Category Archive: Not San Francisco

Weekend in Napa for Jessie’s birthday

Posted by Lisa On April 25th, 2011

My sister Jess celebrated her birthday in style in Napa and I was lucky enough to be the one she invited to tag along! 🙂 This was my first trip to Napa (Kevin and I visited Sonoma last year) so I was excited to see what the fuss was all about!

We made our first stop to Chappelet Winery which her friend Daniel works at. We spent a few wonderful hours there, sipping on some super yummy wines, taking in the amazing scenery, and enjoying each other’s company! My favorite wine we tasted was the Chenin Blanc and Jessie was in love with the Signature Cabernet.

The entrance to Chappelet

Jess sipping on the first of many wines we tasted

I love being in the dark, cool wineries surrounded by barrels and barrels of wine!

Our private tasting area!

Me and the barrels

We eventually joined in with a group that was tasting and touring the facility (Jessie’s friend Daniel is the one in the middle pouring)

Wine from the 1970’s

Jess on the tour

What a view!

Sister, sister!

After a few hours at Chappelet we were starving so made our way to Rutherford Grill. The food was super tasty but the company was even greater! 🙂

After stuffing ourselves silly we made our way to the hotel (which Jessie had won through a contest at work)–the Silverado Country Club. It was so fancy, we had to follow a guy in a golf cart to get to our room, ha!

That night we got out and explored downtown Napa at the Oxbow Public Market. It reminded us a lot of the Ferry Plaza in San Francisco with a lot of similar stores. Jess enjoyed a cup of joe from Ritual Coffee and we shared a super yummy tiramisu.

The next morning I woke up bright and early and am happy to report that I went for a 3 mile run while on vacation! You sure can’t beat the terrain–it was so gorgeous at 8 in the morning and it was such a treat being able to enjoy the views on foot instead of zooming down the road by car.

On the way back home we had some breakfast at Gillwoods Cafe which just hit the spot (yummy granola pancakes!)

Thank you Jessie for inviting me along to enjoy your birthday weekend with you! We’ve never taken a sisters trip before and we know we have to make this a regular thing!

Mom & Steve’s visit

Posted by Lisa On April 25th, 2011

My mom and her boyfriend Steve came up for another visit (see their past visits here and here) from April 1st-3rd and we had a nice time.

Friday night I joined them in Los Gatos at Jessie’s work, Enoteca La Storia (a super cute wine bar) for some champagne and cheese (a lovely combination 😉 ).

Jess hard at work and me hard at drinking 😉

Jess nommin’ on some goodies

The spread (or what was left of it)

Mom & Steve (in shadows, wah!)

The only scraps we left on the cutting board

Mom, me and Steve through the window

After Jessie’s shift ended we ventured to another wine bar in downtown Los Gatos, Cin-Cin, for dinner. The restaurant offered small plates and they were fantastic! We then took a stroll down the main strip and landed at the Dolce Spazio Dessert Cafe for some gelato. Mmm, mmm, mmm!

Beautiful blue sky on the drive to SJ

Afterwards we drove back to San Jose to check out an art walk that happens on the first Friday of every month in downtown San Jose called South First Fridays. Only a couple of galleries peaked our interest: the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles and another gallery that I didn’t catch the name of that featured pieces about size (from microscopic to ginormous).

Me and Jess in front of some beautiful quilts

One of my favorite pieces. If you look closely…

…you’ll notice that the artist carved the alphabet out of the tips of these pencils. Incredible!

I felt like I walked straight into a Dr. Seuss book with these funky tree sculptures.

Trippy

On Saturday, mom and Steve came out to SF for some exploring. Our first stop was lunch at Chilango Mexican restaurant. Now I’ve always been a fan of Mexican food (I mean hello, I’m half Mexican) but I have never fallen so deeply in love with a Mexican restaurant as I did with Chilango. Their food is in traditional Mexico, D.F. (the capital) style and it is SO AMAZING! A little pricey but holy hell it’s worth it.

Okay, I’m done drooling now.

My mom and I giving Chilango two thumbs up!

