Oui, the pizza.

So this week I went to We the Pizza twice.

I've had a slice of cheese, mushroom, and buffalo mozzarella.

It's good pizza. Crust is a tad thick for my taste, but crispy and a little chewy - I liked. I also liked their use of fresh oregano - it really adds so much to the pizza. The restaurant is really easy to hang out in, too. Just like good stuff - Spike knows how to set up a nice interior that you want to keep coming back to. And guess what else? We the Pizza makes fresh on-the-spot italian sodas. I got grape soda and it was divine. Also next time I go when I've eaten less pizza and have more room for dessert - they have homemade gelato and they make a smores sundae with it. Get OVER yourself, pizza place! I'm so glad to have you in the neighborhood. You can tell Spike put a lot of thought and care into creating a restaurant that people will love the food and atmosphere, even if there are pictures of Spike all over the walls. I even saw a couple parties going on - nice to have that option here on the tight-spaced Hill.

So what are you doing this weekend, dearies? I need to catch up on so many things since I've pretty much been out of town every week since June 2. Major laundry and organization to do - boo (but I'm secretly excited to be doing this. I'm sick, I know).
TH and I are having family day on Saturday and I'm so excited to spend time with him! I think we'll probably see a movie tonight, if we can decide on one...Inception? Salt? Despicable Me?

it's better down here.

no prejudices or anything, but i really love the manassas battlefield much more than gettysburg. i hung a left out of harrisburg yesterday afternoon and drive through gettysburg. it's so...commercialized. so many trinkets to buy stating that "i've been to gettysburg!" the manassas battlefield is much calmer and gives one the ability to focus on the real purpose of going to these sacred places. reflecting on our history, grateful thoughts for those who fought for our freedom, and spending time with friends and family.
i know gettysburg hosted lincoln, and therefore its better-known, and also that the battle of gettysburg was a turning point in the civil war, but really - does everyone need to capitalize on that by opening stores entirely dedicated to green, orange, and all things irish?

i was glad to roll back home last night and i've been thinking about when i can go visit manassas battlefield. when it cools down, i think a picnic and kite flying are in order. want to come?

quick trip. and some tunes.

driving up to pennsylvania tonight for a meeting i'm running tomorrow. i think on the way home, i'll try to stop by a dutch market or gettysburg, since i've never been.

then guess what? NO MORE TRIPS FOR almost 4 WEEKS! wow, i can't wait to be home for a while. settle in. i just bought some really great records when i was in CA, and i just want to sit in my living room with the speakers turned up, drinking some cool drink and listening to patsy cline, benny goodman, charlie parker, and waylon jennings. old country and old jazz - that is my perfect summer soundtrack.

and maybe with a little of this mixed in there, too:

QUADRON "Slippin" (Unofficial) video from jenna mangulad on Vimeo.

xo

san francisco, what a treat.

mushrooms at ferry building.biking to the golden gate bridge.before crossing the bridge. hello windy day.

sausalito. you gorgeous little town, you.a house in berkeley. those flowers nearly made me cry.

and can't forgot all the cool SF houses and details.

i thought san francisco was an interesting mix of new york, chicago, and the rocky mountains (those hilly streets! ack!) friday, i had breakfast at the ferry market building, then i rented a bike and biked the embarcadero to the golden gate bridge and down to sausalito. a great way to see so much of the city and enjoy the cool summer weather. i got a nice sunglasses burn, and i look awesome now. after the bike ride, i went straight to chinatown to check out the crazy shops and felt completely lost and overwhelmed! one hour is not long enough to even put a dent in chinatown! i went back to my hotel after that and rested for 20 minutes, then took off to walk around a ton - through the mission district over to haight-ashbury (through the duboce triangle - loved it!), and then took a cab to golden gate park to visit the de young museum (up the observation tower with amazing views of the city!). and ended the day with a movie - the kids are all right. and that was all in one day!!

back in town, and just loving dc. i don't even care how hot it is, it's just nice to be home, walking around my neighborhood again, dreaming up fun things to do to enjoy the rest of the summer. i really do love living in dc and so excited to hang out with friends. play time!

home sweet home.

and TH joins me in 11 hours.

it feels so good to be home, even if it was a heat index of 120 today. oh dc, you are so quickly becoming the land of two seasons: winter and summer.

overwhelmed in san francisco.

i don't know where to go!!!

just got in a few hours ago, had breakfast of the fluffiest pancakes in my life at bette's oceanview diner* in berkeley.
now sitting in a wifi cafe having lunch and doing a little work, but i'm at a loss for what to do next. what are your favorite things to do in the city? what are your must see's? i'm only here for 1.5 days so every minute counts!

i think i might try to rent a bike a bike through some parks and across the bridge. then of course shopping (but what neighborhood!?), and eating too much. oh and chinatown, yes. i feel like nyc, though bigger, is much easier to navigate! this east coast girl is at a loss.

