April 17th, Reno Aces Opening Day

We got lucky and one of our patient's who works for City Hall got us tickets to the first Reno Aces game, our first Triple A baseball team. The game was sold out, with over 9,000 people there. We had great seats but were not dressed warm enough. Luckily we found another patient with a jacket that we borrowed for Liz. Made things a little better.

The next day we decided to do the wine walk through downtown Reno, with the hopes of handing out some business cards and marketing, while enjoying some (not-so-great) wine. It was a lot of fun.

Our new dog run

Last week we finally put in our dog run, now Lucky (and his friends) can only go out to the back yard when we are home. Now we can start working on fixing the back by getting the grass back on track and some of the landscaping.

We had our friends Nicole and Casey visits last weekend from SF. It was great to see them. Not a whole lot else to report.

Pismo Beach March 19-23

I went to Pismo Beach with some college friends this weekend while Liz stayed home and had the final touches for her permanent eyeliner finished.

My trip was fun, took about 7 hours to get there. We stayed at a friend's family's house for free so it made the trip very inexpensive. Pismo Beach, actually Grover Beach was where we were, is an amazing place. Really laid back, dogs everywhere, and you can pay $5 just to drive your car out on the beach and park for the day. We had a fun day of horseshoes and football on Sat, otherwise watched a lot of college basketball. We did check out some tide pools one day too.

Liz is recovering great from the eyeliner. I'm not sure how she does it... it looks very painful. She stayed home with Lucky, had mimosas, and got caught up on her Martha Stewart.

Russian River Valley Barrel Tasting, March 13-15

Forchini Vineyards













Todd at Talty Vineyards

Bella Vineyards above Bella Caves/Barrel Storage

Beautiful California weather + Fabulous Wine + Wonderful Friends = A most amazing weekend!

We drove over to Napa Valley/Sonoma area for barrel tasting along with 20 friends. www.wineroad.com We love wine but most of the time try to budget to 3$ Chuck wine, so this weekend we were spoiled tasting $30-$70 bottle wines, some straight from the barrel before they are bottled. When you taste it from the barrel they are unfiltered, meaning they have not bee completely filtered and do not have the same smooth texture, but they offer the previous years vintage bottled so you can compare. We purchased a few choice bottles and I (liz) have made my dream list of wine clubs to join. On top of beautiful scenery and wine we stayed in a five bedroom house in Santa Rosa, very 80's mafia chique, equipped with hot tub, theater room and amazin views. Our favorites ........Amista 2003 Syrah, Rued 2006 Pinot Noir, Kokomo Cabernet, Forchini Pinot and Zinfandel.

Part of the group at Armida Winery, Raymond Burr winery and his Emmys
(this was the best part about this winery, wine was ok)

June Lake, March 6-8

It was Troy's birthday so the whole family and some friends met up in June Lake, Ca for the weekend. The weather was great, sunny with lots of snow on the ground. Trevor and Janna's sister Tanya came up from LA to partake in the weekend too, as well as family friends Chuck and Michelle and Rob and Brianna. We had a fun filled weekend of food, friends and family. June Lake is gorgeous and a short drive from Mammoth Lakes. Thanks to Janna's mom we were able to stay in some amazing condos. We found some dream vacation homes there too.

Weekend Update

Not much exciting to report so just a quick post...

We had the last weekend we will have at home for about a month. As usual we were dogsitting for someone, this time it was Bella, the puggle of Tyler and Melissa. For once she didn't poop in the house, so that was nice.

Liz had a girl's sleepover party at Betty's Sat night. Sounds like they had a good time. Nina drove over from South Lake to hang out with me. We attempted to go and see a band play, but the line was WAY too long so we skipped it.

Yesterday we watched the Lakers lose (Not a good game) and then Johnjohn and I went to go see the Bighorns game in the afternoon.

Busy week at work again for us both. Headed to June Lake on Friday for Troy's birthday. Should be good times.

