April visits from Opa and Tutu and Nana and Papa

The highlights in April were my birthday and visits from Opa and Tutu AND Nana and Papa, as well as the constant rain finally coming to an end.

Our awesome friends Elise, Veronique and Justin watched Valerie on my birthday so Rich and I could go out for a nice birthday dinner at Lure + Till in downtown Palo Alto. It was a wonderful delicious meal with excellent cocktails and perfect cool weather on the patio (under a heater). Very memorable.

a delicious chickpea appetizer at Lure + Till

dinner at Lure + Till

I also got to enjoy a fabulous birthday brunch with Elise and (the other) Liz at Local Union 271, my favorite brunch spot with the famous mimosa tree (six different 4 oz mimosas). Who could ask for anything more? It was a special treat to have dry, sunny and beautiful weather on my birthday, since it always rains in Cincinnati.

brunch at Local Union

The next weekend Opa and Tutu came to visit, and unfortunately the rain made its last, final appearance during (pretty much all of) their visit. Fortunately we did not let that get us down, and we still had a wonderful time. We spent time just hanging out at home and I made an admittedly outstanding garlic parmesan halibut with roasted asparagus for dinner. Their last day we had brunch at Bumble and drove up to Half Moon Bay and had a lovely wine tasting at Barterra Winery.  It was great fun as always and too short.

The weekend after that, Nana and Papa came to visit. They picked the perfect weekend to visit, with the spring sun finally coming out for good and gorgeous weather. We went for a picnic at Foothills with Oren's Hummus, and of course went to Stanford Shopping Center to spoil Valerie. She got a cupcake at Sprinkles, new shoes and bathing suits and a kitty in a purse, and was a rotten mess by the end of the day. It was of course wonderful as always to see them and too short.

Valerie also got her first haircut in April, at the age of 3 (whoops...) and she loved her swim lessons at the "frog slide pool" at the JCC. We were all happy to finally see spring and the return of sunshine!

California poppies, the state flower

Half Moon Bay

flowers in our garden

March: Dim Sum in Chinatown and Tina Eric and Carter visit

The beginning of March was rainy and uneventful after a jam packed February full of travel and visitors. On a rainy Sunday the 13th, we took Valerie to see Zootopia, her first movie in a theater. We got a hot dog, popcorn and an icee. She is definitely a movie lover like her daddy!

In mid March Alesandro and Christina, our biodesign friends who live near the Mission District of San Francisco (and who are expecting their first baby at the end of September!), invited us up to the city for an authentic Dim Sum brunch in Chinatown. This was especially exciting because Christina speaks fluent Mandarin and could be our resident expert, getting us all the best courses. We had a fun day in the city and a delicious brunch, and we all walked around Chinatown and visited the fortune cookie factory and the cable car museum and saw lots of pigeons at the park.

After we split from the rest of the group, Rich and Valerie and I rode the cable car and headed back home.

riding the cable car

At the end of March my sister, brother-in-law and my adorable 2-year-old nephew came to visit for three and a half super busy days and get a taste of the California lifestyle. We had some fun but they were definitely ready to go home by the end.

Carter on his way to California

Frog's Leap

cheers!

We went to Stanford campus, Chipotle for dinner (of course!), the beach at Santa Cruz, the redwoods at Big Basin, Menlo Park for an Easter Egg hunt, across the golden gate bridge and up to Napa Valley for wine tasting. We especially loved the Frog's Leap Winery which was SO beautiful and relaxing and worth the horrific drive to Napa. Whew! We got lucky with the weather and enjoyed sunshine for most of their visit, but not so lucky with traffic and parking on their last day. We had to bail on our dinner plans in San Francisco due to a lack of parking and half of our Napa plans due to so much time spent in traffic.

happy donuts, happy kids

the Easter Bunny came a day early

Carter and Valerie had the absolute best time together and spent the whole visit laughing and playing and having a ball. Carter followed Valerie around copying her every move and she loved every minute. At one point before bed they were in the bathroom turning the lights on and off and laughing and laughing. It was awesome to see them grow so close and adore each other so much. I really hate living so far away from them! We are so glad they came all the way out to visit.

Sarah visits / Our Spa Day Adventure

My best friend in the world Sarah came out to visit for three and a half days in February and it was sooo wonderful to see her, and to show her a California good time. I had a packed itinerary planned for us, and after I picked her up from the airport we headed straight to Picchetti Winery for a wine tasting to set the mood. She arrived a bit shaken due to a crazy windstorm that caused her flight to have a scary rough landing, and at the winery we watched out the windows as strong winds blew the trees sideways.

