Valentines 2013

Valentines this year was the first time in several years where Jeff and I exchanged gifts to each other (in recent years, gift giving was only one-sided).  While I think that the idea of forcing people to "express their love" to one another person is silly, I like to play along and use it as an excuse get a gift, eat a fancy meal, and eat lots of chocolates.  Why not? =)

 Yang Family Valentines Day

This was Caitlin's first Valentines Day, so of course, we included her in our festivities.  We gave her the book "Clifford's First Valentines" as her gift and she got to eat chocolate for the first time (in the mini chocolate chip pancakes that I made). 

We wanted to get Omakase at Sushi Sushi (we went there for Valentines a couple of years ago so I wanted to go back again), but they aren't open on Sundays and they also don't open for dinner until 6pm.  Not wanting to eat dinner so late (because we start Caitlin bedtime routine at 7:15) and not wanting to fight the Saturday night dinner crowd, we decided it was best to go to our tried-and-true Kabuki Restaurant for dinner instead.  We went the Monday after Valentines to avoid the Valentine-weekend diners, to take advantage of their Happy Hour menu (weekdays from 3-6pm), and to take advantage of their double-point Mondays (this is for Kabuki Red Mask members, which I am!).  We ordered all the food we wanted since we were going "all out" for Valentines.  The food was delicious, we tried a lot of new dishes, and we had lots of leftovers.  The bill was much higher than usual but the cost was less than the cost of omakase for 1 person.  Even better!

Caitlin unwrapping her Valentines gift.

She completely removed the ribbon and unwrapped the gift herself.  She did not need assitance from us!  But we had to constantly stop her from trying to eat the tissue paper.

Ta da!  Clifford's First Valentines Day. 

Jeff got me chocolate orchids and white orchids, and a box of See's chocolates (yum!). 
I gave Jeff the photo greeting card, the mug warmer, the kindle reading light, the lover's sexy dice, the dark chocolate, and the 2 bags of combos.

 Sadly, my crappy camera takes blurry, yellow, photos indoors.  But this is a picture of us pigging out at Kabuki.  Caitlin enjoys showing us her "see-food". (see-food / sea food... get it?? heh heh).

 The damage at Kabuki.  Everything was delicious.

Goodbye turtle wurtles

After about 6 years with our turtles Bulbasaur, Mervin, and Nervin, we decided it was best to part ways with them.
The biggest reason is that babies and turtles don't mix.  Turtles have salmonella and babies are intrigued by turtles.  Babies constantly try to touch the water, lick the tank, or stick the turtles in their mouths.  Last thing we want is a baby sick with salmonella poisoning.  The next biggest reason, is that it simply felt like a drag taking care of them.  After a long day of taking care of Caitlin and the piggies, I never wanted to feed the turtles or clean out their filter (which kept getting clogged) so as a result, all those responsibilities fell on Jeff.  I felt bad, but never bad enough to volunteer to do it.  lol.  I really thought that the turtles would really benefit going to a different home.

                                                             The turtles when they were babies.  VERY TINY!

After several months of asking people if they were interested in adopting our turtles, and dealing with flaky friends that said they will come take them but never show up, I finally decided to consider other options.
One option was to set them free at a turtle pond -- the one I had in mind was Heavenly Pond, located in the Franklin Canyon Park in Beverly Hills.  I honestly think my turtles would do fine in the wild with other turtles, as long as it was during the warm summer when introduced. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of winter right now and I didn't want to wait until summer time.
The only other option, was to find someone online, like a turtle rescue or Craigslist.  I did a quick search on my iPhone one afternoon and found a place called CTCC (California Turtle and Tortoise Club). There was an email link to a person for questions about re-homeing turtles and adopting.  The person replied back quickly saying that the Long Beach Chapter may take my turtles and to give the woman a call.

I called and this old, hoarse, senile-sounding woman answered and immediately said she could take my turtles, no problem. I was a bit surprised.  Usually, with shelters and rescues, like for dogs and cats, they are always flooded with surrenders and cannot take in more.  But this woman was all "sure, bring them over whenever. k thx bye". Ok, maybe that was an exagggeration, but that was the feeling I got from it.  She also suggested contacting the Pasadena CTCC chapter, since they are located a bit closer to me (than Long Beach).  I googled for the Pasadena chapter's contact info, only found an email address, sent an email, and got no response.  So I called back the Long Beach chapter a week later and set up a date for the turtle drop off.  We set up for this last Saturday (Jan 26). 

We we arrived at the woman's home, it was easy to tell which house was hers... it was the house with a ton of turtle paraphernalia strewn all over the front yard.  On my drive there, I envisioned that the woman would be like a stereotypical "cat lady", but with turtles. 
Think I was correct.