Weekend Rundown

I am finally starting to feel better, but now Liz is not feeling too hot. Figures...

Friday night, we drove to Sac (or Lincoln to be exact) to visit my Grandparents. My mom rode with us since she was thinking of heading over the next day anyway. No reason to take two cars. We had a nice evening Friday night, great dinner from Sally as usual, and watched the Lakers win like they usually do.

Sat morning, we met our friend's Dan and Jann for lunch at The Cheesecake Factory in Roseville. We hadn't eaten there in a long time, probably not since we lived in San Jose. Dan is an old friend of mine, that I've known since 1997. Great friend and his wife is awesome, looking forward to getting to know her more in the future. We also spent some time with my Great Aunt Vera. We don't get to see her as often as I'd like to unfortunately. Growing up, she was like a second mom to me, especially in high school, when I spent at least a weeknight per week at her place, as well as my entire second semester of senior year in after my family moved to Reno. She is in her 90's now, and I know her back hurts her. Wish I could do more to make her feel better.

We drove home that afternoon, and I took my little brother Johnjohn to the Bighorns game. It was a lot of fun as usual. That evening we went to dinner with Liz's dad, Dan. He drove from Seattle Friday night, so was at our house when we arrived. We had dinner at BJ's, then went to see The International. Let's just say both Dan and Nina fell asleep, and Liz and I were more looking forward to it ending so we could just go home and go to bed.

Sunday morning, snowshoeing was cancelled due to bad weather, so we went to Scheel's, which is basically a two hour window shopping experience. We all decided that would be the best store to ever have a shopping spree in. Not much else on Sunday, watched the Oscars, and went to bed early. As far as the Oscars went, I thought the Pineapple Express skit was by far the funniest moment of the night, but if you haven't seen that movie, then you wouldn't get it...

Today (Monday) was one of the busiest days Liz and I have had in a while. I was slammed with patients from 9-1:30, and Liz was very busy from 3-5:30. The rest of the week is looking great! Started my new workout from Coach Dan this afternoon...may not be able to walk tomorrow. Getting ready for the Reno Half Marathon in May.

More later in the week...

Work Updates... bit by bit

Can't divulge a lot of news yet, but we had a meeting and dinner with Joe last night, he is the doc that I have been working with since the end of Sep. We are exploring ways for Liz and I to be together at the old office together, and utilize his insurance contracts to have access to more patients. I also spoke with Bill last night, the owner of our building downtown, and he is on board with whatever business changes we have to do to make things happen. Very exciting time but taking it one step at a time...

Other random thoughts:
I am still sick, thought I would be better but lots of coughing last night and today
Should be ok for our drive to Sac tomorrow, but will cancel if we have to

Liz is learning how to add her own additions to here, expect something soon.

Liz is at work today and I am home sick for the first time in a long time. I always wanted to get a blog up of some kind to talk about how things are going for us, since we aren't always great about keeping in touch with everyone like we would like to. My Grandpa (Mom's dad) has always kept a journal since as far back as I can remember, and I always thought it would be neat to keep track of things I (or we) have done in the past.

Tonight we are meeting with Joe to talk about some business ideas. More info on that as things progress. For now, I'll just say we are working on a way for us all to be busier and have access to more patients. We were also supposed to be going to a wine tasting tonight at our friend Samantha's wine bar, West Street Wine Bar, but since I'm not feeling too hot we are going to pass.

Liz talked to her dad this morning, he is driving from Seattle, leaving Friday morning, to stay with us. We are planning on heading to Sacramento after work Friday to stay with my Grandparents for the evening, then see Aunt Vera in the morning, have breakfast with our friends Dan and Jann, then head back to be home by the time Liz's dad arrives. He has arranged for us to go snowshowing with Nina somewhere in Tahoe Sunday afternoon.

Other random thoughts...
Lakers play the Warriors tonight... should be an easy game
Our backyard is a muddy mess
We got caught up on the Bachelor last night...hate to admit I watch it but he picked the right girls