PCC Small Group Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving with our NorCal small group at our house. I had to work all day, so Matt volunteered to cook the turkey while working from home. He did a fabulous job! Everyone contributed something to the meal and it was awesome. Thanks guys.
Doesn't that bird look delicious?
Here are our new friends! (from L to R Janet, Meredith, Bethany, Tim, Matt, Heather, Chris and Matt) Cheers!

Cannondale Bad Boy XL

Here is Matt's sweet new bike! Before he bought it he had been commuting to Stanford on a mountain bike which was very annoying. So Matt put his old bike on Craig's List and sold it and then bought this one. Now he commutes to work in half the time!

Mom and Dad visit San Francisco

Mom and Dad went to wine country and stayed over night in a bed and breakfast to do some wine testing. Matt and I surprised them and had a bottle of wine sent to their room.
Dad and I enjoyed Mom's famous banana bread and cappuccino.

One of the nights we took Mom and Dad to Half Moon Bay to see the Pacific Ocean and enjoyed dinner at Half Moon Bay Brewing Company.
Mom made chicken piccata and Matt made sweet potato fries (our new favorite thanks to Patrick and Katie).
We made some guacamole for Mom and Dad with fresh California avocados. Yum!

Here we are enjoying cappuccino in North Beach, the Italian section of San Francisco. It is quite a disappointment compared to the North End in Boston.

We had a picnic lunch in front of the "painted ladies." What a view!


Here is the puzzle that Mom brought for us to do. She also bought us Red Sox Scrabble!

San Francisco Nike Woman's Half Marathon


This morning I ran the SF Nike Woman's Half Marathon. Matt, Paul and Marilyn dropped me off and I made my way to the start line. This was my 1st race running by myself. The course was beautiful and went along the peninsula, but hilly. Based on the elevation chart for the course I was not expecting so many hills.
When I finished the race I was given a Tiffany's necklace and a sweet Nike dry-fit shirt. The post race food was great. They had Jamba Juice smoothies, Luna bars, bananas, Bear Naked granola, bagels and lots of water. The race ended on the beach highway and was freezing when I finished, so I wrapped up in the mylar blanket they gave me.


Here I am at the expo picking up my bib. There were 20,000 women running the race so the expo was so packed.
On the wall outside Niketown they had all 20,000 names of the runners. If you look closely you can see my name on the wall.


Golden Gate Bridge
We went to Sausalito for lunch with Paul and Marilyn. On the way back we found this turn off and followed it until we found this amazing view of the city and bridge. What a beautiful city! It was really windy. We looked out over the Pacific Ocean at the beginning of the bay.

Golden Gate Park

Lombard Street
We walked down Lombard Street and then later drove down it. What a crazy and fun street.
North Point
We stopped off in North Point to have a cuppaccino. North Point did not compare to the North End, but it was still fun to see.

Painted Ladies
Here are the famous houses that are in the beginning of Full House!

Pier 39
We could have spent all day at this pier watching the sea lions. They were so noisy and active. They would push each other off the docks and argue back and forth with each other.

Fisherman's Warf

Ghirardelli Square
We walked through Ghirardelli Square, but didn't stop for any chocolate.



Trolley Car
The trolley car ride was really fun. The trolley cars get going so fast down the hills and a couple times we wondered if the breaks would stop us.
Pacific Ocean
Dinner in the Courtyard
After all the exploring we did around San Francisco we enjoyed a meal around the chiminea. Cheers!

After not posting for a month I finally have a free afternoon to catch up on the last month of our lives. We have been so busy with our new jobs and our time is so precious to us so blogging has not been top priority. This weekend Matt and I are babysitting Kaitlyn Harris, our newest niece, while Melanie and Steve go to the 49ers football game. Kaitlyn has been sleeping now for an hour so I have been able to blog.

Half Moon Bay
Matt, Patrick and Katie stopped off to have lunch at Half Moon Bay Brewing Company one afternoon.

Big Sur and Monterey
They also drove south to Big Sur. They drove along the Big Sur marathon route that Matt will run with Mark and Kevin in April. On the way back to Menlo Park they stopped off at Monterey and Pebble Beach. Here are a few pictures from their trip.

Stanford
One afternoon Patrick, Katie and Matt took a tour of Stanford. They learned some pretty neat facts about the campus and history of Stanford. The campus is beautiful and is the largest campus in the country.
Katie's Birthday
To celebrate Katie's birthday we went out to dinner at Madison and Fifth, a nice restaurant on University Ave in Palo Alto. Jillian and Katelyn were staying in San Francisco and joined us for dinner. It was so yummy. Happy birthday Katie!
Stanford football
Well our first Stanford football game was quite an experience. It was nothing like watching the Gators in the Swamp. The Stanford stadium was not full and there were not cheers to do. It was a good experience, but we won't be sad to miss any of the games.

Alcatraz
We toured Alcatraz Island with Patrick and Katie. The night before we watched Escape from Alcatraz to get ready for the tour. We walked all over the island and learned a lot about the prison.