The French Laundry

Lots of new pics!

So a few things since my last post. Well actually the last time I posted, my Mom just came into town and it was my birthday.

My mom was here for a week, so I managed to get a couple of days off and kind of tear up the town with her. We did a few different things. We went to half moon bay and walked along the beach and got some tasty food at Sam's Chowderhouse. I swear...they have the best tuna melts in the world.

We initially wanted to go horseback riding, but the only place near here ended up having a school bus of children arrive just before us. Soooo needless to say, the kids totally wore out the horses. We went back at 3:30 and they said they were retiring the poor horses for the day. I was glad about that though. When I had a horse, we kept her at a trail riding place for a bit, and they totally were not...humane. I feel bad for even bringing here there in the first place. So it's good to know that they care about these horses and give them the rest they deserve after entertaining so man little ones.

We also went up to the city and to the Academy of Sciences before Mom left. I had been there once before with Amandjo when she came to visit, but I didn't get to do EVERYTHING. I have yet to go see the planetarium, and it's driving me crazy. It's hard to get tickets for. You have to be quite the early bird.

The Academy of Sciences was really cool though. They had an "EXTREME MAMMALS" exhibit going on. I took a picture with "Indy" (short for Indricotherium), the largest land mammal. Then they had in a box, the tiniest mammal (Batodonoides Vanhouteni) which was this suppper cute little...mouse thingy. The rainforest exhibit was really cool and had all of these beautiful butterflies flying freely as well as birds. :)

The last group of pictures shown are of my experience at The French Laundry with my Treasure Isle team. I'm just going to go ahead and call it a "once in a lifetime" experience. I highly doubt I'll go again, just because it costs several hundred dollars. It is rated as one of the most expensive (and best) restaurants in the world. I'm not really a "foodie". Food is food. I eat to live, not live to eat. However, I did enjoy every single thing that I ate. And I enjoyed it very much. My favorite part was either the lobster, but it was in head to head competition with the dessert which was this cheesecake/sorbet/strawberries plate. Or maybe it was the BLT appetizer that we had before going into the restaurant. I'm not joking, that was the best BLT I will ever eat. I'm sure of it.

It was really exciting! Our team all went out, and we got dressed all fancy. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves. The service was amazing (as it should be if you're paying hundreds of dollars per person), and at the end we got a little gift bag which included a signed menu, a cookbook, and some shortbread cookies. I had a lot of fun. :)

Since then, I haven't done a whole lot. In fact this weekend I enjoyed doing almost nothing at all. Sunday was near perfect in that I just sat listening to Rufus Wainwright, and then practiced piano for hours. Something about music just makes me so incredibly happy. I kind of abandoned it for a while, but I'm glad to be rediscovering it.

I've also been getting back into running. I took about two weeks off (aside from a little 3.5 mile run). I ran 10 miles Sunday, and 4 today. It feels kind of good! I have another marathon to be training for at the end of October *sigh*. I'm not sure how I feel about this one...but at least I'll be getting that Tiffany's necklace handed to me by a fireman in a tuxedo. Haha...totally worth the 4 hours of pain. (there might be some sarcasm hidden in there).

Anyway, time to go! More later. ;)