Wednesday morning Ezra made some eggs with crsipy bacon and toast

My plate

It was a filling breakfast that held me over until almost 6pm!  We did a little bit of work on the wedding, and took a break for dinner: tomato salad

with steak kebabs on the grill

Thanks Steff and Joe for Ezra’s Christmas gift, he’s been using all the grill gear since we got back!!

We had a late rice pudding dessert, topped with raspberry sauce

and snapped a shot of Lucy sound asleep on Ezra’s arm

This morning I was up around 10:30 (early I know…) and saw this guy on the couch watching the news

and saw this pup standing guard near the window

We each managed to do our runs this afternoon, then met friends to watch the Federer/Nadal match…

more of AJ!

Joe with AJ, Ethey, and Brian

Brian graciously put his couch up on Couch Surfer so we met someone who was staying with him, her name is Erin and she’s going to be the youngest person to bike across the WORLD!  She’s been to a TON of countries already (and been on the road biking for over a year)!

Check our her blog HERE or her official website to donate HERE.

We had some brownies for dessert first

then a pizza dinner after…

didn’t get a chance to snap some photos until it was too late

Currently posted up on the couch watching Season 3 of Modern Family.  This show never gets old…

Happy Thursday!

and played with this girl for a bit

before we left for Walmart.  We wanted to go and buy as many DVDs of movies and shows that we hadn’t seen yet, since we have the whole week to relax and watch tv from the comfort of our couch!

Snacks were had…

Lucy made it clear that she wasn’t a fan of the don’t-share-any-with-the-dog rule…

Ezra planned on cooking some steaks for dinner, so we opened up some wine with our cool new battery-operated wine opener

a pose with the pup!  (Ha, my smile looks creepy…)I foil-wrapped the corn AND made the fake mashed potatoes.  Wouldn’t want to overwork myself, I AM on vacation afterall

Perfectly cooked steak

Cheers

Sunday Ez and i both tried to do our long run, and we both failed.  I managed to run just over 4 miles…my legs must still be tired from that horrible half marathon.

Lunch was a couscous salad and leftover cucumber salad

and we snacked on some mandarin oranges

Around 4 we headed over to Joe and Ethey’s to play with the baby watch an Australian Open match

Baby AJ was super intrigued by Ezra’s low voice.  He kept sitting there with his mouth wide open, just staring at Ez

We all couldn’t decide on plans for dinner (many places were closed or serving limited menus), so we invited Joe + family over for dinner!

I whipped up a broccoli + chicken stir fry

and hung out until 10 or so, then we all walked over to One For The Road for a Chinese New Year celebration!  We started with some car bombs…

good thing I didn’t drink that, I stuck with long island iced teas

OFTR had a fireworks show planned for midnight, so we stayed and watched all the chaos.  It was definitely chaos…they lined up all these firecrackers on the ground and didn’t tell people to stand back, so everyone was only 10 feet or so away!  I stood in the very back because I knew it would get loud, and it was a good thing because the firecrackers flew everywhere and some people got bits of it in their hair!!  I learned my lesson and stayed inside for round 2 of fireworks…

We hung out until about 2am, playing darts (turns out I’m pretty good at them) before headed home to crash.  We we ordered 3 double cheeseburgers and a fries from McDonalds, and sneaky Lucy decided she would jump up on the table and grab a burger while Ezra and I weren’t looking.  Then she promptly walked herself over to her dog house and stayed there for the rest of the night…

Monday we got up and had pancakes for breakfast!  We’ve been watching Star Wars all week, so it was pretty funny when I got a pancake that looked like princess Leia…

topped with bananas and syrup!

Ezra wore my new favorite shirt of his

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing.  And I mean nothing…I don’t think I even left the house for about 48 hours until Ez finally made me leave to join him on a walk with Lucy.  Good thing, I was starting to get some serious cabin fever!

We also took photos of a bundled Lucy (she was cold)

We also came up with an amazing eggplant lasagna recipe!

Us in our aprons (I now have about 3 different aprons to choose from!)

Hard at work

Lucy looking a little suspicious…

Putting everything together

55 minutes later this glorious creation came out of the oven…

The perfect slice..

Off to finished Episode IV of Star Wars…!

I’ll try and have that recipe for you soon!!

It’s Chinese New Year!

We definitely haven’t been starving

and guess who’s going to be joining us this week…

LUCY!

Ezra got a bagel with lox

and I got the eggs benedict with smoked salmon!

