Fun Day with Friends

I guess you could say my friendship world collided on Saturday.  Old friends met new friends and many different friend met each other.  Plus we saw many friends.  :)

Starting from the beginning.  We got up and went to run a few miles at Miramar Lake.  Todd's triathlon training schedule has the long runs on Saturdays, and this Saturday the schedule called for 58 minutes of running.  So I go along on the long runs on Saturdays, because we're not a part of a running club now, and because it's good for me to still have one longer run per week to aspire to.

We got to Miramar Lake around 9am and it was PACKED already.  I would say that if you rollerblade or bike there, Saturday and Sunday mornings you can just forget about it.  It is packed with people on the trail.  Plus there's nowhere to park!  We had to park on the street outside of the lake.

Parking and crowdedness aside, it was a nice run.  The sun came out about midway through the run and made it warmer than I'd like, but overall it was good.  I pushed the pace a little bit again this week, but I still finished the five miles a little bit slower than last week.  I ran 5 and Todd ran 7 miles.

Location:  Miramar Lake
Distance:  5.01 miles
Time:  53:02
Avg Pace:  10:35/mile
Calories:  498

After the run we went home and showered and then met up with Sally at Nozomi for lunch.  Hadn't seen Sally in about 3 weeks, so we were glad to get together again.  The big news is that Todd eats sushi now. We've been going to Nozomi for about 9 years now, and Todd had never gotten sushi there before. Saturday was his 2nd time getting sushi! It's good to know that a 39 yo man can still expand his palette, ha ha!



I had the Hawaiian roll, my favorite.


Sally had udon noodle soup with chicken.


I seem to have a knack for looking goofy in photos with Sally. I'm not sure why. Probably because we've been friends since we were 12 years old? :p


After lunch, we drove up to the RB Community Park for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life. We didn't participate in the walk, but Todd was involved in getting his local musician friends to play in the afternoon in the pavilion, so we went to see that. The Relay for Life was for 24 hours. If you were on a team, you would have to have someone on the team to walk in a circle around the park at all times during the 24 hours! Todd's friend Dejah (whom you've seen on this blog) was one of the chairpersons for the event. She asked Todd if he knew musicians who would volunteer to play, and Todd recruited several. All these talented musicians played for free.

Kenny Ing


J Turtle and Kenny

Jason Yamaoka (aka J Turtle) was one of the first local musicians in San Diego who inspired Todd to pursue playing music again. We saw Turtle and Jane Lui at a Borders a few years ago. Shortly after that, Todd played at a few open mics at Twiggs and played in the bands Taylor Street, The Northstar Session, Blizzard, and with Kim Divine.

Pete Thurston


Not pictured were Lindsey Yung and Aaron Bowen.

Our friends AJ and Meera and their little boy Andon also showed up to enjoy the music and hang out. Meera teaches middle school locally and saw many of her students and ex-students participating in the Relay for Life.



After the music, we had hot dogs with AJ, Meera, and Andon at DiCrescenzo's Chicago On A Bun. They have homemade chips there and it was yummy! We hadn't seen AJ and Meera in a couple of months, so it was super-duper fun to hang out again. Hopefully our next get-together will be sooner rather than later!

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Sixteen Years

Friday was our 16th wedding anniversary. Time really does fly when you're having fun. I'm so thankful and blessed to be married to my best friend in the whole wide world!

On Thursday early afternoon, Todd called me at the office and said, "Did something get delivered to you?" I told him nothing's been delivered. He said "Where's the shipping dock at your work? Something was delivered there. Someone named Mark signed for it. Go see what it is." Well, I was super-curious! I called down to shipping/receiving and they said they'd deliver it to me. So I waited impatiently at my desk until they finally brought it up. I opened the box, then the styrofoam. There was an ice pack in there. Then I lifted out the first box and opened it.


Inside was six chocolate covered strawberries! They looked so delicious. I picked one and ate that, but saved the rest to share with Todd when I got home. He also sent me three little cheesecakes. I saved those for home too.



It was a good thing that I ran in the morning on Thursday, because we also ate some pizza for dinner, after Todd finished a bike ride after work.

We both took the day off on Friday to spend it together for our anniversary. Todd had seen on Rachael Ray's $40 A Day travel show there's an awesome breakfast place down in South Park called The Big Kitchen. All the locals love it, as well as quite a few celebrities. Todd had been wanting to take me there for months, but we hadn't had a chance to go for breakfast because it's far down in South Park and we've had very few free Sat mornings due to running. So anniversary Friday was the perfect chance. :)



The place was very homey and kitschy, with no pretense. You may be seated with other people at a table, family-style. We got our own little table.

