I just finished posting about my awesome birthday weekend and feel like I sped through those posts..mostly so I wouldn't forget anything. But I think those speed posts don't let me get into the little details and observations which I'll make sure I try to do more often. I did forget to mention the killer dinner Dave made for us on Saturday night when we got home. We had stopped at the farmers market in Carlsbad before we left Saturday and picked up some lettuces, red pepper, jalapeno, broccoli and some fruit. So that night after making a trip to Henry's for fish Dave made a pan fried Sea Bass over black forbidden rice with a side of steamed broccoli and before that we had a salad with our farmers market lettuce, roasted red pepper and roasted jalapeno. It was all really really good...totally restaurant quality. I'm glad he was in charge of dinner that night :) I need to find a farmers market around here to check out. I like the idea of buying local produce grown by people in the area. We are trying our best to eat 'whole foods' and not as many processed things but we aren't fanatic about it. I also would love to eat more organically but need to do some more research on what I should focus on because some of it can get pretty expensive. Then on top of that I'd like to try to eat locally (food that isn't transported as far) AND we are trying to eat more veggies and less meat. Phew...it gets tough :)
Today I sit here and wait for the cable guy to come because our DVR broke before we headed out for our weekend. Its strange. I am not sure how I feel about it. On Sunday Dave had to work from 12-10 so I had the whole day alone with no work and no DVR. This forced me to really do some chores and get out of the house. I did feel a little withdrawal from some of my programs - c'mon..who can live without The next foodnetwork star or Kendra or Top Chef Masters. Ok, so I'll live. Its almost a little bit freeing to not have all this TV to watch... that isn't to say I'm ready to go DVRless and believe me once its back in the house I'm a slave to it but we'll see. Maybe I'll try to institute a no TV day a week. Dave says if we ever do get our house down in Carlsbad area that we won't get cable and only will have the TV for DVD's..hmmmm I'm not all on board yet.
That just left the rest of the day to do some work and prep veggie's for my Turkey chili which is always a satisfying and flavorful meal full of tons of vegetables. Then Dave had to head to work at 6pm but I had enough time to head out and get dessert at Berries yogurt :) So that just leaves me time to ride my bike on the trainer in the house and hit the sack. Tomorrow is Pilates and homemade pizza ;)
Monday, July 27, 2009
Birthday weekend continued
In my last post I talked about my circus adventure. So that was on Wednesday July 22nd, now I'll talk about how Dave surprised me for the rest of the weekend.. the 23 through 25th. Thursday morning we woke up and got packed and he whisked me off to Solana Beach for the weekend. I'd say the Carlsbad/Encinitas/Solana Beach/Del Mar area is probably one of our most favorite easy getaways. I love it down there.. close to the beach, relaxed, great restaurants. We headed down Thursday ate lunch in Carlsbad at Naked Cafe, then checked into the Courtyard in Solana Beach - great location and a nice place. Then it was a quick change and a drive to Swami's beach to grab a parking spot and run on the beach at low tide. After running we changed and headed to yoga at Yoga Swami. Doing yoga in the yurt at yoga swami just seems so fitting when you are right down there in Encinitas. After that we headed back to the hotel to shower quickly and walk down to have dinner at Blanca which we've been to once before and happened to be just down from our hotel. The dinner was great and it was time for bed!
Friday morning we woke up early to head down to have breakfast at one of my favorite breakfast spots in Encinitas. Honey's bakery. Such a great atmosphere...and always packed! We usually have to stalk the outside tables to pounce on one when it becomes available. I typically get the granola waffle but wanted to try something new so I ordered chilaquiles. They were good but my heart is still with the granola waffle. Got back to the hotel just in time for me to have a few meetings - oh yeah...did I mention I was still working - so I finished up my meetings around 1 and we walked down to the same shopping center that houses Blanca to a fun cupcake shop to have an afternoon snack. Cupcake Love makes some goooood cupcakes. I think my favorite though is the traditional vanilla bliss. Now after cupcakes comes reflexology. We found a little reflexology place online that seemed to get good reviews so we headed over. We had reflexology for the first time in Whistler in Canada and liked it so since then we've tried it in Redlands too. The foot massage can be kind of intense in certain spots and sometimes the back slapping/cupping they do seems a little hard...but in the end it feels nice. So we had our 1 hour foot massages (which actually include arms, legs, face and back) for $25..what a deal! Now it was time to run on those relaxed feet (except I just walked). Running on the beach is so much better than running on the sidewalk anyday! Of course after running comes dinner. So we showered and headed to my favorite restaurant down there - Q'ero. YUM YUM. Quick walk near the beach and its home for bed.
