Cheryl and William

Maharaja and Sanjay Patel

2012-01-30T08:15:00.000-08:00

Jane did such a great job at the museum we decided to take her to another one a few days later. We are members to the De Young/Legion of Honor museums and the museums of San Francisco did an exchange one Saturday where your membership gained you free entry to other local museums. We decided to go to the Asian Art Museum and we only had to pay $5 each for entry into the special exhibit, Maharaja, which was well worth it.

I was under the mistaken assumption that there was only 1 maharaja for all of India but instead there are 600 different "great kings". It was incredible to see the amount of wealth that these kings had with elaborate jewels of sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, and how they would decorate their elephants in ceremonial dress. For me, it was fascinating to see how their dress and customs changed with the invasion of the British. Slowly, these maharaja's shifted from wearing tradition dress to more Western style, even substituting the elephant for a silver carriage! One necklace that was designed by Cartier contained nearly 3,000 diamonds including a 234 carat yellow diamond. Unfortunately, the necklace was sold off into bits and pieces over the years so we were only able to see a replica with quartz but it was still a show stopper. And Jane was even better this time, sleeping through most of this exhibit- as long as the stroller kept moving :-)

We ended up getting an unexpected delight when we saw another one of their special exhibits about a modern day artist named Sanjay Patel. Patel currently works as an animator for Pixar and has decided to illustrate the Hindu gods and retell some of their legends. His work is so great that they asked him to do a large scale mural for the Maharaja exhibit. This is only one piece of that work
They also had a special exhibit directed solely to his art and I love his explanation of why he does his artwork: "People see my work and think it's unique. This is total bull. My work is a total knock off and the fact that people don't see it shocks me. That's the whole point of my show: To show people the connection between the most ancient artifacts and my modern interpretation"- Sanjay Patel. I also love that he feels that his work is "continuing a tradition of art making and worship that stretches back thousands of years".

After watching a video where he explains about himself and how he does is artwork (he sketches first and then uses the computer), I learned that he trained at an art school started by Walt Disney and I realized that he has incorporated that style and that is why I love his work so much. Here are several images from his exhibit
I love that this one shows his artistic process of sketching
William also enjoyed his artwork so much that we bought both of his books- "The Little Book of Hindu Deities" and "Ramayana: Divine Loophole"- and I can't wait to start reading them. This was such a pleasant surprise to have stumbled upon this great artist. And even Jane seemed to be showing some "reverence" for this great art.
An interesting side note- no one came up to us to look at Jane while we were at the museum, which was the opposite experience of the CJM. Not sure why- maybe because it was that Jane behaved even better :-)

Jane's First Museum Exhibit: Houdini- Art and Magic

2012-01-26T18:45:00.000-08:00

It is no surprise that I absolutely love museums. And William won HUGE points on our first date by taking me to my favorite museum in Boston- the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (in my mind, it was definitely a sign :-) So even though Jane is barely 2 months old, we are starting her early so that she will enjoy them as well.

On Martin Luther King Jr. day, William had work off so we went up to San Francisco to visit the Contemporary Jewish Museum's exhibit on Houdini. The CJM keeps very accurate records of all of their attendees and so even Miss Jane got her own sticker to wear (and the guards even checked to make sure she had one :-) It was crowded at the exhibit, since it was the last day for it and Jane received a lot of attention from the other patrons. Lots of individuals came up to us and mentioned how cute she was and talked about how they all grow up so fast.

Jane only had one very small crying episode that was quickly silenced by a bottle and she fell back asleep so she did a good job of letting mom and dad enjoy the exhibit of "Houdini: Art and Magic".

William and I didn't know that Houdini was Jewish and that is because he changed his name from Erich Weiz to Harry Houdini after he read a book written by famous French magician, Robert-Houdin. He definitely had performing in his blood as evidenced by his creating his own backyard circus when he was 9 and charging admission for his trapeze work. He met his wife while he was performing and used her for his most famous trick, the Metamorphosis. What was most interesting about the exhibit was seeing the actual objects used such as a replica of the cabinet for the Metamorphosis, the milk can that he stuffed himself into, the handcuffs, as well as photos and videos of him performing these tricks. I didn't realize just how many times he performed his getting out of a straight jacket while hanging upside down trick- it was probably about 5 or 6 times in different cities, once in San Francisco. I also learned that he shared some of his secrets to his illusions in popular magazines, like Ladies' Home Journal. What was most impressive is that many of his tricks dealt with his being able to manipulate his body to make the process easier for him.

The exhibit also included art inspired by Houdini but this was the weakest and least interesting part of the exhibit as how can you top the wonder captured by this great performer, and marketer.

In addition to this being Jane's first museum, it was also her first visit to San Francisco and is the first of many trips (the next one was only a few days later on Saturday).

Attempting to get a "Good" Photo with a Baby

2012-01-23T15:23:00.000-08:00

I place the "good" in quotations as I have learned over the past two months that you can't expect the perfect shot but you should just hope for one that is "good" or "okay" which standard varies according to the particular instance and setting.

I provide two series below illustrating this. The first is showing a hat that my dear friend, Auntie Lauren, made especially for Jane. I wanted Auntie Lauren to have a special photo of Jane wearing the hat- seems like a simple request but it took way more effort and compromise than I was expecting.

Jane was not at all cooperative at first, as evidenced by the following 3 photos where she just kept screaming and crying.

I was trying to get a good photo of her without her binkie but after several minutes of screaming at the top of her little lungs, I decided it ultimately wasn't worth it and put the binkie in.
She calmed down but still, not perfect as both of her eyes are closed.

I tried several more shots of her with the binkie and while she was calm, she just didn't want to have both eyes fully open so I settled for the "good" one of the bunch where one eye is open and the other is at least partially open.

And even when she is in a slightly better mood, it is still tough to get a "good" shot. My co-worker Ashley knitted this blanket especially for Jane and while she was not crying, it still took awhile to get a "good" shot.

She first had both of her eyes closed
Then she didn't want to look at me (the only thing on that side of her is a brown wall which appears to be much more engaging :-)
The following was the "good" enough shot where she is somewhat looking forward, though she is reaching for some unknown object.
I recognize just how lucky I am that we have a digital camera where I can actually see exactly how the photo turns out immediately, rather than hoping for an ok photo and finding out they were all terrible months later when they were developed. I truly appreciate all of the hard work and effort done by my parents so that I have many good shots.

I still have NO idea on how to make this process any easier though so you will be encountering many more "good" photos of Jane :-)

Christmas 2011

2012-01-23T14:49:00.000-08:00

So, we definitely had a low key Christmas this year, as we didn't even have a Christmas tree in our apartment. We did have several nativities around and some decorations, but we will need to remedy the situation for next year to create a better ambiance of holiday magic.

But we did make sure that she was festively dressed with the cute bow made by my friend April
And both dad and mom made sure to wear festive colors for our photos with Jane
What a perfect day for Jane to make her debut at church for the special Christmas program and she seemed to enjoy it as we didn't even need to take her out of the chapel.

We then later spent time with both of our extended families via video chat online which was great because we missed spending the actual holiday with them, but that will be remedied next year for sure. We opened Jane's presents in front of the families so that they could take part in our pleasure and gratitude as she was not yet able to give a smile. She was super spoiled by all of her grandparents and aunties, but here are a few of the gifts.

This keepsake ornament gotten especially for Jane from the Stults family's favorite place- Disneyland- by Auntie Cynthia
And then the Little People Nativity from Auntie Sarah which we proudly displayed and can't wait for Jane to play with it next year
We send everyone greetings from our little elf that everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
(Side note- given this photo, Nana and Grampy Stults now refer to her in conversation and emails as "Christmas Elf" so that is one of her new nicknames).

And we got the best Christmas gift in our stocking- little Jane. She barely fit inside even though she was only 1 month old!
Her bib is from Nana Stults and she still wears it as it still sums up her current sleeping situation- "No silent night with ME around!"

Merry Baby's First Christmas!

Christmas Eve 2011

2012-01-11T17:12:00.001-08:00

This was our first Christmas season that we spent as just our new family of 3- and Jane's first Christmas Eve.

Everyone has been so generous to us, giving us such adorable items like the headband and bow and the my first Christmas onesie. I love this picture because it looks like she is smiling, though it hasn't happened yet.
Nana Stults also gave her this my first Christmas bib. Jane was not thrilled with the photo shoot- she is barely tolerating it as her expression shows
We went to dinner at P.F. Chang's and had a little elf tag along with us (Side story: being at the restaurant, people would walk by and peek at Jane and then have a surprised look on their face when they saw the Santa hat (thanks Auntie Bekky!!)
We then went to Christmas in the Park in San Jose- this was my first year going to the event. They have little holiday scenes interspersed between hundreds of trees decorated by local schools, clubs, and businesses. My sister's dance team that she teaches did a tree but we sadly weren't able to find it. I did like this Yakult tree with a star made of out of- you guessed it- Yakult bottles.
The giant Christmas tree in the center of the event
Some of the characters in the scenes kind of scared/creeped me out and so I only have photos of the cute ones

Not too much longer until Santa's arrival

This helped to make Christmas Eve special since we were missing our sweet extended families.

Global Winter Wonderland

2012-01-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

For our date night out with Ben and Beverly we went to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant and then to Global Winter Wonderland. I had been looking forward to this event for awhile and so I was thrilled when they agreed to go with us.

This is the first year that it has been here in the Bay area (maybe the last???) and I really enjoyed it because I am big on Christmas lights and world traveling so this was a brilliant combination. It was interesting because it was originally from China so they had all of the descriptions in English and Chinese, as well as many landmarks from China.

Dragon Boat

Love the intricate details on this piece

My personal favorite, and one that I have been to, was the Temple of Heaven.

This truly was a GLOBAL Winter Wonderland as how many places can you be where you can have the Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge, St. Basil's Cathedral, and the Eiffel Tower all in one shot. The only other place that even comes close to this is the Strip in Las Vegas.

Close up of the Eiffel Tower with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background

Also spectacular was the Taj Mahal (still on my list of places to visit)

and Chichen Itza

and the iconic windmills of the Netherlands, reminding me of my visit to Kinderdijk

They also had a forest, where the tops of the trees are made out of plastic bottles, and

and a beautiful vase.

Adding to the whole ambiance were several lighted archways we could walk under

Many thanks to the grandparents for watching the babies for us!

Visit with the Freeman's

2012-01-10T16:18:00.001-08:00

Grandma and Grandpa Kunz timed their visit to coincide with the visit of their long time friends, the Freeman's who were also coming to visit their granddaughter. This friendship has lasted for decades as well as the friendship between William and their son Ben. William and Ben have been friends nearly their entire lives- they are both computer scientists who ended up living in the Bay area, got married within a year of each other, and ended up having children born in the same month. William and Ben live parallel lives so when we found out that they were expecting a girl, it was only natural that we would be having one as well. And we are THRILLED that the friendship will continue for a THIRD generation with Jane and Natalie.

This was the first meeting of the girls. Natalie was born a few weeks before Jane and had long outpaced her in the hair department. (Jane still has the same amount that you see in the photos, which is basically nothing :-)

Auntie Beverly holding Jane

I love that both girls are sleeping in this photo- they are already starting to do things together :-)

We are so looking forward to watching these two grow up together!

Visit from Grandma and Grandpa Kunz

2012-01-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

Jane was so lucky to have more adoring visitors with Grandma and Grandpa Kunz who visited us before Christmas. I thought that I had more photos with them but it turns out that they are all on Grandma's camera :-)

Grandma with her first granddaughter and she is so great with her- Jane definitely missed having Grandma hold her all the time.

Jane with Grandpa

This shot is one of my favorites- look at how gingerly he is cradling her

We had a fabulous time with them- we celebrated Grandma's birthday at BJ's with some deep dish pizza and red velvet pizookie, went shopping at the Great Mall and WalMart for Christmas gifts, Grandpa helping us get tools at Home Depot for taking care of our yard and then starting us on the process of cleaning up the space, and taking them to Google.

This was not only their first visit to the campus but it was Jane's as well. I particularly love the name tag her daddy gave her.

We also took them to the store and the giant Android dessert icons, which are just so fun. Here are a few of the latest ones

I love that they got Android in the Holiday spirit with a wreath that lit up at night :-)

They were also super kind and watched Jane while we both went to sacrament meeting, seeing Sherlock Holmes 2, and while we went with our friends Ben and Beverly to the Global Winter Wonderland. And we were thrilled that Jane was good for them (at least that's what they told us! :-)

Jane definitely misses her grandparents but is happy that she gets to see and talk to them every week on Skype. We are looking forward to their visit again in February!

Books Read in 2011

2012-01-09T17:49:00.000-08:00

2011 was not filled with quite as many books as in previous years, which is understandable given that I was pregnant or had a new baby for a good portion of it, both of which consumed more of my free time. But, given this situation, I am thrilled that I was able to read 58 books. I'm sure that I will read even fewer books this year but at least I am still reading :-)

Ordinary People- Judith Guest

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever- Jeff Kinney

The Son of Neptune- Rick Riordan

The Help- Kathryn Stockett

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn- Betty Smith

Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life- Dacher Keltner

Flash and Bones- Kathy Reichs

Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World- Jane McGonigal

How Pleasure Works: the New Science of Why We Like What We Like- Paul Bloom

Alone Together- Sherry Turkle

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard- Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Half Broke Horses- Jeannette Walls

The Story of My Life- Helen Keller

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party- Alexander McCall Smith

The Secret Life of Bees- Sue Monk Kidd

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden- Joanne Greenberg

The Troubled Man- Henning Mankell

The Glass Castle- Jeannette Walls

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle- David Wroblewski

Mere Christianity- C.S. Lewis

The Last Battle- C.S. Lewis

The Beautiful and Damned- F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Throne of Fire- Rick Riordan

This Side of Paradise- F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Social Animal- David Brooks

The Checklist Manifesto- Atul Gawande

Kingpin- Kevin Poulsen

Bright-sided- Barbara Ehrenreich

Naked Heat- Richard Castle

Vespers Rising- Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordon Korman, and Jude Watson

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us- Daniel H. Pink

The Silver Chair- C.S. Lewis

Our Inner Ape- Frans de Waal

Committed- Elizabeth Gilbert

The Longevity Project- Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin

Medium Raw- Anthony Bourdain

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance- Atul Gawande

The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Society Stronger- Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother- Amy Chua

Into the Gauntlet- Margaret Peterson Haddix

The Lost Hero- Rick Riordan

What the Best College Teachers Do- Ken Bain

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science- Atul Gawande

Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception- Charles Seife

You are Not a Stranger Here- Adam Haslett

Storm Warning- Linda Sue Park

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader- C.S. Lewis

Prince Caspian- C.S. Lewis

The Horse and His Boy- C.S. Lewis

The Last Olympian- Rick Riordan

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe- C.S. Lewis

Heat Wave- Richard Castle

The Emperor's Code- Gordon Korman

The Viper's Nest- Peter Lerangis

The Magician's Nephew- C.S. Lewis

The Red Pyramid- Rick Riordan

How Doctors Think- Jerome Groupman

The Moonstone- Wilkie Collins

Some of the highlights of the list were reading the Chronicles of Narnia series (sadly, my first time ever doing that), all three books by Atul Gawande (a surgeon who is an excellent writer analyzing some aspects of the health care system), and the Story of My Life by Helen Keller (what a truly inspirational person she was, especially to read her own words about her experiences). I still absolutely love the Rick Riordan series as well as the 39 Clues and its subsequent series- they are so fascinating and engaging.

A few individuals in my ward have started a book club and so I am hoping that I can at least read those books this year.

And I am ALWAYS open for recommendations if anyone wants to share :-)

Auntie Sarah

2011-12-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

We are lucky that Auntie Sarah lives only a few freeway exits away from us. She was Jane's first and only visitor in the hospital and has helped me out many evenings by holding the sleeping little one so that I could do some things like write thank-you notes and get a few things done around the house. Jane LOVES to be held while she is sleeping and so it seems fitting that is what she is doing in both these photos.

What I love about the photo below is that you can see that Jane loves to have her hands free and put them in weird positions while she sleeps, like in little fists in the air or by her face. Luckily, she hasn't scratched her face too much yet.

We were sad when she had to be away for a week while she got over a cold but it was great that she got better before my parents came. And we thank Sarah in advance for the baby sitting that she has already offered to do :-)

We so miss Auntie Cynthia and cannot wait until they can meet (exact date TBD)!

Visit from Nana and Grampy Stults

2011-12-21T19:24:00.000-08:00

My parents came out to visit. My mom was scheduled to come out on the 8th, my due date, and my dad on the 10th so I had initially thought that with my luck, since they already had their plane tickets, Jane would possibly arrive after they left on the 14th. Fortunately, Jane came well before their arrival. This is the first grandbaby for my parents and so they were over-the-moon in love with her even before she came and she is totally their princess now.

Both my mom and dad were hoping for a girl- my mom in particular said that she was happy it was a girl so she could buy things because if it was a boy, she wouldn't have bought anything :-) - and my dad loves little baby girls, especially having 3 of them. I loved that my mom decided how we should refer to them in their new roles even before Jane was born- she would be called "Nana" and my dad would be called "Grampy" (or "Grumpy" depending on his mood she joked).

And Nana has been spoiling her rotten already. Once my mom found out it was a girl, she started buying items for her like cute little sparkly sandals to blankets to tutu skirts to ballet slipper socks. And we haven't even seen what Jane's Christmas presents are yet :-) And then, some of the kind members from back home also sent baby Jane some gifts. She is one lucky girl.

I am happy that Jane was good for Nana and Grampy while they were here. She was then difficult for us during the night but I would take that any day to have her in a good mood for other people. We made some trips to Target, Ikea, Round Table Pizza lunch buffet, Los Gatos for Opa and Icing on the Cake, but most of the time was spent at our apartment feeding, playing with, and holding a sleeping Jane.

My mom perfected the art of calming Jane with what she calls the "newborn shuffle"- she even sang a little song while doing the bouncing movements around the room. My mom also found that Jane likes the first 3 verses to "I am a Child of God" but not the 4th verse (she immediately started crying and stopped when my mom stopped singing).

I love this picture of Nana and Jane looking at each other and having a bonding moment.

Sadly, Jane was not in the mood for a photo shoot with Nana- we took about 10 different photos and this was the best one of Jane (which leaves a lot to be desired)

Grampy was so worried about little Jane being in the NICU that he repeatedly called us for updates as to her condition, even when he was still at work. He loved looking at her, even while in the car seat sleeping, on the first day but he refused to hold her because he was taken aback by how tiny she was (my sisters and I were all at least 8 pounds) and he was afraid to break her. I told him that if she had survived several weeks with William and myself then he would be fine, but it wasn't until William just plopped her into Grampy's arms that he finally was ok with it. Here is a photo of that moment- and Jane actually cooperated this time.

And then he was fine, holding her and doing a special running/bouncing movement that I should have gotten on camera- it was priceless.

He also loved to hold her while she was sleeping, though he would give her to me or my mom when she started to fuss.

Now that I am a parent, I have an even deeper gratitude for my mom and dad as I realize just how much they love me through the continual sacrifices they made on my behalf throughout my life. I also now know how much they worry about me and only want my happiness.

We look forward to more time spent with Nana and Grampy!

First Restaurant Trip- Buca di Beppo

2011-12-17T11:51:00.000-08:00

Jane's first outing to a sit down restaurant happened last Saturday when my mom and dad- Nana and Grampy Stults- were in town visiting. My dad had his birthday earlier in the week so we went out to eat at one of his favorite places, Buca di Beppo, and Jane was a champ! She stayed asleep the ENTIRE time- even during most of the restaurant singing happy birthday to my dad.

Nana and Grampy were pleased with how well Jane did as I was never so good at restaurants when I was that age.

The family shot- it totally looks like Jane isn't even here because she is hiding behind William.

Here's another shot with "proof" of her being there- you can see the car seat on the right of William. So this is one of the first pictures of our little family- though you can't even technically see Jane.

Grampy before attempting to blow out the candles (don't ask whether or not it happened on this attempt :-)

And the deluxe brownie sundae- which was huge but of course we were able to finish it.

My dad's first birthday as a grandpa and I am happy that he was able to celebrate it with his first grandchild.

She's Cutest When . . .