Turtle crap everywhere. the sign says "The Nichol's Turtle Haven"

The front gate was locked but the woman emerged from her home, telling us to simply place the turtles and their stuff over the fence and she will take care of it.  I guess she doesn't want strangers entering her home, makes sense.  We learned from her that she has been saving turtles for over 60 years.  We also learned from her that our turtles were all boys and that she can easily find them a new home because CTCC gets hundreds of adoption requests.  Then she shared stories about turtles, like a funny story about her taking care of a 100-pound tortoise that knocked her over.  And that tortoise eventually got adopted by a guy that already owned ten 100-pound tortoises.

We left shortly after the turtle drop off.  It was bittersweet.  We've had the turtles for so long and I always thought I would keep them for much longer than 6 years.  But at the same time, it was a relief to no longer have to take care of the turtles and to constantly keep Caitlin away from them.  And I know surrendering the turtles to CTCC was the best option.

The turtles, the day before the drop off.

 

I wonder what the Bulbasaur, Mervin, and Nervin are doing right now. 
Probably sulking in a corner as always.

The playroom is complete!

Caitlin's dedicated playroom (which is actually a play area, since the room is sectioned off into 2 parts) is complete!  It was actually complete back in mid-December but I forgot to share about it til now!

We bought a storage rack to store a lot of the big items that used to be strewn on the floor in this room.  Aunt Grace and Uncle Kevin also got Caitlin an alphabet play mat so playtime can be less painful when she clumsily falls on her head (thank you Grace and Kevin!). I really think the alphabet playmat is really what "makes" the playroom.  Without it, it would just look like a messy room where we forgot to put her toys away.  With the play mat, it looks like all the toys belong there! 

We are very happy with the play area.  Caitlin has a clean area to play, we are finally optimizing the space in that room, and our living room no longer looks like it's been taken over by toys.  The guest area is a tad small but it's not often that we have guests anyways.  For the amount of time Caitlin spends in that room, versus the amount of time we have house guests, I think we have split up the room appropriately.

I think in the future, if Caitlin's play stuffs ends up taking over the entire room (which other people said would eventually happen), I think what we will end of doing is get rid of the spare bed for good (it's a crummy old full sized bed anyways), and just invest in a really nice queen sized air mattress.  Then when we have guests, we will pull out the air bed and make space in the play room as needed.  That seems to be what other families with kids do, and it makes the most sense!

Here are photos of the play room from mid December, right after the play area was complete. 
Sorry for the crummy lightning, I need better photo-taking + photoshop skills, but not willing to invest the effort.

Caitlin's play area.  Our new storage rack in the back.

By the way, we are selling Caitlin's exersaucer (in the back, next to the office chair).  $25!  Any takers?

A view of the guest area to the right, behind the baby gate.

Happy New Year 2013!

Happy 2013!
While 2012 was a great year for us, I hope 2013 is even better. 
I also hope that it moves a lot slower than 2012 (where did the year go?  Last time I checked, it was March 2012.  What happened to the remaining 9 months?).

Last night was the first time in looong time where we did not stay up until midnight to ring in the new year.
We were all exhausted, can you blame us? =)

Happy Holidays 2012!!

Her very own playroom

I am excited to share that we have plans to have a dedicated space for Caitlin to call her very own playroom.

Our current guest room is very large and with a small full sized bed and a computer in there, a lot of good empty space goes wasted.  Our laziness gets the best of us and that free space ends up being the dumping ground for things that we don't know where they go... such as a plastic 6-foot Christmas tree, a 40 pound box of timothy hay, and a large stockpile of good cardboard boxes I cannot part with.

We have plans to partition the room so the guest area is more private and cozy and the remainder of the room will be dedicated for Caitlin and all her toys.  Currently, it's a pain having Caitlin roam and crawl around the house since it's hard to keep the floors sanitized and spotless every minute of the day, everyday.  The last thing I want is for Caitlin to get sick from ingesting germs or bacteria or salmonella (from the turtles) or guinea poop (from the guineas).  With a smaller room dedicated for Caitlin, it will be easier to keep the floors sanitized and there will also be less traffic in that area, so it should stay clean longer.  I also hate how our living area has been taken over by baby toys -- I think they should start paying rent.  It will be great to exile all of Caitlin's toys to the playroom.

I am very excited and I can't wait to get the playroom set up.  I hope to get everything done this weekend.

Our very first pictures

I found a folder on my desktop called "Very First Pic".  It contained 2 very old pictures of Jeff and me from back in June of 2006.
I vaguely recall scrounging through my digital photos about a two years ago, trying to round up the earliest photos that Jeff and I took together and it appears that these 2 are it!  I don't remember what I planned to do with these photos, but the project was apparently forgotten and abandoned on my computer desktop.

