I Love You, California!

Yes, this does sound oxymoronic, but it is possible! I had heard word of ice skating in the city last year, but timing never worked out for us to go. So a few weeks ago when I saw that our calendar was pretty open for a few weekends, we set aside a Saturday to go ice skating in Union Square. Also inspired by this article , I decided to turn it into a Christmas Date Night! We started the night with dinner and vino at First Crush . We took a little walk through Union Square after dinner to check things out. Love palm trees with Christmas lights!   We still had some time before our reservation for ice skating (yes, it's small and busy, so you have to book ahead online!) so we stopped at one of the places listed in the article I mentioned. We enjoyed holiday drinks at the Starlight Room, which is on the 21st floor of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. We had a great view of the city, overlooking Union Square and the skating rink we would be visiting shortly! Next it was time ...

Will and I are big fans of Slate.com's Political Gabfest Podcast. Will has been an avid listener since they started seven years ago, and I've become a follower over the last year as well. Imagine Will's delight when he found through a Google search that the Political Gabfest was going to be recording a live show in SF, AND having a cocktail hour before the show with Emily, David, and John! We hopped online and purchased our tickets ASAP and were fortunate to attend the podcast taping and cocktail hour! We didn't want to be "those people" at the cocktail hour taking pictures of everything, and pictures weren't allowed at the taping, but we did get this "selfie" after the cocktail hour before we went to the show.

It's hard to believe that this year is our second Christmas in California. We are so excited to continue the traditions we started last year. The first tradition is walking down to the Christmas Tree lot in our neighborhood, picking out our tree, and Will walking it back home! Found our tree! The next part was decorating the tree and our apartment while sipping wine and munching on my mom's world famous chex mix! And then of course taking pictures of the tree with the kitties in the foreground. Pretty Rory! Can't wait for more fun Christmas time events over the next few weeks!

Will's company, Terviva, recently won a grant allowing them to get a commercial size planting of their trees in the ground. The project will take place mostly on the island of Oahu. As part of the grant program the company is invited to pitch its concept to a group of about 250 private investors from the state of Hawaii. Since Will has been working so hard on getting the project going, he was the person chosen to give the pitch! Will worked incredibly hard preparing for this event and did a great job! Will created new connections and peaked the interest of several people in the audience. Will has received great praise for his work by his colleagues and the people who are offering the grant. I'm so proud of his work! Here is a link to the video explaining what Terviva is planning to do in Hawaii. This video was submitted as part of the grant application. Video Link On stage! Nailed it!

As Thanksgiving approaches each year I say how I want to take so many pictures, but then I end up getting very few, even if I'm lucky. Last year I didn't get a single one so I guess I did better this year! We had a great time in Madison visiting our friends and family. We really packed a lot into the week and by the end I was exhausted. Some of the highlights of the trip were: On Wednesday night we went out to see our Madison friends, including the one and only Brittany!! Thursday we had a lunchtime Thanksgiving with my side of the family. Thursday afternoon we went to Will's parent's house for another Thanksgiving meal! They had a few international students from the UW join us. It was interesting learning about their lives and cultures. Friday we went to Fond du Lac to visit Grandma Gladys. She was in such great spirits! We ate lunch with her and decorated her home for Christmas. By Saturday it was time to head back to California alre...

For our neighbor's birthday we were planning on a crab feast since we had been told it was the beginning of the Dungeness crab season. The crab feast was to begin in the early afternoon, so Saturday morning we all went on a trip to find crab to boil. Will and I found one at a market up the street, but others had little luck, being told that the season wasn't actually going to start until the following week. So a couple of the guests decided to bring lobsters instead. Great! Not quite what we planned, but things were working out . . . Until a few people who couldn't join us until later in the day made a stop at the fish market around 2pm only to find more crab than they had ever seen! Turns out we started our crab hunt just a few hours too early. So things worked out and we had an incredible lobster and crab feast poolside! Quite the feast. Will harvesting the crab for me.

There are only two days a year when tension enters the Kusch household (and the Foster household for that matter!), the days of the Packers vs. Bears game. Today was one of those days. Although Will fared better than I, peace continues in the household.

Will has been traveling a lot again lately, so we made sure to plan a day for us to escape from the hustle and bustle of things and just sit back, relax, and enjoy each others' company. What better way to do that than a trip to Napa? And especially at this time of the year! So beautiful. Our first destination was brunch. We ate at the Boon Fly Cafe which proved to be just as good as the reviews said. They serve fresh, warm, mini cinnamon donuts, spicy bloody marys, and mimosas that aren't 3/4 full of orange juice! The restaurant was really busy, which we knew would be the case, but we were lucky enough to get seats at the counter shortly after we arrived. There weren't any great photo ops here, but check out their website for some nice photos! It is a beautifully rustic/modern cafe. Next we set out for the Silverado Trail of Napa. The first winery we visited was Silverado Vineyards . This local is known for its spectacular views, as well as its wine. Spectacular...

I was so excited that Mere's visit finally worked out! She had been so busy with school and as you all know I had an extremely busy summer. It just so happened that I had a four day weekend from work because of Columbus Day and another day the schools were closed, so it provided for a perfect time for Meredith's visit. We had some great girl/sister time together, but enjoyed having Will around at times, too! We were so busy and couldn't wait to come home to cozy up at the end of each day. This visit will also be known as the time when Meredith got me hooked on The Big Bang Theory TV show. Luckily there were many episodes on as re-runs and our On Demand provided many episodes to watch as well! Thursday , October 10th Meredith arrived at the Oakland airport around 5pm. Will, being the best husband ever (and thankfully home despite his busy travel schedule!), picked her up from the airport. They then came over to pick me up from work, and I was able to show Meredith arou...