Hike in Half Moon Bay

Wow, it's been awhile since I've written anything! My last post was in April....I guess we've been so busy since then that I haven't gotten around to actually posting anything. Back in May during a nice weekend, Scott and I pulled out our "100 Hikes in the Bay Area" book and flipped open to a few hikes that are close by. We went over to Half Moon Bay which is across the penninsula from San Mateo. It was a really nice weekend, although during the hike it was a bit breezy as are most coastal spots. There were also lots of sea lions just hanging out enjoying the sun! They were so cute and the California wildlife rescue was actually at one of the beaches releasing a baby back into the wild. It had gotten lost and it's mama had died so they nursed it back to health and were releasing it close to its friends and other family.

It was our first official hike of the season and as work has been slowing down for me (and is usually pretty mellow during the summer months), we will hopefully be doing a lot more of the hikes in our book - crossing them off one by one.

The way all weekends should be...

Happy Easter everyone! Last weekend was a great weekend to get out of the house. It's been off and on rainy, but in between it's really sunny and nice. One of the best reasons for living here is the weather for sure! It was about 75 with just a little breeze. Scott and I took the bikes out for a spin on Sunday. We wanted to explore the riding trail by our house and actually found out that it's part of a huge network of trails in the Bay Area that were built a long time ago. The trail by our house goes right by the lake that comes off of the bay on the East side of our complex. We took a ride along part of the trail, stopped to get a Jamba Juice (which is my biggest addiction since moving here - it's all about smoothies and juices in any flavor you could possible want), and rode on to a park that we discovered not too long ago. The park has tennis and basketball courts, softball fields and a jungle gym for kids. We attempted to play some tennis for awhile, which was a good workout, but I definitely need more practice. Then we threw around a softball for awhile so that I could break in my new mitt. I seem to have lost my old one in the move from SJ. I swore as soon as I bought a new one I'd find the old one. Still no luck yet, but my new one works just fine. I still play volleyball every week (my team plays all year round) but softball just recently started and I have to practice. Extending daylight savings time and making summer seem longer was the best idea the government has ever had. :)

Hope your Easter weekend was relaxing, fun and spent with loved ones. The end. For now.

Out and about in SF

I really should have posted this awhilw ago, as we went out with our friends Sara and Dave a few weeks ago, but here goes anyway. It was a nice weekend...a little rainy but still nice. We started out the Saturday by going to a Wedding Expo and learning that if you want to get entered into the good drawings for free stuff, you gotta go early! We missed out on all the free giveaways...they were having tons of drawings on stuff like free tux rentals, free wedding gowns, free honeymoon vacays and free tanning. Well, we know for next time and we still have a lot of time to sign up for free stuff! Anyway, we also did some shopping for cameras. Scott got a killer deal on a nice camera which he has needed for some time and will use a ton for completing his thesis and probably much more after graduation with his artwork. I wasn't shopping for anything but couldn't pass up a good deal on a small digital camera for my purse. My last one that I got from Scott as a present 3 years ago finally gave up on me....well it probably would have helped if I hadn't dropped it one too many times. But I finally have a replacement that is small enough to take anywhere.

After these adventures, we met up with Sara and her boyfriend Dave for a nice dinner and movie date in the city. It was really nice to see them as we haven't hung out as much since Scott moved away from the city. Sara went to school with Scott in Helena and moved to SF to get her Master's in Visual Effects at the Academy of Art. She graduated last year and helped Scott find a place to live when he first moved here. They lived 2 blocks from each other in the city. So, it was nice to hang out again and dinner was awesome...at one of our favorite places called the Bell Tower. My dad would love the steak with blue-cheese butter and horseradish scalloped potatoes. :) Mmmmmm. That's one thing I really love about living here is that there are just soooo many great places to eat. If it was up to me and I had an unlimited budget and a metabolism like I did in high school, I would eat out every day! Me love food.

