Sonoma and Cookies

Spent Friday in Sonoma at the Renaissance. Last year we tried out the Macarthur and I'd say that Macarthur has it - although the Renaissance was very nice, and I'm always up for some Marriott points. Nevertheless, we had a great time and enjoyed some delicious food at Cafe le Haye and some dessert at...get ready....Top That. Not to be confused with the Dublin Yogurt Store - Top This.

We had breakfast at - what appeared to be - a super divey diner. It ended up being somewhat not-so-divey, but still very delicious. Thank You Yelp! I took the opportunity to snap a few pics including a Mater truck - Cars anyone?

Then it was time for the cookie baking extravaganza of 2009. We ended up with 5 different kinds of cookies, including families of large sugar cookies. Lisa made mine...Nick already ate his.

Lamebook

You can kill some time reading this site. Some are much better than others. This was a particular favorite.

In case it's too small to read, it says:

Dayna: What does IDK mean?

Jesse: I don't know

Dayna: ...ugh! no one knows!

You can't make this stuff up.

Weekend in review

What a weekend! Nick headed back to Seattle for a roommate reunion and a little Husky football. AND Kelly Ronan made her way across the country to come and visit me and Mochi!

Needless to say, it was awesome having her here, and I encourage more of you to come and visit. I order up great weather for all visits (I've probably jinxed it now...but whatev).

We ate lots of free chocolate, did a lot of walking and even saw the Golden Gate Bridge. See, no fog and a lot of sun!

Then we visited the Walt Disney Family Museum. The man was a genius. Hands down.

So we are on our way back to BART from the museum and this was the conversation:

B: When did the game start?

K: I dunno, let me check.

K: Holy shit, we're winning!

B: What? Nick must be lovin' life.

K: We have to find a bar to watch the game at

We then proceed to visit no less than 3 bars before finding a tv showing the game. Hello?! We're in Northern California, less than 20 minutes from the Cal campus. Bears fans gave up just as early as their players. It was awesome. And the guy at the bar checking IDs asked me what I was taking to look so young. Um, last time I checked, 26 wasn't that old. But I have good genes. Better than looking 15....different story. Ask me about it sometime.

Kelly asks, "Can I marry Jake Locker." Yes, yes you can. As long as I'm invited to the wedding.

Sunday was Lander RA reunion! Nayiry is going to dental school at USF and Jenna is working at Apple being hip and cool. Glad everyone is doing well!

And FINALLY! It SNOWED in Livermore. I walk out the front door this morning to take Mochi out...and there was some weird stuff on the grill...weird.....wait....there's more of this stuff on the neighbors grill. Holy shit, it's snow. ALL over the cars and on the bushes. I went online and it said that the last appreciable snow was recorded in 1950. Yikes! Suppose to freeze tonight....

I didn't take this photo, but it shows how little snow was actually on the ground (there was a little more at my house).

Currently listening to downloaded tunes from GLEE. Love it.

Spatchcock

Spatchcocking is all the rage this year. It was actually in the Martha Stewart magazine and my dad mentioned it. So I had to try it. It involves cutting out the backbone and then breaking the breast bone.

You actually have to cut through the ribs, which is totally gross. But my lucky kitchen shears (and a little help from Nick) did the trick and the backbone came out. Flipped it over and tried as hard as I could, even stood on a chair for more leverage, but couldn't get the breast bone to break. Too slippery and too strong of a bone. Oh well...

Here he is, all splayed out.

After all the cooking we headed over for the 3rd annual - no family, just friends - kids only - Thanksgiving with Tyler and Caresse. T and C are originally from Michigan and we've spent Thanksgiving with them since we moved to the area. While we do miss our families, we LOVE our Thanksgiving. There's something to be said for just hanging out with friends, everyone stuffing their faces and not caring at all. And when we were done with dinner, we just left it all out on the table for a few hours, in case anyone wanted leftovers.

Did I mention we make enough food for 8-10 people?

We even have rice. You should try it sometime.

