The Dicous

Weekend #20: Invasion of the parents (part 2)

2012-02-20T11:47:00.000-08:00

My parents decided to come up for President's Day weekend and I'm so glad they did because we had such a good time with them. I am the biggest daddy's girl, and I get so excited when he takes time off work to come and see me. It means a lot to me. Part of the reason I love having my dad around is because I love seeing both my dad and Taylor together because they have a lot of similarities. I love that about Taylor. It makes me feel better knowing that when my dad is no longer around, I'll have a little bit of him in my husband. I'm starting to get a little emotional, so I'm moving on...

Here are some pictures my dad took this weekend:

Friday:

Lunch at the Ferry Building. We are slowly making our way through all the eateries there in the Ferry Building. This place had very good sandwiches.

I got the grilled prosciutto, provolone, and whole grain mustard sandwich. The only thing it was missing was some greens! My mom got her clam chowder in a bread bowl. She has to get one every time she goes to SF.

Taysie-baby and my dad both got the Italian sausage sandwich.

We had to get dessert with our lunch of course. Miette chocolate cake. I like the chocolate ganache topping, but the cake was crumbly and not very moist :( Very good chocolate flavor though.

While Taylor finished up at work my parents and I walked around the city.

My Dad is obsessed with taking pictures with his iPhone. He had me doing poses, but I didn't want to post anything too embarrassing!

I've mentioned this before, but my mom visits every restroom in every city she goes to! That girl must have a super small bladder! :)

***Not pictured, we went to Coit Tower, which was my first time since moving here. It had some good views, but our cameras didn't do it justice.

Saturday:

Saturday we went to Muir Beach in Marin county to do a little walk/hike.

These beaches aren't what I'm used to, but they sure are pretty.

My dad had me climb on this rock, which doesn't look scary here, but it hangs over a cliff. My mom and Taylor both didn't appreciate me doing it.

This was the view from the top of our little hike.

My mom always looks like it's 10 degrees out!

***Not pictured: Sol Food. After we go to Marin County we have to stop by our favorite Puerto Rican place, Sol Food. We met my parents old friends there for dinner and then some yummy organic ice-cream afterward. It was fun seeing my parents reminisce about the good ol' days with their friends.

Their last day in town:

We slept in and went out to brunch before heading back over to Marin county for a walk at Stinson Beach.

My mom and I ordered the Buckwheat pancakes with pure maple syrup. They were delicious!

Taylor and my Dad ordered an egg dish. My dad's not pictured.

Stinson Beach. It was pretty cold, but the sun was shinning. I love all the trees here.

I always thought that I was being paranoid about Northern California's beaches to be shark infested, but now I know I have been right all along!! This was the sign posted at Stinson Beach.

That's the end! Hope you all are enjoying the long weekend!

Love and Chez Panisse

2012-02-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

February 14th - - Happy Valentine's Day

This is my mom's tradition. When we were growing up, every Valentine's Day we would rush home from school to see what she left us for Valentine's Day. There was always a treat and a little note asking us to be her Valentine. So in honor of my mom, I do the same for Taylor.

Taylor made me a book of "Taypons", and yes, he knows it sounds like Tampons. There are some good deals enclosed in that pink book. I've already cashed some in. He also got me two yummy French macarons from Miette. Yum, yum, yum. I was greedy and didn't share with him. I ate both cookies and I didn't even feel bad about it :)

February 15th - - Happy Engagement Anniversary

We don't really go big for Valentine's Day. We make each other a card and get each other our favorite treat, as mentioned above. We would rather celebrate the 15th of February because that day is a lot more special to us. It was the day Taylor proposed to me in Newport. It's been four years now and I can't believe how fast that has gone by! This year we decided to go to a fancy dinner where we dressed up and everything. We have been wanting to eat at Chez Panisse for awhile now and fortunately for us I had a large gift certificate from my boss that we wanted to finally use!

The organic, local, and seasonal menu that changes daily.
If you are unfamiliar with this place, Alice Waters was the chef that started the whole local food movement back in the 1970's.

It's blurry because I was worried people would think I was crazy taking pictures at a place like this!

Sunchoke and celery soup with truffle.

Pizzetta: Broccoli and bacon
(Actually really similar to the pizza at Pizzaiolo)

Braised grass-fed short ribs with squash and fried cabbage.

Duck breast with cauliflower with raita, and fried onions.

We are more in love now than ever before. We feel very lucky to have found each other.

The End!

Weekend #19: Heaven on Earth

2012-02-20T10:46:00.000-08:00

We've been invaded by parents for the past two weekends so that is why I'm a little behind on my blogging! It has been so fun to play with both sides of our family. We always look forward to hanging out and eating ridiculous amounts of delicious food!! My body is now ready for a break and can't wait to be back to normal, but it was fun while it lasted!

When Taylor's parents were here we were able to experience a little heaven on earth. We found the most amazing pizza, went to the temple together, AND went to one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen--Pebble Beach.

Here's a few shots of that weekend:

Pizzaiolo in Oakland

It's really dark in the restaurant and I didn't want to bring lots of attention to our table by turning on the flash so these pictures aren't that great.

Margarita with house-made sausage

Potato, panchetta, fontina, and rosemary

I'm sad this picture was so bad because this was the BEST PIZZA I've ever had.
Arugula, prosciutto, and grana cheese. Oh my. I think it's my favorite because it has the perfect crust-thin but with chew. It wasn't greasy, and actually left you feeling light, but satisfied. I think we will treat all our visitors to this place. We brought my parents back the next week and they loved it too.

We all had a fun night :)

Mom Dicou had to get back to Utah earlier than Dad Dicou, so it was just the three of us at the Pro-Am golf tournament at Pebble Beach that Saturday. We couldn't really take pictures, so I had to get these from their website. I don't love golf, but it was really fun being with my father-in-law who does love it. It was fun to walk the course, see some celebrities like Bill Murray, and to pretend we were in the market for a vacation home there at Pebble Beach. Oh to dream. Thanks Dad Dicou for treating us to such an amazing day!

I've never seen such blue water off the California coast. Gorgeous.

We did sneak in a couple shots :)

The Dicou boys.
The weather that day wasn't ideal, but it was still beautiful.

Parent invasion part 1 complete -- Can't wait to see the Utah Dicous again. Love you guys!

Weekend #18: Take Back

2012-02-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was very low key. We slept in, went out to eat, curled up in the book store for a few hours, and rented some movies. Sunday was spent watching the Super Bowl. No big deal. Here are a few shots from the weekend:

Lunch: Barney's Burgers

I woke up Saturday morning wanting a burger. And not just any burger. A big, fat, still-red-in-the-center burger. This is very unlike me. Usually I go to In-N-Out and that does the job, but this day I wanted something different. I did lots of burger research and found a few places I wanted to try. So another food list was made and I was ready to cross one off the list. We decided to pick a place where we could stay in our neighborhood so that we could enjoy the weather and walk to lunch. A few people suggested Barney's Gourmet Hamburgers, so that's the one we picked. Now here is where I explain the title of this post: Take Back. I so wish I could take back our decision to eat there. I was so disappointed! For some reason when you claim "gourmet" hamburgers, soggy buns don't come to mind. Am I alone on this? Lunch was a bust, but the rest of the day was a delight, except for the upset stomach I had the rest of the day...

This is what started our meal. Sweet potato fries. Yummy. I was hoping the burgers were going to live up to these babies. But you already know they didn't.

This smile is deceiving. But you can see he hadn't taken a bite yet.

The Book Store

I wish I had all these cookbooks. I guess I'll start collecting more...

That's all. The End

Weekend #17: Dynamo

2012-01-29T18:04:00.000-08:00

We had so much fun this weekend! We have been wanting to go to the Exploratorium in SF for weeks now and we finally made it. We started off the day right with some delicious donuts in the Mission, headed over to the Exploratorium to play, took a stroll down the Golden Gate Promenade, drove over the bridge and finished off the day at our favorite Puerto Rican restaurant, Sol Food, in San Rafael.

Dynamo Donuts

I do a lot of reading about food (obviously), and I read all good things about this donut and coffee shop in the Mission. When we walked up there was a huge line, but it moved really quickly, thankfully.

You make your order outside, then have a choice to eat in the cafe while watching the yummy donuts and sticky buns being made, or head out back to the garden patio.

What we ordered (clockwise) : lemon pistachio, pumpkin chocolate chip, ginger orange, sticky bun. We have sworn off sugar and most flour products during the week, but come Saturday we treat ourselves. We find this system has the most balance for us and is something we can stick to long term. We had a good 3 week run of absolutely no sugar and gluten and we felt great! But it's fun having our Saturdays back :)

The options they had that day. These donuts had a very good texture. They were moist and slightly cakey. I think they would have been better hot, but that's just my preference. The sticky bun had a delicious carmely flavor, but not as moist as I like. I would eat here again, but I enjoyed the donuts I had in New Orleans more :)

The Exploratorium

This place is every kids dream. It's like a huge warehouse with all sorts of physic/science stuff to play with. No rules. Just play. And that's what we did.

This picture cracks me up :)

Try this! It took me 23 seconds to get through it. It's harder than you might think.

The Presidio

After the exploring the Exploratorium, we walked around the Presidio.
It was such a beautiful day.

Golden Gate Promenade

We ended our SF day with a sit down while we people watched and soaked up some vitamin D.

The End!

Weekend #16: A New Look

2012-01-26T19:01:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we decided to just chill out and do some exploring in the east bay instead of heading into the city. This decision was partly due to the weather (kinda rainy) and largely due to my procrastinating writing a paper that was due that day :) So Saturday morning was spent in pjs writing my paper while Taylor watched soccer. When we decided to finally get out we headed to downtown Oakland to drive around and get more familiar with the area. For lunch we stopped by Whole Foods and ate a treat by Lake Merritt (below).

Not a very exciting weekend, but fun. I love driving around new places.

Earlier this week I decided I needed a new look. My hair was getting insanely long--like to the small of my back--so I made a hair appointment and did one of the scariest things I could think of. I said, " Do. Whatever. You. Want." I had no idea what I wanted, so the hair stylist took over. She cut so much hair off and I might have gone into panic mode once or twice, but in the end I'm glad I did it. It's not exactly what I would have picked, but I'm trying to be more daring. What do you think? Did I make a huge mistake?

This was how she styled it . . .

This is how it dries naturally . . .

Cute, huh? I actually look more ridiculous when I try to smile :) I sent this picture to my sister to show her my hair cut and since I didn't have a picture of the front, I decided to post it here as well. Why not. The girl cut bangs for me, but they are so short that I just pin them back. Why can no one cut bangs?! Good thing my hair grows fast.

Well that was our exciting weekend. Sorry for the lame post.

