Happy New Year! We had a wonderful time again at the fiance’s friend’s home in New Jersey!
Happy 2015!
And when I got home, look at what was waiting for me: a Marnie the dog calendar! My new Instagram obsession #marniethedog
Marnie the dog Calendar
Merry Christmas!
Got to spend Christmas with the future in-laws! So much fun to see all the traditions they have! First we went to Christmas’ Eve Mass at the local church, and then a Polish dinner at home.
On Christmas morning we opened more gifts (wrapped in comics) and I looked through old photos albums. The fiance was such a cute baby! We also had Easter soup, a traditional Polish dish with sausage, ham, and eggs.
For Christmas dinner we went to the fiance’s aunt and uncle’s home, where we enjoyed a traditional Christmas dinner with ham and turkey, opened more gifts, and played games. It was a nice, relaxing, fun Christmas with the new family 🙂
Merry Christmas!
We celebrated our engagement with a Christmas party in December. As always, good food, good drinks, and good friends. The fiance made a ham and we toasted to a new beginning. I also loved the dress he got me. He knows I hate shopping, so he picked a few dresses at the mall and brought them home for me to choose three as a Christmas gift. He did great!
But the fun didn’t stop here, when we got to the fiance’s parents home, they had an engagement cake waiting for us!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Another successful thanksgiving dinner full of friends, food, drinks, games, and fun. Over 20 people showed up and we still managed to have a sit-down dinner, with mulled wine, spiked apple cider, roasted pepper soup, and lots of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, and desserts. I’m still so full…
I know, I know… Not much running lately, but I’ve been pretty busy with some other things happening in my life 😉 Don’t worry, there will be some running news soon.
We’re engaged!
The boyfriend is now officially the fiance! We had an incredible anniversary together: we slept in, had pizza (my favorite food) for lunch, watched “The Hunger Games” movie at the exact day/time of last year’s “The Hunger Games” (our first date), shot some arrows (representing another “Hunger Games” movie – our second date), and went on a sunset hike to the top of Huffaker Hills, where he proposed after we watched some of the planes taking off against the Reno skyline.
Our city
Later we had a celebration dinner at this awesome French restaurant by the river: “Beaujolais“. We had cocktails, wine, champagne, venison, stuffed rabbit, and much more.
We are so excited!
So beautiful 🙂
It’s been one month since Tia Valdiza passed away. It’s been one really tough month. Aunt Val had been living with my family for over 30 years. She never married or had kids. We were her family and her commitment to raising me, my brother, and my sister, was beyond words. She was not only my dear aunt, but my first grade teacher, who taught me to read and write, my roommate for 15 years, who read to me and tucked me in every night, and, most of all, one of the biggest inspirations in my life.
October just kept getting worse: my purse got stolen, with my phone and several important items inside, and a girl rear-ended me, giving me a concussion that left me tired and dizzy for days. All of that made my life suck even more, but none of it could be compared to the loss of my aunt, from which I’m still recovering.
In the midst of all the craziness, I started a yoga teacher training course. We have been reading this yoga philosophy book called “The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali” that talks about how to live in a more meaningful way and I realized that’s what my aunt was trying to teach us all along. She was selfless. She lived for us, giving us everything she had, and she was by far the happiest person in my family. She lived in the moment. One of the advice she gave the boyfriend when he was in Brazil this summer was to stop worrying about a job he would have to take care of in the future and enjoy the present time with my family. She was strong, positive, and not easily overwhelmed by life. She took what life gave her, threw away what didn’t serve her, didn’t dwell on mistakes, and only kept the good, always keeping her calm and grace along the way.
On my first reading of this yoga book, I kept thinking about how unattainable that kind of philosophy was for a regular human being, but now, thinking about my aunt’s life, I can see she was the best example of how to live your life with a peaceful mind. Right now, with all the lemons life has been throwing at me, it’s been hard putting what she was trying to teach us into practice, but I’m working on making her proud. I am unbelievably grateful I got to know Aunt Val, my greatest teacher.
I had a three-part birthday and the boyfriend had a surprise party and a 20’s theme party, so I also had to celebrate the dogs’ birthday in style. Since it was October, they had a Halloween themed party for their 10th birthday (70 in dog years)!!!
I was a Hawaiian, the boyfriend was a green M&M, and the dogs wore UNR shirts, making them college students. We repeated the outfits on October 31st as well to pass out candy to the trick-or-treaters. Definitely the highlight of my awful month (more on that to come…)
Happy birthday Parker and Slick!
Happy Birthday!
Can’t believe it has been over a month since I posted something! Time flies and… I still haven’t been running. I blame it on the fires bringing smoke to the area! However, I continue to enjoy the nice fall weather by walking the dogs whenever I can.
Beautiful Day for Walking
This past month I’ve only really cooked three times: chicken red curry with rice, pumpkin pie (because it’s fall!), and gluten free double chocolate chip cookie (because October 1st is Homemade Cookie Day!)
On the other hand, my pilgrimage to Reno restaurants continue: Fuego has great tapas like meatballs, scallops and crab cakes, Two Chicks is a new breakfast place in Midtown, Los 4 Vientos has some huge burritos, there is an amazing Sicilian pizza at Nu Yulk Pizza, the beef wrap from “All Wrapped Up” was just okay during Food Truck Fridays, O’Cleary’s Irish Pub has lots of fried food, pool, darts, and even bowling, Indian Kabab’s lunch buffet has chicken masala and more, Shenanigan’s English Pub has cheap and abundant bar food , a cute place for high tea is The Isles Tea Shop, and even The Cheesecake Factory has surprisingly awesome food (check out their pumpkin/pecan cheesecake!)
Other fun stuff that happened: having my Spanish students play with shaving cream, finally getting my World Map up with our travel pins, a couple of friends’ birthdays, Brazilian karaoke (I sang Ivete Sangalo and Marisa Monte and no one complained about my voice!) and Colbie Caillat’s concert (did you know her family is from Reno?)
My birthday always falls on Memorial Day weekend, while the boyfriend’s is always on Labor Day, making them perfect for weekend-long celebrations!
We started, of course, opening gifts: the new chess table is perfect for our Midtown porch. Then we had one of our favorite inventions: grilled cheese with chips in the middle. Even more delicious after a run (or walk… I’m still not running…)
The afternoon was spent at Animal Ark, a sanctuary for wild animals that can’t live on their own anymore. It was a hot hot day in the dessert, but the black bears, pumas, cheetahs, jaguars, and several birds were worth seeing. Then off to Reno’s Rib Cook-Off: the french fries with pulled pork from BJ’s are the best!
Finally, we finished our weekend (which was filled with food, drinks, and friends as seeing on the previous post), with a picnic by the river, watching Slick and Parker play in the water, and a trip to the new luxury theater in Sparks to watch “Guardians of the Galaxy”. I totally recommend the new movie theater: they serve beer, wine, food, and have comfortable reclining chairs for a reasonable price.
The boyfriend and I love to dress up, so on his actual birthday we decided to have a 1920’s/Gatsby themed party. With my flapper headband and the boyfriend with his cane, we first headed to Rapscallion for dinner, one of the best and oldest restaurants in Reno. Besides, delicious seafood, they have great specials on set-menus and drinks too!
Then we met everyone at Death and Taxes, a pretty cool bar in Midtown, perfect for the theme. We had a blast sipping on the super expensive but amazing cocktails. It worked out great, as most of the people who couldn’t make it to his surprise birthday party made it to this event instead. We were not the only people in town that decided to have a themed party though: later that night we mingled with a Greek group as well.
1920’s Birthday Party
Run, eat, travel, and more 