On bacon and bike rides

Things have certainly been a little crazy for us in the last month, but last week was good to just kind of start to manage everyday activities again. Laundry is done, house is clean, Milo finally has a store of food again (we were down to the canned stuff while waiting for a shipment!)...you know, those things that have to happen to keep you relatively sane when you come home each night.

And in the last week and a half I've made 2 batches of mint Nanaimo bars. That helps.

It's also been nice (and painful) getting back to my CrossFit routine. I had to improvise with Insanity and random workouts while in Chicago, so last week I started back at the gym with my CF workouts and running. Other than the fact that I could not walk up or down stairs a couple days last week, it feels good.

Last week we had a surprise visitor - my dad has been in the Bay recently quite a bit for work, and we're not complaining! It means we get to see him more than usual, which is really nice :) And, you know, it's allowed for some bonding time between him and Milo - to resolve their past differences. I think it's finally working:

Wednesday, I was thinking that the weather has been SO awesome, I really need to take advantage of it. So since it was my day off from CF (and Thursday - you know how I adore Thursdays!), I woke up early for a nice long yoga sesh, had a delicious zucchini oatmeal breakfast, then hopped on my butter-yellow cruiser and rode to the CalTrain station in Redwood City. Which apparently has the nicest weather anywhere.

Admittedly, biking, taking CalTrain, and then walking to the office from there turned my commute into 2 hours each way (thank goodness I got up early!) instead of the usual 70 min, but it was awesome. That bike ride was my moment of meditation for the day - so nice!

This past weekend was awesome. Most relaxing, best weekend we've had in a very long time. We both had to work Friday (okay, Nolan chose to work), so we sat at home and at Starbucks and just worked side-by-side, taking time for a little lunch together and then just enjoying getting to sit together while we were on calls or working through presentations or spreadsheets. Friday night we met some friends for dinner in East Sac and explored the neighbourhood a bit before coming home for a late hot tub session with my mom under the stars clouds. So fun!

Saturday we each met our BFFs for breakfast in El Dorado Hills/Folsom, then met back up with my mom for visiting Gramma, running errands, and getting lunch at a new BBQ spot in Placerville. It was okay. By the time we got home the rain was pouring down, the fireplace was blazing, and it felt like a genuine fall day. So we settled in for some Rummikub, a nice nap, and then I worked on dinner items for our dinner with my brother and sister-in-law. Note: if you tell me you like bacon, I will put it in everything. We had bacon-wrapped rosemary pork tenderloin (double pig! yay!), sauteed veggies with little bits of bacon, and then black-bean brownies with a chocolate glaze and studded with...bacon! Tasty. We also played Carcassonne, but we won't talk about that because it was a travesty - I got utterly destroyed by pretty much everyone!

Sunday I woke up to do CrossFit with my sister-in-law, followed by a gorgeous little 4-mile run in the sunshine. We had a little breakfast, and then packed up and headed down to Granite Bay/Roseville to check out a new church and the general area. After church, we googled a good Indian lunch buffet (okay, maybe not the healthiest weekend ever!), and hit it up. It...was so good. And seriously good value. We already have plans to return. Definitely doesn't hurt (or does it?) that it's basically across the street from Nolan's new job that starts next year. Oh...did I mention he has a job next year?

YES. I'm so proud. If it wouldn't thoroughly embarrass him, I'd take a video of me dancing and post it here to convey my emotion. But.

Anyway. We documented the food (of course that's only pic we took of the whole weekend - we're fatties) with this pic, which demonstrates the value of the restaurant and the guaranteed goodness by its proximity to Subway and the appearance that it's in a strip mall. Quality. But seriously: really tasty.

My husband is super hot.

And now for an anecdote:

Somehow while blogging about our travels, I forgot to mention a crucial piece of the stress factor. While we were in the South of Thailand, Nolan was checking out our next hotel and figuring out other trip details in the lobby where there was good wifi. He brought his iPad, water bottle, and wallet down with him. When he came up to bed, he apparently just brought his iPad and water bottle. Of course this wasn't discovered until the next morning, and since it's an open-air lobby by the street...of course the wallet was gone. Good thing we each hold our own money. 

Stressful, eh? Just wait. That afternoon, we'd landed back in Bangkok, arrived at our admittedly terrible hotel, and decided to head to Chatuchak market, which is (by area) the largest market in the world. They say if you see something you like, buy it right then, because you'll never ever find the same stall again if you walk away from it. It's ginormous. Anyway, so we're walking along, eating tasty foods and checking out random things like stoneware and brass knuckles (hah!), and Nolan decides to try on a few dress shirts. They're like, $3, which is a little bit pricey in comparison to other stuff, so he says he'll think about it. We walk away. Half an hour later we're checking out some other stuff on the other side of the market, and Nolan reaches for his backpack...which is gone. He took it off to try on that dress shirt, and left it there. So I'm thinking, Okay, his wallet is already gone and I have our cash and we left the phones and cameras at the hotel...who cares about the backpack, since there is no way we'll ever find it? Thai and US Customs care, as apparently his passport was in there, and we have no photocopies (we're idiots, we know). So we're frantically running through the world's largest market with NO idea where we're going, I'm praying frantically and we're dodging shoppers and wares and oh by the way it's pouring down rain. 45 minutes and 12,000 steps on my pedometer later, I hear Nolan say, "Look! Brass knuckles! Brass knuckles!" and we turn around, and the dress shirt guy is cackling at us and saying, "you forget something I think?" Needless to say, out of our gratitude (and restored faith in humanity that he didn't pilfer it), we bought a $3 dress shirt. 

Lesson learned that trip? Anneliese holds the valuables.

Speaking of pedometers, we finally ordered one for Nolan, and are now officially engaged in a competition to see who can get the most steps per day from now through...(did we say an end date?). This seems a wee bit unfair to me, since even my CrossFit WODs don't always rack up tons of steps (I probably take like, 10 steps while doing a long set of thrusters, MAYBE). Then I sit at work all day at my desk, and sometimes don't get a chance to even go outside. Meanwhile he's on his feet and walking at the hospital for 12 hours straight without even bathroom breaks some nights (yikes). So I think I'm on my way to losing this one.