September in San Francisco - Part 2

So after our big first day in San Francisco, we needed some rest.  We slept in and got breakfast from the cutest little coffee shop around the corner from L.Rae's apartment, The Nook.  I wish I'd time to return ... everything on their menu looked amazing!  

After a delicious brunch, L.Rae's new boyfriend, Bruno, graciously drove us up to Sonoma for an afternoon of wine tasting.  It was just R. and I ... S.B.'s boyfriend returned from deployment Friday and flew down to see her in San Francisco! They stayed behind to see the city and spend some time together!  

We started our afternoon at Matanzas Creek Winery in Santa Rosa.  It was a gorgeous setting, with lots of lavender fields in front of the tasting room.  It smelled amazing and provided a good backdrop for photos! Their wine was really good but, our service was not.  It was very obvious from the beginning that the woman who did our tasting did not like us and she did absolutely nothing to make our wine tasting experience enjoyable.  I think one of the best parts of the tasting is interacting with the person doing the tasting ... they are so full of knowledge about the wines, winery, etc. and I always love learning about what I'm tasting.  We also didn't make any purchases because of her rudeness.  However, when we got home, we were happy to see that Trader Joe's carries Matanzas Creek wines!  

Bruno and L.Rae perusing the wine tasting book

L.Rae, R. and Me :)

The group outside of Matanzas!

Close-up!

Bruno and L.Rae in the lavender fields

And this is the after shot .... after the rock wall went tumbling and so did L.Rae :)

After our lavender field incident, we decided it would be best to leave ASAP.  So we headed to stop number two, Ledson Winery and Vineyards.  Talk about an even more gorgeous setting!  Ledson is a gorgeous castle with several different tasting bars and tasting rooms.

The vineyards

Grapes!

me and r.

At the tasting bar

L.Rae, me, R.

Loved this place!

And then we were on our way to winery #3 ... Gundlach Bundschu.  Of the three wineries we visited that afternoon, this was my favorite!  And, in case you are unsure how to pronounce their name ... try now:

Gun Lock Bun Shoe!

(Photo courtesy of their website)

I love it!  And felt much more confident talking about the winery once I knew how to pronounce their name!  We had such a great experience here ... the person doing our tasting was super friendly and knowledgeable, we got a free tasting because Bruno and R. have Visa Signature cards, and my favorite band had played their the summer before!  And they were setting up for a wedding and it was GORGEOUS.  Makes me want to get married at a winery!

L. Rae, me, R.

Ra Ra Riot

A little post-wine tasting, pre-dinner picnic!

And then we headed into Sonoma for dinner.  We had a little bit of time to kill before dinner, so we headed into Murphy's Pub.  If you've been following since last year, you may remember that we spent a fun night at Murphy's Pub when we went to Sonoma last year!  We went and had a toast to B. and J. who sadly weren't with us this year.

Dinner was at La Salette, a Portuguese restaurant that Bruno wanted to try.  Since he drove us around all afternoon, we thought the least we could do was let him pick the restaurant!  We had a delicious dinner ... starting with a traditional Portuguese dish of Bolinhos de Bacalhau (cod cakes) and then each trying something different for dinner.  Everything was delicious!

And then we headed back into San Francisco.  R. and I spent the rest of our night watching Louie and videos on YouTube :)  Saturday night is always exciting with us :)

September in San Francisco - Part 1

Back in September I spent a long weekend in San Francisco with my friends R. and S.B.  We visited my friend L.Rae, but she was busy with work and studying for the GMAT, so we were on our own for most of the time.  It felt like a real, touristy, vacation ... and it was awesome!  Especially since we got lots of advice from a local :)

We flew in on Thursday night and headed to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.  They do an event every Thursday called NightLife - each week features a live band or DJ and a theme.  I can't remember what the theme was when we were there, but they were celebrating Claude (the albino alligator's) golden birthday ... he turned 15 on the 15th!  We wandered through the exhibits and had some delicious cocktails before heading to a sushi dinner.

S.B. and me at the California Academy of Sciences!