Anyway, here are some pics of us at a local bar, getting a cocktail before the movie. We were testing out my new camera. It has this spiffy feature called vibration reduction that allows you to take a picture with no flash and it turns out pretty good. All these pictures were taken without a flash in a very dark environment, a little blury but they still turned out. Not bad little camera.

Clubbing in SF

Well, I'd been itching to get out to a club and go dancing in the city for quite some time. We hardly ever go to the techno clubs in SF because it just costs too much moolah. Most of the good ones are about $20 cover charge and $8-$12 drinks once you get in the door. But, I was just too excited to go and really needed to get out dancing! So we invited Robert and Liza down for the weekend to take them to my favorite club...Ruby Skye. It has 2 levels and a separate lounge area with pool tables and lots of seating. They also have a huge screen for light shows, go-go dancers on boxes and behind cages, and the coolest architecture inside on the ceilings and walls. It is also the place where the biggest DJs in the world come to play. Liza had never been to a techno club before, but like me, she loves to dance. We had dinner at one of our favorite sushi restaurants and then walked the few blocks to the club. We all had a great time and danced some pounds away...even the boys. One thing about clubs like that, though, is that no matter what type of music you're into, you just can't help but get on the dance floor with everyone else and dance it up. It's so addicting, not to mention a great workout. Too bad bottles of water cost $6!

Anyway, we also had a fun time (during daylight hours) golfing at a par 3 course near our house. It's a fun and cheap way to spend a nice sunny day. Robert always kicks butt at golf, so he won of course. Scott should really quit betting him things when we play against him. :)

Taekwondo Tournament

This past weekend, St. Patty's Day weekend, Scott and I traveled to Boise, Idaho for his annual Taekwondo tournament. This was the first year that I've gotten to go, so I was very excited! Plus I got to see what's in store for me if I get to compete next year. It was definitely a weekend full of stories...

Before I get started, here is a picture of Scott's team (for the Bozeman team demonstration):
Mike, Alison, Bonnie and Scott















We arrived on Friday afternoon and went straight to the studio for training and class. I got to finally meet Grandmaster Kim (the founder of the particular Taekwondo school that Scott is part of - there are many schools across the nation) and Master Knife (one of Grandmaster Kim's students). Master Werner is Scott's direct instructor from his Bozeman school and he was Master Knife's student. The chain will continue...and it was cool to meet the people who were founders of the school and made it happen. There were lots of students from many schools, mainly on the West Coast.

After the main class was over, part the Bozeman school stayed afterwards to practice their team demonstration. Each school chooses 4 people (usually black belts) to represent and perform a team demonstration at the tournament. Scott was chosen as one of the students from Bozeman, along with another guy and 2 girls. Since the rest of the team had a chance to work on the demo, Scott had to get up to speed and learn the routines. The demo consists of 3 parts: a choreographed set of forms that the team performs in synch, a skit, and a board-breaking demo. They worked hard on the demo and practiced for about 3 hours after class. For the skit, Scott and the other guy were truckers in a restaurant that were haggling the waitresses, the two girls. Once a butt got grabbed, the boys got their butt kicked. :) All choreographed, of course. However, during one of the practice runs, one of the girls circled with a round-house kick straight to Scott's nose and accidentally broke it! I wasn't there, thank gosh cuz I would have fainted (I don't do well with other people's blood), but I guess his nose was just gushing and the top was out of line with the rest. Well, he went into the bathroom, cracked it back in place like he'd done it a million times, and massaged the sides until the blood stopped. After that, they went on with finishing up the practice...now that's dedication! And that wasn't the only bump in the road. For the other part of the demo, board breaking, the team decided to do a side-kick break that included getting a running start and jumping over 7 people. The Bozeman junior team (black belts under 15) was doing the same break over 5 people, so they had to do more than the younger group. Scott's always been very successful at breaking and volunteered to do it. During the first pass at making sure he could clear 7 people, he landed successfully on the other side, but landed a lot harder on his heels than expected and bruised them up pretty bad. I think the bruised heels hurt much more than the broken nose cuz he spent the rest of the night and the next morning walking on his toes. So he was slightly worn out and broken down before the competition even began. We rested up that night and I made him take it easy. :)

