Friends and Football

Northern California
November 9 -14, 2011

This week I was in Northern California visiting friends and watching the Ducks take on the Stanford Cardinal. I arrived in Sacramento early Wednesday morning and made my way directly to Joel, Danelle, Ilia and Baron’s house. We spent the day playing puzzles, games and chatting. On Thursday we again hung out at the house. At one point Dnelly needed to get yarn for her burgeoning crocheting hat business, so I offered to watch the kids. Baron was very sad when his mommy left, so I did what any good babysitter would do. I fed him Cheerios. After that he was happy. Joel didn’t have class Thursday night, so it was great that he, Dnelly and I had some extra time to hang out and chat like the old days. Friday I was up early to catch the end of Ilia’s gymnastics class on my way down to the bay. It’s quite entertaining to see three year-olds do “gymnastics”. By far my favorite part was the zip-line the kids get to ride into a pool of balls. I wish they had an adult size version of this.

After stopping at an outlet mall and driving through the Napa Valley I met up with a friend in Santa Rosa. I literally hadn’t seen Brooke in fifteen years. We were track buddies growing up and recently reconnected on Facebook. We had a fantastic time catching up. I sincerely hope it won’t be 15 years until I see her again.

Friday night I went to dinner at a local Chinese joint near my hotel with Mikey. Somehow during dinner he talked me into going to Game Day with him the next morning. Game Day actually turned out to be fairly fun. This was the first time the show has been to “The Farm”. Hearing the banter of the Stanford students and reading their signs took me right back to my recruiting visit on the farm and reminded me why I didn’t want to go to school there. On the whole Stanford kids make for an arrogant crowd.





After Game Day, Mikey and I went to breakfast at Ihop. I then returned to my hotel for a pre-game nap. Jeremy, Andrea and Mikey picked me up for what possibly turned into the most fun football game I’ve ever attended. We met up with Joel and Danelle at the game. This was my first time attending a game in the renovated Stanford stadium. It truly is a beautiful place.



After the Ducks dominated the 5th ranked Cardinal all of us went to downtown Palo Alto to grab some food. We ate at a pretty good burger joint called "The Workshop". The food took a while to be served because there was some sort of snag in the kitchen. Even with the less than ideal service, I think it may have been the best pulled pork sandwich I’ve ever had. The company was a lot of fun too, as was celebrating the victory.

Sunday I was up at a decent hour in order to make it back to Sacramento for an early Thanksgiving with the Zehnder clan. The Zehnder grandparents now have an immediate family of 59! In order to get most to attend, the family generally has Tday about two weeks early. It was my good fortune to get to participate this year to meet more of the family. I’d heard stories about many of them, so it was fun to finally give those names faces.

Monday morning I got up and played with Danelle, Conner and Baron for a bit before packing up. We then went to pick up Ilia from school so I could say goodbye to her before heading to the airport.

All in it was another great visit in Nothern Cali filled with fun, friends and football!

Until the next adventure,
Katy