Caresse and Tyler's new place is adorable and they've done a great job fixing it up.

And on to dessert! Red velvet cheesecake (sour cream apple pie, pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie).

So good....so fat.

Some people take pictures of food...

I, on the other hand, take pictures of Nick, eating food. I was looking through the past years photos to find something to use for our Christmas card. I started noticing a trend. So I thought I'd blog about it.

To his credit, he's incredibly thin and never puts on weight, so he needs to eat. He also dislikes me taking pictures of him....so I'm sure he's gonna LOVE this weeks blog post.

Let's start back in November 2008. We went to Amsterdam and Brussels. I lost weight the first time I went to Europe....I gained weight during this trip.

Olliebollens - powdered sugar coated balls of fried dough. Sold on the street. Nick bought one, bit it and then had powdered sugar all over his face and jacket.

Then there was hot chocolate at the train station, a belgian waffle in Belgium (when in Rome) and some beer. We ate our way through Europe.

We went to Cabo to celebrate the big 1-0. On one of our last nights, we got churros for dessert. Churros with chocolate and caramel dipping sauce. Please don't let your mind go into the gutter.

....too late, bet you went there.

On to blueberries. Nick eats these with 2 hands, alternating to ensure an optimum blueberry to mouth rate. He doesn't even inspect for buggies. Notice one hand in the bucket, the other at his mouth.

On to cupcakes. I'm actually surprised I only have 2 pictures of Nick eating cupcakes....but they are both action shots. Red velvet in Boston....

And Red Velvet at Erik and Katie's wedding.

And finally, Dick's! Seattle tradition - kind of like In-and-Out to Californians. We pretty much try to stop at Dick's whenever we can. He gets 2 cheeseburgers, some fries and a strawberry shake. Always a strawberry shake.

<

And because I'd hate for you to get the impression that Nick doesn't exercise, here he is, kicking some serious butt at the San Francisco Half Marathon.

Adding insult to injury

We just got back from Cabo - BTW, Cabo is awesome and I recommend it to everyone. Stay at the Hilton Los Cabos, totally worth it. I was checking my email and noticed a funny one from Apple:

Your one-year iPod nano warranty is about to expire.

Now, what really sucks, is that I lost my iPod in September - right before my half marathon. What is even silly-er is that I bought it in August, right around my birthday. So there is NO WAY that the one-year warranty is about to expire. While I'm on my anti-apple kick. On Friday, before we left for Cabo, I wanted to downloaded the most recent episode of Glee. I missed it while on travel, and the show makes me happy, so I wanted to buy it. REPEAT - I wanted to give apple money. They made it really tough for me to do that. FIrst, I had to download the most recent version of iTunes. They have new versions about every other day.....so that's irritating. Finally downloaded all 85MB of the new version - because heaven forbid they just update what needs to be changed - and then it tells me I need the newest version of Safari to access iTunes. So 2 reboots and 2 new programs later, I finally download Glee. Was it worth it? Yes. Glee was awesome. Am I annoyed with Apple? Most definitely.

Wedding season '09 is officially over!

And what a way to send out wedding season '09!  We just got back from the Burton/Gimenez wedding and had a great time.  8 heads of hair later, we enjoyed a great dinner and some fun dancing at the Winchester country club.  Wedding number 4 was great and a big congratulations to Kellie and Chris!

But I have to give a shout out to Express and my green, tulip skirt dress (with pockets!).  It helped me get through wedding season '09 like a champ!  It was a fun, "in" color and I think I got at least 1 compliment at each wedding I attended.  It was also great because it hid a full belly :-)  This helped out immensely last night.....when I ate too many cupcakes.  Oops!

So here we go, Bryn and the green dress take on wedding season '09!

Jing Jing and Judy's Feng Shui event at the Hyatt in Bellevue - 5.25.09 - the green dress makes its debut.

Curtain call on 8.8.09 for Erik and Katie's (long awaited) wedding.  

