September 2015 – beakatude

Birthday Weekend

By beakatude
on Sep 30, 2015
in family, holidays, outings, yum

On the weekend leading up to my birthday, the rest of my family came up to hang out and celebrate. It’s always nice when Brother and I can celebrate out birthdays together. This weekend was especially cool because it was my 40th.

They flew up on Saturday and they finally got to meet Peanut for the first time.

For lunch, we walked over to Taco Bell Cantina. It had just opened earlier this week and we ordered a feast on Mexican Pizzas, crunchy tacos, and bunch of random other stuff. It had been a long time since I last had Taco Bell and it was delicious. 🙂

In the afternoon, we all went to the SF Zoo by train. We had a couple meltdowns by Miss KK but it ended on a happy note. Phew.

For dinner, we went to Hog Island. That too was a feast. I had the clam chowder and a couple raw oysters.

Brother ordered a few other things and the crudo was my favorite dish (pictured below).The waitress managed to get a pretty good photo of the whole group with the bridge in the background. Jesse is missing because he was home sleeping with a case of jet lag.

The next day, we met up with Jason and Jia for brunch at Little Skillet/Victor Hall. It was a great venue for our big group since we didn’t need a reservation and they have lots of big tables. We took over the back table in the corner, which had lots of room for the strollers. It’s crazy now with 3 infants and 2 little girls.

For dinner, we had reservations at House of Prime Rib. I’d rather be at Lawry’s but this is the second best thing.

Despite the early reservation time, they still made us wait. As a consolation, we got free desserts! Dinner was a little hectic since Peanut was not in the mood to nap.

So, he sat in my lap for most of the meal.

On Monday, our actual birthday, we drove up to Napa for the day.

After lunch, we went to Sterling Vineyard and everyone enjoyed the gondola ride up. This is one of our first family photos together. Too bad Peanut was sleeping.

On the way to dinner, we stopped at Bouchon Bakery to pick up some treats.

Brother and I ordered like we were at Taco Bell again.

Dinner was at Ad Hoc and they were serving fried chicken that night.

We had a ton of food, which got packed up to go after dinner.

There was enough for us to have another feast the next day for lunch!

What a fun weekend and birthday with the family!!

I’m 40.

By beakatude
on Sep 28, 2015
in holidays, life

Well, I just had my 40th birthday and I’m feeling pretty good. To commemorate this milestone birthday, I thought I’d reflect on the past decade (2005-2015). Let’s walk down memory lane, shall we?

Places we visited:

New York City, NY
Hawaii (Oahu and Maui)
Philadelphia, PA
Portland, OR
Canada (Vancouver)
Mexico (Ensenada, Puerto Vallarta)
Thailand (Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket)
Italy (Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, Milan)
France (Paris)
England (London)
Belize
Guatemala

Life Changes:

Moved to SF in 2007.
Bought our second home: a 1-bedroom condo in the city.
Got a new job in the medical setting and made some really good friends at work.
Had two beautiful kids. (Life goal: Have 2 kids before I turn 40 – check!).

Events:

Most of our friends got married during this decade and many of them also had kids. Luckily for us, there were a bunch of us who waited to have kids in our late 30s so that we weren’t the only ones struggling with raising babies/small children.
I had abdominal surgery in 2013 to repair an umbilical hernia that was a result of my first pregnancy.
Koa passed away in 2013 and I still think of him daily.
Both of my parents retired and my brother got married.
Jes and I celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary in 2012. We’ve also been officially together for half our lives (20 years this fall)!!

Accomplishments:

I learned how to sail in the San Francisco Bay.
I got a teaching position at my alma mater and worked as an Assistant Professor for a semester. I was also a regular guest speaker at another OT school in the Bay Area and gave a lecture to the Clinical Nutrition program at Cal.

I’ve gotta say that that my 30s were fun and came with a lot of change and growth. Let’s hope my 40s bring good health, happiness, and more growth.

Go Beak Go!

By beakatude
on Sep 19, 2015
in go beak go, outings, peanut

After Peanut turned 6 weeks old, I decided to give jogging a try for the first time since January. My doctor said to take it easy so that’s what I did. On Tuesday, I met up with Ranee and we pushed our strollers around Lake Merritt together. I jogged most of it and we went around the whole 3-mile route. Despite some soreness in my quads later that evening, I felt pretty good. Thanks for running with me, Ranee!!

