Welcome to 2010

So 2010 finally got here, I came in a flying car. Did you? Ok so maybe we don't have flying cars, but Claire and I do have our own business! So that is a pretty big step right. Rather than talking about our plans for 2010 I wanted to do a recap of 2009.

Our year started off with a wonderful week vacation in Amarillo where Claire and I got to visit with friends and family. In early February we took a tour of the Texas wine country with Howie and Jenny. March came along and I was happy. March is one of my favorite times of the year because of two things: my birthday and SXSW. For my birthday we went and visited friends in College Station. We played some board games, frisbee golf and ate German/Irish food. Then for the next two weeks life was all about SXSW. This is probably one of my favorite things in life. Tons of bands descend on Austin. Claire and I enjoy 3-4 days of free shows from our favorite bands and new bands we hadn't heard of. This year we were joined by Michael and had a wonderful time.

By the time April rolled around we were spending most of our time hanging out and planning things for Emily and Charlie and the arrival of their baby, Laith. We were also making a full blown plan for our trip to San Francisco in June. In early May Laith arrived and he was a precious little baby. He was Claire's first experience with birth and I think she learned a lot and was happy to have shared it with Emily.

In June we got to go on the vacation of our lives. Claire and I spent a week in San Francisco and the surrounding areas. We saw everything from the wine country to Berkeley to the trolleys to Golden Gate to nearly the whole city. Plus we ate some of the best food of our lives (see: Little Star Pizza, Genki Crepes, and Avatars).

By the time we got back we were completely worn out. At this point Claire and I had been working for Red Orbit and Bill Miller, respectively, for the whole year. I was sick and tired of the way Bill Miller was treating myself and the other managers and started the wheels turning in my head of ways I could get out. Of course nothing came of it until later in the fall. During the summer we got to enjoy a weekend with all of Claire's college roomies and spouses (minus Kam and David).

In Early september Claire and I came up with a solution to my work situation. Quit...that's right. When the rest of America is holding on desperately to their jobs I just up and quit. Didn't really have a plan other than this faint idea of a business plan. I think I just had it and said I'm done. I hoped for the best and well...so far so good. Soon after quitting Claire and I launched WholeNine Lifestyle Management. We got ourselves a bunch of goverment documents that said we were a business and went for it. I had always wanted to cook for people on a personal cook to family level and the personal chef side of WholeNine allows me to do that. Claire wants to design, decorate, and organize people's homes and this gave her an outlet for that. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around we had thrown our Launch/Re-Launch party at Obees and were officially under way.

We spent Thanksgiving with the Rajehs and enjoyed a delicious feast and some down time with our wonderful friends. Then it was all business in December. We handled a garage sale for some clients, did some Christmas card photo shoots, and did some small handy man work for another set of clients. By the time Christmas came around we had been on an emotional rollercoaster. Who knew running a business would be so fun but so tiring (I guess everyone knows that).

For Christmas my family came into town. We relaxed exchanged gives and generally did a lot of nothing, which was wonderful. For new years we kept it mellow with the White's and this last weekend we visited Claire's family in Tyler. Now with all that out of the way I wish everyone a wonderful 2010 and we plan on telling you our wonderful stories more often this year. Most likely we will transfer over to our WholeNine blog. We couldn't be more excited for what this year has in store for us. We are going into our 4th year of marriage and our first full year of business. I think it will be a great year!

out

Sorry for the long absence. I assume we will be back someday but for now you might just have to call or email us to get our attention. Work has been overwhelming for me and Claire is just trying to keep up with work and everything else that demands her attention.

We will update about our summer though, at least I think we will.

Also it's hot in Austin. 2 months of 100+ weather is no good.

golden gates and cable cars

We finally made it in to San Francisco on Monday. Monday was beautiful. First we traveled down into Muir Woods to see the Redwoods and they are big! At first we didn't think they were even going to be as big as the piney woods in east Texas.


We were wrong. They are pretty amazing trees and it's understandable why people make trips out to see them and walk among them. We stopped up on Hawks Hill to look at the Golden Gate Bridge then drove down to Point Bonita and walked over to the light house out on the edge of the continent. This was by far the best view we will get the whole time we are here. It was breathtaking and amazing. Just as we were driving up the hill it started to get foggy. It was simply amazing. We were both in awe that something like this existed and it isn't all that talked about.


The Golden Gate is an amazing structure but the Lighthouse has the real views. You can look back at the bridge, or off into the ocean, or down at the waves crashing on the rocks. It almost feels like you're off in New Zealand. It was a surreal afternoon.




