Sunday, February 27, 2011

San Francisco

For Presidents' Day weekend John and I took a couple of days off and went to San Francisco. It was supposed to be a getaway from the winter here in NY but it ended up being rainy and pretty chilly. It was still really great to have a little break from work, visit some friends, and we did end up missing a snow in NY while we were gone :)

The first day we were there we walked around the Mission district and had some pretty good Mexican food and then went to the Fisherman's Wharf area and checked out the sea lions. For the most part it sprinkled on and off but we did have to seek refuge in Ghirardelli's ice cream shop during one down pour :)
The second day we took a drive up to Muir Woods which is home to some of the oldest redwoods in the country. Apparently redwoods are the tallest living things, the tallest being 379.1 feet tall in Redwood National Park. I've never seen redwoods and these were pretty amazing. Even though it was rainy and cold we were in the middle of the forest and it was still so beautiful!
On the way back from Muir Woods we stopped at the lookout above the Golden Gate Bridge. It used to be a military lookout with giant guns to protect the bay during WWI and WWII. The guns aren't there anymore but its a really neat view of the bridge. Unfortunately since we were so high up it was insanely windy, I think the rain was falling horizontally at that point. John took a picture just because it was so funny.
We finally got a nice sunny day the last day of our trip so we decided to drive up to Sonoma and check out wine country. Our awesome host Mandi offered to be our designated driver which was so sweet of her! We even stopped by the Golden Gate Bridge again to take a picture while it was sunny. 
Sonoma was absolutely beautiful! We checked out several vineyards and got to sample all kinds of wines. We both had a lot of fun, John enjoys wine a little more than I do though and he might have had a little too much fun :)

The whole trip was really great even though the weather didn't always cooperate so nicely. We love to travel and I especially like to get out of the city every once in a while :)

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Valentine's Festivities

I know Valentine's Day was over a week ago but I'm a little behind with posting.

The Thursday before Valentine's Day I had my second annual cookie decorating party. I love to bake and this is the perfect  excuse to bake a ton of cookies! I had about 12 girls over and we had so much fun being girly :)
Of course I had to make a couple of cookies for John. For Christmas I got him Star Wars cookie cutters from Willams-Sonoma and this was the first time I used them. I think Yoda turned out pretty cute.
John and I don't usually do much for Valentine's Day, this year we were leaving to go to San Francisco two days later so we really didn't do much. John was a sweetheart and brought home flowers and one of our favorite desserts.
I attempted to make deviled eggs from a restaurant that we love. John really likes deviled eggs and I usually only make them once a year at Easter. Recently though we had the best deviled eggs we've ever had at a bbq restaurant around the corner. I found a copy of the recipe online and made them. They tasted fantastic but they didn't look quite so nice. I'll definitely have to work on my egg peeling skills.
We just got back from San Francisco and I'll post pictures from the trip soon.