Happy new year to all!  We had a fine time of it out here.  Since it coincided with our 25th wedding anniversary this year, we made the 1.5 hour drive down to San Francisco to celebrate.  A little on the wacky side for us, but it was a great time.  We met up with some friends when we got there, who coincidentally were also celebrating their anniversary.  Popular day to get married, I guess;  Likely because it’s easy to remember.  We sort of kicked around all day, pretty much killing time until our (gasp) 9:30 dinner reservations at Wayfare Tavern.  We called them every 30 minutes or so to make sure they didn’t have anything earlier, never worked out.  I deemed it worth the wait though, it was fantastic.  As an added bonus, it gave me something to keep me occupied until midnight, so we actually got to ring in the new year for once.  Matter of fact, we stepped right out the front door of the restaurant and had an excellent view of the fireworks show over the bay.

The next day we got up somewhat early, and headed back up the hill.  Traffic was blissfully light, and we made some seriously good time getting home.  Once there, we effectively shut down for the rest of the weekend, exhausted.  We did go over to some friends house for pizza and to watch the debacle of a football game that was Oregon.  We had a fun time and no serious allegiance to the Ducks, so it didn’t ruin our day.  Then Sunday we went to see Star Wars finally, which I thought was great.  We’re not exactly huge Star Wars fans, but I liked the movie at any rate.  That led right up to the Chiefs game, then we had friends over for a tri tip “experiment” at dinner time.  I got a fancy new thermometer for Christmas, and that was it’s maiden voyage.  I used it in an attempt to California-ize my tri tip, which is to say cook the life out of the poor thing.  Unfortunately I couldn’t bring myself to do it, it was still pretty rare-ish.  I gave it a good try though, next time I’ll take it up another five degrees or so.  Sigh.  Just don’t seem natural.