We had a wonderful Christmas this year! It started in Pleasant Hill, where we joined Beth in celebrating a few days early. It was festive and beautiful. She made us a delicious breakfast, adorned us with reindeer and Christmas lights headbands, and showered us with lots of thoughtful and wonderful gifts such as our new sushi, flame, and I Love Mom socks. We had a wonderful morning celebration before catching our flight to...

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The only photo I did get of our time in SLC was of the airport, where we saw lots of happy families reunited for the holidays, some greeting missionaries just as they arrived home. What a happy happy place, the Salt Lake City airport at the holidays! I could just spend hours there.

Everyone was warm and loving and wonderful and we were showered with gifts galore in SLC, too. One gift, from Grandpa George, was a giant, 17-pound ham which had been cured and sitting around in the basement to age for the previous 15 months. So we named her Pam, packed her in our luggage, and took her along to our next stop...

Kansas! In Kansas Pam the Ham came out of her shell and Jake spent a full 24 hours cooking her to perfection. She was delicious!

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And of course, there was much love and family and warmth all around. I loved getting to see everyone of course but was especially thrilled to get to meet my new baby cousinette, Hope, who's 8 weeks old.

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We enjoyed lots of fun and celebrations before the holidays even arrived this year. First, the Zillabyte team and several other local startups hosted Holiday Dinner and a Holiday Happy Hour, complete with Charlie's amazing homemade eggnog (thank you Charlie! Yum!). 

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We attended several other lovely holiday parties too, like Steve and Kate's fun event in Palo Alto for instance and one fantastic party with real snow and ice skating in Palo Alto... but apparently I got a little lazy on the picture taking, so I'm just hoping y'all will have parties again and I'll have another chance next year :)

And then there were Christmas Cards! Here are the cards we sent out. This was a big deal for me since this is the first year I've done them as an adult. I must *really* be getting old, I guess. (If you didn't receive one then I must not have your mailing address - please send it to me and I'll make sure you get one next year! I wouldn't want you to miss out on real printed copies of Jake and me looking ridiculous in our Santa hats, after all. Or whatever next year's silliness will be.)

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And finally, saving my favorite part for last, we *received* zillions of holiday cards! We are so fortunate to have so many thoughtful, festive, and especially good-looking friends (as you can see here). Each one made us smile, nearly all of them drew an audible "Aww!", and we put every photo we received up on display in our dining room. We feel so loved, thank you dear friends and family!

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The rest of November was busy and fun. After our marathon, we enjoyed good friends, good meals, and of course lots of hard work on our startups. Jake and the Zillabyte team hit some key milestones and I embarked on my journey to code my own startup's website with Ruby on Rails (which meant purchasing a Rails Tutorial book and learning Rails from scratch). But we've been busy outside of work too...

Our good friend Tony (the person, not to be confused with the toaster mentioned in prior posts) came to visit us from Denver! We enjoyed sandwiches on dutch crunch bread (the very best) from JJ&F Market, hit up the Rose and Crown for a pint, played ping pong at the Zillabyte HQ at AOL, secured appropriate pre-Big Game gear, and even braved the rain to take the 7 dozen cookies I made to Mayumi and Elizabeth's very fun Big Game tailgate. Through this experience I learned that they now make holiday mint chip refrigerator roll chocolate chip cookies. Brilliant!

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We also had a fun impromptu party to help My celebrate finishing up her midterms (that's us, always the helpful folks). We had so much fun we almost forgot to eat dinner, but I saved the day with my gourmet Cheerios and milk recipe and plenty of cookies to go around too.

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I also managed to turn a white towel very blue by washing it with blue jeans in the dryer! The DRYER! Apparently it's important to separate colors not just in the washer, but in the dryer too.

At Thanksgiving we got a turkey (named him Ted), made mashed potatoes and stuffing and crab and cinnamon-flavored ice cream and Jake's favorite cherry/vanilla Coke Zero recipe (you know, the traditional Thanksgiving basics), got out the salads and cranberry sauce, put a fire in the "fireplace," and had Beth over for an afternoon feast! The three of us couldn't quite finish Ted off (he was 15 pounds and there were just 3 of us), so Beth cooked us up a post-Thanksgiving Ted soup feast later that weekend. Yum!

