San Diego

The weekend before we adopted Oscar, Isaac and I visited San Diego. It was fabulous. On Sunday we saw Vim and Joe (who we hadn't met before) who showed us around Old Town, Balboa Park and Extraordinary Deserts (which was right by our hotel - good thing I didn't know about it before the last day or I would be fat and broke). Isaac and I also made it to the zoo on Saturday, which was gigantic.

We were dumb though and didn't take the trolley tour first, as recommended by the lady at the hotel. Instead we walked around and got hot and tired. There were lots of hogs and deer thrown in between all the exciting animals. Before Isaac showed up, I was able to go to Coronado Island, Pacific Beach and La Jolla. They were all beautiful, especially the sunsets.

Coronado Island

La Jolla

It's pretty cheap for us to get to San Diego from here and I can see us visiting often. There's lots and lots to do there if we get tired of the beach.

Couch sitting proof

Here's how we figured out Oscar sits on the couch when we're not home.

Pillows before we left the house:


Pillows when we got back home:

It's not a really big deal that he sits on the couch, but I think it's the fact that we don't give him permission that really irks me.

Hello from the West!

We've made it safe and sound and we're settling nicely into California. The food here is fabulous (lots of avocado and fresh citrus) and the people are super nice. They'll actually stop and have a conversation with you. We're also adjusting to life in the 'burbs. To complete our suburban transformation, we got a dog from the Humane Society last week.


His name is Oscar and he's pretty well behaved for the most part. He knows how to sit, shake and lay down (not always perfectly, but we're working on that). When we first got him, he pulled on the leash all the time, but has stopped doing that for the most part. We took him to the vet last week (which cost a pretty penny) and we're still waiting for some test results. He's 9 years old and we're really not sure about his life before the Humane Society. The vet found a bunch of scars on his back and his fur is sort of crazy - matted on his back legs, short some places, longer other places brown in patches and black everywhere else. His coloring looks like a Rotweiller and his tongue is black/blue like a chow. In the house he is very mellow- he lays quietly wherever we are, but is super playful whenever we want to play - mostly with tennis balls and the kong. The one bad thing we've discovered recently is that when we leave the house he sits on the couch (which he is not allowed to do when we're home). We verified our suspicions last night by setting up the pillows on the couch on their edges and going out to dinner. When we got home the pillows were all flattened and there was an indent in the pillows where the dog had been sitting.
So, that's all from dog central on the West coast for now. I'll hopefully be updating more often with the developments here.

Pandy!

Went to the zoo with my parents on Sunday. The baby panda is getting so big! He's still only half the size of his mother though. Very, very cute!

I don't really feel like writing a big post about this just yet, but we're moving to California sometime soon (like November/December). Isaac got a new fantabulous job in Palo Alto. Our house is in total disarray right now, but luckily my mom is helping with that a lot right now. More on the move later.

 

Isaac rode 114 miles!

Isaac's bike century (100 miles) was this past Sunday. He managed to do pretty well, except for following the one sign that was put in backwards and caused him and some of his team to ride an extra 14 miles! And the crazy fair that someone put in the way of their ride... It took him longer than he thought to finish, but that's only because of the extra distance - at 100 miles he had been riding for 7 hours, which is what he had predicted.

Number 65 is ready to go!

Hey - the finish line is over here, not by the steaks at M&S Grill!

Crusin' to the finish

This is Isaac's "I am so glad to be off my bike and I have no feeling below my neck" face.

Amazingly enough his knee didn't bother him at all and I didn't hear one complaint this week about being sore!

Anniversary #2

So, I tried my best not to be the worst wife ever. I made Isaac a little gift certificate to head to Eastern Market this weekend and pick out a monoprint by Jonathan Blume, an artist both he and I really, really like. He had his eye on a long, skinny duck awhile back, but the guy that sells for Jonathan told me he got some new pieces last weekend, so I'm sure he'll be able to find one he likes. He was really excited about the present, so I don't feel quite so bad anymore. I figure paper contains cotton, so it still fits the traditional second anniversary gift of cotton.

As for me, here's what I got:


Don't know what that is? (Some of you should!) It's a fondue pot! Just like the ones we used at the chalet after Carolyn and Brian's wedding. He even went to the store and bought the 3 kinds of cheese we needed, a loaf of french bread and baby new potatoes. According to Brian, the fondue bread expert, the bread should be day old and a little hard. Well, since my husband is a genius, he artificially aged the bread by leaving it in the hot car all day yesterday. The artificial aging worked quite well! My gift also sort of followed the traditional anniversary gift guidelines (or whatever they are - why do they even exist?). I've read that the modern gift is cotton and the traditional is china. China, cast iron covered in enamel - close enough in my book!

After a quick trip to Whole Foods for truffle oil (Isaac really wanted it) and kirsh from the wine store next door, we were ready to roll. We used some dry old champagne that we had in the fridge.

Here's what our dinner looked like before we gorged ourselves on cheese.


We were both stuffed and never got around to making the crunchy cheese. But the cheese was certainly well on its way to becoming crunchy.


There is definitely going to be many, many more years of fondue in our future. It was so delicious. I'm proud of us too for making it so good from scratch!

This last picture is both a picture of our new mattress (not exciting to anyone but us) and the aftermath of the present opening.


Isn't my husband cute?

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 2nd anniversary. Hard to believe that 2 years has flown by so quickly already. I only just got my dress cleaned!

I am a stinky wife though, because I have zero presents for my wonderful husband. I have some in the works though and hopefully will have one of them by tonite. Unfortunately I am going to have a really hard time topping last years gift (I changed my name and gave him all of the paper work, plus the stationary I ordered for myself with my new name (1st anniversary = paper) - I had resisted changing my name, but eventually felt that it was right). This cotton anniversary thing is hard - I am pretty sure Isaac doesn't want clothes of any sort or linens.

I don't know what we are doing to celebrate, Isaac is in charge this year.

I think sometimes we take being married for granted, but it is by far the best thing I have ever done in my life. Isaac is the most perfect husband I could possibly ask for and we compliment each other in ways I never could have imagined. We have wonderful family that loves us both and we have so many opportunities that we are fortunate enough to experience together. I love our life together and I think that we are both truly happy at this moment and with what the future holds for us.

Happy anniversary Isaac. I love you!

Help Isaac ride 100 miles!

Isaac signed up for a century (that's a 100 mile bike ride) called the Tour de Cure (not to be confused with the Tour de France) to raise money for the American Diabetes Association. He is riding with one of his coworkers and one other guy and their company will match donations made to their team.

Please get yourself over to his ride homepage and help him meet his fundraising goal! And don't forget about the company matching - you're donation will actually count as twice as much money for the ADA.

And if you don't want or can't donate, please help him by wishing him good luck and sending good bike riding vibes his way.

Thanks!

DC is great in the springtime

Tamagawa University Taiko Group (Tokyo, Japan) at the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival, April 8, 2006 - very, very cool.

The rough life at the National Zoo

Isaac is trying to think of some way for us to trade Dario (our quite large red ear slider) for a smaller turtle from the turtle pond in the top left picture.


The main attraction:
Tian Tian (papa panda - top left), Mei Xiang (mama panda - top right) and Tei Shan (baby panda - bottom) at the National Zoo - April 9, 2006

More of Tai Shan in a tree and falling out of said tree. He is adorable!!! I don't care what other people say, I could watch pandas all day.

Is my hair really that color?!?!

Chicago

I went to Chicago for a week in March for a work conference. The added bonus is that I got to hang out with my family for a week too and check out my parent's new place (which I haven't been to since they moved there in June).

Let's see some pictures, shall we?

My sister took us to the zoo (because it's one of her favorite places - must run in the family).

From above left clockwise we have a nice big monkey, followed by a smaller monkey and its baby (sorry I don't know exactly what speices they are). The little kitty cats are actually a sand cat family. The one in the front is the mom and the other three are her kittens. They were so cute (I once saw a sand cat kill a cobra for dinner on tv. crazy! his little tongue was hanging out the whole time because he was so hot there in the desert).

Finally we have mr. and mrs. lion. Mr lion let out a couple of big roars while we were there. So cool! I have pictures of the cheetah too, but they're all blurry (because he's a cheetah, get it? too fast for the camera.)

