Andrea's Farewell / Birthday Party

Last weekend, our friends Dennis and Kris were kind enough to offer up their new house as a venue for a little get-together right before Andrea had to leave for Mexico. Her birthday was approaching (about a week later), so it was sort of a double celebration. Sain came out as well to partake in the festivities, and much food & drink were had. Dennis and I were in charge of the bulk of the meal, as we were making heavy use of his brand new grill.





We met Dennis and Kris at the park running our dogs together... so what would a party be without some K-9 horseplay? Moose was hyper (as usual any time he gets into an unrecognized surrounding), and someone threw a handful of treats at me. So this is me trying to get Moose to focus enough to do a trick before handing him a cookie.



Here we have the feast. It included two types of steak, a pork chop for Andrea (since she's been pork-deprived for the past year), sweet corn, sauteed mushrooms, marinaded zucchini and a salad I whipped up.



In Mexico, apparently they have a special way of eating corn on the cob. Normally it involves white corn (not sweet corn), but we work with what we have. To top off the corn, you rub it down with lime, smother it with mayonnaise, and then dust that with chili powder. I tried it before, and it is interesting... but butter just so good. Here we have Dennis trying Andrea's way of eating corn because he loves all things mayonnaise (Andrea actually addresses him as Mr. Mayo when she calls his cell).



I made a Banana Nut cake in honor of Andrea's coming birthday (baked the night before and frosted that morning). Kris and Dennis didn't really believe how heavy the cake is, and were contemplating which flavor of ice cream to serve alongside it. The rest of us sort of chuckled. Needless to say, no ice cream was served. And in fact, the cake's density was compared to the "depleted uranium" if I recall.




And finally, some dog shots for the road...




Thanks again to Kris and Dennis for the wonderful hospitality. Thanks for coming out Sain, and sorry we didn't get a chance to see Tsien. Thanks to Rigby for kicking Moose's butt when he steps out of line.

Hiking at Russian Ridge

This past Sunday, Andrea, Sain and myself all headed up Page Mill Road to the Russian Ridge Preserve. After the grumpiness that followed last week's 10-mile hike at Ranch San Antonio, I decided to take it easy on the gang this time around. The trail I plotted came out to just under 5 miles with some fairly minor elevation change.


One difference between this place and Rancho San Antonio is that you start off much higher. This preserve involved driving up a narrow winding road to reach (and I must say I enjoyed driving to and from the hike). The plus is that you get to enjoy phenomenal views throughout the entire hike. Supposedly, it's possible to see both the bay and the Pacific Ocean from the top of one of the hills (Borel Hill), which tops off at around 2,570 feet.





I'm sure I speak for Sain when I say I'm equally thrilled with my smile in my solo shot as he is with his. At any rate, our day culminated with a steak dinner. There was a sale on filet mingon on Friday, so all 3 of us gorged on a big ol' hunk of red meat. Nothing like undoing all the calories we worked off earlier in one meal.

Andrea's been bragging to me the past 2 days about how she's not sore at all from this hike. She has no idea what I'm going to come up with for her in the near future. Muahahaha!

I want to end by saying a big congrats to Sain on finding a date! Hopefully we get to meet Shin for mah jongg (and probably more food) some time soon.