All the craziest things always happen to her, so it was only fitting that she brought crazy weather with her.

We went out for a Mexican feast her first night at Vive Sol, which sounded like it would have delicious food and margaritas. The food lived up to the hype but unfortunately the drinks were bad, fake and too-sweet, which was disappointing. We filled up on yummy food anyway and rolled ourselves back home.

strawberry cupcake from Sprinkles Cupcakes

Our most memorable and hilarious day was Thursday, our spa day. I had gotten a groupon to Fremont Day Spa for the two of us to get massages, facials and body scrubs. We arrived and were shown to a small room with two beds in it - for us. Apparently we were getting a couples massage! This was unexpected, but we laughed and were game. A woman and a man came in to do the massages, and the woman asked us which of them we preferred to massage us. The man evidently did not speak a word of English. We indicated it didn't matter to us, so the woman went to Sarah and I had the man, and they started our massages.

I had a very thorough full body massage with extra emphasis on my buttocks and thighs, and then we flipped over onto our backs, while staying covered under the blankets. The next step was the body scrub. The woman proceeded to uncover all the parts that would get the scrub - arms, legs, and belly - and I asked her to please cover my belly back up, I did not want my belly scrubbed. Arms, legs and chest would be fine. It did not take long to conclude that the body scrub was a terrible idea. It was quite chilly in the air conditioned room and as our masseuses scrubbed us all over, all our exposed and now-wet skin grew ice cold and we began to shiver.

Next, we were supposed to go shower all the scrub off before beginning our facials. The woman asked Sarah, "you and your friend, go shower together?"
"There's just one shower?" asked Sarah. The woman confirmed there was one."We'll take turns," she said, and the woman gave us robes to wear, and Sarah went to take her shower first. I lay in the room, freezing and shivering, and waited til she came back to go take my shower. The hot water thawed me out, thankfully.

Then we lay in the room, covered up with blankets again, warm and comfortable, to wait for the facialist, a different woman, to come in. We laughed and laughed at the tiny shower where we were supposed to go shower together. There wasn't even room for two people to shower at once! "We could have taken turns rinsing each other off," we laughed.

The facial was my favorite part of our spa day; the woman did a great job and my skin felt soft and smooth and wonderful afterward, although she did make some interesting comments. After we indicated it had been a while since either of us had had a facial, she said "You're lucky you're still young!" and had a good chuckle.

We made sure to leave good tips for our masseuses and facialist and then we got back in the car and died laughing all the way home about our bargain spa day, featuring a couples' butt massage, freezing body scrub and single shower.

The rest of the weekend was relaxing, fun and uneventful - we got our nails done, went shopping, had cupcakes, worked out at the gym, ate Oren's hummus, walked around Stanford campus and the art museum, had the mimosa sampler at Local Union 271, went to a chocolate tasting downtown that her husband Ben bought for us, had ice cream cookie sandwiches at CREAM, and got to catch up on life. Having so much girl time was a revelation; I don't get nearly as much since we moved out here and I miss it SO MUCH. I'm so happy Sarah was able to get away for a long weekend to come visit and we'll always have our spa day to look back and laugh about. I love and miss her so much!!

chocolate tasting

Christmas break with Grandpa, Grandma and Noi

On Friday December 18th Valerie's school had their Christmas party and the kids sang and danced for all the parents. Well... some of them did. Valerie had missed the week of school leading up to the party and a lot of the rehearsal time, and she froze in front of all the parents and didn't really participate in the show. She stood and looked at us for a few minutes, and then she turned and faced her back to us for the rest of it. She did better than some of the other kids, who ran to their parents crying and refused to even stand up with their classmates, and some who laid on the floor.

On the bright side, she totally rocked her gold party pants.

The 2- and 3-year-olds were kind of a hot mess, but the 4- and 5-year-olds were extremely cute to watch. Then they gave out crowns and presents to the 5 kids having birthdays over the winter break, including Valerie, so that was really sweet too. I found out her best friend at school, Caiya, is actually only 2 days younger than her - their birthdays are December 30th and January 1st. Who knew?

That was the last day of school before they closed for 2 weeks, the same 2 weeks Rich had off from Stanford, and Grandpa arrived that afternoon, much to our delight. We all walked together to pick up Valerie from school and then to Papa Murphy's to get pizza for dinner. I'm fairly obsessed with their gourmet vegetarian. It has artichokes, onions, mushrooms, tomato, spinach and zucchini... soooo delicious.

