Birthday Weekend in Tahoe

Kevin and I spent the weekend at the CalNeva to celebrate my birthday. It was a super relaxing weekend.    Before we dropped Yari off at the boarders we took him up a gondola at Northstar to do a short hike.  The next day we went paddle boarding and had dinner at Soule Domain, delicious as ever. I even won money at the casino. Everyone at our blackjack table gave me their bottle of wine cards when I mentioned it was birthday!

We found out that the CalNeva is closing in September for a year long remodel by the owners of Calistoga Ranch. Unfortunately that means we probably won't be able to stay there anymore so it made us appreciate the weekend even more.

I also left my laptop at home so I had long no-coding weekend. It's been a busy past couple months as I've made the transition from being a Front-end developer to a software engineer. More on that in this post.

June Recap

Jamie enjoying a break from her new Mommy duty.

We went to Sausalito for our second Cornhole tournament.  Kevin and Collins were a team this year and my partner was Erik.  None of our teams made it to the finals but we all did better this year.

Jiri and Sherri had a beautiful wedding at Madrona Manor in Healdsburg. We ate a delicious dinner on the huge veranda.  We were definitely the party table -- vodka gummy bears anyone? :-)

A bunch of friends met us at the race track for an early birthday get-together.

In the eighth race everyone bet on "You're killing me Smalls"...

And WON!!!

Other June highlights included Bill and Jen's visit, Avett Brother's concert at the Greek Theater, Matt & Kim and also Heidi visit the Bay Area and celebrating my birthday at the Hotsy Totsy and Mallard.

Matt & Tony at Zeitgeist

April/May Recap

The new office is right by Giant's Stadium in an area called China Basin.  The office is pretty much one long room with rows and rows of long tables/desks.  The kitchen is well stocked with tons of beverages and snacks and the freezer is also full of Its-Its and other frozen goodies.  We're also fed lunch AND dinners!

Our laundry room got a makeover when Kevin's parents came to visit.   They helped us conquer some of the house projects we've been putting off.  We also kicked off plans for our kitchen renovation.

More Spring Fun

Pink Floyd concert at AT&T Park

Fun with Yari

Mandy visit

March Recap

I felt very fortunate to find a new job pretty quickly and was able to delay my start date so I could go to Austin for SXSW. It was a huge effort to find a place to stay during the conference. Luckily my friend Ruth connected me to someone on Twitter who was also looking for a roommate.   I met a lot of new people and hung out with some old friends. 

Since I'm writing this in October and just re-capping the past year, here are the quick highlights:

-Meeting up with Ruth and dancing our butts off.
-Riding bikes to have dinner at Uchi with my old coworker, Mike.
-Seeing Seth MacFarlane promote "Ted" with Marky Mark as his special guest.
-Enjoying a Bloody Mary at the Iron Cactus with my hotel-mate Kim O. from Colorado.
-Anthony Bourdain's session on "Digital Debauchery."

After Austin I got to spent some time in Chicago. I finally got to see pregnant Mandy and meet her daughter.

Lisa also rallied Dan and Ducky to hang out. I continued onward to Ann Arbor to see Joc and Jake, even got to spend some time in the Arb, and I spent the rest of the weekend with Dana, Joe and the parents in Detroit.

This Van Gogh painting pretty much sums up the theme of the vacation.

The first day of the new job finally came and for the first 4 days I commuted about 1 1/2  - 2 hours each way to Burlingame.  Luckily they moved the office to San Francisco the following week.

I also snuck in a fun weekend in Tahoe before the end of the month.  Kim B. and Matt were visiting from Colorado so we rented a cabin that ended up being near the Cal Neva.  We had wedding pictures taken at this stump.

January/February Recap

Better late than never! 2012 is almost half over so I'm doing the quick recap...

Mid-January, I created a couple linocut postcard-sized prints for my friend's company. The Golden Gate Bridge and Sutro Tower were the themes of the postcards.

I also held a demo/workshop during their Waza developer event at Yoshi's. Definitely a fun experience! Other guest artists included a 3-D origami artist and a photographer with a Mammoth Polaroid camera. Todd designed a Fillmore sized poster for the Waza and the musical guest.

Devotchka performed at the end of the night.

I also lost my job at CHOW.com and spent the next couple of months looking for a new job and enjoyed the much needed break from working.

A New Year - 2012

We had a very mellow New Year's Eve with one of the highlights being the purchase of a new front loader washer and dryer. Whoo hoo!

Next stop CU Sushi in Berkeley. It was cheap and good and filled the craving. So we remember: Philadelphia Roll (Cream cheese, asparagus, avocado fresh salmon on top) and the Green Monster (Shrimp tempura, masago inside avocado on top). They've got a lot of baked rolls for people who are so into the raw fish rolls.

Afterwards we joined the crew at Todd & Becky's house for an East Coast New Year's at 9pm. We left a little bit after that to spend Midnight at our own house. It was a really clear night so we could see the fireworks in San Francisco.

