life in the 650

Thanks in no small part to my wonderful in-laws, we've had the opportunity to have quite a few nice dinners out recently.  And we've taken advantage of this to try a few new (at least to us) places in the area:

Pampas is a Brazilian steakhouse that just opened in Palo Alto.  And I mean, it just opened -- as in, it opened on Tuesday, 4/29, and we went that weekend.  Not because we're in tune with the buzz on hot new restaurants, of course.  We went because we happened to find it on Open Table; it was in the right location and had an opening at the right time, so we went.  Neither of us had ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse before, but we both enjoyed it quite a bit and thought it would be a really fun place to go for a special event.  We each ordered the rodizio and sidebar which gives you unlimited churrasco-grilled meats and trips to the sidebar.  Considering the amount of meat you can get and the huge number of offerings on the sidebar, the $44 price tag is very reasonable.  We tried a little of each of the meats since we'd never been there before, and our favorites were the picanha, maminha, sirloin filet with garlic and herbs, and the fraldinha; now that we've sampled everything, I think we'll get more of our money's worth the next time we go.  The sidebar was extensive, but I'll admit that with all that yummy meat to try, I didn't pay too much attention to it.  I couldn't tell you what I tried off it, but everything was very good (though obviously nothing was amazing enough for me to be able to remember 1.5 weeks later!).

On Friday, we had dinner with Eric's team and their spouses at Bix.  This was my first Michelin star restaurant experience (I'd have loved to have gone to one of Gordon Ramsay's while we were in London last time, but that wasn't very practical with 3-month-old Jake in tow).  I thought it was pretty amazing, though not the best meal I've ever had.  We shared the  Firecracker Shrimp with Chile Aioli and Tuna Tartare on Olive Toasts appetizers.  The shrimp were just OK, and the aioli was the only thing that saved them from complete mediocrity.  I was a bit apprehensive about the tuna tartare given that I absolutely hate olives, but it was absolutely delicious.  And, yes, I did eat raw fish (tuna, no less) while pregnant (gasp!).  Eric and I shared the arugula salad which hit the spot for me with the earthy arugula greens, tangy citrus, and roasted hazelnuts; Eric's not a huge fan of arugula or hazelnuts and really only got it because I wanted it, but he still seemed to enjoy it.  I chose the Fresh Maine Lobster Spaghetti with Lobster Cream as my entree, and I thought it was great. I was a bit wary of getting it because I usually find spaghetti to be a bit thick and heavy, but this spaghetti was actually very light and delicate and did not overpower the delicate flavor of the lobster.  And there was lots of lobster flavor in this, too, between the lobster cream sauce and the huge chunks of claw meat (which I find to be more delicate and flavorful than tail meat).  And best of all, since Eric doesn't like lobster, I didn't even have to share any with him :)  He had the Kobe "Bavette" Steak which was really good, too.  We also shared a side of the Truffle French Fries for the table.  They were amazing, and I ate so many of them that I was actually a little self-conscious about having so many when no one else was really partaking!  For dessert, Eric and I shared the sorbet of the day which was 2 scoops of strawberry and 2 scoops of mandarin orange which was a refreshing end to an otherwise very rich dinner.  The restaurant is a cool old brick building that you enter from an alley -- very old San Francisco -- and the live music was wonderful.

My hopes that the baby would come far enough before our anniversary to be able to legitimately celebrate his birthday the weekend before our anniversary weekend have not panned out.  With our luck, he'll come tomorrow, on our anniversary.  But we could just celebrate it (his birthday, that is) the weekend before, anyways, I guess...

Actually, now that I've finally given up on working, I'm almost hoping he'll wait until 5/19 so that we can keep his birthday away from our anniversary, we can still make it to some festivities we have planned this weekend, and he'll be born before my OB leaves for Korea on 5/20.  Of course, off work or not, there's still the major discomfort factor that makes me want to have him NOW, no matter what.

Thursday at work I started really feeling some Braxton-Hicks, and being in the car seems to make them worse.  Over the weekend, I found that it didn't really matter if I was driving or just a passenger -- it seems to be something about the movement that sets them off.  On Monday I worked from home, but I decided that since I was having rather strong, painful contractions whenever I was in the car, perhaps the 40 mile drive each way to and from work was not the best idea, and I officially began my LOA yesterday.