Our Christmas cards also finally arrived that day from Snapfish. They had forgotten my order and had me stressing until they discovered it, sent me an email to say they were sorry they delayed my order and were express-shipping them to me. I was surprised that I was able to address, stuff and stamp all of them in just about 2 hours and had them ready to mail on Saturday the 19th. Nothing like a little last minute xmas card stress!!

It was an all-around last-minute kind of Christmas this year. I ordered Valerie and her cousins' presents from Amazon the week of Christmas so they would arrive just in time, and I bought wrapping paper from walgreens on Christmas eve and wrapped the candy canes, fruit snacks and M&Ms from Santa that night. The presents from Santa were in gold paper and I got Sofia the First, Disney Princesses and Minnie Mouse paper for all the family gifts. Valerie's favorite part of presents is the wrapping paper. She gets the most excited for the ones wrapped in her favorite characters, so I definitely came through there.

enjoying a few sprinkles

the tree at Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf

We packed the last few days before Christmas with social visits and holiday fun - Saturday morning we got Happy Donuts on our way back from the gym, and then we met Rich's old friend Heather in San Francisco and they took Valerie to the Exploratorium while my dad and I walked around the Fisherman's Wharf area. Sunday was our date night for Rich's birthday, and Monday we went on the Holiday Lights train in Santa Cruz with Anjuli, James and Kalinda, and then to Saturn Cafe, a vegetarian restaurant for dinner. Oh how much I love the vegetarian restaurants here in California!!!! I will miss that scene so much. We got nachos served over sweet potato fries instead of chips (YUM!) and I got a barbecue "chicken" salad... SO much food. I just get so excited at these places, where I can order anything off the menu, that I go overboard. I'm used to having two, maybe three options on the menu at most places. Although I have to admit, that does help make the decision-making process easier.

Valerie and Kalinda had a blast on the train

Santa even stopped by for a picture

Tuesday we went to dinner at some new friends' house in Mountain View and met their son Rush who is about a year younger than Valerie and an adorable cherub with fine blond curls. I brought cookies and champagne, and they made a delicious dinner of sauteed artichokes, salmon, mashed potatoes and green beans. We had a great time with them so I'm sure we'll have them over for dinner soon. They are expecting another little boy in March.

Wednesday we met Angela and Tushar at the Fogarty Winery for a wine tasting, which was enjoyable if extremely chilly. It was too cold to stand outside and enjoy the gorgeous view but always fun catching up with them.

The most hilarious moment was after Rich took Valerie to the bathroom, and she emerged into the wine tasting room full of people and shouted, "I PEED ON THE POTTY, MOM!!!!"  Just keeping it classy at the winery, it's what we do.

Rich's mom and stepdad arrived that night and we got to see them briefly before everyone turned in for the night. Valerie was in her element, with Mommy, Daddy, Grandpa, Grandma and Noi to play with her. It poured rain on the 24th but we sneaked out for a quick walk at the Dish during a break in the rain, which we timed perfectly.

Grandma Julie cooked a fancy dinner on Christmas eve of cheesy scalloped potatoes and ratatouille and Rich made salmon, and then I (with a bit of "help" from Valerie) made the chocolate chip cookies for Santa. I used oat flour, which is my new signature flour I always bake with, and both white and dark chocolate chips. They came out sweet, chewy and super delicious. Here's the recipe I used, which I will definitely use again. I omitted the coffee, and I used only brown sugar and 2 cups of oat flour, and omitted the granulated sugar and flour it called for. Santa gave them 2 thumbs up.

Valerie dictated the note to Santa:

and we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas and called it a night.

There isn't much better than Christmas morning with a 3-year-old. Valerie was SO excited to open every present and she wanted to immediately open and play with each one, so it took close to 3 hours for her to open everything. I think her favorite thing was the baby doll from Nana, which she named Caiya. She also got a baby stroller, Cinderella dress-up dress and shoes, sweater dress, train tracks, princess Barbies and ballet slippers which were big hits. It was so much fun just watching and helping her open everything. The grown-ups drank ho-ho-ho-sas (which is what I call champagne with a splash of cranberry or pomegranate juice) and opened one or two presents each. It was lovely.

We went for a walk at Foothills Park that afternoon since it was much drier. It was a bit chilly but sunny and really beautiful. Then we came back and had Grandma's vegetarian chili with bread for Christmas dinner. A successful California Christmas!