Balloon!

Yesterday I went to a little craft fair in Lakeport. It was fun and I found a couple of gifts for people. They had this hot air balloon there and I'm a sucker for hot air balloons so I took a picture. Remember that time I went for a ride in a balloon? It was awesome.

When I returned from the craft fair I watched an episode of Ace of Cakes. One of the cakes was a replica of the hot air balloon from the Wizard of Oz! It was so pretty. I tried to find a picture of it online, but I failed. You'll just have to take my word on its awesomeness.

Speaking of The Wizard of Oz, I'm going to see this in San Francisco on Sunday!!

I can't wait!

Salvation Army Finds

I went to the Army yesterday and loaded up on lots of fun things. All of the clothing was 50% off again (I think it must be a Saturday thing) so each piece was only $4 or $5. The collectibles were also half off as long as the item was under $20, and all of mine were, so I cleaned up.

This juice thing was only 99 cents! It's actually pretty small so I'll probably never put juice in it, but I think it will make a cute vase.

Jake thinks I'm an old woman for collecting plates, but I've seen them on a lot of decorating blogs lately and I think they're so cute. I'm going to wait until I have a couple more before I hang them. The little ones with the yellow trim were made in Italy! I think that makes them extra cool.

Official Race Results

Windsor Green Half Marathon

Me

Place: 187/455
Time: 2:00.09.7

Jake

Place: 201/455
Time: 2:01:42.2

Yeah, we're awesome....

Race Pictures:
http://www.asiorders.com/choose_name.asp?EVENTID=64385&LAST=hoberg&DIVISION=

I love Jake's goofy smile in a couple of the pictures. He's silly.

Windsor Green Half Marathon

This was the first annual Windsor Green Half Marathon and I have to say that I think it was one of the best races I've ever done. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and the race in general was really well put together. The event organizers definitely knew what they were doing. My only complaint is that they had finisher hats instead of medals. I mean, who wants to put a hat on after they've run a race?? I was already wearing a hat. I needed a medal! I'll let it slide though because both the hat and the race shirt are made from that dry fit material that I so dearly love.

While we're on the subject of race shirts, I have to tell you that so many people were wearing the official race shirt during the race. This is a big no no. If I see you wearing a race shirt on the day of the race I will make fun of you in my head. Now, you can wear a race shirt from another race on the day of, but that is the only exception. Otherwise you look silly and it makes me think you're a little too excited about the run.

Before the race

Oh, and before I forget to mention this little fact....See that guy standing next to me, trying to pretend he ran the Cowtown Marathon by wearing that shirt?? Yeah, he ran the half marathon today too. I only beat him by about 2 minutes. I run several days a week. I've run 2 other half marathons and a full marathon. He's never run more than 6 miles in his life. He didn't train for this thing at all and he finished just 2 minutes behind me. I'm both annoyed and envious. Oh well, at least the guy running in Crocs didn't beat us! Who wears gardening shoes to run in? Crazies, that's who.

Right before the race started Jake was looking around and made the following observation:

Jake: There's a different breed of people here. These are the people that are motivated and get up and run in the morning. They don't need coffee or anything, they're just ready to go.

Me: Yeah, does it inspire you?

Jake: No, it just makes me tired.

After the race

Our tired feet

This started around mile 5 or 6. I need to wear higher socks.

You could salt the rim of a margarita glass with all the salt on my neck. Gross.

After the race we went to the farmer's market that was in the same area and got these delicious strawberries.

The were huge!

The End.

Once they post our results I'll put them on here.

Preparing For My TX Visit

Food Network

I just looked up all the Diners, Drive-ins and Dives locations in the DFW area. There are 7 locations. I will be in Texas for 7 days. This is perfect.

Okay, maybe I won't visit all of them in one trip, but I need to knock out a couple of them.

Here's the list:

Louie's
1839 N Henderson Avenue
Dallas, TX 75206
Tel: (214) 826-0505

Chef Point Cafe
5901 Watauga Road
Wautaga, TX 76148
Tel: (817) 656-0080
Website: www.chefpointcafe.org

Twisted Root Burger Co.
2615 Commerce Street
Dallas, TX, 75226
(214) 741-7668
Website: www.twistedrootburgerco.com

Jamaica Gates Caribbean Cuisine
1020 W Arkansas Lane
Arlington, TX 76013
(817) 795-2600
Website: www.jamaicagates.com

Fred's Texas Cafe
915 Currie Street
Ft. Worth, TX 76107
Tel: (817) 332-0083
Website: www.fredstexascafe.com

Avila's
4714 Maple Avenue
Dallas, TX 75219
(214)-520-2700

Prince Lebanese
502 W Randol Mill Road
Arlington, TX 76011
(817) 469-1811

I'm over 2 months away from actually being in Texas, but it's never too soon to start planning, right? Maybe I'll start another list of non food related things I want to do while I'm in town.

Reminders of Home

In the past 2 weeks I've seen 3 different things related to Grapevine, Texas on television. I freaked out each time.

1.) There was a golf tournament in Grapevine recently and during the course of the game some baby ducks wandered onto the course and got caught in a sand trap. One of the golfers reached down and picked each one up and put it on the grass. It was the cutest thing ever.

It was on NBC Bay Area News between 6 and 7 in the morning. As soon as Jake's alarm went off I ran into the bedroom to tell him.

2.) I was watching TV and a commercial for Friday Night Lights came on. Towards the end of the commercial they showed the name of the singer and the song that was playing in the background. It was The Rocket Summer. I went to high school with the main guy from that band. He doesn't know who I am, but I definitely remember him.

I called one of my best friends right away to tell her the exciting news.

