Kelocity.com

A runner with an appetite for adventure!

Happy Two! July 11, 2011

Filed under: California,Food,Love,Wedding Anniversary — Kelocity @ 7:00 am
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Today is our SECOND wedding anniversary!!!!!
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Happy Anniversary, Irving. These past two years have flown by, and I love and appreciate you more every day we spend together. Thank you for giving me a life filled with fun, travel, laughter, Menchies and Love. I need you in my life more than you know. I’m so lucky to call you my husband.
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We celebrated yesterday with a day filled with Southern California adventure. We started with breakfast at the corner bakery. We sat over cups of coffee and talked about current events, politics and some future travel plans. This is what being married is all about. It was perfect.

Oh, and we split a brownie after too… at um… 10am. Hey, it’s our anniversary!2011-07-10_10-24-18_353

Traditionally, the 2nd anniversary gift is supposed to be “cotton”. We were racking our brains all week thinking of something small we could get to celebrate two great years together. We decided on new beach towels! Our current ones are seven years old and were from the clearance rack at Target. Time for an upgrade!

Success at Macy’s! Two extremely plush and oversized beach towels!
The second anniversary gift is cotton..

His & Hers… they are so soft!
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We didn’t really have any plans, so we kept driving up the One-Oh-One towards Oxnard and the Channel Islands. We found a beautiful marina and pulled in to walk around for a bit.
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We pretty much decided that it would be awesome to live on one of the canals there. All the charm of a marina, without the touristy crowds.
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We crossed the street, kicked off our shoes, and headed to the beach!
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I was very surprised to see sand dunes there! That’s such an East Coast thing!
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There weren’t too many people there, despite the hot weather. It was nice to enjoy the sea breeze hand-in-hand.
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Hi Seagull!
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There’s Mr. Seagull again!
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After my calves had enough of a workout on the sand, we drove over to the Channel Islands Visitor Center to learn more about the islands. Someday we’ll get to go kayak and camp there. It’s a set of islands 11 miles off the coast that is supposed to be gorgeous. It’s on our list!
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We headed over to the Pacific Coast Highway and drove for an hour towards Malibu.
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Hey, are you following me?
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We chose to eat dinner at the Beachcomber Café in Malibu. It’s a popular restaurant right on the pier. We bought a LivingSocial coupon a while back and figured it was time to cash it in.
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Let me just say that we were not impressed. It’s one of those places that is way too popular for no good reason. The hostess and staff were slow, rude and confused. But we just laughed at the comedy of errors and had a great time anyways.

At first they seated us in an interior table (even though there were a few water front tables available).
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But we sweet-talked the waiter into finally letting us jump over. Much better!
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We had great views of the pier and the crashing waves.
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We started with the artichoke and spinach dip that was baked and served with bread.
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Irving got the Kobe burger. I was a little jealous.
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And I ordered the filet mignon chopped salad. It was pretty good, but nothing special.2nd Anniversary Oxnard (31)

But I admit, I was saving up for dessert! Let me introduce you to this!
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S’mores sundae! It had ice-cream, toasted marshmallows, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. And it had graham crackers along the edge. YUM!
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What a perfect day. It’s nice to not have an agenda or specific plans. Sometimes it’s fun just to wing it and hit the open road.

Happy Anniversary Darling!

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Read about our 1st anniversary here!

 

To my Husband… June 15, 2011

Filed under: Love — Kelocity @ 8:00 am
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But wait! We’re not over with the birthdays yet!!
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It’s also my Husband’s Birthday! I’m so excited that this is the TENTH birthday I get to celebrate with him! (Gosh, I can hardly believe we’ve known each other for almost TEN years!) He’s a lucky guy….. wait, I mean I’m a lucky lady!

I mean, who wouldn’t want to be married to this fella!
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So for every year I’ve known him, I present to you 10 reasons why he’s the greatest:

  1. He travels the world with me. And even let’s me choose the destinations most of the time!
  2. He makes the bed every. single. day.
  3. His flat-paneled computer monitor died this week and he TOOK IT APART and soldered new capacitors onto the motherboard and FIXED it! Whaaat?? (I know, those were some big words, I impressed even myself).
  4. He can eat a whole sleeve of cookies like nobody’s business. I know. He’s amazing.
  5. He tells me I am beautiful every day. And he holds my hand when we walk.
  6. He reads my blog. And my twitter.
  7. He’s coming with me to the BlogHer conference!!!!
  8. He loves soccer, golf and frisbee. Yea, we should go play frisbee outside this weekend!
  9. He thinks nothing of jumping in the car and driving eight hours to explore a new city.
  10. He laughs so heartily while watching the Norm MacDonald show on Comedy Central. That show is pretty funny actually.

