Girl's weekend at Tahoe!

I just got back from an awesome girl's ski weekend in Tahoe this past weekend with the ladies. We decided on Skiing at Alpine Meadows which is just one resort over from Squaw. Julie's parent's have the cutest ski cottage up in Tahoe-Donner and we stayed there. The drive up from SF took about 4 hours after we finally passed the traffic getting to the bay bridge. We picked up Julie's sister Noelle in Davis and then headed up to Tahoe. It wasn't snowing or raining so we made pretty good time. Julie's 4 wheel drive Rav 4 was perfect for the drive.

Lake Tahoe in the background

We got up early Saturday morning and drove about 15 minutes to Alpine Meadows. I had only skiied at Squaw so I was excited to try a new mountain. Alpine Meadows apparently has the most extreme skiing in the area and I did see lots of double blacks on the map. (not up close and personal =) We stuck to the blues and easy blacks and had a blast! The resort wasn't that crowded at all and all the cars behind us that morning all pulled off into Squaw's parking lot. It was a perfect sunny ski day! The snow was packed powder for the most part but in the afternoon the snow turned to a soft slush. We skiied well together and at the same pace which was nice. After lunch, I decided to go to the peak on a different lift by myself. The other girls didn't want to go up because they thought it would be too windy. I knew what wind and whiteout conditions were *really* like (think top of Whistler, Val d'sere and Squaw) so this wind I decided would be nothing. When I got off the lift at the top I was so glad I went up because the view was amazing! You could see Lake Tahoe and all the other neighboring ski resorts - it was so pretty! (See picture below) I skiied down the bowl from the top and it was great. I never felt the Sierra cement this time like I did at Squaw. What a fun ski weekend!

They also introduced me to sledding this weekend not believing I had never been! I have seen tubing on the resorts at night but have never tried it. We fired up a batch of margaritas and then head outside to the luge Julie's family dug on the side of their house in their yard. We used plastic sleds and hiked up one side and flew down the other. We dug out a few spots that ice had built up on and the finally got it perfect. We could start from the top (in their backyard) and make it all the way to their driveway. It was so fun! Of course it started snowing Sunday when we were leaving. We all agreed we had a great weekend!

Schnitzel?

Am I spelling it right? Not sure, but anyway, we went to our friend Chuck's surprise birthday party at the Schnitzel House in SF this weekend. Known to be a great German restaurant good for groups and drinking lots of beer, we all huddled inside at the big table we had reserved and popped out and scared Chuck. He, of course, in true Chuck fashion was in full motorcycle gear and *very* surprised to say the least. We all ordered different beer and Chuck drank his out of the cowboy boot glass they served him. It looked more like a lady's UG boot...

I had never had true German food before like this. I ordered the "schnitzel" not even knowing what kind of meat it was or what it would look like and Karl tried some sausage of some sort. It was all very yummy! The German potatoe dumplings and sauerkraut on the side were my fav! About half way through the night the music changed from German jingles to full on Tejano/Mexican music and we all had a good laugh. Apparently, the owner of the restaurant, some old German dude, died recently and the Taqueria next door to Schnitzel House took over. Hence the entirely Hispanic wait staff talking about shots of tequila all night and the change of music half way through. Funny. Who knew we all loved German food so much!?

what was named that night as "Heart attack on a plate" but oh, so yummy...

Later that night Chuck unveiled his latest project in his backyard- a former Radio Flyer red wagon that he welded 3 legs to which became a fireplace for smores that night. We all enjoyed lots of smores topped off with some paint fumes from the wagon.
What fun! Happy Birthday Chuck!

Hola!

It's been a while. Not much new to report here. Karl went skiing with "the guys" last weekend in Vail and they had awesome snow apparently. I'm excited for the "girls trip" to Tahoe next weekend! My friend's family has a house up in Truckee and we're making a weekend out of it. We're not sure what resort we're going to yet-Alpine Meadows, Kirkwood, Heavenly, Squaw, whew....so many to choose from! Squaw has received 6 feet of new snow in the last 3 days! yes, FEET!! I'm telling you- out here they get HUGE dumps when they do finally get snow. What that translates to in the city is usually many days of rain, rain & more rain. It has been coming down here lately. So, it looks like we'll hit it just right next weekend. Can't wait!

