Jackie and Zach and Adam and Justina visit

After our dinner party last Friday night, we had a full weekend of visitors ahead! Our friends Jackie and Zach from Cincinnati were driving down the California coast for their vacation and they came to stay with us for a night to kick off their trip. They didn't arrive til around 5:30, so Saturday afternoon we drove down to Happy Hollow Park & Zoo in San Jose and Valerie got to have a super blast riding rides, seeing animals and jumping in the bounce house since Happy Hollow was having a fall festival. She rode the merry-go-round, the kiddie swings, the mini putts (which are cars... not sure why it's called that), and of course, Danny the Dragon, which we waited maybe half an hour to ride. We watched a live drumming show, climbed on the playground, and she had a hot dog and chocolate milk for lunch. I mean, best day ever, pretty much.

waiting to ride Danny the Dragon

We came back home in time to make sangria for Jackie and Zach while Valerie took her nap, and they brought delicious farm-stand strawberries with them so we ate strawberries and drank sangria while they told us about their crazy drive up from LA and stay at Yosemite the night before.

After Valerie woke up we headed to Fiesta Vallarta in Los Altos for a Mexican dinner on their outdoor heated patio. What a great place, I'm so glad we discovered it!  We'll have to go back there. We had a pitcher of margaritas, fresh guacamole, yummy mexican food, live music and views of their fish tank. It was perfect for kids, Valerie devoured her quesadilla and checked out the fish tank. Then we came back home and sang happy birthday to Zach and had cupcakes and ice cream and crashed pretty early.

Sunday morning, Jackie and I had mimosas (apple for me, Pom for her) and we took a few pictures before they left to meet some family for brunch. We thought it was fun to take some pictures in our dual convertibles since they had rented one for their drive and how often do you have two convertibles together for a photo op?! Right?!

 Soon after they left, Rich's brother Adam and his wife Justina arrived. They had been in San Francisco for a wedding and came to stay with us Sunday night before flying back home on Monday. Perfect timing for us to get to see them, and for them to come see our house! We had leftover chili and cornbread for lunch and then took Valerie for a walk around the 3-mile loop at the Stanford Dish. It was a perfectly clear day for a walk. Valerie was a champ for the first half, running ahead of us most of the way, but then she hit a wall about halfway through, around the time we reached the dish, and was a crying, fussing hot mess for the last mile or so. We made the right move bringing a stroller this time, and plenty of water, snacks and lollipops, but she needed a nap and refused to sleep in the stroller. We weren't terribly successful calming her down and begging her to patiently wait til we got home for her nap.

When we made it back it was naptime for everyone, and then we got ready to drive up to Half Moon Bay Brewing Co for dinner (our favorite place, right by the bay)! We love the heated patio there so much. Unfortunately, when we got there, it was raining and the patio was a no-go. We sat inside, and were less than impressed by slow service since the place was packed full. It happened to be the weekend of Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival and people were everywhere. All in all, poorly planned and executed, though the truffle fries were addictive as always. We headed back home for margaritas and a short dance party with Valerie, and hung out for a bit before it was time to crash. It didn't really feel like Sunday night, too much excitement!

What a super fun, packed weekend and such a treat to spend it with family and friends who came thousands of miles (for other reasons, but also conveniently to see us! haha). We count ourselves so lucky to have such wonderful family and friends who we always enjoy seeing.

Festive Fall Dinner Party

We had such a fun weekend last weekend! It got off to a great start on Friday night with our newly married friends Angela and Tushar, who came over for dinner. Rich went to grad school at MIT with Angela and we have loved living close by her this year! They have had a busy few months getting married, moving in together and traveling to Seattle and Taipei so we look forward to seeing more of them when their travel schedule lightens.
I planned a festive fall themed menu for our dinner and it came out quite delicious if I say so myself! I made drunken pumpkin chili, pumpkin cornbread with honey pecan butter, salad with apple, pecans and blue cheese, and honeycrisp apple sangria, and we had mini cupcakes from Sprinkles Cupcakes for dessert.

