Happy New Year!

For New Year's 2009, we decided to forgo the usual extravagant night out in the city and spend the evening at a friend's house instead. We always end up spending too much money and getting all worked up for an OK night out on the town. This year, we got smart and had a bunch of fun with our friends (and some of their dogs!) in San Jose. Our night started out with sushi and ended up with lots of noise makers and bottles of champagne to ring in the New Year. I know, it doesn't sound like a fun time for a pregnant lady, but I had a blast, accompanied by cooked sushi and Martinellis!
Travis and I have an exciting year to look forward to! We're getting excited! Happy New Year everyone!

science and steak

My side of the family celebrated Christmas with a trip to the Exploratorium followed by our now annual (woot!) dinner at House of Prime Rib, or as I affectionately call it, HOPR. There's nothing like a little learning followed by a little (or a lot!) or eating.
It was Mirabelle and Mayanna's first trip to the Exploratorium. The Exploratorium is one of our favorite museums. We went a lot for school field trips and continue to go as adults. I remember one field trip where we got to play with liquid nitrogen. Awesome!

Here's Mirabelle and Mayanna learnin':


Trav wore his glasses so he'd look like he knew a lot about science!
Here's a picture of Trav trying out the mood ball. His favorite mood occurred with the color red!
Mirabelle and Mayanna loved running around the weird proportion house...that is until i tried to take their picture. I made science no fun.

Here's Trav and Mark checking out the guy science. I think it was an engine or some rotater-thingy. I'm sure they knew all about it...
Megan pressing her luck (if you can't tell there's a grand piano hangin right over her head!):
After a full afternoon of science, it was finally time to partake in some awesome meat! yum! A great way to end the year (importantly before and New Year's resolutions about diet, etc...).

Merry Christmas

My soldier came home for Christmas this year. Travis came home from Dubai Christmas 23rd. My stint as a military wife is over. Yes!
The next day we drove down to LA to spend Christmas with Travis's family. This year, the whole family made it to LA for Christmas. It was so fun seeing or little niece, Isabelle. She just turned two and was a lot of fun to play with. Definitely the highlight of our trip (no offense anyone else!).
Here are the pictures of our highlights:







the parking meter in Mill valley (we went to breakfast at Toast on Christmas Eve before our drive):

bon apetit!

Say goodbye to take out! Though, we've gotten to know the restaurants of San Rafael rather quickly, we are more happy to have a yummy home cooked meal in our own kitchen! The kitchen is in. officially.
We bought our cabinetry from IKEA, because we like their clean European design, and frankly, because IKEA was all we could afford. The IKEA kitchen customer service was very helpful. The order and installation happened without a hitch! We opted to assemble and install the cabinetry ourselves, which was a scary prospect considering the entire kitchen came in about 100 flat pack boxes. We saved a couple thousand dollars by assembling and installing the cabinets ourselves and it was worth it. We haven't felt that way about some things we've worked on in the house! :)
All our base cabinets have the 'Nexus' birch door faces. We put a pantry in the stupid little alcove that had the refrigerator in it when we bought the house. It ended up being a perfect place for a good sized pantry. We haven't filled it up yet! One Costco run ought to do it!
We only have two upper cabinets above the range. They are the 'Rubrik' opaque white glass.
All our appliances are white. The range we have came with the place, though it didn't come white. It only became white after my in-laws spent an entire day scrubbing it clean. Now it's the coolest range, an O'Keefe and Merrit. The broiler is the best part; it's called the "Grillevator"! My dad even managed to repair both the ancient light on top and the light in the oven. I have grand plans to make Molasses cookies this Sunday just in time for the season. Yum!
We bought the 'Nutid' fridge from IKEA. (and why does fridge have a d in it, but refrigerator doesn't? so wierd...) The fridge is a really pretty glossy white with stainless steel handles. AND an ice maker/filtered water!!! We've made it in the world!
Our sink is an apron front sink, again from IKEA. I LOVE one bowl sinks. I can't wait to wash the baby in it because it's huge!
The best appliance is the dishwasher. I've started to put everything in there, even my frying pan the other night. I'm not really sure if that's good to do, but I just can't bring myself to wash anything any more! The dishwasher blends right into the cabinetry because it has a cabinetry face to match. So cool.
We bought the 'Tyda' handles, though I'm not sure if I love them.
Finishing touches: My dad got us huge sheets of stainless steel that he put behind the range as the backsplash. It looks amazing! So shiny! Very diner-ish, but in a good way. I had him get a utility bar that spans across the steel backsplash and holds stuff like tongs and spatulas and a little bowl to hold a plant and a cool shelf to hold our coffee supplies. It adds the finishing touch to that sside of the kitchen.
On the sink side of the kitchen, we used my parent's left over tiles. Can't beat free supplies! We mounted stainless steel shelves above that. I can't decide what to place on the shelves. I think I need some colorful bowls to spice it up a bit. I'm thinking robin's egg blue and green like our doors and maybe some red accents.
So, that's our kitchen. Everyone is welcome over for dinner anytime. We haven't used it too much yet, so come over and help us break it in!