We then took a nice drive through the Castro, starting out at the Seward slides (see a video of me and Kevin going down the slides here, with Kevin’s crazy drop straight on his rear at the bottom of the slide), then winding our way up through the beautiful neighborhood and finally ending at Corona Heights park. Mom, Kevin and I went for a brief hike up to the top of the rock formations and really enjoyed the views of the city.

Beautiful colored rocks against a bright blue sky.

A random little “village” we came across. These little houses were maybe 6 inches tall, so cute!

Me and Kev at the top of Corona Heights

For dinner we shared our love of Ethiopian food with mom and Steve and they quickly became fans! We went to Cafe Ethiopia in the Mission which we had tried before and definitely loved (except for one of the waiters telling us, at the end of our meal, that “there are people waiting to eat”, we got the hint!)

Dig in!!

We had a really nice visit (and lots of yummy food to boot!) with mom and Steve. Looking forward to their next visit!

Hike in Almaden Quicksilver Park

Posted by Lisa On March 6th, 2011

So far we’re 2-for-2 with our goal to hike as many Saturdays as possible! We went down to San Jose on Sat. 3/5 to meet up with Jessie to explore Almaden Quicksilver Park which isn’t too far from her place. The total hike was 3 miles and although we could have kept going we had to leave it at 3 miles because Jess had to work that afternoon. We all really enjoyed exploring the small corner of the park we saw and are definitely excited about returning to check out more.

And we’re off! Me, Jess and Lola hitting the trail

Jess and Lola checking out the creek

Kevin got this great shot of the creek

Me and Lola hanging out

The Buena Vista Trail

Jess, Kevin and Lola on the Buena Vista Trail

This led us to the end of our hike: The Buena Vista mining site. We had a good time exploring the remains of this mining site.

Some of the remains of the site, old concrete structures with massive bolts left behind

Creepy look at the long way down the brick wall

Kevin went exploring a little farther as me and Jess took a break and he got this shot of us from the hill across the valley

Then I got this shot of Kevin as he was jumping off the 8 foot brick wall. Pretty cool!

Here is it zoomed in

Pretty manzanita trees

Berries and blue sky

Monterey continued…

Posted by Lisa On March 5th, 2011

So I realized that I didn’t upload any of Kevin’s photos from our trip to Monterey (and there were some good ones!) so I thought I’d dedicate a short post to some of his photos. 🙂 Enjoy!

At the beach in Carmel…

On the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail…

Okay, it’s official: this is where we’re retiring.

Amazingly clear blue ocean

Waves crashing.

Kevin’s friend the squirrel

This photo cracks me up, the squirrel looks like he’s spying on someone.

My wind-blown look.

One of my favorites that he took, gorgeous rocks, ocean and sky.

My second favorite of his, the seagull is perfect in this photo!

Seagull in flight

Valentine’s Week & a trip to Monterey

Posted by Lisa On March 2nd, 2011

Like I mentioned in my last post, I arrived at the SFO airport late at night on Sunday 2/13, the day before Valentine’s Day. Kevin picked me up at the airport and he suggested, since we weren’t going to be able to spend any time together on Valentine’s Day itself, that we do a crazy late night dinner after picking me up. So at 10:30pm we got seated for dinner at BJ’s in San Bruno and enjoyed a nice dinner together (and shared a yummy pazookie as well!)

We’ve never been big on V-Day or anniversaries either, but Kevin sure pulled out all the stops this year. In addition to suggesting this cute late night dinner idea, when he picked me up at the airport he gave me a King size box of Junior mints (my favorite!) and the card game Skip-Bo that we had been talking about getting for a while. Then on Monday (V-Day) I had to go to work but he had the day off so he suggested he meet me at the office for lunch before he drove to class. He surprised me with some of the most delicious, homemade (from scratch) devil’s food cupcakes I’ve ever had (and even had a few extra for some co-workers). And lastly, he got me a frame with spots for four photos: he put one of us from our wedding, one of us about 2 years into our marriage, one of us and Lola living in SF, and he left one spot empty for when we have a baby. What a sweetheart! Okay, enough of the mooshy stuff. 🙂

The following weekend (President’s Day weekend) we decided to get away for the night and take a trip down to Monterey! We realized we hadn’t taken a real vacation (just the two of us, and no Long Beach doesn’t count) since we went to Australia in 2008!! Yikes, we gotta do a better job of getting away more often. Carleigh and Scott graciously volunteered to watch Lola that night, so we packed up her bag and dropped her off at their place on the morning of Sunday 2/20 for 36 hours of play time with her best friend Bailey!