The Big Two Eight!

2012-01-15T16:07:00.000-08:00

We had so much fun this weekend celebrating Taylor's 28th birthday! I wanted to keep our weekend plans a secret from Taylor and it was so hard because I was so excited for what I had planned! At the beginning of the year Taylor and I each made a list of 5 things we want to do in our lifetime, and at the very top of his list, Taylor put that he wanted to learn how to surf. So being the loving, most awesome, incredible, and so on, wife that I am, I decided to enroll him in some surf lessons for his birthday! Friday afternoon I packed our bags, picked him up from work and headed for Santa Cruz! I made our dinner reservations at a yummy restaurant called Oswald's where we tried hard to pick healthy, but tasty meals :) We then checked into our hotel, which was just down the street from the boardwalk, went for a walk, blew out a candle, modeled some clothes, and went to bed rather early because the next day he had some early surf lessons to get to!

Friday Night Dinner at Oswalds in Santa Cruz

At dinner he opened up his present. A hoodie from Lululemon Athletica. It's our new favorite store and we're both obsessed with their hoodies.
He was so excited to get this, but you can tell that by the look on his face :)

Our appetizer: Winter Squash soup with walnut oil

My meal: Chicken with anchovy butter, escorole, and sweet potatoes.
(I'm a sucker for sweet potatoes. And don't cringe at anchovy, it's not fishy at all.)

Taylor's rack of lamb with celery root puree and baby carrots.
He LOVED it. Licked his plate clean. Literally. Some people's husbands...

Modeling his new hoodie.

Since we are steering clear of sugar, except for fruit, I had to get a little creative. I made these "truffles" and they were awesome! All I did was pulse some nuts and then some dried fruit in a food processor. Mixed the two together with some shredded coconut and some cinnamon and rolled them into balls. I then rolled them in some raw cacao powder and topped them with a little sea salt.
So good. Really!

I used almonds, cashews, dried figs, and dates. Dates work really well since they are so sweet and sticky.

Early Saturday Morning

I know I'm a little bias, but he has a pretty cute backside, no?

This smile says it all. He was so excited to surf that he woke up every hour on the hour that night!
It made me feel so good that he liked this present so much. He is the best person to buy a present for.
I just love him.

While he was surfing I just sat on the beach and soaked up the sun. It turned out to be a beautiful day at the beach. Sunny, clear and 70 degrees. What a lovely January beach day!

Class begins!

Learning how to stand up on the board in water.

Off they go into the FREEZING water...

Waiting for the waves to pick up a little...

The first time getting up!

Getting better!

First complete wave--all the way to shore.

Biggest wave of the day :) He made me one proud wife that day.

Such a beautiful day. I couldn't get over it.

Last wave of the day...

going...

still going...

Done.

And the surf lesson was over. He loved every second of it. Now we need to figure out how to keep this hobby up...

Saturday Afternoon: Santa Cruz Boardwalk

The end!

Weekend #14 and A Wedding

2012-01-11T21:01:00.000-08:00

This last weekend wasn't especially thrilling, but I'll post about it anyway. . .

Friday morning we took off work to drive up to Sacramento to attend one of Taylor's oldest friend's wedding. Taylor got to dress up in a tux and everything, but I forgot to get a picture! Just picture James Bond and you'll get a pretty good idea of what my handsome husband looked like :)

The Sacramento Temple

Google map wasn't kind to us and we ended up getting turned around THREE times! We arrived one minute before the ceremony and the doors were closed :( We were there in spirit though--does that count?

The Reception

I always look forward to seeing what the theme of the wedding will be. They chose peacocks with teal and purple as the color scheme. The groomsmen wore feathers instead of flowers. It was a unique idea and I think it worked. Here's the cake the we didn't eat :( Going sugar and gluten free can be tricky at a dessert only reception . . .

The Bride and Groom

Saturday we were SUPER excited to sleep in because that wedding wore us out!!! We hung out in our pj's until about 2:00 in the afternoon and then we headed over to my favorite store--Whole Foods :) After reading everything to see what we could and couldn't eat, we sat out in the cafe area to enjoy both our little feast (below) and the January weather here in California--a balmy 70 degrees :)

After lunch we decided to see this movie: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME! I normally don't mind slow movies, but this one takes the cake. But not only was it extremely slow AND incredibly long, but really hard to follow. At the end of the movie you could hear everyone talking to each other trying to figure out what even happened. But I hear the book was good. So disappointing. And one last thing, this movie was SO boring that it even affected my sleep cycle! Seriously. The dream I had that night was so irritatingly dull that I was excited to hear my alarm go off the next morning because that meant my boring dream was over! It's true. That happened. And I blame it on this movie. The end.

Well anyway, that was our weekend. I told you, not that thrilling.
Next weekend will be better though because I am surprising Taylor with a birthday getaway...

Becca the following is for you!

Here are some gluten, sugar, and dairy free meals for you to try:

No noodle pasta:
I sauteed good Italian sausage (always get nitrate and sulfate free) then I added a sugar and gluten free tomato sauce (just read the back of the labels). Then to up the veggie content, I added steamed broccoli and cauliflower. I served that over quinoa (follow instructions on container) that I cooked in chicken broth with garlic and Italian seasonings. It took all of 15 minutes to make.

Fun Salads:
I have been having fun adding stuff to salads. I am in love with arugula these days and its getting more and more popular so you should be able find in the lettuce section in your grocery store. For this salad, I roasted baby potatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper, then threw them on top of the arugula. Then I added some cooked lentils, orange segments, goat cheese (leave out for dairy-free), and topped it with a sunny side egg. It may sound a little weird, but it was so good and filling! The vinaigrette I made used fresh orange juice, e.v. olive oil, and salt and pepper. Super simple and very yummy.

Experience and Pursuit

2012-01-02T20:09:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!!!! It seems like most of my blogs in 2011 started with "I can't believe how fast time is going by. . ." For fear of being repetitive I won't say that I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW FAST TIME IS GOING BY!!!! Seriously. Christmas is already over? It's already the new year? Before I know it, I'll be dressing in matching sweat pant outfits saying things like, "Back in my day. . ." So that may be a little dramatic, but it really does seem like my life is literally flashing before my eyes!

Anyway, at the beginning of each year Taylor and I sit down and make some goals as a couple and then individually. We also come up with a word for the year. This word represents the thing we want to focus on. This is such a fun thing for us and it's all thanks to my mother in law. She started this little tradition and now I look forward to getting a text from her at the end of year asking me what my word will be. This year I picked EXPERIENCE and Taylor picked PURSUIT. It's fun looking up our words and looking for a personal and deeper meaning behind them. I highly recommend doing this if you find goal setting difficult. This just helps you to have something positive to focus on as you prepare for the new year. Something to think about :) I'll be posting more about our other goals soon.

So now onto the more entertaining stuff we did this New Year's weekend:

New Year's Eve Day

Taylor and I are giving up gluten and sugar for the next 3 months (I'll talk more about that later) and so this weekend we went all out eating everything we knew we wouldn't be able to eat for the next three months. Tartine bakery was at the top of the list. Yes, we just ate here the week before, but it was that good. We tried something new (above) and then got a croissant too. They are soooo good!

After eating at Tartine, we walked around the mission district there in SF.

Our New Year's Eve Party

In the past Taylor and I usually stay home in our PJ's and watch the New Year's Eve count down on TV and fall asleep within minutes of the new year. This year we wanted to be more 'hip' and actually do something. We had high hopes of eating at a fancy restaurant with friends and then hanging out in the city until the firework show. Sounds fun, huh? We thought so too, but it didn't happen. We didn't make reservations in time and by the time 5 o'clock rolled around we were tired! So we decided to hang out at home and have some friends come over to eat some treats and some tasty pizza. And before you judge me remember we are giving up all sugar and gluten for 3 months!

Our treats in my cute new West Elm bowls.
And just to let you know, those sweets come from Trader Joe's, where there are no
preservatives or anything artificial. So there.

Hot chocolate bar with Trader Joe's peppermint Jo Jo's

Zachary's Pizza...again--it just might be our favorite pizza

The spread.
Notice that I did sneak in some salad :)

What a crazy party we throw...

After playing some card games (and winning) we needed to ring in the new year.

We went up to our roof top to light sparklers and watch the firework show in SF

Jared

Mackenzie

Taylor

Those big light spots are fireworks. Bad picture, but you get the idea. The best part was that after we watched them we didn't have to worry about the hellish traffic getting home!

The Woods

The Dicous (aka the card game Champions :)

New Year's Day

That morning I opened up my new juicer and got to work! This thing is amazing!

Fresh orange and carrot juice

We slept in and had a healthy brunch. Getting back to healthy eating feels sooo good!

Our day off...

Since New Year's was on a Sunday we both had Monday off. We slept in, had a yummy breakfast and headed over the bridge to do a hike. We are serious about loosing our holiday pounds!

One of the pretty views during the hike. That's Stinson Beach.

Isn't it pretty?

I loved that the path was so well kept. We're definitely going back to do this again!

Here's to a great new start to a great new year!
Happy 2012!

Williams Christmas 2011!

2011-12-28T18:34:00.000-08:00

This year Christmas was spent in Southern California with my side of the family. We had a great Christmas and we were sad to see it come and go so quickly. It only happens once a year when everyone from my side of the family can get together and I treasure every minute. So here's what our Christmas vacation looked like this year:

We started our trip off right with breakfast at Tartine Bakery in the Mission District (SF)
This croissant was AMAZING! Highly recommended.

This was inside the bakery. Very, very busy. We had to eat standing up, but it was worth it.

We took the 101 down the coast so that we would end up in Camarillo to finish up our Christmas shopping at the Camarillo outlets and grab some dinner at Cafe Rio. Yum, yum :)

When we finally arrived at my parents every one was there waiting for us. Riley was still awake and it was cute to see Taylor play with her. Did we mention we are SO ready to have kids?!

The night before Christmas Eve we went to see some Christmas lights. We used to go to this housing track when we were kids. It is way more popular now and a lot more elaborate than I remember.

The neighborhood even handed out candy canes to everyone!

Is my dad not the cutest guy ever? So handsome. I just LOVE him :)

This was my favorite house. Very girly. And that's my little sis and her hubby. She's 3 months pregnant now! We are all so excited for a new Williams baby to join the family come July.

My niece, Riley, and Dad. She refuses to look at you when you take a picture. Stinker.

I got a kick out of Riley playing with the iPhone. She knows how to open it up and browse through everything. So amazing to me! What a cute munchkin.

My goofy brother, Sean :) No one makes me laugh the way he does. I wish we lived closer.

