The Mandas

On May 8th Julie and Jamie became The Mandas in a lovely ceremony at the Sir Francis Drake in downtown San Francisco. It was a wonderful evening filled with many special J and J moments, from the Florida State football references during the ceremony to home made cakes in all the best flavors.

Happy Couple

Ridiculous - both the cake and the view

Can't imagine life without these women!

The Relay

The first weekend of May, we set out with 2 vans, 11 co-workers, 36 race legs, 48 pb&j sandwiches, 60 gatorades, and 200 miles of road for The Relay. Team Slalom finished the Calistoga to Santa Cruz adventure in 29 hours and 42 minutes. More importantly, we're all still co-workers and employees!

Team Slalom

Van One!

Meeting Dean Karnazes! (Close to as exciting as meeting Phil and Harry was back in '01.)

Can't seem to leave work behind for the weekend.

Running along the highway in Calistoga.

Mission Peak Hike

Kicking off Half Dome training with a hike at Mission Peak in the East Bay. 5.6 miles out and back, with a 2000 feet elevation change. Ouch! 

Sonoma, Baby!

So, maybe it doesn't have the same ring to it as Vegas, Baby!, but it definitely suits the girls much better.

We took off for a night in Sonoma to celebrate the soon-to-be Mrs. Manda. Unfortunately she came down with the stomach bug. After biking to two wineries we spent the day at the pool relaxing and indulged on Mary's Pizza in the hotel room. It wasn't exactly the send-off to married life we had planned, but it was so relaxing and nice to spend time together.

Stadium to Sea 2010

I swore I would never run another marathon after I crossed the Chicago finish line back in 2004. Fast forward five years, numerous races, and an overachieving BFF new to the racing world. Somehow in the Fall of 2009 I excitedly found myself signing up to run the 25th anniversary Los Angeles Marathon.

We started off on Saturday in the blistering sun at Dodger Stadium to pick up our race packets. We treated ourselves to t-shirts since the only official race shirts they had left would nicely fit your average sized troll. It was HOT so we didn't stay long, all quietly wondering how we were going to run 26.2 miles the next day when we could barely stand around without melting.

We dragged the boys to Michael's with us to get crafting supplies. When you need to bedazzle, you need to bedazzle. Too bad the bedazzling wore off somewhere around mile one. Our Support Team (of one) joined in on the crafts and made some of the days winners in signage.

Side Note: Matt was awesome and deserves the award of the day for crafting on a Saturday night, going to a senior citizens dinner, getting up at 4:30 for no reason, traversing the streets of LA in a car and on foot, and capturing awesome finish line pics of us. 

Getting ready to start with Alexis!

The race itself was great. Alexis, Meredith and I started off together. Lex pulled ahead around mile 1 to look for a bathroom and unfortunately we didn't meet up again until after the race. Meredith and I ran until 15 then went our own ways. She now refers to the race as my LA Snack-A-Thon. Let's just say I tried every item the crowd had to offer, from bananas to licorice. I had a smile on my face until about mile 23. Then I wanted someone to cut my feet off. But I plodded away, especially once I realized Becky and Arek would be at the finish. I crossed under in 4:51:17. Wasn't exactly a PR, but I am proud of it. The best part of the race was crossing the finish line and not having the "I will never do this again" feeling. Two down, hopefully at least eight more to go.

Crossing the finish line 26.2 miles later. 

Some of my favorite badass rockstars. 

What's left of the bedazzling. 

Not sure what's next. New York 2010? International Something 2011? 

All the pictures are here.

Date Night!

Saturday night was date night with Kathy. We are on a roll of getting out of our neighborhoods and went all. the. way. to Noe Valley (only in SF is 4 miles a journey). We started the night at Fattoush, an amazing, cozy Middle Eastern restaurant on Church Street. The food (appetizer sampler, freshly baked pita bread, beriani with chicken, potatoes and garbanzo beans) was amazing. Unfortunately the only dish I took a picture of was the one thing we didn't exactly love - a ground lamb filled doughy thing (technical term) with date sauce. It was a sweet and savory mix gone awry, but doesn't it look pretty? We found the place here. I highly recommend joining the mailing list for your city, if available. The great deals are fun, but even better is reading about restaurants you'd never come across otherwise.


We saw the J run past the restaurant a few times and decided instead of taking the same route we used to get to Noe Valley we'd jump on the J and see where it took us. We're crazy girls like that. We ended getting off in the Castro, where an urge for ice cream hit me hard. I decided I wouldn't look for ice cream, but if a sign appeared, it was meant to be. As we moved from the Castro to the Lower Haight in search of a bus to get us back to Yuppyville, I literally almost ran into a sign screaming "Organic Ice Cream". Not really sure it could have been more meant to be. I have no idea why Kathy turned right as I snapped her picture (to point at the sign I had determined was our sign to stop and eat), but the resulting photo is hilarious.

Next up was finding a way home. It was 10:00, AKA the time at which I turn into a pumpkin. We decided to walk off our ice cream a bit only to realize we were walking straight into the ghetto. We are independent women, but we're not dumb. So we rerouted ourselves and walked towards a different bus line. We ended up at the bus stop only to turn around and find the KK Cafe. Kathy had actually read about it (I'm convinced she now googles her initials to find places) and claims it has the best vegetarian burger in SF. We've got a location for our next date night! 

Happy Birthday, AZ!

We celebrated the beginning of Alyssa's 33rd year with a very pink party on Saturday night. She went all out decorating her apartment and we all got creative bringing red and pink appetizers. Cupcakes and cookies were quite the most popular item. I started my day with a 20 mile run and decided that gave me leeway to try both types of cupcakes and the cookie. Luckily we were all so full we didn't even slice the cake. (Yes, we need to plan better. I didn't even get into the savory selections, but rest assured I tried them all.) Side note: If you need an easy, crowd-pleasing appetizer, try this mini version of a Caprese salad. Slice mozzarella balls and cherry tomatoes in half and add both to a toothpick along with a basil leaf. If you use marinated mozzarella balls, you're done. If not, toss in a bit of balsamic, olive oil, and salt/pepper.

Like all Girls Nights, it was a lot of fun. I hobbled home smiling after a great night with a group of awesome women.