in San Francisco too, but I just haven't had a ton of time to get out and find the best stores. Soon enough I hope!

Work has also picked up for the time being. I spent two weeks out in Atwater, CA for one engagement. Never heard of Atwater, CA? Don't worry, I'm pretty sure no one in California has ever heard of it either, except for the people who live there. Other than not having many restaurant choices, it went fairly well. I didn't mind working late since I was just going back to the hotel. Starting tomorrow I will be back to my main client for the next three months. Woo hoo! I'm gearing up for some long hours and many nights of take out dinners.

Here's hoping February is just as fabulous! Jordan is making his way to Seattle next weekend to see the sisters, but I will be hanging out here since I can't really take vacation at this time. I'll let you know what I get accomplished!

A New Year

2012 has been good to us so far. No work (until tomorrow), lots of football, and enough time to make some delicious foods and spend QT together - what could be be better? So far we've made chicken & spinach enchiladas, crock pot orange chicken, pulled pork, and even apple cinnamon doughnuts! When my busy season heats up in February and March, I'm hoping to spend a few hours each weekend to throw together a meal that I can take to work for lunches. I'll be eating take out for dinner for 2 months straight, so ideally I'd like some homemade food every day. I also recently discovered the website Pinterest, which has become my new obsession. It's essentially a place to organize and store bookmarks but also allows you to browse everyone else's bookmarks, so it's a great way to find new recipes and craft projects. Maybe next summer I can actually implement some of the DIY projects, but for now it's really fun to browse and get ideas.

Of course with it being the new year, I've also taken some time to think about what I want to accomplish in 2012. I'm not one for setting one "new year's resolution", but it's a good time to think about attainable goals for the upcoming year. So here's what I've come up with:

1. Continue getting into better shape and improve my distance running. I'd like to run another 5K this spring and a 10K by next fall.
2. Get out more! Explore San Francisco and the Bay Area. Okay so this is probably not going to happen until April - but I'd like to go to a concert or two, bike to Sausalito, visit museums, try new restaurants, kayak, and go hiking often.
3. Try a new food at least once a month. I'm the queen of sticking to the foods that I know I like, but I probably should experiment more.
4. Learn how to sew. I've wanted to learn ever since I was little - even getting a sewing machine one year for Christmas which has literally sat in my closet at home for 10+ years since I could never figure out how to thread it. So if I actually take lessons, maybe I'll finally be able to do it!
5. As always, save money, make friends, and show Jordan I love him :)

Christmas Recap!

Whew, December was a busy month! When I last blogged earlier this month we were having Friday night Tagalong fun so that I could bring something delicious to a dessert exchange party at my friend Jordan's apartment. It turned out that they were a hit! Plus they're so easy to make, so I will definitely keep that recipe in my back pocket. On Saturday that weekend, I took a party bus up to Sonoma with a group of my co-workers for some celebration wine tasting. We went to three different wineries that day: Jacuzzi, Viansa, and Gloria Ferrer. It was beautiful even in December!

After getting back to the city in the late afternoon, I had just enough time to nap before heading out to another Christmas party. This time we ventured over to the Russian Hill neighborhood to my sister's friend Nick's apartment (the one we had dinner with when Katie and Matt were in town). We ended up running into a few Michigan grads there (who were from Toledo!) and had a ton of fun. So much fun in fact that we were a little sluggish in waking up Sunday morning, but we had places to be! We headed out to Jack London Square in Oakland for a champagne brunch to celebrate Lauren and Kimberly's 30th birthdays. Woo hoo! That night was the dessert exchange party, and I don't think I've ever been so exhausted from one weekend!

The following weekend, our last in SF before heading home for the holidays, we spent Friday night celebrating Jordan's friend Andy's birthday and then headed out to Walnut Creek on Saturday for the Raetz family Christmas Party - Bay Area Edition. It's always fun to get together with Jordan's sisters and I'm glad they're so close! Instead of doing dinner we had lots of heavy appetizers. My holiday meatballs even made a reappearance since they had so many fans at Thanksgiving.

After a relaxed last week of work, we finally headed home to Michigan! We arrived on Christmas Eve morning and immediately took a nap to recover from our red eye flight. That afternoon we headed over to Brian and Jill's to celebrate with my immediate family. It was wonderful to all be together again for the first time since the wedding! My niece Claire has gotten so big! She really has grown up so much, even since I saw her in October. Jordan got this lovely t-shirt among other things, and I got new rainboots! I also got a cookie scoop, which Claire seemed to enjoy!

On Christmas morning we headed to Toledo for the usual day of festivities with extended family. We weren't leaving again until the 29th so we had a few days to spend with family and friends! I spent some days shopping with mom, of course, and playing with little Claire. We also had time for karaoke with Katie and Matt at a bar in downtown Rochester - they're pretty much experts at it so now Jordan and I want to practice and find karaoke songs that are good for us!

Now that we're back in San Francisco, we've been relaxing at the apartment and trying to get organized before the new year arrives! I know I'm going to very busy with work for the next 3 months, so it's nice to take some time to enjoy doing nothing beforehand. We don't even have plans for tonight other than enjoying a movie and Sangria at home! I'm just glad I don't have to do inventory counts tomorrow, hooray!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Kicking Off the Holidays

December has turned out to be quite the busy month. Last weekend we had not one, but two ompany holiday parties to attend, Jordan's on Friday night and mine on Saturday night. Oddly enough, both were held at wineries outside the city, but they went very differently. I got to Jordan's a bit late since I had to drive down from the city after work. It was at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, a beautiful location literally on top of a mountain. They still had a great buffet set up when I got there and we had a good time hanging out with his coworkers and people watching on the dance floor.

The view from the Mountain Winery.

On Saturday night, we got all dressed up again to head to my party at The Winery on Treasure Island (an island in between San Francisco and the East Bay. We were fashionably late, but when we got there it was already so packed you could barely move. The space was clearly not big enough for the amount of people attending. We tried unsuccessfully to wait in a few food station lines and then decided to head upstairs where it was slightly less crowded. We managed to make it through the "Napa" station which pretty much consisted of cheese and crackers...and that ended up being all we ate. It even took Jordan 30+ minutes to get our first drink. Ugh. By the time we were prepared to move around, all of the food stations had run out of food. Sooo, needless to say, Jordan and I left and went out to dinner at 11:30pm back in the city. I guess computer engineers know how to throw a better party than accountants :(

Aaand the only picture of us from either night.

Sorry it's blurry and the TV is reflecting off my glasses..

It's getting a little colder around here but I know I'm in for a real treat when I get back to Michigan in a few weeks! To be honest, it doesn't really feel like Christmas yet - there's no snow, I wore flip flops last weekend, and I've done pretty much all our shopping online instead of at bustling malls! We've also opted to not put up a Christmas tree this year. It's sad, I know, but by the time we could get one (tomorrow), it would only be up for two weeks and we're not spending the holiday here. So, being the frugal shopper that I am, we're going to wait until all the post-Christmas sales to get a tree and other decorations for next year. Not going to lie - it's a bit depressing, but I'll just have to soak up all the Christmas cheer when I'm home!

Although, we've got even more holiday festivities this weekend that might get me in the spirit. I won't spill all the details now, but I did have to do some baking tonight in preparation for a holiday dessert exchange at my friend Jordan's apartment on Sunday. Well, not really baking..more like melting and assembling. I took the lazy but delicious route and made homemade Tagalongs (my favorite Girl Scout cookie). Yum! Take a look:

We've taste tested one so far..messy but so good! Almost as good as the real thing! And with that I leave you with a picture I took tonight from our rooftop. A nice reminder of how awesome it is to live here :)