Gobble Gobble

Thanksgiving morning brought around our chance for redemption. If you've been reading this since last fall, you know that Chris and I signed up for the Oceanside Turkey Trot last Thanksgiving but didn't end up running due to one of the 3 rainy days that we've seen since moving to Cali. Well, since my family was heading to town, this year, we signed up again. Hellbent on running, we even suckered Callie and Adam to run with us. 5k really isn't much, it's 3.1 miles, doesn't take too long and running on PCH through Oceanside and then finishing underneath the pier is a great run. What makes this tough, the fact that you're waking up at 5am and out of the house by 6. The thing that I don't understand about all these runs, and I'm talking about any organized run, is that for whatever the reason, they seem to start at dawn. Some sadomasochist, who was involved when organized running was first started much have thought to himself, "hey, we're about to run _ miles, why don't we do it at sunrise?"

Either way, the run was fun, if running can be fun, mostly it was just great to get out and move around a little before gorging ourselves on food for the rest of the day. I think that no matter where we are for next years Thanksgiving, we'll be up at 5am running somewhere, even if it's just to torture ourselves.

Results:
Christian: 20:42
Adam: 21:10
Callie: 23:19
Christine: 25:55

Didn't bring the camera, so these were taken on phones before the race while we're trying to stay warm in the car.

Happy Belated Birthday

I figured that I should wish my Blog a Happy Belated Birthday. It was just over a year ago I started this thing and with the way I've managed to neglect it for the past month, I found it fitting to be late on wishing it a Happy Birthday.

Hopefully everyone has enjoyed the last year of life updates. Some of my personal favorites have been the buying the house story, Mexico surfing trips, our neighbors beer consumption abilities, all the running, the badger 5, Maine jumping the shark, everyone voting for Callie to change her name first, and all the DIY. I have to admit, lately, it seems to be a little DIY heavy, which could be why I've taken so much time off. For whatever reason, in my head, installing toilet paper holders just doesn't seem interesting to me.

So, sorry blog that I've neglected you so much recently. I promise to update you more often, provide more content and find good pictures to fill your pages. I guarantee your 2nd year of existence will come with more fun tales of non-sense and craziness from our lives.

TurkeyZilla!!!

This past Saturday night, what had originally started as a complete joke, actually came to fruition. As we've slowly accumulated we've known that we are having Thanksgiving dinner at our place again this year. We bought our dinning room table a long time ago and spent quite a bit of time trying to find a good deal on chairs. I would have never thought that chairs could be so expensive. Chris would constantly say "here are some for only $300" to which I would reply "wow, that's a great price for a set!" I was amazed to hear that was per chair. Thank god for Craigslist because we found a person who had just moved and needed to sell barely used dining room chairs. But Chris' jedi craiglist skills are not the point here. During these conversations she mentioned that we needed to get chairs before Thanksgiving because we aren't going to have anywhere to sit. I suggested that we "just sit on the floor around our coffee table, we could have Thanksgiving sort of like people eat Sushi, screw it, let's make Thanksgiving Sushi." My idea, roll up the usual ingredients for Thanksgiving, stuffing, turkey, mashed potato's, sweet potato's, cranberry sauce, gravy, the whole nine yards. Why go big, when you can go huge?!
It all snowballed from there. We began bringing it up to friends, to which we always got the same reply, "whoa, that sounds awesome." Guess we have to try this. So last Sunday night, we had a test run with some minor stuff to see if it was actually possible. We were stoked to find out not only was it possible, but it was delicious!
Saturday rolled around and we were off, our 15 pound turkey full of stuffing went into the oven at 2. Potato's were cooked, even busted out the wasabi too add to spice it up. There were all kinds of amazing rolls happening and you wouldn't believe it, we actually came up with a drink to replace a Saki Bomb. We invented the Turkey Bomb, which consists of Honey Wild Turkey and Newcastle brown. These are dangerously good, so tread lightly. There were tons of rolls, people rolling their own, we even had Tempura(thank you Brent for bringing up your deep friar). Everyone was excited with how well it came out and the food was amazing. Nice job Chris taking this idea and going way overboard with it!

Carving up the bird


Gobble Gobble


Some appetizers, this time Wilson didn't eat any of the cheese


Godzilla vs. Mothra to set the mood!


Let's Roll!




These guys look delicious


Toughest part is cutting them up, got to have the knife SUPER sharp!



Turkey Bomb anyone? Watch out for this combo!


KABOOM!!!






"Turkey Sushi will be great success"


We've already begun talking about how next year will top this year, so east coasters, book your flights now!

Exile on Main St.

For Halloween this year we were offered an extra special treat. Phish was hosting a three day festival at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio California. Since Indio is a short 2 hour drive from the house, we were all in! We rallied quite a crew, myself, Christine, Muscari, Tom, Kasey, Jeff, Brent, Adam and even Goody made it out. We set off on Friday morning at the speed of turtles. Our plan was leave our house at 9 am sharp but when it was 11 and we were still only at the Subway just down the street grabbing some lunch, you knew that we weren't getting anywhere quickly. Because the drive was so short, we weren't too worried about getting caught in any traffic or how long it would take. So we set off, took the back roads and made it to Indio at 1:30. We were on the grounds by 2 and the camp was set up by 3.
I've been to quite a few festivals but this one was different. The Empire Polo Grounds are amazing! The grass is extremely plush and well manicured. We didn't even need sleeping pads under the sleeping bags the grass was so comfy. We were really excited for the fun weekend of 8 sets of Phish that was ahead of us.
What makes this festival and Halloween with Phish so fun and special? Well first, it was 8 complete sets, 2 on Friday night, 3 on Saturday, an acoustic set at noon on Sunday(the first ever) and then ending with 2 sets on Sunday night. For the 2nd set the band covers another bands album in it's entirety. A couple of months ahead of the show, the band created a site that slowly killed off 99 possible albums until there were only 8 left. Then named each of the 8 campgrounds after one of the 8 left. We were camped in Radiohead's Kid A, which would have been an interesting album to hear, but we had our money on another.
As we walked in on Saturday evening for the cover set, we were handed a playbill with the final album on the cover. This year's Halloween album was The Rolling Stones "Exile on Main St." If you've ever heard this one, it's a great album packed with non-stop fun songs. I highly recommend picking it up if this is the first you've heard of it and like the Stones at all.
Either way, the shows were amazing, it was hot as all hell during the day. The noon acoustic set promised coffee and donuts, but really only delivered blazing desert heat. All that being said, this was an amazing weekend with a great group. My only hope is that they choose to do this again next year and more people can make it out.
Enjoy the pictures!

We took the back way to Indio, way longer, but way prettier


Where's the traffic? I've waited up to 24 hours for past festivals, 20 minutes was a little weird


YES!


Radiohead


Tent City


The view was terrible


Ladderball killed a lot of time!




Got to keep those beers cold somehow!


HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!


Phishbill