Operation Get Out of the House; Take a Cooking Class

For a while now, the husband (tehehe) and I have realized that we have been in a bit of a rut. We're talking work, home, gym, watch tv, sleep, work, home, gym, watch tv, sleep. Yuck.

So, we've been making an real effort to get off our butts and actually do things.  In August, we planned an elaborate and terrifying fishing trip. We bought a 6 person raft (which is really a 2-3 person raft) and set out into the Pacific Ocean, where I promptly had a panic attack and then calmed down to take some nice pictures. 

After that, we were kind of whelmed by wedding stuff. Getting married takes up a lot of time. It did, however, get us out of the house for extended periods of time. We had a lovely mini-vacay in Santa Barbara and an amazing party in our honor with all our family and friends, before heading off on a full length vacation and then spending a day at Disneyland (our first trip together to the happiest place on earth).
Now that we've returned to normal life, it takes more of an effort to get out of the damn house. So, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Giant Spaghetti Monster for LivingSocial and Groupon. Every time I get an email with a deal that intrigues me, I email it to Tim and most times, we end up buying it.

Our first escape from the day-to-day (as officially married folks) came courtesy of LivingSocial and Chef Lance Corralez - a Tapas cooking class for two, Cooking with Corralez! I bought this deal a couple months ago knowing we wouldn't be able to take the class until after the wedding. So tonight, I picked the dogs up from my parents (they've been playing there during the week due to our lack of yard and desire to keep our house clean), met Tim at home, and together we drove back out to Encino to learn how to make delicious tapas. It was a lot of fun. We learned a ton, have the recipes to try at home, and Chef Lance was just a really cool guy - very down to earth, easy to relate to, genuinely excited to have us there, and a pretty good teacher too. We left with little goodie bags full of tiny whisks, lindor truffles, a huge discount to have Chef Lance come to our house and cook a private dinner for two in our kitchen (we probly won't do this, but its still cool),  and a certificate for a complimentary wine tasting at Flask in Studio City - yet another reason to get out of the house!

So far, Operation Get Out of the House is a success. I'm looking forward to all of our adventures to come!