The plan on Saturday was to wake up and go to yoga...but instead we slept in. After waking up we walked down to Solana beach coffee co. to grab some coffee and morning pastries then walk along the beach. Then it was time to check out of the hotel. For lunch we ate on Le Passage in Carlsbad. I love their duck breast salad... the duck is SO good and not very 'ducky'. Then it was back home :( but that meant we were able to see the doggies!
What an awesome birthday 'weekend'. What an awesome husband :)
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Journaling - a start
I kick myself sometimes for not journaling my life. I think..how neat would that be to have a written record of all the activities of my life...but then I get distracted and I don't start. So this will be my attempt at recording at least the interesting things if not the mundane. I have a horrible memory so I'm hoping this will be a record for me to remember the things I do....because I might forget them tomorrow. So, starting now I'll recall this past weekend and then we'll go forward. And when I say we... I mean me and whoever reads this...which I think will be me.. and maybe Dave if I remind him :)
This past weekend was my post birthday - birthday celebration. I was in Phoenix on my actual birthday. I had traveled there for work and stayed through the weekend to see the family and hang out with the girls. I had a great time with my mom shopping and eating out and a fun family dinner at P.F. Changs to celebrate the July birthdays. I also had a really fun party weekend with my girlfriends which was drinking, eating, gay bar karaoke and a pool day. ahhh, the little things in life.
My wonderful husband set-up a few really fun surprises for me to celebrate. First was on Wednesday night (July 22nd). He had told me that we were doing something for my birthday and that "I'd get a good workout". Hmm, that was scary sounding but I was up for a challenge. So he guided me on what to wear and he put on his workout clothes too and we headed out. We drove all the way to Culver City (near L.A.) and pull up in front of a few warehouses. Then one we park in front of says event planning and catering and I'm thinking...is Dave helping me change my career.. am I baking...why am I in my workout clothes. Then we walk around back and I see the actual building we're going to. I was surprised and excited...then we get inside and I'm scared and nervous. There was this big ring hanging from the ceiling and purple silk hanging down like a rope, and a rope and 3 individual trapeze bars. The people walking in all looked like they knew each other and I was like great.. so at that moment I SO wanted to tell Dave to get his money back and can't we just go eat dinner. Then my class starts and I start to relax. The teacher was this cute french Canadian girl who used to be in Cirque du Soleil and was super nice! It was 7 people including me so it wasn't an intimidating size. The class I took was "circus conditioning" which Dave said the lady told him when he called would be the best starter class. Its basically a fitness class doing some conditioning work on the floor etc.. then the last part is using the equipment. I got to climb a rope and the purple silk fabric stuff and sit on top of one of the trapeze bars and fun stuff like that. I totally missed my calling...I was AWESOME! No really, I was good. Ok, so we didn't do anything really cirque like but I was loving it. SO FUN. I might go back and take more of these classes and then maybe take the aerial arts class. Karyne (our teacher) told me I could jump right in with no problem ... see I am supposed to be in the circus! After my circus class we changed. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention..Dave putting on his workout clothes was just to throw me off. He didn't participate at all.. just watched and tried to take a few pictures but I told him he couldn't use the flash because I didn't want people knowing my husband was over there taking pictures of the newbie :)
After changing it was off to dinner at My Father's Office. This place was SO crowded. I thought it was a burger joint, but turns out they have 1 burger on the menu but I've heard its good. So we both ordered the burger and an order of sweet potato fries. The fries were awesome. The burger was really really good and don't you dare try to make any deletions or substitutions.. THEY DON'T DO IT .. and they are serious. So the burger had blue cheese on it..which I actually kind of like..but Dave does NOT. Turns out it wasn't that much and the burger was still awesome (Dave even said it was the best burger he's had in a while). Then we headed to Santa Monica's 3rd street promenade to get gourmet churro's.