* when TH and i started dating, he mailed me a cookbook called "the pancake handbook" because i told him i want it to be my specialty. we had only been dating for like 3 weeks and i thought it was so thoughtful and sweet and funny. the pancake handbook was written by the people at bette's oceanview diner, so the visit there this morning was extra special. aww. l'mour.

To consider.

Never listen to Sarah mclachlan when you are sad. It does not help, unless you want to descend into a spiral of sadness.
Man, I really want to come home. Anyone else feel me? Can I get a what what?

I'm drinking red bull and listening to some rock music to shake it off.

Almost over

Meeting is almost done.
Sacramento is hot and sunny.
Can't wait to see San Francisco in a few short days.

Last night I was at a fancy dinner with speakers and a friend and I were devising ways to get out of there(so long and these people have never met a word they don't like). My idea was to get up and run through the glass doors, leaving a human shaped hole with flailing arms and legs. Friends idea was to throw down a smoke bomb and disappear in the smoke cloud. Pretty entertaining. We finally got out, then took a tour of the museum, which had the original c3po and r2d2. Nerds unite!!

I really really miss home, and I triple really miss th.

do you think we'll all look back at 2010 and wonder why we all had bangs?

my next hair desire is the ali macgraw. that should just take, like 3 years.

does it seem like all i talk about lately is hair? hmm...

hair.

my dreams last night were amazing. i had hair that could grow at the snap of my fingers, so for all of last night, my hair was long and beautiful. i miss it some days, especially on days like today where the humidity makes me look like this:

yeah, kind of sad. boo hoo.

DC break.

missing family today.

i made the best decision ever yesterday. my Delta flight back to dc was delayed because the plane had mechanical problems (my flight out to denver was cancelled for the same reason), so i called up customer service, cancelled my flight, and then called Frontier airlines and bought a last minute one-way to DCA. i literally bought the ticket while standing in front of the gate, 25 minutes before it took off. never done that before, so i felt pretty smart. especially when i landed and saw that the original delta flight STILL hadn't taken off. take that, delta. i am never flying that airline again.

glad to be back home for a day. just enough time to do laundry, pack, and settle my stomach (my stomach has not been flying well lately).

colorado springs was beautiful, and the drive between denver and co springs took my breath away. i would have no problem moving there and living a happy happy life in the mountains. never thought this east coast girl would say that, but wow - it was quite refreshing to be there.

now i'm off to conquer this humid, hot day. bring it, DC.

weekend of dreams.

hey good thing i had the best weekend of life because now i can stick it in my back pocket to remember how great things are while i'm away for the rest of the month.

friday: Breathless at AFI. even if i cannot be in paris, i can pretend via jean seberg and her amazing hair. i've wanted to see this movie for forever and was so excited to see it coming to AFI for a week! get there this week if you can. they're showing it in the big big theatre. yay.

saturday: brunch at jimmy t's. blueberry waffles for me and eggs, bacon, and grits for TH. then off to a family reunion in maryland - hung out with moms family and introduced mark and relaxed in the maryland countryside. so beautiful up there. we came home and just laid around the house some more, then walked to pick up a late night pizza at matchbox.

sunday: this is what made the weekend the best. church, and we taught the 4 and 5 year olds for naomi and man they are hilarious. some great lines direct from the kids:
q - do you know what this is a picture of?
a - yeah, that's jesus wearing flipflops.

q - who is the most obedient of all? (answer supposed to be jesus)
a - ME! (shouted by a really rambunctious 3 year old)

q - what do you see in this picture?
a - (8 year old kid) a hobo!
a - some other girl - awww, that's a bad word.
a - (8 yr old kid) - hobo's not a bad word. we got one on our block!

and that really is just scratching the surface. i applaud the primary teachers - those kids are quite a handful, but so full of love and earnestness, it's hard not to totally just love them right away.

after church, we walked to the national's game. i got free tickets from my boss in the VERY FRONT ROW behind the dugout. what?! it was really ridiculously hot and sunny, but so fun. you could see the players mouthing curse words and spitting out their chaw (gross). we had so much fun.
after the game, we decided to take out our bikes for a tour de dc. this is a lesson i continue to learn - bikes + summer = FUN! we rode everywhere, including down by the waterfront, across the mall to the hirschhorn, and to eastern market for milkshakes from Teds Bulletin.

basically, the most summery summer weekend of 2010.

weekend, you are here.