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This Autumn has been pretty great. First, my cousin Andy and his wife Donna brought a beautiful baby girl into the world on October 28th. Her name is Hope and she is beautiful. I cannot wait to meet her.

Welcome to the world, baby cousin!

Second, I don't remember noticing the leaves changing colors when I lived in the Bay Area from 1999-2008. Maybe I didn't live near the right trees or I was just too distracted. But this year I'm noticing and it's beautiful. Here's a shot from right in front of our apartment last week.

And! Twice last week my lovable husband brought home huge bouquets of flowers for me, just because. He knows how to make a girl happy, he does.

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A Happy Autumn to YOU!

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Last weekend we flew to Savannah to participate in the Rock n Roll Marathon (Jake) and Half-Marathon (me). We first made plans for this with Heidi back in February after we completed the New Orleans Marathon (Jake) and Half-Marathon-Relay (Heidi and me). The Savannah event was finally here, so off to Georgia we went. Heidi's boyfriend Tommy came to race with her and Heidi's good friends Aliesha and Chris came to see Savannah and join the fun.

We stayed at a cute little cottage in Tybee island and we started the trip by exploring Savannah, even taking an official tour with a guide. We learned that Savannah only has one hill... but we sure went up and down it a lot.

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This was the first year Savannah has hosted a Rock n Roll event, so there were signs up everwhere welcoming us runners.

On race morning, it was cold! We set off all bundled up and started the race.

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Heidi and Tommy and I passed each other a couple times along the way and then ended up finishing together too, all in our Built for Speed shirts (with a turtle picture on the back). Heidi and I initially had these shirts made to identify us as team "Wogger" (walk-jogger), but I think we're about to graduate to full-on joggers after this race! We watched Jake finish his marathon and then headed back to Tybee where we picked up some post-race food on the way home. (Yes, the photo here shows just the food Jake and I got for ourselves... Heidi and Tommy were slightly more disciplined.)

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Before leaving our cottage, we tried to get a group shot, but it wasn't meant to be - first the camera wrist cord got in the way and then the focus didn't work right. But I think you can see how much fun we had from these anyhow :)

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We hosted a party at our apartment for Halloween this year - the annual Blair Witch Project viewing in celebration of Jake's favorite holiday. Jake and Tyler made witches' punch - which looked crazy awesome, and just a bit scary.

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Although most people didn't dress up, Mario and WaLuigi were among our guests. One highlight of the evening was watching Mario play.. Mario.

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While we thought our party with our fancy punch was cool and I was pretty proud of the pumpkin I carved with My on my surprise party day, we also attended a Halloween party this year where they had some *real* (1,100 pound) pumkins being carved. Some were painted and lit with a blacklight to look extra spooky.

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Several days before my birthday this year, my friend Mayumi invited me over to carve pumpkins together. When she dropped me off after, I came inside to find all the lights off but our decorative pumpkin candles lit on the bureau by the front door. Always practial, "Hm," I think to myself, "that seems like a bit of a fire hazard."

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And that's when it happens - a whole bunch of people jump out and shout SURPRISE!!! It turns out Jake organized a whole giant surprise party for me - he'd been planning it for weeks. He got my parents to come from Kansas (wow!) and Beth from Pleasant Hill and lots of our friends. There was pizza and choco tacos and Ryo made a beautiful fruit tart. I received gifts from family in Salt Lake City and Missouri and Kansas. And I got to spend the next couple great days with my parents. (Thanks to Dad for some of these photos!)

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Such a wonderful birthday. Happy 31st to me!

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Last weekend the Zillabyte Team and the ZillaWives and Tyler & Jean's ZillaDog ventured out into the great wide open for some good old fashioned car camping.

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Very pretty. Just check out that sky! (I really like nice skies.)

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Jake and I made tacos for dinner and we had that traditional camping favorite, Choco Tacos, for dessert (dry ice really works). Jake made his signature peach camping cobler as dessert #2 and we had s'mores as dessert #3. Then Tyler made us fresh oatmeal for breakfast, and we stopped at a local pizza joint for lunch on the way home since we had such a loong (well, 1 hour) journey home. Yeah, it was basically really rough. But we toughed it out.