I was going to have shredded cheese and cut-up avocado as sides for the chili, but that day I discovered the cheese was moldy and the avocado wasn't ripe yet, so no dice on those. We did have sour cream on the side at least.

I made the chili on Thursday so it had a whole day for the flavors to meld in the fridge and I thought it came out quite good. I threw in all kinds of ingredients; I'm not sure if I can remember everything that went into it!  Chili is always a smorgasbord of all the fresh vegetables, grains and legumes I have handy. I chopped an onion, a bell pepper, a tomato, three carrots, and half a large sweet potato, and started sauteing those. I added two cans of chickpeas, two cans of black beans, the remainder of a bag of quinoa, some oat bran, a can of pumpkin puree, an Oktoberfest beer, a jar of tomato sauce, some Tofurky kielbasa, and some water for the quinoa and oat bran to soak up. For spices I added chili powder, cumin, coriander, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper. I'm sure there were more ingredients but that's all I remember now! After a few hours simmering on the stove it smelled warm and inviting.

I failed to take a picture of the chili - this one is from Sweet Pea's Kitchen. It looked kind of like this.

While the chili simmered I also made the honey pecan butter (which is just honey, butter, and pecans blended together in a blender or food processor) and the salad dressing, which was inspired by the best salad I shared a while back.

¼ cup vinegar (any type) - I used apple cider vinegar
½ cup chopped parsley  - I used half parsley and half basil
¼ cup red onion/shallot, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup sugar - I used some agave nectar, less than 1/3 cup
½ cup oil
½ tsp. oregano
Salt & pepper to taste

It's also just all thrown in the blender. My blender got a workout on Thursday. 

On Friday, I made the pumpkin cornbread. I don't bake very often and I hate the mess of flour, so I decided to try grinding oats in the blender to make oat flour instead of using all-purpose flour for a healthier twist. It was a success!  I can't wait to try making all kinds of whole grain flours this way. It was super easy, and I didn't have to buy flour! I used this recipe from sweet pea's kitchen and I would definitely make it again. It was easy to throw together, pretty healthy and TASTY with the honey pecan butter. Although, to be totally honest, that honey pecan butter makes EVERYTHING you put it on taste amazing. My friend Lindsey introduced me to that idea a few years ago and I have been keeping it in my back pocket ever since. 

honey pecan butter

pumpkin cornbread - picture by Sweet Pea's Kitchen

I also made the sangria, and rimmed the glasses with cinnamon and sugar. My favorite party trick! Rimming glasses is so easy and really takes the fancy factor up a notch. I used this recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction and of course modified it to match what I had since I did not have brandy. Instead I added some triple sec and cranberry vodka. 

We had a blast catching up with Angela and Tushar, and hearing stories about boarding school days and learning Chinese growing up. Always a great time! 

We had the red velvet and caramel apple mini cupcakes... mmmm

Nana and Papa visit

We had our first official visitors two weekends ago (not counting friends who stopped by while in town for work) when my mom and stepdad came to stay for three days. Boy had we missed them and were we happy to see them! We FaceTime often and I'm so glad we have that technology but nothing compares to being together.

I picked them up Wednesday night from the airport and Valerie got to stay up a little later than usual to open her presents and show Nana and Papa her twirling before bed. She loves her new ballerina outfit - leotard, tights and skirt - which is perfect since she demands to wear a pink tutu 90% of the time. It's very similar to an outfit I had as a child and becoming more apparent every day that she is my mini me. I loved twirly dresses, ballerinas and all things pink and sparkly much the same, although she also loves trains and construction equipment, which I did not. She got a hefty dose of her dad's personality too, but the similarities to 3-year-old me are uncanny.

