teresa

We celebrated our one year anniversary last weekend in Mendocino.  We are slowly ticking through the Bay Area Backroads deck of cards with things to do that we bought nearly 2 years ago when we moved here.  Mendocino is the New England of the West Coast, or that’s what they say at least.  The weather was perfect, overcast mostly, although not hot or not cold, just nice.  We had some beach time although not much, mostly we ate, took pictures, had massages, and ate more.

We found a really cool chapel (non denominational) in Sea Ranch on our drive up.  It was one of our best random finds yet.  These are my favorite parts of a trip particularly a road trip, spotting something from the road and checking it out rather than seeking out something you read about in a magazine or something, random finds are just almost always more rewarding.





Mendocino has lots of artists and art so we went to a gallery actually originally in search of a restroom although it turned out to be fun and they had lots of these tall back chairs.  We were going to take a picture of everyone we found although then our battery died and that idea lost steam.

I don’t know what got into us although on the trip we also took more pictures using the macro function than I think we realized.  We went to a botanical garden which is where most of that happened, if anyone ever wants a picture of a flower we have you covered.

Other than that we went to a lighthouse, had a great dinner, and we took the long way home – we love road trips.

On a side note, this weekend I am still recovering from our Monica Margarita evening Friday night.  Monica shared a margarita recipe with me forever ago that I had always wanted to try and we did Friday night.  Its equal parts limeade, corona and tequila or at least that’s how we made it.  I think there’s a chance its supposed to be one limeade, one limeade tin worth of tequila and then an entire corona, oh and ice.  Although we had to have half it for our little party so we did just one half tin of each, pretty yummy.

Oh and I got a new bathing suit this weekend which always inspires a diet, good thing we have 9 miles to log today!  Our last run was not very successful although I expect we will get all the way through nicely today.

Logging on from Vail I would like to capture some of my memories.

First off many things have come to mind that believe it or not I did not manage to fit into my recent wordy posts.  Two moments I will never forget at the wedding were on separate occasions when Brad and Russell came up to me and wanted to genuinely welcome me into their family.  They said they were so happy that Elliott and I were together and that they wanted me to know that they were happy that we were married.  This made me feel so welcomed into the Goodwin family.

Reflecting on an older post we have now flipped the outlook of in a week from now, which has become a week ago we were… at the rehearsal, and tomorrow that will be a week ago we were married!

For a honeymoon update things are perfect.

Ok not everything is perfect, the hotel was a little rocky at first.  The key didn’t work, we had to return to the lobby and when we did get in we couldn’t find the bedroom (sounds ridiculous but true).  They didn’t deliver the luggage because we ‘didn’t give them our room number’…  The shower takes awhile to warm up (which I feel is karma telling me to save water and energy by taking short cold showers… an inconvenience I have not yet adopted in my efforts to reduce my personal footprint).  The maids are emphatic about cleaning and turn down services which we have finally remedied with the do not disturb sign.  And there is a detector of some sort probably smoke that blinks all through the night above our bed. 

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I am not sure if at this point I will even be able to remember all of the great times I had on our wedding day.  Although I would like to give it a shot.

If you read my previous blog you know I stayed up pretty late, could not get to sleep.  I woke up before my alarm.  I showered and washed my hair which as the girls may know some hair stylists suggest coming in with dirty hair but my stylist said feel free to wash my hair.  I laid out all of the things that Elliott needed to bring to the site and left him notes regarding the different piles.  I finished packing my bag, retrieved my dress from the closet, and headed to my car.  I was to pick Krista up at 9:30, I think I left the house at 8:30, I couldn’t sit there any longer!

I went to Denica’s for a pumpkin muffin, one of my most favorite treats!  I sat in my car and ate it as slow as I could and finally called Krista and asked if I could come by early.  She said some family was near the pool having breakfast so I could say hi to everyone.  I waited outside of the lobby waiting for her to make sure Elliott was not in sight.  I remember a guy walked by and said, “you can go in” with a pompous grin, he didn’t realize I wasn’t nervous because they would find out I wasn’t a guest I had bigger nerves.  I caught up with the Kulesza’s and Goodwin’s and saw some other friends too. 

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Night before the wedding….

Well you can be sure the house is picked up and everything is organized!  I thank Elliott for his patience with my neuroses lately.  I believe my grandmother said there’s a place for everything and everything in its place.  Well that has been me the last few weeks.  I have been busy busy organizing.  From the spice rack to the book shelf everything is clean and orderly.  In fact I am doing laundry right now, that is how sick I am.

Today we had a wonderful picnic with our family and friends at Emeryville.  It was a little entertaining because Elliott and I are in shorts and t-shirts because it has been 90 degrees in Pleasanton the last few days and as we are driving out to the Marina Park in Emeryville getting closer and closer to the water Elliott realized he didn’t bring a jacket (neither did I), and he always has a jacket, so much so that I often tease him and call it his man purse.  We got out of the car and burr it was cold and the wind was just blowing.  We sat at some picnic tables and I finally wrapped myself up in a blanket I was so cold….  Finally someone, Kaye or Debra suggested we try the other side of the peninsula to get out of the wind.  After a couple of moves we did finally make it to a group of tables that was blocked just perfectly.  We didn’t have the same view of the city and bridges, but at least the weather was quite pleasant.  We enjoyed a snack and watched the kids get to know each other, which was perhaps one of my favorite parts of the picnic.  Its funny not being a mom because you are no where near as cautious as the parents.  At one point I saw a bridge so I suggested the kids go over to throw rocks and sticks off the bridge (which went to a boat dock).  The parents stood up straight and all separately and without coordination were concerned that the kids could slip through the guardrail and fall into the water.  Horrible but that didn’t even cross my mind as I round up the kiddies to run out onto the foot bridge.  But I guess that’s what aunts are for.

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Well my last post made the pre-wedding planning sound a little drab so I thought I would touch on the positive.  Elliott and I have enjoyed some great dates lately.  One night Elliott let my spur of the moment ideas plan the night and it was one of our best dates ever.  I think we ate dinner at home as part of our recent efforts to eat better, eating at home you can eat healthier and we have really enjoyed the time together in the kitchen.

Then I had read about a yogurt place in the Diablo magazine that I wanted to try and I also saw something about a Belguim beer spot so I added both to our places to go list.  Elliott agreed to check out the yogurt place with me which is in Berkeley.  As we were headed to Berkeley we realized we could also go to theatre where we could catch a flick that we haven’t seen yet.  You see we go the movies so often these days that we have seen nearly all of the movies at the neighborhood theatre.   However there is an off beat theatre in Berkeley, Shattuck Cinema that was playing Son of Rambow which looked pretty good.  We drove by the yogurt place on the way, couldn’t find parking and because Elliott insists on getting good seats and seeing every preview we didn’t get yogurt because we were pressed for time.

The movie theatre was totally cute.  Elliott really liked the ceiling in the lobby, .  I really liked the popcorn, they had 4 flavors of powder to sprinkle on top including white cheddar and ranch!  The theatre had no more than 50 seats, very intimate.  The movie itself was really well done, much more enjoyable than some of the bigger name movies we have seen recently – I swear we so many movies I think we should be movie critics.

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