I also learned that if you throw an empty wine bottle into a campfire, it doesn't take long at all to melt and collapse. But it doesn't look very pretty afterwards, either. Now I know.

Go ZillaTeam!

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One nice thing about living in the Bay Area is that we have family nearby! So once a month, we meet up with Beth for "Family Night." This month Beth prepared a feast of veggies and steaks (ok, Jake grilled those). And there was cake, lots of cake. I looove family night!

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I'm so lucky. Next month I'll get a brand new baby cousinette. My cousin Andy and his wife Donna are expecting a baby girl around October 28th. So! Aunt Cheryl was kind enough to lend her home to my mom and me for a few hours last week while we held a baby shower for Donna.

She had guests from St. Louis and beyond, all excited to pamper her with presents and love.

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There were a number of onesie artists who didn't even know they were artists...

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Lots of great food from sandwiches to cupcakes...

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Games... well actually just one game, Bingo for gift opening (congrats to Aunt Nancy!)...

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And of course lots of gifts for Donna and Baby Crow...

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Robin and Josh got married in Washington, DC on September 18th and so we flew to DC for the occasion. Since Tamar and Clea came too, we had a bit of a mini moose reunion as well. We met at Robin and Josh's welcome dinner on Saturday night, we brunched at the Tabard Inn Sunday morning while Robin brunched with her family, and we joined Robin as she got dressed on Sunday afternoon.

We had champagne and laughed a lot. For her "something borrowed," Robin wore my bracelet that I wore when Jake and I got married. It was an extra special time all around.

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The ceremony was beautiful, mostly Jewish and performed by the judge Robin clerked for a couple years ago. It was outdoors in a park and the temperature was perfect. Just a gorgeous day.

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One of my favorite parts was the "parade" of guests, complete with a "Just Married!" banner that Clea and I carried and noisemakers scattered throughout the crowd, walking from the park where the ceremony was to the reception venue a mile away, right through the middle of DC. Cars stopped to honk at us and people hung out the windows of their apartment buildings to shout well-wishes to Robin and Josh. It was awesome.

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We're so happy for you Robin and Josh! What a fantastic weekend in every way.

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The primary reason we moved to Silicon Valley was for the benefit of Jake's business. With his co-founders Tyler and Peter, they're building a big data analysis platform to help analysts discover the data they want and run the analyses they need.

They're still working on a prototype, but they've already been accepted to the AOL Ventures program which provides them with free office space (really nice office space too!) and they got a great article in TechCrunch last week entitled "Ex-Googlers Debut Zillabyte To Let Business Users Easily Analyze Big Data." Things are happening!

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Although they're still in stealth mode and their product is still several weeks from even an initial release, they are accepting signups at Zillabyte.com. By the way, don't miss the monster animations easter egg when you fill out the form, hopefully ZillaBob isn't too scary for you readers out there. Personally I love how he tucks his tie into his pants, soo classy. Jake and his team have also got their big data blog up and running, so check it out next time you're in the mood for some good reading about big data processing ;)

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We celebrated our first wedding anniversary just 3 days after we moved into our new place in Menlo Park. So, we ran away to Monterey for 24 hours of just enjoying each other.

We had a nice brunch, walked around town, gave each other presents, and had a feast of crab and lobster for dinner. Oh, and of course we got some flan too.

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Happy Anniversary to Us! It's been one of the best years I can remember. Now on to year Two...

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Goodbye, Boulder! On August 20th we said goodbye to Boulder with a final dinner at Japango (one of the very first restaurants we encountered in Boulder; Gnip gave me a gift card there as my going-away present). We made sure to order the Boulder roll and the California roll to set us on our way.

The movers came on August 21st and helped us load our humongo Uhaul for the drive. We loaded up Betsy and Harley-Chan and everything else we own.

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We stayed overnight with Robert and Tracy in Salt Lake City and had a lovely time catching up with them. We also took the Quists to dinner and got to see our good friends Doug and Mickelle, *and* I got to meet Jake's high school buddy Phill and hear lots of stories of Jake as a high schooler (awesome!). Anyway, on we went from Salt Lake City to a whole lot of sky...