The churros were good but the guy at the counter was such a dud. Dave said "so do people usually get 2 of these each" and the guys says "no, usually just 1...they are kind of expensive and not very big".. what the hell does that mean. This guy SHOULD NOT be working the counter. He had absolutely no idea how to get us into it. I think he really didn't want to be there.
Then we finally drove home after we had consumed our weight in burgers and churros.
Next post will be about the rest of the weekend surprise :)
This past weekend was my post birthday - birthday celebration. I was in Phoenix on my actual birthday. I had traveled there for work and stayed through the weekend to see the family and hang out with the girls. I had a great time with my mom shopping and eating out and a fun family dinner at P.F. Changs to celebrate the July birthdays. I also had a really fun party weekend with my girlfriends which was drinking, eating, gay bar karaoke and a pool day. ahhh, the little things in life.
My wonderful husband set-up a few really fun surprises for me to celebrate. First was on Wednesday night (July 22nd). He had told me that we were doing something for my birthday and that "I'd get a good workout". Hmm, that was scary sounding but I was up for a challenge. So he guided me on what to wear and he put on his workout clothes too and we headed out. We drove all the way to Culver City (near L.A.) and pull up in front of a few warehouses. Then one we park in front of says event planning and catering and I'm thinking...is Dave helping me change my career.. am I baking...why am I in my workout clothes. Then we walk around back and I see the actual building we're going to. I was surprised and excited...then we get inside and I'm scared and nervous. There was this big ring hanging from the ceiling and purple silk hanging down like a rope, and a rope and 3 individual trapeze bars. The people walking in all looked like they knew each other and I was like great.. so at that moment I SO wanted to tell Dave to get his money back and can't we just go eat dinner. Then my class starts and I start to relax. The teacher was this cute french Canadian girl who used to be in Cirque du Soleil and was super nice! It was 7 people including me so it wasn't an intimidating size. The class I took was "circus conditioning" which Dave said the lady told him when he called would be the best starter class. Its basically a fitness class doing some conditioning work on the floor etc.. then the last part is using the equipment. I got to climb a rope and the purple silk fabric stuff and sit on top of one of the trapeze bars and fun stuff like that. I totally missed my calling...I was AWESOME! No really, I was good. Ok, so we didn't do anything really cirque like but I was loving it. SO FUN. I might go back and take more of these classes and then maybe take the aerial arts class. Karyne (our teacher) told me I could jump right in with no problem ... see I am supposed to be in the circus! After my circus class we changed. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention..Dave putting on his workout clothes was just to throw me off. He didn't participate at all.. just watched and tried to take a few pictures but I told him he couldn't use the flash because I didn't want people knowing my husband was over there taking pictures of the newbie :)
After changing it was off to dinner at My Father's Office. This place was SO crowded. I thought it was a burger joint, but turns out they have 1 burger on the menu but I've heard its good. So we both ordered the burger and an order of sweet potato fries. The fries were awesome. The burger was really really good and don't you dare try to make any deletions or substitutions.. THEY DON'T DO IT .. and they are serious. So the burger had blue cheese on it..which I actually kind of like..but Dave does NOT. Turns out it wasn't that much and the burger was still awesome (Dave even said it was the best burger he's had in a while). Then we headed to Santa Monica's 3rd street promenade to get gourmet churro's.
The churros were good but the guy at the counter was such a dud. Dave said "so do people usually get 2 of these each" and the guys says "no, usually just 1...they are kind of expensive and not very big".. what the hell does that mean. This guy SHOULD NOT be working the counter. He had absolutely no idea how to get us into it. I think he really didn't want to be there.
Then we finally drove home after we had consumed our weight in burgers and churros.
Next post will be about the rest of the weekend surprise :)
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