World Travelers

This week we are disembarking on a 5 week delayed and extended honeymoon!  First stop, Shanghai. From there, a 10 day cruise up the Yangtze river, a visit to Xi'an, a few days in Beijing, then back to Shanghai, a boat ride to Osaka Japan, and two weeks of play time in Japan!

 

We are so proud of ourselves for packing this weekend. We are literally, packed (zipped up) and ready to go three days in advance!

 

I'll try to post as we move through our travels, but no promises...  Don't worry, we'll have a blast!

My dad is 60!

I'm still coming to terms with the fact that my Pops is 60. He says I can go ahead and forget it, but how can I? We went out to Cali for a GREAT party. He didn't know we were coming and that was half the fun.

 

Saturday morning my eyes popped open (they, apparently, were still on east coast time) so I walked over to M&D's house from Sis's house while A and Sis were enjoying their Saturday morning snooze. When Mom came down to answer the door, I learned that they too were enjoying their saturday morning snooze (before the doorbell rang).  I walked up to the bedroom and surprised Dad in his sleepy state. He literally did a double take. It was fun to watch the surprise, shock, and glee pass through his face. Then, of course, there was lots of hugging and happy birthday wishing. (I'm glad I didn't give him a heart attack. He is a little older now.)

 

Mom threw a shabang of a party with a seated four course meal for more than 15 people. Butternut squash soup, salad, corned beef and potatoes, dessert. Sis helped with the dessert, being the fabulous pastry chef that she is becoming. Her apple pie and fruit tart were "to die for". Seriously, Dad's friend Tim said the apple pie was an "experience". It was the most flavorful apple pie I'd ever had in my life. As is customary to our family, we decided that two desserts (as yummy as they were) would not be enough. We supplemented Chef Mara's creations with a carrot cake from Costo. This made for a great airplane snack!

 

After good conversation (meeting Dad's friends) and with full tummies, we introduced the crowd to the game Apples to Apples. This is a game that anyone who can read can play. Look it up. Seriously, if the folks at a 60 year old birthday party have fun with it, and believe me they did, then you'll like it too!

 

It was nice to be in the warm weather of Cali for a weekend. We felt like such jet setters. I even made it to the gym with Mom. The step class instructor was flattered that I'd travelled all the way from Boston just to be in his class. He has hopes that I'll make him world famous.

 

We're glad we were part of Dad's big day. He really doesn't seem any different than he was at 59. You're still young Pops (despite the teasing). Thanks for letting us all celebrate your birthday with you.

 

 

Restaurant Week!

We LOVE Restaurant Week around here. Check it out at www.restaurantweekboston.com. All the participating restaurants offer a three course meal for a fixed price. Some people act fancy and say prix fix. Lunch is $20.09 and dinner is $33.09. Appetizer, entree, and DESSERT! I'm sure you can figure out the significance of the 09 cents... (hint: the year is 2009).

I spoiled myself this week. On Tuesday I got to have lunch with A! We joined S & J at Clink. The building used to be a jail, and is now the fancy Liberty Hotel. Lunch was delicious. I started with a peach/pear soup. It was creamy and warm, which surprised me. Most fruity soups are cold. It was delicous. Three of us had the cuban pork sandwich for the entree. The bread was inside out! Picture a baguette sliced in half ready for sandwich making. Then flip over both sides and make the sandwich on the crusty side. It was panini'd so the "inside" of the bagquette was all buttery and toasted. It was a delicious sandwich that came with a side of sweet potato fries. For dessert, it was the apple cranberry cobbler all around. I learned that I like the fruit in my cobbler baked more than left intact as raw fruit. The puff pastry topping and vanilla bean ice cream was superb! We left there stuffed.

On Wednesday, 7 of my coworkers and I trekked over to Smith & Wollensky (always a good bargain for restaurant week, because it's uber expensive). I started with the split pea soup. It was good, but a little gritty for me. I guess that's the naturalness of the pea coming through. It felt wholesome. For the entree, I enjoyed the filet mignon steak sandwich (medium rare) which came with a few giant sweet potato wedges and a pickle. For dessert (two hours later), I had to go with the chocolate cake. It was GIANT. I brought most of it back, and you won't believe this, gave the leftover to a coworker who was sick yesterday and couldn't come to lunch with us even though she had been looking forward to it for weeks. I shared my chocolate cake. I shared my chocolate cake. I shared my chocolate cake. I will survive. (She super appreciated it, being as there is no cupcake cart that comes around at 3pm every day).

I learned a few things at Smith & Wollensky.
1. The castle it is located in was built in 1891 to house the first US Army Corps Cadets.
2. It later turned into an armory and then a museum.
3. As part of the restaurant's lease they are obligated to display the museum artifacts (civil war flags, guns, etc).
4. Anyone (even you!) can go into Smith & Wollensky and ask for a tour at any time. A manager will show you the museum items on all four floors.
5. Lunch is not supposed to take longer than one hour. Ours took almost 3!
6. Smith & Wollensky management understands the problems with a super long lunch. (They made our entire bill FREE and gave us a free creme brulee for the table!)

