My First White Christmas

Merry Christmas! This year I'm celebrating my first White Christmas in Oregon with family. Wes and I drove up to Eugene with fair weather, then the next day drove up to Portland. Ever since we passed through Salem, we haven't taken the chains of our little Prius. We planned on going up to Seattle as well, but never were able to make it. Freezing rain, snow, ice, more snow, you name it. It's been white all around us since we got here. It's amazingly beautiful. The snow seems to be God's highlighter across the nature. I commented to Wes, "How can something so beautiful, be so inconvenient?"

We've made the normally 30 min drive between our parents house a couple times now...but now it's been taking 1-2 hours. That includes getting stuck stuck once, and having to dig ourselves out...along with the tow of a very generous man on Christmas Eve. And unfortunately, we haven't had the opportunity to visit any friends in the area yet. But the weather should be warming, snow and ice thawing, and hopefully we'll get around town in the next couple of days.

I've got some more beautiful pics of the snow, but due to my parents' dial up internet, one photo is all you get for now. ;) Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2008

This year for Thanksgiving we went down to Southern California to visit my grandparents. It was a long 9 hour drive down, but worth it to have a good visit with family.

We got to meet Aunt Audrey and Uncle Dave's "grand-dog" Gracie. Here she is perched on Dave's lap. And yes...she is wearing a T-shirt that says "Does this shirt make me look fat?"
I admired the table while the last of the food was being prepped.
We all sat down for a delicious feast. Here's the gang (from left to right): Wes, David Jr., Heather, Grandma, Grandpa, Audrey, David III, and Dave Sr. Yes I know...lots of David's, but one less than the normal affair when my dad comes too :).
The next day we took a walk to the beach, to walk off our big dinner from the day before. It was a gorgeous day. Grandpa kept reminding us to take jackets, but the 70+ degree weather was very warm for us Northern Californians ;).

Wes and I shared a teriyaki plate of fresh shrimp and chicken.
We walked around the pier and found this huge pelican just hanging out with the fishermen.
He was like a shape shifter...tall when standing, and very long and wide when he sat down. And I love his strategic sitting next to this sign!And of course we posed for a self portrait with the ocean in the background.And on our way home, we got to partake in the first gas prices below $2 we've seen in a long time!

Eugene

Okay...the last of the vacation pics! Maybe I'll have some pics of Thanksgiving in LA next week for you, if I remember to whip out the camera from time to time.

The last stop of our Northwest vacation was in Eugene. We did a lot of our favorite things...hanging out with friends and eating! We had a great time staying with Laura and Jeff...unfortunatley no pics, cause it didn't occur to me to take out the camera. We had a great time visiting with them and some good old times at 19th Street McMenamins. I got my gyro and rubenator fix.

The next morning, we got our Studio One fix of french toast and eggs benedict. Yum! Probably the best breakfast place I've ever been to.
Later, while everyone was at work, Wes and I went for an unintentional 5 mile hike. We headed over to Spencer's Butte to have an afternoon hike, and we took a wrong turn somewhere, so our 2 mile loop turned into a little bit more than that. The view on top was amazing, clear, warm, and relaxing. We even had some curious friends...
But on our way back....when 2 miles turned to 5, we were tired, and a bit loopy.
In the evening, my best girl friends from high school, had our own mini 10 year reunion. We went out for dinner at the Pizza Research Institute. There, you can get anything you can imagine on pizzas...and it's good! Check out the entourage of foods on this one...yep that's an apricot, ricotta cheese, corn, brocolli, and a million other things. It was delicious.
Then we returned to Barry and Jess' place for a rousing game of Cranium and Crazy Really Crazy. Mary taught us how to play and it was hilarious. It's a perfect mix of make-your-own taboo charades.
You can see more photos of our reunion here...where others are much faster at blogging than me. :)

And just before we headed out on our long drive back to CA, we had breakfast with the Johnson's, and got to meet their twins Emily and Austin for the first time. These little guys were born VERY early, but have been growing and getting healthier. Austin still has a trache to breathe, but as cute as ever.
Emily is full of life and such a sweet heart. I got to hold her, and she immediatley went for the finger. ;) What a darling!It was a good vacation...I hope you all liked the belated pics and stories :)

Seattle

Back to the September vacation recap...

