Disneyland - Part 1

The weekend before Thanksgiving my family came into town and we went to Disneyland. Sunday night we had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. We sat at our usual table and enjoyed the gorilla. Becca loved it of course and left with another new t-shirt to add to her collection.

The next day we checked out Disneyland. We started with the Jungle Boat, Indiana Jones, then Winnie the Pooh. Near Pooh Corner we ran into Tiger and he shook Becca's hand. She was so excited.

Then Becca saw a toy she could not live without, Jack. I don't even think she's ever seen Nightmare Before Christmas. Then as we were walking to lunch Jack actually walked past us and Becca was thrilled!

After an hour wait we finally got to eat at The New Orleans Cafe. It was absolutely delicious. I love a good Monte Cristo.

Becca was excited about her "CELEBRATE" button

Becca was so enthralled with Buzz she couldn't turn away to take a picture

Finding Nemo

 Waiting to ride It's a Small World

 I didn't realize they decorate the ride. It was so cute!

 We ended the night with the holiday parade.

Happy Anniversary

Danny and I celebrated FIVE years of marriage in the beginning of November. We had big plans to go out for a fancy meal but then he was out of town, I had a huge project, and he had to work the weekend. LAME! We still haven't really celebrated. The night of our anniversary Danny was able to leave the office in time to eat dinner with me and he picked up some take out so I didn't have to cook. I was worried I would spend our anniversary by myself so I was so glad he made it home for dinner!

Some things we've learned over 5 years (I seriously can't believe it's been 5 years)

• It's not dinner unless meat is involved.
• There is no rushing Danny time. Ever. No matter what.
•  Liz really does think she's a princess.
•  Liz has just as big of a sweet tooth as Danny.
•  The kitchen runs more smoothly when Danny is the head chef and Liz is the sous chef.
•  Danny is high maintenance.
•  Liz is cheap.
•  We do everything together.

AND.... Danny finally puts his hair and contact products away in the morning.  It only took five years to train him.   LOVE YOU DANNY!!!! 

Thank you for letting me be your bestie. I appreciate you always taking me along to your boys lunches and even the invite to tag along on your shooting trip.

Halloween

I did a couple of things to celebrate Halloween this year. Unfortunately none of them involved Danny.  First, I made a big fuss and took the YW to the pumpkin patch and hay maze in Half Moon Bay. This turned out to be a learning experience. The girls had fun and that is all that matters right?

Second, Lightening McQueen decided to make an appearance at our ward Trunk or Treat. I don't really know what I was thinking. I went by myself and was the only person there without children plus I was one of the only adults dressed in costume so I felt really stupid. All the kids really loved it but I felt so awkward the whole time. Oh well, it is probably the last year we'll have my car around to do it.

Cha Chow!

New Hampshire

The month of October was a little crazy for us. It was midterms for me which stressed me out since I hadn't had a test in 5 years. They went fine. Nothing to stress about. Danny was in the midst of writing his first essays for his MBA applications (cat's out of the bag officially) when he got staffed on a huge project at work which resulted in long nights, working weekends, and business trips. Poor guy. It was the last thing he needed. Fortunately he was able to make a quick trip back east to visit Dartmouth in Hanover. One of Danny's co-workers is now in the MBA program there, and he and his family were nice enough to house Danny for a few days.  Danny had a great time and the trip went really well. A huge relief!

 Danny made sure to get a picture of the stores in town. He knows me well!

Stress Eating

This pretty much sums up our October thus far.

In the last 10 days Danny and I have eaten THREE 9x13 pans of brownies and a bag of 100 Hundred Grands. Let's hope the 150 piece Costco bag of candy makes it to the Trunk or Treat on Halloween. Heaven help us.

The Secret Garden House

For years my favorite house in Palo Alto has been, what I call, The Secret Garden House. It is magical to say the least. It is a tasteful, large, English cottage with a magnificent, magical garden that peeps out from behind it's lovely fence. Every time friends/family come(s) to visit I try to make time to drive them down Santa Rita to show them my favorite house. I've even thought about borrowing a small child on Halloween so I could trick or treat at this beautiful home. I pass it every week when I walk with my friend, Kathryn.