Given that I'd been feeling so many strong contractions over the past few days, I was surprised and disappointed to learn at my appointment yesterday afternoon that I hadn't really progressed much -- I'd only dilated another 1 cm or so.  My OB does seem to think he'll come before she leaves on the 20th, but I'm not holding my breath.

In the meantime, I couldn't have planned a better time to be "on vacation".  The weather here has been beautiful, and I've been getting a lot of knitting done.  I should probably be out walking around since that should make things progress faster, but I'm enjoying relaxing a bit too much, I guess.

Well, it's only taken me a week and a half, but I've finally got all the thank yous in the mail and am finally posting about the cool party we had last Saturday.  As you may have guessed, it was a zoo train theme (I added the zoo part in when it became clear that it would be impossible to find all the choo-choo themed partyware that I'd need and not go with Thomas the Tank).  Since Jake loves animals and choo-choos, we did the zoo train thing.  We had all his choo-choo toys out, including a small Thomas the Tank track set up on the coffee table for the kids to play with.

Lots of Jake's friends came -- mostly girls -- if only Jake realized how lucky he was!  The lovely Anya and her mom and dad came, and we're pretty sure Jake has a little crush on her because he frequently says "Aya" for no apparent reason at all, but he clearly means Anya.  The kids had lots of fun playing on the yard toy that Jake got from his grandma and grandpa the night before.  Jake also got lots of train-themed presents (as well as other presents, all of which he loved).  It was a lot of work, especially the cake, but I think it was worth it as all the kids seemed to have a really good time playing together.

Yes, I went a little overboard on the cake, and I definitely paid for it (well, and the party prep, in general) for the rest of the weekend and then some -- I was absolutely exhausted.  But I'm happy with the way it turned out in the end.  It definitely wasn't a professional result by any means, but it was cute and fun.  I used 2 packages of cake mix (I'm crazy, but I'm not insane enough to make the cake from scratch) and baked it up in 8 mini-loaf pans.  I then cut the engine to create the "cab" and cut the bottom off the 8th loaf to create the top of the caboose.  I used all different types of candy to decorate the cars (we now have more left over candy in the house than I know what to do with -- luckily hubby likes the real sugary crap -- and I didn't even know that Twizzlers came in different flavors and colors!).  The engine wheels are Oreos with m&ms in the middle, and the "smoke stack" is a marshmallow coated in candy beads.  The "coal" is crushed Oreos, and I got the baby animals from Michael's.  The inspiration from this cake came from this website.

So now that we're caught up on the kids, I finally get to share the fun stuff that we've been doing. Not that we haven't been having fun with Jake, of course.  But our trip to Kauai sans Jake was just what we needed! 

We were lucky enough to get away for a long weekend at the very end of March for 5 sunny days in Kauai.  This was our first tropical vacation since our honeymoon.  I think we definitely got spoiled by Fiji, but our short trip to Kauai was pretty amazing.  We stayed on the Coconut Coast near Kapa'a.  The eastern side of the island is fairly windy as they get trade winds all year long, so we didn't spend much time around the resort.  Although the beaches where we stayed aren't that great, it is a great central location from which to do day trips all over the island.  Our first full day, we went down to Poipu Beach on the south shore.  It was actually a bit windy that day, though usually the south shore is very calm. It was probably the best weather on the island that day, though, and the water was still pretty calm so that we were able to get some snorkeling in.  No reefs down there, but the fish were amazing.  The second day we headed up to Tunnels Beach on the north shore where Eric really enjoyed the snorkeling.  It can get pretty dicey up there, but luckily it was pretty calm while we were there and I was able to do some snorkeling there, as well.  The reef was pretty neat, and there were some great fish, too, but with such a big belly, the proximity of the coral made for a less than completely enjoyable snorkeling experience for me.  Of course, just sitting on the beach reading and soaking up some rays was more than enough for me!  Unfortunately, the morning we had to go to the airport, we realized we'd left our good camera in Jake's diaper bag at the in-laws', so we had to take our backup camera.  The photos didn't come out so great :(

In general, the food was nothing special.  I'll never understand why there's so much heavy fried food there.  With warm

weather, all I usually ever want is something light and refreshing, but you just don't see a whole lot of that available there.  We did have one dinner which was excellent -- at the Kauai Coast Resort at the Beachboy of all places (which is owned by the vacation club we belong to, though we weren't lucky enough to stay at that resort)!  Our dinner at the Hukilau Lanai was definitely the best one we had on the island, and probably the best dinner out I've had anywhere in quite a while.  It's run by the owners of Gaylord's in Lihue, which is supposed to be one of the best restaurants on the island.  The other stand-out meal we had was actually at the Surf to Sunset Luau at the Sheraton in Poipu, which we went to our last night on the island.  They say that you go to a luau for the show, not the food, but I actually found it to be the opposite with this one.  The show was good (here, again, I think we may have been spoiled by the meke in Fiji), but the food was surprisingly delicious for a luau!  I'll admit, I couldn't resist the poke, but I figure a little bit couldn't hurt.

