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).

Super Secret Date Night

Travis and I have "date night" every Monday night. That means we aim to get home by 7 p.m., make a meal together, eat and then hang out a bit together before going to bed. These are low key, but I look forward to them because it's a time we carve out for just us during our sometimes chaotic weeks.

I decided recently, though, to surprise Travis with a Super Secret Date Night. Last night was the SSDN! I'd been slowly building up the suspense in the past few days asking if he was excited, how he should be excited and how "I didn't know" if any of the guesses he came up with were at all close to the real thing (volunteering at a cook-off, a show at a local venue, dinner at a fancy restuarant, etc.).

Yesterday I texted Travis at 4:00 p.m. with the address he needed to be at by 6:30 p.m. with instructions to "come hungry and no looking up what resides at the address." I could tell he was excited and playing along because he asked for the cross street so he wouldn't have to look at Google and get too many clues.

I ended up meeting up with Travis just before 6:30 p.m. He was rattling off how he just couldn't imagine what we were up to in the NoPa (North of the Panhandle) neighborhood.

I told him we were heading to dinner first -- that this wasn't the BIG surprise. As we approached Nopalito, his eyes lit up. Time to eat! He ordered some carnitas and I the enchiladas. Yum!


We had some time to spare before the BIG surprise so I suggested we grab dessert. Luckily, we found a lovely dessert bar, Candy Bar, to satisfy my chocolate cake craving! While savoring the flourless chocolate cake and raspberry sorbet, I figured it was time to finally reveal what we were going to do for our SSDN!

I pulled out of my bag a printout and handed it to Travis. Here is his reaction as he read it:

"Fire Escape Planting!" he read. Yep, we were headed to a 2 hour class on planting our own herb planters. He looked up with a look. I laughed. We had a gardener recently come weed out our jungle of a backyard. Travis had instructed her to plant some herbs as well. When I heard that (since I'd already booked our SSDN), I told him absolutely not. He tried to ask questions, but I just told him we couldn't do that right now. He knew something was up and I could tell he was frustrated. He gets it now!

So we were off! Our class was held at the Workshop, a DIY craft studio in San Francisco. Naya from Fire Escape Farms was our instructor and super laid back and helpful. She started by telling us some basics about potting and feeding plants. And then we got down to business!

First, we got to plant some basil, thyme and sage into our pre-made recycled wooden planters:

Lookin' good!

Then, we planted seeds to grow our own lettuce/green mixes:


We got all of our questions answered, rolled up our sleeves, got dirty and went home with 4 new planters! It was great!

Travis is in charge of watering the herbs/greens. We're excited to start adding some fresh, organic edibles to our meals.

BTW... we have a lot of wedding updates so stay tuned!

A Cycling Life -- 2011 Goals, a Honeymoon & Tanlines

Most of you know that I like to bike -- a lot. As in, for miles and miles on end. There is something about spending the day outside with friends, tackling some major mountains on your own power and then heading home for a tasty meal and falling into bed happy exhausted.

Luckily, Travis understands. We met through our bike club and our favorite weekend activity is to head out on bike dates. Lately, we've both stepped up to the cycling goals we've set for ourselves this year.

Travis and I hope to go on a 9 day cycling honeymoon through the Alps in September from Geneva to Nice. It involves climbing like we've never seen, but is exactly the type of trip that makes our eyes sparkle with excitement -- and our calves twitch in anticipation. We're not really beach folks and we don't idle well so an (epically) active honeymoon adventure is up our alley.

Travis is 100% back on the bike after his recovery from his broken clavicle and subsequent surgery in September and is already training for our pending honeymoon with early morning hill repeats and back-to-back weekend rides.

Biking is more like another part time job on top of my regular full time job. I try to get in 2 spin classes during the week, along with strength/core training twice a week at my work's gym. And then I aim to get on my bike for anywhere from 100-175 miles on the weekends.

In addition to our honeymoon, I've lined up what I call my "ATP" or Aggressive Training Plan. My best friend and riding buddy, Kelly, and I are tackling Furnace Creek 508 this year (this will be my third time and second time with Kelly) which is a 509 miles ride through Death Valley. Kelly and I will tagteam and have the support of my sister and Travis in a crew vehicle.


