Snapshots of Weekend Awesomeness

I thought of titling this post, “Hiking, massages, and wine tastings, these are a few of my favorite things!” but then thought better of such a lengthy title. But, my weekend had a lot of awesomeness in it, so I thought I’d share some of it with you all.

My weekend started off with a hike with Gina and Harley at Mount Madonna Park.

The weather was nice and mild, Harley acted like a maniac as usual, and with Gina and I just chatting away, our workout just flew by. I think that these hiking dates need to happen more often!

Some of my at-home meals included this delicious breakfast creation….

[Whole wheat flaxseed PB & J waffles topped with strawberry sauce]

Does that not just look and sound like a whole lot of yumminess?

[A slightly burnt but still good whole wheat pizza topped with mini heirloom tomatoes, zucchini and mozzarella]

[Lots of roasted veggies, including these cool locally grown carrots that were purple and yellow on the outside and orange on the inside]

On Saturday morning I had a long yoga & stretching session in my living room.

I also went to my first massage at the National Holistic Institute, a massage therapy school where students need 900 hours of training to graduate (whew!). It was recommended by my physical therapist as a place to go for cheap massage therapy to address my ever-tightening calf, which has been bringing my recurring foot pain back lately.

My masseuse was really good at listening to me, and she pretty much dug into my calf muscle for half of the session. I feel like she really helped to release a lot of those built-up toxins and knots. It hurt so good, and I was really sore yesterday from it, but it was just what my body needed. I’m thinking that I’ll try to make it there every other week to get my calf worked on, and I’m happy I made it there on Saturday!

My weekend also included some long walks with my hubby and pup…

Saturday night my hubby and I went on a date night in San Jose. We’re about half an hour away from the city but don’t hang out there all that often, so we thought it’d be something different to go spend an evening there downtown.

First we went to a wine and chocolate tasting at Sherman Cellars. I had nabbed a Groupon for it a couple months back. No surprise there, as the words “chocolate” and “wine” always seem to grab me.

It was kind of funny because the tasting room is part of Creekview Vineyards –  a place located nearby our home that we’ve passed before but haven’t visited – and I didn’t know this until we got there. Each tasting was paired with different kinds of dark and milk chocolate.

My verdict? The chocolates were good, the wine was just so-so. There were 2 kinds that I liked: the zinfandel and their port. I wasn’t really a big fan of the other wines, but the tasting was still fun.

Next we went to dinner at Paolo’s, an Italian restaurant that Adam’s dad had gifted us a meal to over the holidays. This Wine Spectator award caught my eye when we walked in…

…and indeed they did have a nice selection on their wine list. We chose a bottle of French wine called Jean-Paul Brun “L’Ancien” Beaujolais, which is a red wine made from the Gamay grape. Both of us enjoyed it.

Caught him! 😉

For an appetizer we ordered their Italian cured meats and cheese plate. The dish was slacking in the cheese department (about 1 oz of cheese total is not acceptable in my book for an appetizer for two!), and Adam obviously ate all of the meats.

I had seen a butternut squash pasta dish on the menu online beforehand that I was going to go for, but it wasn’t on the menu at the restaurant last weekend. Instead, I ordered beet, potato and cheese ravioli with poppy seeds. The dish was decent but I wasn’t overly impressed.

Adam’s entree featured house-made pasta, broccoli and sausage. He thought that it was good, but as he described it, “not the best, not the worst” dish.

Despite the fact that we had eaten a bit of dessert prior to dinner, we ordered some sort of peanut butter ice cream cake with caramelized bananas on the side to share.

This was tasty, though I did find myself wanting more banana to enjoy.

Overall, I thought that the service and presentation at Paolo’s was great, but it fell a bit short to me as far as some of the food goes. I don’t even like big portions, but I also don’t like when a restaurant gives you itty bitty amounts of yummy things. I just wasn’t wowed, though we all know that I’m a huge Italian food lover and have somewhat high standards. Regardless, we had a nice dinner and date night together.

And those were the highlights of my weekend!

Questions: Do you get massages often? Are you a big Italian food lover?