Then we took the scenic drive back, made a stop at Sausalito beach and headed through a tunnel to get back to the bridge. We made one more quick stop at Fort Point for one last look at the bridge. Then we made our way over to our hotel which is awesome and just west of Downtown and Union Square. We are staying at Hotel Vertigo (which was once the York Hotel, which was the building called the Empire Hotel in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo). It has recently been renovated (well halfway, they haven't finished yet). We both think it's got a lot of character. It's definitely a cool place to stay.


That night we made our way down into the mission, which turned out to be quite an experience. Lets just say its a very diversified and not the safest feeling place at night. First we headed over to Bi-Rite to try the famous Ice Cream. It was pretty good, actually really good. But, I have to give Austin credit on this one. We both felt like Amy's Ice Cream was a better experience and was more fun to go to. After that we walked over to Weird Fish were we waited for our table outside on a bench. Well we enjoyed the people watching until we were approached by a really, really drunk hobo who was preaching on love. At least that's what we think he was talking about but being Hispanic and drunk, he was a little hard to understand. Oh well, we got a good laugh out of it before dinner. Weird fish didn't really meet my expectations. It was a cool place but the food wasn't as great as I thought it was going to be. Oh well so far we were striking out in the SF food scene.

The next day we attempted to eat breakfast at Mamas in North Beach only to find a line at 9am on a Tuesday that was about 30 people. Instead we opted for Cafe Greco and had some good coffee/chai and a smoked salmon bagel. We did the normal peir 39/fishermans warf tourist thing and enjoyed the seals for a while.


These guys are loud and boisterous. They just lay around and yell, climb on top of each other, and fight. We could probably have stood there for a couple of hours watching these guys.
We checked out Ghirardelli square and had a cupcake at Kara's Cupcakes (Delicious -watch out Sugar Mama's). Then we headed to the Ferry Building (The last operating World Fair Building) and strolled through the farmers market. Snacked on fresh cherries and fruits. We had lunch there at the Slanted Door (also good, very fresh, but not up to expectations). Maybe our expectations were just too high. After visiting a few shops and riding a bus through Chinatown we ended up strolling around in some cool galleries and checking out Union Square. It was busy and full of tourists. I think it is one of those things you have to do while you are here but I don't really care for the hustle of it. For dinner we headed over to Little Star Pizza, who gets the Best Meal of San Francisco Award so far, and is way up there in our Top Pizza places ever list.


The pizza had this thick, crunchy cornmeal crust that held all the toppings in place. It was deep dish but you could it eat with your hands without it all falling off the crust. Perfect, woo...it was good. We then walked over to Alamo park to check out the Painted Ladies and the "Full House" houses (although it wasn't actually the house they lived in). We took a few fun pictures and enjoyed the scenery. Claire was enthralled with the detail of all the Victorians. This area is a stark contrast to the mission area.



More coming soon!

sonoma, muir woods, and the golden gate bridge

So far it has been a whirlwind of a vacation. We have packed in about a week's worth of vacation in two days. Two days ago we ate at La Note for breakfast, shopped around Berkeley, ate at Chez Panisse for lunch, tasted at The Cheese Board, explored Berkeley campus, did a tour of the Pyramid brewery, and ate dinner with Shawn and Mandy. We got to see little Sutton for the first time and that was exciting. Thanks to Rick (Claire's Dad) we got to enjoy a nice dinner out with them.



Then yesterday we headed up to Sonoma. Beforehand we checked out the Alameda Aniques by the bay.


It had an awesome view, and Claire was in heaven with billions of vendors selling old antique stuff.


Surprisingly, even I enjoyed myself. Then we began our tasting at about 8 wineries (I think that would make Howie proud). Our favorites were Kaz and Imagery. Imagery does a unique artists' label for each bottle and Kaz is the smallest in Sonoma. Both had great wines and at Kaz the winemaker is the pourer so it was fun to chat with him. Before anything we stopped at Cornerstone Gardens, which is about 15 different intepretations of the word "garden". It includes a dead tree covered in blue christmas balls.




After that we had some amazing and delicious sandwiches at Angelo's Deli. That place is a great cheap lunch stop in Sonoma. From there on out we did our winery tour.



At Benzinger we did a awesome tram tour and then by about 6 we were worn out and ready to head back to our hotel in Tiburon. The hotel turned out to be awesome. It had a 2 person Jacuzzi tub in the room. Very sweet!

For our last stop of the day we headed over to Sausalito for Sushi. Although it was slightly disappointing food it was still good to get some food before bed (We might have made a stop afterwards at In-N-Out Burger for a burger and a shake). Today we are off to Fred's coffee for breakfast, and then we are sightseeing at Muir woods, Sausalito, and the Golden Gate bridge. By tonight we will be in San Francisco. Woo Hoo!