Thursday morning I woke up to Valerie crying in my room, despondent that she couldn't find Nana and Papa anywhere - in other words, they weren't in their bed. "Where's Nana and Papa?!?!"
 "They're here! Don't worry! Let's go find them!"
We found them sitting outside on the deck having tea and coffee, and Nana was able to console Valerie.
 We made chocolate chip pumpkin pancakes for breakfast with Valerie's "help," and then we all walked her to school for a couple hours so she could take her nap while we went out for lunch and were surprised when she had a raving meltdown at dropoff. She did NOT want to say goodbye to Nana and Papa. I did not really see that coming since she never has a problem getting dropped off at school and was in good spirits the whole way there. But, we made our escape and enjoyed a fantastic lunch at Oren's Hummus Shop to kick off the weekend. We had the sampler platter with 3 kinds of eggplant, carrots, beets, yogurt cheese, and hummus and pita, and were all flailing with rapture of the taste-buds. We got the large hummus and pita to-go and wondered if they ship their hummus across the country.

After lunch we picked up Valerie (who had recovered from her abandonment) and drove up to San Francisco to have dinner on the pier overlooking the bay and Alcatraz. It happened to be Blue Angels practice downtown for Fleet Week, so we watched (and had our ears blown out by) jets swooping over and around us on our drive through the city. Valerie was not a fan of the blasting jet noises. Once we secured parking, for a mere thousand dollars per minute (slight exaggeration), we walked around the Maritime National Historical Park watching the fighter jets and the people. I hadn't ever been up to this northernmost point of San Francisco; it is such a cool area! I wish we had had more time to walk around and explore, but we had to make our dinner reservation at Fog Harbor Fish House, which was about a 15-minute walk from the park.

It was lovely! We got a table next to the huge windows overlooking the bay and enjoyed delicious seafood and a delectable hibiscus martini for me. Mom and I ordered shrimp and crab Louie salads, and wished we had split one; they were absolutely gigantic. I somehow still managed to finish mine, unnecessarily. One pound of lettuce and one pound of bay shrimp heavier, I had to be rolled back to the car. I forgot about my full belly, though, when I saw the sky.  It was an incredible, epic sunset over the bay as we walked through the pier back toward the car, all bright red and orange and pink.

Rich was flying back from Houston and arriving to the airport around 8, just as we were driving back home, so we stopped at the airport on our way to pick him up. It was a clown car situation fitting the 5 of us with Valerie in her carseat in the Mustang, but Mom and I squeezed into the back on either side of the carseat and white knuckled through the 30 minute ride home. My hips were compressed so hard my foot was asleep when we got home but we survived.

Friday we had planned to keep Valerie for the day, and were very glad of our decision after the dropoff debacle of Thursday, although some of us regretted it by the end of a day full of whining and crappy behavior.

We went to Tootsie's at the Stanford Barn for lunch so Rich could meet us and enjoyed the lovely outdoor seating there in spite of the hospital construction across the street. They didn't have a lot of kid options, so Valerie got to have chocolate pot de creme and french fries for lunch (and I helped her finish the pot de creme. Sometimes moms have to make sacrifices). We ate our lunch, were graced with a brief 20-minute appearance by Rich, and then headed out for a quick driving tour of the Stanford campus - which was a fail, because I drove us to Menlo Park trying to find campus, and then we had to get a melting Valerie home for her nap.

She was too excited to nap, so after waiting a while in vain for her to fall asleep, we finally got back in the car for an outing to the Stanford Shopping Center to get new shoes for Valerie, who was still squeezing her now - size 8 feet into size 7 shoes. It's become something of a beloved tradition for Nana and Papa to take her shopping for shoes so this was a highly anticipated shopping trip.