(at the root beer float stand in provo canyon, utah)

this weekend is another busy one!

french movie, family reunion, apartment looking, teaching sunday school, baseball game. phew! all that, and i leave monday night for my crazy 2 weeks of 4 cities. excited to travel a little more to some new places, but will be hard with TH over in london. 8 hours apart - we'll be doing the you call me when you're going to bed and i'm just waking up thing. maybe it will be ok.

either way, we're really going to take advantage of the time we have together this weekend! bring on the crazy.

what are you up to this weekend?

3 months!

i can't believe its been (over!) 3 months since we got married. with all this travel, it's hard to feel like a newlywed. easy to feel like a weary eyed traveler and get fed up with airports, though.
but really, it's been just so nice. no, not perfect (is marriage ever perfect?), but it's so nice to have found my best friend in my husband. i am super cheesy with him like i've never been able to be with anyone else. i knew when i married him he would make me laugh all the time, and it's true. i swear he is just a joke machine disguised as a human. i'm pretty happy how these past 3 months have molded me and i'm glad that he puts up with my little fits and my grumpiness. he deserves all kinds of medals for that one. i feel ridiculously lucky when he's by my side.

too many cookies.

i just got my first ever bad report on cholesterol. what? that's crazy. i mean, i eat a healthy diet of pizza, cookies, ice cream, and fried stuff. how could it possibly be bad?

i asked TH about things to eat to help lower cholesterol. he said "running".

well, i guess i'm in the junk food dog house. nuts.

time for healthy lifestyle change. any tips to get started?

shaved asparagus pizza.

a couple weeks ago, before all this heat prevented me from even thinking about turning on my oven, i made a pizza. it was my first attempt since working as a pizzamonger in college, and i wasn't that proud of my final product. my biggest mistake? i overworked the dough and it ended up making the crust too thick. but friends, i haven't given up. it was a super easy recipe, it just takes practice to be a good pizza dough thrower. shaved asparagus on pizza though? deb is right, wowsers. so delicious and you almost feel like you are eating food that is good for you!

prep the dough beforehand. it will take about 1.5-2 hours to rise and get ready. it's really easy to make, even for me the challenged baker.

1. shave asparagus with veg peeler. about 10 stalks is good. drizzle olive oil and salt and pepper these.

2. use cornmeal or flour under the dough.
3. sprinkle some freshly grated parmigiana-reggiano on the prepared dough. top with asparagus, crushed garlic, and then layer fresh mozzarella on top.
4. bake at 450 for about 10 minutes.eat up! i put some tomatoes on it, but didn't like it in the end.

recipe, including crust (which was super easy to make) adapted from smitten kitchen, here.

we rode a bobsled.

my brother in law - tony - works at the bobsled track in park city. yes, he drives the bobsled. yes, i understand that's awesome. i also now understand that is dangerous and scary and i would cry if i had to do that every day. this bobsled ride was really fast (speeds of over 70mph) and curvy, and it was all over in less than a minute.

bobsled? sure, yeah i can do this. why not.

"TH, actually, i don't think i want to do this"

here, mike (my bro) is excited for his third bobsled ride. his kids can't wait till they are old enough to go!waiting to go down. why am i doing this again?

well, in the end we had a great time. nobody vomited and we even got a picture at the end of it all. proof, people. it's all about the proof.

this now counts as one of the highest adrenaline rush activities i've done. maybe you think that's sad, but then why don't you tell me what the craziest thing is that you've ever done?

utah. the food.

of course, i have to tell you about the food we ate in utah last week. salt lake has a pretty happening food scene right now, and we dove right in. oh man, did we ever.

best new find: les madelines
a downtown bakery, specializing in amazing pastries. i had the best egg sandwich of my life, and about 4 Kouing Amans (we went back again for more of these). Kouing Amans are a flaky, buttery pastry with crystal sugar and salt dusted on the outside and carmelized goodness. omgah i'm dying for another one right now. apparently they run out on a daily basis, so you must get there early to partake. worth it.