 

So Happy Birthday, darling!
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Hope it’s a wonderful day for you!

 

30 Day Challenge–My Relationship May 9, 2011

Filed under: 30 Day Challenge,Family,Happy,Love — Kelocity @ 4:00 am
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I saw a great list of blogging prompts recently (On Katy Widrick’s blog) and I thought it would be a great way to blast through some writers block. I don’t plan to do this in 30 consecutive days, but I will do them in order.

Here’s the breakdown of what’s to come:
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On July 11, 2009, I married my husband, Irving. Our wedding was in New Hampshire and we just loved every minute. I replay the whole day in my head sometimes when I’m trying to fall asleep. It really was the best day week of my life.
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But our relationship wasn’t your typical ‘girl meets boy, falls in love, gets engaged and gets married’ story. Our courtship was eight years long, and three of those years were long distance. Here’s our story.

September 2001
We met during my first week at Emerson College. Our first encounter was at a party before classes even started. We didn’t really talk until a week after that, but my family rolled their eyes when I told them I’d already met a guy within the first week of school. Our first real ‘date’ was to dinner at Remington’s, a cute casual restaurant next to our dorm.
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Summer 2002
Irving is from San Francisco, but he got a job in Boston for the summer so we could be closer. I was working long hours at a production company, but we saw each other as much as we could, stealing dinners here and there. It was an important summer for us both to grow. We supported each other and lived independently, it was as close as we ever got to actual ‘dating’.
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Fall 2002
Irving moved to Los Angeles for his last semester at Emerson, while I continued in Boston. We talked on the phone a lot and he would tell me about all the fun things he was doing in LA. This set the foundation for the upcoming three years we’d be in different time zones. But since I was four years younger, we both needed the time to grow independently and make sure we were both following our dreams.

Spring 2003
I moved to Europe for a semester, and Irving moved to New York.  A 6-hour time difference was hard (and there were 75 kids in my program and only two phone lines)! But we sent lots of letters and emails. Irving also surprised me in Paris on Valentine’s Day!
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Fall 2003 – Summer 2004
Irving continued to work in New York, and I focused on school in Boston. We’d see each other once a month or so with little weekend trips.
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Fall 2004
I moved to Los Angeles and Irving stayed in New York. We only saw each other twice in those four months (once in San Francisco and once in LA). Irving told me that if I loved LA as much as he did, he’d quit his job and move out west so we could finally live together.
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January 2005
We pack up a minivan and drive cross country together to our new life in LA. We moved into a small 1 room apartment in Hollywood and lived it up. We may not have had jobs for three months or even a bed for a while, but we were together and ready to conquer the world.
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Spring 2006 – 2008
We bought a condo together, our careers were going well and we got used to life as a couple.

January 2008
We FINALLY get engaged! After being together for 7 years, Irving popped the question in Temecula, CA.

July 2009
We got married!

And the rest was history! We loved that we had a few years apart because it laid a strong foundation of communication and respect that we are grateful to have now. It’s been almost ten years since we met, and I’m so excited to see what other fun adventures are in store for us. Only time will tell!
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Not what you think it is…. March 10, 2011

Filed under: Food,Love,Wedding — Kelocity @ 10:18 pm
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It started out innocent enough….
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I found this recipe on Roni’s blog recently.  Avocado Chocolate Pudding. I mean… I like Avocados, and I like Chocolate.

Erika came over for dinner tonight, and we were both excited to make this for dessert.
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Add some chopped avocado, cocoa powder, sugar, salt, milk and vanilla and give it a whirl!
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It was pretty amazing to see it turn into chocolate after just a couple of minutes. We were intrigued.
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But behold… It actually had the texture of chocolate pudding!
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It did taste pretty good, but it stuck to my stomache like glue. I actually only had a few bites before I had to put it down. Way too rich, even for me! It was a great experiment, and it did work… but just not for me. Maybe because I kept thinking of it as Avocado and it was weirding me out.

After dinner, we relaxed while watching this amazing movie:
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This is by far, my favorite movie… ever. I was obsessed when I was in middle school. Remember back in the day if you didn’t have HBO, the channel would come in scrambled? I used to listen to the movie over and over (even though I couldn’t see the picture). So, so good.

Did anyone else have this poster on their wall in 1996? Who’s with me?

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In other news, look what Irving hung on the wall today!
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The 1st Wedding Anniversary gift is ‘Paper’, and I gave Irving this print. The background was a photo he took of the sunrise over the lake on our wedding day. And the text is from our first dance.  The song was ‘Everything Else Disappears” by Sister Hazel. It’s a beautiful song. Here’s some of the lyrics:

I thought that I’d known you forever
I felt like I’d finally come home
After all of these lifetimes
You still take my breath away

Everything falls out of focus
You walk through the door
And one thing that’s clear to me
Helplessly hopeless
I’m all right with that
In a room full of people
Everything else disappears

Awe, I just got swept away thinking about this for a second there. Hearing our band play that song for us, and staring into Irving’s eyes was one of the best moments of my life.

Thanks for hanging the picture up, babe! Love you!

 

What was/will be your wedding song?

 

A Valentine’s Day Soiree February 15, 2011

Filed under: Food,Hollywood Events,Love — Kelocity @ 8:33 am
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Last night, Irving and I had such a Romantic evening. We headed up to Simi Valley to attend the ‘Valentine’s Day Sweetheart Dinner and Dance’. It was such a great night, we ate, danced, laughed and talked. It was perfect.
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Backing up a little bit, the event started at 6pm, which isn’t easy coming from the Hollywood area. We got dressed in 15 minutes flat!

BEFORE:
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AFTER:
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But we made it just in time. The Reagan Library is really a sight to see if you are in the area. The American History comes alive through their amazing exhibits. They just redid them all for Reagan’s 100th Birthday celebration.
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We had such a great time wandering through the museum on our way to dinner. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce to you the next President of the United States!
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And his first lady, Kelley!
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We’re naturals. And the first task on the job is to make a television broadcast to our country.
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You’re live in 3…2…1!
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Then we arrived at the highlight of the evening. Seeing Air Force One.
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So much history was made on this aircraft. They call it “The Flying White House”. The Reagan Library website says: This Flying White House, tail number 27000, served seven U.S Presidents from 1973 to 2001, including Presidents Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush.
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We literally dined underneath Air Force One!
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To our right, we could see Marine One too (The Presidential Helicopter!)
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We must have been the youngest couple there by almost twenty years, and we LOVED it. It was so nice to look around and see all these older couples still dancing, still happy, and still in love. I can’t wait to grow old with Irving and share these fun evenings with him. I just hope I can dance as well as them in sixty years!
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We were seated at our own sweetheart table overlooking the dance floor. It was so cozy and we had fun chatting.
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My handsome Valentine!
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But ok… the food. Oh My Gosh, The food! It was amazing. We started with some champagne.
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Cheers! To many more!
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Fresh Rosemary Bread
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The Salad: EPICUREAN GREENS with cheese, candied pistachios, sliced oranges and a raspberry balsamic vinaigrette 
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I had the vegetarian dish this time: VEGETABLE RISOTTO with parmesan and asparagus spears

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And Irving had the Chicken: ROASTED ROSEMARY CHICKEN in a marsala wine sauce with Mashed Potatoes, Asparagus Spears and Carrot Souffles
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And for dessert: FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE with dark chocolate ganache, white chocolate mousse, fresh berries and raspberry coulis
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OHMYGOSH I’ve never had chocolate cake as good as this. NEVER. This was to DIE for. And the saddest part? We couldn’t even finish it. That photo above was per person! We each had our own. I tried to finish it, I really did. But I was far too stuffed. I eventually surrendered and watched the waiter carry it away with a tear in my eye. I will dream about this cake for as long as I live. Seriously.

After dinner, we headed down towards the dance floor.
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There were so many incredible dancers that we were a little intimidated. These guys know the waltz, the fox trot, the samba, you name it, they danced it!
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We found our place in a corner where our two left feet wouldn’t get in anyone’s way. It was fun though. We practiced a few of our wedding dance spins and had a blast.
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To dance underneath one of the most iconic symbols of America was a little surreal.
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Down below, there is a bar that was gifted to the Library from Ireland. It’s a pub that Reagan visited when he was over there. They were going to tear it down, but instead, donated it. So neat!
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It was truly an event we will never forget. We feel so lucky that we have this stuff at our fingertips.
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At the end of the night, we got to take home the flowers from the tables! They were really cute.
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Happy Valentine’s Day, Irving!

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And just for fun, here’s a flashback picture of us in this same place back in 2006!
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Where does the time go?