We hit several roadblocks trying to find girls' shoes. First we tried Macy's. We went to the top floor to the kids section to be told that all shoes were on the bottom floor with ladies' shoes. We found ladies' shoes, where there were no kids' shoes to be found. Next we tried Neiman Marcus, but quickly ascertained a similar lack of kids' shoes (and I discovered that place is a little too fancy for my blood! Shew!). Our last hope was Nordstrom, so we made our way there, and were relieved to find... drumroll please..... girls' shoes. They had a pretty good selection of some promising sparkly and pink kicks but Valerie was in a mood by this time. We had a very patient salesgirl help us try on several sizes of several styles and finally found a pair of bright-pink-and-orange sneakers that we all agreed were cute and fit right. Valerie kept trying to run off by the end so we wrapped up in a hurry. The salesgirl let her choose a balloon (pink, of course) and we left to find Papa.

On our way back through the mall we saw the American Girl store and thought it would be fun to look around in there. Valerie LOVED it and I love how sweet and innocent she still is in stores. She doesn't seem to quite fully grasp yet the concept of buying things. She was happy as a clam playing with the dolls and accessories in the store. She pushed them around in the doll stroller, stacked them in the doll wagon and fed the baby doll. Then we told her it was time to put the dolls back and get going. She was so good!  She didn't ask to buy anything; I think she just thought the store was a place to play with dolls. So sweet.

We made one last stop then, at Sprinkles Cupcakes. A sprinkle cupcake for Valerie and a red velvet for the adults to share! Yum. She devoured all the icing off the top (definitely my child). And then the combination of sugar and no nap produced her whiniest behavior yet for a most pleasant rest of the  evening.

here you can see the new shoes

We headed from there to Local Union 271 for happy hour, where Rich would meet us when he finished working. Right away, I placed Valerie in a chair while we waited for a server to bring over a booster seat, and she somehow pushed it over backwards and fell splat on the ground. I think it scared her more than anything; she cried hard but pretty quickly calmed down, her booster came and we ordered much needed sangrias and cocktails. I was busting out lollipops, youtube on my phone, and every weapon in my arsenal trying to keep her pacified for our short meal.

We headed home for an early bedtime for The Tired One and got to relax for a while before Rich and I went out for our first real "date" since we moved here. Mom and Paul were kind enough to stay home while Valerie slept and we went out for a late dinner just the two of us.

We went to Evvia, a highly rated Greek restaurant in downtown Palo Alto with lots of expensive wines. We had a delicious mushroom appetizer special and crispy zucchini cakes, and I especially savored the really good olive oil that came with the bread. Rich got the lamb that all the reviewers rave about, and I had more appetizers for my meal; the roasted cauliflower and grilled artichoke and eggplant skewer. I loved all of it, but Rich was less than impressed, and we were definitely feeling a bit gouged by the wine prices. I would love to eat there again when someone else is paying. Ha!

We had a big day at the beach planned on Saturday for our last day with Nana and Papa, who left that night on the redeye. We drove down to the boardwalk at Santa Cruz and had a perfect lunch at Ideal Bar & Grill right on the beach and then we hung out on the beach for a couple hours. Valerie was in heaven, chasing the surf, playing in the sand, twirling around and generally being adorable. It flew by all too fast and we walked down toward the boardwalk and then back to the car to head home.

Whew!  We squeezed in as much fun as we could in three short days and started our countdown til we see them again at Thanksgiving. What a great visit we had! We miss them already!

Sara and Dannon's wedding in Excelsior Springs, MO

This weekend we left California for the first time since arriving two months ago for a family wedding in Kansas City, MO. It was Valerie's first wedding and wonderful to see family, including some we hadn't seen in over a year.

We were there when Sara and Dannon got engaged in Big Sky, Montana, last July and it was so much fun to be there for their wedding as well. Sara was a gorgeous, glowing bride and we all had a lovely time, though it was bittersweet to see her walk down the aisle without her father, who passed away of cancer in February of 2014. There's something about a dad being able to give away his daughter and dance with her at her wedding that is especially poignant to me now that I have a daughter.  Life can be so cruel. But Sara and Dannon were surrounded by love and supportive family and friends and we knew her dad's love for her remained on that beautiful day.

here comes the bride

It was sunny, bright and clear, with a crisp early fall chill in the air. I went for a short walk before the ceremony and saw some flowers I couldn't resist snapping pictures of with my phone; the light was just perfect. The ceremony and reception were at the Elms Hotel and Spa in Excelsior Springs and it was a gorgeous setting.