2011-12-14T14:42:00.000-08:00

. . . She's Sleeping, is a phrase that we have repeated many times over the few weeks since her birth. And we have a plethora of photographic evidence to prove that claim- and these are in order of her birth age. William likes to say, "she's cute when she's quiet and I'll probably be saying that for the next 20 years".

This is one of my all time favorites- she is already learning how to pray (and it is a good shot of all of her hair- we think it is strawberry blonde)

Such a little Angel

We have included LOTS of photos of the baby because we know that is what everyone is most excited to see now :-)

Daddy's Girl

2011-12-14T14:24:00.000-08:00

In the 3 weeks since she was born, it is obvious to me that she has captured the heart of her daddy. I love William even more after these past few weeks because he truly has been the best dad and an even bigger help than I had imagined.

At 3 am on Black Friday, he braved the crowds at Wal Mart to get all of the miscellaneous items that we still had not gotten (aka crib sheets, baby bath tub, and a whole slew of other stuff) and he came back with some adorable onesies that fit her (she was much smaller than many of the "newborn" items we did have).

Many thanks to Google for the generous paternity leave as he was able to stay home and help out during the first week after her birth. It was so nice to have someone else to hand her off to feed her or rock her to sleep as we struggled to adjust to our new roles and responsibilities as parents. He is the best at playing with her when she is awake. He does tummy time in the air, throws her up and down (which generally calms her down), does leg and arms strengthening exercises, and just has so many interesting things to entertain her (much more than mommy).

He has also taken care of her at night or in the morning so that mommy can get some more much needed sleep. He also makes sure that mommy gets enough to eat and drink and asks me multiple times a day what he can do to help me out. I am more in love with him than ever and wonder how I got so lucky to be married to an amazing and incredible guy like him. And Jane is super lucky to have him as her daddy.

Here is an assortment of photos of daddy and his little girl

And William will be ensuring that she know how to do at least basic computer programming :-)

Jane's First Thanksgiving

2011-12-14T14:13:00.000-08:00

It was so incredible that two days after her birth, we were able to bring her home on Thanksgiving day. This meant though that we did not have a very spectacular meal but at least it was out of the hospital :-) Auntie Sarah joined us as well and we dined on some pumpkin ravioli from Costco which was delicious but the wild mushroom risotto that we had gotten there was super disgusting. Definitely not the ideal type of Thanksgiving for Jane's first but definitely a funny adventure and one story that we will love to tell her about. We weren't even supposed to have her here yet so it was a very meaning filled day of gratitude to have her here.

This is the first photo of myself and Jane together- please excuse just how terrible I look

And I was able to do one handed eating even on day 1 because I just wanted to keep her near us. We promise that next year will be better food wise!

Jane's Hospital Stay

2011-12-10T15:49:00.000-08:00

Jane spent her entire time of our two day stay at the hospital at the NICU. I saw her at about 12:30 am on Wed. Nov. 23rd and by then, she had out all of the tubes and I got to give her some of the pumped breast milk. It was so nice that she only had an iv for antibiotics and then a heart monitor by that time so I'm so glad that I don't have the "live" memory of her on the respirator- the photo was traumatic enough for me. That was the first time I cried following her birth was when I saw that photo. Only two people could be visiting her at a time so it was either William and myself or my sister Sarah. BTW- there are zero photos of me with Jane at the hospital and I'm ok with that as most of the time I was with her I was trying to breast feed her (which was a different set of struggles). She was primarily fed formula while in the NICU and so she is still great at taking a bottle now :-)

Daddy feeding her

Auntie Sarah holding her

The super cute sleeping baby

The beautiful flowers from Auntie Sarah and Nana and Grampy Stults that lasted for two weeks

The NICU is an interesting place- this was my first experience with it and I feel that the staff took great personal care of Jane and were so helpful. But, at the same time, it is a painful place to see all of these little babies, many of whom are struggling for their lives. Especially on Thanksgiving day, it was heartbreaking to see the little baby girl next to us end up not being released and her parents walking out disappointed as they had even brought in the infant car seat. I think that it would be so hard to leave the hospital without her baby, yet many of these parents do it for weeks or months on end.

I was beyond touched by the selfless acts of charity provided to these infants. Jane received a hand knitted pink/ivory cap and an ivory blanket that she was able to take home. And then, another parent made a special Thanksgiving gift for each child in the NICU because her two boys spent months there and she was only able to take one home with her. I totally cried when reading the story about these boys and was so moved that someone would take the time to bring some happiness into the lives of other NICU kids and parents. Many thanks to the kind founders of Pirate Power for doing such a kind act.

The adorable turkey cup

and Thanksgiving bib

We are so thankful that we got to take our little baby girl home and celebrate our first Thanksgiving together as a family at home.

Jane's Birth Story

2011-12-04T12:32:00.000-08:00

WARNING- this post will go into detail (though not too much :-) about the process as well as have a difficult image of little Jane from the NICU. Just wanted to alert you to this sensitive information

On Monday night, November 21st, after I got home from work, I was just feeling a little off- different from how I had been for the rest of my pregnancy. I decided that I should finally watch the birthing and medication videos that my OB/GYN had recommended just in case. Overall though, I felt fine and we went about our night in the typical way.

I woke up the next morning, November 22nd, at 6 am (my usual time) and I was going to go out on my 30 minute morning walk. I was having some contractions and so I decided to skip it today and just stay in bed. When William woke up at 7 am, I told him that I was having some contractions and we started to time them and they actually were 5 minutes apart and so he decided that he would not go up to San Francisco but instead work from Mountain View. So, today my co-workers had organized a special party for me to celebrate the upcoming arrival and I know just how much planning and effort goes into these and so I felt bad just completely canceling at the last minute so I actually went into work. Yup, I showered, did my hair, and got dressed in my pregnancy work clothes.

I got into work at about 9:15 for the 9:30 am party and I told everyone that I had some contractions this morning. They had said "wow" and we talked about when my family was coming and about how I thought that I would be "late" in giving birth since everyone- even random cashiers at Target- told me that I would probably be over due. I had a few grapes- the only thing that I had eaten that day- at the party and they also took the last photo of me in my pregnant glory with my co-workers. Everyone was so nice- my boss bought me a box of See's chocolates and my co-worker Caroline gave me a pretty purple orchid- and then afterwards, I went back to my desk to take care of a few things. My co-worker and other qualitative researcher Mary, who is a mother of two grown children, then came up to me and said that I looked like I was in pain, as the contractions had kicked up a little bit following the party. She asked if I could talk through them and I said yes, but she, Caroline, and even my boss Ming, all came over to me and told me to just go home. I picked up some baby items from another co-worker who gave me her old swing, bouncer, and Snugli and then went home.

The contractions started getting more and more painful but I had heard that first time labor can take days to progress so I thought that I had time. The contractions got even closer and more painful that even the recommended positions weren't working and so I called William and told him to come home and that we needed to go to the hospital. The Kaiser hospital is only about 20 minutes away but I had several painful contractions on the way there that I had to grab the arm handle above the window. I was afraid that I might get sent home but literally as we got out of the car and started walking into the hospital, my water broke at 12:15 pm. I mean it wasn't a trickle but a huge gush. Fortunately, I had my black work pants on so you couldn't really see it but I was just thrilled that they would not be able to send me home- that I was actually in labor. Having contractions while walking into the hospital was not pleasant- fortunately, I had William, to hold onto.

As we checked in to Labor and Delivery, the immediately took us back to a room and as kind of an ominous foreshadowing, as we walked there we heard the guttural scream of a woman in the throngs of the birthing process. When we got into the first room, they checked me to make sure that it was amniotic fluid that had broken (yes) and that I was only 4 cm dilated. I found that lying on my side and gripping William's hand was the only way to get through the contractions. I said that I wanted an epidural ASAP and so in the mean time, they gave me an IV dose of pain medicine which did help to take some of the edge off.

They then transferred me into a birthing room where they told me that there was a line for epidurals- it was a busy birthing day- and that the anesthesiologist would be with me as soon as possible. The drugs had worn off and I was in a lot of pain. We then called my mom and had her call the rest of my family and William called his parents and had them notify the rest of the family as the contractions were getting closer together and much more intense. Finally, the anesthesiologist came in and was able to administer the epidural. I had a brief involuntary jerk reflex in my leg that scared William as I wasn't supposed to move but things were ok. I started to feel some relief, meaning that the edge was taken off and the left side of my body started going numb, but my left side never did. Only a few minutes after the epidural, I felt the need to push. I told the nurse this and she said that they would check me again and this time, I was dilated to 9 1/2! She started getting me into preparation mode for pushing and labor. Now, pushing was difficult for my as my right leg was not numb and so it kept shaking uncontrollably due to the pain and so I felt like it was impeding my ability to push. They asked for the anesthesiologist to come back to give me some more medicine, but she didn't make it in time.

The nurse kept telling me to push, push and finally she then says- "Stop- don't push anymore- we need to get the doctor" which is really hard to do when your body is telling you that it wants this baby out. The resident and attending came in and got gowned and then the pushing began. I honestly have no idea how long it was but finally, I gave a big guttural scream and then she was out- I didn't see it but according to William, she literally shot out like a cannon and the doctor nearly fumbled her due to the speed and how slippery she was.

They immediately put her on my chest and I knew that something was wrong because although she was wide awake, she wasn't crying. She was on my chest for a minute or two before they took her away to be weighed and looked at. A pediatrician later came in and examined her and said that she was having some some breathing problems and so they were taking her to the NICU. I sent William to be with her as the resident and attending spent the next HOUR stitching me back up (the not so fun part of a super quick delivery).

I fortunately did not see her while she had the breathing tubes and respirator in- the photo that William brought back to me broke my heart.
Fortunately, she only had to be on the respirator for about 5 hours. William said that when they were putting it is, she didn't like it and so she kept ripping out the nasal tubes and just struggling.

My overall experience of the birthing process was that it was even more painful than I had imagined- at least I had some drugs in my system to take the edge off. Props to all of those women who do it naturally as it is really painful. Also, props to all of those women who are in labor for DAYS- my shorter one was bad enough that I can't even imagine just how exhausted you might be after all that time. I also never got mad at William- he truly was such a great help and strength through it all. I don't know what I would have done without him there and I am grateful that my contractions started early enough in the morning that he stayed in Mountain View instead of going up to the city. I truly am even more in love with him after this process.

Announcing the Arrival of Jane Katherine Kunz

2011-11-27T16:11:00.000-08:00

It has been way too long since I have posted but things will definitely be more regular now that our baby girl is now here.

Jane Katherine Kunz was born on Tuesday November 22, 2011 at 4:45 pm weighing 6 lbs 11 oz. She was able to make it home for a later Thanksgiving dinner, something that both of her parents are most grateful for.

Her official due date was supposed to be on December 8th so she was early at 37 weeks and 5 days (though theoretically "term" although the due date is such an imperfect science) so we were really not prepared for her to get here so early. My mother was over her due date for all 3 girls and had to be induced, as well as several of my friends who recently had babies locally (3 in total) were all over their due dates as well so I just assumed that would be the case. Also, my parents bought tickets out to come and visit for Dec. 8-14th and so I thought that with our luck, she would be born the day that they left. Someone asked William while he was at church today what I did to get her here so quickly and my response would be that I planned to work up until December 2nd so we were just not fully ready for her to arrive.

Locks of Love

2011-08-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

For most of my life, I have had long hair. Boston was the first time that I was "adventurous" and cut it, with much coaxing from my friends Jamie and Sarah, to shoulder length, which at the time was a big deal.

We did a wedding slide show and William saw some pictures of me with long hair and commented how much he liked it and so I decided to grow it out again. William had been teasing me before we were pregnant that it seems that most women chop off all of their hair before having a baby and of course I said it wasn't going to be me. But, after a few months of not liking my long hair at all (it doesn't curl as well as my friend Inger's and so I could really only do it straight which was getting boring), I decided to donate my hair to Locks of Love. This was my first time donating to the organization and my sister Sarah has done it several times before so I decided that I would do it with her this time.

What is amazing was that I was able to get a FREE haircut. I cannot begin to say enough about the wonderful stylists at Barberia Salon. Mimi, my stylist, gave me an amazing haircut complete with layering which in the week and a half since it happened, I have been able to style on my own (which is saying a lot because I am not adept at doing hair).

Here is a before shot showing how long it was (excuse the wet hair as I needed to wash it before getting it cut)

The cut pony tail ready for donation
And, now for the big reveal
From the back- you can actually see my neck! It's so short that I can't even pull it into a ponytail, which is a good thing since I was sporting one of those every few days with my long hair since I didn't know what else to do with it
So far, I am "adjusting" pretty well to the change. It was weird at first to see my silhouette with short hair and also to wash my hair and have nothing there. But, it is definitely an easy cut to style- just a little round brushing, a few swipes of the magic Chi hair straightener, and it's good to go. I am shocked by how quickly I am able to "do" my hair and have it look decent.

Anyways, the jury is still out on whether or not this will be a permanent change. I really liked how my hair was shoulder length as it left me with plenty to do, but this is definitely very welcome right now.

Strawberry Recipes from the Web

2011-08-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

I absolutely LOVE food blogs. I am mainly a baker and not a chef and so most of the recipes that I try are of the sweet nature. I bought several pints of strawberry's from the Los Altos Farmer's Market last week and had fun using them in some delicious recipes.

Strawberry Sorbet: The original post is about a Strawberry Basil Sorbet but that didn't sound appealing to me so I just left the basil out and it was delicious. My only suggestion is to make sure that you puree and pretty much liquefy the strawberries otherwise you will end up with hard frozen chunks in your sorbet. This was so good that we polished it all off in one night (at least now I have the excuse that I am pregnant!!)

Strawberry Country Cake: I have had this before and it was delicious and so I wanted to make it again. This recipe from Ina Garten is good, but here are a few tips. I halved the recipe to only make one cake and then I sliced that one cake in half and decorated with whipped cream and strawberries. However, you should DOUBLE the recipe for the whipping cream (and use powdered sugar instead of granulated) because otherwise it is a bit too much cake. I also didn't follow her recipe exactly because I didn't want to buy the actual lemons and oranges to make the zests and so I just used lemon juice but you couldn't taste the citrus like others have said.
Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream: the original recipe itself is from David Lebovitz who has an entire book about ice cream, sorbets, and the like and so I knew that it had to be good. And it did not disappoint. I made sure this time that I liquefied the strawberries (I didn't have quite enough as recommended in the recipe- a few had gone bad) but it was still so good. It was best in my opinion when it came directly out of the ice cream maker before putting it in the freezer to harden. At this time, it had such a soft, creamy texture with only the slightest tang from the sour cream. It was still good the next day, though it needs to sit out for a little bit before eating- which I am generally not patient enough to do so I just eat it when it is still hard- and it is still very good, though not quite as magical as when it first comes out. I am already dreaming of using this recipe with fresh PEACHES.

I was very happy that all 3 turned out because I have had some baking disasters with some recipes off the internet but these all did not disappoint so I thought that I would further share the love ;-)

My Internet Baking Debut

2011-08-03T19:12:00.000-07:00

My co-worker, Jackie, is a great and budding photographer and so I was completely honored that she asked if she could take photos of me baking something to get some practice.

I warned her repeatedly that there is absolutely ZERO natural light in our apartment. She shrugged that off but when she came, she realized that our little place literally does not have any natural light. Yet, she handled things like a pro- the photographs of our kitchen and our apartment make it look 1000 times nicer than it really is. William especially was blown away by how good the photos turned out.

"The Red-Haired Baker and Her Cinnamon Buns"

Even as I look at her photos of the cinnamon rolls now, I have a craving to make them. I used my favorite recipe that I have posted about earlier which I highly recommend. However, I feel bad that my weird expression messed up her final shot- and we even went outside to take it in the natural light. I hope it tasted as good as it looked in these photos. Thanks again for the honor Jackie of showcasing my baking on your blog!

The Mystery Spot

2011-08-01T18:45:00.000-07:00

After an ice cream pit stop at Marianne's in Santa Cruz (and I HIGHLY recommend the peaches and cream flavor- so light and creamy), we went to the Mystery Spot.

This is an iconic bay area landmark and you see it advertised everywhere through the signature bumper stickers that they place on the back of people's cars. My sister Sarah had gone earlier in the summer and had said how fun it was so I knew that we had to go.

For those interested in going, make sure that you book your tickets in advance- either online or on the phone. I called the morning of, at about 10 am, and they were sold out until 2:48 (they have tours every 12 minutes). We tried to go another Saturday without calling and we got there and it was sold out so I learned my lesson.

How to describe this place called the mystery spot. It was featured on the cover of Life magazine back in the 1940s due to its "unique gravitational anomalies" as they call it, as evidenced by this tree that straddles the gravitational line and has changed it's growth pattern due to it.

William prefers to call it, it's more optical illusions. The best though was that he was explaining to me how he thought one of the demonstrations worked and then our guide then dispelled William's exact comment with another demonstration. We think it is genius that they have their guides dressed in the same colors as national park rangers to help give them some additional authority.

It really was just fun to stumble around and test out some of these unique experiences. I did not participate in many of them since supposedly your sense of balance is thrown off during pregnancy and I didn't want to take the chance of falling. I just could not stop laughing because of how funny most people looked even standing around, like William is.

Sadly, this photo does not do justice to how incredible it looked to see William leaning backwards in the air yet was still supported due to the logistics of the place.

The only drawback to going on a Saturday is that the groups are very large and so you do not have the chance to try out all of the experiences yourself- we at least got to watch them be done by the guide and others. The house on the mystery spot is totally crazy with unique angles and slopes which makes for some interesting visuals. The guy on the end in the orange was actually super tall yet when placed in this area, he seemed to be about the same size as everyone else.

I loved that each guide carries around a level to show you that things, while they appear to be crooked, are actually straight, adding to the illusion of the mystery.

All in all, it was entertaining, but I am glad that we went to the railroad as well because I might have been a bit disappointed if we had made the drive all the way down for just the Mystery Spot.

Roaring Camp Railroad

2011-08-01T18:20:00.000-07:00

Following my trip to Alaska where I rode the the White Pass Railroad through the Yukon territory (it was incredible- I can't wait to post pics!!), I am now very into riding trains. Fortunately, William, the trooper that he is, accompanies me on these adventures.

My co-worker Caroline told me about her steam train ride through the redwoods near Santa Cruz called Roaring Camp Railroad and I so wanted to do it. I did make the mistake of having us take the 1st train at 11 am because the fog and not yet burned off, but fortunately, we were able to see some blue sky for part of our ride.

I loved that you had to walk through a covered bridge, which seemed to transport you back in time . . .

We were able to see them fill up the train with water from the tower partially seen in the upper right hand corner. It is amazing how much they filled it with because we saw lots of steam sent off.

We sat in the open air cars at the very front right next to the engine. A word of warning though- this is the "splash zone" because you get pelted with water drops (not very bad but I was glad that I didn't do my hair that day :-)

I LOVED having the open air car because it provided you with the experience of feeling right in the heart of the forest.

Just look at how adorable our conductor is! He totally looks like something out of a movie. He was a wealth of knowledge who told us that steam trains in the west run on oil while steam trains in the East and Europe run on coal. There was a lady in our car who was a huge train enthusiast- she was wearing a t-shirt for the Skunk Train, another steam train, and she was filming most of the journey so that she could get some good sounds for her cell phone ring tone. She asked our conductor if this train recycles the oil and he told her that it was too expensive and that in fact, it was way too expensive to buy oil here in California given all the regulations and so they go to Nevada to get the oil. We loved just how completely honest he was about everything (I did feel bad for the lady because she did seem somewhat disappointed by his comment)

I was pretty ignorant about this as I literally thought that steam trains only ran on steam, but as I quickly learned, when they have to do a very tough job, like pushing a long train filled with passengers

in REVERSE up the hill, it needs much more power. The photo below of the black smoke was of this event.

The train travels through the redwoods but not on a circular loop. The train has to literally back up and down onto a separate track to go to the upper part of the redwoods. During these parts, we kept saying "I think I can, I think I can" because it was obvious that this train was working so hard to push everyone. The blue sky finally emerged on our way back to the station (evidence below) and I absolutely LOVED this whole experience.

The video below shows the steam coming from the train both from the top pipe for the most part but at the end of the clip- there is a huge release of steam from the sides to get rid of excess pressure before they go down inclines. There is also the iconic whistle.