Then we did some shopping.  Zara was having a sweet sale, so we took a look around.  I got a few new tops

I wanted to get this one, but it was just too short and didn’t cover my stomach enough

We had a late and light lunch at Dan Ryan’s.  I had the onion soup and salad  and Ez had the spaghetti

We bummed around for a bit until 4, when we saw Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  That movie was totally AWESOME!  It had a great plot, there was tons of action, suspense, and the main character Lisbeth Salander kicked butt.  Everything I need for a great movie!

After that kind of film, Ezra and I were dying for a good meal, so we headed to Cafe Deco for some dinner…

We started with drinks

and a tomato salad

before going to town on some oysters

we had the above picture (of 2 dozen oysters) X 2.  That would 48 oysters shared between the 2 of us.  We definitely didn’t go hungry

For dessert, we stopped by Häagen Daaz for some scoops of delicious ice cream…

and enjoyed it while riding the tram back down the peak

Saturday morning we had a 10am meeting at the Hong Kong Country Club to discuss using them as our ceremony and reception site for the wedding!  It’s true what my friend Hannah said about me, “You’re going to have this wedding planned my March.”

Here’s hoping!

We also met with our friend Tarifa for a late breakfast and to talk more about the wedding.  Tarifa just went through the same thing with her daughter’s wedding, so she had a ton of helpful ideas.

The rest of the afternoon was spent bumming around, until our 7pm dinner at Grappa’s to carbo-load.

We started with some bread

my date

yours truly

we shared a pizza

and I had the penne putanesca

and Ez had the lasanga

We made it an early night, so we could have a good night’s sleep for our half marathon in the morning.  Little did I know, that was going to be the least of my worries…

Sunday morning I was up at 3:45, to be ready to leave the hotel by 5am.  I got up, made some coffee, ate my bagel with peanut butter and read blogs while I digested breakfast.  Everything went smoothly and we were out the door by 5.

Elevator photos

We took a cab to the bus pick up, which we found out was only 10 minutes away, so when we arrived it was 5:15 and the buses didn’t leave until 5:45.  We hung out under the bus stop to stay dry (there was a drizzle), and I took photos of Ezra’s leg stuffed inside his compression sleeves like sausages

The ride to the start was about 45 minutes so we arrived at the start around 6:45/7.  With an hour or so to kill we walked around the area, picked up our registration packets, checked our extra clothes and made our way to the start.  This is when my stomach started to feel funny (as in something not-so-great was about to happen in the bathroom), and I didn’t feel right.

Pre-race photos

And then it began.  The treacherous climb straight uphill for the first 2km or so.  Ezra had told me he wanted to run it in under 2 hours so I was trying to pace us pretty fast, which was not a good idea.  We were both toast by mile 5.

Pictures before mile 5…

Then my attitude started to go downhill from there.  I was pissed that I couldn’t run the race in under 2-hours and I was pissed that my body, after only 5 miles, felt more exhausted than a normal 13.1 mile race.  My knees also started to ache, and my stomach was doing some weird things…

I finally had to walk around mile 9.  I told Ez he could keep running, but he insisted on staying (another reason he’s a keeper!).  From that point on, we alternated between running and walking.  I finally told myself to just try and enjoy the experience and just finish.  So that’s what we did.

I also took a photo of these super annoying cows that were everywhere along the road we were running.  They also left wonderful (HUGE) presents along the road…  We finished with a Garmin time of 2:15:45 more than a minute faster than last year, so yay for that.  As soon as we crossed the finish line, my stomach started to turn and I felt like I was going to faint.  We managed to walk me to the food line to get something in my stomach before I got sick.

Trying to looked excited…

After eating a chocolate muffin I felt a little better, but the cold kicked in and I started to freeze.  Ez said my lips were turning blue (good thing he didn’t tell me that at the time), so we hurried to get on a bus to take us back to the hotel.

I took a super hot shower, which helped a little, but I was still freezing, so I bundled up with a heavy coat and we headed out to the Hong Kong Country Club to meet Tarifa and her husband Haider for lunch.

I was still feeling really sick and faint, so after a little bit of eating so Tarifa walked me to the Main Lounge, where I promptly passed out until it was time to leave for the border.

Long story short, I barely made it through the all the immigration, but I arrived home in one piece and passed out for 12 hours straight.

Feeling a little better today, although I’m definitely going to need another day or so to get back to normal…quite the trip this weekend, but I think a lot of it had to do with just being tired, so I’m off to take a nap!