The top 2 pictures here are of Marshall Fields. Go sign this petition. The one on the left is one part of their current store theme. The one on the right is of one of the famous clocks that surrounds the building.

The bottom 2 pictures are the view from my parents' condo. Not too shabby, eh? On the left is Navy Pier and on the right is the water treatment facility/park. It is really pretty up there.

Those are pretty much the highlights of the trip that have pictures.
Here are the other highlights that didn't have pictures.

• We went on a really cool walk behind the aquarium one night and saw the dolphins and whales through the glass. The pictures are dark though and there aren't really any animals to be seen in them.

• We also found a huge mansion tucked in between all of these brand new townhomes right near McCormick Place, but the picture is also dark and kind of looses its effect if you can't see the new construction surrounding it.
  

• Did you know that there is a secret route for buses to go between McCormick place and downtown? Me neither. It runs down by the train tracks under the Art Institute and goes into lower Wacker (At least I think it's Wacker).

• My mom, sister and I went to see Wicked. It was unbelievably good. I want to see it again and take Isaac. Go see it if you have the chance!!!
  

That's it for now! bye!

Super fondue

I realize that we have been back from Europe now for a couple of weeks and I still haven't posted anything about our trip. Well, I still haven't written anything about it yet, so you'll just have to wait some more. In the meantime, if you know Carolyn and Brian, you can find some pictures here.

And you can also feast your eyes on our super traditional Superbowl dinner.

That's right, we had fondue! Notice our impromptu set up. That's quality!

Here's Isaac enjoying the cheesy goodness.

This picture's for you Brian. We followed your expert bread cutting advice and I think we did pretty well (minus the nice serving basket and our bread was unfortunately fresh out of the oven - damn Whole Foods and their desire for freshness.)

Here's some proof that we actually watched the Superbowl.

So, our first at home fondue experience was pretty good. We were able to assemble lots of the necessary ingredients (pre-mixed wine and cheese and that dried/cured beef from Trader Joe's and cocktail onions and pickles and french bread from Whole Foods - we totally forgot about the little boiled potatoes). We picked up a free little brochure on our way out of Whole Foods on fondue, which may come in handy in the future. Next time, hopefully we'll be using this or this pot instead of the improvisational setup we used. Pretty good considering we're in the US, but we were particularly missing the great company we had in Europe!

Happy holidays to everyone!

Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and are still having a great Hannukah! We spent our Christmas eve and Christmas day eating tons of delicious food and hanging out with some cute pups

I'm too lazy to write much more, so here are some pictures instead.

Isaac doing a fabulous job carving the Christmas turkey

The National Christmas Tree in the ellipse
The Virginia state tree and the Washington monument (I know, cheesy).
Our menorah on night 2 of hannukah (the menorah was a wedding present - most likely from here)

Happy new year to everyone!

Yet another marathon!

This time around, Isaac did not run any part of it. We helped a friend cheer on her husband, who happens to be the daddy of this cutie pie
I guess I should mention that I am talking about the Marine Corps marathon, which was run on October 30, 2005. Last year we went down to Rock Creek Parkway and watched at the 7 mile turnaround. This year though, we went to many more spots. We were at the 14 and 15 mile markers and the finish line. Isaac had a great time taking pictures of runners and here are a select few.

Captain America nears the finish line!
Imagine running 26.2 miles in a getup like that!
Or carrying a flag!

NYC

We went to Manhattan the weekend before my birthday and got to see a really good friend of ours who lives in Switzerland. Took her out to lunch and then wandered around the park. We found a new place we had never been before, Belvedere castle.

Here's us at the castle (taken by a kind passer-by)
And here's what had happened earlier when we tried to take the picture ourselves:
It was great to see Chrissi after so long and especially great to have her nearby now (if even only for a year!)

We stayed with Isaac's cousin (here's a picture of his adorable cat, Mintens, and James' feet):

and saw our friends Rich and Monica and their 1.5 year old son. He had a great time with the beanbag chairs at FAO Schwartz (I thought that place closed!):
I love New York city. If only I could think of some reason to move there...