We were invited to Joanne and Garrett’s wedding, so we were able to come up to the Bay Area for a long weekend and visit coworkers, family, and friends. We drove up on Thursday, stopped at Pokirito at San Luis Obispo for lunch, got to the Bay Area around 5pm, dropped off Anson so that he could run with his former coworker, Frank, while I checked into Hotel Avante, our home for the next 5 nights. I combined the $300 travel credit from Capital One for 2 nights, a Chase Travel promotion (spend $600, get $100, so spent $500 for what I would have already needed to spend for our upcoming Denmark trip and got $100 to pay for another night for this trip), and then 2 free nights with the Hyatt credit card. Power was out in the neighborhood, but turned back on a couple hours later. I met Anson at Mediterranean Grill House for dinner and we walked around Castro Street.
On Friday, we walked to the local Safeway to get some groceries for our trip and I got a free Big Kahuna sub from Jersey Mike’s using bday points for lunch. We chilled at the hotel, then got ready to go to the reception at RBF. Joanne and Garrett know many people, so we felt privileged to be invited. We talked to many church friends, and then headed over to the reception at Grand Dynasty (Chinese banquet food). A highlight of the evening was Joanne and her dad, Paul, serenading us since they didn’t wanna dance. I liked that our table numbers doubled as # cards that Garrett and Joanne will read aloud at each anniversary year.
On Saturday, we did our annual Mission Peak hike. There were some detours and I also wanted to try the less steep way to go down the peak, and it ended up making the hike 8.69 miles. We had lunch at Chicken Meets Rice ($16 entrees…still hungry). Then chilled at the hotel before heading to San Mateo to bring dinner to Aunt Helena and Uncle Tim. We try to make it a priority to see Anson’s uncles and aunts since they are older and have their share of health problems.
On Sunday, we lost an hour of sleep cuz of Daylight Saving, but still got to church only a few mins late 😛 RBF has grown even more and even has a safety team. We talked to a lot of people (Jacob and Cindy, Jenn Tsau, Steph and Jon, Randy and Eva, Samantha and hubby, Courtney, Grace and Fred, Karisa and Jon, Jennifer To). We had take out Chef Chu’s for lunch with Uncle Kenway, Aunt Susan, and Aunt Irene. We met Tracy at Rengstorff Park and talked for 3 hours. Dinner was another free sub from Jersey Mike’s and Anson had a packed dinner of rice and burger patties that I brought from home.
On Monday, Anson dropped me off at H Mart so that I could buy different drinks for my hangouts today. I met up with my accounting team at California Fish Grill for lunch. We went back to the office, worked for an hour, and then had our biweekly accounting meeting. I feel like it was a little awkward since I didn’t always know what to talk to people about. If I ever were to leave this job, I don’t think I would keep in touch. But I know that being here is a good use of my limited finance skills, so I will work hard to be a good teammate to finish our job duties. I then ubered to Char’s where she gave me a tour of their newly renovated house. It definitely looks awesome and will probably be their forever home. It was nice to talk to her and catch up. She is one of my peoples who genuinely want to hang out despite our busy schedules. We only made plans when we met up at the wedding, but we both had time (and I wanted to play hooky from work 🙂 Later, I ubered to the Leongs’ house and I had takeout Chinese food with Kevin, Emily, Albert, Ruth, Paul, and Sharon. Anson had his own time today by having lunch with Pure Storage (now called Everpure….elgh) coworkers and dinner with his former Applied Signal coworker, Lisa. He came later to pick me up.
On Tuesday, we just packed and headed back home. We first stopped by one of the San Jose Costcos to get gas, groceries, and stock up on organic brown rice. Also got Costco salads for our lunch which we had when we stopped at the Atascadero Library. Overall, I did like this trip. It was good to celebrate a wedding, complete our annual Mission Peak hike, and catch up with friends, family, and coworkers. At some point, these relationships may fade…I’m just glad that I still have them in the present.