Have you met my dog?

My dog is incredibly cute.  Like really, really cute.  Just to prove how cute my dog is I'm posting this incredibly cute picture of my dog.

Yep, I told you he's cute. Just 80 pounds of pure cuteness as you can tell from this oh-so-serious glamour shot of him.  Oh Marley we love you!

A Delicious Fourth of July!

I wasn't looking forward to a holiday in the middle of the week but it turns out it worked perfectly!  Any day is a holiday when Ryan is home so it was a great day.  Just the two of us for a run through midtown/downtown Oakland, an A's game (they won!), barbecue at home, and season 5 of Mad Men-- heaven!

Two great food finds for the fourth:

What a heavenly galette!

1) Awaken Cafe @ Broadway and 15th in Oakland.  I drive by this place often and have been wanting to go in but somehow hadn't made it in yet.  Good coffee and delicious pastries!  See the pic of my apricot, nectarine galette.  Yum!

Grilled sweet potato salad!
So good the only pic I got was mid-consumption.

2) Grilled Sweet Potato Salad! I was listening to Fresh Air earlier this week and Terry Gross was interviewing Jack Bishop and Bridget Lancaster from America's Test Kitchen.  Their recommendations for veggies for grilling were sweet potatoes and red onions and after I heard that I could not get the idea of grilled sweet potatoes off my mind.  I modified a Bobby Flay Food Network recipe for Grilled Sweet Potato and Scallion Salad.  I just switched out the scallions for grilled red onions and it was a home run!  I cannot recommend this recipes enough!

The B**** is Back!

Well I'm sorta talking about myself, more like my alter ego, you know like Beyonce has Sachsa Fierce (that's right I'm comparing myself to Beyonce).  Well I'm back to running, or at least for now I am.  I've been a runner now for about five years.  I started back in 2007 when I moved to Merced.  Somehow running just made sense.  I didn't need a lot of equipment, I could do it with the dog, and honestly I experienced such improvements in athletic ability so quickly that it just hooked me.

I did my first half marathon in October of 2007 and I loved it!  After that I lined up race after race to train for and as of this date I've completed nine half marathons and two full marathons. I did my last race in October of 2011: the incredible Nike Women's Marathon, and incredible it was!  However I didn't train as much as I needed to to finish the 26.2 strongly.  I hobbled past the finish line and after that I was just burned out.  I've run occasionally off and on but I racing hasn't been on my "to-do" list, until now.

Half marathon number 10 is planned for September 16, 2012.  That's right, my husband and I are doing The Giant Race this September in San Francisco-- wahoo!  I'm thrilled to be back into training mode and looking forward to the run!

Memorial Day Weekend Collage

Well it's not Memorial Day Weekend any longer but since I have a couple weeks until I go back to school for the fall I was checking out some other blogs and came across a great tutorial on how to make a photo collage using Picasa on Skip to My Lou.  Here's the helpful blog post and the result:

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

What a fantastic weekend it was!  Friday at Off the Grid in SF and then up north to spend time Ryan's parents and take care of my parents' dogs while they were out of town.  We even made it up to Ryan's family's cabin in Mineral, outside Lassen National Park, to do some spring cleaning. Not bad for a three-day weekend!

We're #1

So we've moved again. Ryan and I moved in together five years ago this month and to mark that anniversary we decided the best thing to do would be to move into our fourth place together. Okay, not really. I don't know anybody who would choose to mark any anniversary with a move, ugh. The good news is we didn't have to move far. We literally moved down the stairs in our apartment complex.

So what would prompt us to do this?  Well number three in our family, Marley, had been having some trouble with the stairs so Ryan put in for the ground floor apartment a few months ago and sure enough it opened up and we jumped at it.

The great news is it's a great apartment: more space, better kitchen, bigger patio.  The bad news iswe still had to move, meaning this place is still a mess in progress.  Oh well, it's home sweet home until the next move!

Now Marley would love to give you a tour:

And don't you think the patio
is just mahhhvelous!

Welcome!

Somebody should do something
about this mess.

Happy (almost) Summer!

I know that the summer solstice is not until later this month but how can it not feel like summer when you are at the ballpark on a beautiful afternoon?!?

It was a great game yesterday between the SF Giants and the Chicago Cubs.  Actually it was turn back the century day so the Giants strangely enough were playing as the New York Giants.  They had great 1912 throwback uniforms on and old images were being shown throughout the game.  Best of all the Giants won, and I got to partake in some delicious garlic fries.  Mmmmm... garlic fries.  Our friend Mikayla was out from Colorado for the weekend so we all enjoyed the game, and again the garlic fries.

I'm hoping to fit a few more home games in this season.  Ah, I love almost summer almost as much as summer.

I'm a little rusty but why not?!?

Wanted to get back to posting so I figure there is no time like the present!  We had a great weekend up in Northern California with Ryan's parents.  Here's my favorite pic from Memorial Day of Ryan kayaking up near Keswick Dam.  A great time was had by all!

Ryan and a kayak, Memorial Day 2012