We decided to do our big Christmas feast on Christmas Eve because Erin and I didn't want to cook on Christmas :) Riley was the first one to the table and I had to put this picture up because this was the only picture I have of her looking at the camera :)

Our feast included: a roast over cheesy polenta with mushroom gravy, a turkey with stuffing, green beans with bacon, a mushroom and caramelized onion shepards pie (above-and my favorite), Erin's famous sweet potatoes, and arugula salad with pomegranates and maple vinaigrette.
Erin and I did everything, except for the turkey with stuffing. Donnie did that and it was sooo good. Everything turned out great except the roast wasn't to my liking. I think I got the wrong cut. It had good flavor, but the texture was off. Sorry family! I don't cook meat that often! :)

I love this picture. Sean makes me laugh! That posture :)

I started off the opening of gifts on Christmas Eve's.

Tay's pj's.
Sidenote: I just think he is so cute! Are you getting sick of me writing that with every post?
Sorry, but it will happen again. And again.

I got comfy clothes for pjs this year. I have too many pairs of crazy pj pants :) Tay also got me a Christmas mug and some yummy hot cocoa to enjoy that night. He did a good job this year.

Tay's mom sent this to us with our presents this year. This was a decoration that Tay's grandma got when Tay was young. I'm excited to add that to my Christmas decorations next year ;)

I wish this picture came out better. We look pretty cute in our jammies :)

That night we exchanged our sibling gifts so that we could open one more gift. Sean gave Donnie a helicopter and it was fun playing with it. It made me wish I had gotten Tay something to "play" with on Christmas.

That night we played games--my favorite thing to do with my family. We get so loud and I end up barley being able to breath because I'm laughing so hard. This night was no different. I lost it when Taylor did his impression of the late North Korean President. Sooo funny. Anyway we played Pit. Have you played that? It's a brainless game--perfect for us ;)

Christmas Morning!!!!!!!!!

I forgot to pack our stockings :(, but this stuff wouldn't fit in them anyway!
I LOVE opening up my stocking! Fun treats, socks, scarfs, hats, etc.

Does he look tired? That's because it was 6 in the morning :) We talked about it as a family and decided that I couldn't wake anyone up before 6 am. I agreed, but Sean and Erin broke the rules! I could barely sleep, but I was trying to keep my end of the deal and stayed in bed. Then I get a phone call at 5:45 a.m. from Sean telling us to WAKE UP!!!! I go into their room and Sean and Erin are sitting on their bed, smiling ear to ear, so excited that its CHRISTMAS!!! I LOVE spending Christmas with them!

Santa brought Taylor 3 pairs of shoes!!! He was pretty stoked :)

Santa brought Sean a flat screen TV for his bedroom--spoiled :)

Santa brought me some healthy treats :)

I put this picture up mainly because I just want to talk about Erin for a little bit. I love her. I feel like every year we become better friends. I really like spending time with her. She's opening up a super cool blender right now. Welcome to the club Erin. It will change your life!

My mom got a cool blender too.

Tay was so excited to open this present up. His first pair of Ray Bans!
We are a Ray Ban family now :)

My mom got my dad some too :) He was very surprised!

Max. What a doll. He is such a good baby!

I miss Riley and Max already! I am one lucky aunt to have such cute nieces and nephews.

I wish Donnie and Paige could have been there too :(

Back to Berkeley...

Our first night back we met up with some friends that were visiting from Utah, Josh and Whitney, our old college roommates. We went to Zachary's Pizza because we've heard such good things. It did not disappoint! Delicious!

Not the prettiest picture, but it was so good! Deep dish, with spinach and cheese. The tomato sauce had the best flavor. And even though it was Chicago deep dish style, it wasn't at all heavy. The crust was super light and almost flaky. Would definitely go back. Good way to end our vacation.

We had a wonderful holiday and I am so sad to go back to real life. But I look forward to the next few days of reflecting on 2011 and setting goals for 2012!!!! I hope everyone had a great Christmas break!

The end.

The Countdown!

2011-12-19T08:35:00.000-08:00

I can't believe Christmas is a week away!!! I have been trying to slow down time as much as I can so that I can relish in my favorite time of year and thus far, it hasn't worked. But I did try! I have been watching my fair share of Christmas movies, listening to loads of Christmas music, making hot chocolate, and doing LOTS of Christmas shopping. So I guess even though I can't slow down time, I can make the most of the time I do have :)

Anyway, this is what our week looked liked:

Thursday:

My new friend, Mackenzie, and I were able to have a girl's night out on Thursday night and we had so much fun. We took Bart (the train) into the city and spent a few hours shopping around for our dear husbands. It was fun having some girl time. It feels like it's been awhile and I really enjoyed it.

Our first stop--a decorated Ferry Building Marketplace. This is why Mackenzie and I are friends. We get off Bart and head straight for a treat before we begin shopping. A girl after my own heart. The treat? Macarons of course.

From the Ferry Building we took a trolly to the Wharf/Russian Hill to do a little shopping for Mackenzie's husband. We then caught a cable car that took us to the shopping mecca--Union Square. This was my first cable car ride since moving here and it might be my last. It's 6 bucks! Thanks Mackenzie for getting me a clipper card :)

We went to the 7 or 8 story mall and finished up our shopping.

Saturday:

Taylor and I have been trying hard to include more service activities into our schedule. Earlier this week we volunteered at the men's shelter to help prepare dinner. Saturday morning we volunteered to help clean our ward building.

How old is this thing?!

Our very old, but very cool ward building.

Our very first Sunday here we drove by the church a few times before realizing this was it. Not your average LDS building. I like that.

A job well done...

We decided to treat ourselves to some yummy organic, house-made ice-cream from a creamery on College Ave. in Berkeley. We picked the pink peppermint and gingerbread. Both delicious, but the peppermint was our favorite.

We found this candy store full of every candy you can think of. We bought some old-school, ice-cream truck favorites for Taylor's sister for Christmas. Think candy cigarettes, Razzles, and wax lips. Remember that stuff when we were kids?

After we finished up our Christmas shopping we were starving!

Picante Cocina Mexicana in Berkeley

Why are tortilla chips sooo good? They make their own corn tortillas, which were my favorite part of the dinner.

I ordered the chicken mole tamales. They were okay. Sweeter than I would have liked.

Taylor ordered the carnitas. They were good too, but not my favorite.
Overall, we thought it was okay, but not that great. Probably won't go back because it didn't wow us.

Sunday:

Our First Christmas Party!

We have been trying to be more social and though we still need some work, we are getting way better! We invited two other couples over for a light dinner, dessert, and games. We enjoyed their company very much and hope to be able to host more parties soon :)

I forgot to take pictures! I can't believe that this was all I got :(

The menu included:

Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Quinoa salsa and avocado

An assortment of crackers and bread

Cranberry-Apple pie (from Apple Hill)

Sparkling apple, cranberry, and pomegranate juice

The End!

A Christmas Carol

2011-12-13T22:23:00.000-08:00

Weekend #10: Very busy weekend = lots of pictures = not a lot of commentary

Started the weekend off with a yummy brunch at La Note in Berkeley:

Chocolate Croissant--It was good, but I wished it was warm :(

Cute and excited husband

My breakfast: Scrambled eggs with goat cheese, chives, and roasted tomatoes. I LOVED the eggs.

Part of Tay's breakfast: Home fries

And the rest of Tay's breakfast: Lemon gingerbread pancake with poached pears and scrambled eggs.
We really liked the pancakes as well.

After brunch we headed over to the city to walk around Golden Gate Park before going to the museum:

Lots of prettiness

The conservatory

The California Academy of Sciences:

The lady I am working for has a membership to almost every museum within an hour of Berkeley, and
she was kind enough to let us use her guest passes for the day :)
That will save us some monies!

He's cute.

The Rainforest dome was pretty cool. Not in temperature. It was rather hot.

Taylor's mom passed on her fear of spiders to him. Let's just say if there's a spider in our house, I get to take care of it :)

I will admit it though, spiders are pretty creepy.

Next we checked out the aquarium:

Then we went to the planetarium to watch their 1/2 hour program. It was really relaxing. . . oh, and interesting . . . :)

Reservations at Range (in the Mission District)

So this place gets busy so we made reservations. This is what the place looked like when we arrived. Looks like it is very uncool to eat at 5:30! Whatever--we scored a great seat!
And we loved the Mission District. Very lively at night. And lots of yummy food places!

The yummy menu

My dinner. Oh. My. My mouth is watering right now. It was beyond delicious. This was
the swordfish with sweet potatoes, escarole, portobellos and a grainy mustard sauce.
That fish was soooo good!

Taylor got the braised beef with barley and brussels sprouts.

We even splurged and got a Christmasy dessert. Cranberry ginger cake with rosemary ice cream.
The ice cream tasted like a Christmas tree in a very delicious way. It sounds weird, but worked.

A Christmas Carol in Downtown San Francisco

It's our tradition to go to A Christmas Carol every December. We get dressed up, go to a fancy dinner, and find whatever rendition we can find in whatever city we happen to be in. We've seen one in Utah, Arkansas, and now San Francisco. This theater was a lot fancier then the last two we've been to. It was very fun and the theater was pretty nice.

Trying to take our picture and I kept getting my finger in the frame!

Tilden Park in the Berkeley Hills

We wanted to see some fun Christmas lights so we went looking to see what we could find.
We found this merry-go-round up in the Berkeley Hills with
quite a few lights and some fun Christmas trees.

Our first Christmas package and this year's ornaments:

Both Taylor and I get new ornaments every year. These are our newest addition.
Are these not the cutest?
Thanks mom dicou! We love them!

It's hard to see, but these are mugs of hot cocoa with little marshmallows.

Christmas Tree Lane in Oakland:

We didn't get our fill of Christmas lights, so Monday night we went to find some more.

This was our favorite house--The Nightmare Before Christmas

I keep forgetting to mention my job! (Sorry Alisa!) So I've been waiting on all of my paper work to be processed in order to teach and/or substitute teach in the state of California. It is a LONG process and I have been waiting FOREVER. I was getting frustrated with the whole process and then one day I get an email from my ward. I get a lot of church emails, but I just happen to open this one thinking I was going to volunteer to help this older lady unload boxes, file papers, etc. Next thing I knew I was at this lady's house and she's asking me if I have health insurance. Looking confused, I said, "Is this a job interview?!" She looked a little funny, then we both started laughing. I explained that I thought this was a short term service thing, but if she wanted to hire me then I was more than happy to help her out! So I got the job as her assistant to help her with all sorts of things around her house, with her book keeping, etc. I then asked her how long she needed me and she said, "How about for life?" (I didn't answer that one :) So now I have a job. I walk 2.2 miles to and from her house everyday and help her with whatever she needs help with. Some days are great. Some days not so much. She is very fascinating and has done so much in her 70 years. She says things like, "When my neighbor, Julia Child, blah, blah, blah..." Really?! Yeah, really. Anyway, I lucked out and I'm pretty happy about it.