Valerie and Grandma before the ceremony

 Valerie was the most excited to spend time with her cousin Aubrey who is about a year younger and was the flower girl. She spent most of the ceremony asking "Where did Aubrey go!?" though she was also very happy to spend time with her grandparents Opa, Tutu, Grandma and Noi and rotated between their laps.

waiting for the ceremony with Kelly, Whitney, Opa and Tutu

coloring with Grandma

she loves her cousin Aubrey!

too cute

She filled up on phyllo-wrapped brie appetizers as we waited for dinner and dancing -- she could not WAIT to get on the dance floor! As anticipated, she loved every minute and danced her little heart out. I thought she might make it all the way to the end of the reception at 11 pm since it would only feel like 9 pm Pacific (her usual bedtime), but she wore herself out and asked to go to bed around 9:30 so Rich took her up to bed.

at our table with Tutu, Opa and Whitney

She sure loved her first wedding experience!  I asked her on our way home what her favorite part of our trip was and she said "Dancing!"  No surprise.

may I cut in?

dancing with Noi as Grandma looks on

 On Sunday we drove into Kansas City for brunch at Chaz on the Plaza in the Country Club Plaza area before our flight home. It was a pretty chilly and overcast day but we lucked into the perfect brunch scenario. The restaurant has live jazz on Sundays until 1 pm and we arrived at 1:30, so although we missed the jazz, we were the only diners there and had the most beautiful private table all to ourselves! Rich had the lobster benedict on fried green tomatoes with caviar, I had the smoked salmon benedict and a mimosa and Valerie devoured pancakes and sausage. We were three happy campers!

It was another successful trip with Valerie, who is getting better and better at traveling. As long as I have all the essentials (pacifiers, water, crayons, snacks, and phone/tablet for shows) she is generally very well behaved and a pleasure to have along.

We will have great memories of this weekend and wish Sara and Dannon a lifetime of health and happiness together!

Valerie update: pink flowers, stuttering, silly games with Daddy

Valerie has been saying so many funny things lately, I want to try and write them down before I forget. She cracked me up the other day talking about the characters from Madagascar, Alex the lion, and Marty the zebra - and I asked her what the giraffe's name is (the correct answer is Melman) and she said "Helmet."  She is really, really into movies right now, and especially the story of Cinderella (the books and movies). I think they are very real to her. Most nights when we are tucking her into bed, she starts talking about Cinderella's sisters tearing and ripping her pink dress to shreds, and then Cinderella getting a blue dress. That part made the most impact on her, along with Lucifer the cat.

She loves cats, but Lucifer is scary - along with all shadows, deep voices, and loud noises. Including her own shadow, and when Rich sings in a low voice. She is so scared of everything. When we were walking home from the park last night as it was getting dark, we saw the outline of a mom lifting up and hugging her child in front of a restaurant. Valerie was scared of them because it was dark. It will be interesting to see how she does with Halloween coming up. We are planning on throwing a Halloween party and I hope our decorations won't be too scary for her. There is a house on our street with lots of spiders, bats and skeletons up, and she doesn't seem to be afraid of that; she loves it. We will try to steer clear of deep voices and loud noises and I think she'll be fine.

One of her favorite things is smelling all the flowers whenever we walk past them, with a particular focus on pink flowers. She gets so excited about pink flowers, and we often play "I spy," and she always spies with her little eye "something pink" and it's always something pink she's wearing, or pink flowers if there are any to be found. I had to yell at her a couple times for plucking flowers in our front yard, so now she knows not to pluck them, but she will pick up the ones that have fallen on the ground and carry them to and from school with her. And then toss them in a garden somewhere. She even loves the fake flowers we have in our house and sometimes asks if she can hold them. So sweet. One day we went for a walk down the main street downtown smelling all the flowers, and she was really shoving her nose into them and had yellow pollen all over her nose and upper lip. Now she thinks her nose turns the color of whatever flower she is smelling - usually pink. "Look Mommy, my nose is pink!" One of these days I will get a real pink bouquet just for her, I think she will love it.

