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!