Almost November and Fall's still not here

Althought mornings and nights have been cooler than usual, it is dark earlier and earlier every night, and pitch black when I go to work, it still doesn't seem like fall at all to me. Reasons:

1. Friday night we spent getting Diggy a hair cut because his long hair made taking him on a walk so hot that he was panting and laying down within minutes.

2. After Diggy's haircut, we ate dinner at a restaurant outside and without heaters or a coat, it wasn't cold at all.

3. We went Saturday morning to watch the Purdue/Illini game and immediately after went to the pool because it was way too warm, sunny, and nice out to waste the day inside. Within minutes we were both in the pool and putting on sunblock because the sun was so strong.

4. We grilled out on our patio for dinner.

5. Sunday morning we both still needed iced coffee instead of hot ones.

6. While walking Diggy, he still was panting and laying down even though he has a brand new short haircut.

7. Although it is actually "fall" I still wear flip flops, tank tops, shorts, dresses, etc. I am dying to wear boots and sweaters, but I'd be sweating if I did.

I guess I can't complain. It is so nice to not deal with cold weather, BUT I do miss the nice crisp fall days! Hopefully we'll start getting some real fall weather by December or January?

Diggy Smalls turns 2

Yesterday (October 22) was Diggy's second birthday. It makes me so sad to think how fast time flies by. Anyways, I wanted him to have a day that included some of his favorite things, so here's what we did.

1. He had a meatball for breakfast.

2. I went inbetween my two jobs (Thursdays are my long days) and gave him more meat for lunch, made him a dog friendly cake, and we decorated.

"Do I have to wear this stupid hat mom?"

3. I got home from work and took Diggy for a nice walk around the neighborhood.

4. Adam got home and the party started.

5. We sat on the porch and drank a "dog" inspired beer.

6. We ate dinner (Diggy got some more meat).
7. We sang happy birthday.

Licking his lips, looks yummy

8. He ate cake.

9. Finally, he played with his new toy.

I think he had a great day, and that makes me so happy. I know I'm sort of one of those weird "dog people" but I would have never guessed in a million years I would love an animal so much. I'm so happy I was the lucky person to be the mom of the best behaved and cutest dog in the world, haha.

Our 2 year anniversary

Tuesday (October 20) was our actual anniversary. Since we had just gone on the cruise, we decided to stay home and be low key. Adam brought me home a beautiful bouquet of flowers, I cooked scallops for dinner, and we pretty much just hung around our house and out on the balcony. Thanks for 2 great years Adam!!!!

Anniversary Cruise and Anniversary

Last weekend Adam and I went on a cruise to celebrate our big 2 year anniversary. It was short 3 days, so pretty short, but the perfect little getaway for us!

It took off on Friday evening, so by the time we got on, got dressed, looked around at everything, it was already about dinner time. We had some drinks and went to dinner really late then went to a piano bar. It was fun and the piano player played some good tunes!

Saturday we spent the whole day at sea. We got up and did some exercising on the cruise track, ate breakfast, and spent the rest of the day at the pool. It was really fun. They had all sorts of contests going like who could mix the best drink, hairiest chest, etc. The rest of the day they had this Reggae type band play. It started out with a few little Asian kids dancing but by the end of the afternoon, I think a group of cougars had had a few too many because they were dancing machines at about 3PM, haha. That night we went to a very late dinner again, had some drinks, and went to bed earlier than the night before.

The next morning we arrived to Encinada, Mexico. We were torn between staying on the boat or getting off. Both of us have been to Encinada and have a bad taste in our mouth for it (a large suitcase full of 10 days worth of women's clothing and accessories getting stolen out of a car ring a bell to anyone?? :) Anyways, we decided it would be lame to not get off at all, so we went and went walking off of the boat for exercise instead of a boring track. I got closure by seeing the hotel we were planning on staying at, the parking spot where we got robbed, and the corner coffee shop where a nice Mexican man tried to help me find my stolen luggage. We only stayed off of the boat for a little over an hour, but it was good for me to make peace with the town of Encinada :)

Hotel we were going to stay at before my clothes were stolen 3 years ago

Parking spot where we got robbed in March 06

After we walked around Encinada, we spent the afternoon in the hot tub and going down the giant water slide on the boat. Most of the families and kids were off doing stuff in Mexico, so the pool area was pretty empty. We thought it was the perfect time to go down the slide. The water was freezing but I went down the slide about 10 times, haha. Adam kept trying to get pictures, but his timing was off :)

Finally, we got ready and went to a lounge with a band. We had some champagne and sushi for an appetizer. We ate dinner, drank some more, did a little dancing even, and finished at the piano bar. The next morning the cruise ended. It was a great little trip and loads of fun!

A Roadtrip to San Jacinto State Park

Sunday we were just getting done eating breakfast and I was getting ready to go work out when Adam had the idea of going to this state park he has heard of where you can drive a cable car to the top of a mountain and hike. He told me it would be cold, maybe even have snow, was about 2 hours away, and would be good exercise. We didn't have anything planned, so we quick got ready, got directions online, and were off.