One of the main stops on our Northwest trip was to visit family. We stayed a few days with Wes' sister in Seattle. We had a wonderful time visiting with Tracey, Kevin, and Kaelin. And his other sister Jen came up for a few days too. It was a good time.

We also got a teeny weeny taste of what it's like to take care of a two and a half year old. Kaelin is the cutest thing every, and a total ball of energy. I had a hard time keeping up with this one ;). We did all sorts of fun things. We went to the Cougar Mountain Zoo in Issaquah. We saw emus...
Then Kaelin had lots of fun pointing out the emu pictures to Auntie Jen...
And of course Kaelin loves Uncle Wes who loved to show her all the cool animals at the zoo. Here's them looking at the birds.
And here's Kaelin with her Aunties. Check out the awesome Seattle summer weather we had!
After a good nap in the car, Kaelin was ready for more action...McDonalds! This is a girl who knows exactly what she wants. French fries!
And playing in the awesome play area they had there. Uncle Wes had to rescue her when she got up too high, but then got to get some fun pics.
Later in our visit we went to Lake Washington. Kaelin loves the beach.
Here's Kaelin and Mommy with her movie star glasses.
And finally a photo of Kaelin in action!
We had a great visit in Seattle!

Birthday Cupcakes

I've been on a cupcake kick these days. Cupcake baking that is....I think I'm always on a cupcake eating kick, but this time I decided to make them. I also love pumpkin, and it is always out during this time of year, so I decided to make pumpkin cupcakes for Wes' Halloween Birthday.

I found a bunch of recipes, but I decided to try this one. I tested them out earlier in the week to see if they would be good. The first time, I used all purpose flour instead of cake flour. They were good that way, but were more like pumpkin muffins, instead of cupcakes. I also wasn't a big fan of the buttermilk icing. I think I used too much vinegar.

So this time around, for the actual day, I went with the cake flour, and I tried cream cheese frosting (some kind of a hybrid of this and this). Also, since I needed to make cupcakes for a large group, I went for the mini cupcakes so I didn't have to make multiple batches. This recipe makes 30 regular cupcakes, but a ton more mini ones.

Here are the little guys all lined up after being frosted.
Mmmm....pumpkin cupcakey goodness!
And here they are with their Halloween costumes on. Don't ask me what they are supposed to be...the anthropomorphism ends here ;)

Recapping and The Grand Lodge

We'll it's official. I'm a blogging slacker. Sarah has tagged me, so I guess I'd better get on board. After all, it's not very fair for me to love reading blogs, but to not do my part in the blogging world.

So starting with this post, I'll give you all an update for what's been going on with me.

• August: Nothing but work work work...and some nasty flu bug over my bday week...
• September: Two weeks vacation! Woo hoo! Then back to work work work... Wes is also work work working as a student again. He started the MSEE program at Stanford in late September.
• October: Have I mentioned work work work? Company is struggling, so trying to do my part to keep things afloat.
• November: Oh, it's not November yet? Whoops. It will probably be more work work work with a jaunt to LA for Thanksgiving, and hopefully some much needed time at the gym!

So I thought I'd share some photos from our vacation to the Northwest. We drove up to Oregon, and spent some time with family. Then we took a couple days off to celebrate our 1 year anniversary. We went to McMenamins Grand Lodge in Forest Grove. We love McMenamins! They have the best food, beer, and great relaxed atmosphere. We desperately miss it. So any time we are in the Northwest we frequent...and I mean FREQUENT their establisments. So it was appropriate for us to spend a couple days there.

