Moscato, Malibu, and lots of cheese!

I haven't seen my parents since the wedding, and we had to exchange presents and suitcases and various things, so we decided to make a trip over to their place. As always, we ended up having some wine and cheese!

First of all, my mom made some delicious goat cheese again, which was the best it's ever been! Apparently she used a different kind of orange - it was less sweet and more tangy and citrusy- YUM!

It is especially good on a graham cracker!

Along with the goat cheese, she opened a bottle of Castello del Poggio from the fridge. This is one we have had before and is always delicious (its only 7% alcohol though lol).

Then, I found out they loved the malibu drinks at the wedding so much that they bought the ingredients to make them at home! Basically it's just cranberry juice, pineapple juice, and coconut rum. So we decided to try it out. The mixture turned out pretty yummy, but THEN we thought it would be even better as a slush! So they got out the ice cream maker and we tried to freeze it.

They turned out great!

They also had bought some OTHER cheese, so we got that out later. There was a raspberry parmesan style cheese, which nobody thought really tasted like raspberry but was delicious nonetheless.

There was also a cheshire cheese which was pretty strong and a bit odd. The texture was kinda grainy. I think this was Stephen's favorite.

We also had cake, opened wedding presents and birthday presents, and just generally relaxed. We got to finally see video of parts of our wedding which was fantastically funny - I'm glad it turned out so well! Also, Madison and my dad built a funny playhouse for my parents' dog out of tinker toys, which was hilarious.

As soon as I get some pictures from the wedding and rehearsal dinner, I will post those as well! :)

Specs Wine Tasting

I bet you thought I would be tired of drinking wine already right? Never! It just so happens that there was a Specs wine tasting 2 days after I got back, so I had to go. One funny thing I noticed was that I was still pouring out my tastings by habit! I have been doing that all week in California, and it feels weird not to now. Like once I have gotten the flavors, I'm done with it and can throw it out (unless I just love the wine).

There was nothing too amazing at this tasting - most of the wines were boring or just ok. None really stood out to me, and honestly this may be because I just got back from tasting $100+ wines that are VERY good.  I did find one thing I was interested in, and that was an Italian vermentino. This is a white wine that tastes a bit like a sauvignon blanc, and was very unique to the tasting. I didn't buy anything because I really don't need any, but I will definitely keep my eyes open for this kind of wine in the future.

Coming back to Austin!

So our last day in California was pretty uneventful. We woke up and had a fairly boring breakfast. I was still incredibly sore, so we had to pick someplace close. I was literally hobbling.

Before we left, we wanted to bring back souvenirs for us, friends, and family, so had to do that before we left! Finally, it was time to pack and get out of here.

The rest of our day was just spent getting to the airport and flying - ugh we had a connecting flight which took FOREVER! It was a pretty boring day overall, but we are finally back in Austin!!! :)

San Francisco Marathon!

The day is here! My first marathon ever! To be honest, I've been in a bit of denial about the race the last few days, and especially this morning. I tried not to think about it, and just pretended I was going out for a small run. Marathons are so complicated, you have to make sure everything is perfect. You have to try out all your clothes beforehand to see what shoes, socks, shorts, etc all work. You have to use body glide, a slippery substance in a deodorant stick to avoid blisters. And you have to find a way to carry enough water and Gu (snacks) to get you through the race. I actually had a bad callus on my foot that has been causing me pain, so I was very worried about that for the race.

However, the day had come, and here we are about to begin the race!

The start was very exciting, and again, to avoid being nervous, I just didn't think about the 26.2 miles to come.

The San Francisco marathon is actually a half and a full marathon totaling 24,000 people. Only 6,000 people were doing the full marathon. This one is known for its route across and back the Golden Gate Bridge as well as the massive amounts of hills.

Here is a view of Alcatraz in the distance!

We encountered pretty flat ground for the first 3 miles and then started to go up until about mile 5. The Golden Gate in the distance!

Then we started crossing the bridge!

It is a 1.7 mile bridge that you run across, make a small turnaround, and then run back. Here we are on our way back across, around mile 8 or so.

Coming back into the city, you can see all the buildings in the background.

Can you see the hills?

Around mile 12, my first time getting to go with the full marathoners! :)

13.1! Halfway there!

Still feeling good! In fact, I was probably peaking around this time. I was excited to be running more than the half, and started speeding up through mile 15 or so.

A group decided to serve beer around mile 14 lol.

Dailymile was at mile 15, serving bacon!

Stephen ran into this 17 mile sign lol... we are all getting tired at this point.

Mile 20!!!

To be honest, I was feeling absolutely terrible by this point. Unless you have run a race this long, Im not sure how to explain it other than ABSOLUTE exhaustion. My legs locked up, the soles of my feet were hurting, and I was mentally exhausted. It's very discouraging to come so far and be SO tired, and still have 4 or 5 miles to go. That's still a decent run! It hurt to even walk!

I just had to shuffle the last few miles, along with lots of walking. The entire race I was afraid I wouldn't make the 6 hour cutoff, and that was my only goal. There are pacers along the way holding time signs and as long as you are ahead of them you kind of know where you stand, but we had lost track of them.

Dying at 25 miles... SO CLOSE...

So close, pictures before the end.

OMG ALMOST THERE! MILE 26!!!

We start getting really excited and try to sprint the finish. We throw our arms up and pass a bunch of people and sprint across the finish line!

The finish line!

DONE!!!

Us with our medals!

It hurt to walk, I could barely squat to sit down, but the medal, attention, and snacks felt so good! We got a TON of snacks, including a smoothie, water, juice, muscle milk, a yogurt parfait, cookie, scone, banana, cheese puffs, and corn puffs... yeah a ton.

Toughest marathon ever, us in front of a cool sign.

I was worried about finishing under 6 hours, but we actually did WAY better than that! It was a complete surprise, because there were no clocks and it was almost impossible to know when we started and finished. So we were both ecstatic to find out it only took us 5 hours and 10 minutes! That's Stephen's fastest time, and an amazing first marathon time! Especially for a very hard and hilly course!

So then we walked the mile back to our hotel... no... LIMPED the mile back to the hotel, took showers, ate a ton of our snacks, and took the biggest nap ever. When we woke up it was like 5:30. We planned to go to Weird Fish but apparently it's CLOSED on Sundays! ughghghg... we were starving and couldn't walk very far, so just went back to the mall's gourmet food court.

I got an unagi (eel) bowl with veggies, rice, and a side of seaweed salad.

Stephen got some spicy beef and noodles lol.

We went out for a celebratory drink at a local pub, and then came back to have the celebratory bottle of wine we bought a few days ago. Hey, its not every day you run your first marathon on your honeymoon.  (Wine pic to come) We tried to go swimming but it was late and apparently they were cleaning the pool and then CLOSED it ughghg. Oh well. Tomorrow is our last day here! I have had an absolutely amazing time wine tasting and running the marathon, but am happy to be going back as well! :)