SLO Roadtrip February 2010

P and I were able to squeeze in a 24 hour whirlwind roadtrip down to San Luis Obispo before the Chinese New Year party at my parents' place. It was about a 4 hour drive from SFO- and our first stop was at La Cumbre (my favorite taqueria) for a proper Mexican meal.

We drove down 101, bordered on both sides with green hills and rows of crops. The warm sun in the hazy sky was welcome on our sun-deprived skin!

I HEART NYC!

Happy Valentine's Day!



After the fashion show, Wendy and I stumbled upon the Ice Heart sculpture in Times Square.

We basically had a lovefest with New York- about how proud we were to live in the city, how much we loved stumbling upon cool things in the city, and how happy and in love we were (me with P, her with S)! OK, vomit, but it's Valentine's. We have an excuse to be giddy and all smiles and in love and wearing all red on the all red TKTS stairs.


Also I heart the NYC heart subway map!
Buy it here!

Fashion Week

I haven't been to a Fashion Week event in years, but Wendy invited me to see her friend's show. Ivy is also from Hawaii, and super petite. She danced fluidly around the room, posing for photographers and speaking with friends and writers. She was charming, gorgeous and sophisticated, just like her designs.

Snowy winter

There was lots of snow this winter!


The streets of Brooklyn Heights are truly peaceful and beautiful in the snow...

Brian's Birthday

Wendy and Sean invited us to partake in their good friend Brian's birthday festivities at The Park and Bartini. This is what it looked like all night!

Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tour

Going on the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tour was my belated birthday present to Paul. (The original tour was canceled and rescheduled due to blizzard conditions on his actual birthday).

We had a great time exploring the world's oldest subway tunnel, led by the captivating Bob Diamond. It was a very cool, quiet, and (literally) underground experience- bustling Atlantic Avenue, mere blocks away from our house, was about four stories above us!

Bob discovered the tunnel in 1980 after years of persistence and dead-ends. He leads these fascinating tours tour every weekend or so for the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association.


The entrance into the tunnel is through a little manhole in the middle of the busy intersection at Court Street and Atlantic Avenue.

Dozens of people line up along the side of Trader Joe's at the corner, waiting patiently for their turn to climb down the little ladder. The eclectic group is comprised of locals, families, hipsters, photographers, and able-bodied history buffs, all carrying flashlights and hopping back and forth in excitement (and to stay warm).

The day we went was freezing cold- like 20 degrees! But inside the tunnel, it was surprisingly warm- about 65 degrees. We had to duck down to get below beams and conduits, squeeze through tiny doorways, and walk down rickety steps to get down into the massive dirt floored tunnel. Despite the hundreds of people who have gone on this tour in the last couple of years, most of the tunnel is amazingly untouched- afterall, it was completely forgotten for decades!

NewYorkology wrote a great blog entry about the experience- read it here.

Bob truly does a wonderful job narrating his adventures in finding the tunnel, combating all of the obstacles he faced (literally, metaphorically, etc.), drumming up support for the revitalization of trolley service throughout downtown Brooklyn and Red Hook, and we were thrilled to partake in a little bit of Brooklyn's convoluted history!


By the time our large group was on its way out, the arched brick ceilings were dripping with condensation from the humidity of our body heat!

Abridged Holiday Letter

The holidays of 2009-2010 came and went... I love having a new family to share it with on the East Coast! There was a lot of wonderful family time and lots of news!

A proper New England Thanksgiving in Williamstown (MA) with Mary- lots of food, fireside reading, comforters, and pine cone collecting.


My sister left New York for Denver (Boo!) but NYC will always heart KC

P's birthday/Holiday cocktail party was a success- we had a jolly, full house, our first Christmas tree, a blizzard, and berry merry martinis!



John & Sandy had a Christmas baby (hooray, Merry Birthday, Happy Christmas Alex!)


Festive holiday family dinner in Connecticut


And then we had a night of mock-parenting (our two subway-surfing loving nephews from MA stayed with us for a night)



Rang in the new year at Cubana Cafe and Flatbush Farms in Brooklyn! woot woot!!


Suraj, Glen, and I gorged ourselves during our traditional New Years Day dinner (Fatty Crab).


Happy 2010!!!

2010

Yikes, it's April 15 already- it's been a bad year for posting, sorry to anyone out there who still reads this! Hopefully now that I have some more free time, I'll update with some interesting tidbits.

I'm cheating, but in order to make sense, I'm going to have to "backdate" the postings to show you all the fun and exciting things that have happened this year.

morning shadows

the breakfast nook

details


recycled newspaper baskets

happy plants = happy home = happy family

Finally... some artwork on the walls

We finally put up some of the artwork that has been sitting in a big box in the corner of our kitchen.

Putting up art on freshly painted walls is like starting a brand new sketchbook... there are millions of possibilities- colors, textures, frames- you can fill it up with but it's just so hard to start....

Being married to the artist of many of these pieces also makes it pretty cool... :)

Orange Walls and the 1st year's transformation

I can't believe we've been in our home for more than a year now! Since we're done with wedding planning, we finally had some time to do some light remodeling and painting... first up, orange walls!

Paint: Ivy Coatings (zero-VOC) from Green Depot Based on Benjamin Moore's "Pumpkin Cream" 2168-20

Before:



After:

Yellow fall

married? yeah, married!... sheesh!

I am now a married woman... P and I love our wonderful life together but it hasn't changed much from the last year of living together- our left hands are just a bit heavier, and we get to say "my husband" or "my wife" legally, and then we get to giggle a little!

Seriously, we hope the birds continue "chirping" around us for many more decades!

I'm recovering from the last year of wedding planning and will eventually get around to posting some photos/details on the blog. It was awesome, but also really really exhausting, as any bride can attest. The usual fights over guest lists and food and seating arrangements and obligations were inevitable, and doing it from across the country made it just that more difficult. Although we wanted to keep it as small and intimate as possible, we were also obligated to invite many more people than we expected and also were unable to invite many many many more people that we wanted. In the end, everyone survived and had a lovely time- and our efforts to keep the wedding "green" and about "us" were rewarded... stay tuned....