Friday, L.Rae had to work so I met up with R. and S.B. and we took the cable car to brunch.  Except we got on the wrong cable car line and took it too far so we decided to forego brunch for sight-seeing around Fisherman's Wharf and lunch at In-n-Out :)  In-n-Out was worth the change of plans!  We wandered around and then took the ferry over to Tiburon.  As promised, the weather in Tiburon was gorgeous in spite of the slightly dreary weather in San Francisco.  We wandered around Tiburon, did some shopping and headed to Sam's Anchor Cafe - a must do if you're in Tiburon!  We indulged in a little pre-happy hour happy hour before heading back to San Francisco and meeting up with L.Rae and friends at Palomino for happy hour.

Cable car photos courtesy of R.

We had a lovely little photo shoot :)

Love this one!

Fisherman's Wharf

Accomplished our goal ... we saw sea lions!

Golden Gate Bridge from the ferry ... notice how gloomy and foggy it was

and how nice it was in Tiburon!

Can you see the San Francisco skyline behind the boats?

2 Beach Road

I am in love with their address!

S.B. and R.

R., S.B. and me :)

I'd like to retire here :)

Sam's Anchor Cafe

Cheers!

Me and R.

San Francisco from Tiburon ... if you enlarge the photo, you can see two little jets flying over the city!

We saw a pelican!

Golden Gate Bridge

Me and my mini coffee

Golden Gate Bridge

The Bay Bridge

After happy hour we went out to Blondie's in the Mission which was a lot of fun.  Sadly, there is no photographic evidence of this part of our evening :) 

Come back tomorrow to read about our afternoon in wine country!

Two Post Tuesday

Not only are you getting two posts this week, but now you are getting two posts today.  And I did it last week too.  Maybe it's my new thing?  We will see.  

Anyways, in case you don't all read A Cup of Jo (which you should), check out her post from earlier today, "I'm going to be a dad".  I love this idea and the series of photographs!  

Ten on Tuesday #27 - Pasta!

Happy Tuesday friends!  Can you believe this?  It's two posts in one week!  The world must be ending :)  I couldn't skip this week's Ten on Tuesday because it's all about one of my favorite things ... pasta!  If you want to join the fun, head over to Roots and Rings to link up! 

1.  Red Sauce or White Sauce?
I like both, but I like red a little bit better than white.

2.  Do you prefer pasta you can twirl or stab?
Stab.  It's much easier to eat that way and then I don't look awkward trying to twirl the pasta, losing it all, trying to twirl it again and then only ending up with half of the original forkful in my mouth.

3.  Baked or broiled?
I don't think I've ever broiled pasta?  I guess I should look this up to see what I am missing out on!

4.  Do you like meat in your sauce or do you kick it vegetarian style?
Meat!

5.  Where have you had your very best pasta dish ever?
Ever?  That's hard!  I don't know.  There is an italian restaurant in Mount Vernon that I really like, Il Granaio, but I doubt it's the best pasta I have ever had, ever!  But it works for now :)

6.  What is your favorite pasta dish?
I like the baked pastas ... manicotti, ravioli, ziti.  Yum, lots of cheesy goodness.  Answering these questions is making me hungry!

7.  Do you serve meatballs when you make spaghetti or just do a meat sauce?
I honestly can't remember the last time I made spaghetti, but I don't usually make meatballs.  Too much work!  I need a good meatball recipe.  And then I should make a bunch and freeze them for easy meals!

8.  What type of noodles do you use?
If I make pasta and not a baked pasta dish, I usually use angel hair pasta.  I like them better than regular spaghetti noodles!

9.  What type of meats or vegetables do you put in your sauce?
Either italian sausage or ground beef.  Or a combination of the two.  For vegetables, I like zucchini, mushrooms, onions ... that's all I can think of off the top of my head!

10.  Do you make a "Sunday gravy" to use throughout the week or do you just open a jar of whatever and heat it up?
I've made my own sauce before and I've also used store bought sauce.  We don't eat a ton of pasta dishes so it just depends on the recipe and the amount of time I have!

Remember September?