Encore on 9.12.09 for Robb and Carmen's wedding (with a view of the WSU/UofH game at quest field).  

And the final appearance (at least for '09) at the Winchester Country Club for Chris and Kellie's beautiful ceremony and rockin' reception.

The green dress treated me well and almost made an appearance at Halloween as Tinkerbelll (maybe next year!).   It was accompanied by my gold leaf earrings, black wedges and thin, black cardigan (and engagement ring :-)).  I even did the same side chignon with swept bangs.  I literally wore the exact same outfit to every wedding.  And there was no overlap!  None!  The only person who knew, was Nick.  And I think he wore the same purple shirt to 3 of the 4 weddings....and would have worn it to all of them, had he not been in one of them.  Woo hoo!!

Congrats to all the happy couples!

Happy Halloween

Mochi is clearly thrilled with his Halloween costume.  He kept it on for about 15 seconds, then shook them off.  I guess he was mad that he couldn't Mickey.

I put them on my head around the house on Saturday.  Thought it was amusing.  Then we took Mochi on a walk.  We got halfway up the hill when I saw my shadow and realized I'd forgotten to take them off - I did this all right in front of the neighbors.  It was priceless.  Embarrassing.  At least it was halloween.

Dear Starbucks

Dear Starbucks,

I've been a fan since my days as a 16 year old barista.  Since the days when I got chubby eating nothing but pumpkin scones and full fat caramel frappuccinos - with whip.  I stood up for you when people said local coffee shops were better.  Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of other places that make a great vanilla latte, but I am a fan of consistency.  I like knowing what I'm going to get....that is, until last Thursday morning.

We were driving to SoCal from the bay area and stopped off at store #09489.  Somewhere along I-5.  The driver needed a LITTLE pick me up.  We aren't drip or americano people, so he ordered a caramel frappuccino light - hold the whip.  

This is what ended up in his cup - chunks of ice.  

Here's the thing.  There's no excuse.  Starbucks has done a great job making it easy to measure out the correct amount of frappuccino mix, ice and syrup.  When you don't have enough mix, too much ice and a crappy blender.  This is what you get.  And I was so annoyed I took a picture.

It happens.  I get it.  But when you are on a 6 hour road trip with a camera and a crappy frappuccino.....you get inspired for a blog post.

Sincerely,

Bryn

Currently alternating between ice and heat....

Back in January my friend, Kellie, convinced me to sign up for the Nike Women's Half Marathon.  I thought she was crazy....but here we are today....ice bag on my knee, but quite proud of myself.

Nick and I headed into the city to get registered and then spend the night (to avoid waking up too early on Sunday).

I did the obligatory carbo load at the Cheesecake Factory and Nick sympathy carbo loaded.  We also topped off dinner with some delicious red velvet cheesecake.  I recommend it to everyone.  It is absolutely incredible.  Layers of red velvet cake between cheesecake with cream cheese frosting.  So good.  

Ended up not sleeping very well, but Sunday morning came regardless.  Walked to Union Square around 6:40AM, ready to OWN the next 13.1 miles.

Here's the race course.  Very scenic, quite nice actually.  Except for all the hills.  See the elevation map below.

Yeah, see miles 6-7 and 8-9.  Haha, that was rough.  What's interesting, is I actually made really good time on the hills and slowed on the flat sections.  Go figure.  I started to want more hills....crazy I know.  The downhills are incredible.  It's like a freebie.  You go fast and you breathe totally normal.  I feel like I'm cheating.  And I pass so many people.  Feels so good.

Saw Nick, Kellie and Chris around mile 11.  They only had a few seconds to snap pictures (because I was running lightning fast), so they also got one of my back side.  But take a look at that calf muscle.  Don't mess with my left calf.

I actually had a decent amount of energy left by the time 12.5 miles hit, so I took some big strides coming into the finish.  I passed a lot of people and it felt really good....competitive spirit in me just wouldn't quit.  Felt very good to go through the finish line!

