Kawasaki Ninja Crab Dinner

I told Emma and Katelynn that when I bought my Kawasaki Ninja I would get a $250 Costco gift card and with part of that money I would buy us king crab legs for a dinner.  Well the night finally came when I'd received my gift card and all the roommates were home!  After work I ran 8 miles and then hit up Costco for our dinner.  Then Katelynn and Emma helped me prepare it, we put together quite a beautiful setting!

After we enjoyed our dinner, Katelynn and Emma made homemade snicker doodle cookies- DE LISH.

Such a fun way to start off the work week!

Debbie's Birthday

All my friends really are Taurus's or Cancers, I swear!  For Debbie's Birthday she had a party over at her house in Sebastopol.  As always, Mike had an amazing spread of food.  Here's a picture of the veggie, steak and chicken skewers he was preparing for dinner.

It was nice seeing some of Debbie's friends I hadn't seen since last year.  I got to hangout with Jessica and Britney and they showed me a cool new app called Tinder.  We had fun playing on that most of the afternoon eating delicious food!

I should've saved more room for desert, the cake was soooo goood!!!

Of course before I headed out I had to give Debbie a Birthday hug, Happy Birthday Debbie!

Brandon's Birthday

Today I hopped on my motorcycle and headed down to San Francisco's Lucky Strike bowling alley to meet up with Brandon and his friends for his Birthday party.  It was a fun ride down, I wasn't sure how it would all work out with my motorcycle and being in the city but I was out for a good time!  The bowling was a lot of fun, I bought Brandon his 4th or 5th drink of the night.  I don't think it helped his bowling much as for some reason most of the ones he threw down the alley headed to the gutter!  I ended up winning overall scores- I'm so darn competitive- regardless of points we all had a lot of fun.

After the two games of bowling Brandon chose a bar for us to head to for some drinks and pool.  There was a promotional event by one of the alcohol companies for one of their fire waters so they were handing out fire hats and mustache's.  We took a lot of silly pictures!  This is of me, Jesus and Diego.

Portland, OR Birthday Travels

For the second leg of my Birthday trip this year I flew from Puerto Vallarta, MX back to San Francisco and then on to Portland Oregon to stay the weekend with Katie and Tim!  It was pretty overcast most of the weekend, but it didn't stop us from having a great time.

Friday Katie had the day off so we started out at the Tin Shed for a delicious breakfast.  It was close enough to Katie's house that we could walk there with her dog Radah.  They are a pet friendly restaurant so Radah came right on in with us and sat below the table.  The wait staff are used to pets so Radah got her own bowl of water and a little snack!  I had an asparagus Eggs Benedict that was phenomenal!

That afternoon we went to the Portland Rose Gardens and walked around.  The roses weren't yet in bloom, but some of the other flowers were.  We also walked through the Japenese garden.  Such a beautiful park and area. Then we went downtown Portland for some window shopping and ended up at a Sushi bar "Yama Sushi & Sake Bar".  We ended up eating more than I thought we would, it was delicious, too!  We tried our first Sake flight - our agreed favorite was the pare flavored one.  After more walking around in the downtown area Katie took me over to a place she'd been wanting to try "Sacuebox".  Here I ordered not one but TWO of the "Jade Scorpion" which is a Thai chili vodka, ginger infused vodka, Thai basil, grapefruit, lemon-lime and finished with ginger brew.  Amazing!

Saturday was the day of my Birthday!  I love it when my Birthday lands on a Saturday, whooot!  The first thing I did was go for a 10 mile run from Katie and Tim's place to downtown Portland.  It was a lot of fun running from their house over the river into the city and then back.  You can see the run on my Runkeeper page.  After I got back from my run, Tim, Katie, me and Radha packed up our gear and hopped into the car headed for the State of Washington to go hiking up to Falls Creek Falls.  The weather was still overcast, but at least it didn't rain on us.  We hiked the almost two miles in and took some pictures.  It was really pretty and the whole area was really wet from all the mist and water that was getting about everywhere.  I used Runkeeper to track the hike back down from the Falls to the car.

