Lasagna and A Tiny Surfboard

Greetings blog world...back for my once a week posting. Crazy busy week at work last week so nothing noteworthy to speak of.

Yesterday, I hang out with my sisters and we made a spinach/Italian sausage lasagna for dinner. Well, it was more like my sister made lasagna and I watched/helped a little bit. My sister is a lasagna making genius because this came together really quickly and it was super tasty. We enjoyed this so much that this may become a more frequent occurrence.

And for dessert...vanilla lemon cake w/ macerated strawberries and Cool-Whip!

In running related news, I have a race this weekend. It's been awhile. I probably won't die but 'first race of the season' jitters is starting to hit me. I'm really looking forward to adding another surfboard medal to my collection, so there's always that.

Shower and Awesomeness

It's a little over a month until my wedding and my sisters threw me a bridal shower this past Saturday. It was a fun day of fine dining and spa-ing. Definitely my kind of day. I love spending time with these lovely ladies!

Check out this cute dessert tray that the hotel sent over to the relaxation room for us! Massages and sweets...I can do this all day!

A big 'thank you' to my sisters for spoiling me and letting me act like a princess for the day. I finally got a chance to wear this pouf-y dress that has been sitting in my closet for a while now.

Later that evening, we made pizza for dinner. Sister K mentioned that she had made pizza the other night using some pre-made pizza dough that she found at Trader Joe's. We made a quick trip to TJ's, picked up a couple of items and an hour later...tada! This one is prosciutto and pineapple on garlic and herb crust. We should have used less of the prosciutto or regular ham because prosciutto gets salty when you cook it. We made another one that was rectangular and it was pepperoni and mushroom on a wheat crust. The pre-made dough was pretty good. My dough stretching ability was not so much.

Today was another fun day as I had a lunch date with my very awesome Ragnar van-mates sans Sandy (Becka, Julie, Shannon and Heather) and met blogger and Disney fanatic Krissy who was in town with her family for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon weekend. Becka, Heather and Krissy ran all the Disney races this month so head on over to their blogs to check out all their cute fun photos. This is definitely going in the books as one of the best weekends ever!

That Was Cake

I had meant to post about my wedding planning process along the way but I just could not find the time nor motivation. So let's start here and see how things go...

This past weekend, the mister and I went to pick out our wedding cake. I'm currently neck deep in wedding planning but I've been looking forward to this part for awhile now. I don't know much about floral arrangements, sweetheart necklines or unity sand ceremonies but cake I know...or so I thought.

We are getting our cake made by Creative Cakes. They are located in old town Orange and as soon as I walked into the shop, I knew this was my kind of place. It was bright and full of beautifully detailed cakes on display. I was a little overwhelmed at first but after analyzing each cake thoroughly I was able to narrow it down to a few, then a couple and finally 'the' cake!

The cake we picked out is one of these. Can you guess which one? If you are attending my wedding, you will find out there! ;0)

So this was the fun part...the eating of cake! I was really excited to finally taste my wedding cake. Being the foodie that I am, I was more concerned about the way it tasted than the way it looked but there was no need for my concerns because the cakes were moist and the frosting selection were all very good. We both knew exactly which ones we liked as soon as we started the tasting because combined we've eaten a lot of cake in our lifetime. We agreed on three different cake flavors paired with three different frosting. It's nice when things work out because there would have been an arse-kicking in the parking lot if I had not gotten my way. I kid.

Another item off the to-do list. Yay! We're almost at the finish line honey!

Twenty Thirteen

Wow, its been awhile since I've blogged. The holidays be crazy which actually translates to me just being lazy. How is it already January 8th and I've not paid respects to 2013? I mean this is going to be one heck of a year. Dare I say EPIC! For starters, I'm getting married next month...and we have an amazing honeymoon planned to a beautiful tropical locale...and come tax day I'm going to be running the race of all races...Boston! All this just means that I'll either be blogging more or way less. Stay tuned!

Since I had not blogged since the middle of December, here is a quick recap. I had a very nice holiday break with my family. It was filled with presents, amazing food, family and joy! I really couldn't ask for more.

Sister K. celebrated a birthday the day after Christmas!

Of course, I ate...here are just a few photos of all the amazing food I mentioned eating.

It was back to the office last week with a pile of things to do waiting for me. I'm still trying to dig myself out of the pile.

On the wedding planning front, I am waist deep in finalizing little details here and there. I am hoping to get a couple of posts up soon on my planning process so that I can share a few glimpses of what I've been doing.