Looks like Lola on her first day of school! Her bag was packed with lots of goodies to share with her friend Bailey.

We were recommended by C&S to drive down Highway 1 and we were glad we did. Such a gorgeous drive along the coast. Sure makes us appreciate this amazingly beautiful state of ours! We stopped off for a quick visit to Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

Somebody’s a major fan of the lighthouse with their “I Love Pigeon Point Lighthouse” license plate frame

I love old, run-down buildings

Thar she blows! Unfortunately you couldn’t go inside the lighthouse itself.

View off the coast

Ahoy matey! Kevin sporting his binoculars.

Me sitting on a nicely decorated Pigeon Point Lighthouse barrel (aka a trashcan with a lid, gross).

Before checking into our hotel we drove down to Carmel to get some lunch at Carmel Belle (yummy food but super small portions and a pretty hefty price tag). We did some window shopping and then walked down to the beach. There were TONS of doggies out and about and it was such a gorgeous day. We enjoyed walking along the beach and taking a break to soak in the sun.

Then it was time to check into our hotel! Our hotel was just a block up from Cannery Row so it was nice to be so close to all the action. Although working across from Fisherman’s Wharf in SF and knowing that I would never recommend anyone stay in a hotel out that way, I couldn’t help but get excited about being in the middle of this tourist trap in Monterey! Haha.

Gorgeous mural of a whale around the corner from our hotel

Random old-school scuba gear on display

When Kevin saw this banner of John Steinbeck he jokingly asked me, “Why do they have a picture of Saddam Hussein up?” Hahah.

A really neat mural of fishermen along the beach.

No, we didn’t spend our money at the wax museum (they were closed, haha).

After the mandatory stroll down Cannery Row, we ate dinner at Paradiso Trattoria (pretty yummy food, especially the cilantro spread they have for their fresh baked bread…amazing!)

This was our view from the restaurant. Gorgeous.

On Monday we woke bright and early, ate the continental breakfast at the hotel, and then checked out to go out and enjoy a drive and a walk along Ocean View Blvd. and the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail–by far the highlight of our trip!

Lots of breathtaking views to be had…

It’s a long way down!

And then, as we were looking out at the rocks and crashing waves, we spotted a furry thing scurrying across the rocks…who knew squirrels lived in the rocks along the beach?

They came up really close to us, probably looking for some eats.

Not only did we see lots of squirrels, we also saw harbor seals basking in the sun on some rocks!

Beautiful rock formations

Kevin taking a photo of the ocean

And tons of seagulls to look at and take photos of…

Seagull in action, leaping across the rocks!

Kevin taking a photo of a squirrel. They became good buds that day.

It was so so so nice to get away, just the two of us. This being the year of our 5th anniversary of being married and our 10th anniversary of being together (!!!!) we have to take more time to celebrate our relationship and this was a perfect start to that!

Weekend in LA

Posted by Lisa On March 2nd, 2011

I flew down to LAX on Fri. 2/11 for a work retreat at our LA campus and decided to stick around for the weekend to see some family! My mom and her boyfriend Steve came to pick me up in Alhambra and we went straight to one of my favorite restaurants out that way: Noodle World.

I spent most of my time with Mom and Steve out in San Pedro. We took a 2 mile walk down Paseo Del Mar and when we were looking out over Royal Palms beach, we happened to spot a mermaid!

But then we realized she wasn’t alone. Alas, she and her three friends were with a full crew taking photos.