And for people with kids who love Thomas the Tank Engine, they are doing a special ride out with Thomas next week. The ride is pretty slow and we saw the whole range of ages from little babies to toddlers to pre-school and it seemed that they all enjoyed the one hour and 30 minute ride (it is a bit shorter than that- they do give you one stretch break half-way through in the redwoods).

Pregnancy So Far

2011-07-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

I feel extremely lucky at how my pregnancy has gone so far because given all that I had to do during the first trimester, I would not have been able to do it had I been super sick. That being said, I still don't know how I was able to get everything done for both my job and my class and requiring more sleep than usual (more for me- like 8 hours a night plus naps on the weekend) and I know that it is only through divine assistance from God and Jesus Christ that I was able to do it.

We had decided to let nature run its course and it decided to come a bit more quickly than we were anticipating. The best response was from my OB/GYN who when I first told her replied "Well that didn't take long!" We realize truly what a miracle this is, especially since my mother struggled for years before she was pregnant with me and I know so many others for whom this process is extremely difficult.

We found out Saturday, April 9th that we were expecting. William actually knew it before the test results came back. At this time, I was two weeks into teaching my class and working 40 hours. I was praying that I would follow the same course as my mother did during her pregnancies that she never got sick- she was just super hungry all the time. I was somewhat similar in that I was fine as long as I ate- when I didn't eat, that is when I started to feel ill and nauseous. There were several occasions during the first trimester when I would wake up at 4 am and would have to eat. This also meant this I had to carry around food- Wheat Thins were my snack of choice- at all times. We ended up telling our families quite early on because my dad came out to visit for several days and he would have known by my shift in eating habits (and the crackers) that I was pregnant. Since it was so early, my parents were not quite as excited as we had hoped- they were just making sure that things would progress with the pregnancy.

In addition to eating all of the time, my cravings COMPLETELY shifted. My whole life, I have LOVED and CRAVED sweets of all kinds. However, there was nearly a month where I did not want to eat sweets AT ALL. Instead, I wanted only fruit, yogurt, vegetables, and main dishes/salty foods. This was so unusual for me that one of my co-workers, Ashley, when she saw my change in eating patterns, she pulled me aside and asked if I was pregnant and I did know at the time and I didn't want to lie and so I told her that I was but not very far along and so she would have to keep it a secret. And she was a great friend and did. I was still impressed that she was able to detect that though as none of my other co-workers said anything about it. Apparently they noticed but just thought that I was getting "healthy" (not very likely if you are at all familiar with myself and William). Happily, the non-sweets stage was short lived and I could eat sweets again, though I still didn't crave them as much at first as before pregnancy. The sweets cravings are definitely back though now- particularly gummy candies.

Also miraculous was that I never had to eat during my lectures- something that I was concerned about because it is somewhat unconventional for the teacher to eat while lecturing, though it was very entertaining when Ms. Harrison would do that in high school with her yogurt and licorice while teaching us about literature. I would generally eat during my office hours afterwards, but never had to chow down in front of the class. All of this eating though meant that I was inhaling A LOT more calories than before my pregnancy. Thus, from our first visit at week 9 where it was confirmed that we were having "cyte" to the 13 week visit for the heartbeat check, I gained 3 pounds. I didn't think that it was all that much, but my OB/GYN said that was fine but when I saw her again AT THE END OF AUGUST that I should only gain 4 more pounds. 4 pounds!!! Wow- that kind of panicked me and so I have been exercising 30 minutes on the elliptical, 6 days a week since then and while my eating has slowed down, I still definitely have more of an appetite than before pregnancy and cyte does get hungry and lets me know so I have NOT DARED to get on the scale to find out where I am at. I'm over the stressing part and I am just letting my body and my baby tell me what they need and I'll work out the rest after the pregnancy. Breastfeeding is supposed to help with weight loss right???

However, even though I have been gaining weight, it has only been in the last 3 weeks that I have even started to "pop"- aka get a belly. Thus, and even still, though you can judge for yourself with the photo below (but I am sure that you all will just be nice), I still really look like "I'm just getting fat" rather than "I'm pregnant."
I am luckily still able to wear many of my pre-pregnancy clothes, thanks to the Bella Band (what a marvelous creation) but as of a couple of weeks ago, coinciding with when my tummy started to protrude, I can no longer button up my pants and so the Bella Band has been a lifesaver. There are some shirts that I can no longer wear because they are too short but I still have enough to wear to work. I am holding off buying maternity clothes for as long as I can so that way I don't get sick of them before the end of the pregnancy. I did buy one dress from Forever 21 that is empire waist and makes me look very pregnant, so I'm holding off until I'm farther along to wear it.

I'm lucky again that I am doing pretty well for the second trimester- I don't have the crazy 4 am have-to-eat times and I don't sleep quite as much as the first trimester (though I am still sleeping more than I was before pregnancy), but my acne has definitely flared up again. But all in all, I am very relieved that things have gone pretty well so far because I know many friends who have had a much more of a roller coaster during their pregnancies!

The Big Announcement!!!

2011-07-21T18:27:00.000-07:00

I know that I have been completely M.I.A from the blog but it has been because I have been so busy with numerous things- particularly working 40 hours a week, teaching, work conference and other items, changing wards, trip to Alaska with my mom and sister (more to come on all of these)- but the one thing that has happily come into our lives during this period is that we are expecting our first child!!!

The first ultrasound photo at 9 weeks

Our little "gummy bear" according to my sister Sarah. We affectionately called it "Cyte" short for blastocyte or parasite :-) I was very relieved to know that it was only 1.

Then, last Wednesday, we went in for the big ultrasound where they do all of the measuring and finding out the gender. Of course we wanted to find out! But what we are most happy about is that little cyte is healthy and all is developing on schedule.

The profile pic (much more adorable than the front face pic where it looks like I have Skeletor in my stomach)

And, it is looking like (as there is always a little uncertainty with this), most signs are indicating that we are having a GIRL!!!

She should arrive sometime in the beginning of January. According to the ultrasound measurements, the due date is 12/2/2011 but our OB/GYN thinks that she will come on the original due date of 12/8/2011. Thus, she is around 20 weeks (or 21 ish) depending on which date you use

We are very excited and William is a little nervous, though starting to adjust, to the thought of having a girl. As he comes from a family of all boys and we only have nephews, he is more unsure about how to handle a girl- especially during the teenage drama years. I think that he will be fine. Many more updates to come on all that we have been up to now that I finally have some free time :-)

Into a Routine

2011-04-12T19:49:00.001-07:00

Sorry for my prolonged blog absence- I have been up to fun things like going to Coppelia ballet, Quidam (a Cirque du Soleil show), and the big one- visiting my new little nephew Tyler in Rochester, Minnesota which also included an art tour of the Mayo Clinic AND . . . fulfillment of a dream here . . . spending several hours riding the roller coasters at the Mall of America. In the midst of all of this, I have been working 40 hours at PAMF doing qualitative research and started teaching Intro to Sociology at Santa Clara. It took me a bit more time to fully "get into the swing of things" than I was expecting- a little over two weeks- but I have managed to get a good schedule going and still have some time to spend with my William in the evenings. I joke that I am still not quite working as much as he does even with my two jobs. But, that leaves me with not as much time- and sadly desire- to blog. However, I know that I have several avid readers and so I promised that I would not neglect the blog like the last time I taught in the fall.

As for how my class is going, I love it. There was only 1 semi-painful day when we talk about the "dead white guys"- aka social theorists Marx, Durkheim, and Weber- and I managed to prep them for it, add a few humorous jokes (at least to me), and I only had 1 student falling asleep. This is a massive success over last year when I had like 5 people falling asleep and WAY to many vacant stares. It has taken me a bit of time to figure out now the 90 minute class as I have taught 60 minutes before- I've learned that with that much time, I HAVE to have a video to show them and so I have skipped ahead in material just to show the video and re-engage them. Fortunately, it has worked. I am looking forward to Thursday when they will turn in their "breaking social norms" assignment and we can discuss their experiences. I didn't do this last year and it is something that I wish I had done.

Life is busy but VERY good and I am quite enjoying myself. I'll try to be better about posting now that I "hopefully" have things under control :-)

Calafia

2011-03-09T21:45:00.000-08:00

Last week I went with my co-workers to the restaurant opened by the former Google chef for whom the "Charlie's Cafe" there is currently named after. His restaurant is in Palo Alto and is called Calafia. My co-worker loves it because they have a vast selection of vegetarian items- as well as some meat ones as well. I was curious to try one of their menu items which is macaroni and cheese with golden beets. I have never heard of that combo and would never have thought of to make that a pairing so I had to try it. The presentation was great with the little Le Cruset pot but I have to say that it was the most BLAND mac and cheese I have ever had- Kraft has more flavor. And my friend Ashley didn't like it either. The beets were ok but really didn't add any depth of flavor. I am happy to report that the curried butternut squash soup was good (not something to crave) but the dish that completely sold me that he is a good chef was, not to surprising, a dessert. This has to be the BEST banana split that I have EVER had. You wouldn't think to order it, but this one has one unique touch to it. The bananas are sliced in half, sugared, and bruleed. The crunchy caramelized top is GENIUS providing the best texture to creamy, high quality vanilla ice cream. I am a convert and very happily, our waiter told us that while some desserts are seasonal, this one is NOT- they can always make it. I think that I will definitely need to go back at least for that sundae. Good thing that William doesn't like bananas as it will be all mine :-)

All Tchaikovsky: SF Ballet

2011-03-09T21:23:00.000-08:00

This ballet featured all music by Tchaikovsky- there were 3 pieces. I absolutely LOVED the first one which was called "Themes and Variations" choreographed by the great Ballanchine. Apparently, the SF ballet does this piece every year because it is so fast paced and technically challenging. It was beautiful- I actually liked being so far back so that I could appreciate the precision of the ballet dancers in maintaining the intricate formations. I could have just saw this piece and it would have been worth it.

The 2nd piece was SO BORING. it was called "Winter's Song" and it was based upon Anton Chekov's "Three Sisters" but it went on for nearly an hour of just pairs coming out and doing the same dances with the couples splitting apart and running away and then coming back together. As we were leaving the theater, a couple in front of us were also complaining about it so it was good to hear that we weren't alone in our assessment.

The third piece was a new work done by the resident choreographer Helgi Tomasson and I have to say that it was definitely better than the 2nd piece but no where near as good as the first one. I actually really liked the music as it was a piece of Tchaikovsky that I had not heard before. It was much more modern and had an organic quality to it but it just wasn't up to that same standard of choreography from that first number.

One more ballet left for the season for us- Coppelia. Definitely looking forward to this one.

Bali: Art, Ritual, and Performance

2011-03-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

Before the San Francisco ballet last Thursday night, my sister Sarah indulged me into going to the new exhibit at the Asian Museum of Art entitled "Bali: Art, Ritual, and Performance". I have a very limited knowledge of Bali- the only things I know about it are the song "Bali High" and the section in the book Eat, Pray, Love. The exhibit is only $10 and it was well worth it to see the BEAUTIFUL objects. I was impressed by the dolls made out of coins threaded together and the elaborate carvings surrounding their temples and shrines.The most fascinating part was learning about their cremation ceremonies- we watched a video of this ritual where they take the body and parade it through the streets- literally housed inside of a pagoda-eque temple and then is placed inside of a giant animal casket that is then lit on fire. This is so important that people spend thousands of dollars on this ceremony. I saw several photos of Bali and it looks so beautiful- my sister said that the terraced rice paddies were similar to the ones she saw in rural China. Yet, another place to add onto the ever growing list of places that I want to travel to . . .

Empathy and Computers

2011-03-08T18:59:00.000-08:00

I know that my blog post title seems odd but it relates to two DIFFERENT lectures that I saw within the past week at Stanford on very different, but fascinating, topics. Last Tuesday, I went and hear Frans de Wall speak about Empathy in Animals. I loved his book- The Age of Empathy- and the talk was even better because he showed actual video clips of the reactions to the animals. It was incredible to see a monkey get upset because another monkey got a grape when he only got a cucumber. It was also touching to see a herd of elephants rally together to help free a baby who was trapped in the mud. As he said in his question and answer that the findings from these studies only apply to primates and other mammals but I think that you can reasonably extrapolate that we have more in common with other living organisms. The lecture is sponsored by the parents of a former Stanford undergrad who loved human biology and taught science to inner city youth but tragically passed on prematurely. I thought that this was a great tribute to her, as there was a large group of high school students that also attended the lecture. This trip reminded me just how much I LOVE

Last night, since William was out of town, I went to another lecture at Stanford by Kevin Poulsen about his book Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion Dollar Cyber Crime Underground. It turns out that Kevin Poulsen is a "rehabilitated" hacker who in the 1980s managed to hack into the telephone systems so that he would be the first caller for radio giveaways. He went to prison for several years and for the past decade has been a journalist. To me, it was fascinating to hear about how this one guy managed to hack into the "Ebay" of credit card fraud and how he was ultimately caught by the FBI. I haven't read the book yet but it sounds fascinating and at the same time, slightly frightening about how technology dramatically improves our lives yet still leaves potentially vulnerable victims of crime. I am trying to fit in all of the lectures and night time activities that I can in the next few weeks because I am sure that I probably won't have much time to do that after my class starts on March 29th.

Sacrifice

2011-02-26T19:24:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, I taught a lesson last Sunday in Relief Society on "Sacrifice". This lesson really humbled me and made me consider ultimately what would I be willing to sacrifice for eternal life? I thought a lot about this and had an experience before teaching the lesson that showed me that I need to question my level of commitment to God. I did not instantly respond when my neighbor needed help- I ultimately came back, but I am sad to report that I left first and then came back. The part of the lesson that connected with me was a scripture from Romans 12: 1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." One phrase in particular struck me with such force that I am still thinking about it, even though I am "done" teaching that lesson (though obviously I haven't fully mastered that lesson myself)- a LIVING SACRIFICE. What am I doing to make myself a living sacrifice to God?

I wish that this article would have come out LAST Thursday so that I would have been able to share it during my lesson. This article is about the life of Clayton Christensen that was on the cover of Forbes magazine. Christensen was one of William's Harvard Business School professors as well as being one of the area authority seventies for our church while we were in Boston. I knew that he was an incredible man- very kind and brilliant- but this article has given me a new perspective on what it means to be a "living sacrifice" to the Lord. I did not know that he had diabetes for a good portion of his life and I was particularly shocked by what happened to him over the past 3 years. He suffered a heart attack, cancer (lymphoma), and a stroke. To me this was beginning to sound kind of like what some of what Job went through health wise. In particular, the heart attack story particularly touched me as he was in Montreal and was supposed to speak to a congregation. He woke up early that morning with chest pains and prayed to the Lord to help him be able to be able to fulfill his meetings with the members that day. And the Lord granted his wish- he didn't have his heart attack until the next day when he was back in Boston. What a selfless man- he wasn't worried about his own health but more about the spiritual well being of the members in fulfillment of his calling. To me, this exemplifies what it means to be a "living sacrifice"

My old roommate in Boston, Natalie, wrote a great follow-up piece that talks about how he truly is one man who, despite all that he has been through, shows his devotion to the Lord through serving others and furthering the work of the church. When Natalie congratulated him on making the cover of Forbes, he laughed and said: To me, this completely encapsulates what it means to be a "living sacrifice" to God.

“My face may be on a magazine today, but tomorrow I get to wake up, get out of bed, and find someone to help.”

Again, he provides another example that completely encapsulates what it means to be a "living sacrifice" to God. I wish that I would have been able to share this during my lesson, but at least I can share it with some of you. The experiences over the past few weeks have convinced me of the importance of sacrifice in my life and that I need to be doing more of it.

Hogle Zoo Lights

2011-02-24T20:00:00.000-08:00

My in-laws were kind enough to take us to see some more holiday lights- and these were my personal favorite :-) With our Little Caesar's pizza purchase in Utah, we gained $3 each admission to the Hogle Zoo Lights- what a bargain for a great event! It was a light misty rain for part of the time we were there, chilly, and crowded, but well worth it. Get there as close to opening as possible because the lines only get longer as the night goes on.

Again, many of the displays were animated. Here are a few of my favorite light displays
The Unusual- scorpion and snake

Exotic birds

A tender moment between giraffes

All creatures helping in the holiday spirit

And some time Under the Sea

I liked these cute elephant ornaments

But, the nostalgia was greatest for the lion water fountain. This is really the icon of the zoo as I have many memories of taking a drink from the lions mouth when I was growing up.

Some of the other great light displays was the animated 12 days of Christmas (and its best watched under the heat lamp) and the skunk using his magic to frighten away a bear

Besides the lights we were even able to see some of the animals, like monkeys and porcupines- but the tigers were particularly active. This one was stalking the fence and eying us like he wanted to eat each of us for a snack! It was a little unnerving to think that a mere chain link fence separated us.

Salem and Thanksgiving Point Holiday Lights

2011-02-24T19:30:00.000-08:00

My in-laws were sweet enough to indulge my love of Christmas lights by taking us to several light displays in the area.

My brother-in-law Chris showed us the amazing display in the little town of Salem where most of it occurs over the water and so the reflections made it even more magical- and it was FREE!

A few days later, we battled the LONG line of cars (we waited for over 30 minutes to enter) to see the Thanksgiving Point Holiday Lights. We were able to get in half price since my mother-in-law is a member so that made it worth it. Also, it was funny to watch people try to "cut" into the lines and the "lack of holiday spirit" that emerged. The neat part about these lights are that many of them are animated.

Elves building a house

The houses got even more elaborate as we drove along- looks like those elves were pretty busy

But of course, my favorite was this "sweet" house

And the display would not have been complete without a jolly Santa

The "highlight" of the display was the following- which actually was the favorite of everyone a few years ago when they came (I apologize for the blur- we were laughing too hard)

The above is showing how the cycle of food occurs with deers- from feeding until it is expelled. Not the first thing that I would think of to be part of the "holiday lights".

Carl Bloch: The Master's Hand

2011-02-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

William and I were lucky to be able to see the exhibit "Carl Bloch: The Master's Hand" twice with our families while over Christmas break. It is a great exhibit and it is FREE -as long as you reserve your tickets. It was incredible to see so many of his beautiful altar paintings and some of his etchings. However, I was quite disappointed by some of the lighting of the pieces- particularly the one of "Christ at Bethesda". I was at BYU when they first acquired this piece and it was truly breathtaking in the right lighting. The lighting was terrible and made the picture just look ok. Whereas they managed to get the lighting right for the painting of "Christ at Gethsemane"- it truly evoked the incredible emotion that Bloch put into his work. My mom was kind enough to buy me and my sisters a book with lithographs of many of his pieces- I used a few of them for my Relief Society lesson. The exhibit also had some images from Fredriksborg Castle where some of his paintings are and it made me really want to visit one day (yet some place else to add to the ever growing list)

My adorable nephews Stanley and Charles found a much more entertaining exhibit at the museum where they were able to create the art with their running around. It was so fun that they actually cried when we left- I say that it the sign of a fairly successful museum trip :-)

The Brain:The Inside Exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History

2011-02-22T21:24:00.000-08:00

Thanks to some great around town advertising, William and I were able to enjoy "The Brain: The Inside Exhibit" at the American Museum of Natural History. We LOVED this exhibit- the picture on the right is of all of the neurons firing in your brain. We walked through the area and it provided a great visual to get your excited about what you would be learning. They had a great video about what portions of your brain are involved in preparing for a dance audition as well as hands on demonstrations to test your abilities. The brain is so amazing and there really is so much potential for our improving it and possibly repairing things in case of problems. Half a million neurons form every minute during the first five months in the womb. They are using electromagnets for treatment major depression when no other treatments work and this can possibly help with many other mental illnesses. This was by far our favorite part of the museum. We also saw some of the permanent collection of Dinosaurs, Gems and Minerals, and some of the taxidermy animals which were cool, but not as fascinating as the Brain exhibit. It will be there through April 15th so check it out if you are in NYC.

William and I went to this museum and then to Yoshinoya- a yummy fast food chain from Japan and it was a good thing it was our short day because it was FREEZING. Bitterness filled our souls with the biting wind- it made me very happy that we were going back to the warm Bay area.

This is my last NYC post- now I can move back to posting about the things that happened in my lengthy blogging hiatus :-)

More NYC Toy Store Fun

2011-02-21T21:20:00.000-08:00

As you can tell from my earlier posts, we really LOVED the toy stores around NYC as they definitely go above and beyond in their decorating the stores.