This is what some of my days look like:

Lots to organize!

Well, that is all! Until next weekend. . .

Tis the Season

2011-12-06T19:23:00.001-08:00

Weekend #9:

I love Christmas. Like seriously LOVE it. Everything about it is exciting to me. I love the music. I love the glittery decorations and multicolored strands of lights. I love all the hot chocolate and sugary treats. I even love the super cheesy Christmas movies that just happen to show up on my DVR :) Though this December has snuck up on me, I am determined to get all of our holiday traditions done starting with our December 1st tradition of getting our Christmas tree. Every 1st of December we have a yummy dinner, find the closest Lowe's or Home Depot to pick out our Christmas tree, head home to decorate it, and watch a Christmas movie. This year was no exception. The only difference was that our tree needed to be quite a bit smaller than usual. We had a good laugh after opening our little baby up to see it in all its "glory":

The before:

The after:

We could only fit one small box of ornaments on this tree so we picked all of our

sparkly ones. I just love glitter :)

I keep forgetting that we don't have an official tree topper.

This ornament seems fitting though.

Dinner was Indian this year. We ate at Vik's Chaat Corner in Berkeley:

It's an interesting place because it feels like a cafeteria and its connected to an Indian market. Ordering was fun because we didn't really know what everything meant and the workers there weren't much help. We ordered some specials and a mango lassi and had no regrets.

Here's the huge portions we got. Yum, yum. The naan was really good because it had the perfect amount of chew to it. And the tandori chicken was awesome. I would definitely order that again.

Saturday we drove up to Napa for some lunch and shopping. We found this public market that was a lot like the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco. I loved it. We ate at C Casa and tried their unique tacos. They were so yummy.

This was the main reason I wanted to eat here. Have I mentioned I love living in a place where most places use quality ingredients?

I ordered the lamb and beef tacos. I know, it's not typical of me to order red meat, but the description sounded too good to pass up. I'm tired right now and I can't remember what was on it, but the picture looks good enough to me to convince you that these tacos were tasty.

Taylor ordered the steak and chicken taco. They were really yummy as well. We decided that we liked my beef taco the best, but now that I look at all of them it's hard to choose! They were all so good.

I love all the Christmas trees.

This was inside the public market. It was kind of like a big warehouse, but felt cozier than that.

One of my favorite things about living in Northern California is the emphasis on recycling. More places should be like that.

After lunch we got some ice cream. No that's not me in the blue shirt. But that's exactly how I feel when I order a scoop of ice cream :)

Organic Maple and Walnut ice cream on top of Organic Chocolate Mocha. So, so good.

After the public market we were off to the outlets. Lets just say we did good. We did a good job spending my first paycheck. It's going to be a good Christmas this year ;)

The end :)

Thanksgiving Week

2011-11-29T16:53:00.001-08:00

I can't believe that Thanksgiving has already come and gone! Though its hard to believe it's already the end of November, I am so glad its over! That means I can officially start celebrating Christmas! Yay!!! Christmas is the only reason I look forward to the winter. However, now that I am back in California, I don't really mind the winter...so far anyway.

So this last week was very busy: We had Taylor's family come and stay with us for the week, I cooked my very first Thanksgiving meal (all by myself), and we even were able to meet some new friends! It was so good to see the Utah Dicous, even with us all smushed into a small city apartment! Turns out 5 people staying in a one bedroom apartment is a little crowded--who knew?

We did a lot of sight seeing, eating, and some quality family hanging-out time:

Tuesday: After I picked up Taylor's family from the airport, I drove them to San Francisco so that we could have lunch with Taylor. Since the Ferry Building Marketplace is right down the street from Tay's work, we went there. And I think everyone should go there at least once when they visit SF. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are farmer's market days.

This is one of the places on my list because they serve really tasty, local, organic cheeses. If it's good enough to be on Alice Water's lists of favorites, then I might as well give it a try!

Toasties: Crusty bread topped with grainy maple mustard, caramelized onions, and REALLY good cheese. The pickled veggies were very yummy too.

Creamy Tomato Soup with Creme Fraiche

Mixed greens with Parmesan Crisps

While we waited for Taylor to finished up at work, we walked around Fisherman's Wharf where we saw this beauty! It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I love this picture. Sometimes I am so amazed at my little iPhone camera!
And can you believe that this is a real tree? I didn't until I smelled it.

Wednesday: That morning Taylor and I took the fam down to the marina where we go running on the weekends. Then we went to one of my favorite spots, Muir Woods. And since we were in the neighborhood, Sol Food :) Love, love, love me some Puerto Rican food!

Berkeley Marina: This is our view while we run our little hearts out. Not bad, huh? In real life it looks a lot closer.

This is such a beautiful place. I have become quite the lover of nature. I especially love the drive there because you can see the ocean too. Have I mentioned how pretty Northern California is? :)

SOL FOOD!! I want to thank my in-laws for being so nice to humor Taylor and me and our food obsessions.

I ordered the chicken salad. I love that a lot of the restaurants here use organic and local ingredients. That chicken is sooooooo good. And just a side note, right now as I type, Taylor is driving home from Marin County with Sol Food in his possession. I am so excited to eat dinner tonight!

Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving! Taylor woke up early to go play football only to come back with a very disappointed look on his face. They cancelled the game due to rain. He was completely bummed. Dad Dicou tried to make him feel better by playing a little catch with him while we all went on a walk up to Cal campus. What a nice dad :)

After a fun walk, eating a huge feast, and spending some time on our rooftop, we ended the day by going to see Tower Heist. It is our tradition to go to a movie on Thanksgiving (and sometimes Christmas) and today was no exception. Mom and Dad Dicou picked the movie out because they were extras in this one! It was really funny/cute seeing them try to pick themselves out of the crowd in a scene that lasted all of two seconds. It was worth seeing the movie just for that.

UC Berkeley. A very old/cool campus.

Here was our Thanksgiving feast. I was very pleased that I was able to pull this off all on my own and without any disasters! I love cooking for the Dicou side. They think I'm the best cook ever. They sure are nice to me :)

Someone was very excited to eat.

For dessert we had our very favorite pumpkin cupcakes (not really traditional, but it was Taylor's request) up on our rooftop. Its hard to capture our view, but it was beautiful. The sun was setting over the city and the whole sky was pink and gold. I sure love it here.

Friday: Japan town, Alamo square, and Pizzeria Delfina.

Before she even arrived, my mother-in-law requested that we go to her favorite Japanese bookstore. There is one she loves in NYC and so she wanted to see if this was just as good. Unfortunately, it was a lot smaller than the NYC store, but it was still fun to go to Japan town. I need to go back to explore some more.

Since we were in the neighborhood, we got to eat at Pizzeria Delfina! I have been wanting to eat here for some time. It didn't disappoint.

This was a salad. Very small. Good though.

Fried squash and radicchio with aioli. It was good, but I don't eat fried foods, so I didn't eat very much.

This place was all about the pizza for me. Super thin on the bottom, slightly chewy crust, and amazing flavor.
This pizza: fresh mozzerella, basil, and tomato.

This pizza came out next and completely stole Tay's heart. House-made fennel sausage, fresh cheese, thin onions, and peppers. Delicious.

Dad Dicou ordered the meatballs, which were really good as well. They were very moist.
(Sorry for those that hate that word :) )

What cute in-laws I have.

My hair is getting insanely long. It grows like a weed!

After lunch we made our way to Alamo Square to see the Painted Ladies, aka, the houses shown on Full House ;) Here are a few of the cool houses they have around there.

The Tanner's House! Oh, Full House. Remember how great that show was?

Saturday: To end the fun-filled week we did a little shopping that morning and hit up some lunch down on 4th street in Berkeley.

We ate at Tacubaya, a Mexican place that serves yummy seasonal Mexican fare. It is a little pricy for the amount of food you get, but it was pretty yummy.

I ordered the seasonal tamal filled with butternut squash, black beans, queso, and topped with salsa verde, cilantro and crema. It was the perfect texture. Really creamy.

Taylor ordered the beef enchiladas. They were good, but mine was better :)

After lunch we said goodbye to our extended family, dropped them off at the airport, and then had to get ready for our weekend to begin! Oh, how we wished we could have just stayed home to sleep...

Weekend #8:

Saturday night we met up with three other couples for dinner and to see the Christmas lights at the Oakland temple. Though we were tired from having family stay with us, I am so glad we went! It was fun making some new friends :)

Dinner at La Note. I will definitely be going back. They supposedly have the best brunch. Lemon-gingerbread pancakes with poached pears? Yes please!

For dinner, Taylor and I shared pear, arugula, and cheese raviolis. Very yummy and rich.

Christmas lights at the Oakland Temple.

These are our new coats that I mentioned in a previous post. I know I need to take a better picture, but I think you can tell that Superdry has supercute coats!

The End!

New eats and old friends

2011-11-21T16:14:00.000-08:00

Weekend #7: This weekend we took it easy. After having company last weekend and then preparing for family this coming week, we decided to stay closer to home. Here's a little peek at what we did:

Friday night we decided to celebrate me starting my new job by going to dinner. We have a long list of places we want/need to eat at and A janta, in Berkeley, was high on the list. This is a Indian restaurant that uses local, organic, and seasonal ingredients and you can tell. It was DELICIOUS! I didn't do a very good job taking pictures of everything, because I was too busy savoring every scrumptious bite.

It looks a little fancy, but the prices aren't too bad. About 15 bucks for an entree.

And hey, now that I'm working we can afford to go out more! Right? :)

We ordered the CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA: Marinated boneless organic chicken pieces cooked in tandoor oven and then simmered in a thick, spicy curry sauce with ginger, garlic, tomatoes, yogurt and onions AND the NAWABI TARKARI BIRIYANI: Rice and mixed organic vegetables (cauliflower, peas, green beans, carrots) cooked together with spices, topped with caramelized onions, nuts and raisins. Everything was super tasty. I highly recommend this place.

And for dessert we stopped by Trader Joes, did I mention we live above a Trader Joes? We do, and after reviewing all our options we ended up picking their cherry and dark chocolate soy ice cream. My parents recommended it and it was really good. Great texture. Loved the chocolate.

Saturday morning: We slept in and then went down to the Berkeley Marina to go on a 3 mile run. After that we went grabbed some brunch at B ette's Oceanview Diner. This place is ALWAYS packed and now I know why. They have the BEST buttermilk pancakes. This place is located on 4th street in Berkeley, which is such a fun little street with lots of good shopping... if you have some money to spend ;)

The delicious pancakes. Served with pure maple syrup. Soft. Moist.

Tasted homemade. Only better.