The Grand Lodge is an old Masonic building restored and made into a hotel/restaurant/pub/spa/etc. We got some great weather while we were there. Check out those blue skies!
McMenamins is known for their funky decor. In almost any of their buildings you can find pipes decorated with faces on the elbows. There is a lot more cool decor to enjoy, but usually lights inside are dim, and not so good for photos.This McMenamins also has a frisbee golf course. So when we weren't getting massages, eating and drinking, watching a movie, soaking in the pool, or laying around, we played some frisbee golf. Here's an action shot of Wes.
Unfortunatley, I look like a total dufus when throwing a frisbee, so I refuse to make those photos public. I also found out that I suck at frisbee golf. I can actually throw a frisbee really well, when someone can move around a bit to catch it, but aiming for a non moving object is not my forte.

But, I'm not as bad at taking pictures of flowers, so I did some of that. Here are some of my favorites from around the grounds.
Next up! Visits to Seattle and Eugene!

Red Velvet

My dear friends D & J, along with many others, are expecting! I was honored to help host a baby shower for them. It also gave me the excuse to attempt my first Southern Red Velvet Cake!

I love cake baking, and I set aside a whole evening to get this one right. I enlarged the recipe, so it took a little longer than I expected to bake, but it turned out good. I also had a fun time chatting with J's mom at the shower about her cake decorating adventures.

Here was the most fun part of the process...seeing the results of 1 full oz of red food coloring.
Here's an action shot of the mixing of the liquids and drys.And here is the finished product after Karen's skillful decorating. 3 10 inch layers of Red Velvet Cake frosted with butter/cream cheese frosting...and decorated perfectly to match the initiations (courtesy of Inka of course). Here's a bonus shot of the hot pink flowers that motivated my choice for Red Velvet Cake :) Congrats D & J!

LIVESTRONG Challenge Ride Report

The day started bright and early at 6:00am. I agree with Lizzie, who wonders why all athletic events force you to be up at the crack of dawn.

Quick shower to wake up, morning coffee and peanut butter (soy nut to be exact) and jelly on toast. Wes loaded up the bikes, and we were off to downtown San Jose to ride. We saw a handful of other cars with bike racks speeding down 280 trying to make it in time for the 7:30 start.

Parked the car unloaded the bikes and took some pre race pictures of us sporting the Team Zuber jersey designed by the contest winner Inka! Here's the design, live on Wes' back:And here's us sporting the the jerseys! (Forgive the lack of focus, it was on a timer...)Got on the bikes and rode down to the festival and starting area. Bikers everywhere! Called Lizzie to find her. She was easy to spot in her pink jersey, unlike us blending in amongst a million pieces of yellow.

Bathroom break, then got in line for the start! I've never been in such a huge pack starting a bike ride. In triathlons, people trickle out of the transition area at their own pace, and when we did other rides (Cinderella and Tierra Bella), I don't remember such a mass of people. Balloons everywhere, yellow everywhere, crowds everywhere. The streets we rode on in downtown were closed and it felt like bikers ruled the world!

As we got out of town, less roads we closed, but it was still neat to ride down busy streets with a pack of cyclists, that would usually never brave these roads because of the huge traffic. Police escorts everywhere giving us the right of way. It was pretty awesome.

Pretty flat riding for the first leg. When we passed through Los Gatos, Russel and Alice came out to cheer us on, since they live on the route. They took some pics of us (will post later...don't have them yet) and then we were off.

Almost immediately after that, we hit the first big hill. Shannon Road. It was bigger than hills we trained on, and as we started to climb, the amount of people actually riding their bikes dropped slowly as the climb increased. In my mind, I'm seeing everyone walking, telling myself I can't do it and I'll have to walk too. Then I told myself to just look down and keep pedaling. Again come the thoughts of walking, and again I challenge myself to keep pedaling. I did that for a while, and made it to the top! Once at the top, I took a rest to catch my breath, then held on for dear life as I screamed down that curvy road. Downhill is the worst part of a hill for me.