I decided to do a September recap post instead of blogging about each event individually ... otherwise it would probably be November before you heard about all the fun things I did and I'd never catch up!  I will post separately about my trip to San Francisco so I don't overload you with pictures right now :)

September was a fun month around here!  It started with a weekend in Seattle with R.  We went to Bumbershoot, a music and arts festival that takes place at the Seattle Center over Labor Day Weekend.  It's a three day festival and we chose to go Saturday.  

We saw The Improvised Shakespeare Company, Trombone Shorty & Ray LaMontagne.  We also looked at lots of cool concert posters in the Flatstock exhibit, enjoyed some delicious food and had a beer or two in the beer garden.

View from the beer garden

Space Needle

R. and our brick of fries :)

The next day we got sandwiches from Royal Grinders in Fremont, which I had been dying to try, wandered around the shops and market in Fremont, and then headed over to Gas Works Park.  Check it off the Seattle Bucket List!  It was a gorgeous day and a great way to spend the afternoon!

View from Gas Works Park

Sitting in Gas Works sparked an idea ... we wanted to go kayaking!  We couldn't go that afternoon, but the following Thursday we headed down to Agua Verde Cafe & Paddle Club and paddled around Lake Union for a few hours!  Sadly, we have no pictures.  We were afraid we might tip so we chose not to bring our phones or cameras.  But we had a great time, it was reasonably priced and we didn't have to wait for a kayak (probably because we went during the week).  We had gorgeous weather and afterwards, we had delicious tacos!  

The next weekend I attended my first Calendar Square Party with our new squadron.  The squadron has a huge calendar in their ready room on the boat, so each wife/fiance/girlfriend makes a 10 x 10 square for their sailor to put on the calendar each month.  It's basically like making a scrapbook page.  J. left right around the same time the September squares were due, so I didn't make him one for September.  I made him two for October to make up for it :)

One for his birthday 

and one for Halloween!

We ended the weekend with a boat tour through Deception Pass (thank you Groupon!)  It was another gorgeous Sunday and we took the sunset cruise.  I have to say that I am glad we went on the cruise, but I am also glad we went for the Groupon price.  I'm not sure I think it's worth full price.

Deception Pass

The sunset

We saw a Blue Heron and a Harbor Seal!

Love Instagram!

After that was San Francisco, but that trip really deserves its own post :) 

The next Friday, I went wine tasting in Woodinville with E. and Seattle Stevie.  We were bad bloggers and didn't take any pictures, but we had a great time and visited some great wineries.  I'll link the wineries below so you can check them out the next time you're in Woodiville!

Tefft Cellars

Januik Winery

Columbia Winery

Redhook Brewery (for lunch, no beer tasting!)

Apex Cellars

Goose Ridge Winery

Trust Cellars

Saturday was our squadron's halfway party.  We celebrated being halfway done with this deployment!  It was a fabulous evening and I can't thank Aimee and Vanesa enough for planning it!  We had dinner at The Oyster Bar on Chuckanut Drive and then went to the Terrace Wine Bar in Oak Harbor.  The views from The Oyster Bar are amazing.  We had a private dining room, but there was a balcony off the back of the restaurant with tables for two.  It would be the perfect place to go for a date and each chair had a blanket on the back of it in case you got cold.  I absolutely loved it -- if we get a warm weekend next January I want to take J.

CK13 and me in the van

Our room at The Oyster Bar

Not the best group shot, but you can kind of see the view in the background!

Our end of the table!

Group shot we sent to the boys!

I stayed the night with one of my favorite squadron wives, CK13.  CK13 was 8.5 months pregnant and started having contractions at the dinner, but played it off and told us that they were Braxton Hicks contractions.  They ended up being the real thing and the next day, baby Noah arrived!  

He is absolutely adorable.

And that was September!

It took me about an hour to write the recap so I can't imagine how long it would have taken to write about each event individually :)  Now you know why I was so bad about blogging last month!

Ten on Tuesday #26

Two posts on Tuesday ... guess I was a little late on posting my Little Happies post.  Whoops!  Anyways, I hope you are all having a wonderful Tuesday.  If you want to play along this week, go over to Roots and Rings to find the questions and link up!  

