SF Marathon

We are victorious!!!! Mwha ha ha! That's a picture of Hiroko and me after completing the SF Marathon's Half marathon. Notice how cute and smiley we still are after running 13.1 miles - LOL. This was Hiroko's very first running race and the longest distance she's ever run!

There we are about 1 mile into the marathon. At this point, Hiroko has given up on waving at the camera which Todd is wielding. I, on the other hand know no bounds when it comes to hamming it up for the camera. Literally, Todd has about 6-7 pics of us running by him and I am gleefully waving in each one.

Haight Street cheering squad. Todd met up with these random dudes when he cycled over to the next photo op / cheerleading point at the corner of Haight and Stanyan by the McDonalds. Apparently these dudes were reading everyone's bib's and cheering out their names. And when good looking men ran by, they were extra cheerful. So upon seeing Todd roll up in his lycra cycling kit and a hot pink boa, they were very obviously "heyey." To which Todd replies, "ok the only names you need to know are Hiroko and Betty." Gotta love the extra character of SF.

Trip to Napa

Just a pic of us heading outta Sea Ranch for a quick overnight trip to Napa. I really wish we took more time off after the wedding, just because we barely had time to get some rest before we were back in the office - bleh. Oh well, life marches on and hopefully our January trip to Europe will come together and we can take that vaca.

Going to the chapel and we're gonna get married

To see all the pics click here...

On Saturday July 7th at The Sea Ranch Lodge up on the Northern Sonoma coast, Forrest and celebrated our wedding with our immediate family and very close friends. We had a total of 40 people in attendance and I have to say it was just so much fun having everyone with us for the entire weekend to not only share in this big life event with us, but to also share Sea Ranch with them as well.

Sea Ranch is this tiny little sleepy town in between Bodega Bay and Mendocino and it has a killer windy section of Highway 1 that can test anyone's motion sickness monitor. It's a special place for Forrest because his family used to have a house out there and would vacation there quite often. I only recently started going there last year in September when we made our first trek there together to get out of the city for a long weekend. I'm so glad we picked that place for the wedding because the entire weekend felt like just a mini vacation with our friends...so much fun in fact that some people are already talking about future trips to Sea Ranch - YES! We've got some converts to join us on future trips :)

On our way....

Practice makes perfect

Sea Ranch is such a big tease sometimes, I swear... The weather for our rehearsal was absolutely perfect. Clear, sunny, blue skies with hardly any wind at all...and temperatures were mild in the 70's. To see all the pics from the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, click here for the online album
That's the immediate fam all headed down to the ceremony site for a few test runs of the wedding ceremony.


Faux walking down the aisle with my dad, trying to keep my cool. This was the first time that I really felt the gravity of "getting married" and nervous. Everything feels like a very natural progression of our relationship and therefore, marriage just felt right - but practicing all this stuff, well, made us both a little nervous.


look into my eyes....you are getting very sleepy....lol

Goofing off as always - just trying to keep the everything light and fun :) Now moving on to the party.... We had the rehearsal dinner at the house Forrest's parents were renting - everyone over for a casual BBQ/Buffet style meal since guests were arriving anytime between 4 - 10 pm. Things ended with a sunset toast out on the bluff...a nice way to end the evening and a great kickoff to the weekend with friends and family.

Welcome to your teens

I don't know if I should congratulate her or warn her...but Tori (Forrest's niece) has officially entered her teens as of July 23rd. I bet she is very excited to be 13 and entering that interesting middle ground area of young adulthood...where you're no longer play with dolls, but don't quite yet wear stilettos. Granted there are wonderfully exciting things like getting your driver's license, prom, applying to college...but there are also horrible terrifying things like, high school, going to college and well, just growing up. It goes by so fast once you hit double digits in age...I think she was just 10 when I first met her, but in some pictures from the wedding...I swear she fit right in in pics with my friends and you wouldn't have known that she wasn't in her 20's...oh boy.

Anyways, here's to the adventure of being in your teens - Happy Birthday :)

Mutant Eggplants

I am actually palming a gigantic eggplant in that picture. It's supposed to be the Farmer's market...all organic and shit. But I'd sure as heck like to know what's in that fertilizer.

Brioche Bread Pudding with Dried Cherries

I am now a believer... holy crap - these are yummy. I am typing this post as I am eating dessert.

Served alongside a dallop of whipped cream, this is 'muy delicioso!' Although, I did put a little too much powdered sugar in the whipped cream.

Sugar Cookies

Gotta love the French and their use of silicone. These are handy little buggers.

Collection of sprinkles from my crate of cookie / cake decorating equipment. I had every intention of decorating these lovely sugar cookies so they could reach the pinnacle of their cookie-dom, but alas, I ran out of gas and they remain...plain

done deal

wedding is all done and we're back at home trying to catch up on sleep.... just finished loading up all 8 billion pictures online and will post a few pics here soon :)

Oyaji - your very own penis tag

Somewhere out there, far out in the Richmond....almost out by Ocean Beach lies a sushi place reminiscent of Sushimania. Even the chef's name is similar...Hire and he gets just as, if not more loaded than good old Hidei. If you are curious..hit up 32nd and Clement.

On Saturday, Molly arranged a bachelorette party for me complete with all of our favorite activities like rooftop pedis, massages, sushi and drinks :) Muchas Gracias!!! It was the perfect day of activities, literally I was jello by about 5pm :)

Stone Fruit Pie

Above is a sampling of the fruit I picked up at the Ferry Building on Saturday. In actuality I bought something like 12 billion pounds each of peaches, plums, apricots and nectarines. That's all I could fit into the colander above. The plums were flipping amazing...the skin was so dark, almost black with a super deep purple-y flesh that's amazingly sweet without being syrupy.

I wasn't sure how the pie would turn out, being a menagerie of assorted stone fruits. You can see from the picture how black the pie filling looks...that's all from those potent plums.