Feeling triumphant after the hill, I sped along. A couple rest stops came and went. More PB&J, Gatorade, water, the works. Wes and I, Lizzie, and Brian were cruising along.

In the last portion of the ride, came the last big hill. This hill was just as steep as the first one...but much much LONGER. It seemed to never end! There was a teaser hill right before it, so by the time the real hill started I was cursing under my breath cause I thought we were done with hills! But again, I told myself to keep pedaling. This hill kicked my butt though...at almost 1pm, in the heat of July...a never ending hill in East San Jose. I finally allowed myself to stop mid hill to catch my breath. I was going to walk, but I waited to catch my breath, then I got back on and pedaled it out to the bitter end. It was brutal.

Once the four of us made it to the top we took a victory picture!
Resting at the top we chatted with this guy who was a cancer survivor. It's amazing enough for a healthy person to train their body to ride 50 miles, but to see someone whose body who has been ravished by the treatment of cancer, come back, and do this, it was truly inspiring. As we continued to ride we would continually see people with cancer survivor bibs on, as well as those riding in honor or in memory of someone. I was honored to be using the body God gave me to ride for Kevin. I hope he gets a kick out of his faces plastered on our sweaty backs ;).

Well after the last hill, we had one more rest stop. It was a hot one! I was getting a headache, so I went to the first aid guys and asked for some advil. Little did I know I would be evading race authorities after that. After I got the advil, they came to me later, worried I might have heat stroke or something, insisting that that I tell them when I leave so that a SAG vehicle could follow me. I tried to convince them I was ok, but there was no convincing them. Finally Wes and I saw our moment, when they were busy, and we jetted off on our bikes. It was the last leg, and we wanted to ride it SAG free!

Cruising back in to downtown was not nearly as cool as when we left. The roads were all open, and there was TONS of traffic. People were cheering, but riding through hot, bumpy, downtown San Jose in traffic was no fun. We were glad to reach the yellow ballooned area and cross the finish line!

Here are some post race pics before we went off to enjoy our free pizza and beer!

Jersey Design Contest!

So here's a quick update on our LIVESTRONG training:

Wes and I met our fund raising goals yay! Thank you so much for anyone who donated. And if you still want to, go right ahead :) LIVESTRONG will thank you.

We went on our final training ride yesterday. 45 miles! Next week we'll do the actual event for the full 50! Woo hoo!

Now comes the fun part! Wes and I bought matching yellow jerseys to wear for the event. We are riding in honor of Wes' brother-in-law Kevin, and we want to make personalized jerseys for the ride. We've got these printer iron-on-thingys, but now all we need is a logo or design of some sort. So that's where you guys come in.

I know I have a small blog readership...nothing huge...but I know you all are a creative bunch. So if you have an idea for our jersey design, send me an email. All submissions will get 'blog time', and the winner will of course be featured on our backs at next week's LIVESTRONG ride.

So, here are the specs:
- must contain the words 'Team Zuber rides for Another Kevin'
- use all black lettering/graphics
- should fit on the back of these jerseys: HIS / HERS (in yellow)

Check out our team page for inspiration!

Yay! Let the creativity begin!

LIVESTRONG Update

I've really been enjoying training for the LIVESTRONG Challenge. It feels so great to be on my bike flying through the wind! I've been meaning to take some pictures on my training rides, so that I have proof of this endeavor...and because we've seen some beautiful wildflowers, but I keep forgetting my camera.

Our second training ride was two weeks ago. We went to Hellyer park in East San Jose. It has a trail that will take you all the way to Morgan Hill. No stop lights, no cars, so we were flying! Until we had to turn around and face the head winds that were such lovely tail winds on the way out.

Last weekend we planned to do a ride up Foothill to Alpine, but unfortunately I got a little stomach bug, so I was out for the weekend. I'm hoping to feel better today to go to the gym and get on a bike there.