1.  How do you take your coffee?

From Starbucks!  Haha.  I like a Venti Iced Coffee with 4 pumps of caramel and a splash of nonfat milk.  Delicious.  However, I stayed the night at R.'s on Sunday and she made me french press coffee on Monday morning and it was pretty delicious.  I may look into learning how to use a french press.  

2.  Do you prefer soft or crispy chocolate chip cookies?

Hmm, maybe crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside?  Really I like them best right from the oven so they are warm and soft.  

3.  Do you wear a belt everyday?

Nope, I rarely wear a belt.  It's just not my thing.  

4.  What is your favorite color combination?

Hmm, that depends.  I am loving the bright blue and white combination I have going on in my kitchen, the turquoise, white and black combo in my office, the gray and yellow combo in my guest room and if I was staying in this house longer the navy, gray and white combo that would be going on in my master bedroom!  

5.  Do you like sour candy? 

Not really. 

6.  How often do you do laundry?

About once a week.  More if I really need something that is in the laundry basket. 

7.  Did you ever wear braces?

Yes, for 2 years I think.  I still have a permanent retainer behind my bottom teeth!  

8.  Are you good at Roman Numerals?

Nope, not at all.  I can do 1-5 and that is about it.  

9.  What is your favorite form of social media?

I like Facebook and Twitter, but I use Facebook the most.  I try to set Twitter goals for myself so I will tweet more but sometimes I just don't feel like I have anything exciting to say. 

10.  How do you feel about chin dimples? 

Hmm, I don't think I really have an opinion about chin dimples.  Sorry.  

Have a good Tuesday everyone!  

Little Happies

I just sat down at my desk to try these little happies:

And catch up on my blogging.  Well maybe not catch up, that would take all night.  But get started in that direction.  But first, if you live anywhere near a Cupcake Royale, RUN there and try the Pumpkin Cardamom Cupcake.  O.M.G.  To die for.  I am so glad I'm heading back to Seattle on Wednesday to celebrate R.'s birthday.  Cupcake Royale Round Two, here I come!

I have so much to catch you all up on over the next couple of weeks, but let's start with an update on deployment life.  Saturday marked seven (7) weeks of J. being deployed.  And I feel like I can finally sit back and reflect on what a deployment is truly like.  We've been separated for 7 weeks before, when we were dating long distance, but since we moved to Washington and moved in together, the longest we've been apart is 2-3 weeks for trips home or detachments (Navy work trips).  And while I hate to say it, because I truly do miss J., this whole deployment thing has been good for me.

There have been days when I'm exhausted, when I am tired of dealing with EVERYTHING on my own, when I wish someone else could deal with Addy and Lucy, when I'm scared to be home alone, when I wish I had more time for myself and days when I've cried.  But, for the first time since I moved to Washington, I've found me.  I've had to create a life for myself, by myself, without using J. as a crutch.  I am completely, 100% dependent on MYSELF and that's made me figure out what exactly I want my Washington life to look like.  Yes, it's a little late since we are about to pack up and move, but it's been a good reminder that I am a very independent, extremely capable individual and I don't need J. to be here to have a fun and exciting life in Washington.    

Of course, that doesn't mean I am not counting down the days and weeks until he will get back or that I don't get a slight tinge of sadness every time I do something that I know he would enjoy.  I don't NEED J. to have a fun and exciting life, but he makes life more fun and exciting.  And I can't wait until he comes home :)  We've still got a few weeks (ok, more than a few) but I am hoping they will go by as quickly as these past seven weeks have gone by.

For me, the key to having a successful deployment has been to keep busy (and having two furry friends helps too)!  I have been insanely busy since J. left and I don't even work full time.  I am looking forward to things slowing down this month so I can spend more time doing some of the things that I really enjoy, but that have been neglected the past 7 weeks.  Like blogging and running and cooking.  And watching lots of fall TV ... I just signed up for Hulu Plus and so far, I am LOVING it!

Happy October Friends!

I look forward to catching up with you all in the next few weeks!