I think I’m beginning to create an annual tradition of going boating the July 4th weekend! Check out my post last year if you have a hankering to see the SNL video – you’re welcome in advance for getting that song stuck in your head again. It’s been stuck in mine for the past two days!
On Friday I flew back to California for the weekend and caught up with a bunch of old friends. I feel like a whirlwind tour every time I go home. It always passes so quickly.
The weekend was jam-packed with a ton of fun activities and ended on a high note. A couple of my friends from my last job rented a boat for the entire day on Sunday and invited me to tag along. We took it back and forth on the Delta, went swimming, dove off the side and brought sandwiches, snacks, drinks and cookies and enjoyed the sun. I also dabbled in some knee boarding, something I’ve never done before!
My friends brought their dog and he loved it. He kept jumping in the water, swimming and just chilled out on the boat. I had an absolute blast… until my friend split her lip knee boarding. That was a scary moment, but after a quick trip to the ER, everything seems to be in order. I’m so glad she’s ok!
Now I’m going to go back in time. The day prior (Saturday), I lounged by the pool with my parents. I tried to convince my dad to wake up at 5 a.m. and make mimosas with me, because it was the first day of the Tour de France! One small problem, however, is that I didn’t wake up until close to 10 a.m. Oops.
At least the champagne cocktails still went down.
Ever since living in France, I’m basically addicted to champagne cocktails, or kir as they are called over the pond. Addicted isn’t quite the right word because I’ve never made them myself, I’ve only ever had them at restaurants or bars.
A kir is basically champagne and some sort of flavored liqueur. I’ve had kir royale (champagne and crème de cassis, or black currant syrup), kir framboise (raspberry), kir lavande (lavender) and kir rose to name a few.
When my dad moved back to California after working in France, he brought home a bottle of cassis coulis. It’s still in the fridge and inspired my first ever kir-making session!
I made three different versions of my kirs: kir royale with Korbel champagne, kir royale and brut rosé sparking wine and I had the Korbel with lavender syrup.
Kir Ingredients & Directions:
- 1-2 T flavored syrup/liqueur
- brut/dry sparkling wine
This couldn’t be any easier! Simply pour your favorite flavor syrup/liqueur into the bottom of a champagne flute, tilt at an angle and fill with champagne or sparkling wine. Simple, elegant and delicious!
I really enjoyed it! It was a pretty fun cocktail to lounge around with all morning/afternoon. I may have also tried the brut rosé with lavender syrup. I really love brut rosé, definitely try it if you haven’t before.
Later that night, my friend and I went out to a birthday party in San Jose. We may or may not have been out until 3:30 a.m. the night before going boating at 8 a.m. Yeah, I did all of that on less than three hours of sleep…. Kind of a champ. I impressed myself since I figured I’d be passing out mid-day.
So now I’ll take you back to Friday. I got my family tickets and field passes to see my two baseball teams play each other! My team of employment traveled to Oakland for the weekend to play my favorite team since childhood. Also, my favorite player of all time started for the A’s (Rich Harden, drool). I remember seeing his Major League home debut just before I moved away to Santa Barbara for college in 2003…
While I’ve been going to A’s games my whole life, I’ve never actually made it on to the field before! I’ve seen batting practice a bunch of times, but this was a first! And I see D-backs batting practice (on and off the field) often, so that was fun to finally see my team on the road.
Oh and two of my friends from HS work for the A’s, so it was great to catch up for a bit before the stadium got too crazy!
While the D-backs lost, I’m secretly glad I got to see an A’s win! It felt weird though, I wasn’t sure who to cheer for. The A’s have traded so many players, I barely recognize anyone on the team (except for my bf Rich Harden of course). And I’m with the D-backs every day, so I know all those guys. I kind of wish Arizona won because we actually had tickets to sit in the visiting team section – right behind the dugout!
My favorite Diamondback player even threw us a game ball in between innings! We were the only D-backs apparel-sporting fans in the section really. So that was cool.
After the game the whole family went to my dad’s favorite bar. I even tried a cocktail made with crème de violette. It was tasty, and basically planted the seed of champagne cocktails for the following afternoon.
Check out Adesso’s menu though, that place is amazing! We’ve pretty much gone there after any A’s game I’ve been to this year.
It’s a really trendy bistro type of atmosphere in the nicer part of Oakland ;) It’s always super packed too. My sister and her boyfriend are friends with the bartender, so they generally ask him to make a fun cocktail for us. I wanted to try the crème de violette and it came with a brandy-soaked cherry and a little bit of brandy. My sister had a strawberry balsamic whiskey concoction. My parents ordered wine and once the clock hit 10:30, we all dove right into the happy hour offerings. They served up free food for patrons. It consisted of home made foccia, limoncello rice pudding, calamari salad, Mediterranean olives, mini sandwiches and house-cured salami.
It’s never quite the same there because the menu changes so often. But everyone always agrees on going there. It’s a fantastic choice post-baseball games. I’ve never been let down with anything I’ve ordered from them and it also is the place where I discovered my love for brut rosé.
So in summary, my new things for the half-way point of 2011, week 26 were:
- boating the Delta
- knee boarding
- making kir at home
- getting field passes for BP at an A’s game
- trying crème de violette
I’d say my New Year’s resolution to try something new every week in 2011 is going quite strong! I miss California and all my new adventures already :)
Hope everyone had a fabulous Fourth of July… I flew over at least eight different Phoenix-area fireworks shows and a lightning storm. That was kind of scary, but thankfully I’m still in one piece!
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