Wes has been kicking my fund raising butt! I'm not very good at fund raising...to say the least. All the donations he got made our team thermometer look like we were practically done fund raising....but I've still got more to do, so I updated my side bar. GO TEAM ZUBER!

My first ride in a while

Today Wes, Elizabeth, and I went on what was my first ride in quite a while. It felt good to get on the bike and get the blood moving. It felt good to see the spring flowers, to feel the wind....well not while trying to go up hill...but most of all to remember why I like to ride bikes...and do triathlons. I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I have a healthy body that can swim bike and run. Well not so much running these days...due to shin splits...not so much swimming due to lack of a pool (but that was just remedied with a YMCA membership).

Anyway, I'm rambling. This post is not just about a first ride, but a first organized ride that Wes and I have just signed up for. We've decided to join Elizabeth, and countless others in the LIVESTRONG Challenge. Cancer is something that has far too often impacted our lives, and I'm excited about the way the LIVESTRONG organization provides resources for people dealing with cancer. We're going to train and ride the 50 mile bike ride of the LIVESTRONG Challenge in honor of of Wes' brother-in-law Kevin, who is battling cancer right now.

You can see my LIVESTRONG Challenge website here. Wes and I are fund raising together as Team Zuber! Follow the links if you're interested in donating in honor of Kevin or anyone else who has had cancer impact their lives.

Dining at Pacuare

Ok guys.....I realize this honeymoon documentation is taking FOREVER! I've even got some fun pics from the weekend to post, but I want so much to show you Costa Rica. So you'll just have to indulge the bouncing around from topic to topic.

One of the most amazing parts of our stay at Pacuare Lodge was the food. Shortly after we arrived, Willam came to our bungalow to take our dinner orders for the 'romantic' dinner included in the package. I was in the shower, so I forget what Wes ordered for me. I think we got the same thing though. It sounded amazing.

When it was dinner time we walked down to the main lodge. I didn't get any pics cause it was extremely dark with just some candel light, and it was raining slightly. But we arrived to one solo table set for two, the only table set in the entire place. Candels lit just around our area, rain coming down next to a rushing river. Rose petals everywhere. (I asked where those came from since they are not native...but they wouldn't tell me ;) )

The first course was some cheese filled, nut encrusted philo dough things. I think there was salad and also some soup. Oh and I forgot to mention we had hand made bean dip and chips as appetizers cause dinner was running late. At this point we were stuffed and expecting some kind of small fancy main course. Wes had ordered us steak of some kind, but what we got was a plate with steak, a whole portbello mushroom, a piece of fish, pork, and I think even chicken. It was a HUGE steak too. We could have fed like 10 people with those 2 servings. We picked at our food and tried to eat some of everything, as it was so delicous. But when they came to take away are seemingly untouch plates, Willam asked, "what's wrong...are you on some kind of a health diet?". We laughed, but honestly couldnt imagine how they expected us to eat all that.

We couldn't fathom putting desserts in our tummies, so we took the ice cream and home made chocolate sauce to-go back to our bungalow with the rest of our champagne.

The next day we were to be brought breakfast to our bungalow, as part of the package. I requested huevos rancheros, and gallo pinto (which is the Costa Rican rice and beans). They convinced us to order some fruit as well.

Here are Willam and Warner walking up to our bungalow delivering the mass of food that came.
Apparently they were running late because of the bread. It was made fresh and took longer than expected.Here's my ginormous platter of huevos rancheros, gallo pinto, and potatoes.
And here is the "small" side of fruit. I think I requested "a little pinapple"...LOL.Here's the spread all together (also fresh OJ and coffee). We just laughed at all this food....esp after the huge dinner the night before. But we did our best to conquer it ;)
And lastly, here's the dining area during the day, post rose petals. Wes is chatting with Warner.
Here's Wes and Warner, the culprit for keeping us stuffed on yummy food at Pacuare.
All the rest of the dinning experiences at Pacuare were equally large and delicious. It's the place to be if you're hungry!