To prep, Kelly and I are tackling 4 double centuries (200 miles in one day) and the famous Death Ride. I hope to throw in an additional double century after Furnace Creek for good measure. Anyway, our first double of the season is this weekend in Paso Robles, CA and will help us gauge our fitness and whether or not our ATP is appropriate or insane.

While all of this will get me in great shape for our honeymoon, there is a side effect to all the riding -- and that is the infamous cycling tanlines. Since I usually train year round, I have perpetual cycling tan lines -- feet, legs and arms. In general, I avoid any type of strappy shoe since it just looks like I'm wearing socks and try to pretend my arm tan lines aren't as strong as they are. If I must wear girly shoes, I actually (no joke!) put make up on my feet to even it out.


I don't want to wear make up on my feet and I don't want to look like I'm wearing a sweater with my dress on my wedding day so next week I'm trying spray tanning. It's an experiment to see if we can even out my tan lines which will only get stronger with 3 double centuries and the Death Ride between now and our wedding!

And if the spray tan doesn't work -- then I'll have to be OK with it cuz it won't stop me from riding up a storm!

Invites: Months in the Making

When I first got engaged, a friend pulled me aside and told me that there are a lot of expenses in a wedding and, in order to stay sane, to ignore all of the hoopla -- except for one thing. She told me to focus in on one thing that was important and splurge. She said I'll be glad I did.

Well, I decided I wanted cute custom letterpress invitations. I mean, we are only inviting family, so it couldn't possibly cost that much. Well, folks, yes it can! Once I processed the sticker shock, I decided letterpress was out, as was a totally custom design.

Luckily, I found a very lovely San Francisco themed invitation through Hello Lucky. Sure, the letterpress version was well out of reasonable price range, but the digital version was OK and I couldn't resist the quirky, simple theme.

Even though the invites aren't a custom design, I felt like there was enough decision-making involved as it was. Paper type, ink color, wording, envelope color, label color, etc. I set up a time for Travis and I to visit Hello Lucky in person. They're right here in San Francisco, so we swung by after work one Friday.

We had a lovely and short appointment where Stewey helped us out even though we weren't going full custom. He pointed us in the right direction and gave us some take home samples. We also got to see the letterpress(es) in action!

We headed home and that weekend committed to the purchase of invites, RSVP cards and labels. Luckily, we'd already asked our moms (thanks, moms!) to compile addresses of all family invited. I make it sound easy. It actually took months to get our addresses together, but, in the end, I'm so glad we had labels made for us. It helped round out the look of the invites!

Hello Lucky is an online stationary shop so we customized and ordered all online. Travis was in charge!


After numerous proofs, exchanges with the very patient Lillian at HL and final confirmations, we finally received our invitations about a month or so later. It was very exciting to open up our box and see the invitations in real life.


We purchased cheesy ring stamps (they were out of the King/Queen of Hearts stamps -- darn!), affixed and mailed off our lovely invitations last week, 3 months to the day before our Big Day! While we didn't really splurge on the invites, I'm glad we spent so much time on them. They turned out perfect.

Stepping Outside Our Comfort Zone

So we had a wedding photo shoot on Sunday -- except it wasn't for our wedding. A friend of a friend needs some shots to showcase her green wedding cooperative and Ryan, who was with us on the day we met, asked if we'd be interested.

This is not something we'd be into upon first glance. However, I figured it would give us some good insight into the whole wedding thing and some good contacts. I volunteered us. We chalked up the experience to trying something new -- an adventure!


We can't talk too much about the experience, but hair was done (lotsa hairspray and bobby pins for me - slicked back for Travis) and makeup applied (yep, fake eyelashes). Travis got a bow tie, wore his actual wedding suit and I wore a borrowed wedding dress. We both had borrowed rings and shoes. Photos were taken in all varieties at Dolores Park, 24th Street and City Hall.


The weather was seemingly perfect. Until we had to stand outside in it for hours. Anyone that knows San Francisco knows that sunny days are not necessarily warm days. Everyone was super accommodating and sweet, but boy was I glad to get into a warm steamy shower at the end of the day and stop shivering!

Travis and I don't necessarily like to be the center of attention so we were definitely outside of our comfort zone. There was a lot of awkward and stiff posing, but the photo shoot team was gracious and embraced our square selves.

All in all, Travis and I agree it was an interesting experience and we'll get some fun photos out of it. We won't be modeling again soon, though -- that's checked off our life lists! It was also fun to place wedding dress up a few months before the Big Day!