Todd got a waffle with strawberries, and they brought fresh melted butter and syrup to the table too.


I got coffee and a plate with spinach and cheese egg scramble and home potatoes.

I gotta say that everything tasted fresh and amazing. The eggs were done just right. The home potatoes were flavored so perfectly and had some crispy bits. I've never had breakfast potatoes this good!

After breakfast, we drove down the street to Balboa Park. It was a gorgeous day and Balboa Park was the perfect venue to enjoy the day. We visited the Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) and saw their rock 'n roll exhibit curated by Graham Nash. Those photos brought the musicians to life, and it was incredible to see the last photo of John Lennon ever taken, only a few hours before he was assassinated. We also saw photos of our own neighborhood back in the 1880's, when it was just one big ranch with a ranch house! It was such a delight to see those old photos.





We went into the museum gift store and they had a photo booth in there. We couldn't resist, especially since it was our anniversary!


After MoPA, we walked around Balboa Park and enjoyed the nice weather and the scenery.

The botanical garden.


I found a turtle. He was brave and posed for many photos with other people too.


Lily pads in the water.


Us


The Prado walkway.


More gardens and cool architecture.




Cool sculptures


We left the park in time for our 1pm lunch reservation at Cucina Urbana, a hip new Italian restaurant just blocks from the park. In fact, we should have just walked, but we didn't know it was so close!

The decor inside was very cool.








We asked our waitress to take our photo.


They brought out bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping.


I got a handmade lemonade.


Todd had tri-tip steak with onion rings.


I had grilled calamari pasta.


Everything was delicious and it was a great anniversary lunch. :)

We went home after lunch and just hung out, watched some movie on TV, and I did some crafts. We ate leftovers for dinner. We exchanged cards. I made Todd this card from some Basic Grey supplies.


He got me a cute card with some dogs on it. We don't normally exchange gifts, because we just enjoy the experience of the day together, and having to give gifts to each other puts a lot of pressure on both of us to find that perfect gift. This way there's no pressure to find perfect anniversary gifts. We can always buy gifts for each other when we stumble upon them, which we do sometimes. The experience of being together and making memories together is our way of celebrating anyways. :)

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There's A Place For That

I'm continually amazed at the power of the internet and social networking. It's very cool how no matter what hobbies and interests you have, there's a site/group on the internet for it. The other day I was making a list of all the sites that I frequent that sort of make up the big interests in my life, and I thought I would share them here.

Running - Daily Mile - a place similar to Facebook, where you can comment on friends' workouts. I keep track of all my running here, and any other workouts that I do.

Knitting/Crocheting - Ravelry - I keep track of yarns and projects here. It's a HUGE community and super-fun.

Reading - Goodreads - I put all my book To-Reads in here. I mark books as "read". I get book recommendations from friends. I read and write book reviews. It's awesome and I love it.

Dieting - Daily Plate - I keep track of my daily calorie intake here. I say "dieting" with quotes, because I don't believe in diets that deprive me of any foods. I eat everything in moderation when I'm tracking calories. It's worked for me before. I lost 6 lbs in about 3 months last year... slowly but surely.

Eating - Chowhound or Yelp - I love to read restaurant reviews here before I go!

Cooking - MyRecipes.com - where we link to all our favorite Cooking Light recipes online.

Digi-Scrapping - my non-store open forum/gallery of choice is My Scrapbook Art. You can find my gallery here.

Technology - Lifehacker - my favorite technology blog/site.

Sewing - I am just starting this hobby and would love it if anyone can suggest a site/forum/social network for me?

What are your favorite hobby/interest sites?

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Sizzling Summer Sale - 35% off

We're having a Sizzling Summer Sale at Little Dreamer Designs! All products in the "Sizzling Summer" category is on sale for 35% off through Sat 6/26!

Here are my products that I've put into the category for sale.


Click here to browse the sale!

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Awesome Five Miler

Yesterday was our last run with West Coast Road Runners.  We didn't sign up for the fall season from July - Dec this year.  We've been running with the club for 18 months now.  It's time to take a break and diversify ourselves fitness-wise.  Todd has already begun training for an Olympic-distance triathlon last week.  He's got 2 swims, 3 bike rides, and 1 run under his belt.

This last run with WCRR started at the decent time of 8:30am yesterday. We ran from DeAnza Cove at Mission Bay.