We then enjoyed breakfast at the Lighthouse Deli (yummy batter-of-the-day pancakes!) That afternoon me and my mom went to visit my aunt in her new digs in Garden Grove. For those of you that know my family well, I’m happy to report that Tina is doing GREAT! 🙂

Then we made our way back to San Pedro to The Corner Store for a wine tasting benefiting the Marine Mammal Center of San Pedro.

Lots of incredible desserts like these fudgy, red velvet cake pops dipped in chocolate. AMAZING!!

Then we zipped on over to Busy Bee (a famous sandwich shop that I had heard so many good things about but had never tried before) to buy a boatload of sandwiches to enjoy with Brianne & Brian and my brother Derek who were coming over to Steve’s for dinner and games!

Mmm…check out that greasy goodness on the sandwich wrappers. 🙂

Brianne and Brian and Catalina Island in the background

Not the best photo, but the three of us enjoying the sunset

Gorgeous view, eh?

We spent a good few hours laughing our rears off playing a game called The Game of Things (highly recommend this game for groups, so much fun!) Kevin even joined in on the fun in SF via Skype! He was my partner during a few rounds and it was great to have him join in on the game for a bit. 🙂

The next morning we were up bright and early for some yummy breakfast (egg, muenster cheese and honey mustard paninis with cottage cheese/oranges and a piping hot cup of joe).

Then we drove down to Long Beach and I spent a whopping 2 hours in LB the entire weekend. I went to visit with my in-laws, Dorothy and George, and we had a great little visit. George cooked up some yummy and slightly spicy chicken salad sandwiches for us to enjoy too. Yummy!

After the short visit with the Edmonds family (and an even shorter appearance of my bro-in-law Thomas) we drove down to pick up my brother Derek to get some lunch at Portillo’s Hot Dogs in Buena Park and then made another visit to my aunt Tina.

Derek, a huge fan of the Chicago Cubs, made a visit to the windy city last year and found out that Portillo’s (a Chicago-based restaurant) had a chain out in Buena Park. Here he is enjoying a dog covered in goodness (as you can see, he’s not the biggest fan of the Lisa blog paparazzi).

We then made our way back up to San Pedro to make a visit with Steve’s grandson Christian who is an adorable kindergartner. We spent a good amount of time drawing mutant animals…

And then as the sun was setting, Christian insisted on taking me on a flashlight tour of Steve’s backyard where he showed me, amongst other things, the place where his cat is buried. Haha!

After that we rushed off to LAX and I was home around 10:15pm on Sunday. I had a really fantastic whirlwind of a trip and can’t thank my mom and Steve enough for the hospitality! 🙂

Day trip to Muir Beach

Posted by Lisa On January 20th, 2011

On Sunday1/16 Carleigh, Scott, Bailey, Kevin, Lola and I piled into Carleigh’s little Jetta and took a day trip to Muir Beach for an exciting day in the sun! We had every intention of spending our day at Muir Woods but were sad to find out that John Muir hated dogs the park didn’t allow pups. So we drove another five minutes down the road to beautiful Muir Beach and were not disappointed!

It’s a short two minute trail walk to the beach–the beach itself is expansive with lots of room for friends, families and doggies to play around. We saw some folks had put up tents to spend the whole day there and Kevin and I would love to go back and do the same some time. The water was a nice, cool temperature (not ice cold like the beaches in SF) and it was pretty shallow water for a good 40 feet or so.

Bailey showing his mama some loving

Lola, the happy camper!

Bailey resting up for the big day on Scott’s shoulder

Lola, the helpful navigator

Muir Beach on a gorgeous, sunny day!

Lola playing with another doggie in the water

Some random kid with a stick

Some random pup in a tent

Bailey boy

After a half hour or so of hanging out on the beach, we decided to take a hike to Pirate’s Cove. We climbed up and up and up some very steep hillsides and when we thought we were finally at Pirate’s Cove, we found out we weren’t even half way there! So we settled for a view of Pirate’s Cove off a beautiful cliff.