On Friday, I went out for a 2-mile stroller run on The Embarcadero and it was so nice to be back out there in my running shoes. I managed to run a 12-minute/mile pace and I wasn’t sore afterward. Yay me! Hopefully this is the restart of my running habit.

Shoe Sale

By beakatude
on Sep 10, 2015
in outings, yum

On Thursday morning, I went to the Toms Warehouse Sale in San Mateo with Peanut and my mom. The doors opened at 10am and we arrived just before 10. The line had already snaked around the building but there was plenty of shade and we weren’t too far from the door. The wait wasn’t too bad and I had time to feed and change Peanut before it was our turn to go inside. At 11:00, we got wristbands and then waited another 30 minutes.

Once inside, everything was surprisingly calm and organized. The shoes were organized by size in clusters of 6 boxes. They had lots of classic styles and colors with lots of inventory. I had everyone’s shoe sizes recorded in my phone and sent photos and messages to everyone for their color preferences.

I ended up getting a pair for everyone in the family including 2 for me, 2 for KK, 1 for Jes, 2 for Alice, and 1 pair each for Jia, Jason, Brother, and Joy. The women’s slip-ons were $24 each, mens’ slip-ons were $19 each, and tinys were $15 each. Not bad.

While I shopped, my mom got in line to pay, which saved us a lot of time. There was a station where the staff counted up the shoes by style and category and then zip-tied the bags. They also made sure that we didn’t have more than 15 items (their limit per customer). The last step was the credit card line, which was pretty quick.

We were out of there by 12:30 at the latest with 14 pairs of shoes in hand.

My mom offered to pay for all the shoes so I treated her to a lobsta roll!! So yummy.

Here are KK’s old pair next to her new pair. She made good use of the old pair so they went in the trash today.

The whole experience was not as painful as I had expected. This may keep me coming back every year if I have the time.

Jes’ Big 4-0

By beakatude
on Sep 09, 2015
in babies, family, friends, holidays, life, outta here

Jesse celebrated his 40th birthday with lots of family and friends this year. We used to go on our annual international trip during this time of year but with 2 kids it makes it much more challenging. So, for his birthday, we planned a trip to Napa with his buddies. Dayantha drove up on Saturday and the boys went out for dinner at Fringale and drinks afterward. In fact, they ended up staying out (finishing on our rooftop) around 3am.

The next day was his actual birthday and it was spent at Zoe’s birthday party first and then dinner with family at R&G Lounge.

https://youtu.be/4RLacbEzUrE
Jes blew out his candles at home surrounded by his family.

On the following day, we drove up to Napa for a 3-day trip that we planned months ago with Jimmy, Eleen, Dayantha, and Krissy.

It was super hot that weekend but we made the most of it anyway. We stopped at V. Sattui before checking in to the Westin and met up with Ranee and family for lunch and some wine.

At the Westin, the Agustins and Fernandos arrived and checked in in time for our wine tasting appointment that was just a few steps down the river from the hotel. We lucked out with some very well-behaved kids that afternoon so we were all able to sit around the grown-up table and sip wine at the Robert Craig Tasting Room.

The next day was spent being lazy at the pool with the kids. Jes took KK into the pool while I hung out under the cabana with Peanut and a glass of wine. Heh heh.

For dinner, we went to Morimoto for a fancy dinner. Unfortunately, the A/C was broken in the restaurant and dining with 5 kids is a huge change from our days without kids. Luckily, we were all able to share a variety of tasty dishes while taking turns with the kids. The restaurant staff was also surprisingly accommodating and nice to our party of 11.

We had enough time on Wednesday morning to do some swimming and have breakfast together before check-out.

We had such a fun time with everyone and the Westin was a great place for all of us to stay. Their 1-bedroom suite was perfect for our family of 4, they have a decent pool, and it’s walking distance to a bunch of restaurants and tasting rooms. We didn’t need our car all weekend and the kids had a fun time. Traveling with kids is definitely a different experience but totally worthwhile.