 

We returned from Kauai late Tuesday night and it was time to get right into wedding mode as festivities for our friends' long-awaited wedding began Friday night with the rehearsal dinner.  Eric was a groomsman, so I was a "wedding party widow" for most of the wedding, but lots of people we don't get to see very often were there, and it was nice to have a chance to catch up with them.  The wedding was beautiful, though the ceremony was a bit chilly as it was outdoors at the St. Francis Yacht Club.  Luckily, it was short and sweet (and very unique and personal -- in a good way!) and held in a somewhat sheltered courtyard!  As dancing is bit difficult when you're 33 weeks pregnant and huge, the highlight for me was the food rather than the dancing (I only managed 2 dances the entire night!).  The appetizers were very yummy, though I wished I'd been able to snag a few more to quench my nearly endless appetite.  In retrospect, however, I'm glad I had some extra room for the entree, because the filet mignon they served was not only hands down the best filet I've had at any large event (at which they usually use less than ideal steaks and overcook them), but perhaps the best filet I've ever had.  OK, so I'm obsessed with food these days, but the filet really was amazing.  I also managed to finish the Ribbed Lace Bolero I was making specifically to wear to the wedding.  It came out a bit larger than I would've liked, and I had to do a bit of tweaking when seaming it, but I think it looks OK (though it isn't big enough to hide the fact that I'm a bit larger all over than I was the last time I wore that maternity cocktail dress and am consequently busting out of the damn thing!).  Maybe the real problem with the bolero was with the fiber I chose -- I used cashmere instead of cotton to make it dressier, but I think it also made it have less structure.  Oh well...

Wow, have we been busy!  Lots to catch up on, and I thought I'd start with the kids.

Almost a month ago now (!!) we had our final ultrasound at about 30 weeks.  We've never had one so late before, and the images were pretty amazing.  Of course, it seems like we were never able to capture the absolute best of them for the CD they gave us, but we got some good ones.  Everything looks good, and they told us if he's born on his due date, we can expect at least an 8-pounder!  Yet another reason to hope that he's born a bit early.

We finally got Jake up to Tahoe to see the snow over Easter weekend.  Unfortunately, he didn't really like the snow much, but he did have fun riding on Daddy's skis (or "keys" as he calls them):

We also took him to see the Easter Bunny in the Village at Squaw Valley.  He did fine until the Easter Bunny started talking...We have an adorable video of it, but unfortunately we can't edit it, so this photo will have to do until we get that figured out:

And we've had such a gorgeous weekend that we went down to Santa Cruz to check out the beach and the Boardwalk yesterday.  Jake loved playing in the sand and couldn't stop talking about the beach, but the ocean was a little too cold for him.  After playing on the beach and getting covered in sand, Eric took him on the carousel (which is the coolest one I've ever been on).  As you can see, he tolerated it but didn't really seem to enjoy it much.  We need to toughen him up!

 After a fun day in Santa Cruz, we went to Phil's Fish Market and Eatery in Moss Landing for a Maine lobster dinner -- one of my favorite meals, and one which I rarely get anymore now that I'm out here in California where it's usually very expensive and they don't know how to cook it correctly.  But the lobster at Phil's is reasonably priced, and they cook it better than most places.  Jake was quite the adventurous and sophisticated eater -- he not only tried but also liked his linguini in garlic butter sauce, Daddy's charbroiled swordfish, and Mommy's lobster!  Between the two of us, we finished every bit of edible meat on my lobster!

And last, but certainly not least, Jake is turning two on Saturday!  We're planning a fun zoo train-themed party that Jake is really looking forward to.  Hopefully the weather will stay nice so the kids can play outside, too!

Everyone else seems to be doing it, so why not me?

