Sarah visits / Our Spa Day Adventure

My best friend in the world Sarah came out to visit for three and a half days in February and it was sooo wonderful to see her, and to show her a California good time. I had a packed itinerary planned for us, and after I picked her up from the airport we headed straight to Picchetti Winery for a wine tasting to set the mood. She arrived a bit shaken due to a crazy windstorm that caused her flight to have a scary rough landing, and at the winery we watched out the windows as strong winds blew the trees sideways.

All the craziest things always happen to her, so it was only fitting that she brought crazy weather with her.

We went out for a Mexican feast her first night at Vive Sol, which sounded like it would have delicious food and margaritas. The food lived up to the hype but unfortunately the drinks were bad, fake and too-sweet, which was disappointing. We filled up on yummy food anyway and rolled ourselves back home.

strawberry cupcake from Sprinkles Cupcakes

Our most memorable and hilarious day was Thursday, our spa day. I had gotten a groupon to Fremont Day Spa for the two of us to get massages, facials and body scrubs. We arrived and were shown to a small room with two beds in it - for us. Apparently we were getting a couples massage! This was unexpected, but we laughed and were game. A woman and a man came in to do the massages, and the woman asked us which of them we preferred to massage us. The man evidently did not speak a word of English. We indicated it didn't matter to us, so the woman went to Sarah and I had the man, and they started our massages.

I had a very thorough full body massage with extra emphasis on my buttocks and thighs, and then we flipped over onto our backs, while staying covered under the blankets. The next step was the body scrub. The woman proceeded to uncover all the parts that would get the scrub - arms, legs, and belly - and I asked her to please cover my belly back up, I did not want my belly scrubbed. Arms, legs and chest would be fine. It did not take long to conclude that the body scrub was a terrible idea. It was quite chilly in the air conditioned room and as our masseuses scrubbed us all over, all our exposed and now-wet skin grew ice cold and we began to shiver.

Next, we were supposed to go shower all the scrub off before beginning our facials. The woman asked Sarah, "you and your friend, go shower together?"
"There's just one shower?" asked Sarah. The woman confirmed there was one."We'll take turns," she said, and the woman gave us robes to wear, and Sarah went to take her shower first. I lay in the room, freezing and shivering, and waited til she came back to go take my shower. The hot water thawed me out, thankfully.

Then we lay in the room, covered up with blankets again, warm and comfortable, to wait for the facialist, a different woman, to come in. We laughed and laughed at the tiny shower where we were supposed to go shower together. There wasn't even room for two people to shower at once! "We could have taken turns rinsing each other off," we laughed.

The facial was my favorite part of our spa day; the woman did a great job and my skin felt soft and smooth and wonderful afterward, although she did make some interesting comments. After we indicated it had been a while since either of us had had a facial, she said "You're lucky you're still young!" and had a good chuckle.

We made sure to leave good tips for our masseuses and facialist and then we got back in the car and died laughing all the way home about our bargain spa day, featuring a couples' butt massage, freezing body scrub and single shower.

The rest of the weekend was relaxing, fun and uneventful - we got our nails done, went shopping, had cupcakes, worked out at the gym, ate Oren's hummus, walked around Stanford campus and the art museum, had the mimosa sampler at Local Union 271, went to a chocolate tasting downtown that her husband Ben bought for us, had ice cream cookie sandwiches at CREAM, and got to catch up on life. Having so much girl time was a revelation; I don't get nearly as much since we moved out here and I miss it SO MUCH. I'm so happy Sarah was able to get away for a long weekend to come visit and we'll always have our spa day to look back and laugh about. I love and miss her so much!!

chocolate tasting

Nana visit and the Superbowl

We were so excited to kick off February with a quick visit from Nana, who we miss so much! She flew in on Thursday night and Valerie and I went to pick her up (and give Daddy a night to himself) and then to Pacific Catch for dinner, just us girls. It was a pretty late dinner for Valerie, I think we got there at 8 or 8:15. She was starving, and our server kindly brought us some goldfish and edamame to snack on while we waited for our food. Valerie scarfed the goldfish and a few edamame and asked for more, but we managed to hold her off.

Fish sticks are one of her favorite dinners at home, so we ordered the kids' fish 'n chips for her. Naturally, she wanted nothing to do with the fried fish. She went straight for the steamed broccoli and gobbled most of it up. What kid bypasses fried fish and sweet potato fries (both of which she loves) and goes straight for steamed broccoli??? Sometimes I wonder how she is my child. But hey, no complaints from me!! I can never predict what she will eat on any given day. There's no end to the surprises.

We had a delicious salmon sandwich, ahi tuna poke and coconut shrimp, and then the macadamia nut brownie with coconut ice cream for dessert. And vanilla ice cream for Valerie, of course. She was soooo happy to have Nana here to see her!

Friday morning Nana took Valerie to Target and Kohl's for new shoes while I squeezed in a workout, and then we took her to school for her nap so Mom and I could get lunch at Oren's Hummus. We lucked out again with a beautiful sunny afternoon to sit outside and roll around in hummus and pitas, and it was so nice to have time to catch up just the two of us.

Nana very generously offered to stay home with Valerie that night so Rich and I could go out to dinner just the two of us. We considered this our date night for Valentine's Day since we were going to be in Tahoe with a group on the actual day. We went to Scratch in Mountain View for cocktails and dinner and it was wonderful. The truffle mushroom pizza lived up to the hype, and I had a hard time choosing what to order from all the lovely vegetarian options. I ended up going with brussels sprouts and a salad and Rich had the lobster pot pie. The truffle pizza and cocktails, and of course the company, were the highlights in the end. I shouldn't have ordered the brussels sprouts; let me not forget that this is not Boca. I have to learn to stop trying to get brussels sprouts other places.