In conclusion, I LOVE restaurant week.

Isn't Beantown great?

Happy Birthday Pops!

Pops,
Today you are turning 60, which means I've known you for more than half your life. This also means that I am qualified to state that you are one totally awesome dude and a super cool Dad!

Happy Birthday!

Love,
Your first baby.

Our new sport

A bought us a handheld GPS for my birthday / Christmas. He figured it would be helpful while we wander around China. We named it Gus and have finally gotten around to giving Gus a little exercise.



Our relatively new and totally awesome friends, S and J, told us about Geocaching. It's a pretty simple concept...Someone puts coordinates online, we download them to Gus and go find them. Apparently there are different things marking each geocache, like a sealed tupperware with a book to sign in as proof we were there.



Our first adventure for Gus, we found out on site, was a virtual cache. This means there was no physical object to be found, but Gus told us when we had arrived at the coordinates and A scaled the lighthouse looking for any sign of previous geocachers. We eventually figured out what the word "virtual" meant. We have a picture if anyone needs proof and can officially call ourselves geocachers.



It was a great exercise in learning how to use Gus. He was much more helpful after we calibrated his compass! This involved A spinning in a circle twice which was quite fun to watch. We are ready for more adventures with Gus!



We did enjoy a beautiful walk along the coast of P-town, along a dike out to the West End Light House. The weather was warm. The tide was out

Dear Mother Nature

You know I always appreciate a good snowfall. I relish in the beauty of the snowflakes and I roll around making snow angels everywhere I go. I know we were spoiled with warm weather this weekend. We enjoyed it to the fullest, being outside as much as possible. We walked around some reservation land on the Cape, found our first geocache, sat on the beach, and marvelled at the magestic moon. We went to bed last night revelling in the joys of the beautiful spring day you brought us. Thank you.



So, what is up with the snowballs precipitating from the sky this morning? It feels like yoi want to start a snowball fight. You're bound to win (you always do). You've melted the snow for me to make snowballs with. The snowballs coming from the sky seem to always have the perfect angle so they splat on my knee, my head, a few of them went down my neck. Good throw. I have no means of retaliation, so I'm writing to say thank you for the constant adventure. I'm going inside now to watch your artwork from a warm dry atmosphere.



Take Care and Bring it On!

Boston Massacre (again?)

Saturday night I was walking past State Street towards Faneuil Hall and happened upon a reenactment of the Boston Massacre. I couldn't see a thing, so it's all in the picture. I think 7 or 8 people died...

It reminded me of a happening in Stars Hollow

Get This

Check it. I walked around outside today with no hat, no gloves, and just a light jacket! That's what I'm talkin' about, Yo.

Toasty

This morning's walk to the T was frigid. Again. Tonight, I left the office all bundled up, such that I have no idea what temperature it is outside because I'm in my own cocoon of fleece and windbreaker. As I was walking to the gym I let my chin out of my scarf and noticed that it was rather nice out. For a fleeting moment I contemplated running outside instead of on the treadmill. I figured I'd be cold without my long winter running pants, so into the gym I went. As I hopped onto the treadmill I saw the current temperatures being reported on TV. 30 degrees, it said over the word Boston. No wonder I felt toasty!

No typhoid for me

I finished the last of four pills and am officially vaccinated for Typhoid. I could've gotten a shot but it's only good for 2 years. The pills cover me for five!

It's really tough to get out of bed in the morning when you know it's 15 degrees. It would be much more fun if Mother Nature could let my breath turn into snowflakes on days like this. I would love to go outside and see all the beautiful snowflakes from my breath!

The snow covering the ground today has the same sparkle as the snow surrounding Santa's house in the mall. It's really beautiful.

Pearl's Latest Accessory

I couldn't download the browser application that Pops recommended. I don't know why..the one on Pearl seems to meet my needs (for now). A did however find a free Sudoku app for Pearl and is enjoying playing digital Sudoku on the train.

My Lucky Day

A and I came straight home from work (skipped the gym) with the rationale that we had such a busy weekend, we were exhausted and we needed to do laundry. We were six quarters short of being able to wash our third and final load. I scrounged three from my bag and made the pouty face like "bummer, we don't have enough money to do the last load".  When I went down to the basement to switch the second load into the dryer a sparkle caught my eye. There was a quarter on the ground between the washer and the dryer! I pushed the dryer to the side and found two more quarters down there in the dusty muck. I raced upstairs with the good news. We completed three loads of laundry tonight! 

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Visit www.google.com today and you'll see that it's Dr. Seuss's 105th birthday! 

 

Here's a place to vote for your favorite book:
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2009/03/happy-birthday.html

Celebrity Sighting

We saw John Stewart with his kids at the Natural History Museum in NYC. We didn't want to bother him, but I couldn't resist taking a picture with Pearl. He's in there. Do you see him behind the railing with his kids? He's not the guy standing in front of the arch. He's to the left squatting below the railing (at kid height). N is the large decoy to the left of the picture. I'm a great spy, eh?