Upon finishing the race, we were greeted by firemen in tuxedoes holding silver platters with tiffany boxes! 

Found Nick, Kellie and Chris after finishing.  What great friends!

Next year we will both do it!  (Kelly and I....Chris wont be there because the Indians will be in the playoffs.....but if they are in the playoffs against Oakland, it could work).  Stay tuned.

It was actually a lot more fun than I thought.  I'm gonna give the ol' legs a few days to rest and then see what happens....but I think another race is somewhere in my future!  

***  And because so many people have asked, yes, I ran the entire way.  I slowed to a walk for about 5 seconds while sipping some gatorade - but I don't think that counts  ***  Honestly, it probably would have been harder to start running again, had I stopped.

Short Girl

I just thought I'd share this entertaining picture from a recent trip to Vegas.  I took off my shoes to make it more dramatic, but you get the idea.

What a week

Started off with a trip to Kansas City....for work.  Duh.  Not really an exciting town, but had some good BBQ.  

Lost my brand new ipod on the flight back.  Somewhere between Kansas City and Oakland.  I'm so pissed.  Grr.  

Saw RENT and it was AWESOME!  2 of the original cast members were in it.  Absolutely amazing.

Gave mochi a haircut - now he's a skinny naked puppy.

Saw UW squash Cal (in volleyball).  Then watched UW football win an amazing game against Arizona.  Incredible!

Ran 6 miles today.  Half marathon next weekend....wishing I hadn't lost my ipod.

Made 2 batches of rice krispy treats to take to work (and a few to leave at home).  Nick convinced me to put some chocolate/butterscotch topping on it.  

So we had the tv on for the husky game - thanks to the slingbox in Issaquah - and a pizza hut commercial came on.  The pizza guy rings the door bell to deliver the pizza....you've seen this, or something similar before, I'm sure.  So then Mochi jumps off the couch and stands right next to the door.  Bless his heart, he thought it was our doorbell.  We couldn't stop laughing.  He waited so patiently.  Then I held him to the window to show him.  Nobody there.  So sad.

If you can run 10, you can run 13.1

I missed the peak run last week, so I kicked my own ass with the marathoners and did 10 miles.  It was up hill for the first 5 miles, but that means down hill for the last 5.  It was actually easier than my 8 mile run a few weeks ago.  Weird.  My legs hurt.  And my knees.  Went to the hot pool, so hopefully it will feel better tomorrow.  

Nick and I saw Capitalism, the new Michael Moore movie.  Very interesting.  A bit thought provoking.  I recommend it.  

Wow, boring post.  I apologize.

Ichiro Ejected

Ichiro got ejected for the first time in his career.

If Ichiro argues a call, he's probably right.  Same with Edgar.  I just love it.  

How I almost met Britney Spears

Spent the weekend in Vegas for Kellie's bachelorette party.  Good times had by all.

Britney Spears was playing Saturday and Sunday at our hotel, Mandalay Bay.  We heard that she was holding her after party at the Mix, a club at the hotel.  A couple of the girls are big Britney fans and wanted to try and catch a glimpse of the pop princess.

We arrived at the club last night and asked around.  We found out she was having her party in an area of the club with limited public access.  Of well.  But that wasn't going to stop Denise - Britney's #1 fan.  She asked around a little more and found out where exactly the party was taking place.  5 of us walked right through the front door and started hanging out at the party.

We stuck out like sore thumbs.

Denise asked around and a mean lady said to her, "How did you get in here?  Where are your bracelets?"  Oops, we'd been caught.

We ended up leaving the party, no Britney sightings.  However, Denise did a little more snooping and found out it was a party for her crew and that Britney Spears was not planning on making an appearance.  It was a fun story, and as close as I'll get to meeting Britney.

On the way out of the club we saw the Bambino from Sandlot.  So that kind of made up for it.  He hasn't aged a day, poor guy.

No, I'm not Welsh

I'm currently in Vegas taking a class for work.

When I called to sign up for the class, I talked to the registrar, Angela.

