The Ultimate Wedding Bike Ride

Our dear friend, Eugene Kim, graciously offered to shoot our wedding bike ride from the bike for us! What a treat. His photos came out great and it was super special to see him since he came up from his new home in Los Angeles for the occasion. Thank you so much, Eugene.

Travis and I got appropriately dressed for the ride -- Travis sported a tuxedo jersey and I wore a customized white jersey with lace and helmet veil. It was a hoot to celebrate with our cycling friends, family (my sister and dad rode on rented bikes which was just plain awesome) and even the strangers along the way who got excited by the idea of it all!

And here, in a photo story, was the ride. From Golden Gate Bridge to the tip top peak of Mt. Tam and home.

The Crawfords awaiting our arrival at the Golden Gate Bridge:


The gang starts to arrive:










Group Shot (including family that didn't ride, but saw us off). This is one my favorites from the weekend:














As we reached the top, fog and mist gave way to sunny clear skies. We were above the clouds:

We made it to the top of East Peak on Mt. Tam!







With Eugene, our fantastic friend and photographer!

My BFF, Greg, offered to drive coffee, fruit and donuts to the top. Awesomesauce!


Julian flew up from Comic Con in San Diego just for our ride -- and flew back down the next day for the rest of the convention. What a guy!

And this about sums up how truly great the morning ride was:

Heck Yeah!

TnT Dynamite Brew

When I told my coworker Suzy about our plan to have a day-after wedding reception for friends and family, she quickly offered up the homebrew services of her husband, Jason. I don’t know if Jason knew what he was getting roped into, but it sounded awesome – a specialized homebrew at our lowkey reception!

At Suzy’s assurance that Jason was game, she brought homebrew samples into work a few times for me to bring home to Travis. I’m not a big beer drinker so it was up to Travis to taste, savor and select a type of beer. Travis gave the greenlight to Jason’s Porter. At this point, we’d heard that Jason had won a local homebrew contest and knew we were in good hands.

Suzy and Jason invited us over to help with the brewing process so we penciled in the Sunday over Memorial Day weekend.

Travis and I don’t own a car so we decided to turn the event into a century bike ride. Suzy and Jason live in Petaluma which is 51 miles from our house. We set out at 7 a.m. in the morning and, after a stop halfway in Fairfax for a snack, we got to Suzy and Jason’s house a bit before noon.


We parked our bikes, checked out Suzy and Jason’s lovely home and Jason’s amazing homebrew set up. Travis and Jason got to brew bro stuff and Suzy and I chatted, checked out the goats in the neighborhood and ordered lunch. We got to eat some Old Chicago Pizza and I even took a nap! Travis and Jason pretty much spent the whole time geeking out over beer stuff. After a 5 hour visit we got on our bikes around 5 p.m. and pedaled home.


Riding home in the last afternoon/evening was a fun change of pace with few riders on the roads, amazing light and beautiful views. We made it to the Golden Gate Bridge at dusk and only had to use our super lights the last 45 minutes. 102 miles in the bag!


It was a perfect day on the bike – and visiting with friends.

We look forward to tasting the final brew at our reception!

And... We're Back... Kinda!

So it's been a little quiet over here lately.

Mostly because life has been happening too fast to document!

Never fear, though, because next week we're hosting a wedding post sweep week. We'll have 5 posts next week -- one everyday Monday through Friday! That's right. A lot has happened in the wedding planning department and it's time to share!

We're off to Malibu to participate in a the Grand Tour bike ride (Tina - double century - 200 miles, Travis metric century -125 miles) this weekend. Luckily the drive there and back is looong. It'll give us plenty of time to write the posts!

We'll see you soon!

Spray Tanning: The Update

So in one of my earlier posts I mentioned my pretty distinctive tan lines due to cycling and my desire to minimize them for the Big Day.

Well, upon my mom's consultation with some friends of hers, she recommended I go with airbrush spray tanning. She found some local options thanks to Yelp and I called up to make a reservation at one in the Marina (SF neighborhood).

The whole process was painless. I showed up, stripped down and went into a shower type stall and was spray-tanned all over by a personal air-brusher. She aimed for the whiter areas, but sprayed all over. Afterwards, I stood in front of a fan to dry faster and then changed into black clothes and headed out.

I met up with my best friend Leila afterwards for dinner. Nothing was very obvious, but I felt sticky and optimistic. We caught up, chowed down and I headed home -- trying to dodge the light rain since I was told this was no good for the spray tan.

I couldn't take a shower for at least 6 hours so I just headed to bed with visions of an all body consistent tan as I drifted to sleep.


I guess it takes 2 days for the tan to absorb completely. But, it just didn't work. Not the day after or 2 or more (the photo above is at work 2 days later). My tan lines were just as clear, though I had an overall bronze-y glow.

Needless to say, I'm glad I gave it a trial run. But I'm bummed. I want a one-stop solve. Now it's back to square one. I'm going to explore the rub-in tan that gradually deepens. I'll also work on moving my jersey and short lengths around to blend the transition from tan to white a bit more (right now I have very distinctive linear lines). And in the end, if nothing really works, well -- the two-tone complexion will always be a reminder of how much fun we have together on our bikes (awwwww).