Might as well share them here!
Ah, don't we look so young?

 the 2 of us.. pre-lasik days. hehe

 

I still remember this day...  We went strolling together down 3rd Street Promenade (in Santa Monica) together for the first time, then we walked over to Ocean Ave, across the street from the Santa Monica Pier, and had lunch at an upscale restaurant (I think it was Italian)? I remember feeling really embarrassed because we were under dressed (look at Jeff's AMD t shirt!!).  I don't remember what we had for lunch but I recall getting some type of ceviche for appetizers (odd since ceviche isn't Italian).
Don't remember the name of the restaurant and whether it still exists, but looking at the photo, it appears to be near the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Ocean Ave, next to Sushi Roku (love this place!)

I'm thinking we should go back soon and look for it.

-----------
UPDATE:
After looking on Google Maps and Yelp, I think the restaurant is called Ocean Ave Seafood.  And it appears to be an American seafood restaurant, not Italian.
Looking at their menu, I saw a "Baja Ceviche" on their appetizers list, so that has to be it! And the patio photo on Yelp looks familiar and could be where our photo above was taken:

Dominate Dragons with Git

If you have not done so already, head on over to the Hulu Tech Blog to read Jeff's post about the benefits of using Git. 
Read the post here: Dominate Dragons with Git.
Jeff's arguments are well thought-out, well-written, amusing, and incredibly convincing. 

If you have no idea what Git is, it is a version control and source code management system for software development, and is far superior than other version control software out there such as SVN and CVS.  If you have no idea what any of that previous sentence meant, then maybe this post isn't for you, but head on over there anyways and show some support.  =)

And if you are wondering who is that talented artist that drew the adorable dragon illustrations.... well, that talented artist is me  =D

Our Dominican Republic trip

As you already know, we went visited Punta Cana (in the Dominican Republic) in mid-October for a destination wedding.
I have mixed feelings about that country.  On one hand, the beaches are quite pretty, and I really enjoyed the warm, humid weather and the rainy afternoons.  On the other hand, I found the locals and the towns to be quite a culture shock, where the locals are constantly trying to swindle a buck or two off the tourists (and their own locals as well?) and the town is so dirty, poor, and noisy.
I can now understand why visitors would stay at a resort (even if it costs $300-$400 per person per day), because you get to enjoy the beautiful land and ocean without having to deal with the actual people that live there.

Here is a not so quick summary of our one week trip to Dominican Republic.
If you haven't arleady read an earlier post about our trip to the DR, read it here.

Getting Around:
Because we flew into Santo Domingo, which is a 3 hour drive from Punta Cana, we hired a driver to drive us to and from the airport.  I am really glad we did this since not only is driving 3 hours after spending almost 10 hours on an airplane really sucky, but driving in a foreign country where people drive like a bunch of maniacs is not safe either (you will see drivers disregarding the lines on the road, 5 people squished onto 1 motorcycle, cars at an intersection going at it like a free-for-all... it's complete chaos).

During our 8 day trip there, we also rented a car so we could get around Punta Cana.  While driving, we noticed that there were always people bunched up on the side walk next to speed bumps.  Turns out, people do that to try and hitch a ride on large trucks that have to slow down right before the speed bumps.  Like I said, the poor locals was a huge culture shock.

Things We Did:
Us folks with kids didn't do that much.  We went to the nearby beach twice (literally, a 1 minute walk from our condo), went to the Hard Rock Casino Resort twice (and we got food poisoning from the resort. More on that later), and we went out to dinner once (at Capitan Cook. I've never tasted seafood so fresh).  The folks without the kids did other stuff like cigar shopping and clubbin'. I thought I heard talk of some folks wanting to go zip lining but no one ended up doing that.  Jeff and I brought our snorkels but we didn't go snorkeling either.  Somehow, 8 days in Punta Cana just wasn't enough.

The lovely beach

The Wedding at Hard Rock:
Our cousin's wedding was held at the Hard Rock Casino Resort (I heard if you stay there for 4 nightsw, you get a free wedding?  Maybne we should renew our vows there?) and the night before the wedding, there was a cocktail hour at the resort.  Because it was held at a resort that we were not staying at, we had to buy a Day Pass to be able to enter the resort, and with the Day Pass, we would also have access to food and drinks and entertainment. The Day Pass was $90 per day per person, and unfortunately, since I had a grumpy baby in tow, I didn't get to use the Day Pass to my full advantage. 