A couple of months ago I learned that it's Steve Job's house. I guess the cute apple trees out front should have given it away. It makes sense that such a magical house would be the product of a creative genius. It was a little somber going on my weekly walk today. We stopped for a few moments to admire the make shift memorial and talk about how much we love our apple products.

I'm not a mac-fanatic. I own a Dell. But I love love love my new ipod touch. It's user-friendly design made it easy for my techni-phobe Mom to use facetime so I could "talk" to my little sister (who has mental disabilities and is nonverbal) for the first time since leaving home 10 years ago. It's brought our family closer.  That is a gift I will never forget.

September Happenings

We went to a good bye dinner party for our friend, Beau, a couple Sundays ago. It was at this sweet penthouse in the city. It was amazing. I wish I could live there. The food was delicious and the company awesome. I actually felt kind of like an idiot among the author (who knew and wrote about Mother Teresa), gentleman farmer (Napa...hello), start-up founders, and venture capitalists. "Hi, I'm Liz and I just quit my job in corporate finance to go to a community college" just doesn't sound as cool. Oh well. Everyone was really nice.

Danny and the Bay Bridge on our way to the dinner party

The Bay Bridge at night

View of the valley from the design studio classroom.

"Shopping" for my residential class project at the San Francisco Design Center. Not as fun as it sounds.

Stanford vs. San Jose State (Labor Day Weekend)

Danny's boss gave us his tickets for the Stanford vs. San Jose State football game. We'd never been to a Stanford game so we were excited to go. Even better we found out that there was a Food Truck Festival before the game. Of course we had to go. Luckily we live about a block from campus and could walk to avoid all the traffic.

 Waiting in line for my grilled cheese

Stanford has a lot more entertainment and stuff to do before the game than BYU. This is Stanford's mascot. Fear the Tree!! I thought Becca would love him!

Pat and Jordan's $5 froyo. Patrick liked it!

Our $5 froyo. Who are the fatties? That would be us.

Getting burned.

Our pretty awesome seats.

Back to School

I started school in the middle of August. I'd been talking about it for a LONG time and Danny finally told me to man up and do something about it. It was surprisingly difficult to register and I will never again judge someone who says they didn't start school because they couldn't get registered. It basically took me 3 months to get registered for classes. Applying wasn't hard. They take everyone but their online registration system for classes is a nightmare. Almost everyone has to meet with a couselor to have them register for you and it took 3 different trips and over 6 hours of waiting in the office to get it right. State schools! Ugh! It really made me appreciate what a wonderful education BYU offers for so little money. BYU's RouteY system 10 years ago is state of the art compared to what California colleges have. I almost gave up when they gave me a hard time about transfering a BYU class. Luckily my neighbor told me she went to the same college after graduating from Stanford and they gave her a super hard time too. So lame!! She told me not to give up.

I was really nervous about starting school again after 5 years and especially about trying Interior Design. I didn't know if I would be good at it and why would I want to try something I might be horrible at. I finally decided I was just going to do it.  No harm in trying right?

 My trusty backpack finally gets to go back to school!

The beginnings of my first project for my color class.

After recieveing the hundreds of red magazine pieces my mom cut for me. I had cut quite a few too.

Finished project! Inspiration came from my history class that day on ancient Greece.

This was only the first part of the project. The second part I stressed about and re-did about 15 times. Finally I had about 5 different options and I let Danny chose the one he liked best. Guess who has BOTH projects hanging on the classroom wall? Yep. I'm a little proud. Too bad I'm not as great at hand drafting.

Food Trucks - Trip #4

Danny's work wanted to order food in and guess who happened to be at the food truck gathering? It worked out great. The lines were short and since the company was footing the bill I was able to get a good variety of food for everyone to try.