an old favorite, and a diners, drive-ins, and dives restaurant (triple D): red iguana.
our large group was all interested in mole, but not sure which to get, so they brought out 2 of their sampler trays - this was so cool of them to do. we were all so happy with our food! fun to be there with the kiddos and family. hooray for good mexican food! so hard to find on the east coast.

another triple D restaurant, moochies. featuring sub sandwiches, including meatball subs and philly cheesesteak - our group was so happy about this! i had a tuna sub, which was kind of mayonaissey, but the bread was good anyway. look at my brother stuffing his face. haha, thanks for taking us here, mike!

k and last but not least, the blue plate diner as recommended to us by tony and laura, and yet another triple D restaurant! TH and i both got eggs benedict - mine was vegetarian sausage and tomatoes, TH got mexican eggs benedict. the hollandaise was to die for and the hash browns, too! we loved this place! sat at the counter and ate free rolo's and sipped our cokes until the food came. this was the last place we went before heading to the airport to fly back to DC.

oh wow. i'm hungry.

see you next time, restaurants of slc. nicely done.

hot hot heat.

no sneaky hotel pools this weekend, but i did visit my sisters community pool yesterday and it was a DELIGHT. i just wish i could stay in the pool today and tomorrow with temperatures forecasted in the triple digits today and tomorrow. blech.

this weekend went by quickly!

friday: visited TH's parents, had some dessert and picked up my new bike!

saturday: morning housework, temple, then a quick trip to the mall (awesome sale at jcrew right now - i found jeans originally priced at $158 for $17! what a bargain. for dinner we picked up some general tso's at sunflower in vienna, va, and watched Bird, a biopic about charlie parker. really good movie, we couldn't turn it off even though it was 1am and i was beat!

sunday: church, relax at home, TH put my bike together (its so pretty!), then we walked down to the folklife festival at the mall with our new neighbs, hannah and robbie. i didn't take any pictures at all because it was so hot all i wanted to do pretty much was cry. but then we found shade, bought some lemonade, and talked about museum, religion, and movies and other pop culture importance. then 4th of july on the mall - we sat right under the fireworks and they looked all 3d like they were popping out at us! i loved it. always good memories on the mall. dan kirk was there and we reminisced about the time we all went down to dc as teenagers and made each other pass out because that was the mormon way of getting high. haha. how ridiculous. after fireworks, we just walked the quick 20 minute walk home and collapsed.

monday: slept in, made egg sandwiches and strawberry smoothies, then i left TH to go to THE POOL! with my sisters and bro-in law and dad. oh yeah lizzie was there, of course, stealing the show as always. after THE POOL! we went back to jenny's house and ate pizza hut and chocolate covered peanuts and i thought to myself how much i love my family. we love to just sit around and eat bad foods on holiday weekends, and that is awesome.

today i want to cry it is so hot. but instead, i will work, then take my bike to get oiled up and ready to ride, make crumpets, then eat dinner with friends!

how was your weekend, friends?

dating + 3 years = marriage

did i ever tell you about the time TH introduced mei li to dave? well, it was about 3 years ago, and check it - we went to their beautiful wedding last weekend. now they are living it up in sunny south america, and we can't wait to hang out with them soon. the new mr. and mrs. congratulations you guys! and yes, we now consider ourselves expert matchmakers, so please let us know if you want to meet any of our friends. but please consider that it may take up to 3 years to marry. that's how we do around here.

hotel pools. the sneak.

any of you ever snuck into a hotel pool? any tips for a newby? i have some hot tub sneaking experience from my college days, but rooftop city pool...this is new for me.

going to try my luck this weekend. anyone want to join?

utah. the babies.

elijah getting ready for his big bobsled ride. laura and evelyn at the pool.

tanner being awesome.

tanner and brooklyn at red iguana.

tanner and brooklyn showing us around hotel rowlett.

lijah babe.

lil evie.

we had SUCH a fun time with family when we were in utah. so many babies, so little time. tanner and brooklyn cracked us up with their stories and impressed us with all the prep work they did for hotel rowlett. we loved it! and then i got to spend more time with elijah and evelyn - restaurants, the pool, the olympic park, and at their house! lijah is really cute and wants to play ALL the time. and little evie is so tiny and SO GOOD. i've never seen a baby sleep so much and be so quiet and cute. good job, evie, you are making laura's job easy.

hope we get to see you guys again soon! we're thinking a family trip is in order maybe next summer? a cabin by the lake (bear lake)? a beach house (in outer banks)? we'll talk.