SNOW!

We woke up to half a foot of snow this morning! Thank goodness the storm waited until we had safely driven back to Boston from NYC. It's coming down at a rate of an inch per hour. I'm just happy to have made it to work (with no problems on the T) where it is warm and dry and not windy!

The snow is beautiful. I'll always find the snow beautiful. But, as S pointed out last night, we are looking forward to tulips! I do love tulip time.

The trip haps

Here's how it all went down in NYC this weekend...in poetry?

Reliquary. (The community museum in Brooklyn where H has displayed her own exhibit on Milk!)

tacos. guacamole. chips.

Slumber party.

Mini market breakfast.

Subway.

Natural history museum.

Meet up with M and N.

Celebrity sighting.

Magnolia cupcakes.

Pizza lunch.

(gotta love dessert first!)

Strolling Manhattan.

Pass Julliard.

Arrive at Rockefeller Center for coffee and hot cocoa break while watching ice skaters.

Stroll to Madison Square Garden.

Note the temperature is getting cooler.

Meet up with J and let M and N get checked in.

Subway to Greenwich Village.

Stroll and search for fun dinner place that can seat seven.

Cuban place is packed.

Pub place is hosting a party of 50 and is full.

Dumpling place is too small and better for takeout.

Japanese place has two tables of 4 available. They rearranged the tables into one and we took up the whole restaurant. It turns out they just opened the day before and their kitchen wasn't fully open. All they could do was sushi. This was a little more adventurous than A2, T, and J bargained for, but it was a great adventure. I had to converse in Japanese a little ,cuz they didn't understand our English. It made me happy to see Japanese people working a sushi restaurant. I got my favorite and sometimes hard to find Natto Maki.

M and N left for the Rangers game. Goodbye is always tough. I miss them.

Dumplings for the adventurous sushi tasters.

Cousin party at J and H's

Spades

Celebrity (a cross between of charades and Taboo)

Slumber party

Morning hug for "running in the snow" B and a quick visit.

Lunch with F C E and T2.

Smiles.

Tickles.

Catching snowflakes in our mouth.

Driving.

Stop # 1 drop off A2

Driving.

Stop # 2 drop off T and visit with his parents while they feed is dinner.

Dessert.

More dessert to go.

Driving.

Driving.

Discussing music and the fun weekend.

Shower.

Blogging.

Sleeping.


A = adrian, M = mikey, N = nate, J = jake, H = Hi'ilei, T = tim, A2 = ashley, F = flint, C = christa, E = emeline, T2 = tucker, and B = britta

Whirled Peas

Imagine Whirled Peas

This phrase was on a bumper sticker in NYC and I keep creating different mental images of whirled peas. Yellow peas, green peas, black eyed peas, swirls of different whirled peas...

World Peace would be much more helpful, in my opinion, but definitely less tasty.

Magnolia Cupcakes!!

Wingnut's Cupcake Review:

At Magnolia it's serve yourself, so we grabbed a box for six and the boys (M, N, and A) all chose chocolate with mocha frosting. T got a cookie. I chose the blue frosting. A threw in the carrot cake and I chose the red velvet cupcake. The carrot cake cupcake was later enjoyed by A2.

We all dipped our fingers into all the frostings, because that is the most important part of a cupcake.

The mocha frosting got rave reviews. The blue frosting tasted blue and was super thick and pasty. It's reviews were not very rave at all. The cake part was a bit old..that cupcake was beautiful and cute, but not so tasty. I don't like coffee flavored things, but I definitely vote the mocha frosting the best of the bunch. It was the perfect consistency! The red velvet cupcake had good frosting and the bright red cake stuck to my teeth. I had red teeth for a while.

I've just recently been introduced to red velvet cake (via A&N's wedding in October 2008) and this red velvet cupcake could not even compare to the wedding cake we had in October. That was delicious!

I think the moral of the story is this:

When at Magnolia, choose the fresh cupcakes.

Of course, there were plenty of other pastry types that we didn't sample, and I'm definitely willing to go back and give them a try!

A = adrian, M = mikey, N = nate, J = jake, H = Hi'ilei, T = tim, A2 = ashley, F = flint, C = christa, E = emeline, T2 = tucker, and B = britta

The ABCs of my trip to NYC.

A and I rolled down to NYC this weekend to hang with M and N. J and H were kind enough to host a Cousins Partaay at their pad in Brooklyn so we picked up T and A2 along the way. We were excited to be joined by F, C, E, and T2 for lunch today! I snuck in a quick visit with B this morning while everyone else was sleeping. It's so fun to "run" into her in different cities!

It was an action packed weekend that deserves more write up, but I'm currently laying in bed with the electric blanket turned on writing this on Pearl because I'm too tired to sit up at the computer. The bathroom clock says it's after 11:30, but that's just because the batteries died. It's really only 8:58PM. (S will appreciate this time!)

A = adrian, M = mikey, N = nate, J = jake, H = Hi'ilei, T = tim, A2 = ashley, F = flint, C = christa, E = emeline, T2 = tucker, and B = britta