You'd think after all that I'd be done for the day.  Nope!  Time to meet up with Song, Clint, David and Katie for dinner at Deschutes Brewery in downtown Portland.  It was a really nice dinner and we had a good time.  Then we all headed over to CC Slaughters for drinks and dancing.  It didn't take but a few drinks before I knew what was happening and I was out dancing on the dance floor!  While I was out tearing it up I met a guy named Bryan.  We danced the rest of the evening as David, Clint and Katie made their way out to the floor too at various points.  I think I even saw Song and Tim dancing.  What a wonderful Birthday night!

By Sunday it was time to go back home.  Portland, I'll never forget you.  All of my pictures from the trip are posted on my photobucket account.  Thanks Katie for all the fun!  Can't wait to come visit you and Tim again!

Puerto Vallarta Birthday Travels

This year for my annual Birthday trip travels I started off by traveling with Kade and his family for a week in Puerto Vallarta.  The last time I'd seen his sister Christie and her husband Ryan was probably in 2007 or 2008!  Their two little children Bailey and Jake have been growing up so fast!  I also got to meet Ryan's parents for the first time.

We enjoyed the leisurely days on the beach and the all inclusive hotel made for a perfect tropical vacation.  Pictured is me on the beach enjoying a rum and coke while Kade played in the water with his niece Bailey.  The beach was only about a mile long, so the one day I did go jogging I had to venture out from the resort.  I was hoping there would be more of a sidewalk to jog along the Mexican highway but alas, there was not.  It was probably the most dangerous jog I've ever done, but it was an exhilarating blast!  haha!  You can see pictures and the map along with my comments on my Runkeeper page.

Kade's Mom Julienne had two friends visiting also and the five of us took a day trip up to San Poncho where Kade and I had vacationed back in 2007.  This year we met up with Gail and Buck who we had stayed with before and had drinks out on the beach.  I really enjoyed my margaritas and actually dozed off to the sound of the ocean.  Before I knew it Kade came over to wake me up as we had to cab it back to our hotel "Dreams, Puerto Vallarta".

Saturday night Kade and I went out in downtown Puerto Vallarta and had an absolute blast clubbing in the downtown area.  There were several Gay themed clubs all within a block or so of each other and all were packed to the brim!  We even caught a drag show where some guys lit up the stage with gasoline we originally thought was water because it was in water bottles.  Quite the shock when the stage lit up!

With all the beach time, family time, drinks and endless marches of food across my table, massages and swimming before I knew it the week had come to a close and I had to depart the group and head to Portland, OR for the rest of my Birthday vacation.  Kade and the rest of his family were staying around for the second weekend.  You can see all my pictures posted on my photobucket.

Emma to Boise!

For Emma's birthday present this year Emily and I purchased tickets for Emma to fly with me to visit Emily and Chuck in Boise.  I was a little worried about the flight since Emma gets extremely anxious- but she did great and only had to grasp my arm for the take off.  Once we had our drinks in hand, it was all smooth sailing, er, flying, into Boise.

Chuck and Emily picked us up from the airport and we went out to discover and explore Boise.  Our first stop was lunch and then desert at the Chocolat Bar in Downtown Boise.  From there we walked over to the Capitol building and explored around the outside and inside of the building.  There is a lot of information about Idaho's past and politics!  Emma had a lot of fun playing with the bell out front- for quite some time! haha!

We took this picture when walking around outside the Capitol building.

 Here's a picture of Chuck and Emily on the Capitol steps.

 After our explorations of the Capitol we walked back downtown Boise to Mouvance Winery.  It was a great downtown Boise location to have some wine flights and catch up with friends.

 Of course that evening I had to take Emma out tot he Balcony, it wouldn't be a Boise experience trip with Ross unless that was on the list of stops!  Had such a great time with Emma, Chuck and Emily!

Cesar Chavez Day Running

Monday was a work holiday in honor of Cesar Chavez.  Amanda, Trisha and I decided to do a half-marathon run in the city of Sonoma.  It was a great way to start off the work week and not be working on a Monday!  Checkout the map and stats on my Runkeeper.