Saturday morning we made delicious lemon curd pancakes with raspberry syrup and mimosas for breakfast, and then we all ventured out to Half Moon Bay and Pescadero for the day. We stopped at Lemos Farm for Valerie to take a pony ride, and then for lunch at Romesco Bistro & Tapas, where we ate some of the most beautifully presented tapas I have ever seen. The shrimp came lit on fire and every plate was an absolutely dazzling display of color.

lemon curd pancakes with raspberry syrup and mimosas... mmmm!

riding the pony at Lemos Farm

crab stuffed avocado at Romesco Bistro

crab stuffed piquillo peppers

Pescadero State Beach

pretty but so cold!

we found a little wood hideout on the beach

 Then we made our way to Pescadero Beach. It was quite chilly in the wind. The sun was shining down and felt nice further inland, but in the cold wind coming off the water I could barely stand the chill. We hung out on the beach as long as we could stand it and then headed back up to Half Moon Bay for dinner on the patio at Half Moon Bay Brewing Co. We were so looking forward to enjoying their outdoor patio under heat lamps! Unfortunately, they had recently nailed all the heat lamps down so people would stop hoarding them around one table, and since we could only sit close to one heat lamp, only one or two of us would be warm. We had to move inside. On the bright side, they sat us next to the fish tank so Valerie got to watch the clownfish swim around while we waited for dinner, and dinner was delicious.

We had such a great visit with Nana and took her back to the airport the next morning.

That day was the Superbowl live from Santa Clara, just a few minutes away. We drove north, away from Santa Clara and up to San Francisco to watch the Broncos defeat the Panthers with biodesign friends. Alesandro and Christina hosted at their sweet pad in the Mission, streamed the game on their projector and grilled burgers and hot dogs, and also demonstrated their voice-controlled Alexa device for us, which was entertaining. Justin and Aly brought Doritos, and I made guacamole and made the earth-shaking discovery that Doritos and guacamole are amazing together. We had a lot of fun watching the game, the commercials and the halftime show, which I especially loved as a Coldplay fan. The night was perfectly topped off with Bi-rite ice cream. A great end to a great weekend!

Winter in the Bay

We don't have much exciting to report from the second half of January. It was chilly for outdoor activities and still getting dark soon after 5 pm. We attempted to meet Kalinda for a play date at a park one Saturday but got chased inside by rain and ended up hanging at the Billy Beez indoor playground at the Oakridge mall. The girls did have a blast there. It's always hard to say goodbye when it's time to go home.

The January book club meeting featuring tacos, St Germain sangria and lots of brownies, cookies and toffee was a great success.

We got to have lunch and dinner with our friend Mark while he was in town for work and also meet his sister Lynn, which was fun.

I joined the JCC, which I am loving so far. They have a great class schedule, and I have done yoga, pilates/yoga fusion, step, interval, and core blast classes. Doing step again is a blast from the past; I hadn't taken a step class in forever. I still need to try the dance/zumba, bodypump and other classes. I've been doing stronglifts again, and also started taking Valerie to the indoor pool once a week to play, which she loves. I'm planning to enroll her in swim lessons for March and April, which I am hopeful will help her gain confidence in the water. As it is she clings to me even in two feet of water. I think she will get a lot out of lessons.

We found that the orange tree in our backyard was producing incredibly delicious, tart, juicy oranges and enjoyed eating those while they lasted. A lot of the flowers in our yard and around the neighborhood also started blooming thanks to all the rain. The seasons are so different here, with some plants and trees going dormant and shedding leaves for the winter, and others blooming and looking the most radiant.

the peonies (?) in our front yard are gorgeous!

 

this tree on our street was ablaze with bright yellow blooms for a while, really striking.

 Valerie's obsession with all flowers and plant life continues, and her great love is for dandelions. She loves the yellow ones and the fluffy white "seed head" ones as well. Our walks to school are extended due to stopping to look at, pluck, touch and play with all the dandelions we see along our route. She also likes to tell me she's going to give this or that dandelion to whoever she is thinking about that day. Most often she's "going to give this dandelion to Caiya (her friend at school) or Kalinda" but sometimes it's one of her cousins or friends from Cincinnati.

She loves all flowers, but I won't let her pluck the actual flowers from people's yards, so it makes sense that she loves being allowed to pluck dandelions. She also collects clover and other flowering weeds, sticks, leaves, fallen blooms, and anything else that looks interesting, before immediately discarding and then stomping on whatever she has discarded.

a dandelion to give to Kalinda

We enjoyed lots of family movie nights this winter when we were stuck in the house after dark. Since we only have a small love seat in front of the TV, Rich had the brilliant idea to construct "mega couch" by putting 4 dining chairs in front of the love seat for our feet and using blankets to hold it all together. It has the feel of being all snuggled up together in a cozy blanket fort, and is best with his special recipe for stove-popped popcorn with herbs or truffle oil. 

mega couch!

We completed Disney boot camp, which entailed watching all the Disney animated movies from the library so Valerie would know the characters when we went to Disneyland at the end of February. Some of the ones we watched all together on mega couch were Inside Out, Ratatouille, Toy Story and Tangled. It's so much fun being able to watch movies together as a family. Always a good option when it's dark and/or cold outside!

 Valerie also enjoys taking her baby doll - who, she insists, is named "Baby" - just Baby!! - on walks to the park. She assures me she has packed snacks in the stroller in case baby gets hungry.

We survived January and look forward to spring; each day is a little lighter than the one before!