We went to LEGO store just outside Rockerfeller Center and William was "surprised" by the life-sized Chewbacca.

But the LEGO model of Rockerfeller Center truly captured our full attention for a few minutes

They placed such detail into the activities of the surrounding crowds- with many taking photos of each other, or riding a bike through the crowd, but my favorite was the couple kissing

I also LOVED the new Disney store that is in Times Square. I loved the rainbow lights of these iconic NYC buildings

and Mickey and friends riding around a giant sky carousel that really spins

But, what I was most blown away with was their section with all of the princess dresses. They were housed inside the castle pictured below and they are some of the most beautiful dresses that I have ever seen. They even had a Disney brides dress up collection, as well as sometimes several different dresses for each Disney princess. And these were super fancy but also super pricey. They were even tempting me to buy one- I don't know who for, as we only have nephews, but I will keep them in mind. Definitely do not take your girls there unless you are going to buy one of those dresses because I can only imagine the meltdown of leaving the store without one.

And I couldn't resist a shot of M&M Lady Liberty

And we managed to not buy anything from these stores- that is only because there were no special type of M&Ms to try (they sometimes have a special flavor, but no such luck for us)

The Addams Family Musical

2011-02-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

We saw the Saturday matinee of The Addams Family Musical starring Nathan Lane. I saw him before in a play in Boston and he truly steals the show. He is such a brilliant musical theater genius. I am just sad that I missed seeing him on Broadway in the Producers. I saw the show a few months after his run was over. I think that this show wouldn't be the same without him. Morticia was Fraiser Crane's psychiatrist wife from Cheers and The first half of the musical was HILARIOUS- it was funny, classic Addams Family with the Broadway twist. Sadly the second half completely fell short, instead focusing too much on one/two person songs rather than further delving into the complete family dynamic, which was what made the first act so good.

At the end of the curtain call, Nathan Lane actually silenced everyone and made a special announcement about the Pugsly. The matinee performance was this kids first EVER showing on Broadway and so Nathan Lane wanted to make sure that this kid got an extra round of applause for doing such a great job. How cool would it be to get singled out like that by Nathan Lane! To me, that would have meant the world- I truly was so touched by that act.

Overall, I'm glad that I saw the show but I don't think that I would see it again- though I might if Nathan Lane was in the show.

Valentine's and William's Birthday 2011

2011-02-21T20:03:00.000-08:00

For the past two weeks, we have been fairly low key (well, at least compared to our normal routine :-) as William was first sick the weekend before Valentines. He managed to get better enough to take me out to dinner on Valentine's to Black Angus where we were able to use a coupon to get an elaborate 4 course meal for $40. Of course it was packed and we had to wait 15 mins even with a reservation but it was worth it. William was also such a sweetheart and bought me these beautiful orchids- they are still super beautiful over a week later.

Unfortunately, I also caught William's cold and so I was sick all of the rest of last week- I still managed to go to work but wasn't motivated to do anything else (aka prep for my class and blog). But, I managed to recover by the weekend so that we were able to celebrate William's birthday over 3 days :-) On Friday night, we went to dinner with my friend from work, Jamie and her boyfriend Norm, to P.F. Chang's to celebrate. William was thrilled that they did not sing to him- and that he got red velvet cake :-)

The adorable birthday boy

Many thanks to Jamie for taking the photo for us :-)

Saturday was POURING rain but we managed to venture over to Shabuway for one of his favorite meals- shabu shabu, bringing back memories from Japan. We enjoyed it despite the fact that the restaurant still had their AC on- I wore my coat the whole time.

Sunday, William's actual birthday, was busy with me teaching about "Sacrifice" to the Relief Society and William doing his calling as treasurer for Lehi Park. Today, we relaxed and spent the day reading, running errands, and my sister Sarah treated us to Subway Philly Cheesesteaks per William's birthday request. Now that we have recovered from our colds, I should be back to a more regular blogging schedule :-)

Toys R Us Times Square

2011-02-15T21:36:00.000-08:00

Even more than FAO Schwartz, we loved the Toys R Us in Times Square even more. We spent an hour and a half walking around.

Knowing the two of us, William and I spent a significant amount of time in Candy Land

Where we yet again learned what we already knew- that NERDS rule the world!

We had fun seeing toys from our past- although this updated Strawberry Shortcake looks more like a bobble head doll- kind of creepy

And the "creativity" of some others

But, we were also DISTURBED by some of the toys that they have come up with. This Barbie below looks innocent enough- her looking cute with a puppy- until you see the bottom right corner.

It's pretty small so in case you can't read it, it said "Barbie Poop and Scoop." Yup, I guess that there is a Barbie for everything (although I'm not sure that they really should have gone there in this case)

The real shocker is that we did NOT buy anything- not even any candy (though we were tempted by the mints in a case that looked like an old school Atari joystick that you could actually move).

Shake Shack

2011-02-15T20:36:00.000-08:00

I had heard many great things about the Shake Shack and it lived up to the expectations. We went to the location in Times Square on Saturday for lunch after checking into Hotel Edison (it is very art deco aka older but it is still nice and the location in Times Square cannot be beat- along with the price. Many thanks to my sister for the suggestion). We lucked out and got a table quickly, probably because we beat the lunch rush at 11:30. The burger was delicious- the beef was very well seasoned and I particularly liked the "shake shack sauce" (kind of a thousand island type). The fries with cheddar were good and the custard vanilla shake was good (though it was a little too runny- I prefer my shakes thick like at Neilsen's Frozen Custard). William got the peanut butter salted hot chocolate and it was good- very rich though so my vanilla custard helped us to drink the whole thing. And it is quite reasonably priced- especially for NYC.

Mary Poppins:The Musical

2011-02-15T20:32:00.000-08:00

I had very high hopes for the musical Mary Poppins and I was not disappointed. It was a great classical musical- very fun and I liked the new songs that they added, especially "Practically Perfect." I had an incredible seat- Row H on the right hand side. Mary Poppins even came flying literally over my head at the end of the performance! (Side note- the little girl next to me had fallen asleep and her mom was desperately trying to wake her up to see Mary Poppins fly over us but she just wouldn't wake up :-) I absolutely love the songs "Chim Chimery" and "Step in Time" as I performed a competition clogging dance to them back in my later junior high/high school days (sad that I can't remember exactly when!! I guess it is a good thing that so many memories are competing for space :-) But, the best part was during "Step in Time" where Bert was in a harness and walked up the wall and then started tap dancing AND singing UPSIDE-DOWN while a little board moved across the stage. It was one of the most amazing things because he was doing an incredible job at all three things. Again, it was very good and I would highly recommend it to all fans of musicals :-)

Crumbs Bakery

2011-02-14T18:12:00.000-08:00

After my day of museums, I stopped off at another cupcake bakery that I had heard of- Crumbs- to try their special cupcake of the month- White Chocolate Hot Chocolate. I love their packaging for each individual cupcake. They are pretty big- this one was covered with white chocolate chips and marshmallows and was filled with whipped cream.

The cake and the whipped cream center were AMAZING. I also liked the texture of the whole marshmallows on top. HOWEVER, their frosting was gross- it tasted to me just like grocery store frosting which is definitely not my favorite. So, yet again, Sprinkles is still my favorite (although I haven't been there since the summer!!)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

2011-02-14T14:08:00.000-08:00

I have never taken a ride on a public bus in NYC- but, given the cold and the snow, I was more than happy to ride one directly from the Cloisters to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ahh, the Met. I was there for 2 visits over two days for 5 hours total :-) I was able to see the Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand photography exhibit, Filippino Lippi's Restored Madonna and Child as seen below. The blue is even more vibrant and striking in person.

This was one of my favorite of the four Vermeer's that they had on display

My photo of one of Rembrandt's many self-portraits turned out blurry so I'm not including it

The Monet Sunflowers- which have a different feel to them than Van Gogh's sunflowers

I was in absolute HEAVEN in the impressionist-post impressionist section. I am glad that I read the panels next to the paintings in this section because I learned something new about Renoir.
Take a look at this painting-

Beautiful isn't it- but what makes it even more incredible is that Renoir painted this towards the end of his life when he was suffering from severe arthritis. His hands were so crippled that he had to sit in a wheelchair with a brush strapped to his hand to paint this. This painting is even MORE incredible to me after learning this. It shows just what a true artist he was, continuing to create even up until his death. His story reminds me of Matisse who was similarly affected by age and produced these amazing paper cutouts when he could no longer paint.

Here is an earlier painting from Renoir- just to compare and show how amazing talented he still was suffering from arthritis

The piece below is made up of several hundred (maybe even thousand) little mirrors which produce unique reflections when people stand in front of them. This is the type of modern art that I like.

Even with the two visits, there is still so much that I wasn't able to see. I bought a guidebook of the collection- which was quite helpful for the early 16th century European art- and I can't wait until I can visit again and see more of this amazing museum :-)

SF Ballet: Giselle

2011-02-13T19:38:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday night, I decided that I wanted to go see the San Francisco Ballet's production of Giselle. I had not bought season tickets because I wasn't sure what my teaching schedule would be but I definitely say that it is best to buy them in advance, otherwise you end up paying a higher price. I only wanted to see their "Classical" ballet package with 3 plays- Giselle, Balanchine, and Coppelia- and of course, the side orchestra seats for $80 were SOLD OUT so my sister Sarah and I did the more expensive seats in the Dress Circle. So, I ended up paying more for 3 shows than for 5 shows last year. At least I was certain that I would be able to attend these performances :-) The nice part about being farther back is that you can see the beautiful formations and just how well the dancers maintain these positions. The bad part is that you can't see their facial expressions, which is something that I liked about being so close. But, I am thrilled to be able to go to the ballet and NOT be in the balcony nosebleeds.

I have actually never seen Giselle which was first performed back in 1841 and it thus one of the classic ballets. I was not a fan of the first half- it was set in a country hamlet and while the dancing was good, it was just nothing out of the ordinary. It really was just like most of the classic ballet town showcases that I have seen before. BUT, the second half was MAGICAL. I would have been happy just seeing the second half. These ghost brides were so ethereal with these elaborate veils over their faces and hands that they swirled all around. And the formations of the corps de ballet were just beautiful. Giselle had movements as if she was in a dream (instead of dead :-) The costumes, scenery, and choreography were all just so incredibly well done- definitely worth it :-) And it was fun to see the show with my dancer sister who could tell me when she saw some steps that she had never seen before. I'm looking forward to the other two shows to come :-)

Workin 9 to 5

2011-02-13T19:19:00.000-08:00

Following the trend of most things in my life of feast or famine, I have experienced a "feasting" of my work situations (yes, there is a plural). A few weeks ago, my boss at my primary research job asked me if I would be willing to go up to 40 hours a week (from my 30). Seeing that I am not teaching this quarter and that I really do love my boss and the research, I decided to accept and go up to 40 hours a week. The next day (and I'm not joking about this), Santa Clara contacts me about teaching a class for Spring quarter starting at the end of March for Intro to Sociology again. Fortunately, the time of the class is on Tuesday/Thursday 3:40-5:25 so I should be able to continue working 40 hours when that happens. My boss is very understanding if I need to go back down to 30 when that happens- there are some grant deadlines coming up and so she wants as much work done as possible. I think- at least for now- that it should be do-able (fingers crossed) since I have already taught the class before. I revised the syllabus and will be revising my lectures before classes even begin in an attempt to make things easier to cope with. But, we'll see :-)

To further complicate things even more, Santa Clara came back to me a few days later saying that they have an additional Social Problems class that they want me to teach that would happen right before my already scheduled intro class. This was a tough decision for me because I really love teaching, but I ultimately decided that even if I was back at 30 hours, there is no way that I could teach both classes and be able to complete all of the grading. As much as it pained me to do it, I have just stuck with one class which I know will still keep me busy enough :-)

I completed my first full week of working 40 hours in an office cube and . . . I survived. Friday at noon was pretty tough for me- I was SO ready to be done but I managed to switch gears from writing to coding, something that I enjoy more, and so I made it :-) While I might slightly whine about the increased amount of work, I truly am grateful for it as both jobs are things that I enjoy and are in the field I got my PhD in so I am VERY happy for these opportunities :-)

The Cloisters

2011-02-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

I am one of those people who absolutely LOVES all of the cathedrals in Europe. During both of my study abroads, particularly my one to Spain, I found each one fascinating and different. Professor Sherman was one of my Spanish literature teachers and he too shared my love of cathedrals and he told me that I would have to visit the Cloisters museum sometime in NYC. It has taken me about a decade to make it there, but I finally did. And it was definitely worth the trek.

It is clear up on the Upper West Side at about 190th Street. It is in the middle of a park and so it was about a 10 minute walk through the park from the subway which normally would be fine, but it snowed the night before and most of the park had not been plowed and the park is on top of a hill so there was snow blowing EVERYWHERE. It was freezing. I was just happy that I had the internet on my phone so that I was able to take the bus directly from the Cloisters to the Metropolitan Museum of Art after my visit.

The outer tower of the Cloisters

The cloisters has moved not only artifacts but even portions of cathedrals inside the museum. My favorite was the inner cloister below.

An old chapel

Many beautiful stained glass windows

All of these bricks are original (the white plaster in between is new)

If you are a fan of churches, I highly recommend this museum. If you aren't, it is probably one that you can skip.

South Street Seaport TKTS Booth

2011-02-08T21:27:00.000-08:00

I have used the Times Square TKTS Booth many times and it works fine, but I have now found an EVEN BETTER option. With a little bit of research, I discovered that there is ANOTHER TKTS booth in Manhattan- the South Street Seaport. I'm a huge fan of this as they begin selling tickets for evening performances at 11 am and then the day before a matinee, you can buy tickets for that as well!! I arrived at the booth at 10:50 am and I was only about 15th in line so I was able to buy 1 ticket for the Friday night Mary Poppins and then 2 tickets for the Addams Family Saturday matinee. I was completely done by 11:10 am. Amazing. I felt like it was definitely worth the extra subway trip.

And, I was able to explore the surrounding area which I have not done before. Here is one of the ships associated with the South Street Seaport Museum (I didn't attend it but just walked around)

and then the Brooklyn Bridge. On all of my NYC trips, I have never seen the Brooklyn Bridge. It was pretty windy and cold so I didn't walk across it but at least I can now say that I have seen it :-)

A Curious George Saturday

2011-02-06T18:38:00.000-08:00

We have had BEAUTIFUL weather lately in the Bay area- Saturday it was 75 degrees, even in San Francisco!! It was also the first weekend of the month, meaning that I get into select museums for free with my Bank of America card. William was such a sweetheart to come with me to see the "Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margret and H.A. Rey" exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. I loved the Curious George books but I had no idea about the couple who wrote them. They actually spent some time in Brazil which is where their looking at all of the monkeys began to inspire them to create George. George was actually first named "Fifi" but the publisher changed it to Curious George, the name of one of the 9 monkeys named in their earlier children's story "Raffy (or Cecily G.) and the 9 Monkey's". H.A. Rey said that he initially placed tails on the monkeys in the illustrations in this story, but it was just too busy with all of those tails getting in the way. Thus, he just got rid of the tails. When the story was released in Great Britain, the book changed names again to Zozo since King George was the reigning monarch. It was their illustrations that they carried with them that helped to save them from punishment when escaping from the Nazi's in WWII. Their escape provided the basis for the Curious George books, where he is also able to save the day/work out the situation before getting in trouble. H.A. Rey was not formally trained as an artist; Margaret did attend art school but she ended up doing most of the writing of the stories. Given the limited printing process at the time, H.A. Rey would make each drawing 4 times and provide different colors on each of them to make one final composite image. Some of his original watercolors were saved and they have actually reprinted the first Curious George book using this technology. What I also loved about this collection was that they showed a few of their Christmas cards. H.A. Rey would design special ones highlighting interesting things that happened to them throughout the year. How fun would it have been to have gotten one of those cards. I bought the following book that illustrates their story "The Journey that Saved Curious George" since that seemed to be the special part about this exhibition.

On our way home, I really wanted to go miniature golfing at this place off the 101 called Malibu Grand Prix which has go karts and mini golf. It was just SUCH a beautiful day outside that I wasn't ready to just go home yet so William was kind enough to indulge me in some mini-golf :-) I am happy to report that the game ended up in a TIE between the two of us- and I even had 2 holes-in-one!! That usually never happens and I didn't even have to take the forced "6 stroke" maximum (I did hit 6 strokes once though but I wasn't over that limit :-) So I would like to think that I was improving. I actually like the Golfland course better, but what is fun is that when you turn in your putters, they give you a token and so we were able to play one round of Skee Ball each. Unfortunately, William schooled me in this.

We also tried Wing Stop for dinner. We got the Hawaiian strips- it's like a sweet and sour sauce- since we do not like spicy stuff and it was good, but William put it best by saying that it wasn't something that he would seek out/crave.

It was a fun weekend full of adventures, and fortunately, NOT the kind that George usually gets himself into :-)

Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark

2011-02-02T22:38:00.000-08:00

The moment you have all been waiting for (well, some of you :-)- my review of the new musical "Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark". I have been wanting to see this musical since I heard about it a few months ago not due to the "technical difficulties" they were having (eg. actors falling from the sky), but for the MUSIC. The soundtrack (both lyrics and music) are written by Bono and the Edge of U2- only my favorite band of all time. I managed to get ORCHESTRA row H tickets to their Thursday night show and let me tell you that while it was the most expensive musical that I saw ($90 for my ticket), it was my favorite musical of the 3 I saw on this trip, and one of the best I have ever seen.

The musical is still technically in "previews", meaning that there are a few things that they are still working through to make sure that it is the absolute perfection demanded of Broadway. I was prepared for this but knowing that Bono and the Edge had gone to see a performance the week before I did, I figured that if it was good enough for them, then it was good enough for me :-) Opening night was supposed to be Feb. 7 but they pushed it back until mid March because they didn't feel ready to open. The show was INCREDIBLE and in my opinion, near perfection, up until the last scene. But first, let me tell you more about the show.

The musical expands upon the movie and adds several new elements. The first, which I don't particularly care for was these additional college students who were creating the story of Spiderman. They introduced my FAVORITE character of the show- Arachne- based upon the Greek myth. She had the most INCREDIBLE voice and some of the most beautiful numbers. The choreography of her being in the air and spinning webs made for some gorgeous aerial numbers. The rest of the story is much like the movie- with how he becomes Spiderman, MJ, and the villians that he faces, but all of the costumes, staging, and flying work was unbelievable. Multiple times throughout the show, I had Spiderman and the villians flying over my head. There are several stuntmen who are Spiderman and do amazing fight scenes and flying. I really was just blown away by the musical up until the last scene. And that made me realize why they are still in previews- and why they extended the previews.

The primary singer/actor of Spiderman was only ok- my main issue with him was that he sometimes tried to have a gravely rock star voice, but that is not his natural voice so it just sounds awkward. He sounded better on the higher notes when he really sang. But, he was definitely the weakest link in the final scene. They want HIM (not the stuntmen) to finally fly around the audience showing his face and being in the normal human form. He was in the harness around his waist with a wire supporting him on both sides. When he started to fly, he grabbed one of the wires with BOTH HANDS and was literally holding on for dear life! It didn't look heroic but actually quite pathetic! It was painful to watch him because he literally just seemed to be barely keeping it together while flying around. It totally detracted from the show because everything else was just top notch. Thus, the reason why it is still in previews for awhile.

The show was just so good. I absolutely LOVED it- particularly the music and I cannot WAIT for the soundtrack to come out (unfortunately, it will still be several months). I would definitely see this musical again- I would have during the trip but it was all sold out- and I highly recommend it. As far as where it ranks among the musicals that I have seen, I would have to say that Phantom of the Opera is still my all time favorite, but this is definitely up there among the top shows that I have ever seen.

P.S. Funny story from the show. The usher right by my section was super talkative to me and a few people behind me. There is absolutely NO photography allowed at all in the theater even before and after the show. He said that a couple of weeks ago, during one of the performances, some one had a camera out and so he went over and tapped that person on the shoulder and told him that he had to put away his camera. The guy turned around and it was Jim Carrey! Several patrons later came up to this usher and said how happy they were that celebrities did not get special treatment/were exempt from keeping the rules of the theater.