Set a wedding date/location
Decide on color scheme
Decide on bridesmaid dresses
Get mom a mother-of-the-bride dress
Buy a wedding dress
Decide on a location (booked an appointment to visit and finalize details)
Book appointments with potential photographers
Get all paper materials to create invitations

AND I managed to

Celebrate 2 Christmases and the New Year
Have an engagement party
Get in a few runs
Go shopping for things that we need back in China!

Some vacation…

Back to China tomorrow, and this weekend will be full of wedding appointments, meals with friends and a half marathon with the fiancé!!!

Friday I took mom out to lunch at our favorite sushi place: Blue C Sushi!

Mom

Friday evening, Mom and I met up with Steff to try on wedding dresses at Nordstrom.  It was fun, but none of the dresses I tried were really show-stoppers.  I was looking for something that would say: ‘hello, i’m the bride!’

We left empty-handed, but it was a great starting point, and left me feeling more sure about the style of dress that I wanted.  I spent Friday night at Steff and Joe’s, and ate some pea soup that I made a few nights ago!

Saturday we had a 10am appointment to try on more wedding dresses.  There were a few we liked, and then there was one…

that we BOUGHT!

We’re all in love with it, and it’s exactly the style I’ve been looking for. 

We were famished after all the trying on of dresses (Steff tried on bridesmaid dresses and mom got her Mother-of-the-Bride dress!), so we stopped by Chipotle for an early lunch.

my chicken burrito bowl

my cute Mom!

and Steff

Mom and I left Steff to run errands, and we drove to Tacoma to go visit my grandma.  My grandma recently fell and injured herself (nothing too serious, just a bruise) so my mom wanted to stop by and make sure she was recovering well.  We took her out for lunch!

Obviously I couldn’t eat anything since I had just stuffed my face eaten lunch…

Korean food

Killing time on the drive back to Steff’s place

Best dinner before a long run the next morning?

Indian food…

Yum.

Sunday morning I was up around 7:30 to eat breakfast and have enough time to digest before our 13+ mile run.

Um, it was cold this morning.  Seriously cold. I wore capris with 2 long-sleeve shirts AND a North Face light jacket and was still cold at certain points!

The first 6+ miles of the run were pretty warm, then we ran down a super long and steep hill and the temperature dropped.  It stayed pretty cold until mile 11, then things started to warm up, and the sun came out!

13.2 miles = 1:57

Not bad considering this week’s workouts have been blah…

Steff and I went out to Chipotle (again) for lunch

Can’t get enough of those chips!  They have an amazing combo of lemon/lime juice and sea salt…best paired with guacamole.

We had a few errands to run in the afternoon, so I managed to pick up a few last minute things before I leave to head back to China on Wednesday!

I also picked out colors for the wedding…

Navy blue and daffodil/golden yellow.

Another thing checked off the wedding to-do list

This afternoon I met my friends Suzette and Kara for lunch at a local Greek Restaurant.  The company was amazing and so were the gyros…

as were the Greek fries, topped with feta…

tonight was dinner with the fam!  Mom and I baked some banana bread muffins for dessert, but we started with a teriyaki flavored pork tenderloin, with rice and biscuits!

GOALS FOR 2012

I don’t want to have too many goals; I felt like last year’s were too many to keep up with   This year I’m going to try and keep things simple, so here they are:

1. 50 Pushups at least 5x/week AND Meditation or Yoga 3x/week

2. Run a sub 1:50 half marathon

3. More Piano

4. More German

5. Date night with Ez

6. Successfully plan a wedding in Hong Kong!

I don’t think those goals will be too hard, except that sub 1:50 half, that’s definitely going to be a challenge!!!

Here’s to 2012!

I had the black bean soup to start

and Ez ordered the Caesar salad

Everyone’s dinner looked amazing, but I only managed a photo of Ezra’s chicken

and Doris’ fish!

People photos…

Danielle and her brother Mark

Noah and Danielle

Danielle’s parents

Ez and Eric

Danielle, Noah, Doris and me!

Happy birthday Danielle!

Here’s my last update of 2011 goals, I’ll have some new goals up for 2012 soon!

GOALS: DECEMBER

1. 11 races in 2011: We ran the Macau Half Marathon on December 4th and Ezra had a new PR!  We ran it in 2:03:34.