The next day was a busy one. The Bozeman team headed to the studio at around 9 for one last practice. Everyone was amazed to see that Scott's nose was still straight, was barely swollen at all and there was no bruising...I still couldn't even tell he had gotten it broken. He was pretty lucky and must have done a good job putting it back in place. After their practice, where they perfected the team demo, we headed off to the tournament at the Boise High School gym. The tournament lasted all day from 11am to 8pm. There were lots of competitors and it was so cool to watch everyone from the sidelines. I took lots of pics and a few videos. Hopefully you will be able to play the videos, which are of the team demo. Scott's team did a great job and took 2nd place! I was a little worried that all of Scott's injuries and mishaps from the day before would take his toll, but I was proved wrong. He took lots of ibuprofen, ate well, and downed plenty of orange juice and energy drinks. Once the adrenaline got pumping, the pain pretty much disappeared while he was competed. There are three main events that individuals compete, in which they are broken up by rank, sex and weight class: sparring, forms and breaking. Scott did awesome and took home trophies for First place in sparring and Second place in forms. He also ranked fourth place out of 9 in the Grand Champion round. This is the last and final round where all the winners in sparring for their division compete for Grand Champion. This is very tough as first degree black belts (Scott's current rank) compete against 2nd, 3rd and 4th degrees. So he did much better than higher ranked students, all with injuries. (Luckily he didn't get hit in the face again...this is a non-contact sport, but accidents do happen.) So in all, he did GREAT and kicked ass!! I'm so proud of him and excited that I got to watch so many other talented students. Until next year, when Scott takes it all... :)

Some pics that I took of class and training in the studio on Friday, the night before the competition:


















Some pics I took at the tournament, the first one is Scott's sparring competition where he took First place:

























Also, here is a link to Google Video so you can view the three videos that I took of Scott's team demonstration, so you can see what they were all about:

Bozeman group demo - #1 Forms http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8306977457885528963
Bozeman group demo - #2 Skit http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1130064543202150247
Bozeman group demo - #3 Breaking http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2949338307153108295

Trip to Folsom

The first weekend in March was a beautiful one here in Northern Cali! It was sunny and 70 degrees...we finally got to say goodbye to rain, fog and clouds for a few days. I think it may be the start of summer already. Scott and I went to visit Robert and Liza for the weekend, as it was our turn to make the drive (about 2 hours), and it was the perfect weekend to spend outdoors. We put the bike rack on my little Civic and loaded our bikes. I recently bought a new mountain bike so I wouldn't have to rent one whenever we wanted to go riding. There was a great pre-season sale at the sports store so I got a killer deal. I was pumped to be able to finally use it. We spent the weekend outdoors as much as possible. We went folfing on Saturday at a really hard 12-hole course north of Folsom. For those of you not familiar with folf - it is short for frisbee golf. You throw a disc (a little heavier than a normal frisbee) across courses that are similar to golf (usually just not as far) and try to hit a goal post or basket at the end of the course. I am just awful at this sport, but it was still fun. I think I almost pulled a muscle in my arm which I was really peeved at because I started softball the next week and didn't want to be injured. But it turned out ok and was a lot of fun. Scott and Robert used to play frequently back home in Bozeman and Helena, so they were pros. Sunday we decided to get out again and took a really nice ride around Natoma Lake near where they live. It's a pretty easy ride, except for the fact that it's 17 miles, which took us about 2 hours. It really only took so long because Liza and I didn't want to kill ourselves and were riding at a slower pace...especially next to Scott who was like ADHD on his bike...he rides everyday so it was too easy for him. I thought 17 miles was long enough! I'll work up to longer trips this summer, but for a first time out, it was a good start.

I don't have any pics to post of this trip as we forgot our camera. :( It was beautiful out, but just so you have something to look at besides text, here is a map of Natoma Lake, courtesy of Google Earth. It's more of a long wide river to me, but it was a great riding trail.