Magnolia Bakery

2011-01-31T16:02:00.000-08:00

On my way to the theater district, I decided to pick a few things up from the famous Magnolia Bakery. I have heard mixed reviews about the bakery, but two of my co-workers raved about it so I decided that I at least had to try it. My sister also recommended to me the banana pudding and it was incredible! It is like a trifle of a light banana whipped cream mousse, fresh banana slices, and cake pieces. I got their smallest container and me, even being the sweet tooth that I am, I had to eat it in two servings throughout the night. It was REALLY good though. I am lucky that I tried a sample of their red velvet cupcakes in the store because they were GROSS. The cake was dry and the frosting was too airy but I knew that I still had to try a cupcake so I had one of their daily specials- pumpkin with maple cream cheese. Due to the intense richness of the banana pudding, I had to eat the cupcake for breakfast and it was still DELICIOUS. The cake was moist with the perfect amount of cream cheese frosting. I was given one of their bags for my purchase as seen on the right, and I felt like a New Yorker (or at least a tourist in NYC :-) I had the bag with me at the theater and one of the usher's stopped me to tell me to rave about the bakery and how she had one of their cupcakes the other day. At least for me, the bakery did live up to the hype with my purchases, although Sprinkles still has my cupcake heart :-)

F.A.O. Schwartz

2011-01-31T13:49:00.000-08:00

Following my visit to the Frick Collection (I stayed until the kicked me out), I still had some time before seeing Spiderman (William had been busy all day and night with work meetings and dinners) and there is no real quick way to head to Times Square and the theater district from that area so I walked back along 5th Avenue and Rockefeller Center. On my way, I stopped at the redesigned F.A.O. Schwartz and was blown away by what I saw there- particularly the prices. I loved it so much that I brought William back here on Saturday so that he could enjoy as well.

The grand entryway from the 2nd level.

You could get this complete Noah's Ark set with all of the stuffed animals for only $2,400.

I LOVE this giant puzzle globe! They have smaller ones for sale that include a display stand for when you have finished assembling it. I wonder what it would be like to assemble . . .

But, the Barbie section of the store was completely over the top. This is the special runway (below) that they have. It is mechanized so that when each Barbie reaches the top of the runway, the others stop and that one twirls around to show off her outfit.

But, truly the showpiece of the Barbie collection was . . . . wait for it . . . a BARBIE FOOSBALL TABLE. I thought that this was actually kind of morbid, like someone's little brother wanted to torture the Barbies by ripping off their arms and sticking poles through them but apparently this is a collector's item. Any guesses on how much it might cost?

I took a photo of the price tag because I knew that no one would believe me when I told them that this foosball table could be yours for $25,000.

The other section of the store that I thought was fun was a place where you could design your own Muppet. They have several different body bases and you choose all of the other features and they assemble it for you while you wait. It was at a more reasonable price of $100. Needless to say, while we enjoyed ourselves immensely at this store, we walked out of there with only these photos and our memories as evidence :-)

Frick Collection

2011-01-30T18:30:00.000-08:00

The Frick Collection is one of the hidden GEMS of NYC museums. In all of my many visits to NYC over the years, I had never heard of it until reading about it in my 1,000 Places to See Before You Die book. It reminded me of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, though with fewer- though still impressive artifacts. Gardner Museum has artifacts EVERYWHERE you look while the Frick has them a little more spaced out, yet some REALLY impressive art.

The space itself is amazing- unfortunately, no photography allowed and their gift shop closes earlier than the museum (I didn't know that so I wasn't able to buy a book or any post cards- William was slightly relieved that I didn't buy yet another book :-) It was their actual home, though the cloister type courtyard was added when the museum was created. With the price of admission, you are given a free audio guide that provides commentary to many of the rooms and major works of art. Most of the art that was purchased during the lifetime of steel tycoon Henry Clay Frick and part of his will included stipulations for building a museum where his works of art could not be loaned out. I was stunned to see that that the collection has THREE Vermeer's including "Officer and Laughing Girl". There were also a Rembrandt, a few paintings by El Greco- my favorite being "Purification of the Temple", Goya- "The Forge", Velazquez, Hans Holbein's "Sir Thomas More" which the photo does not do justice for the amazing red velvet and the vivid green curtain in the background- one you definitely need to see in person, Constable, Gainsborough- particularly "The Mall in St. James' Park", and those are just the highlights. The museum also includes furniture, tapestries, sculptures, all within this incredible ambiance. This is a MUST SEE for art lovers.

Doughnut Planet

2011-01-30T18:12:00.000-08:00

Just a few blocks away from the Tenement Museum was Doughnut Planet. I had heard about this place from several food blogs that I follow and it did not disappoint. I did not wait in line at all for my doughnuts- apparently there isn't much demand on a cold Thursday at noon but it is reported that the lines can be long on the weekends. And let me say that this place lives up to all of the hype. The creme brulee doughnut is THE BEST that I have ever had! It is pictured on the left and it is a yeast doughnut filled with a light custard creme and then the top is bruleed sugar which adds an amazing crunch and flavor. The tres leches one on the right was good, especially compared to your average doughnut, but it was nothing compared to the creme brulee one. The tres leches was a cake doughnut that was filled throughout with like sweetened condensed milk and then covered with a light glaze. It was extremely moist and delicious, but the creme brulee one is truly worth the excursion to the lower east side. I managed to eat my doughnuts in the shop since it was cold outside and not crowded but there is only a small informal seating area- a bench covered with little ceramic doughnuts (too bad I didn't take a photo of that). Even if you are not a doughnut fan, do not make a judgment until you have had a creme brulee doughnut from this place.

Tenement Museum

2011-01-30T18:00:00.000-08:00

Following our overnight flight to NYC (I was happy I actually got a few hours sleep! William wasn't as lucky- we were in different rows), dropping our luggage off at our hotel- Fashion 26, we walked over to the Google office. I was able to get a visitors pass and have breakfast there. They had an interesting display of all of these old computers- it was great fun to listen to William and his co-worker reminisce about which machines were their first and favorites. I then headed off on my own to a place recommended to me by my dear friend Lisa was the one who recommended the New York Tenement Museum and she was right- it was really great! The museum is on the lower East side and you have to be part of a guided tour to even make it inside the building. I went on the first tour of the day- the 10:30 am tour entitled "The Moore's" which focused on the overall history of the building, along with a public health angle, of the life of an Irish family. The photo to the left is the actual museum at 97 Orchard. At the time these buildings were constructed, they were not the "ghetto" but one of the nicer working class neighborhoods. The conditions were still quite cramped with families sharing a 3 room apartment and common outhouse toilets in the back. This was actually one of the cleaner tenements since the landlords used to empty the drop toilets if they became too full. But you did have to schlep your water up and down possibly 4 flights of stairs. At the time, the Irish were on the lowest rung of the social ladder and the museum presented us with some traditional Irish folk songs that illustrated the troubles that they experienced first in Ireland and then living over here in the Tenements. Our guide was great and extremely knowledgeable, as well as passionate about the topic. I think that while this is definitely not one of the main tourist attractions, it provides a different view of what life was like for a good portion of New Yorker's.

Hoover Middle School Dance Competition

2011-01-29T17:16:00.000-08:00

My youngest sister, Sarah, teaches dance at a Hoover Middle School and her kids had their first competition today. I was there for about 3 hours and watched 3 of their dances. I didn't get the first one on video- it was choreographed by her high school teacher's aide.

My sister choreographed this lyrical number. Very elegant and beautiful

Two of her dance officers choreographed this number- I was quite impressed with the number. It was fun and you could tell that the students definitely enjoyed performing it.

Way to go Sarah!! This is her first year teaching middle school at the competition level and I think that she did a great job! I'm lucky that I live in the area and am able to attend events like this :-)

Amano Chocolates

2011-01-18T22:47:00.000-08:00

We are so disappointed that we will not be able to attend the International Chocolate Salon this year in San Francisco like we have the past couple of years, but unfortunately, this year it falls on a Sunday so we won't be attending :-( We discovered last year about Amano Artisan Chocolates at the Chocolate Salon and they are actually based in Orem, Utah. We decided to visit their factory store and were not disappointed. They offered several of their chocolate bars as well as their painted truffles. But, the real winner was their toffee. I am not usually a huge fan of toffee, but my mind has been changed after having some of their deliciousness. It was so light, not overly brittle and had the perfect texture, as well as a mild dark chocolate that enhanced the flavor. We bought one bag and I wish we could have bought another one. But, we are happy that we did buy a box of their truffles- we haven't finished them yet, but so far I have mainly enjoyed the key lime one. Check them out if you are in the area- if you are a chocolate fan, it is definitely one that cannot be missed.

Christmas Eve 2010

2011-01-18T22:23:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas Eve with the Kunz Family- we missed you Corey and Bekky!! But we were fortunately able to talk with them via Skype- and we are excited for our new nephew to make an appearance in the next little while.

My mother-in-law made an amazing turkey dinner with all the fixings. And of course, we had the "Brains vs. Brawn" battle as well as the cross bow so it was definitely a successful Christmas. And Santa was EXTREMELY generous with everyone- especially William. He got 6 new video games :-)

And this is just "some" of the candy that we received

My father-in-law, Chris, and Karen enjoying their gifts

While the cross bow was his ultimate favorite, Charlie also LOVED the trucks that he got.

And he was just too cute when he was playing with them, as seen by this video

Stanley was mainly fascinated by Hershey Kisses Candy Canes.

Many thanks to my sweet mother-in-law for helping to make us have a perfect Christmas. We are so lucky to have someone so thoughtful and giving.

Christmas 2010

2011-01-17T23:22:00.000-08:00

We are so lucky to be able to celebrate Christmas with BOTH our families. Christmas morning was spent with William's family and then we headed over to my parents in the afternoon. My dad works on Christmas morning and so we open our presents in the evening. We went and saw Tangled as a family (mine and William's second time- SUCH a great show) and then opened gifts. My mom still videos the entire event and has us say some of the major events that happened this year. Well, I said that it was a busy year for me working three jobs to which William chimed in so that we could live in our luxurious 500 square foot apartment :-)

It should be no surprise to anyone the main gifts we received from our families were all FOOD related. Even with sharing our candy with both families, we are still enjoying it and will probably be for the next several weeks. Our other gifts included the Chick-fil-a calendar that has a coupon for a free item once a month (as pictured with us below), Chick-fil-a gift card, gift card to Texas Roadhouse, and AMC movie gift cards

Truly, while we do love all of the food, the best gift we received was being able to spend time with our families.

Spankie's Christmas Miracle

2011-01-17T23:10:00.000-08:00

I have mentioned my "puppy" Spankie several times on the blog. We got her when I was a junior in high school- 14 years ago. The years have been tough on this little black dog- she had a hip replacement years ago and that combined with arthritis makes it very difficult for her to get around. It was sad to see her "lose her confidence" and be scared to even walk across the kitchen wood floor sometimes since she can easily lose her footing. My parents have placed rugs strategically throughout the house to help ease this process. Some days she does amazingly well and goes on a long walk; other days, she doesn't want to get out of the car.

About a week or so before Christmas, my parents told me that Spankie had been extremely sick for nearly 5 days. She had horrible gastrointestinal issues and had stopped eating. My parents think that she might have eaten some bad garbage on one of her walks or her roaming around the yard while my parents shovel. Things were looking very terrible for the puppy- like she might not make it before Christmas. But, fortunately, there was a Christmas miracle! She completely recovered from the illness- her appetite returned with a vengeance and she was demanding treats repeatedly from everyone and she resumed her barking for patting. It was amazing to see that my puppy knows me. She doesn't run to the door every time I come home like she used to, but when she hears my voice, she wags her tail and gets all excited and flips over onto her back to have her belly rubbed. She really has become part of our family- the 4th Stults daughter. It meant so much to me to be able to spend a week with her.

Our beloved, spoiled Spankie :-) We are so happy that you are a fighter :-)

Hakone Gardens and Kyoto Palace Restaurant

2011-01-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

The weather was BEAUTIFUL here on Saturday (for January at least :-) at about 60 degrees so we decided to take advantage of it and do something outdoors. It ended up being our Japan themed day, since both places were in relatively the same area.

We first stopped at Hakone Gardens, which is the oldest Japanese Estate Garden in the Western Hemisphere. It was initially the personal garden and retreat of the Stein family who helped establish the San Francisco Opera. Mrs. Stein traveled around Japan for a year visiting their gardens and wanted to create one for her family in Saratoga, California. It is only $5 to visit the gardens and we were surprised by fairly large number of people visiting. I am sure that the gardens are much more spectacular when the Wisteria is in bloom but it was still quite lovely.

The gardens are perched on a hillside (the drive up is extremely steep- nearly straight up at times) but provides gorgeous views of the surrounding area.

They had a fairly extensive Bamboo garden that was fenced off to prevent local deer from devouring it

The landscaped area in front of the moon-viewing house was definitely the most picturesque

My favorite part was the four waterfalls

It was just a nice, relaxing day- but I would recommend going during the spring/summer time when more of the trees are in bloom.

I have been trying to get us out of our dining out rut- we tend to go to the same places over and over again. In an effort to expand our horizons, Restaurant.com had a sale awhile back where you could buy $25 off gift certificates to local restaurants for only $2!! So, I bought several for San Francisco and Mountain View areas. Since Campbell is right next to Saratoga, we chose to head to Kyoto Palace which is a teppanyaki. Downtown Campbell is quite charming- neither of us had been there before so it was fun to walk around before our dinner reservation. We ate fairly early- 5 pm- and there were only a couple of tables that were filled. We actually ended up getting our own private show- aka no other couples were at our grill so it was almost like having our own personal chef. I was most impressed that he was able to flip an egg into the air and then perfectly crack it on the side of his spatula. The food was pretty much like Benihanna, but the meat portions seemed much more generous (to me anyways).

Poor William- he has to put up with my lacking chopstick skills. I have my own technique that works pretty well but William was trying to show me how to do it the proper way. Well, I was struggling with that, so much so that our waitress brought me special "trainer" chopsticks.

They have a paper wedged in between them and are wrapped in rubber bands. So embarrassing that she saw me struggling. It was quite easy to have proper technique with those but when I tried with separated ones, my hand easily tired and I kept losing proper position. I then went back to my old way but my hand were just too tired and so I just ate with my fork for the rest of the meal. William served his mission in Japan so he is quite dexterous with chopsticks so I am very glad that he is patient with me :-)

"I'm Gonna Be a Part of It . . . "

2011-01-13T21:24:00.001-08:00

. . . . "NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!" I am truly BEYOND EXCITED for my trip to NYC next Thurs-Sunday with William. The primary reason why I am over-the-moon about it is because I just bought tickets to see "Spider Man", the musical on Broadway!! The music is written by Bono and the Edge and I have been so wanting to see it, and to make things even better, I was able to get an orchestra seat for only- $90!!!!! Thanks to another great Travelzoo theater deal :-) I would have paid that $150 for orchestra seats but I am more than happy to pay $90 so that I can see yet another show. I'm beyond excited- the only thing that would make it better was if Bono and the Edge were there themselves; sadly, they attended the performance earlier this week so they probably won't be there. But, I will be sure to keep an eye out for them :-) I am hoping to see a couple of other musicals while I am there, like The Addams Family and Mary Poppins, as well as going to some museums. If anyone has any recommendations including favorite foods/activities/etc. let me know. Lisa M, I am so sad that you just left NYC to be in Charlotte :-( I have taken your list into account though.

Why William is the Favorite Uncle

2011-01-12T22:06:00.000-08:00

As if the Rubik's cube was not enough, William decided that he still had to give the best gift to Chris' son, our nephew, Charles. And what better gift for a 2.5 year old then a . . . .

NERF CROSSBOW!

This was the first present opened and kept Charlie- and the rest of the family- entertained for the rest of the night.

The only drawback (or maybe blessing for my brother and sister-in-law) is that Charlie is just a little too weak to fully pull back the launch mechanism. Thus, for the rest of the night, he kept going up to people and asking them to help him get it ready. Then, he would shoot it up into the air (not at people, although his dad Chris kept breaking that rule by shooting William) and each time it would be shot, he would yell "Yess" or "All right!" and then run and get the arrow. This occurred over, and over again all night.

The best is that Charlie calls William "Bill"- but he says it with this southern accent like "Bi-i-ll". It is HILARIOUS! I was going to get it on video, but we didn't end up seeing them another time before we left since their whole family was sick. Not only did he love "Bi-i-ll" for the cross bow, but also for the large bubble sword that he bought him and then went and showed him how to use it outside. The bubble sword was short lived in comparison to the cross bow- I mean who can compete with a great gift like that :-)

Brains vs. Brawn

2011-01-12T21:50:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, William has a long standing "special" gift exchange with his brother Chris. I have the "special" in quotes because basically, it means finding the most unusual and/or difficult way to open the present for Christmas.

I call this year "Brains vs. Brawn" and the photos below will illustrate both of these camps.

BRAINS
After William's "snotty" gift last year, he decided that he would go to the opposite extreme this year and give Chris the following challenge: The Rubik's Cube.

As you can see, this is not-your-average Rubik's cube. There are several letters on each square and on every face of the cube.

I thought that it was pretty difficult to follow all of the letters across each face but that wasn't tough enough for William. He then scrambled it all up and gave it to Chris to figure out. William was kind enough to leave the package instructions for Chris, but even then, it stil took him awhile

MEANWHILE- this other part was occurring simultaneously

BRAWN

Chris REALLY wanted to make William work for it this year- from start to finish- and Chris made great use of the resources at his job at the lumber shop. As you can see, besides wrapping up the gift nicely, he also wrapped it in shrink wrap. Under the shrink wrap was this wooden box.

Looks fairly innocent right? WRONG. Not only are there several layers of wood that are nailed together in multiple places, but there is also an extra bonus of a layer of GLUE holding it all together. (FYI- all of the following occurred with the presence of my father-in-law, ensuring that we would not have a special Christmas Eve trip to the emergency room).

William first tried the crow bar with zero impact. He then went for the chisel and hammer, also to no real impact.

Thus, he decided to pull out the power hand saw.

And finally with this, he had some progress- slow, but progress none the less. Chris had warned William at the beginning that there was something "fragile" inside but William had just thought that it was a gift card. So, while the power saw did help him to get inside to the gift, he actually sawed off the top part of his gift.

It's kind of hard to tell but you can see that he cut right through the box of his all time favorite cereal- Reese's Puffs.

While he was able to access them, we did not eat them because we did not want the added "fiber" from the woody shavings that also made it inside the box.

WINNER??

Ultimately, it was a DRAW. Both brothers finished up at the same time- one expended forth more mental energy and the other one physical energy. This being said, I have NO IDEA what they will do to try and top this for next year . . . .

Museum of Ancient Life

2011-01-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

My mother-in-law has a membership to Thanksgiving Point and so on Monday January 3rd she took us there to the Museum of Ancient Life. It is a great museum- with so many amazing dinosaur exhibits. We also watched this fascinating film about how they do modern day coal mining- I had no idea just how specialized it was.

We found our dream type of countertop- with iron banded throughout (it looks kind of like gold!)

The dinosaur models were the most impressive. They even had impressive modeling around the display bones, as well as a large number of skeletons.

The powerful T-Rex- definitely the most impressive skeletons at the museum.

And even a baby woolly mammoth

So, while William decided to put sand in his hands,

I decided to go bigger and put the whole world in mine :-)

I highly recommend this museum for those in the Salt Lake/Provo area :-)

3 Days vs. 3 Hours

2011-01-09T21:53:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, William and I love to complete puzzles, especially when we are with his family as we were for about a week. Well, his Aunt Jeannine gave us a puzzle shaped like a Christmas tree and so we decided to complete it, since it was the season and all. This puzzle was the most difficult one we have completed YET even though it was only 500 pieces. It doesn't look that hard, but we weren't even able to complete the edges until nearly the end. Also, they had IDENTICALLY sized puzzle pieces that only slightly varied in color!! When we thought we were at the end, we had to switch out four different pieces since they were in the wrong places. It took us 3 days to complete this puzzle, with 4 people working fairly hard on it (William placed the most effort into it- I could only do a few pieces before I was frustrated beyond belief!). And here is the beast-

So, to regain our confidence, we then undertook this scripture puzzle which restored our faith in our ability to do puzzles since this 500 piece puzzle only took us 3 hours.

This other one took us several hours since we finished it over several occasions- we started it while on vacation at Disneyland and then finished all of the green pieces over the holiday. Still, with the two combined times, it still took MUCH less than that first puzzle.

