Taxes done... Time to Go to Annadel

A beautiful weekend and Lisa was in Washington DC to lobby the senators and congressmen  so Jason, Jenna and I decided to head to Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa.

In case you have not been there, it is a beautiful park that is rather hilly but the climbs give great views.  The trails are rather challenging and some are advanced for mountain bikes... what better introduction to Mountain biking for Jenna ! :)

Weather was perfect in the low 60s..

We ended up on RoughGo Trail ( which should have been a hint) and we ended up with a 2 mile climb on so pretty rough trail... but we made it ( with a bit of walking thrown in.

we ended up with about 8 or 9 miles all told but 2900+ feet of climbing .. Fun day!!

Pre Ride 

Jason on RoughGo

Jenna descending

Jason on the way down

Jason did have a mishap

Jenna Climbing

 

 

Some more Wedding Pictures

A few more pictures of the Wedding :)

Introducing Mr and Mrs vH-H (!)

Well, after a few weeks of rainy, miserable weather, the gods chose to shine on our wedding day (and the rest of the honeymoon) with absolutely gorgeous weather in the mid 70's.

The ceremony was held at the Swedenborgian Church in Pacific Heights San Francisco on March 30 at 11:00am. The church was nicely lit by candles and the natural light streaming in the windows. Surrounded by close family we said our vows, shared a unity candle ceremony with our 5 children and were pronounced husband and wife.

Our thanks to Reverend Moss, Charles Calhoun on Organ and Valentyna Hohl our host for everything going perfectly.

There was one small issue before the ceremony when Ron notied that eh had forgotten his shoes, and only had running shoes to wear...Jason came to the rescue and swapped shoes with Ron... Thanks Jason!

We then shared some wonderful food in the parish house. We took the rolls royce down to the Palace of Fine Arts and eventualy to Chrissy Field for photograph taken by Jere Visalli see just a sampling attached.

Thanks to our wonderful kids for all the help, thanks to our families for making the trip and celebrating with us, and especially to Lisa's sister Christine for all the work on the beautiful dress.

We had the pleasure of spending our wedding night on the 48th floor of the Mandarin Oriental with stunning views of the San Francisco, the 3 bridges and Much of the bay. We were blessed with beautifully clear waether making for a wonderful sunset and sunrise.

The honeymoon included a trip up the cost to Mendocino, a bike ride and party in Napa Valley and a couple of days in Big Sur... but that will be the subject of another post ( including some pictures).

~~Mr and Mrs ~~

Wedding Shower

Lisa and I were treated on Saturday to a wedding shower hosted by Tessie Oandasan and Sara Fitzpatrick. Lots of Lisa's colleagues were there and as you can see below lots of wonderful food.

There was even more food in the kitchen area as well...If you left hungry it was your own fault!

The 'piece de resistance' of the food table was certainly the "Team vanHuuHaa" cupcake tower - complete with racers on bikes. How neat is that? :)

We also got a marvelous gift certificate to a local Glass blower in Sacramento (girlglass.com) so we can commission a custom made piece to go on the empty pedestal in our living room. As well as a few lovely bottles of wine :)

A big ~THANK YOU~ to Tessie, Sara and all the others who helped and came to wish us well!!
This has certainly made the wedding much more real for both of us.

Ron and Lisa

In the Saddle Again! finally

Well after a rather protracted convalescence to allow my wrist to mostly heal after the crash in Park City Utah in September... and many X-rays, Fluoroscope scans and an MRI.. it seems the wrist is healing - albeit slowly. On top of all that, with the wedding planning, Lisa's Doctorate program and business at work we have not been on the bike for months...

Saturday was a gorgeous day upper 60's and Lisa and I got on the bikes to jump-start a couple of weeks of training to ensure that we are able to participate in the Wedding Celebration Rolling party on April 2.

We took off from Roseville and headed up Fiddyment and out Sunset looping through the flat lands of the Sacramento Valley and Lincoln and back into Roseville. So there was no climbing - only steady spinning base miles.

After the recent rains there was lots of standing water in the rice fields and that attracted HUGE numbers of birds which would take flight as we passed making for quite a spectacle - but also making us a bit concerned about possible "bombardment" :)

We did a loop of about 36 miles averaging 16.2mph and were feeling the months of inactivity by the end of the ride - but it was great to get out and enjoy a beautiful day...

Hope where ever you were, you had a wonderful day as well

Ron and Lisa

Sparkling Wine on a Sparkling Day

So we needed to choose some bubbly for the wedding....We asked our Professor at the recent Sensory Evaluation of Wine course for a recommendation and so we found ourselves at Domaine Carneros near Napa on Sunday ( the day before Valentines Day') - yes its a rough life...

Domaine Carneros looks like a French Chateau with sweeping stairs leading to the large patio in front of the "chateau". The Patio is setup with tables and chairs overlooking the vineyards where you can taste the sparkling and red wines and enjoy some cheeses..

We order a flight of sparkling wines ( the Brut(dry), Rose ( a little fruity but dry), and the Demi-sec
We also bought a glass of the top of the line Le Reve ( yummy!). Ben was our sommelier and he was a fountain of knowledge and he brought us another Rose and eventually 3 Pinot Noir Reds to try. We also ordered a cheese platter with some excellent local cheeses.

So we sat and enjoyed a gorgeous day, with great champagne and lots of information which eventually allowed us to choose the Rose for the wedding. We also bought 3 magnums of the Carneros Estate Pinot Nior red - which we enjoyed on Valentines day - awesome :)

Hope everyone had a nice Valentine's day and that is well where you are

Ron and Lisa

Ah... The Joys of Wine

Lisa signed us up for a very fun and informative course at UC Davis called - The Sensory Evaluation of Wine.

This was a 2 day course that gave us an in depth introduction to color, aroma and taste of wine - both white and reds. We got to test wine defects ( taste and smell) as well as practice to pick out the smells and relate what we smell to a name for it using the Aroma Wheel.

We had some very well known professors lecturing and got a chance to taste a huge number of different wines, from all over the world. We had the chance to try classic styles of wine and to catalog the traits... We also had some very nice lunches and some aperitifs and Port.

Strangely after tasting wines for 16 hours my guess is that I actually drank only maybe 3 or 4 thimbles full the whole time... a lot of taste and spit going on

Our enjoying of wine will never be the same LOL