a very happy 30th in Dubai

It felt so random to celebrate my 30th birthday in Dubai. I would have never imagined! It has been a really fun and very unique birthday experience.
We started the day at the gym. We successfully found our way back to our hotel room (both trav and i have cicled the gym floor around and around on separate occasion trying to find out just how we got up there and how in the heck we can get back down). Then we went to the most fabulous breakfast buffet ever. The buffet had so many stations; there was Indian, German, Asian, fruit bar with dragon fruit and yellow watermelon and a custom order juice bar (trav got orange-beet juice. it was pretty but would've tasted batter with some ranch dressing) and yummy swiss muslei, and the most AMAZING baked good table ever. i could kick myself for not taking a pitcture of it. there were croissants, chocolate croissants, brioche, tarts, cinnamon rolls, muffins, fresh bread, jams and preserves, and more! Of course I started with the fruit, muslei, and baked goods. ate a little bit of all of it and then went back for a croissant and some scrambled eggs with roasted cherry tomatoes. trav went straight for the dim sum of course! trav had to leave for work, but i stuck around and finally had to drag myself out of there so no one would look at me funny for going back yet again to the buffet.


I wanted to layout by the pool for the rest of the morning, but there was a sand storm! I started out for a little while, but i started grinding sand between my teeth, so i went inside. i had to change our hotel anyway. the rest of the day i spent wandering the mall. i must have walked 10 miles, no joke. the mall is huge, no doubt, but there aren't a lot of stores that we don't have in California, nor many stores that i can actually afford anything from. I did get part of two Christmas presents taken care of.
After Trav got off work, we went over the Jameria (sp?) beach area. We didn't actually go to the beach, but went to a souke (that's what they call indoor/outdoor buildings with lots of shops and restaurants. this souk is a 15 minute taxi ride from our hotel and the burj tower and is right next to the burj al arab, or the sail hotel. we ate right on a canal that hada fantastic view of the sail hotel. after dinner, we went over to the sail hotel and had drinks in their sky view lounge. it was a total trip! first of all, you have to make reservations just to enter the hotel grounds. the hotel is on a man made island so it's very exclusive. The sky view lounge is on the 26th floor and cantilevers off the main structure. luckily, i couldn't tell that we were suspended over the water once we were inside. the inside of the burj al arab (sail hotel) was sooooo crazy! it was a mix between the 70s, elton john, space mountain and disneyland and just plain over the top-ness in the tackiest way possible. it was so cool and totally perfect. a great way to start my 30s.

at the restaurant with my "mocktail." it was orange juice.
you can kind of see the sail hotel in the background:

inside the sail hotel:



the hotel sent me a cake! I didn't tell them it was my birthday, but they must have saw it on my passport when i check in. how cool are they?

more Dubai pictures

morning wake up call:
our hotel:
the palace hotel and souk (next to our hotel and on the way to the burj tower):


Trav's job site:

funny sushi restaurant in the mall: