I can’t believe I missed this during the season.

It’s Thursday morning and instead of going to work TSM is on our way to Miami! On the agenda: the beach, Little Havana (I’m not even sure if there is a neighborhood called Little Havana, I’m just assuming it must exist), South Beach, Jeff’s first Cuban Sandwich. And of course on Saturday, Niels and Annie’s wedding!

In other news, the Redskins beat the Broncos on Sunday. The Skins are now 3-6 and are potentially going to start a brief period of teasing DC fans into believing that maybe this team isn’t totally out of it. Next week we play a Cowboys team that is starting to fall apart. A victory on Sunday would put us at 4-6. Then we play the Giants, another team that’s struggling. A victory in that game would make us 5-6 and then a sliver of hope would appear. Other teams that we still have to play: Eagles on the road, Oakland on the road, Saints at home, Chargers in San Diego, and the season ends with the Cowboys at home on a Sunday night. Of course a loss this Sunday means that the season is definitely over.

TSM spent the last 25 hours up in the Syracuse area for a wedding. The weather was cold, but sunny. It was a nice escape from DC’s cold and rainy weather. My old GW coach, Rev. Greg Coan officiated at the wedding. It was great to see him and to see some old GW teammates that I hadn’t seen in years.
Now it’s back to cold and rainy DC.

I Try to Make Ravioli, originally uploaded by DC_Jeff.

So I tried to make ravioli tonight without much success. Next time, I think I’ll take a look at a recipe before I try to do this.

What did I use: 2 parts semolina to 1 part flour, 2 eggs, pork sausage, garlic, basil, olive oil, and a little black truffle. This was a big fail. I might try again with a real recipe tomorrow.

Jennifer Drives Through a Tree, originally uploaded by DC_Jeff.

They said a Kia Spectra couldn’t be driven through a redwood, but Jennifer has proven them wrong. We made this stop on Route 1 in California so Jennifer could fulfill a lifetime dream. After driving through a tree, we continued on to our B&B in Trinidad, California.

Bouchon Bakery, originally uploaded by DC_Jeff.

We picked up the car and drove north on Monday morning. We’re driving a Kia Spectra, which is about the type of car you’d expect it to be: small but reliable. And it has a great air conditioner. We drove to the Marin Headlands and tried to take pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was covered in fog. We had breakfast in Sausalito, checked out a Frank Lloyd Wright building in Marin County and then drove north to Sonoma County.

We stopped at four Sonoma wineries (might make a separate post on that later). We’re currently staying in Yountville and had dinner last night at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bistro. It was very, very good. The steak frites is served with enough frites for four people.

Today we checked out Napa wineries. The highlight was the tour at Schramsberg Winery which makes sparkling wines. The tour was excellent and we ended with five sparkling wines, including a champagne recently served at the White House.

We’re still figuring out exactly what we’re doing for dinner tonight, but we plan on staying local.

Japanese Tea Garden, originally uploaded by DC_Jeff.

We started off Sunday morning with an old-fashioned diner breakfast at Howard’s on 9th street. In California “old-fashioned” still means that your omelette comes with avocado. 

We checked out Golden Gate Park’s arboretum and had tea at the Japanese Tea Garden before hopping in a car to drive to Twin Peaks, one of the highest points in San Francisco with a great view of the city. The afternoon was spent checking out the Presidio and the Museum of Fine Arts, which has an unbelievable outdoor rotunda and columns.

We’ve been really impressed at the quality of the meals in SF. Joe and Wendy took us out to a local Thai restaurant for our last meal in San Francisco and we stuffed ourselves with Tom Ka Gai, satay, and curries.