Poached eggs, the delicious grilled onion and potato hash,

chicken-apple sausage, and a cream scone with

currents and apples. Good thing we went running!

Saturday night we went to Burma Superstar again. We met my oldest friend, Nichol, for dinner there after she had a yoga convention in San Francisco--lucky :) The food was just as good as we remembered. This time we tried the coconut rice and mango shrimp. I got the tea leaf salad again because it was that good. The food was incredible, but the highlight was spending time with Nichol. (That is saying something, Nichol!) I hadn't seen her since my wedding and I realized how much I missed her! We reminisced how we first met in the second grade and about what we've both been up to since then. SO much fun catching up with her and I loved that Taylor was able to get to know some of my friends better.

Isn't she the cutest?

Sunday was spent going to church, snacking, baking gluten-free cookies (with quinoa flour--not recommended) and watching movies all while enjoying the rainy weather. Life is good.

Oh, and I'll have to post more about my job later. I'm too tired right now, but I absolutely love it and I feel so lucky to have found it!

Happy Birthday Sallie Mae!

2011-11-15T07:56:00.001-08:00

Weekend #6: The Williams Family came up to visit for Mama Williams birthday. This trip was a little last minute because my mom has been dealing with a lot of body issues lately. She fell off her kitchen counter back in September and broke her wrist in several places, as well as bruising her back and hips pretty badly. She also has a huge kidney stone that will require surgery to help her pass it. Poor mom. Because of all of this she hasn't been able to do much, but this weekend she was feeling a lot better and made the trip up to spend her birthday with us. Here's what we did:

Sallie Mae is 53 years old!

Ferry Building Marketplace

(though we've been a few times I was happy to go back :) )

Our first stop was lunch, obviously.

This food stand was the most popular and had only 2 options:

Chicken with rosemary potatoes or the Porchetta sandwich.

We tried both of course:

The delicious pasture raised, organic chicken cooking away.

The Porchetta Sandwich

(this came highly recommended by everyone in line)

My taste buds said yummy, but my tummy did not.

I'm not use to such greasy and salty meat.

Quarter Chicken with Rosemary Potatoes:

This was really good and I would highly recommend

this over the sandwich. But thats me--healthier just tastes better :)

Everyone enjoying lunch:

(Except I didn't get a picture of Natalie! The whole weekend,

she shied away from my camera that sneaky girl!)

Aren't my parents cute?

After we walked around we stopped at this cute shop

to try the macaroons. If you're ever in SF you should

stop by and pick some up.

It was such a cute little shop. Very girly.

This picture is for my friend Megan Gibson.

It just reminded me of something she would love.

The macaroons.

They had glass jars filled with all different flavors of macaroons

that they seem to switch up everyday. We tried the chocolate lavender,

the vanilla, hazelnut, pistachio, and coffee. Coffee was by far my favorite.

The chocolate lavender tasted a little too soapy for me.

We went out to the water to enjoy our treats.

They look like they will be kinda crunchy or hard,

but when you bite into them they are soft and chewy. Love the texture.

The cookies were good, but he's my favorite treat :)

Too cheesy? Haha, probably.

The Bush Man

Mom wanted to go to Fisherman's Wharf so we walked down and

came across the bush man again! The last time we

were here we didn't get his picture, so I was happy to get it now.

So the bush man is this guy who just sits behind these

branches and waits for people to walk by so that he can scare them.

Sometimes his victims laugh, sometimes they scream, other times they

pay him, or often they hurry by even faster because they didn't appreciate

being taken by surprise. A few weekends ago when Taylor and I saw

the bush man we stopped to watch and found it really entertaining.

What a creative way to earn a few bucks. We said that we didn't

understand how he scared so many people, and that if it were us, we didn't

think he would surprise us. Do you know where I'm going with this?

If you guessed that later that day both Taylor and I fell for the

bush man's antics, you were right. Seriously?! Even after we knew

about it and watched him?! Stupid bush man. In our defense,

he did change sides of the walk way.

Mom and Dad Williams hanging out on Pier 39.

We had some great weather this weekend.

On our way back to the car we saw this so Taylor

wanted to stop and check it out. We thought a parade maybe?

Wrong. The police were trying to get these

people out of the streets because they were blocking traffic.

Occupy San Francisco movement. Not a fun parade.

And luckily I stopped taking pictures in time. There happened to

be a few men that thought clothing was optional. Only in San Francisco.

I love this city, but could do without that. I just don't see

the point of that. And between you and me, one of the guys should

of seriously considered keeping his pants on. Embarrassing! And really gross.

That night we had pizza at the Cheeseboard Collective and took it

to our roof top to enjoy the view. We love this place because they use

really good ingredients, have a thin sourdough crust, and serve

only one type of pizza a day. It changes everyday, so you never know

what you're going to get. Well, unless you look it up online. Tonight's

pizza was heirloom tomatoes, with different types of cheeses, herbs, and

garlic olive oil. Greasy perfection.

I love that they always throw an extra slice on top.

The next day we took a drive to Marin County to go on a nice walk.

We ended up driving to Muir Woods National Monument.

It was so pretty and relaxing.

(I love this picture of my mom with Tay. She loves him so much, it's really cute.)

On our drive we stopped to take a picture. The iphone didn't do

this scene justice, but it was so beautiful. Its hard to see it in the

picture, but that is the ocean there. It was really sparkly and oh so

pretty. Did I mention I LOVE living near the ocean again?

Well, I do.

For a late lunch we ate at Sol Food in San Rafael. It was recommended

to me by my new friend Mackenzie. And after we ate here, I told

her that she was now officially my friend because she has great

taste in food! It was sooo good. Puerto Rican food is amazing!

The place was packed and we ended up sharing a table with

this guy who says he eats here a couple times a week.

Its that good.

Taylor's meal:

Puerto Rican-style tamale, pulled pork, mixed greens and spicy rice.

My meal: Pollo Al Horno

Marinated chicken with a sweet and crunchy plantain,

mixed greens, rice and the most delicious black beans I've ever had.

Seriously so good. It was very flavorful and light.

Their limeade was delicious!

The decor was very fun too. Lots of color.

After that we went to Sausalito to walk around.

My parents love it there. Pretty views of the city.

On their last day there we walked around Union Square.

They had the Christmas tree up and it made me so excited!

I can't believe the holidays are already here! Eeeeeek! I'm

listening to Christmas music as I'm typing right now actually

and I already have some Hallmark Christmas movies

recorded on my dvr. I'm getting prepared :)

The End

Just Call Us Lucky

2011-11-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

Weekend #5: This weekend Taylor and I felt like we hit the jack pot. A few times. And it was awesome. Now when I say "jack pot" I'm referring to some delicious food (of course) and some really great deals while shopping. So here's what we did, what we ate, and what we bought:

Friday Night: The Rose Garden

We started off the weekend by packing a picnic and taking a walk to Berkeley's Rose Garden. Obviously we've missed the rose season from the looks of this picture. Or have we? When is it? Spring? I guess if I have all those questions I shouldn't say 'obviously' :) Anyway, it was fun eating dinner there with great views of the gardens and of the bay. From where we were sitting we could see the Golden Gate Bridge. It's just so pretty here! I still have to pinch myself from time to time to remind myself that I do live here. I love it! It's beautiful, has great weather (so far), and we just feel like this is where we are suppose to be. Life is good. After we ate we took a walk-- we've started to take walks every night after dinner-- it's a fun way to get a look at all the different neighborhoods here.

Saturday: Further Exploration in San Fran

Yes, we already walked around Chinatown, but I didn't get to eat some dim sum like I wanted! And we didn't get dim sum this day either because Taylor has been wanting to try his dad's favorite Chinese place called Hunan Home's. But don't worry I have a place all picked out for next time :)

The food here was tasty, not my favorite, but good. There was loads to choose from, some seemed more authentic than others.

Here's what we ate:

Won ton soup.

(This was my favorite. Great flavor.)

Spicy Prawns with green beans.

We ate it with brown rice, not white :)

We also ordered some vegetable chow mein, which was good.

At the end of the meal we opened our very authentic Chinese fortune cookies ;)

Mine seemed very fitting for my phase in life right now:

Union Square (again):

Who knew I liked shopping so much? After we ate, we walked over to Union Square to find Taylor some running shoes. We found a really cool pair on sale for half price! Jack pot #1 ! We shopped around some more for ideas for Christmas. I LOVE this time of year! And I love Union Square shopping! You can find anything and everything here. Though some of the stores are a bit pricey. Chanel anyone? Ahh, someday :)

The Civic Center:

It was a little chilly out, but nothing we can't handle! The architecture of these old buildings and statues were really cool. Makes me want to go to Europe, really badly.

The iPhone:

I just got this thing and here we were learning how to take our self portraits :)

I love this phone. With all the exploring we do, it's nice to have a gps with us!

Oh, and a word of caution. Stay away from the Tenderloin district, unless you are in a secure car just driving through. We have been doing everything on foot so that we don't have to deal with parking, but we have learned our lesson to look into where we're going BEFORE we go. This was the first time I actually felt scared. We put our heads down and booked it out of there! Good thing we've been exercising! :)

More Shopping: Jack pot #2

Superdry had a Super sale! Merry (early) Christmas to us :)

This picture is just a place holder :) So like I mentioned previously, we did some shopping in Union Square after lunch. We went to my favorite mall just to window shop and this store caught our eye. We've never heard of it before, but they have some pretty great coats. We tried some on and we both found the "coat of our dreams"! We wore them around the store trying to convince ourselves that they would be so worth the pricey price tag and that they could be our "Santa Gifts". We decided that we would wait a week and if we thought about them, then we could go back and get them. After we walked down to the Civic Center we kept talking about the coats we tried on. We NEEDED to go back and try them on one more time. This time when we walked in they announced that the whole store was on sale! I yelled out, "It's a sign!!!!!" and rushed to see if they still had my coat--they did :) However, they didn't have Tay's coat in his size anymore! But we didn't give up, the sales people found his coat in a Minnesota store and he'll be getting it on Thursday. When his comes, then I'll post pictures of us modeling our "Christmas" presents--you're welcome in advance :)

Jack pot #3: Burma Superstar!

It was my turn to pick the restaurant and I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I've read about Burma Superstar in a few blogs and books, and I was interested in trying Burmese food. So glad we did! I can already tell this place will be one of my favorites :) A little about the place: Burma shares borders with India, China, Loas and Thailand so the cuisine there is influenced by all the spices and ingredients used in those places. Though the spices and ingredients were familiar this food was unlike anything I've ever had before. I doubt that it was completely authentic, but I don't care much about its authenticity as long as its delicious and unique. And it was.