Eat on Monday. I got beef taco and cheese steak. I hear the cheese steak was okay. The tacos were good.

House of Siam maybe? I'll have to double check. We tried the roll and curry chicken. I believe both were delicious.

The Peruvian truck! They are new so we were excited to try them out. They did not disappoint! We had the Chicharron which was good. We also tried the Wontons and Fried Plantains which were amazing.

I also got the blueberry cobbler from The Shack but it was gross.

Other August Happenings

Liz is addicted to finding food on Pinterest and makes this deliciousness.  Too bad she was the only one home to eat it.

Danny eats a smore for dessert and watches TV for an hour before being informed he has chocolate leftovers on his face.

Thank You, Danny!

Thank goodness Danny works so hard or else our lives would be really boring and we'd never be able to do fun things. As a reward for my patience while he was away on some business trips and my understanding when he failed to communicate correctly his transportation home from the airport, I got a night out to Alexander's.  A culinary experience this fine cannot go without documentation.

We started the night with Parmesan and Truffle Fries and the Tempura Beef. The fries were amazing and they may have almost ruined our dinner. We ate all of them. The beef was just okay.

 My fillet. For the sides we selected Truffle Mac & Cheese (amazing!) and Chessy Fingerling Potatoes (also amazing).

Customary Cotton Candy. Tonight's flavor was Piña Colada. Yum! Danny was embarrassed I took the part we couldn't finish home with me in the car. It was too good to leave behind!

Raspberry Souffle with Vanilla Compote. Delicious.

Stanford Theater

One of the greatest things about living in Palo Alto is the Stanford Theater. Seriously, it is awesome. It's like taking a magical ride in a time machine. Behold the awesomeness...

We went for a Hitchcock Festival (North by Northwest and Strangers on a Train). It was really fun. The theater is beautifully restored. I love all the vintage movie posters, original tile, red velvet curtains, organist, balcony, and cheap movie treats!

 Balcony

I was excited to see this Gone with the Wind poster because I just finished the book

Why I think working at Google would be awesome...

...you get one of these sweet rides to get you to your meetings across campus and to lunch off campus. I love the basket in the front for your laptop. Even better is when I see biker gangs in suits riding to meetings.

Food Trucks - Weeks 2 & 3

I'm addicted to the food trucks that come to Palo Alto every Monday night. It is the highlight of my week.

Week 2

We ate:
The Shack - Mac & Cheese = 5 stars
Little Green Cyclo - Shaki Beef with Tomato Rice = 3 stars
Little Green Cyclo - Sweet Potato Tatter Tots with Plum Sauce = 5 stars

 This time I remembered to grab a blanket to sit on

Week 3

We ate:
An the Go - Garlic Noodles with Beef Skewer and Veggies = 4 stars (noodles great, skewer not)
Chairman Bao's - Baked Braised Pork Bun = 5 stars
Butterscotch to Go - Butterscotch Pudding = 5 stars
Butterscotch to Go - Chocolate Ganache Cookies = 3 stars

This time Danny had to work late so I went and picked up the food and we ate at his work. Never again. It is definitely a two person job to get food from multiple trucks.

The Ritz at Half Moon Bay & San Fran

All the moms in our area go to the beach at The Ritz. Our schedules finally aligned and I went with my friend, Kathryn, and her kids to the beach. It ended up being a really cold day and no one else showed up. It is a really beautiful beach. Next time I'll make sure to bring a sweatshirt.

The Ritz

Danny was able to get off work a little early that evening so we headed up to SF for dinner. We went to La Taqueria in the mission district and it was good! After we hit up an ice cream place, Bi-Rite, that has amazing and weird ice cream. We tried the brown sugar, salted caramel, and snicker-doodle cookie dough. All were really good but surprisingly I think brown sugar was my favorite. We ended the night with Captain America. I didn't really want to see it but I really really liked it.

 Waiting in line at Bi-Rite

Enjoying our ice cream outside