Welcome to 2013!

10 Delicious Things I Ate in 2012

It's that time of year again. Year in review...list compiling...whatever it is called, I have some to share. This year, I'd like to start off with my favorite one...the food! For the past couple of years, I've compiled a list of all the delicious things eaten during the year.

I normally start the list in January and add to it every time I eat something that makes my heart skip a beat. There have been years when I've had to cut from the list because there were just too many contenders. While other years, I've had to dig through my photo gallery to remind my taste buds.

Anyhow, here is 2012's list! Food is very simple in concept but when it is crafted by a talented chef it becomes a complex masterpiece. I've selected the below items based on either one or a combination of: flavor, freshness, balance, composition, uniqueness and a couple of the items were selected if only because someone took a very simple dish and made it above and beyond.

Mangia bene!

1) Spaghetti Scoglio at Olio E Limone Ristorante (Santa Barbara, CA)

2) Farmers Salad w/ Grilled Shrimps at Cucina Enoteca (Irvine, CA)

3) Koi Ramen at Kohyu (Costa Mesa, CA)

4) The Shrimp and Scallops Mesquite Grilled Salad at the Original Fish Company (Cypress, CA)

5) Chirashi at Toshi Sushi (Little Tokyo, Downtown LA)

6) Chocolate Cake/Cupcake at French's Cupcake Bakery (Costa Mesa, CA)

7) Buffalo Sloppy Joe's at Beachwood BBQ (Long Beach, CA)

8) Brunch at Tap's Fishhouse (Brea, CA)

9) Paella at Catal Restaurant (Downtown Disney, Anaheim CA) - it's hard to find paella here in the OC, so this ended up on my list if only because it's been a really long time since I've had it.

10) Cupcakes from My Delight Cupcakery (in particular the Dulce de Leche!) (Ontario, CA and via their cupcake truck)

The 12K Run

Date: December 12, 2012
Location: Irvine, CA
Time: 12:12.12pm
Finish: 1:00:38 (7.5 miles)
Elevation:

Friend Darren, in the middle with the yellow shirt, friend Rich and I went on a 12K (~7.5 miles) lunch run today at exactly 12:12.12pm. My matching yellow hat to his yellow shirt was purely coincidental but it looks like we planned it for this event...haha. Friend Rich probably thought that we were so weird. This was an unofficial "race" of sorts masterminded by Darren. He had ran a race on 10/10/10 (Chicago Marathon) and one on 11/11/11 so he felt the need to run a race on 12/12/12 to continue the streak. Unfortunately, today is a Wednesday and there were no races close by...so he unofficially created one.

It felt like a race because we waited around at the starting area until exactly 12:12.12pm before we synchronized our watches and took off running. It started out as a "fun" run but half way into it I wanted to see if I could finish it under an hour but that small incline at the end slowed me down quite a bit and I ended up stopping the clock at .38 seconds over the hour.

And that is how you celebrate a once in a lifetime calendar occurrence! :0) Happy 12/12/12/! I hope you all got a chance to do something special to mark the occasion.

Back On Track

Sooner or later I knew that I had to go back to track after my 'craptacular' performance at CIM. I originally planned to go back in January but because I'm so good at following plans I went back today. Not entirely out of my own will. I ran into Darren yesterday at the gym and he normally does track on Tuesday so I decided to tag along with him and some other coworkers. I am so suggestible.

I'm the worst...apparently the last time I was at track was back in August. I've been feeling awful lately so I'm not even sure how I was able to run one of my fastest mile repeats. It's probably some freak accident that will probably never happen again.

In other news, the holidays are here! This is why I've been feeling so awful. I'm just not a fan of this time of year.

The treats have been good...really really good...just not for my waistline.

I've unofficially started cleaning up my plate prior to January 1.  Not really because I wanted to but more because I was starting to feel like an overgrown slug. So here's to getting a head start!

Last week on Twitter a discussion was started by Krissy, Heather and Becka on costume ideas for the 2013 Tinkerbell Half. I'm unfortunately not even signed up for that race so I wasn't sure how I even got into the conversation. I guess I'm just nosy. Maybe it was because I heard the word 'costume' because you know that's my bag baby. Anyhow, I think they are going to dress up as varies characters from the Sugar Rush gang. I must have been on crack because I volunteered to dress up as Adorabeezle and I'm not even registered for the race. I haven't seen Wreck-It Ralph yet but I think Adorabeezle is...well for lack of a better word...adorable! I can probably throw this costume together pretty quickly...now all I need is a bib. :0)