Here's what we had:

Started with the Coconut Chicken Noodle Soup

The flavors in this soup was soooo good ! Though I think I would like it better with rice instead of noodles. I topped it with chili flakes, herbs, and a squeeze of lemon. Oh my. My mouth is watering.

Next the Tea Leaf Salad:

This is a more authentic and very popular dish. I should have taken a picture before the waiter tossed it for us, but this was the most flavorful salad I've had in a very long time. And it had every texture you would want in a salad. It had fried garlic, crunchy yellow lentils, naturally sweet peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, peppers, and a fermented tea leaf that acted like the dressing. Don't let the word fermented scare you. Its delicious. This was the first salad I had to fight Taylor over :)

Last the Braised Chicken and Shrimp in yummy spices with rice.

This was kind of like a curry, but the rice was already on the bottom soaking up all the goodness from the chicken. And that chicken. Sooo moist. Soooo good.

I want to go back right now!

(It was funny, the next morning the very first thing Taylor said was, "Remember how good Burma Superstar was?" No joke. Not the best way to start fast Sunday, but I sure remembered.)

The End.

Weekend #4: Overeating and Halloween

2011-10-31T11:27:00.000-07:00

Don't those two things just go together? Well, they do in the Dicou house. I am obsessed with anything made with pumpkin, so when the month of October comes around and pumpkins and pumpkin products start to pop up everywhere, I find it near impossible to say no to some of my favorite treats. But pumpkin goodies aren't the only thing I look forward to this time of year. I am a sucker for some good chili and cornbread. Oh how I love the fall! Not only is there wonderful food, but the weather is awesome! The sun still shines, but instead of heat you get a certain crispness in the air that makes wearing a sweater so satisfying.

My love for the changing weather, chili, cornbread, and super moist pumpkin cupcakes are a couple of things I look forward to the most. So Taylor and I decided that it would be fun to make it a tradition to invite some friends over to indulge in our favorite fall eats every year around Halloween. We did this last year when we lived in Arkansas and we had a blast making new friends, stuffing our faces, and enjoying the fall weather. This year we invited my cousin and her family over to celebrate with us. We love having kids around this time of year because they make the holidays so much more fun :)

So here's what we did this holiday weekend. We started the weekend off with a tasty fall meal:

If you don't already buy your Brussels's sprouts like this, you should.

Way better value and so much more fun!

Baked sweet potato with roasted Brussels's sprouts, maple bacon,

and a drizzle of brown butter!

(We rarely eat bacon, but now I can find uncured bacon without

any nitrates or fillers so I just had to buy some!)

Saturday morning we decided to go to the Oakland Temple.

Only 14 minutes away-sure beats 4 1/2 hours!

The view from the temple: Downtown Oakland and SF in the distance.

Mormon temples sure have some prime real-estate in California!

After the temple we met some of Taylor's friends for some lunch at Fenton's

Creamery in Oakland. And when I say lunch, I really mean ice-cream.

Lets just say they have a dessert list that's longer than the lunch menu.

We shared a sandwich so that we could indulge in this beauty: Two scoops

of pumpkin ice-cream over a brownie, topped with hot fudge. I am so

embarrassed to admit this, but we finished it! IT WAS GOOD!

I think I've had my fill of pumpkin ice-cream... until next season :)

I thought I would never eat again after that ice-cream sunday, but of course

a few hours later I was ready for dinner. I really

need to get it into my head that I live here now. I'm not on vacation anymore!!!!!

We had Indian take-out and it was delicious! We set up shop on our

living room floor while we watched Darjeeling Limited. Ah, what a fun day :)

Here are a few pictures (sorry again for my camera-grrr) from our Halloween party:

We had chili, cornbread, pumpkin cupcakes all

while enjoying the view from our rooftop. The kids had a great time

running around up there while the adults continued to eat :)

Decorating the most delicious cupcakes I've ever had/baked:

Another fun-filled weekend! Good eating, good company, and great weather. Who could ask for more?

*Note: Just wanted to let you know that I AM still doing my masters in health and nutrition :) This was just "one of those" weekends :) We can't all be perfect--right? :)

Touristy Locals

2011-10-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

October 22nd marked the third Saturday that we've spent in Northern California. The first weekend we were homeless staying with my cousin, the second weekend we went to the art and pumpkin festival in Half Moon Bay, and the third weekend I'm going to tell you about now. My new blogging goal is to post every week about what we do/see/eat on the weekends here in the bay area. So here it goes...

Right now it is safe to say that we are still very much in the touristy phase of living here and I actually really like that. There are so many locals that have never been to Coit Tower, or to Lombard street, or even visited Alcatraz. We want to see and do everything here and decided to start with a few classic San Francisco spots. Here's how we spent our day (on foot) in San Francisco:

We started out by trying to find an all-day parking garage for a somewhat reasonable price. We found parking for $7, which I can't believe I'm saying this, is a really good deal! Parking in a city--actually parking anywhere in the bay area-- is insane! So we parked in the financial district, right by Pier 1, and walked from Pier 1 down to Fisherman's Wharf (Pier 39, I believe), where we stopped to take pictures and have some lunch:

Fisherman's Wharf:

Lunch at Boudins:

It's tradition in my family to get clam chowder in a

sourdough bread bowl when you go to Fisherman's Wharf,

so that's what we did. Well, Taylor did and I got a sandwich

and salad because it was so hot that day!

80 degrees in San Francisco is almost unheard of :)

Alcatraz:

We didn't do the tour that day because we have family

coming in November, so we thought we would wait

and take them there.

The Famous Seals:

They sure were lazy. They need to take some lessons

from their cousins at Sea World and entertain us! Geesh.

Next stop was Ghirardelli Square. We walked around. Got some chocolate. Then some ice-cream. Then we sat down by the water to enjoy the nice weather and to rest our tired feet:

Ghirardelli Square:

Rich Chocolate and Coffee (flavored) Ice-Cream

Nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge:

Next, we walked down Columbus Avenue to see where that would lead us. We saw Lombard street and decided to "hike" to the top. If you haven't walked the hilly streets of San Francisco then you won't really understand. Some of the streets here are insanely steep. It almost feels like you're walking up a wall. The steepness of this particular street is what made it famous. They created these switchbacks to lessen the incline for the cars driving down. Our pictures don't really do any of these places justice--I really need to get a new camera, and maybe some photography lessons :)

I really loved all the hydrangeas that lined this street.

And no, its not your eyes, this picture is burry :/

The view from the top of Lombard street.

You can see Coit tower and the Bay Bridge.

Next, we walked around North Beach. Its kinda like little Italy. Lots of restaurants and cafes. We will definitely be going back to eat at some restaurants they have here :)

Big cathedral at Washington Square:

Taylor on Taylor street:

(And that's not a man purse--he's a really nice husband and carried my bag for me because it was heavy :) )

After North Beach we hit China Town. It was fun seeing how different all the neighborhoods are. I have a long list of places I want and need to eat here. I have been craving dim sum for months now! We were planning on eating dinner there, but we were still full from lunch and ice-cream--poor planning on our parts :(

Our last San Fran stop for the day was Union Square! I love all the shopping here :) They have a really nice mall where I purchased some comfy Toms to walk home in :)

Back to Berkeley we went to meet Taylor's friend, Riley, for dinner. Taylor and I have a long list of places to eat so we decided now was a great time to cross one off the list. We chose Cactus Taqueria because everything there is made from scratch with no artificial ingredients or fillers (for me) and pretty darn cheap (for Taylor)! We shared the crispy tacos, which they're known for and 3 different types of tamales. They were all very yummy. Their food tasted really fresh and homemade, which I'm a big fan of. The atmosphere was okay--felt like a cafeteria, but who can complain with their prices. I forgot to take a picture of the meal-sorry :/

That's all for now. Stay tuned for weekend #4-Halloween :)

We Moved!!!!

2011-10-21T09:06:00.001-07:00

WARNING: A LOT OF WRITING (This post is wordy for journaling purposes :)

First, a little catch up:

Over the past few months we've been doing the same old thing. Taylor works and I work on my masters and sub during the school months. This summer we just hung out. We both got into yoga for a while. It was really fun doing that together :) I went to California in July to visit my niece and nephew, Paige and Donnie, because I never get to see them. I hate that our holiday rotations are off. Anyway, it was fun hanging out with them and my sisters. It felt like the good ol' days hanging out at beach and living in my bathing suit :) Then in August, we were planning a trip to Chicago, but had to get Taylor's wisdom teeth out and I had to get a colonoscope because my doctor gave me a scare that I might have cancer. I don't thankfully. What a jerk. Anyway, that's what we did this summer. Now to the good stuff . . .

So. Its been a few months since I've posted anything and there's a reason. Over the last few months we've been looking around at other places to work/live because we felt like we needed a change. A change in pace, a change in scenery, and a change in attitude. I enjoyed moving to Northwest Arkansas because it felt like an adventure moving to a different part of the country where we knew absolutely no one. Taylor and I really became our own family there and I wouldn't change that experience for anything. We were also able to buy a new house, we lived in a great ward, and I was able to work on my masters and substitute teach while Taylor had a great job at the Walmart home office. But towards the beginning of February of this year both Taylor and I decided that our time in Arkansas needed to come to an end. It never really felt quite like home to us.

Shortly after Taylor started his new job search, he got quite a few responses and interviews. We wanted to stay with Walmart and move to their .com offices in Northern California, but that didn't work out. It wasn't until the middle of August that we got something that felt right to us. We (I guess I should say Taylor) were offered a position at Del Monte foods in San Francisco. I was so excited that I wanted to tell everyone, but seeming how we hadn't informed our current employer yet I had to keep it to myself. So that's why I have been avoiding my blog. I was afraid I would blurt it out!

Everything about the new job and moving to San Francisco was exciting and just felt right. San Francisco has always been my favorite city, so I was thrilled that I would now be calling it home! September is now a blur to me. We had a lot to do in just a short time. We had planned on starting the new job at the beginning of November to give us time to do something with our house. Long story short (I might be using that phrase a lot) we ended up moving our start date to October 10th. I took a VERY short trip with my dad to the bay area to find a place to live and it was a lot more difficult than I had imagined. Oh how I wished that we had unlimited funds! :) Facing the reality of just how expensive this area is wasn't that fun, but I kept telling myself it would be worth it (and it has been so far!). I had found my dream location in Berkeley, but it was a little out of our budget and wasn't available until the end of October, so we settled on a place in Emeryville, located between Berkeley and Oakland.

*Side note: During that short trip I took to look for housing I was able to celebrate my dad's birthday with him. He is one of my best friends and I love him so much! He really helped to keep my stress level in check-- I am one lucky girl to have a dad like him :) We also ate at a great pizza place in the "gourmet ghetto" in Berkeley that I'll write more about in another post.