3.) I was watching American Idol the other night and it was the episode where the remaining contestants go back to their hometowns. Casey James is from the DFW area and I'm about 95% sure that the first place they showed him was in the Target shopping center in Grapevine. They didn't show Target, but I recognized the other buildings.

I called Jake while he was still at work to tell him this.

And then tonight I told my mom about all these amazing things.

I can't stop talking about it.

Grapevine is famous!

Watch for me on TV because I'll be there August 1st-8th and I'm sure the media will be all over that.

Yosemite Trip: Part 3

As previously mentioned, we took an 8 hour tour of the park on Sunday. It was absolutely amazing. The guide from the lodge drove our party of 6 and another couple in an SUV all over Yosemite. We started out with a short hike (in some snow!) to find some Sequoia trees.

This tree is special because it was burned in a fire, but it's basically rebuilding itself around the damaged part.

These two trees are conjoined! The guide said that this kind of phenomenon has not been documented anywhere else in the world!

Our tour guide was awesome and we learned a lot about the trees, forest fires and Yosemite in general. The Sequoia trees were really impressive, but to be honest, they don't even compare to the Redwoods.

After the hike we drove around to a couple of locations and then had a picnic next to a river. Then we went to several more locations around the park.

This is a fresh water spring! We had a few sips of the water in hopes that it would cure us of all ailments and make us look younger.

According to our guide, this shot is one of the most photographed places in the world (or the U.S., but it was something impressive like that)!

At the base of Bridalveil Falls

Yosemite Falls in the background

Getting closer to Yosemite Falls

The base of Yosemite Falls

After the falls we drove through Yosemite Village and then on to the Ahwahnee Hotel. It's a super fancy place in the park and the room rates are $400-$1000 per night!! Next we began our drive back, but made one last stop to watch some climbers on El Capitan. Apparently it takes 3-5 days to climb up this thing! You have to sleep suspended in air AND you have to go #1 and #2 into a bag and keep it with you the whole time. No. Thank. You.

Once we returned to the lodge we had dinner and then decided that we (Jake, his mom and I) would head home that night instead of the next morning. We made it back around 1 am. I may have slept on the couch that night just so I could be closer to my new rug ;)

We had an amazing time and we're so fortunate to have parents that will take us on awesome trips like this.

P.S. Towards the end of our tour the man from the other couple that was with us mentioned that he'd just heard we were newlyweds and congratulated us. He said that during the course of the day he'd thought I was just part of the family and didn't realize Jake and I were married! I guess we should be nicer to one another and hold hands more often or something :)

Yosemite Trip: Part 2

On Saturday we all headed out for a hike along the Hetch Hetchy. I'll let the pictures explain the awesomeness of the hike.


It was a pretty intense hike and we were all very tired by the time it was over. Jake and I didn't let that slow us down though. Shortly after we arrived back to the lodge we rented some bicycles and took off in search of some more beautiful sites.

Jake had an accident. He's blaming it on the seat being wet, but I'm not buying it.

The path we took was all downhill so you can imagine what it was like once we turned around and headed back. We were exhausted. Once we made it back we rested for a while and then headed to the nightly s'mores shindig that the lodge hosted. They had a guitar player/singer and lots of s'more supplies. We met a girl that works there that happened to have graduated from OSU the same year that we did. It's a small world. Also, the tour guide we had the next day was from the Oklahoma City area so that was cool too.

After the campfire shindig Jake and I headed to the rec room and played Trivial Pursuit-90's Edition. Actually we just read the cards to each other to see if we could answer any questions. That game is difficult. Also, I was too preoccupied with the wedding reception going on outside to really focus on the game. It was beautiful and it made we want to have our wedding all over again.

The next day was filled with an 8 hour guided tour of the park. Check back tomorrow for that!

Yosemite Trip: Part 1

This past weekend we headed down to Yosemite with my in laws. We actually live a little less than 5 hours from Yosemite, but when we left at around 8:30 am on Friday morning, we didn't arrive at our destination until around 8:00 pm. It look so long because we stopped a few times for eating/fruit stand browsing/antique store shopping in a couple of different towns. The first town we stopped in for shopping was Sutter Creek. They had so many cute antique stores.

The best find of the day though was a beautiful area rug! I think that only my mom and Jake know how badly I've been wanting a rug for our living room so it's hard to explain exactly why this was so exciting, but it just was. Our entire house is covered in dark wood floors. The dark wood has absolutely no gloss or anything on it to hide dirt and cat fur. And it's cold. I've been wanting a big rug since we moved in, but they're so expensive and obviously not a necessity. We happened to walk into a really neat antique store that specialized in lamps, but in the back of the store they had a little area devoted to brand new rugs. They carried Capel rugs, which I'm familiar with because we also order from them at the furniture store I work at. When I saw the price of the rug I thought it was priced incorrectly. I mean it clearly said 50% off in bright red ink, but I was still in shock because I knew that I couldn't even order this rug at cost for this price at the furniture store. Jake and I knew immediately that we wanted it, but we left the store and walked around a bit while we thought it over. Even though it was so deeply discounted, it was still a big investment. I knew before I purchased it that I'd have a bit of buyers remorse, and I still do feel a little guilty, but I knew that if I'd passed it up then I'd be even more remorseful. So here it is in all its glory:

Beautiful, right??

After Sutter Creek we headed on to Sonora. We had dinner and then walked around this cute little town. Everything was starting to close though so we made our way to the grocery store to stock up before heading towards our final destination.

We finally arrived at the Evergreen Lodge and even though it was dark, it was obviously a beautiful place. Thankfully my mother in law is not into "real" camping so we stayed in these awesome little cabins. You must click on the link to check this place out. I don't have any pictures, but the website has a ton. I highly recommend this place to anyone going to Yosemite.

Check back later for Part 2 and actual pictures of the park :)