Another Christmas Dinner

We had too much fun on Christmas that the morning after yielded a few bad hangovers. Kevin made a ham, I made a couple veggie dishes, Andrea brought a broccoli cheese and rice casserole, and Becky came with her "ugly" balls. Then there was Sean who didn't stop pouring lemondrop shots made with rosemary infused simple syrup...

Tailgate

Also another tradition is the Michigan - Wisconsin game. Unfortunately because of changes to the Big 10 the two teams don't play each other. At least it was victory for both teams and Michigan finally beat Ohio State!

Tofurkey Thanksgiving

Tony hosted his 7th(?) Thanksgiving in the Sunset. Good food, good people and Tofurkey made for a great Thanksgiving.

Honeymoon

We spent an amazing 2+ weeks in around the island of Phuket, Thailand. We spent the first 4 days in Khao Lak at the JW Marriot. This resort had 3km of pool! We also visited Patong (whoa!), Phi Phi Islands, and Krabi penninsula. Our lazy days were filled with gigantic breakfasts, naps, more food, more naps, beaches, kayaking, swimming and hiking. More details and pictures someday!

The Wedding

We did it! It was such a wonderful and absolutely stunning weekend in Tahoe. So much to write about I'll have to do an update at a later time. Thank you so much to all our friends and family that made our the weekend so fun and memorable.

Silverton & Ouray

For the last full day we drove the Durango-Silverton-Ouray route through the mountains. It was so green compared to the orange and rust colors of Canyonlands.

The road was crazy curvy and really narrow at times!We stopped at the cute towns of Silverton & Ouray and checked out some of the stores and sights. There was also a motorcycle rally that weekend.

A steam train runs from Durango to Silverton.

It was such a fun trip and was so glad to be able to spend such an extra long weekend with Lisa & Erik!

More pictures...

Canyonlands & Mesa Verde

We hiked the 6 miles round trip trail to Chesler Viewpoint had some outstanding views.

After the hike we drove about 2 ½ hours to Mesa Verde and caught a tour of the Cliff Palace.

The Four Corners & Canyonlands

The ranger at the Aztec ruins inspired us to go to Canyonlands with a detour at the Four Corners.

The drive leading up to our camp site took us on top of mesa and through so many different landscapes. Our red Nissan Sentry got hit by a rock when we passed a trunk on a gravel road. Two cracks traveled almost halfway through the windshield. That was the only hiccup to the road trip.

We set up camp and blew up our pool floaties as our camping pad which worked fairly well for $2 a pop.



We took a couple short walks near by to admire the bright sunset.

Kokopelli’s Cave B&B

Manager, Gayle and Terrell, guided us to the amazing 300+ acre property on top of a cliff. The cave was originally meant to be an office for a geologist but later turned into a B&B.

We explored the property and were awed by the beauty and privacy of the place. Each step brought us to more and more amazing views. A sunset, some lightning and even a sunrise!

The managers encouraged us to feed the ring-tailed cats and chipmunks who came to visit us. They had containers of cat food for them.

Durango Road Trip

Lisa and Erik both got to Durango earlier in the day and picked me up from the airport a little before midnight. Erik had endured a 36-hour Amtrak/Grayhound journey to get there. During the day they bought our trip food which included many of my guilty pleasures: Little Debbie oatmeal pies, Spaghetti-O’s and Velveeta Mac & Cheese!

We woke up early the next day and headed to Farmington, New Mexico. We checked out some Aztec (not of Mexico) ruins.



More pictures on Flickr.com

Kim & Brian Tie the Knot at the Hide Out

We spent an amazing weekend celebrating Kim and Brian's wedding at the Hide Out located in the Sierras near Kirkwood. Congrats you two!!

The entire weekend was so much fun and the location was stunning. We camped on the property with several other friends.


The 30+ person hot tub built into the granite rocks.



» More photos...

Happy Birthday to Me

To take care of wedding stuff we made another trip up to Tahoe around my birthday. Once again it was a super fun weekend. Sharon, our wedding coordinator, filled our bellies and got us boozed up for our tasting, giving us a healthy start to our weekend. We took the tunnel tour at the Cal Neva which was pretty interesting but we didn't see any ghosts.



There was also a mini cooper rally going on during our stay.

Led Zepagain happened to be playing at the casino next door and we were glad we checked it out. They were a fun band and great to watch. We even left the casino with a little extra money in our pockets after a successful run on the craps table.

For my birthday, Kevin took me to Soule Domain, a nice restaurant inside a log cabin. Everything was delicious and we split a two giant scoops of vanilla ice cream at the end of the meal.

During the weekend we also had a chance to take the happy hour cruise on Lake Tahoe.

For my actual birthday I came home to an ice cream cake.

A week later I got another surprise from Kevin, an iPad!!

Kevin's Parent's 45th Anniversary

We flew to Minnesota to celebrate Roger and Bev's 45th anniversary. Kevin's brother Jim hosted a bbq. The next day we went out on their boat and Kevin caught a bass.