Written by Candace on April 17, 2013 | 6 Comments

Snapshot of a Marriage

When I started my marriage almost 7 years ago, I was sad to discover that I didn’t know a lot of older couples with successful marriages. To this day, I still only know a few.

With the amount of divorces today, I have a feeling that a lot of couples my age are in the same boat. I’d like to connect and learn from older couples who have gone before and navigated through life’s difficulties and managed to come through the other side with their marriage and their love for one another intact. I thought how fun would it be to find and interview these kinds of couples and share with all of you what I learn. Thanks to the interwebs, I discovered there was somebody already doing it!

Emily Westbrooks of the From China Village blog does a series on Snippet and Ink entitled Snapshots Of A Marriage. I immediately contacted Emily to see if she would be willing to share her process with me. She was more than willing! I love people who share! And I love people who also want to celebrate love and marriage. Emily thought the best way for us to learn from her was to be interviewed ourselves. We were thrilled for the opportunity to learn and to tell our love story.

Along with writing more consistently, I’m hoping to get started conducting my own interviews soon. Anybody know a couple I should interview? Let me know!

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Written by Candace on March 20, 2013 | 4 Comments

Umami Burger

America is well known for it’s hamburger, but unfortunately, it is grossly misrepresented by McDonald’s.

I grew up eating McDonald’s and every other food chain, but thankfully my palette matured with my age. I am now somewhat of a foodie and much more selective of my beef patties. While on a lunch date in the city last year, we were recommended by a good friend to check out Umami Burger. Let me just tell you, it was love at first bite!

Umami is one of the five basic taste sensations along with sweet, sour, bitter and salty. But I swear dictionary.com has it all wrong because to my taste umami seems to be a combination of all the basic taste sensations exploding with a new found sensation of pure awesome-sauce. Speaking of sauce, theirs are all homemade. We recently rummaged through google to find their ketchup recipe to make at home. But nothing I say is going to quite define how incredible this place is so go check it out for yourself.

It’s a perfect spot for a lunch date or dinner date in SF. You can stroll the neighborhood which has lots of cute shops. Umami has even become part of our itinerary when we play tour-guide to friends and family coming for a visit. Here are a few photos we took during a double date with my cousin and his girlfriend when they were in town last.

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Written by Candace on March 18, 2013 | 4 Comments

Rolling Hills

I realized recently that I’ve started to take my surroundings for granted.

I remember when I first moved to northern California I would often drive to work each morning amazed at where I now lived. I still occasionally have these moments, but they are fewer and farther between. The bay area has become home to me. I’m finally comfortable here, and if you’re like me, it’s easy to put off exploring and appreciating the world around you.

Vitaliy and I discussed this and decided to make a better effort at getting away from our computers and out enjoying our beautiful surroundings. We were thrilled last week when our friends from Choco Studio invited us on a hike at the Garin Regional Park.

The sun shone brightly and the breeze kept my warm skin the perfect temperature. Everything seemed to be lush with life. Like nature was announcing that spring is near. The rolling hills were dressed in a rich green that only accentuated their depths and layers as far as you could see. I tried to watch my step, but I couldn’t seem to take my eyes away from the beauty around me. There were moments I was tempted to walk backwards because I didn’t feel quite finished gazing at the last view before being taken by the new one.

These same hills will be a sweet shade of gold in a few months. But I’m happy I didn’t put off seeing them just as they are in this season. Both deserve to be celebrated. I’m thankful we were able to capture this memory so that we won’t soon forget.

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