Memorial Day Wine Tasting

When we got up today it was overcast and gloomy out.  So me and Katelynn decided to go wine tasting!  We did my favorite route, starting up at Frances Ford Coppola's winery and then making our way south down the 101 to Healdsburg.  What I wasn't expecting is that after enjoying some wine at Thumbprint we'd end up at Hawley winery where I so enjoyed the wines that I signed up to be a member!  Yup- that's my 3rd membership now!  Oh boy!  Then we went over to The Shed for an afternoon snack to help us sober up before headed home.  We had a great time, of course!

For dinner, we decided to make a 7 layer bean dip and enjoy some of the wine we'd purchased from the day!  Whoot!  Happy Memorial Day.

Wine Country BBQ

Amanda's sister Constance and many of her friends were getting together for a BBQ at one of their friends houses in the middle of a vast field of vineyards out in wine country and Amanda invited me along.  I'm so glad she did!  It had a breathtaking view of vineyards all around the house just about a mile from Healdsburg.  Many of the couples had kids that were playing on the lawn while the adults sipped wine and enjoyed horderves.  Savannah snuck under the table and painted her toes with some of the other girls and then later they all ate cake.  So cute!

The Social Club

After getting home from dinner with Amanda Katelynn and her friends invited me to come along with them to the Social Club in Petaluma.  I thought, sure, why not- the night is still young!  HaHa!  I've been to the Social Club before with Debbie and Mike and it's always been fun.  However, what I didn't know is that it slows down as the evening wears on.  It's more of the dinner/starter place to be so when we got there about 11:30pm it was mostly emptied out.  We still had a lot of fun and I met some new friends of Katelynn's.

Sante Restaurant Dinning Experience

Months ago- perhaps even last year?  Amanda pointed out a Groupon for a 3 course dinner for 2 at a restaurant she highly recommended.  I thought maybe it would be a good date night outing so I went ahead and bought it.  Well, then the restaurant closed for a remodel!  After all this time passed, they finally re-opened in April.  Amanda and I decided, what the heck, how about we just go!?  So I picked her up in Sonoma and we headed over to Sante for an exquisite dining experience.

We ended up getting an even better deal than the Groupon had originally set out.  We had somewhere around 6 courses!  I couldn't believe how delicious everything was (except for the caviar, I did not care for that!).  It took over 2 hours for the whole experience and we both went home very happy with the dishes.

Just amazing!  I'm looking forward to my next dinner date here for sure!

Windsor Green Half Marathon

One of my annual must-do half marathons!  This year there were several of us our Sonoma State Staff running group participating.  I was there with Mike Ogg, Amanda McGowan and Erin Rock!  Here's a picture of us including Shannon Percell.

This run was one of my first half marathon races where I was using my heart rate monitor.  It was a real struggle for me to keep my heart rate at a reasonable level.  I think it's because despite the beauty of the course, there are a lot of hills.  You can see the race route and pictures on my Runkeeper page.  After I finished, I was able to get this picture of Amanda and Mike crossing the finish line in-step!

Have you seen Shell Beach?

"Today seems like a good day to get on my motorcycle, head south and look for Shell Beach" that was the post I made on Facebook this morning and it's exactly what I did.  Of course, the reference is to the 1998 film "Dark City" where John Murdoc is looking for Shell Beach.  But that is another story.

After crossing the Golden Gate bridge I ended up finding the Lands End park and the Legion of Honor fine arts museum.  I spent a lot of time walking around the park and enjoying the gorgeous views.  The Holocaust memorial was very moving and was a solemn reminder of the travesties that occurred.

The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is quite impressive.  I wasn't prepared to take a tour inside a museum today, so I just walked around the outside and through the courtyard before moving on to my next stop.

Next on my journey I came across Ocean Beach.  It was beautiful and there was so many people out enjoying the gorgeous day!  It was nice walking up the beach and then back again.

After Ocean Beach I headed further south until I came upon Pacifica Beach.  I parked my motorcycle and walked around and to my amazement I found hundreds of people out on the dock fishing for crab!  It was really quite something to see.

After much fun but not finding Shell Beach I thought that was enough for the day.  I met up with a friend of mine in San Francisco for a late lunch early dinner and then headed back up north to Windsor.  I had to go to Windsor because it was race packet pickup for the Windsor Green Half Marathon tomorrow!