2. Run 1250 miles this year!  I finished December with 88.2 miles, bringing my end-of-the-year total to 1287.2!  I don’t think I’ll do another mileage goal, but I’ll still keep track of it on the sidebar, just so you all can see

3. More “meditation” time: Didn’t do much this past month, but I’m including it as part of a new goal for 2012..

4. Weight lifting: I did OK for December, but I’m including it as part of 2012 goals!

5. Drink more water: Check!

6. Save money: Christmas was a little pricey, but totally worth it for the family

7. Colorful foods: Check!

8. Be more proactive about getting new clients/students: Check!

9. Piano: Will include in 2012 goals…

10. German: See #9…

11. Date night with Ez: Check!!

Check out past reflections:

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September + October
November

DEC 30st

We had our second Christmas on Dec 30th with Eric, Doris, Noah and Danielle.

AND THE POOCHES!

First we went to a portrait studio in JC Penny for family photos…

Then dinner: an assortment of food with raclette cheese to top everything off!

We first started with some champagne

and ate many spring rolls (homemade!)

and opened presents…

The rules were: only one person to open a present at a time, and the person who finished opening their present got to pick the next present for someone else!

Noah and Danielle got this beautiful painting!

Doris got some rockin’ shoes

The aftermath…

Time to eat!

Meats for grilling

the raclette machine in action…

Me and my fiancé!!

DEC 31st

Ez and I started the morning with a long run.  Ez did his 7 miles, and I ran a little further to complete my 11 miles.  Last run of the YEAR!!  I ended up being well over my goal of 1250 miles for the year.  SUPER excited about that

After our run, we also walked a 5k with the family!  There was a 5k route that brought us to a park, where we ended up having lunch!

Pre-walk photos

Photos at the park!

Doris decided she wanted to try riding on a Harley with Danielle’s dad…

getting instructions

ready, set, go!

I wasn’t able to get a photo of her facial expression mid-ride, but after talking with her, i’m pretty sure she won’t be getting on a motorcycle again

After lunch Danielle, Noah, Ez and Danielle’s dad went Jet Skiing…

Beautiful views…

Engagement Party

In the evening, we had an engagement party!  Doris planned everything to a T…

There was wonderful food and decorations…

And a table for us!

A photo collage that Danielle made

and an amazing chocolate and peanut butter cake (it tasted like Reese’s peanut butter cups!) with a photo of our proposal picture on it!

Guests in attendance…

Jim and Karla

Kurt, Dave and Ez

Ravi, Sitara, Kabir and Amara

Ellis and Susan

Jim and Nancy

Marsha and Doris

Eric, Ez and Ellis

Sandy and me

Kurt and Meg

Ez and me

and a warm fire on the front porch…

We finished 2011 in Oberlin attire!!!

Up next: Danielle’s birthday!

I know this post is late, but, better late than never!

We woke up around 7:30am on Christmas morning, had cinnamon rolls for breakfast (yum!), then headed to church with mom, dad, and Kevin.  Church was finished by 10:45, so we had plenty of time to get into comfy clothes before Steff and Joe came over around 12:15.  I took the time to take pictures of the tree and the massive amounts of presents underneath it!

For lunch we had pizza.  Recommendation by Ez It was quick, easy and tasty!

Originally, we planned on opening Santa’s gifts (AKA stockings) and one present each from under the tree.  Well, that quickly turned into a massive present opening extravaganza!

Kev, Joe and Steff

Mom and dad

Me and my fiance!  Man…that is going to take some getting used to

We watched each person open a present before the next person went.  Here’s Ez opening his gift from mom and dad…

Then it was my turn!  I opened also opened one from mom and dad

A MacbookPro!  One of many awesome Christmas presents…

A CamelBak from Ez!

Then mom opened a gift from dad, realized it was an iPad, and this happened

She was SUPER excited

Christmas was good to everyone this year!

We spent the afternoon digesting lunch.  The new Mission Impossible came out, so we tried to go and see it, but tickets were scarce and we didn’t want to have to sit in the very front of the theater, so we came home and finished our round of UNO.

Guess who are the reigning champions?  Yeah, Steff and me.

Dinner time!

Joe showing mom how to use her new camera

Steff and Joe

Overly excited Ez

Dinner included:

goat cheese and avocado salad

Mom’s homemade clam chowder!  She put bacon in it this year…

My plate/bowl

Dessert?  Many cookies and cupcakes that Steff’s high school friend Meghan brought over.  *Side note: This chick is a freakin’ rockstar runner and Ironman!!

I had the 7-layer cupcake, and it was AMAZING!  (Thanks Meghan!)

Whew, finally caught up.

Merry Christmas everyone!