...before staying overnight with Beth and then finally arriving at our new front door here in Menlo Park.

Special thanks to Trucker Dad and Trucker Mom for joining us for the Big Move and providing such fun company all along the way.

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As it was nearly time for the third of the Mooses to officially tie the knot, Tamar and I pulled together some of Robin's closest friends and planned a bachelorette weekend for her at her parents' weekend home on Eliza Island, off Washington state. We set out from Bellingham and took a boat out to the island (the only way to get there unless you happen to have a private plane).

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On the way there, we stopped to pick up the crab traps that Robin's dad had set out earlier that day. You can keep crabs if they're male and larger than a certain size, so each crab was examined and measured. We ended up with several crabs this trip and a total of 18 when all was finished. Wow! And sooo delicious...

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As a side note, Robin's parents were the greatest, planning meals for us for the entire weekend, cooking, taxi'ing us to the island and back, and making sure we had everything we needed and so much more.

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The timing worked out beautifully, so we got to join Robin and her family for a shower and dinner at their good friends' house back in Bellingham right after the Eliza weekend. Here she is in the super-glam shower cap I got her (something important for a married lady to have, don't you think?).

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We love you, Robin! Happy Bachelorette :)

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We hosted a little going away party for ourselves at Conor O'Neill's a couple days before saying goodbye to Boulder. Lots of our favorite people came and we got photos of almost everyone.

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We were touched and flattered that so many people showed up to say goodbye and wish us well. We had a lovely evening. We'll miss you, Boulder!

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While in Washington last month, I got to spend a day with our good friends Kai and Ingrid and meet the newest member of their family... Tai. We chatted on a blanket in the park, we talked over great food, we talked while watching Tai crawl to every corner of the house he could reach, and Kai and Ingrid told me all about what it's been like for them to be new parents. What a nice day!

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From Lake Powell, we hopped in Esmeralda and embarked on the journey out to California. We started at scenic Hanksville, where we made sure to see all the key sights: 

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Driving onward, we stopped at the Hickman Ridge Trail for a little hike around sunset. It was beautiful. I tell you what, Utah has got some serious rocks!

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And finally, what Jake had been looking forward to for months, we journeyed down the Extraterrestrial Highway. We saw flying saucers and stopped for a famous alien burger in Rachel, Nevada. Apparently it was pretty windy.

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And... on to California we went! Up next: taking Betsy (Jake's 4Runner) and all our other stuff out to the West Coast.

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Back in August we joined Jake's extended family for a couple days at their houseboat in Lake Powell. As we drove toward the lake, we stopped in Hanksville so Jake could show me the Hollow Mountain gas station he remembers fondly from his childhood. Zillions of green bugs met us there - they were everywhere! Apparently this isn't too unusual for the good people of Hanksville...

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Anyway, we made it past and drove on to Lake Powell, where Adam picked us up from the dock and took us to the houseboat for a couple of days of fun. Swimming, wakeboarding, relaxing, enjoying the sun... what a perfect way to spend a summer vacation! And in such a gorgeous setting, too.

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There was lots of lounging around, talking, and just enjoying the outdoors. We slept under the stars and enjoyed the great wide open. Jake and I were responsible for dessert one evening, so we introduced the crowd to "Kansas-style" strawberry shortcake. In the meantime, others cooked up veritable feasts for everyone to enjoy.

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ps. Yes I know, clearly I need a tan! I'm not sure how I managed to become a Quist without one.

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Last weekend our friends Nick and Sara got married in their backyard. Sara made her own dress and Nick got some special black 5-toed shoes for the occasion. They're fantastic dancers! It was a beautiful evening and everyone had a lovely time.

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They set up a dance floor and several tables in their backyard. Nick and Sara's families came from Montana and Louisiana for the occasion. Parasols and fans were distributed to everyone - they were cute and useful in the heat of the day.

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Amanda made Sara's stunning cherry blossom wedding cake and Nick made homemade beer and sparkling wine for the event.

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