Angela is a lovely lady with an English accent.  I met her this morning and she is adorable.  She's a grandma and is about as cute as she can be.

Here was our conversation.

Angela:  Now Bryn, are you Welsh?

Me: Um, no, no Welsh in me. (that's a first)

Angela:  Well, Bryn is a Welsh name and when I heard it, I thought that perhaps you were Welsh.  

Me: (laughing a little) No, I'm not Welsh at all.

Angela: Well I thought that maybe Miyahara was your married name, but I just thought I'd check and see if you had a little Welsh in you.

Me:  Yeah, no Welsh here.

Angela:  Well, I'd say you have a little.

It was really cute.

Bow Down

Living in California sucks!

Because it means we weren't at the incredible Husky game today!  But, we were on our feet cheering at the tv.  

It was cute, I was folding laundry and could hear Nick cheering.  Then I sat and watched.  Incredible.  

After last years horrid season, it was great to see a win - made even sweeter by beating #3 USC.

I wish that you got to switch rankings - so the huskies become #3 and USC becomes unranked. 

It makes sense to me.  

I think it must be Dubs - the new husky mascot - that's helping the team this year.

http://huskymascot.blogspot.com/

Let's go DAWGS!

Seattle - Wedding

Nick and I spent a weekend in Seattle.  Another wedding.  This has definitely been our summer of weddings.  I think it was #3 - with #4 coming up in November.

Always good to go back and see folks.

Got an unfortunate haircut at Gene Juarez Advanced training salon.  Apparently "Swoopy bangs" = "blunt and short" - not hot.  So I will be wearing a mini french braid with bobbi pins for the next few weeks.  Bummer.

After the unfortunate haircut, I headed to Ladro to visit the S.  She's a great little barista and made me a delicious vanilla latte with orange zest.  And because she was busy helping customers, I took a cute picture.

Wedding at 3PM.  Catholic.  Thank goodness I paid a little attention at church.  Poor Nick was lost.  Rob and Carmen were adorable and we had a great time!  And I got to wear my green dress again!  Wahoo!  If all goes a planned, I should get 4 wears out of this little number.  $60 at express - unlike the Betsey Johnson debacle of 2007.  

We had never been to the Queen Anne Dicks (and Nick swore it didn't exist).  So we headed there after the wedding.  Strawberry milkshakes, fries, 2 cheeseburgers and a special.  Just like old times....I'd pick Nick up at the airport and he'd be starving - having left the east coast before dinner.  So we'd stop at Dick's.  So good.

Half Dome

So if you know me, you know I'm not a huge hiking fan.  So you might be wondering what this post is all about.  

A friend at work organized a full moon, midnight hike of half dome - you leave at midnight and make it to the top in time to see the sunrise.  I immediately said I wasn't interested.  

Then Lisa and Nick both showed some interest.....and then Lisa jumped on board....and then Nick.  And I hate being left out, so I grudgingly agreed.  I was close to backing out a number of times - 3-4 I'd say.  I'm glad I did it, but I will probably not do it again.  It's one of those "once in a lifetime" kind of things.  I'm sitting at my computer, pretty much hurting from the neck down.  However, the bragging rights will last a lifetime.

I'll attempt to recount the interesting parts and awesome pictures of our 12 hr journey.  

We arrived at the trailhead parking at 11:48 PM.  At this point, I hadn't slept in almost 24 hours because I was so nervous for the hike.  I was planning on surviving on sugar, caffeine and adrenaline (not something a parent ever wants to hear).

We had some obligatory parking lot photos - headlamps and all - and we were off to the start of the trail.  Sidenote - I was labeled the little ninja for the trip - all black.  Although Lisa looked kind of Ninja-y as well.

Here we are at the start of the trail.  I tried to circle the half dome trail - 8.2 miles (16.4 round trip).  They don't tell you that it's also a ~4800 ft gain in elevation (but don't worry, I knew this ahead of time).  