A Busy Mother's Day Weekend

This morning there was no sleeping in... no, not because of running- Sonoma State University's Graduation Ceremony!  As usual, I was there to help with wheel chair service and carts that drove people who needed assistance back and forth between the ceremony and the handicapped station and the handicapped station out to their cars.  It goes pretty quickly each year and before I knew it the graduates were filing off the grass and headed home and I was headed to Boise!

Tonight Andrej had a group of people over for his Birthday.  He decided to have just a few close friends over for food, dessert and drinks.  Chuck and Emily came along too as they'd just picked me up from the airport!  It was really great to see Andrej for his birthday and doing much better after his scare earlier this Spring with Lupus.

Sunday is Mother's day!  The whole family met up at Smokey Mountain pizza & pasta on Parkcenter in the banquet room.  Thanks to Carrie and Rick who arrange this each year for the family.  Chuck and I sure did eat more pizza than we needed, but I DID start with a salad, so that helped.  It was nice seeing all the family together.

That afternoon we played cards and for the first time in a while I won the game!

I was pretty happy because I wasn't even the one keeping score.  ;)

After cards we all went to see the Great Gatsby in the Colosseum at Edwards Theatre.  I really enjoyed the movie.  I remember it from reading the book in Mrs. Olic-Hamilton's AP English class at Boise High School.  It was very cool to see Leonardo DiCaprio playing Gatsby.

Monday I had a ton of things to do!  This month I took back over the Hawkeye HOA as Becky sold her two homes and would no longer be doing the management of the HOA.  I had to go to the bank to get the account changed over and then register myself with the State of Idaho as the President of the HOA.  Then I had a dental appointment and after that I had lunch with Andrej and my Mom at Kneaders.

That night as I was landing back in California I snapped one of my best pictures of landing in the bay area so far.  You can see San Francisco, the bay bridge, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge.  It was very pretty.

Last Academic Senate of 2013

I almost missed this year's final Academic Senate meeting due to other priorities at work, but I'm so glad I DID make it because they have champagne and strawberries!  HaHa!  I'd forgotten that it's an annual tradition for this to be open to the participants and guests alike.  I enjoyed one of the glasses while listening in on the final meeting this year.  It was a good Academic year at Sonoma State University, Cheers!

A Crochet Completed

Years ago when I was visiting my Grandma Florence in Ogden, UT a friend of my Grandmothers taught me and Chuck how to Crochet.  We were there visiting over Spring break from school with Mom and I must have been in the first year or two of Junior High and Chuck was in his last year or two of Elementary.  I think my Grandma's friend was named Ruth, but I don't remember.  After all these years and moves from houses to apartments, from one state to another, I still had this unfinished crochet blanket.  Well I finally found someone who could help me end the crochet pattern and complete the blanket!  One of my employees, Cindy, is always knitting things and I asked her if she could help me to end my blanket.  She said bring it in and I'll take a look.  Sure enough- she was able to end the blanket for me!  Finally, after all these years my little crocheted blanket has been completed.

Thank you Cindy!!!!!

Swallows Everywhere

Every spring hundreds of swallows come back to Sonoma State University to make their mud nests up in the eves of our buildings.  This year SSU had put up something that kept them away from Salazar (the building I work in).  So the birds had all moved entirely over to the Ives building.  I walk through Ives to get to and from my car each morning and night.  Today there were just hundreds of the birds flying around so I tried to capture a picture - it's hard to do but this picture gives a sense of just how full the air is with birds everywhere busily making their mud nests.

Cinco de Mayo: Tamale Festival

After running 11 miles with Amanda this morning we decided to take Rich and Savannah to the Cinco de Mayo Tamale festival at Cornerstone Gardens in Sonoma, CA.  There were many different Tamale's that were being taste tested all around the courtyard.  My favorite was this one.

I went back a few times to taste test it!  After all the sampling was done there was authentic Mexican dancing by both women and men.  Everyone gathered around outside the tent so we could all watch.

After the dancing was over everyone headed out to the gardens area to get their plated lunches.  While we were eating there were booths all around for the kids to go and do activities in.  Savannah really enjoyed getting her face painted by Popp the clown.

The food was good, the day was beautiful, the company was great- it's a must do for next year!

Settlers of Catan

It's been a while since I played Settlers of Catan with the roommates and I was missing it so tonight Evan, Emma and I decided to play the game.  For a bit of added fun Emma and I opened a delicious bottle of red.  I would suspect that is why I only won one of the two games.  HaHa!  Good times.