When I got back to Arkansas we had a lot to do, but things just started to fall into place. We found a renter the day I posted our house for rent. We took my car to the dealership to see what we could get for it and sold it there on the spot. We sold a lot of our furniture for the price we payed for it--score! :) And we were all ready to go in about 2 days time.

Taylor and I left as quietly as we came into Northwest Arkansas. We had arrived in the middle of the night on December 31, 2009 and the two of us unloaded our moving truck without any help. And that's exactly how we left. Lets just say, next time I move, I'm hiring movers. I'm getting too old to be lifting couches!

Day 1: So I said that everything was just "falling into place" and "felt right". Well, it seemed I had jinxed us. The morning we were going to start our 30+ hour drive across the country, we had some trouble with our trailer. We managed to break it. Long story short, it took us 3 hours to get the problem fixed and we still had a 12-15 hour drive to our first destination--Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Though we started the trip on a bad note, we ended up having a pretty good day. We made it to New Mexico without any problems and were able to find a decent motel-always a plus :) The next morning went a lot smoother, except for the fact that I felt like crap. Great. Now I'm getting sick?! I guess I wasn't surprised. No sleep and high stress will do that to you. So on our way out of Albuquerque, we found a Whole Foods and it was the highlight of the trip! I was so happy that I literally skipped from the truck to the front door. I made my way to the vitamin section and the lady working there introduced me to a vitamin called, Wellness Formula. I took it a couple times throughout the day, along with Emergen-C, and sucked on zinc and vitamin C lozenges and I was cured! Seriously. If you ever feel like you're getting sick take those vitamins. (They smell insanely gross because they have bee pollen in them, but the smell doesn't linger in your month--I promise :)

Anyway, day two of the trip was to get to Los Angeles. Another long day, but getting an early start really helped. We made it to my parents (a free place to stay--yay!) just in time to see my brother Sean and his family. Turned out they were visiting and were suppose to be leaving the day we got there, but they were nice enough to stay an extra day so that we could see them. Apparently I hadn't realized that Taylor hadn't seen my family in one month shy of a year! They really missed him and its quite cute seeing how excited my dad is to see Taylor.

Day three of our trip was spent hanging out because we needed a break from driving. We slept in. Ate. Ate some more. Eating is all we do when we hang out with Sean and Erin. I love it. Sushi and Stone Fire were great like always. I love seeing Sean and Erin's kids. They are getting so big and I wish we lived closer to them so that I could play with them more. But I'll take what I can get! Here's some pictures:

Little Miss Riley. She is so funny. Everyone in my family says that she reminds them of me especially with no clothes on. (That's because she is quite the little chunk, just like I was :) ) I'll take it as the highest compliment though because she is so dang cute!

Max. He is one of the happiest babies around. You just smile at him and he smiles right back. This picture speaks for itself--isn't he cute? I love that hat :)

Day four of our trip was driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco!!!!! We were excited to be going "home"! That afternoon we arrived at our new apartment complex in hopes of getting the keys and moving in. In a perfect world, or in anyone else's world, that probably would have happened. However, we don't seem to be that lucky. We get to our place. They showed us the apartment--third floor, no elevators like they promised on the phone, and very old. Not at all what they showed me when I visited the place just the week before. They showed me the room in the remodeled building with, and I quote, "the elevator going to every floor to make moving in much easier." This wasn't the place they had promised, so we asked if they had anything else and they said they didn't have anything for a few more weeks. We told them we would spend the night in a hotel and see if we could find something else. They quickly had a change of plans and said they luckily had one apartment on the ground level and that it would be ready in 2 days. Funny how things change so quickly :)

Both Taylor and I felt good about taking the next day to look around to see if anything else had opened up since I was there last week. I took Taylor to all the places that I went to the previous week and unfortunately they were still all full until about November or December, which obviously wouldn't work for us. Just for fun, I took Taylor to the apartment in Berkeley that I liked the most. He loved it too of course. Did I mention it had a roof top with an incredible view of Berkeley and San Francisco with views of both the Bay bridge and the Golden Gate bridge? Did I also mention that this apartment complex was on top of a Trader Joes? In Downtown Berkeley just minutes away from everything?! And it's only a year old? Anyway, we asked the manager if there were any openings and he said not until the end of October. We told him our situation, and he said that he would ask the tenant that was moving out at the end of October if she could move out any earlier. He didn't seem hopeful, but he said he would give us a call as soon as he asked her.

By the end of that day, we were feeling a little bummed that we couldn't find anything, so we decided to go with our original apartment in Emeryville. We said that this was just going to be a temporary living situation. We went to fill out the paperwork and when it came time for payment they wanted a money order. So we had to go and open a new bank account and long story short our money order needed to wait a day to be cleared. We then explained to the apartment manager our money order situation and he wouldn't let us move in until he had it in his hand. That left us homeless for one more day. The more I was thinking about it, the more that place and their management felt wrong to me. Just as we were about to turn in our lease to secure our apartment, I get a phone call from our dream apartment in Berkeley saying that the tenant could be out in 2 days!!! Yay!!!!! I was so excited that we would be living in a place we liked, in an area we liked. No wonder the Emeryville apartment complex wasn't working out--it wasn't meant to be I guess.

Though we were excited, it left us without a place to stay for the 2 days, plus 2 more days to prepare the apartment. We didn't want to pay to stay in a hotel for that long, so I called my favorite cousin growing up, Mary-Anne, who just moved up here a few months ago, to see if we could stay with her and her family for a few days. She said yes, thankfully, and not only let us stay there for a few days, but gave up their bedroom for us! What a host :) It was fun spending time with her and her cute family. Mare said that staying with her four kids would be a good form of birth control, but it did the opposite for Taylor. He always said that he wanted one or two kids. Now his number has changed to three or four! Who knew :)

So we had our life packed in our moving truck and parked at the rental truck drop off in Oakland (parking is a nightmare here, so we were glad they were willing to help us out). All we had was a little suit case that we had been living out of for the past week or so. All in all we were just glad to have a real bed to sleep in and that we finally found an apartment that we loved! For the next few days we hung out with my cousins, the Bedke family. We went shopping for Taylor's first-day-of-work outfit and drove around San Fran to get the feel for where Taylor would be working.

While in San Francisco, we stopped at my favorite place--The Ferry Building Marketplace (Pier One). This place is incredible. They have all these gourmet shops, cafes, eateries, and on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday they have a huge Farmer's Market. Heaven.

This is the first place we ate at in San Francisco, on our way to Mary-Anne's house in Pacifica. This place has really good burgers, hot dogs, and fries all made with local ingredients, like grass-fed beef (no nitrates or fillers in their hot dogs!)

Isn't my husband cute?

Don't mind the beard. That's his homeless look :)

That Sunday before Taylor's first day of work we drove to Golden Gate Park and walked around where we found a spot where people came to roller skate and roller blade. They made their own rink and everything. They even provided some music. It was fun to watch the old ladies get out there and show their moves. I was impressed.

After the park we went down towards the Presidio

where lots of people were gathered to watch the air show.

My little baby's first day of school, I mean work :)

I love that he lets me do stuff like this. His mom trained him well.

Taylor seemed to love his first day of work. The building was awesome, people were nice, etc. Seemed to be a good move :) Thankfully!!!! On Taylor's second day of work, they let him take a half day so that we could move into our apartment, which was really nice. We signed all of our paperwork and were official! We were home free! Almost. And you thought that the drama was over. Not with luck like ours!

So. We park our rental truck in the loading/unloading zone which has a 10 minute time limit--this town is crazy about parking! So we had to move fast and be constantly moving so we wouldn't get a ticket. We unloaded some boxes onto this dolly my dad made us and we took it up the elevator right up to our door and I said, "Wow, that was easy! This is going to take us no time!" I really should learn not to say things like that. We go back to the truck to do another load, where we load up the dolly again and bring it back to the elevator. When I go to press the 'up' button the fire alarm goes off. The elevators shut down. The power turns off in the entire building. Just great.

Our manager finds us and says that the power has gone off in the entire block and will be turned on in a few hours. Fabulous. We had only 4 hours to get our rental truck back to Oakland before it closes or we would be charged another day for the truck, which isn't cheap. So we had to move in the old fashion way and carry our stuff up 3 flights of stairs. Pretty ironic, huh? Three flights of stairs was one of the reasons we didn't want to move into the Emeryville apartments! So we had to take turns bringing stuff up to our apartment because we couldn't leave the truck unattended or we would get a ticket. So after doing this for a couple hours, we finally had everything out of the truck and in the lobby of our apartment complex waiting and hoping for the elevator to turn back on. I waited in the lobby with all our furniture, while Taylor took back the truck. We had quite the laugh about how things turn out. Luck was not on our side this week. On the bright side, I got to meet most of our new neighbors :) They all took pity on us, but I found it funny that not one person offered to help carry up a box or even a couch cushion for us. I mean the elevator was broken--everyone had to go up the stairs! The only help we got was from an 80 year old couple! Really? Does chivalry no longer exist in our generation? It made me a lot more aware of offering my services to others in need.

Anyway, when Taylor got back we still didn't have any power. So we bit the bullet and carried our heavy furniture up the stairs. I nearly broke my back. It took everything in me to lift it! So once we carried our sofa to our doorstep we hear the ding of the elevators now working. Hahahaha! That's all we could do--laugh! Or cry. But I chose to laugh, because of course the elevators would work now that we carried everything up three flights of stairs! Come on! We had one more load of stuff to take up and it was very nice to have the elevator working now :)

Now we are all moved in and we absolutely love it here! We have been busy trying to settle in and getting to know our area better. There's so much to do here its almost overwhelming! I'll post pictures of our apartment later. (And boy, was it a shock trying to fit a 3 bedroom house into a one bedroom apartment! Geesh!)

Now for some pictures (the reason people look at blogs) :

Here Taylor took me to his work building in the Financial District in San Francisco.

He brewed me up a cup of hot chocolate for the little tour. That was very exciting to me. A machine that not only makes coffee, but hot chocolate and herbal tea? I'm jealous :)

His much improved working space:

This a view from his seat. Not the best view, but we wanted to point out that there are windows in this place! (Can you believe that at Walmart there are no windows?!!!)

This is the view just a few floors up. Not too bad :)

You can see the Ferry Building Market Place-fun!

This is the view from the other side of the building.

On a clear day you can see the Golden Gate Bridge to the left.

Our first official-meaning we had an address to our name- Saturday in the Bay Area. We started the day by going to the farmer's market at Pier one. So wonderful! There was so much stuff to see/try/experience that I definitely will try to go back...maybe once a week? :)

All the stands and booths wrap all the way around. I didn't take that great of pictures because I was too busy looking at stuff! I'll do better next time. We sampled lots of fruits, nuts, cheeses, olive oils, etc. If you come to San Francisco you have to come here on the day of a farmer's market.

