L and R's adventures in SF

Last weekend we went on an awesome outing that placed us in a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with 7 flat screen TVs and a hot tub, that was smack in the middle of Lake Don Pedro. It was a blast, we got to swim, bbq, relax in the hot tub, and I even got to drive the boat for a bit. This boat could definitely be described as “pimpin”, it even had a water slide for easy/super fun access to the lake.

At the end of the fun filled weekend everybody agreed on two things:

1. We have to do this again next year.
2. Two days was not nearly long enough for such a fantastic trip.

This past weekend I took my first Krav Maga class. Rome has wanted me to try it for a while so that I can learn how to defend myself. Israeli self-defense has always sounded a bit too intense for me, but I decided to try it out. I started to get worried while watching Rome finishing up his conditioning class (he decided to do two workouts in a row). It was all super buff people doing some crazy intense cardio stuff. Though as Rome ran to the locker room to change his sweat covered shirt, the conditioning instructor assured me that the next class was not nearly as intense… we’d see.

Rome made it back just in time for the start of the class. Immediately we went into shadow boxing, pushups, running and partner boxing. The big lesson of the day was learning to defend yourself from a ”choke from behind with a push.” Our partners were supposed to do it like it was real, no “friendly” choking allowed. Rome was my partner, and after lots of practice I was able to get out of his full strength choke. Even though I got accidently elbowed in the head and I was still sore two days later, I had a great time learning Krav Maga and checking out Rome’s crossfit/conditioning/Krav Maga gym. Crossfit is still out of my league, but I think I’ll go back for some more Krav. I’ve even started learning a few new techniques from Rome’s offical training manual.

What a weekend it was. We ended up at three different BBQs and I ate a bunch of stuff that wasn’t on my diet, it was pretty tasty though. We even got to sample some of Sandy and Brad’s famous pineapple vodka, and I even managed to squeeze my way onto the grill at one point! All in all it was a good cap to a fun summer that went by way too fast.

It was like three weeks or so ago, but we’re just getting around to posting about it now. Laura experienced her first trip to our little town, and from what she’s told me she had a good time. As always my dad was at the top of his grilling game, making all kinds of great meats, and it was lots of fun playing with my nieces and nephew who are all super cute. I have it on good authority that my nieces already miss Laura and her willingness to be their adult supervision while swimming. Guess they’ll just have to wait till next year.

Oh and photo credit for this entry totally goes to Bryan. Thanks dude, great shots!

This weekend we went for another adventure out to Ocean Beach. Once again it was freezing cold, however this time we were a bit more prepared. Laura bundled up in her ski jacket and I brought out my winter beanie. Plus since our friends got there early we even had a fire pit going. It was a good time, but once our feet went numb, we knew it was time to leave.

Argh, isn’t it August? Shouldn’t it be summer by now? Maybe we should move somewhere warm… or maybe we should just quit going to this sub 50 degree beach.

Last weekend Laura and I attended a baby shower for some of our friends. (Congrats again Reid and Hana!) One of the shower events was “guess that baby.” Earlier that week, everyone sent in a picture of themselves as a baby, then at the shower all the pictures were printed out and you had to match the baby to the person. It was such a fun game that we decided to bring a slightly smaller version to our blog! See if you can tell which baby below is Laura and which one is me:

I’ll give you a hint, Laura is the girl. 

This Sunday, Laura and I decided to enjoy the sun in different ways. Laura decided to go hiking with a few friends. First they had a nice lunch and then they drove out to Lands End and hiked around in the beautiful weather while gazing at the ocean and the Golden Gate.

I, on the other hand, enjoyed the sunshine in my own way…

…by sitting on the balcony of my apartment and setting up my new Macbook pro. It’s still up for debate which one of us made better use of the great weekend weather, but I think that I’m the clear winner.

This fourth of July weekend started when Rome’s friends Lito and Nicki came to visit from Boston. We went to dinner at Nick’s Crispy Tacos and then gave them a tour of the neighborhood.  After living in San Francisco, sometimes you forget how tough it is to walk uphill for extended periods of time (sorry guys- hope you’re legs aren’t burning too much!) So the next day we decided to go for a drive instead, and saw the famous Full House ”painted laides” at Alamo Square.

For the fourth Rome decided to make some ribs. He pre-cooked them for a few hours, and then we made some friends to get use of a barbeque grill on an extremely packed beach. It was worth it though, people loved the ribs!

The beach was relaxing, but we didn’t get to stay long since we had to make it down to Phil’s for his awesome barbeque. He really has some skills cooking meat with his new Big Green Egg. Next time we will have to get there early enough to sample some of the slow-cooked pork shoulder. We heard it was pretty fantastic! 

On Tuesday we woke up and and looked at the weather forecast, it was going to be 80 degrees in San Francisco! One of the warmest days that we’ve had all year. We were thinking how to make the most of it and apparently one of Laura’s friends was thinking the same thing, in a flash we had plans to hit the beach after work. There was a lot of discussion about how early we should get there to avoid all the crowds. I ducked out of work a little after 5, picked up Laura and we headed for Trader Joes (to pick up beach food of course).

That’s when things started getting onminous. The parking lot was more like a wind tunnel, it was starting to get pretty chilly. By the time we got to the beach that San Francisco weather had changed on us, the temparture had dropped into the 50s. On the plus side we did get the beach pretty much to ourselves, at least for as long as we could take the cold.

Also on the plus side, Laura managed to score a touchdown in beach football.

A couple of weeks ago while I was at the gym, my phone dissapeared. It was either taken by a nefarious individual or it may have ended up in the laundry with the gym towels. We’ll never know for sure. Needless to say I was distraught.

After seeing the prices for a brand new smart phone ($400+) I was even more distraught! But Rome, being the wonderful boyfriend that he is, calmed me down and helped me buy a new, reasonably priced, gently used, original Droid from Ebay. 

My new phone is even better than my Droid 2! Mainly because Rome programmed it with all these cool custom features. So now we are real twinsies with matching phones. Yay!