I've been thinking of other recipes I whip up during the week and I totally forgot my staple- Chicken Stir Fry. It's SO easy and healthy. I love how I say healthy and lately we've been chowing down on all the Girl Scout cookies my mom sent us...dangerous! Anyway, Karl just informed me that we are officially mailing in our taxes tomorrow. Hooray! (not that taxes are exciting but it's been eating up alot of evenings around here lately) After many late nights of working on them after work Karl has officially put the stamp on the envelope!

.......Good nite!

Recipe & stuff

This is another good one that's easy and healthy- Honey Mustard Chicken. We both love asparagus and couscous so it has everything you need for the meal all in one. And, since I'm procrastinating going out and running errands at the moment, I've spent the time to publish it for everyone to click on to check out. Feel special. =)

On another note, I am completely beyond sore today after 3 consecutive days of Bar Method. Yow! I came home the other night and was showing Karl some of our "moves" and he couldn't even do half of them! According to our instructor, all the running I've done has actually made my hamstring tight and not flexible at all. I've been hoping that Bar class will help them become the lean, long muscles our instructor talks about in class every day. Although I'm still not at the point of doing splits (far from it actually) I am able to see a difference in flexibility in just a couple weeks. We'll see...

And, before I sign off I wanted to share a cute article Karl sent me today. It reminded me so much of the book/movie Marley & me. Warning - it can be a tearjerker but it's so cute. Stories like these continue to remind me how I didn't grow up in a home where I was ever that close to our family dog. I can't say I know completely how these people feel but I can imagine. Hopefully, some day we can have a pup in our family........some day. =)

Our project...

If you've ever been over to our apartment you have seen the huge glass vase in our kitchen we've been collecting wine corks in for a while now. We brought some corks out from Texas that we had saved and we've added to those quite a collection from wine we've had here in California. Well, it started overflowing recently so we decided to create the framed corkboard we've been meaning to make. It was fun to dump them out, go through them one by one and try and remember where we drank the wine. There were only a handful that we could pinpoint exactly where we had it and for what occasion. It was also fun to see how much our taste had changed from the bottom of the vase to now! I guess frequent trips to Napa and exploring new wine at home with dinner helped with that! Not too long from now we'll probably have enough to make a second one! Here's the final product. It will now hang on our kitchen wall.

Valentine's Day!

So my awesome husband continued his tradition of spoiling me AGAIN this Valentine's Day. The winery that we are members at, Pine Ridge, has two major events for their wine club members- Lobster Fest in the summer and Cave Dinners. We LOVE Lobster Fest so we decided to try the cave dinner on Valentine's Day. The "Sweetheart Ball" was hosted inside the wine caves at the winery. As we expected, it was awesome! The invitation let us know the theme was a Black, White & Red Sweetheart ball and to wear our finest in any of these colors. The caves were lit entirely by candles and they had a live band playing Big Band and Swing music all night. We enjoyed seared Scallops, Duck Confit and then a Filet Mignon steak. I had been craving a steak all week so I was thrilled to see Filet on the menu! The menu was paired with Pine Ridge wine, of course, and there were waitors walking around topping off our glass all through the night. Dancing was fun and we definitely made room for the Chocolate Cake filled with caramel & marshmallow at the end. Our favorite wine we had that night ended up being the Cab Franc. Everything was great and we were happy to have tried another one of their awesome events while we can. We learned that there will be another Cave Dinner in May so maybe we'll have some visitors in town we can treat ;) Any takers?

Here are some "not so great" pictures because of tough lighting and using my point & shoot camera but at least you get the idea.....

A movie weekend!