About 3.5 hours later, we were in the San Jacinto Mountains, up really high, and seemed to be nowhere near this cable car we were trying to get to. We finally stopped and asked these forrest guys if we were close and we had been going the wrong way for awhile. It was almost 3PM by now, so we just asked this guy where a good hike was that was nearby. We ended up hiking for awhile, in hot weather when we had thought we were going to need to be prepared for snow. We looked like the biggest geeks! I had my pants rolled up like shorts, and Adam took the zip part off of the bottom of his hiking pants, so was literally wearing Daisy Dukes. I laughed so hard at his tall socks and short shorts-he looked like a little boy scout. Anyways, after that we went down the mountain a bit and ate dinner at a cute little lodge type place in this little mountain village called Idyllwild. There were lots of little shops and the waitresses and patrons in them all seemed to know eachother. A very simple life sort of feel, which was nice for a change.

What was supposed to be a 6 hour quick hiking trip ended up taking us from morning to bed time. It was a fun, random, spur of the moment day though, which I always like!

Home-Cooking

After Amy left, it seemed like the weekend was over, but it actually was only Saturday morning, which was so nice. We decided to take it easy the rest of the weekend, which ended up being really fun.

Saturday afternoon it was cooler than it has been out, so I thought it would be fun to go to the store and just look around and buy stuff to make something for dinner that would take more time and effort than a work night. When we got there, we were in the produce section and suddenly saw some asian vegetables and egg roll wraps. Then we went to the seafood section and saw lots of good shrimp. We both thought Chinese food sounded good, so decided to get lots of good ingredients and make fresh-homemade Chinese (I make "Chinese" quite a bit but it's usually microwave steam bags of frozen vegetables with whatever protein we have and soy sauce...fast, easy, and good when you've been at work all day but not exactly up to par with real Chinese food). Anyhow, we also were in the mood to bake and got the idea to make Blondies, which I never had made either (we recently saw a Throwdown with Bobby Flay episode on Blondies and Adam said they were his favorite dessert, who knew?). We went home, I got all of my cookbooks out and started working.

We ended up with shrimp and a lemon grass and white wine Asian reduction sauce, baked veggie egg rolls, and of course lots of vegetables and brown rice. It ended up being really good and a fun project.

We had lots of leftovers, so Adam went to work today with a big lunch and blondies to share with his co-workers. We both decided that we need to do weekend nights like that more often instead of going out for dinners all the time!

Amy's Visit

This past Thursday and Friday my friend Amy was here for a short visit. We crammed a lot into a day and a half so she could get the whole San Diego experience.

She got here Thursday, so I went to pick her up after working a half day. We walked all around downtown and stopped to have a drink in the sun! After we went home and got ready, Adam joined us and we went to the Linkery (a restaurant in North Park that has all local food and beer and specialized in different sausages). To end the night, we went to the lounge at Prado and listened to some music. It was a fun day.

Friday we woke up and walked all along Seaport Village, the bay, in Little Italy, and downtown a bit more. Then we set off so she could get see as much as possible in one day. We drove to Pacific Beach, ate lunch at my fave Mexican place, drove up the coast to La Jolla and walked around the cove so she could see the seals and shops, drove up the coast further to Del Mar, went to get frozen yogurt from Yogurtland, drove to Coronado, walked around the Hotel Del, and finally went home to get ready. We met our friend Robbie for happy hour, ate dinner at our favorite place to take visitors-C Level- and then went to KC BBQ (place where Top Gun piano scene was shot) for some drinks.

Amy had to leave early Saturday morning, so it was a very fast trip! Thanks for coming Amy, it was so much fun!

Closing Out Summer

This past weekend we really took advantage of the fact that it's still really warm during the day here. I don't think it'll last much longer though, because the mornings and nights have started to be really cool. I'm ready for fall type weather, but we had a fun Saturday that I think was a good end to the summer.

We woke up and took Diggy for a nice walk (he enjoys when it's cool in the mornings and doesn't stop every two steps) and got ready to go to Rancho Bernardo Winery. I am on the email list for my favorite radio station, and they will sometimes randomly send out an email saying the first 100 people or so to RSVP can go to a free private listener concert. Well, Thursday they sent one saying you could go to hear Ingrid Michaelson play there, so I RSVP'd right away. It was so fun. The weather was SOOOO nice, we sat on a blanket, had a glass of wine from the winery, and listened. It was so good. She played a sold out concert that night that you had to pay for in a much larger venue, so we were super lucky!

After the concert, we went one last time to Tin Fish to listen to Joe Rathburn play. Since the Padres games are ending, we won't have the option of going there all the way until next spring, so we wanted to make sure we went. After that we went to the Gaslamp Strip Club. No, we didn't go to see nude people, it's a grill your own steak place; the Alexanders of San Diego. It was good and fun!Sunday I pretty much ran errands and cleaned while Adam went to some air show with his work friend Matt. Then they came home and we grilled out. I baked another one of my pumpkin creations to ring in autumn. I think I'm ready to say goodbye to summer and hello to fall :)

Congrats to Darah and Evan

My friends Darah and Evan got engaged after dating since SEVENTH grade! I'm so happy for them both! Congrats :) Can't wait for the big day!