The group together- all over 1,500 pieces.

If anyone is up for a challenge, let us know because do we have a puzzle for you.

Primary Release

2011-01-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

Today I was released as a primary teacher. I have mixed feelings about it- I absolutely LOVED the class that I taught during 2010. They were pretty much my dream class. All of the kids truly cared about learning the gospel- they participated in class and remembered the lessons that I talked about. I did a Jeopardy game for our last lesson of the year (at least with me) and they answered every single question that I asked. I even asked some more obscure ones (worth 500 pts). Even my sister Sarah was impressed when she taught them and how they already knew parts of the story of Jonah and the whale before she had taught them. I was especially sad to see these kids go but they have a great teacher now. One of the girls from my class- Kennan- is moving to Utah. They had a goodbye party for her tonight and it was so fun to be able to see her and talk with her one last time. It was also great to be able to talk with her mother and tell her what a wonderful and amazing daughter she has raised. Her mother told me that Kennan would sometimes offer to do the lessons from our class for family home evening- seriously, what an incredible girl. I feel that I could say the same for all of the kids in my class.

At the same time, I was actually quite relieved to get released because the class that I would have this year is quite difficult. I had them come to my class a couple of times and it was extremely tough- even when I had William with me. I couldn't imagine how I would handle them when it was just myself this year. Maren, give my regards to Ryan and let him know that he is my hero for having that class. It was nice to be able to go to Sunday School and Relief Society after not going for nearly 2 years, but I miss the kids already. At least I am able to still talk with them at church :-)

Books in 2010

2011-01-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I did not come close to my record set last year of 87 books but I was impressed that I was able to come fairly close even with working 3 jobs. For 2010, I read 75 books. The vast majority of the books read towards the end of the year were "kid books" as I like to call them because they are literally found in the children's section of the library. Yet, many of them are so good and to me, of the calibur of Harry Potter. I am a particular fan of the Hunger Games series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and the 39 Clues. I also love the Greg Mortenson books- "3 Cups of Tea" and "Stones into Schools". I have several that I started in 2010 that are still not finished so I have carried them into 2011. Let me know of any "must reads" or if you have any questions about the following list. I echo the quote of Thomas Jefferson- "I cannot live without books", as is evidenced by their appearing in nearly every available space of our 500 square foot studio apartment.

In Too Deep- Jude Watson
The Black Circle- Patrick Carman
Beyond the Grace- Jude Watson
The Sword Thief- Peter Lerangis
One False Note- Gordon Korman
The Maze of Bones- Rick Riordan
The Best Medicine- Mike Magee and Michael D'Angel
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth- Jeff Kinney
The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa- Alexander McCall Smith
The Battle of the Labyrinth- Rick Riordan
The Man Who Lied to His Laptop- Clifford Nass
Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellvue- Danielle Ofri
The Double Comfort Safari Club- Alexander McCall Smith
The Titan's Curse- Rick Riordan
Kitchen Confidential- Anthony Bourdain
Eat, Pray, Love- Elizabeth Gilbert
The Age of Empathy- Frans de Waal
It's Not the Media- Karen Sternheimer
Gang Leader for a Day- Sudhir Venkatesh
Spider Bones- Kathy Reichs
The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary- Jeff Kinney
29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life- Cami Walker
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Primary Phase- Douglas Adams
For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage- Tara Parker-Pope
The Sea of Monsters- Rick Riordan
The Lightning Thief- Rick Riordan
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days- Jeff Kinney
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw- Jeff Kinney
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules- Jeff Kinney
The Lost World- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Who Moved My Cheese?-Spencer Johnson
Diary of a Wimpy Kid- Jeff Kinney
Stones into Schools- Greg Mortenson
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society- Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides
A Thousand Splendid Suns- Khaled Hosseini
The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us- Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons
Getting Things Done- David Allen
A Train to Potevka- Mike Ramsdell
The Turn of the Screw- Henry James
The Woman in White- Wilkie Collins
The Alchemist- Paulo Coehlo
Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons- Matthew B. Brown
The House of Mirth- Edith Wharton
So Much For That- Lionel Shriver
No Apology: The Case for American Greatness- Mitt Romney
Robinson Crusoe- Daniel Defoe
Catching Fire- Suzanne Collins
Damned Lies and Statistics- Joel Best
The Man From Beijing- Henning Mankell
The Portrait of a Lady- Henry James
On the Road- Jack Kerouac
More Damned Lies and Statistics- Joel Best
The Unbearable Lightness of Scones- Alexander McCall Smith
The Hunger Games- Suzanne Collins
In Cold Blood- Truman Capote
The Eye of the Leopard- Henning Mankell
The Happiness Project- Gretchen Rubin
Italian Shoes- Henning Mankell
How to Be Alone- Jonathon Franzen
Kennedy's Brain- Henning Mankell
Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples- Karine Moe and Dianna Shandy
The World According to Bertie- Alexander McCall Smith
Death By Prescription- Ray D. Strand
Love Over Scotland- Alexander McCall Smith
Our Daily Meds- Melody Petersen
The Therapeutic Nightmare- Morton Mintz
Super Freakonomics- Steven D. Leavitt & Stephen J. Dubner
Cry, the Beloved Country- Alan Paton
Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs- Jerry Avorn
Espresso Tales- Alexander McCall Smith
What the Dog Saw- Malcolm Gladwell
Three Cups of Tea- Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Have a Little Faith- Mitch Albom
360 Degrees Longitude- John Higham

"I'm a Back"

2011-01-05T20:23:00.001-08:00

For those not familiar with Super Mario Brothers for Wii, this is what one of the characters says after they die and are allowed to re-enter the game- "I'm a Back". I thought that was the perfect title to begin the blog post after my long hiatus.

Firstly, let me just say that everything is GREAT! I truly do appreciate all of the emails, facebook messages, texts, and in-person requests making sure that everything was okay with us since I wasn't blogging. Let me explain what I have been up to for the past few months. In August, we went on a trip to Utah for the Kunz family reunion and celebrated my 30th birthday with my family. I went European and took a blogging break for that month and I very much intended to resume blogging in September.

However, with 10 days before the beginning of the quarter, Santa Clara University called me and asked if I would be willing to fill in last minute for one of the other full time professors who had an "emergency" (not sure what) but couldn't teach the class. The books had already been ordered (there were 5 and I was only familiar with 2 of them) but I was able to get a very rough syllabus together for teaching Social Problems in the U.S. I really LOVED this class- maybe even a little more than Intro- although I would definitely change some of the readings for next time. But, this class is the reason for my blogging hiatus. I was working 30 hours a week doing qualitative research in addition to teaching the class, which takes up an incredible amount of time to prepare and grade, so any free time I had was not spent on the computer, but squeezing in some cultural adventures- primarily with my husband- to keep my sanity :-) We also spent 2 weeks in Utah for the holidays, together with both our families so much time was spent having fun there. Thus, blogging suffered BUT I'm a back now since I only have ONE job for now- doing research at Palo Alto Medical Foundation- thus leaving me with more time to catalog many of the adventures that we have experienced and will experience.

While I am kind of sad to not be teaching again, since I really do enjoy it so much, I am very happy to have a "break" and reconnect with everyone. Thanks to everyone who has been patient awaiting, and expect much, much more to come for 2011 :-)

Hard Working Husband

2010-08-05T21:20:00.001-07:00

I just have to write about how much I absolutely ADORE my hard working husband. He truly puts his heart and soul into his job, yet, he makes sure that he always has time for me. I know that I am his top priority and that means more than I can express.

A few weeks ago, he went on a business trip to Japan to help close a big deal. It was only for a week and I was so sad that I couldn't go with him due to my "real job" where I need to be in an office. I am truly so happy that it was not for longer- it had appeared earlier that it might be for nearly a month. I am so happy that it was not for that long. I historically have never been a needy person- I valued my alone time, but I then met William. I absolutely love being with him- it is when I truly feel complete. I am one of those nerdy wives who cannot WAIT for her husband to get home every day. So, a week was fairly tough. I at least was able to talk with him on video chat by Skype everyday (and sometimes multiple times a day :-) I tried to either keep myself super busy going to cultural events or else I didn't feel like doing anything- my productivity totally decreased with him gone. William worked INCREDIBLY long hours on this trip to help close the deal. I remember talking with him one night before I went to bed and he said that he was about ready to go to a meeting. When I woke up over 7 hours later, he had JUST GOTTEN OUT OF THE MEETING. And this was over a weekend while in Japan.

William's hard work previously has allowed him to work on this big, exciting project. You can read all about the project for which he is manager here in the New York Times (although he is not specifically mentioned). He has been working even longer hours with this project and I just want him to know how much I appreciate him. I feel so bad that I am such a complainer about my sitting at a desk job for at the most 8 hours a day with my 30 hour a week job while he generally averages at least twice that every week. Yet he continues to work late hours into the night to provide for us and our future. I am beyond proud of him and just want the world to know that everyday I consider myself to be the lucky one to have him come home to me. I love you William!!

A Few Cultural Events

2010-08-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

My apologies for my sporadic blogging- having a 30 hour a week job in an office has required some adjustment :-) But, I still have been attending some cultural events over the past two months.

Chris Botti and the San Francisco Symphony: On Thursday, June 3rd I attended a San Francisco Symphony performance highlighting the AMAZING trumpet player Chris Botti. My friends Melba and Jacosa introduced me to him while living in Boston and so I have enjoyed listening to his music so I jumped at the chance to hear him live. And it was SO WORTH it. The man is truly a genius with the trumpet- and he actually shared some personal details about his life. He said that he was only a few weeks away from graduating from college when he received a call asking him to play with FRANK SINATRA. Talk about an opportunity of a lifetime and so he took it and his career has skyrocketed since then. I definitely want to see his concert that he recorded with the Boston Pops after he mentioned it several times.

In the Heights: This Tony award winning musical came to San Francisco at the beginning of June and I absolutely loved it. They showed a segment from the show on "So You Think You Can Dance" and that excerpt did not do the show justice. I think of it as kind of a modern day West Side Story with incredible hip hop dancing. The male lead also did some incredible rapping- so talented. I highly recommend this piece.

Adventures in Oz: One of the girls in my primary class, Karenna, invited me to see her in her elementary school production of an original play called "Adventures in Oz." This is an after-school club that each kid pays money to be a part of and I was entirely BLOWN AWAY by the quality of this production. Amazing costumes, great AV equipment including body mics for the kids, different sets, lighting, etc. They combined the best aspects and songs from the original Wizard of Oz, the Wiz, and Wicked into this unique creation that the kids really seemed to enjoy performing in. I was just impressed of this scale of production for an elementary school.

Shanghi Exhibit: I also attended the special exhibit on Shanghi at the Asian Museum of Art in San Francisco. I went on a Thursday night when the museum is open late and admission to the exhibit it only $10. The exhibit focused on art from the late 1800s until the present time. I greatly enjoyed how several artists were able to incorporate traditional Chinese painting techniques and blend them with a modern flair. They had several installations, one in the main atrium, showing how Shanghi art is coming into its own element. I also learned about how their art went through a censorship period where it utilized the Socialist propaganda during the reign of Mao. It was a fascinating exhibit that was made even more so by my being able to catch on to one of the guided tours. For the modern art pieces, you really need a guide- particularly this one who had actually met and talked with some of the artists about the motivations and inspirations behind their pieces. Now I want to go to Shanghai . . .

Young Frankenstein: I also went and saw the Mel Brook's musical "Young Frankenstein". I saw Producers when it was on Broadway and it is one of the most hilarious things I have ever seen. I laughed so hard that tears came out of my eyes. I had those same expectations of this musical and they were not met. It was funny, but definitely not on the same level as the Producers. Seeing Frankenstein dance to "Putting on the Ritz" was a classic moment of the show. I did enjoy my amazing seats on row E for $50 plus fees (I am a huge fan of the last minute theater deals on Travelzoo).

Japanese Odon Festival: Ironically, while William was on business in Japan, I attended a small Odon festival that was being held at the Buddhist temple at the end of our street. I feel bad that I had never noticed the temple before the festival, mainly since it is set back away from the street. My favorite part of the festival was catching the live taiko drum performance. This group was amazing and they were predominately women-truly the highlight of the festival for me.

The festival also has a room of Ikebana, bonzai, doll making, and interesting rock formations. There were food booths with sushi but also Western food like polish sausages and fries. They also had a huge tent where there was some intense Bingo going on- some of the people had several cards all around them competing for some good prizes. They also had more of a carnival for the kids with games like dime toss, fishing for goldfish that you could take home, ring toss, and other games to win prizes. It was fun for me to walk around and get a taste for the culture that William was currently involved in.

I feel so lucky to so close to be able to experience such great cultural events and to not have to deal with the freezing temperatures of San Francisco on a daily basis :-)

Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site

2010-07-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

I have only read one of Eugene O'Neill's plays- "A Long Days Journey into Night"- but I was still interested in viewing the home where he wrote this seminal work. It is free to view, but you generally have to have reservations except on Saturdays during the summer. I was glad that I had extensively checked the directions on the website because it is very different from most National Parks. You cannot just drive up to the house because the house is located along a small, private road with other houses in Danville, CA so you have to meet at the San Ramon Valley Museum where a shuttle will take you the site. On Saturdays during the Summer, the shuttle leaves at 10, 12, and 2. I went to the 2 pm group and I was one of only 3 people which was nice because we were able to ask the rangers stationed throughout the home about some specifics rather than just having the self-guided brochure tour. The park ranger driving the bus was this sweet old man who would provide narration about the history of the town as we drown to the site. He said that Danville is known for 3 things: Eugene O'Neill, the restaurant where the choking scene was filmed in Mrs. Doubtfire, and Captain Sully who landed the plane onto the Hudson River.

The O'Neill home sits on a hillside with a great view of the valley and Mount Tam.

This winding path to the house was purposefully constructed to emulate the Chinese proverb "Evil moves only in a straight line." It is only fitting that they called the house the "Tao House"

O'Neill LOVED the water and so he chose this particular location so that he could swim year round in this pool. Everyday he would go out for a swim at 1 pm after he had spent the morning writing.

There are still several barns- one in which they perform some of his plays every year. They have kept a more rustic feel to the grounds.

The O'Neill's had a dalmatian dog named "Silverdene Emblem" but they primarily called him "Blemie." As I know from experience, pets can literally become another member of the family. They buried their beloved Blemie out in the yard, under the shade of a large tree.

I love the epitaph of "Sleep in Peace, Faithful Friend"

Near the grave site, they had a panel touting the "Last Will and Testament of Silverdene Emblem O'Neill" (obviously written by O'Neill in the voice of Blemie). I was actually so touched by what was written here as I can relate with our beloved Spankie growing older as well.

I did not know very much about the life of O'Neill and so I was struck by just how much of his life was like the tragedies his works attempted to capture. His father was an actor and his mother was addicted to morphine so he had a very rough childhood. He tried to commit suicide while in his 20s and had several failed marriages (his 3rd time was the charm). He also had 3 kids- two boys and girl- and both boys ultimately committed suicide in their adulthood (his daughter married Charlie Chaplin and had like seven kids so she was ok). Long Day's Journey into Night is VERY autobiographical- he reportedly would just cry at his desk while he wrote it. He had said that it was not to be published until 25 years after his death but his wife released it after 3 (his 3rd wife Carlotta with whom he lived in the Tao House had her own way of running things as she had the bedroom with the best view even though she had bad eyesight, probably due to her having to interpret Eugene's handwriting. As he got older, his handwriting became smaller and shakier- they had a sample of it and I could not decipher most words, even with the help of a magnifying glass). Eugene was only able to write with a pen and paper according to his own literary process and so as his disease worsened, he ultimately was unable to write. O'Neill had his own library where he had 2 desks where he would work on two plays simultaneously, with one manuscript on each desk. I loved that he could just wheel back and forth between them. He owned an amazing 8,000 books which he kept in his home- a man after my own heart, though I am no where near that amount (but I have no idea just how many I do have between my apartment and even more at my parents house). Eugene won several Pulitzer Prizes and a Nobel Prize for Literature. At the house, they have a copy of his Nobel which was specially designed to capture his works. After going to the site, I definitely want to read some more of his works since I have an even better understanding about the man who created them.

Genghis Khan: The Exhibition

2010-07-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

William and I went to Genghis Khan: The Exhibit at the Tech Museum of San Jose on Saturday. We were hoping that it would be as good as the Leonardo exhibit they had awhile ago and it was amazing and definitely worth the steep admission price ($25 which does get you also into the Tech's permanent exhibits but not IMAX). William and I learned SO much and are shocked that Genghis Khan was not more of a prominent figure of study at school. While Ghengis Khan was alive, he expanded his kingdom to be TWICE the size of the Roman Empire, even taking over Beijing. And under the reign of his grandson, Kublaihi Khan, the empire expanded to FOUR times the size of the Roman Empire. We both had NO idea that his empire had grown that large. And that he literally left his genetic mark upon the world as 1.5% of Westerners have his DNA. The exhibit was slightly on the more favorable portrayal of Genghis Khan but they did at least mention about many of his harsh tactics and punishments.

Chinngis, as he is referred to in Mongolia, was the son of a local tribe leader, although his mother was not the primary wife. His father was murdered when he was 9 years old and the tribe forced out his mother and her children. This affected Chinngis so that we he did begin his conquests, he initially based his appointments upon merit and achievement, not kinship (although he broke this later on in his life when he split his kingdom up between his sons). They mentioned that he killed his step-brother but never indicated why. He spent most of his life living in a yurt- or a ger as they termed it- continually moving around, fighting battles. He had no main capital during his lifetime. As he traveled, he carried these two banners of yak hair- one with white representing peace and the black other representing war.

The exhibit had quotes placed throughout the exhibition, some that were surprising to think that they came from Ghengis Khan and others, like the one below, captured my overall conception of him.

"I am the wrath of God . . . if you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you."

YIKES is all that I have to say! And I would have been terrified to go into battle with these guys. They mastered warfare on horseback- being able to shoot behind them with their bow and arrows. Even while they and their horses were wearing armor.

They specially crafted their bows so that they would shoot 100 yards farther than the Europeans could at the time. We were able to see a bow- and try pulling it pull it back (we didn't try) and they didn't release it either :-)

The gentleman that you see in the photo actually created this beautiful red mask featured below

He also made 107 other masks, and he demonstrated his old man mask with a traditional dance. He is one of the organizers of the exhibit and he and his two children now live in Washington D.C. His son and daughter attend a Mongolian school on Saturdays where they learn traditional dances, language, and other aspects of their culture. They are here in the area for the summer where he and his children perform every hour from 1-6 pm at the exhibit to help bring the culture to life. And they definitely did that- the little girl was adorable in her fancy costumes and the elder brother that has some great dancing abilities.

Some of the other notable aspects of Chinngis was that he allowed for complete religious freedom throughout the empire and created golden passports. We are glad that we were able to learn more about this pivotal figure in history and glad that people are trying to bring knowledge and understanding about his empire.

Sarah's Masters Graduation

2010-07-12T22:45:00.000-07:00

We attended Sarah's graduation ceremonies at the Viejas arena on campus. The ceremony itself was nearly 3 hours long so William and Cynthia were happy they had brought books. The graduates proceeded into the area and then were each individually called up to the stage where they received their hoods. Below you see the vast number of graduates

Our photo session was pretty short because it was incredibly windy and chilly for mid May in San Diego, but we did manage to get a few great shots of the graduate.

The graduate with her proud parents

and proud sister and brother-in-law

We loved the cookies they gave us in these festive bags

Congratulations Sarah! We are so proud of you and are THRILLED that you will soon be living in the bay area teaching dance at a San Jose middle school!!

Mormon Battalion Visitors Center and Old Town San Diego

2010-07-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

So, this happened nearly two months ago . . . I'm definitely way behind on my blogging (and we haven't really even begun to tackle the Japan photos).

My youngest sister Sarah graduated with her masters degree in Education from San Diego State University on May 23rd. Our whole family (minus Spankie) was able to fly out for her graduation and we were able to take in some of the sites of San Diego that I had not been to- Old Town. We first went to the newly renovated Mormon Battalion Visitors Center which was extremely well done. They have incorporated a large amount of multi-media such as talking photographs, videos, and we were even allowed to be honorary members of the battalion!