It was due to be a rainy, cold SF weekend so we thought we'd catch up on some movies we've been wanting to see. Saturday we took a long walk around the neighborhood (as in the hilliest neighborhood in SF so I didn't feel so bad for not running because it was definitely a workout!) then we decided to go to breakfast at IHOP on Lombard. Yes, a total tourist trap but who cares. Yes, the most non-SF local brunch place in the city but sometimes we just want a cheap breakfast within 20 minutes of walking in, instead of waiting in long lines outside for the tiny local bruch spots in our hood. It was just what we wanted and we left stuffed. Yey for "Never ending pancakes!"

We then continued our walk around the neighborhood while we talked (compromised) about what movie we wanted to see. As we were approaching our street and starting our ascent up the steepest part of the hill, we see 8 cop cars parked haphazardly around the neighborhood and a fire truck attempting to make it's way up a hill so steep I think it's not going to roll straight backwards down the hill. Cops were walking all around one block and all staring up at one of the enormous 4 story Victorian houses on the street. I, of course, as a "concerned neighbor" have to ask a cop what's going on. Apparently, someone called in when they saw someone sneaking into one of the attic windows on the very top of the house. The police couldn't crawl up that high so the fire truck was in the process of sending out the ladder to the attic window. We had to stop and watch the entire procedure and "robbery in progress" as the cops called it. Just as the ladder almost reached the attic window it stopped and retracted. By this time, there was a group of us watching so I didnt' feel like the nosey neighbor. Other people were interested too. We waited and waited and nothing happened and then the family comes out of the house. A mom, a dad, who had just got home from a bike ride and about 4 boys about the age of 10. The family was home while the burglar was breaking in? Oh my gosh! Cops eventually started dissipating and no one was around to give us any answers. Well, after watching this long I had to get some answers! I called the neighborhood Police station and the dispatcher told me one of the family's sons likes to climb on the roof and is often seen going in and out of the attic window of that house. Karl called it when he saw the kids come out of the house. So, after basically causing mayhem in the neighborhood and shutting down 2 streets with about 8 cop cars and a fire truck, it ended up being a boy playing in his own house. Only in Pac Heights.

On with our day. We decided to see "Taken" since it was one of the only movies we agree on. (Side note- most of the time we never go to movies because we never really want to see the same thing and we agree to wait until we can Netflix it and then the same standoff occurs at home ;) This was actually a movie that looked interesting to both of us. Liam Neilsen played a great ex-Special Forces, protective dad but there were definitely some pretty disturbing scenes that I'm still trying to get out of my head. Overall though it was very intense and kept me awake so, good show. After the movie we went to dinner with friends at an "old school" favorite of ours that we used to eat at with the flurry team when we first moved out here, Brother's Korean BBQ. It's a fun, family style place and each table has a grill in the middle where you cook your own meat (Bul go gi) which is Korean marinated chicken and pork. Yum...It also comes with about 50 other small, Korean side dishes that are all pretty interesting. The meal is always topped off with individual bowls of cold, sweet rice water as a treat. Fun!

Sunday, we agreed, would be my day to choose the movie and I of course opted for "She's Just Not that into you" which came out Friday. All the small theaters around us had been sold out since Tuesday but I figured a Sunday matinee wouldn't be so bad. I was wrong. After meeting our friends at the theater we had to search other SF theaters for one that wasn't sold out. Good thing we had Karl's Iphone to look it up! haha. We raced to a theater downtime and bought tickets off Karl's Iphone on the way down there. Ok, ok, I'm starting to see how the Iphone is useful. (According to my husband, I still have to practice my two thumb texting skills and frustration that comes with it before I can buy one.) Fair enough. So, onto our movie rating......we're sticking with it was "just ok." It wasn't near as funny as the previews make it out to be. Sadly, the funniest moments of the movies are the ones you see in the previews. And, some parts of the movie are just sad and depressing. Think cheating, breaking up, divorcing....sorry if I ruined it for anyone but as you follow about 8 different couples, it's bound to happen, right? Overall, pretty good cast & I'm still glad we saw it.

It was fun end to a good weekend until we came home Sunday evening to find that I did indeed (sitting through the movie thinking I might have) leave the left burner of our gas stove on. I now have one, not happy, pretty cross husband :( I guess I can't even hack it as a housewife.........