My group


Todd's group


I tried to push myself to run faster. My legs felt great and my sore quads were a distant memory, so I thought why-not? Plus it was ONLY five miles, LOL. Not to belittle five miles, of course. This is the distance that I hope to continue to be able to run easily and fast on the weekends. If running felt this good and this easy all the time, boy I would just run all the time. It was just one of those days where the body and the mind cooperated and the faster five-miles felt pretty easy. Perhaps this was due to some interval running this week too? I don't know, but I'll take it when it happens, LOL.

Some scenic photos on the route on Mission Bay.




Location: Mission Bay
Distance: 5.01 miles
Time: 52:16
Avg pace: 10:26/mile
Calories: 501

After the run, we came home and took showers.  Then it was time for lunch and Todd wanted In N Out Burger, so that's where we went.  I wanted to get a cheeseburger, but I looked up the nutrition value and the cheeseburger was 90 calories more than the hamburger, and I didn't think the piece of cheese was worth 90 calories to me at this starting point of my calorie-counting endeavor.  So I got a hamburger and we shared french fries instead of each getting our own.


Don't let him fool you, one of the burgers was mine!

After that, we went to meet up with Dejah and Roby for wine-tasting at Vintage Wines on Miramar. This is the second time that we've gone to wine-tasting there with Dejah and Roby. They're regulars there and the owners know them. For yesterday, it was six kinds of Pinot Noir. Neither Todd nor I found it yummy, I guess we're not really pinot noir people. We shared a tasting.



Todd made some Spiced Marinated Tomatoes to share. We got these heirloom tomatoes from Trader Joe's on Friday night.

It was super-yummy, we loved it!

Roby and Dejah.


After Vintage Wines, we braved the San Diego County Fair traffic and drove up to Del Mar to pick up some cake. But wait! Dejah and Roby wanted to stop by their favorite cheese shop called Venissimo.

Could this be Todd's worst nightmare coming true?


Todd was pretty horrified at the sight of all these cheese. But he was especially horrified at the smell in the store. It was pretty strong.


The only good thing about it is that it's close to the Nothing Bundt Cakes store. Todd had to console himself with a white-chocolate raspberry cake. We forgot to take photos of it. We brought it home and ate it after dinner. Todd cooked Asian Spicy Honey Chicken and it was super-nommy.

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Chill Out Friday

I took Friday off from work, because I have too many vacation days accrued at work and needed to use some days off or lose them. I do feel very blessed to have worked long enough at the same company to have this problem! :)

I decided to just chill out at home. I read some magazines and books. I watched TV. I also went into my craft room (which is a huge mess, by the way). I took the first step in organizing it by organizing my yarn collection and recording them all into my Ravelry.com account. Which led me to discover a few skeins of yarn that I know I'll never use, so I bagged them up and I'm going to give them away to a local charity.

Here's the color scheme of something I'm working on... It's a gift so I can show you after I've given it away. :)



That one is a crochet project. I also started a knitting project for myself. I'm making some arm-warmers. I'm sure they'll come in handy in the long and cold San Diego winters, ha ha!


I had a really fun alone-day-off on Friday. Very relaxing and something I needed. Todd came home after work and we went to get some Indian food at Delhi Kitchen. It's this cafeteria style Indian place that we like to frequent. Also, right there in the same plaza, there's a Trader Joe's. We got some really nice little heirloom tomatoes, which I'll show you in the next blog post! We also got some soap, some sulfur-free and sugar-free dried mangoes, and some fresh basil. Lots of good stuffs! Then we headed to the new Sprouts Market nearby and bought a bunch of produce and fruits. What a bonanza!

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Dinner with Dejah & Roby

It's been a busy week for us, social-wise.  I guess I saved all my blogging for today!

On Tuesday night, Dejah and Roby came over to our house for dinner. Todd made one of my favorites, Szechuan Spicy Noodles with Carrot-Cucumber Relish. The meat sauce was nicely spiced, and spicy hot too. In fact we were eating it and wondering why it tasted so salty and hot, when we remembered that we didn't serve the carrot-cucumber relish, which was still in the fridge! DOH! After we trotted that out, the dish tasted way more balanced!



The highlight of the meal was this though.

Apple and Blackberry Crumble

We served it ala mode and everyone just loved it.

I even ate some for breakfast the next day. Yum!

After dinner, we played Rock Band together and took turns singing, playing the drums, and playing guitar and bass. It was really fun with four people! Usually Todd and I just play together and we don't have enough arms and legs to cover all the instruments. It was definitely a fun evening together.

On Thursday night we got to go to Pete and Cassandra's place and they cooked for us. We got to meet Evan (the 8 year old human) and Sid and Fuzz (the 3 year old cats). The food was so good and we had so much fun with them, playing Rock Band again! Todd blogged about it, you can read it here.

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