Kev, Carleigh, Scott and the pups

Carleigh switched spots with me so I could get in on the photo action

View of the beach we had just climbed up from

Kevin, Lola and I decided to walk out to that ledge for a better view

Can you see Carleigh & Scott? They’re that tiny spec in the middle of the photo.

Kevin and Lola on the ledge

Lola then ran up the hill and we sat down for a photo opp

Carleigh enjoying the views after the treacherous hike!

On our way back we came across two women on horseback with their dog–Lola, turns out, is not the biggest fan of horses.

Scott, Carleigh and Kevin at the bottom of the hill ready to grab some lunch!

Christmas: The Long Beach edition

Posted by Lisa On January 7th, 2011

One of the biggest perks to working for a university (me) = two weeks off at Christmas!

One of the biggest bummers to working for business that is busiest during the holidays (Kev) = not able to spend Christmas day with family 🙁

BUT we were able to finagle a few days before Christmas for a quick, shotgun trip down south. We decided to surprise Kevin’s mom Dorothy so she was the only one in our families that didn’t know we were coming down. We had a good week or so of talking up how sad it was that we weren’t able to come down at all for the holidays…if only she knew…hehehehe.

Monday 12/20
After Kevin got off of work that afternoon we jumped in the car and made our way down to Long Beach. We got in around 1am Tuesday morning and after quickly saying hi to my mom, we hit the sack to get ready for our big surprise the next morning.

Tuesday 12/21
Kevin’s dad George helped with the surprise telling Dorothy that he had a doctor’s appointment that morning that he wanted her to go to with him. So our plan was for Kevin to call Dorothy on her cell phone and have her on the phone when we knocked on the door. Here are two videos of Operation: Surprise Dorothy for Christmas 2010! 😉

Kevin trying to make small talk with Dorothy as we prepare to get out in the rain and knock on the door

As you can see, we didn’t plan it out as well as we had hoped but we surprised her nonetheless! If you look closely in the background you can see Lola tear through the house running after their cat Sebastian! Hahah, poor thing!

Thomas was there and Judith, Joshua and Katelyn came over for a yummy breakfast of waffles, french toast, and bacon.

They were enthralled with the story Kevin was telling.

A little gift exchange…

Katelyn showing off her new shirt

Josh showing off his new shirt

Dorothy and George fighting over who gets to open the gift 😉

The bicycle glasses we got them!

Family photo! Kevin, me, Katelyn, Joshua and Judith (and Lola too)

We spent the whole day with the family and enjoyed a yummy spaghetti dinner together too.

Lola relaxing at the Edmonds’ home with Kevin

Wednesday 12/22
We met up with Thomas and his girlfriend Ashley for breakfast at The Potholder Cafe in Long Beach.

That afternoon we spent a few hours hanging out with my mom (like old times!) and then met up with my brother Derek, our friend Brian, my mom’s boyfriend Steve and the Chinese student living with my mom while he studies at CSULB Jeremy for dinner at Lucille’s BBQ (me and Kevin’s favorite chain restaurant!)

Lola and her new roommate Luke

Thursday 12/23
We woke up early so that me, Kevin and my mom could go to Westminster for our annual Chinese massage (annual for me and Kev, more often for my mom!) It was EXACTLY what we needed and we enjoyed it so much. My mom asked the guys to snap a few photos of us for proof, haha!

Kevin, the mummy

My mom and me

We then went to fill up our tummies with some yummy Chinese food at Seafood Cove #1.

That afternoon around 4pm we jumped back in our car and made our way back to San Francisco so that Kevin could be at work the next morning at 6am.

We were in LB right when the crazy rain was happening, but the clouds parted for us on the last day and the sun poked through, seemingly taunting us and begging us to stay! 😉

Pre-Christmas festivities

Posted by Lisa On January 7th, 2011

We had lots of pre-Christmas festivities leading up to the big day–here are some of the highlights!

Cookie Exchange party
I was invited to my boss’ Cookie Exchange party. I had to bring 6 dozen cookies (or the equivalent–I brought 6 pounds of Mexican Chocolate Fudge!)–I shared 1 dozen at the party and then got to take home 5 dozen cookies! Yowzas. There was a taste contest too and my fudge won Most Delicious! Not bad for my first time trying to make fudge. It really did turn out amazing–the recipe is at this link if you’re interested (super easy!)