The first 2-3 miles is pretty tough.  It's like a weed out class in college (chem 142 for you med school kids).  It's steep and never ending.  A number of us commented that "I hope it isn't like this the whole way or I'm not gonna make it."  There was huffing and puffing and not as much talking as we would have liked.  But it got us warm :-)

Just as I thought I was gonna die (A common theme on this hike) - we turned a corner for an AWESOME view of half dome lit by the moon.  We all tried to take pictures, but none of them turned out - too dark.  I guess it's just one of those things you'll have to see to believe - absolutely beautiful.

Here we are resting, snacking and taking pictures.  Perspective was also a common theme.  The hard, uneven rock was so comfortable.

There was a lot of walking that went on between that initial sitting and the pictures to follow.

I got scared I'd get eaten by a bear.  

More uphill hiking and sore legs.  

Huffing a puffing.

Some crazy steep granite stairs cut into the side of a rock - no hand rail - nothin.  I made a mental note that these would be scary in the daylight.

And then we made it.  

Here's a picture of half dome, at night, with the full moon.

The sun is on its way up and we are on our way to ascend half dome.  (thought I was gonna die during the ascent).

We made it! 

The car crew - Lisa, Nick, me and Stephen.  We all drove up (and hiked up) together.

We had some pretty good cell phone reception.  Here you can see Dave, drinking a mountain dew and talking on the phone.  I sent a text.  

Group shot - minus a few hikers still coming up the cables.

The shadow of half dome and the full moon.  

Nick and Mike playing around.

The real reason for hiking during the middle of the night was to see the sunrise.  And it was absolutely beautiful.  We were all standing around waiting and then someone yells "there it is" and everyone started to cheer.  Sounds cheesy, but after 6+ hours of hiking, it sounded pretty cool - and it was.  

The sun also made for some pretty pictures.

So then it was time to go down the cables.  What I haven't mentioned is that I almost didn't climb the cables.  I was scared shitless.  As an engineer, I was analyzing the situation and the cables and wood planks did not look very safe (although thousands of people use them every year).  I was almost ready to send Nick up alone.  But then I thought I'd try it.  And I'm glad I did.

They recommend you wear gloves.  We had brought some of our own, but in case you forget yours, there is a huge pile of them at the base.  

Here is a picture of the cables.  The steepness isn't really all that exaggerated.

Here we are on our way back down. 

Finished!

I was overjoyed at this point.

One more shot of half dome with the full moon in the distance.

And the cables.  Ha, I still can't believe I did it.  Very un-bryn-like.

These were the granite steps of death.

A pause on the way back down.  The best part about climbing at midnight is that you see almost no one on your way up.  Which is nice - because it would suck to see all these people that already made it.  Which was awesome on the way back down.  You could look at all the people coming up, thinking "I'm so glad I'm done hiking up."  The elevation killed me and I was definitely having a hard time towards the end.

Then we made an awful decision to see the falls.  The falls were pretty, but it about 2000 vertical feet of stairs.  My right knee failed me and I was forced to walk down the entire way like a 4 year old learning to walk down stairs.  step down, bring the other foot down.  repeat....about 4 million times.

But the falls were pretty and there was a rainbow.  

We continued on our way and made it back by noon.  So the entire trip took 12 hours.  Not bad at all.  It was a great experience and one that I will probably not ever repeat.  However, it showed me that I was capable of a lot more than I thought.  Until Saturday night/Sunday morning I had only ever completed 3 previous hikes - all 3 miles or less.  So it made logical sense to have my 4th hike be 16.2+ miles and 4800+ vertical feet.  I'm done hiking for now - nothing will ever be as cool (probably).  It's back to some ibuprofen and relaxation.  I think I need a massage.

Oooh, I almost forgot.  A huge shoutout to new balance trail runners.  I bought the shoes last Wednesday, wore them at work on Friday and then logged 17+ miles of hiking on Sunday. Kind of a hiking, no-no, but my feet are awesome and blister free (unlike poor nick's).