Cynthia was able to "get her gun"

And William was completely outfitted for the trek

I think that he looks just like the soldier

We were all also able to pan for gold- William mastered the shake technique

While Cynthia and my mom had incredible eyes for finding the gold

Sarah managed to strike it rich-

just look at that huge piece she found!

They did an incredible job of bringing the experience of these faithful Saints to life.

We then walked around Old Town San Diego which has an "old time" charm to it :-) We decided that it wasn't worth the $10 per person to go inside this "haunted" house so I just took a photo of the outside (doesn't look that haunted to me)

The first location of Wells Fargo Bank

The courthouse where they have a metal cell out in the back that I would not want to be stuck in

I absolutely LOVED this church- definitely my favorite building in the area.

We ate dinner at Guadalajara's restaurant that evening and it was some of the BEST Mexican food I have had in a long time. The wait was painful (not to mention they forgot to buzz us when our table was ready) but the it was totally worth it for the food. Not too spicy, just tasty. I loved my chicken chimichanga enchilada style- it reminded me of the ones I would get at the Blue Iguana. William was kind enough to take a photo of the "original" Stults family while we were waiting outside

My Brush with the Creators of an Internet Phenomenon

2010-07-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

So, I knew that our trip to Florida was going to be FABULOUS after our red-eye flight there. William and I were seated in the same row but were both in window seats and there were only couples seated next to us but I totally hit the jackpot with the couple I sat next to. I immediately bonded with Jen who was sitting next to me as we talked for 45 minutes straight about the wonders of Disney. They had just finished up several days at Disneyland and California Adventure and were returning back home to Orlando where they have season passes to the parks. We talked about the Disney Cruise line (I've been once), I told them about Tokyo Disney and Tokyo Disney Sea, as well as Disneyland Paris, and they informed me about all of the things that I still didn't know despite my countless trips to Disneyland. They have dozens of the souvenir penny machines all throughout the park- I had only seen one or two previously- but Jen produced a huge list of all of the locations of them throughout the park and which characters were featured. You learn something new every day :-) Her and her husband John also raved about their favorite restaurant at Disney World- Boma- which is at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. They told me to email them if we were going- which we did at the last minute- and I still feel TERRIBLE for not alerting them (this just means that there will be a next time to make up for it :-)

After expounding upon all of the wonders of Disney, they had told me that they had come to California for a book tour. A book tour- that is pretty sweet! I asked what their book was about and Jen replied that she and her husband write this blog and the book is based off of their blog. I asked what the blog was and to my utter delight she said "Oh, just a little blog, I'm not sure if you have heard of it, it's called CAKE WRECKS." Of COURSE I have heard of cake wrecks! I was big into cake decorating in high school and college and so it was natural that I become a loyal devotee. I have been following their for over a year and I was thrilled to see that John was ok after having to cancel part of their tour due to his getting pneumonia. I was so starstruck meeting them. I was so happy to be able to tell them in person just how HILARIOUS their blog is and just how much I look forward to their posts. She told me that they have been shocked at the success of their blog (I'm not shocked because it truly is a brilliant concept that is well executed and funny) and how the blog and book have now become their full time jobs. They are truly some of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I have ever met and I still feel honored to have been lucky enough to have been able to talk with them for several hours. If you have not been to their blog yet, GO IMMEDIATELY and I know that it will instantly become one of your favorites. Jen also let me know about her other blog called "Epbot" which features many of her in-depth posts about Disney and their other miscellaneous adventures.

Wreck On Jen and John! And thanks for being so great to a star-struck fan!!

Fourth of July Weekend with Friends

2010-07-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

William and I were so lucky to be able to spend several days at the home of my dear friends Lianne and Adam. They have a HUGE and BEAUTIFUL home and were such gracious hosts. Lianne made the most incredible pulled pork for Sunday dinner (you should put the recipe up on your blog) and Adam put on a little fireworks show for us. Sunday the 4th was pretty low key as we recuperated from our overnight red eye flight followed by all day at Universal. Hooray for Sunday naps to rejuvenate. We played Candy Land with Clara and Ian (Ian won twice!) but Clara had much more fun making up her own game of guessing which card was the special characters. We also were introduced to the adorable world of Veggie Tales- "That hurt like the Dickens" as well as both Clara and Ian dancing for us to the music on their electronic piano. We watched fireworks from the screened in porch of their house- I miraculously only got 1 bug bite the whole time we were there (a miracle for me) as many of their neighbors presented incredible displays over the lake behind their house. We also watched the firework show on tv from Boston, bringing back all of the wonderful memories that I had over the several years I was there, making me nostalgic at going back. (Though I still do want to experience the 4th in DC someday).

Tuesday was another low key day spent by sleeping in and going to Chik-fil-a (our nearest one is in Fairfield an hour and a half away). Later that evening, while waiting at the Orlando airport, we saw that they had another Chik-fil-a and so of course we had to go there again for dinner as it is just that good. On our layover in Atlanta, they had another Chik-fil-a (welcome to the South!) and I told William that Chik-fil-a twice in one day was good, but 3 times is a gross out and that I just couldn't do it, but he could if he wanted to (he didn't :-)

It was so great to be able to have so much time to just talk and catch up with these dear friends of mine, as well as to be able to watch So You Think You Can Dance with Lianne and analyze it with her (p.s. we are DEVASTATED about Alex getting hurt and being out of the competition- he truly is the best dancer I have ever seen on the show :-( Thanks for the memories and for being such amazing hosts- including Lianne picking us up at 5:15 am!! Now that is a true friend :-)

Disney's Animal Kingdom

2010-07-11T22:10:00.000-07:00

On Monday July 5th, we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom since William had never been and it had been awhile since I had gone. We absolutely LOVED it as well. We truly lucked out with the weather during our visit because although it rained both days at the park, I didn't mind at all since it made the temperature only in the mid 80s instead of the normal sweltering wet heat that I remember from when I was last at Disney World with my family in August. I just remember that we were almost about to pass out from the stifling heat while waiting for the Little Mermaid show- my dad always brings up this story when we talk about our trip. The weather was totally bearable which made us enjoy our trip even more.

Another hilarious moment was even before we arrived inside the park. Adam and Lianne are season pass holders at Disney and so they had told us that they have the worst luck with parking in that they are ALWAYS at the end of every row. Well, it looked like we were going to break that streak but at the last minute, they sent us to the end of the a new row and Adam yells out a "Noooooooo" and shook his fist into the air. We had hilarious workers while at Disney. Our first tram driver kept telling everyone to "Sit back down" and "Wait for it, wait for it WAIT FOR IT" before leaving the tram. I brought a bunch of starbursts with me so that we could get a needed sugar rush if we were waiting in long lines. The guard who checked my bag upon entering said "Got enough Starbursts there" and I laughed and said he could have one if he wanted to which he politely declined. Then, on the tram back to the parking lot, we had another HILARIOUS commentator. As we went around this corner at a whopping 5 miles an hour, the guy calls out "Feel those G's people, Feel the G's." I have to say that Disney really does have the BEST staff who always give you the best treatment.

We were lucky enough to go on Expedition to Everest, the only real high speed roller coaster, at the park 3 times as we only waited in line a maximum of 20 minutes (usually less). This ride was so fun as you end up going backwards through the tunnels as you try and escape the Yeti. Their Dinosaur ride is ok- its more like Indiana Jones but not quite as good, but what I really LOVED was their stage shows. They had this stage show called "Finding Nemo- The Musical" which was super adorable. I was impressed that the actors were singing LIVE while doing the puppetry. The cast even runs throughout the theater- it was just very well done. I also loved the "Festival of the Lion King" show where they had incredible dancers and singers, as well as an aerialist and a guy spinning fire. The "Flights of Wonder" show was also fun as they used live birds, one of whom had a rebellion and refused to go back through the correct door, stalling the show for a good few minutes. I just love how Disney makes everything they do top quality.

The parade was ok- we basically just tried to "walk by it" on our way to another attraction, which is difficult with all of the strollers blocking the walkways. Our favorite part was this girl who was lucky enough to have been chosen to ride on a float and was sound asleep!! Her dad was even trying to wake her up. Here's an example of what the floats looked like

The safari was amazing as we were able to see a large number of animals close up- elephants, a baby giraffe, rinos, and many more. But what I really enjoyed was these animal trails they had throughout the park where it was more like a zoo. We saw the most ADORABLE baby gorilla cuddled up to its mama (I wish I would have taken a photo but there were way too many people around) and then we saw this gorilla who came near to us and even climbed up a waterfall, like a scene out of a movie.

William and I were also fascinated by these giant bats, as shown in the photo below. They have a ginormous wingspan and we have no idea how he didn't over stretch and break through his wings as they do seem to be almost translucent.

Don't wait in a long line for the raft ride- it is SUPER short and we were so glad that we had a fast pass for it and did not wait in the 75 minute long line. The ride was temporarily stopped just as we had gotten on and so one of the workers was asking one of the other people in the raft what their favorite park at Disney World. The man replied "Harry Potter" which is not part of Disney. William and I lucked out in that we did not get super wet on this ride.

We also had amazing food while at Animal Kingdom. We introduced Adam and Lianne to the wonders of the Rainforest Cafe (they had never been there before). I unfortunately was not able to take a good photo of William drinking water from the elephant

Later that night, we headed over to the Animal Kingdom Lodge where we at their buffet called "Boma" which was incredible as well. It came with extremely high recommendations from friends I had made on the flight to Florida and it definitely lived up to their raves. We were able to try some African dishes as well as traditional favorites. I liked the peanut soup, the mustard pasta salad, and their different types of hummus. We had yet another super fun day and many thanks to Lianne's parents for watching the little ones on both days so that we could maximize our time at the parks.

Universal Island of Adventure and Studios Florida

2010-07-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

It was very crowded at both Universal Island of Adventure (IOA) and Universal Studios so I was very happy that we spent the extra money and got the Express passes. Basically, the Express pass is true capitalism at its finest. You pay extra money to be able to have 1 fast pass on the vast majority of the rides. And since we went on Saturday, July 3rd, it definitely made sense because we otherwise would have been waiting in lines for an hour to an hour and a half for some of the rides. We also got the Park Hopper, although we spent most of our time at IOA, I was happy we got it for the Simpsons ride.

IOA was my favorite, although I don't think that it is as kid friendly with the rides as Disneyland. Most of the rides are high speed roller-coasters so you would have to do Child Swap for most of the rides. Dr. Suess Land was really clever and was the most child friendly with a little train ride, carousel, and walking through the world of the Lorax. I had to take this photo for my sister Sarah as she called the dorms she used to live in "Chappy"

I loved the scenery around the Lost Continent area of the park (although we really didn't view any of the attractions there since they were not major rides)

The overall goal of these theme parks is to get you WET. We were SOAKED on the Jurassic Park ride and it seemed that nearly every ride involved squirting you with water. I loved this photo of "Welcome to Jurassic Park" and Hogwarts now being invaded by dinosaurs :-)

One of the funniest moments of the trip occurred when we were on the Simpsons ride. This ride was one of the most fun and entertaining, and even better when riding it with William. At one point, the ride had us crash down into water and we didn't get wet and so William comments "Finally, one ride where we don't get wet". Literally, immediately after he said that, we were all sprayed with water. The comedic timing was so perfect- just like out of a movie. Poor Adam missed the comment being on the end but Lianne and I could not stop laughing throughout the rest of the movie.

Some of my other favorite rides were the "5 . . 4. . . 321" of Dr. Doom's Fearfall, Spiderman, Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls (it had one of the most surprising and fun drops I've ever been on for a log ride), and The Mummy. We were sad that we were not able to go on Rip Ride Rocket as it BROKE DOWN just before we were going to go on it and only shortly before closing the park. It was fun to be able to go on some more intense roller coasters, although Disney is still my overall favorite. We ate at this Irish pub that had the most amazing appetizer of shoestring potatoes AND onions combined- it was a real winner- and I liked my leek and potato soup.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

2010-07-11T21:15:00.000-07:00

Now, I am a HUGE Disney fan but I have to admit that "the Wizarding World of Harry Potter" was incredible. I loved reading the books and it was amazing to be able to actually feel like I was participating in that world. It truly was so amazing and I am thrilled that William and I were able to enjoy it with Lianne and Adam who are also huge Harry Potter fans. The 3 of us had gone with some of our other friends to see the 1st movie when it came out back while we were in college so it was incredible to go there several years later.

Hogsmeade was amazing- I truly felt like I was in one of the Harry Potter books. The entrance to the village had this sign we had to walk under- "Please Respect the Spell Limits".

I was completely in love with the rooftops, complete with bent chimneys.

I loved the steam that came from the Hogwarts Express (it would have been much neater if we could have ridden the train into the village)

The place was extremely crowded but we were still able to do nearly everything, except going to Ollivanders (the line was over an hour and a half long and they only let a few people in at a time so we made the choice to not wait).

Hogwarts castle was truly breathtaking- and the "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" ride was THE BEST.

We were lucky enough to be able to go on it twice. We went when we first got to the park and we we didn't wait in line very long- probably about 20 minutes- since we were able to do single rider. They had told us that it would be less crowded in the afternoon and so we went back and it wasn't. We only waited 45 minutes for the 2nd ride and it was worth it to stand in the line because they made the portraits talk, it snowed inside the line, and we got to hear from Dumbledore and hear from the sorting hat. We timed it just right because right after we got into the line, it started pouring and we were fortunately under the cover of the greenhouse. The ride itself was AMAZING. It is a combination of visual screen shots and live animatronics that you fly through- playing a match of Quiddich, and all around the castle. It was SO WORTH IT. I highly recommend that you attend.

We then went on the little- and short- ride Flight of the Hippogriff (which was ok, but we were happy we didn't wait longer than 5 minutes in line). We LOVED the Dueling Dragons ride- they have 2 major roller coasters that twist in and out of each other. The Red Chinese dragon one was better- but the blue one was fun because you thought that you were going to crash into this wall.

We ate at the Three Broomsticks- they had DELICIOUS fish and chips- and William had chicken, ribs, and corn (I loved how they left part of the husk on). One of my favorite memories is Adam looking at all of us and saying "Did you ever think that we would be able to eat at the Three Broomsticks"- it really was so fun to be there.

But the real winner was the BUTTERBEER. They had two different kinds- the drink with lots of foam (here I am with a butter beer mustache)

But the frozen butter beer was INCREDIBLE- so good. William and I were a little obsessed with it- we consumed 3 of them throughout the day. And after getting home, William searched the Internet and found a "recipe" stating that it was made of cream soda and butterscotch syrup and we have already made a frozen version in our Cuisinart ice cream maker- just a slush- and it was a good substitute, although we omitted the whipped cream foam.

They also had Honeydukes where you could buy some fudge flies

Bertie Botts Every-flavor Beans, chocolate wands, and even chocolate frogs

I should have tried the treacle fudge but I was just too full from all of the butter beer. They also had Zonks where you could buy a multitude of silly joke toys that Fred and George would be proud of, and another shop where you could buy a stuffed version of Fluffy and a sample Maruders Map that had characters move. I also liked that they called their ATM Gringotts.

They did an amazing job of re-creating Harry Potter's world and it really was so worth it- I highly recommend going if you are a Harry Potter fan.

Sarah's Visit

2010-06-27T23:49:00.000-07:00

My sister Sarah and I were supposed to go to the U2 concert in Oakland on June 16th and she had already booked her flight out when we heard the terrible news that Bono had major back surgery, postponing ALL of the North American tour. (I am SO glad that I took the opportunity to go see them in Las Vegas back in Oct when I had the chance). So, we made the most of her 2 day visit. I rearranged my schedule to have the day off and we experienced some of the treasures of the Bay area.

I picked her up from the airport and we then drove to Sprinkles where I had my first key lime cupcake of the season (they are having them DAILY all summer!!) and she had a red velvet. She thought they were ok, but she wasn't raving about them like I was. We then drove up to the De Young Museum where we saw their special exhibit "Birth of Impressionism" with 100 masterworks from the Musee D'Orsay in Paris. It was a good exhibit- and really crowded for a Tuesday afternoon, showing the high quality of the art. I loved that the exhibit showcased a few of the pieces that occurred before Impressionists such as Millet, one outside of his typical genre of painting farm laborers called "Spring, 1868-1873". I loved that they had a portrait of many of the great artists of the time who met together- Manet, Monet, Degas, and several others. They had numerous Monets, but my new favorite was one entitled "Rue Montorgueil, Paris, Festival of June 30" where you see the celebration of the people through numerous French flags. They also had Whistler's Mother, which I still do not really understand why it is such a famous and iconic painting. And Gustave Caillebotte's "Floor Scrapers" which captures the beauty of hard labor. The exhibit also taught me some new things like the term "Impressionist" actually came from one of Monet's paintings that was entitled "Impression". I had always thought that the name impressionists came from the fact that they captured moments in time, reflecting their impressions. This is definitely true but it was neat to learn that Monet's works provided the title to this monumental art movement. After the exhibit, we watched this special documentary about the lives of the major impressionist artists- Monet, Manet, Degas (who was apparently so sketchy that most of the writings about him were destroyed), and Renoir. It was a well done production but long- we spent about 40 minutes watching it and weren't able to finish before the museum closed. They went up to Giverney and walked around the gardens and it made me really want to go. My friend Lauren and I tried to go while we were in Paris but it didn't work out but we were able to go instead to Disneyland Paris which redeemed our visit. One funny moment from the documentary was that they had close captioning. One of the curators of the D'Orsay was talking about how one of Renoir's paintings caused such an uproar because it looked like the girl had grease stains on her dress. Well, the close captioning wrote it as "Greece stains" and my sister Sarah and I burst out laughing. Luckily, no one else was in there at the time but it is now one of our favorite jokes.

We then went and saw Peter Pan at the 360 degree theater. It was a beautiful day down by the ferry building- clear blue skies, a rarity for SF in the summer.

We had gotten to the theater early and so we toured the special exhibit that they had celebrating 100 years of Peter Pan. It was slightly morbid as they discussed the untimely deaths of several of the people associated with the Peter Pan story (one of the kids who formed the basis for the Darling children and then the 1st Disney cartoon voice of Peter Pan). The production itself was good- we were slightly sad thought that it wasn't the musical version, just the stage play. The whole time I had the musical songs in my head like "I Won't Grow Up" and "Ugawugawigwam". The staging was incredible with the computer graphics all along the top of the tent- the best was when they were flying over London and past all of the great monuments. It made me want to go back. We were REALLY disappointed by Tink- she was super annoying and looked like some grunge punk fairy. The other characters were quite good. And I managed to sit through this entire performance. When we told my dad that we had gone, he reminded me of the time when I was about 2 years old and they had re-released Disney's Peter Pan into theaters. It is one of his all time favorites and so he took me to a showing over at the Murray Theater. He got me popcorn and a drink and I finished them and then proceeded to put up all of the seats in the 2 rows next to us. It was only 20 minutes into the movie and I announced to my dad that I was done and it was time to go. He tried to protest and reason with me to stay but I just marched on out the door. He really wanted to see it so he took me again and he brought my mom because he thought that I might stay longer if she was there. Nope- I did the exact same thing of eating my popcorn and drink finalized by putting up the seats and then forcing my parents to go. hehe- and to think that I now love plays and movies.

Sarah and I then went to one of the restaurants of Top Chef Master Hubert Keller. Its called the Burger Bar and it is located on the 6th floor of Macy's overlooking Union Square. We got a table right next to the window over this view of the square (not very crowded for a Tuesday night).

And the food did not disappoint. I got a combination of 3 different types of sliders: one was buffalo meat, another was Angus, and the third was country natural beef. They were all AMAZING. Sarah got just a buffalo burger and she loved it. We shared some sweet potato fries which were great as well. But the real outstanding part was the Chocolate Burger.

Here it is in all of its glory- and the mouse seemed kind of a random touch. The chocolate mousse filling was layered with strawberries inside of a donut (much better than Krispy Kreme). It was so amazing. They also had a Cheesecake Burger that we wanted to try but were too full but I will definitely be trying that because it was so so good.