It's also really cute when we play "I spy," and she spies something pink and then says "Mommy, now you spy, now you spy!"

She started sleeping in her big girl bed at the end of January this year, soon after turning two, and I wondered how long it would be before she would learn she could get out of bed and leave her room by herself. I finally got my answer! Sometime in September she started getting up from her nap, opening the door and coming out to find us. But only sometimes. She still lays in her bed and calls for Mommy and Daddy most of the time. So, the answer may be about 8 months to start getting out of bed by herself, but still only on occasion.

Her most amazing trick these days is memorizing her favorite books, which right now are Daisy's Birthday Party, Cinderella and the Silver Slippers. She can nearly recite the first two in their entirety and is just starting to work on the third.

She had a few episodes of stuttering a week or two ago. Very strange and unlike her, she is such a verbal and articulate talker for her age. She would get stuck on simple words, like I and say I- I- I- I- I- and would get pretty frustrated several times in one sentence. It was certainly frustrating to listen to. We didn't think it was cause for concern but we googled stuttering, of course, to see what the experts suggested. Nothing surprising, but we learned not to finish her words for her, wait patiently, and don't make her repeat herself or try again. I also read that I should try to speak more slowly, which makes sense because I probably read and talk too fast sometimes. I started making an effort to talk and especially to read more slowly to her. I'm not sure if it made a difference but fortunately the stuttering only lasted a couple of days and dissipated.




Valerie loves playing silly games with Daddy. She thinks her daddy is just the most hilarious guy in the world, up there with Elmo, Mickey and "Helmet" the giraffe. They love playing the whisper game, where they sneak around the house talking in whispers. They sneak up on Mommy, or go quietly searching for objects. I don't remember ever doing that as a child, but luckily Rich knew about that one, because boy is it fun. They play patty cake at super fast, super slow and regular speeds, and usually bake a cake for Valerie and Daddy. We also just showed her the hand-slap game, which is apparently also known as red hands. She loves watching Mommy and Daddy play and is just learning how to play, although her reaction time may need a little work. She also loves games of using her hand over her (or daddy's) mouth to make funny sounds (ie, wa wa wa wa). She is still a fan of peek-a-boo, or as we call it, "where's Valerie?" The simplest games have her hysterical with laughter, and her laugh is definitely the cutest sound I can imagine in the world.

Our biggest struggle with her is limiting screen time. Nothing new there. She would watch shows every minute of every day if we let her. Her favorite shows right now are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Road Rally, Winnie the Pooh, Dinosaur Train, Super Why!, Curious George, Dora the Explorer and Elmo's world, and her favorite movies are Cars, Madagascar, Cinderella, Frozen and the baby einstein baby signs DVD. Cinderella is even a little too scary for her... she loves that baby einstein DVD. It's so soothing. I just got Tangled from the library for her and I can't wait to show her that one... I hope it won't be too scary.

I had to smile when I dropped her off at school this morning and she immediately went up to an older girl and complimented her red jacket with a fur-lined hood: "I like your jacket! It's so pretty!  I really like it." I couldn't believe how grown-up she was acting; not jealous or trying to take the girl's jacket, just giving her sweet, enthusiastic compliments. She sometimes tells me she likes my jewelry or my dress when I am dressed up but this was the first time I've heard her compliment a classmate. Such a proud moment!

She keeps growing so fast and doing and saying new things every day.... it's all I can do to try and record as much as I can. I know there is already so much I've forgotten. How quickly the days fly by and turn little babies into big kids!