After the farmer's market we went to the Art and Pumpkin Festival in Half Moon Bay. I thought it would be busy, but I had no idea that it would be that packed! There were so many people, but it made it pretty fun. There were lots of shops/booths set up. I really went for the pumpkin treats :) and to see the world's biggest gourd of course.

The food stands were by far the busiest. We tried the pumpkin pie, the pumpkin roll, and not pictured, pumpkin ice cream. Good thing living in a city has you walking a lot!

Just a fun building there:

We meet Mare, Karl and the kids there. Here Mare's daughter got her face painted like a princess. She was very serious about it.

Well, that's all I have for now! I do better at keeping my blog updated :) I don't plan on moving anytime soon :)

Hawaii . . . Finally!

2011-06-08T06:01:00.001-07:00

I waited to go to Hawaii for 26 years and now that the trip has come and gone, I'm aching to go back and stay forever. We had a blast and were able to fit in a lot of sight seeing in the six days that we had there. The following pictures aren't in any particular order and are just a glimpse of how wonderful and beautiful this trip was. Enjoy!

(Oh, and I should warn you that I'm one of those people who go on vacations and rarely shower or put make-up on. Gross? Maybe, but I was too relaxed (and lazy) to care. )

PRETTY PICS OF PARADISE

(One of my favorite things about Kauai was all the huge trees along the roads. It made me feel like we were in Jurassic Park--did you know it was filmed here? Now you do. You're welcome.)

HIKING TO HONOPU RIDGE TO A DROP-DEAD VIEW

These pictures don't do this lookout justice. We hiked about an hour and a half to get to it and it was amazing. The clouds kept getting in the way, but they moved pretty fast.

My cute in-laws :)

THE CONDO

My in-laws decided to rent a condo for the week and it was wonderful! I loved being in a place that felt more like a home. Being able to cook our own meals was a bonus too :)

Here's a glimpse of what some of our mornings looked like. Taylor is really entertaining ;)

This was the beach we stayed near.

This was the view from our condo. Not too bad, huh?

Taylor is becoming quite the grill master. We did a lot of BBQing there, which I loved. I didn't get a picture of our actual meal, but we got some purple sweet potatoes at the farmer's market and they were the most delicious thing I've ever tasted! I wish we had them here :( What makes them so good, you ask? They don't get as mushy as regular sweet potatoes, they're sweeter, and hello, they're purple!

KAUAI'S GRAND CANYON:WAIMEA CANYON

RANDOM:

Mo, the boy on the right in the light blue shirt, was one of my favorite students of all time. I recently was thinking about him and missing my first year students. On Sunday we went to church, in one of the wards they have there in Kauai, and guess who passed me the sacrament?! Mo!!!! After sacrament meeting I chased him down, stole a hug, and nearly cried. He is HUGE now and I hate how old that makes me feel. I couldn't believe that I ran into one of my students on this tiny island! I didn't have a camera with me to take a picture of him now, but he still has the same cute face :) Oh, Mo, how I envy where you live!

THE LIGHTHOUSE

THE SPOUTING HOLE:

The Spouting Hole was under the "not-to-be-missed" section of our travel book. You can tell by our faces that it was really exciting. Below is the Spouting Hole. Now you can say you've seen it and can get on with other more exciting things :)

THE SWINGING BRIDGE:

This was another exciting attraction ;) The town was cute though. Very small with a cute farmers market.

THE BEACHES

Ke'e Beach

All these signs scared me a little. I did go into the water to snorkel for a short time, though.

TUNNELS BEACH

(Our favorite beach)

I took this picture for my dad--

Dad, I found you a place where you can retire with a little beach house to fix up!

In preparation for our Hawaii trip I watched all the beachy movies I own and even went to see Soul Surfers in the theater. If you haven't seen it, you probably still know its a true story about a surfer girl who gets her arm bitten off by a shark. It just so happens that it happened right here at Tunnels beach! Did I go in the water? Hell no!!!! I did put my feet in though :)

POIPU BEACH

(Another favorite of ours)

THE CAR

My in-laws rented a red convertible to drive around in and it was so much fun! We spent some time in the car driving to every part of the island, so being able to have the view from a convertible was wonderful.

Speed racer :)

THE ANIMALS

One of the weirdest things about Kauai is all of the chickens and roosters everywhere! What?! They are as common here as seagulls are at the beach in California, but I think they might be even more annoying. They're more ballsy trying to eat your snacks on the beach! And the way they twitch their heads freak me out.

(If you haven't already guessed, I am not an animal fan! My only exceptions are sea turtles, dolphins, and whales. And that's probably because I only see them in books, not in real life.)

Okay this guy was pretty cute too. He must be having a good dream :)

THE FOOD

Are you even surprised?

A vacation with us wouldn't be complete without hitting up some popular

and hidden food gems!

This place reminded me of my brother Sean.

This is authentic Japanese-Hawaiian cuisine: noodles in broth.

Ahh, gotta love the mystery meat in Asian cooking :) Did I eat it? No, but the noodles and the broth were really tasty.

After eating a hot lunch, on a hot day we needed to cool off. This was just one of the many Hawaiian shaved ice we ate there. This place had the most real-tasting flavors.

This place is located in Hanalei, one of our favorite little towns there. We stopped here a few times and we got the shaved ice served over macadamia nut ice cream. Heaven.

And if you were wondering, yes. Yes, I abandoned my healthy eating while on this trip and enjoyed every bite! I'm paying for it now, though :(

We did some of our grocery shopping at the farmers market, which I highly recommend. Its fun to try new fruits and veggies.

These are called apple bananas and they were so tiny and cute. A lot sweeter than regular bananas.

This was some sort of apple, or so they said. It was incredibly sour and bitter. Yuck. I threw mine off a cliff while hiking.

Thanks to my brother, Sean, we knew about this place. I was a little sad eating here without him, but after one bite I got over it ;) A very unique hot dog experience.

This menu teaches you how to order your Puka dog.

And here's how you enjoy your Puka dog.

And here's a close up of the Puka dog. It may look a little obscene, but its really good. There are 3 sauces you pick. Mine has a spicy jalapeno-garlic sauce, pineapple relish, and Hawaiian mustard. Taylor got his with mango relish.

THE LAST DAY :(

Not pictured here, but we took some time to watch some surfers.

We went on a fun bike ride along the coast.

Grabbed a burger at Bubba's. It was apparently the hang out of Robert Downey Jr. while filming Tropic Thunder. Another fun fact for you :) Don't worry, this post is almost over...

Here we are realizing that vacation is almost over. We were pretty depressed.

Our last evening on the beach :(

(I might have just teared up typing that last sentence--I miss the ocean so much!)

THE END

3 years ago today...

2011-06-06T06:25:00.001-07:00

I was preparing to get married! I can't believe its been 3 years already. I can't get over how much we've grown up and grown together. Marriage has been the best thing that's happened to me and I can't wait for what the future holds.

Feeling a little sentimental I spent some time looking over all my wedding pics this morning...

We sure are cute, don't you think? :)

Joplin

2011-06-06T06:08:00.000-07:00

On the weekend of May 28th -29th, our ward asked all of the willing and able men to volunteer their time to help serve the people of Joplin, Missouri who were hit by a devastating tornado the week before. Taylor signed up and was really happy to be able to help. Though the days were long and there was an overwhelming amount of work to be done, Taylor was grateful for the experience. He said it was really eye-opening and heart breaking. He took some pictures of where he worked:

Living in tornado country has been really interesting for us, and by interesting I mean freaking scary! I'm counting down the days where we can move to a place with less severe weather :) The only kind of weather I want to deal with is sunshine where the only worry is having enough sunscreen.

My Birthday

2011-05-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

This was the first year that I wasn't excited about my birthday. For some reason, the difference between 26 and 27 seems huge to me! I am not looking forward to saying that I'm now 27 years old. Where the freak did my 20's go?! Another reason I wasn't looking forward to my birthday was because it meant that my Hawaiian vacation was now officially over. We had sooo much fun relaxing in Kauai enjoying the beach and sunshine (pictures coming soon) that it was really hard to leave. After being in paradise, coming home to the "real world" completely sucked. I didn't like Arkansas that much before I left, so having to take 3 planes and nearly a whole days worth of travel time to get back to this tornado-filled state, didn't make me a happy camper.

I really wasn't expecting anything for my birthday this year and I would have been perfectly fine if Taylor had completely forgotten about it. But because I have the best husband in the whole world, he not only remembered my birthday, but even managed to make me excited about birthdays again --even though I'm 27. I just can't get used to that number. Seriously? I'm 27? Anyway. . . I woke up to this baby . . .

a Vitamix!!!!!!

I have been wanting one of these beauties for years now, but figured I wouldn't get one till I was old and grey! (27 may sound old to me, but I would like you to know that I still don't have any grey hairs yet! Thank Heavens!!!)

Taylor took about 20 pictures of me playing around with this thing. All my b-day pictures are of me in a nightgown at 6:45 in the morning! (And yes, I wear nightgowns, and I love them. So there. Perhaps I'm turing 80 instead of 27?)

After I opened up my Vitamix, Taylor emptied out our freezer and told me to start playing with it! I played with it all morning long! It is now my new favorite thing and I think everyone should have one.

This awesome gift would have been enough to keep me happy all the way through Christmas and on through my next five birthdays, but Taylor didn't stop there. He took me to lunch and gave me this:

Homemade cards are my very favorite thing. It's a little hard to read it, but its a picture of me with my new Vitamix teaching Martha Stewart how to use it and she's singing my praises saying that I'm cooler than her. (You might think that this drawing is very elementary and you would be right, but believe it or not, he has improved! At least I have clothes on in this card :)

Inside this super cute card, I found that Taylor is signing me up for cooking classes and got us tickets to go see Guy Fieri (the Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives guy)! I am completely obsessed with cooking/eating/health if you haven't already guessed. I am so excited to go take official classes to teach me how to be a better cook!

This was one of my favorite birthdays. We ended the day with me making soup in the Vitamix (yeah-you can make soup in this thing!!!) and then going to see a movie. Hawaii and then a super fun birthday? Yeah, I'm one lucky girl :)

Healthy Cooking

2011-05-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

I just found out that I was a runner up in a recipe contest I entered last summer. Though I didn't win the grand prize of 600 bucks my recipe still made it into the magazine! They sent me the issue and informed me I won a free subscription--fun! :) Sure enough on page 33 I found my healthy recipe along with my name and place of residence. (It still weirds me out that I live in Bentonville, Arkansas.) Maybe you should pick up a copy and try it out?!

Here's the issue: June/July 2011