Things I Loathe:

• Cranky annoying people
• Medical providers who can't bill to the correct insurance provider no matter how often you give them the correct info
• Bad weather ruining your plans
• Having to explain things over and over and over to people who just don't get it
  

Things I Love:

• Daylight when I have to leave for work in the morning
  
• How my husband does the dishes after I've created a mountain of them from baking, making dinner, etc.
• The way Jake says "cookie"  ("coo-coo") and "noodles" ("nooooo-noo" with big fish lips)
• Wasting time on Ravelry (though, since I've gotten a lot of good ideas and actually made quite of few of them already, I'm not sure it's really a waste of my time)
• Knitting gifts for people and the sense of satisfaction I get from having created something
• Jake amazing me with all the stuff he's learned without me even realizing it.

Well, at least the "loves" outnumber the "loathes" :)

Our plans to head up to Tahoe so that Jake could finally play in the snow for the first time (and Eric could ski for the first time in a few years), were foiled by the huge storm that was forecast to hit over the weekend, which, of course, turned out to be not as bad as predicted.  So, after spending insane amounts of money to get Jake outfitted for the one time  in the snow, we didn't even get to go.  At least the snow gear we got him "grows" an extra couple inches, so he'll be able to wear them next season (if we ever get up there), and #2 should be able to wear them for a few years, too.  Besides, hopefully we'll get up there at some point this year while there's still snow (after all the pre-wedding festivities taking up our March weekends, that is). 

OK, trying not to be bitter.  On the bright side, because we didn't get to go up to the mountains this weekend, we were able to return a favor by watching our friends' two boys on Friday night.  This worked out very well as the boys, one 6, the other almost 3,  were really good and played really well with Jake even though he was acting like the stereotypical bratty little brother.  But they all seemed to have a really good time, and it was actually easier watching the 3 of them than having Jake home alone because they all played together and occupied each other!  I'm really hoping this dynamic will be set up once #2 is old enough to play with big bro. 

But, perhaps the most heartwarming moment of the weekend, which wouldn't have happened had we been in Tahoe, was this (please disregard the construction zone in the background -- sadly, it's been that way for about 3 years now!):

As if I needed any more! 

Breaking Bad:  This is an awesome show about a high school chem teacher who finds out he's dying of lung cancer and decides to do everything he can to secure the financial future of his growing family.  It's all Heather's fault that I'm hooked on it, because, knowing what a geek I am, she told me about it.  Yes, I'm totally geeking out on all the chemistry in the show (and fairly impressed with myself for remembering as much as I do, considering I haven't actually used any chemistry in about 7 years).  My one complaint is all the bleeping out of the swearing -- why do they even have all the swearing in there if they are going to bleep it out b/c it's on AMC???  I wish it was on HBO or Showtime for that reason.  They even have a game on the website called Chemical Code Breaker, though I'm not too impressed with it considering how easy the few rounds I've played have been.  But hey, if the show makes chemistry cool, it must be good, right?

Ravelry:  I have to blame margotinto for putting me over the edge to actually sign up for this one.  But I am loving every minute of it.  I can't believe someone didn't think of this sooner.  It's so great to have so many patterns collected in one handy place, and I especially love being able to see what different people did with them -- how different yarns look, different modifications, etc.  It's also great for searching specific yarns for project ideas.  We all have that random ball (or 10) of yarn in our stash that we're not sure what to do with, and this is a great resource for ideas on what to make with it...or to swap it for something else!  I haven't taken advantage of all of the great tools on the site yet (like the needle list/organizer or stash list, both of which I sorely need), but I am loving the project queue so that I can keep all of my planned projects organized with "due dates" and keep them in the order in which they need to be completed.  I have wasted spent hours browsing all the different patterns and projects, and I only got my invitation 2 weeks ago!

Paperback Swap:  This one's my mom's fault.  But it's pretty cool -- the concept is that you list books (they don't have to be paperbacks, despite what the name implies), CDs, and/or DVDs you'd like to swap.  You get credits for listing your initial books (when I signed up it was 3 credits for listing your first 9 books) and a credit each time a book you send is received.  You pay shipping when sending a book to another member who has requested it (usually about $2.13 for media mail) and get books sent to you for free when you request one.  In general, 1 book "costs" 1 credit.  Within the first day of posting my initial books (I posted 17), I had requests for 9 of them!  So far, I've only requested and received one, but that swap did go very smoothly.  The books do have to be in pretty excellent condition, so this isn't an option for getting rid of well-worn books, but, hey, it's getting those books that we boxed up and have been storing out in the garage out of here and new ones that we'll actually read in to us, so it's a pretty good thing, in my opinion.  They do have a referral program, so if anyone's interested, let me know :)