I made one version with sea salt…mmm!!!

Decorating Carleigh & Scott’s Christmas tree
This year Carleigh got her first Christmas tree ever! Since we don’t have the room in our apartment to put up a tree, I let them borrow some of our ornaments and we enjoyed decorating the tree, eating dinner and baking cookies together–and you know we had to include a doggie photo shoot (with doggie costumes and everything!)

The final product

Lola gave Bailey a pair of antlers for Christmas and they enjoyed modeling them for us

The antlers didn’t last long, as you can imagine…

Christmas card photo shoot
This year we decided to join the club and send out Christmas cards and I knew I had to take a cute photo of Lola to include. I wore her out at the park playing fetch so that she would wear her (homemade, bootleg) antlers and not fuss with them. I posed her on a red blanket on our bed with a little “Reindeer Food” bag I’ve had a few years and -voila!- adorable Christmas card. 😉

Dinner with the Dobsons
Jessie came into town for dinner with the Dobson family–the family she used to nanny for and that we had gotten close to in the process. They’ve got four boys under the age of 10 so any family gathering is entertaining when the Delmar girls join the mix! 😉 Lots of laughs (and lots of wine) made for a wonderful evening.

Dog pile Jessie!

Lola’s special delivery
Among all of the wonderful Christmas cards we received in the mail, there was one that was just addressed to “Lola Edmonds” and we were delighted to find an edible Christmas card for her made out of rawhide! She LOVED the card and thoroughly enjoyed tearing it to pieces. 😉
Thanks Judith and Dorothy!

Christmas in San Jose
Jessie invited us and our friend Lisa to enjoy some Christmas spirit San Jose style.

Mars getting some well-deserved attention…

Festive wear was donned…

First, a hooping show by Jess…

Then a drive downtown…

Nothing says “Christmas cheer” quite like a frightening 8 foot rat

Ice skating…

Not only do I suck at ice skating, I can never lace up my own shoes! Thanks Kev for tying my shoes for me. 🙂

Jess showing off her moves

The only time I wasn’t hugging the wall was when Kevin took my hand. Reminder to self: Save the $20 ticket and shoe rental and just watch from the sidelines next time! haha

Action shot! This picture cracks me up!

Christmas in the Park…

And to end the night? A bottle of champagne at Jessie’s wine bar, Enoteca la Storia in Los Gatos…

All it takes to get Kevin to smile in photos is a little bubbly, apparently. 😉

If our pre-Christmas festivities were any indication of how Christmas itself would actually be, we were in for a good time! 🙂

TDay 2010

Posted by Lisa On November 29th, 2010

This year Kevin had to work the days before and after Thanksgiving so we couldn’t make a trip down south–Jessie had to work the day of so we decided to host a small Thanksgiving dinner at her place in San Jose!

In the afternoon we were busy cooking and Skyping with Kevin’s family who were gathered at his parent’s house for the feast.

Dorothy and George

Kevin chatting away

Our beautiful nieces Katelyn and Sophie!

Thomas, Katelyn and Sophie posing for a photo

Even though it was only me, Kev and Jessie for the meal itself we ended up having one of the most delicious and entertaining Thanksgivings in recent memory!

The mansion Jessie lives in (literally! Check out the post I wrote about her building on move-in day here)

Started out with some Skyping with my family–this photo is of my mom and my Auntie Tina, but there also was my brother Derek, my Uncle Joey and my mom’s boyfriend Steve.

Jess got a free cooked crab from her boss so she proceeded to pound away at it.

Hahaha, that girl cracks me up!

So…dinner was amazing. Started out with some spanakopita, fried cheese balls, and dates stuffed with dark chocolate and walnuts.

And the main event! Mushroom stuffing, apple cranberry quinoa, collard greens, roasted cauliflower (and some tri-tip [not pictured] for the meat-eatin’ Kevin).