On Wed, I made Sarah some pumpkin waffles and we then headed up to the Presidio to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum. This was a must since we are both HUGE Disney fans and it was a great museum. It is a very large and detailed museum- we were there for over 3 hours and were rushing through the last few rooms. They had a special exhibit about Peter Pan in the basement where they had some of the original drawings and script, so appropriate after our seeing the play the night before. We were able to see his special Academy award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that had 7 mini statuettes alongside of the main one. It was truly fascinating to learn more about this man's life. His Aunt encouraged him to pursue his artistic talents and I am sure glad that he did. His early career was wrought with several failures. His first animation business failed and then he lost the rights to his main character, Oswald the rabbit (I had not heard of this character before the museum). But, he continued to follow his passion of creating animated art and ultimately went on to become one of the most successful movie makers of all time. The museum also showed pictures of life with his family as well as audio excerpts from colleagues and friends who remarked about Walt's experiences throughout his life. Sarah and I both remarked that it made us want to go back to Disneyland and watch all of the movies. We very highly recommend the museum to true Disney fans.

We then went to Google for dinner and wrapped up the evening by watching "So You Think You Can Dance" and playing Mario Kart on our new 46' tv :-)

I'm sorry that we weren't able to see Bono but I hope that you still had fun- I sure did!! We love having you and you are welcome back anytime ;-)

Memories of Grandma C

2010-06-27T23:02:00.000-07:00

I truly have so many fond memories of my "Grandma C" as we referred to her. And most of them involve food so get ready for an extensive list :-)

- every holiday/event had a specific menu attached with it-
- when my cousins the Greenwoods came, we always had lasagne
- Thanksgiving was always turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams with pecans, pumpkin pie
- Christmas was always ham and funeral potatoes, along with the special 3 layer red, white, and green jello salad served on a piece of iceberg lettuce
- Easter was also ham and funeral potatoes
- general conference Sundays and other occasions were a roast with mashed potatoes and gravy
- Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day were all barbecue steak with baked beans and fresh homemade peach ice cream (it is still one of my all time favorites)
- hot rolls: these are truly some of the best I have ever had. She would also do cheese onion rolls and cinnamon raisin with glaze
- chocolate raisin pudding with fresh whipped cream
- banana pineapple slush
- date bars
- homemade chocolate chip walnut cookies- she would always give us a few to take home
- clam chip dip- my dad LOVED this dip and so my grandmother was always super protective of it to make sure that we didn't eat all of it when my dad was working late at the hospital
- we each received our own homemade gingerbread man with green frosting and sprinkles after every Thanksgiving dinner. We usually only waited a few hours before devouring it

My grandmother expressed her love for us through food. I know that she felt there was no better way to bond as a family than over a good, usually home cooked, meal. She loved a good deal and would buy the dented cans at Hubert's grocery store and then at Food World. My grandmother was so kind and always allowed me to bring several of my friends to Thanksgiving or other holidays.

Here are some partially non-food related memories.
- playing "Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar"
- playing "the Hershey bar game" where we wrapped up hershey bars and then had to unwrap them with a knife and fork while being pressured to have it taken away by dice rolling cousins and aunts (7,11 or doubles made you lucky). Several people were knocked off their chairs during this game
- croquet- she loved to have us set up the wickets
- the summer sled, this sled that had wheels attached to it so we could ride around on it in good weather.
- 3001- the address of the house and farm where my grandparents spent most of their life. They had a barn, old cars, a ditch, and a huge field where we would have my Uncle Dana pull us with his truck on a winter sled.
- their dogs Oggie and Blondie. Blondie had puppies and I especially loved one that I called "Bean"
- watching films (the old school ones) of my mom and aunts/uncles playing in the haystack as kids
- my grandma and grandpa coming with us to Disneyland. We went to the freezing cold ice pool, I was so thirsty that I wanted a drink and my grandmother was drinking V8 and I had my first and last taste of it (it really is not a thirst quencher), my grandfather telling my sister Cynthia to stand tall so that we could all ride on Big Thunder together
- several times a year in the summers going to Standard Oil pool where they had 2 pools- a kiddie pool and a big pool with a slide. Afterwards, we ALWAYS went to Crown Burger and got Orange Bangs (until they got rid of them)
- my cousin Clint's blessing where my grandfather accidentally got his name wrong- "Clinton GEORGE" and my grandmother lets out an "Oh Geeze"
- watching a Miss America pageant where my grandmother commented that they were all "plain Jane's" and that she was much better looking than they were
- her helping me plan my wedding by suggesting that we have the dinner at Grand America and then get the flowers from Mildred's (which we did and they were lovely)
- her "saving her strength" in the later years to go to Grand America for her birthday lunch and then the Marriott for Thanksgiving
- going sometimes with my mom to visit Grandma on Sundays at 4:30
- our last in person visit after her birthday and Christmas this year, it was obvious she was starting to slip mentally. I had given her pictures of me in my regalia from my dissertation graduation and she had to ask 3 times who the girl in the picture was. I replied that it was me and on the third time she asked "Whose this dumb girl" and then I replied it was me and then she told me that I was "old". So our family joke is now I am the "that old, dumb girl". I know that my grandmother loved me so much and that this was not her fault, just one of the sad (but funny parts) about aging. My sister Sarah proclaims that my grandmother was still there mentally as on this same visit, she said that Sarah was "the beautiful one" (which is true :-)

I am smiling as I write this because I truly feel so incredibly blessed that I was lucky enough to have a grandmother this amazing. She literally devoted her entire life to making her family happy and serving them in every way. I hope to live my life so that I can honor this legacy she has begun. I love you Grandma.

Carol Margaret Latimer Child 1924-2010

2010-06-19T16:19:00.000-07:00

On the evening of Thursday, June 10th, I received a phone call from my mom, who was crying, and told me that my grandmother was in the hospital and that things were not looking good for her. She had an infection and was going downhill fairly rapidly and they didn't think she would live much longer. My grandmother was lucid enough that night to be able to have a conversation with me over the phone. I am so grateful for that opportunity that I had to tell her that I loved her and how grateful I was for all of the service she has given to our family over the years. I expressed how much it meant to me to have her at my wedding and all of the great times we spent at Grand America. I truly feel so blessed to have been able to have this opportunity to have closure. She hung on until Sunday afternoon, June 13, when Cousin Dave, her nephew, was able to come and spend a few hours with her before she died. I was also fortunate enough that the funeral was on Saturday, June 19th, so I was able to fly back to Utah to spend that time with my family and honor my grandmother.

I really tried to make the day one of a celebration of the life of my beloved grandmother rather than one of sadness because she had lived a full and amazing life. She made her goal of getting to her 85th birthday last December and she was ready to move on. I realized that she had been without my grandfather for 12 years- that is a long time- and he was in a bad mental state for years before that. I truly feel so blessed that I was able to have my grandmother as an integral part of my life for nearly 30 years.

I only shed a few tears at the funeral because I really did want it to be more of a celebration about her life. And I think it ultimately was as all of her children, grandchildren, and some great grandchildren were there.

I LOVE this picture of my grandmother when she was a young adult- isn't it fabulous! She totally looks like a model.

We had a table of photos and some of the needle work my grandmother did throughout her life

Close ups of the table

The linen on the right with the circle of flowers was the one my grandmother gave to me for my 16th birthday.

I loved this flower arrangement that had a ribbon attached saying "Beloved Grandmother" and one of our whole family portraits that was taken over 15 years ago.

We were so touched by all of the beautiful flower arrangements given in honor of my grandmother.

I also loved how the programs turned out.

We had several speakers- David Sollis, my eldest cousin Mark Robert Greenwood, my uncle Craig Child, and my aunt Cheryl Wilson. We also have some amazing musical talent and had several stellar numbers. My cousin Natalie and my aunt Carla did a violin and piano duet, my sister Cynthia sang while my mom accompanied her, and my cousins Amy and Laura did a piano duet. My grandmother sacrificed so much so that her children could take music lessons so it was so appropriate for us to have multiple music numbers.

As one of my cousins remarked after the funeral, they had never been to one where FOOD was the predominate topic mentioned by EVERYONE. My grandmother was the most amazing cook- she made EVERYTHING from scratch and so many of our family get togethers and memories centered upon food. I will do another post about all of the memories about my grandmother.

We then headed up to the Mount Olivet Cemetery where my grandmother now rests besides my grandfather. It was a beautiful day- so much so that even the deer came out to honor her.

All of 6 of her children-Cheryl, Connie, Carla, Bruce, Carl Dana, and Craig.

And the Stults family- Cheryl, Sarah, Barry, Connie, and Cynthia

And of course, a great meal followed. We went to Diamond Lils where I had one of the BEST steaks I have ever had. I'm not usually a steak person, but this was so unbelievably good. It was well seasoned, with a crisp crust and juicy on the inside. My dad even raved about the steak (he has lately been picky about restaurants so this is saying a lot). All of the 16 grandchildren- (back row right to left)-Natalie, Cynthia, Collin, Laura, Jason, Clint, Candace, Mark, Nick, Brandon, (front row right to left)- Amy, Sarah, Cheryl, and Kathryn.

I think that my grandmother was very happy with how the day turned out as we ended up at the dinner laughing and reminiscing as usual, a legacy born by my grandmother and continued in her honor.

3 Years Later . . .

2010-06-13T20:04:00.000-07:00

On May 19th, William and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary. We still celebrated that day even though it was on a Wednesday. I got William Final Fantasy 13 and he surprised me and got me the professional belgian waffle maker!! I have been wanting this for awhile (I'm kind of a snob when it comes to waffles and the industrial size ones really do have the best taste and texture) and so he bought it for me :-)

I highly recommend it- we have already made waffles 3 times. Truly a great surprise :-) That night we went out to Half Moon Bay and had dinner at Navio, the restaurant at the Ritz Carlton Half-Moon Bay. I highly recommend this restaurant- the view is unbeatable and the food is divine. It was raining the night that we went but it had pretty much cleared by the time we were seated. We were able to watch the sun slip away over the water, for which this photo does not capture its beauty

For an appetizer, we each had one of the most succulent sea scallops that I have ever had- it had a perfectly seared top along with the most perfect texture. I then had the most tender beef short rib that has been cooked for 48 hours and had the most flavorful jus covering it while William had the pork chop, which was also good. For dessert, we got the molten chocolate cake which was SUPER rich on its own but was perfect with a bite of fresh strawberry and whipped cream. We also got the blackberry crumble with sour cream ice cream. I was somewhat skeptical of the sour cream ice cream but it actually made for the perfect complement with the sweetness of the blackberries and was not too tart, but just had a slight tang to it.

These past 3 years have truly been the best years of my life and I am more in love with William than I was 3 years ago. I can't wait to see what other adventures we will have in the upcoming year.

Richard MacDonald

2010-06-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

I have one more post left to tackle from our trip to Las Vegas (and then MANY more still to go on the trip to Japan) but I could not let the opportunity pass to introduce you to an amazing sculptor, one that I now consider to have best captured the human body since Rodin. I was so happy that Matt and Brekke saw his exhibit first and then mandating that I go to it- it was so worth it. Richard MacDonald worked with Cirque du Soleil to produce a series of sculptures of the artists- and these are truly breathtaking. One gallery was displayed outside the O theater and then he also has another gallery at the shops outside of the Aria. These photos are from the exhibit outside the O Theater of some of his large scale works, he also has smaller cast versions.

He does a magnificent job of showcasing the beauty and power of the human body. They had a video playing of his artistic process and he has the actual Cirque performers come to his studio where they literally demonstrate their feats of strength and ability right before his eyes and sculpting hands. They repeat the positions multiple times as MacDonald captures the essence of their movements from every angle. Like most Rodin sculptures, photographs do not do justice to these incredible works of art- they must be experienced in person. I ended up buying a small catalog of the exhibit because there were so many incredible pieces. You can view a few of the highlights on his website as well as some of his other works. He is definitely one of my new favorites.

Feasting

2010-06-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

My life tends to go through phases of "feast"- where everything happens- or "famine," where nothing happens. The past month has been one of the "feast" periods as evidenced by my lack of posting. What a shift this has been since last summer and fall when I had NOTHING going on. For the past 4 weeks, I have been juggling 3 jobs: the research job I started back in November for which the final report was submitted this week, my teaching intro to sociology at Santa Clara University for which I turned in my final grades on Friday, and then starting my new research position at Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF). How my schedule worked was I would teach M,W,F and then hold office hours and then head straight to PAMF where I would work for 5 hours, come home and plan my lessons/grade and finish up my writing the report. Tuesday and Thursday I would work all day at PAMF and then come home and do lessons or writing. This left me with little time to do other things and so I apologize for neglecting the blog as well as commenting on other blogs. But, this week should be better since I am down to just 1, 30 hour per week job at PAMF. My sister Sarah is coming on Tuesday and leaving early on Thurs. morning and we will be doing some fun adventures around the city. We were *supposed* to go and see Bono and the rest of U2 on Wednesday night, but the poor man had major back surgery and had to cancel most of the North American tour. While I am sad about the postponement, I am so happy that I made the effort to go and see them in Las Vegas because it truly was such an unforgettable show. I will also elaborate on what else happened over the past month. Good to be back!

Nerd Night Out

2010-05-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

I love that William and I have completely embraced our nerdiness. Tonight we went to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair to see some of the projects done by high school students around the world. William, the brilliant genius that he is, actually WON the entire competition back in 1996 with "Making an Octet Library to Quicken DNA Sequencing." Here is he with his award winning presentation. Since the competition was being held in San Jose this year, William was able to volunteer his time to represent Google for a few hours on Monday. He took an hour to go see some of the presentations but that was no where near enough time so he brought me back tonight- Thursday night- since it was the day the public could visit. We were there for an hour and a half and we probably only saw less than 1/5th of the posters. None of the presenters were there for us to ask questions or see demos, which would have been super cool in some instances. We really wanted to see the robot who could solve a scrambled rubix cube in 45 seconds, a laptop that uses and stores power from when you type (GENIUS), and an electronic that floats on top of a water (like a water skeeter). We also learned that there are over 20 possible cures for cancers and that it is out of control how much access these kids have to high end technologies. Several of them were able to work with stem cells and MRIs- I definitely didn't have these opportunities when I was in high school! They have also upgraded the quality of the presentations- several had huge poster size professional banners that must have cost at least several hundred dollars to produce. One student had the brilliant idea of incorporating digital picture frames into the poster so that it would cycle through the findings so that they were easily readable from a distance. It was so interesting to see what projects are capturing the attention of high school students. The Google area was super cool too- they had one of the street view cars, a microwave where William melted CDs to show the power meter in terms of real time energy use (I think he just really enjoyed experimenting with non-traditional items :-), and the holladeck (a nearly 360 degree view of Google Earth in 3D). Yes, these are the types of things that we enjoy doing as a date :-) We love being nerds!! We like to think of ourselves as "cool nerds" though :-)

Go Kart Racing

2010-05-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

We went go kart racing while in Las Vegas at the Pole Position Raceway just a few blocks off the strip. It was my first time go kart racing and I'm not sure that I will be going for awhile. In the instructional video, they told us that if anyone forced us off the track, we would both not be allowed to finish the race. I was 2nd to last and I had been bumped several times throughout my first lap. Before I could even cross the finish line for my first of 12 laps, I was hit from behind so hard that I went underneath the plastic barriers. I had seen other people run into the side on earlier races but no one had gone underneath, showing that I had been hit super hard in order to have enough velocity to get underneath. They had to come and extract me and my right upper arm was scraped and badly bruised. They took me out and the guy who hit me and I was initially upset because I thought that I would have just wasted our money but they let me run on the next race. So I wasn't able to race with William, Matt and Brekke. The guy who hit me was really mad at me- while I was on my race, he kept pointing me out to his friends. Needless to say, I didn't go very fast on my 2nd run but at least I was only bumped slightly close to the end. I guess I was just in the super competitive heat. I came in 2nd to last- I was just happy I wasn't last. I still have a small part of the bruise left, but it is almost gone. Not quite the ride I had anticipated but at least I went back on the track. I'm just not sure now when I will do it again . . .

Serendipity 3

2010-05-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

William and I were thrilled when we found out that there was a Serendipity 3 just outside of Caesar's Palace. We only had to wait about 5 minutes for a table before we got their amazing frozen hot chocolate, unlike sometimes in NYC when there is a long wait all day long. They seriously have the best frozen hot chocolate- it is the perfect blend of chocolate, texture, and whipped cream. This is the size for two- the perfect amount for both of us. Serendipity 3 also has a $1,000 sundae- but they did not list what made it cost or worth that much. As good as their frozen hot chocolate is, I wouldn't pay that much for it :-)

Beloved Bellagio

2010-05-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

Ah, the Bellagio. So much to love about this hotel. William and I are going to stay there one day and get a lake view room so that we can watch the water shows all night. We'll just have to luck out with one of the weekends or other time when there is a deal.

We found heaven at their sweet shop- we literally wanted to stick our heads underneath these chocolate fountains

This train is made of marshmallows

Mmm- look at how beautiful these desserts are. We didn't try any of those because we were waiting for the Bellagio Buffet desserts.

And it was well worth the wait. Here is the key lime pie- it was incredible

I also loved this little white chocolate mousse ice cream cone.

The Bellagio Buffet is truly the best one on the strip. They have unique items to try like ostrich (it was ok) and kobe beef (delicious) and soy swordfish (my personal favorite). I also LOVED the mushroom ravioli but really, my heart lies with the desserts. They have these ginormous chocolate covered strawberries- I had 3 of those and the peach and raspberry sorbets were amazing as well. Well worth the price.

Another unique display was in the conservatory. I loved the beautiful crystal globes with water flowing over it.

The tulips in full bloom

We also went to the art exhibit they have entitled "Figuratively Speaking" about how the human form has been portrayed over time. They had several paintings by Renoir, Picasso, Hockney, and Lichtenstein. It was an ok exhibit- not the best one they have ever had. Mainly due to this annoying live video instillation they had going on at the same time.

We were able to catch a couple of water shows before they were canceled for the night due to wind.

We sure spent a lot of time here without actually staying at the hotel- but one day . . .

Paris Creperie

2010-05-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

We ate at the Paris Creperie for breakfast on Saturday and it was super good. William and I shared one with pancetta and bechamel sauce- mmm. It reminded me of a more upscale version of European Connection- it was this local chain that used to be in Utah where they made both sweet and savory crepes. I was so sad when they closed it.

William took these great night photos of the exteriors of the Paris and Planet Hollywood hotels.

Monte Carlo Hotel

2010-05-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

We stayed at the Monte Carlo hotel- our first visit and we loved the location right next to the City Center. We had gotten to the hotel early on Saturday morning- about 9 am- and they amazingly had a room ready for us. We then went up to the room and found that it had not yet been made up. I called down to the front desk to have someone make it up and instead, they had us come back down and assigned us to another room. And for our trouble, they "Vegased" us- we got two free meals at their buffet! Woo hoo! It was a super nice gesture that was greatly appreciated. I truly do appreciate that kind of customer service. We went to the buffet on Sunday morning for brunch and it was good- I particularly loved the biscuits and gravy (so so delicious) and the hash browns. The Bellagio buffet is still the best though.

I loved these photos of the hotel at night.

City Center Las Vegas

2010-05-10T22:14:00.000-07:00

We spent two weekends ago having "a little more conversation" with my dear friends Matt and Brekke. They are such easy going traveling companions and are so much fun!! We LOVED the new City Center at Las Vegas. We stayed at the Monte Carlo which was right next to it so we spent much of our time wandering around, admiring the unique architecture and statues. Several hotels and shopping centers are in this area- the Aria, Vdara, Mandarin Oriental, and yet another high end shopping center.

The view from Matt and Brekke's deluxe room

Aria hotel

They have these amazing water falls outside the hotel

The lobby had this intricately tiled floor

William, with his curious nature, was able to stumble upon this unique area of the hotel which had these floor triangle sculptures which had a surprising cacti gardens in the center.

I also liked this wall right next to it- I have no idea what the circular objects are

But by far, my favorite part was these metal sculptures- they are so fluid and mesmerizing. I have no idea how they made them- but so impressive. People kept touching them to see if they were hollow or not (I didn't so I have no idea)

The Vdara had these two modern sculptures outside of it

I loved the high end shopping center- Crystals.

William in particular really disliked the yellow panels on the building behind the stores.

Inside, they had so many unique architectural features using many different media. Wood

Lighted steps

Lighted sculptures

But the best part were these lighted water tornadoes. They kept starting and stopping them, raising and lowering the level of water. Totally fascinating and captivating-

I loved how all of the light colors were captured in the curves of the tornado. We so enjoyed this new area, especially because of all of these unique architectural elements.