The cocktail hour was held outdoors by this beautifully lit pool that had a shallow area that people waded through.  There was tray pass hors d'oeuvres and an open bar.  We got to mingle with the bride and groom to -be and their families and meet the fellow wedding guests.  Maybe an hour after arriving to the cocktail hour, Caitlin started crying a lot since it was past her bedtime, she was tired, and she was getting overstimulated from all the people trying to interact with her.  So Jeff dropped me and Caitlin off at the condo so I could put Caitlin to bed while Jeff returned back to the resort to eat dinner with the rest of the wedding gang.  I asked Jeff to bring me back some dinner but after waiting until 12:30am, I was done waiting for Jeff and crawled into bed.  Apparently Jeff had his own adventure after dropping me off... something about getting lost on the drive back to Hard Rock and all the restaurants except for 1 being closed at the resort. 

Stole this pic from the groom's facebook

The following day was the day of the wedding.  The ceremony was at 1pm on the beach at the resort.  From what I recall, the wedding must have started late because I thought we were going to be late to the wedding but once we arrived there, we still had to wait a bit before the ceremony started.  I was impressed by the number of wedding guests that attended considering that it was a destination wedding.  I would estimate, about... 60 people (could have sworn I saw 6 tables of 10 at the reception)?
The beach was so HOT since we were in DR and there was very little shade.  But by looking at the bride and groom, you couldn't tell how hot and humid it was since they looked stunning.  Jeff, Caitlin and I stood off on the side (with another family with a young baby) since we didn't want Caitlin to risk ruining the wedding.  Caitlin fussed a bit near the end but luckily, no one heard her. Phew!  I tried my best to keep Caitlin happy by feeding her some chilled bottled water (it was sooo frikin hot. geez) but it wasn't cutting it towards the end.  The entire ceremony lasted no more than 15 minutes (as I predicted!) and family photos followed afterward.  The reception was later in the evening so Caitlin and Olivia took an afternoon nap in the bride's parent's hotel room, then we all attended the reception.  The reception was a sit-down dinner with the typical events: first dance, toasts, cake cutting, dancing.  Our table was situated next to the speakers so we spent most of our time not at our dinner table since we didn't want the babies to go deaf.  As a result, I missed the cake that was served and someone swiped our wedding favors.  Towards the end of the wedding, after many of the guests had already left, Caitlin started getting exhausted and fussy so Jeff, Caitlin and I headed back to the condo while the rest of our group stayed to hang out with the bride & groom and their family.  I feel a bit bad that I didn't get to mingle with them on either of the days, but with a young baby that needs to sleep and she cannot sleep on-the-go, it's hard.

I stole this picture too

The Food:
After a week in DR, I still can't figure out what the local cuisine is there.
We did take-out for dinner on a few of the days, and for one meal it was Italian seafood and risotto (Italian cuisine), one meal was empanadas (Portuguese cuisine), and another meal was... I don't even know what that was... it was something like grilled fish and chicken sandwich and french fries (an attempt at American cuisine?).  The one meal that we did eat at a restaurant (Capitan Cook) didn't seem to belong to any cuisine, it was simply seafood (which you pick and choose while raw, kind of like at a super market) then they grill it for you.

The food that we ate at the Hard Rock Casino resort was typical resort/cruise line/cafeteria food: American.
The remainder of the trip, we went grocery shopping at the Super Mercado and cooked in our condo.

And after this trip, I have one piece of advice for you:  Don't eat resort food! 
After eating food from the local shacks, restaurants and grocery stores, we were all fine.  No tummy issues.  Towards the end of our trip, when we ate at the Hard Rock Resort for the wedding, 4 out of 7 of us in our party (me being one of them) got sick with food poisoning.  We were all still feeling the effects of it for 1-2 weeks after our trip.  It's kind of odd since usually, travelers are advised to avoid local food & drinks and to only eat resort food/drinks.  It should really be the other way around.
Upon returning home, the ill people got antibiotics and probiotics to remedy their tummy troubles except for me.  I was too busy and tired dealing with Caitlin's jet lag and swaddle weaning that I didn't even have time to think or deal with my stomach problem.  There were several times that I had to dump Caitlin somewhere while she wailed for 30 minutes while I sat on the toilet.  When I emerged from the bathroom, I simply got on with my day and didn't even think about my stomach issues until the next time it churned.  It was sad times for the two of us. 

The Flight Back -- this day was a doozy:
The day we traveled back home was hectic!  No one had time to eat!  Jeff and I were up for almost 24 hours the day we returned home.
The day all started at 6am when Caitlin woke up due to the sunrise (which led her to wake at 3am CA time when we returned from our trip).  After feeding her we started packing since we couldn't pack the night before as we returned late from the wedding so we put Caitlin straight to bed.  We can't pack with her in the bedroom -- she would wake up.  We checked out of the condo at 8am even though we were still in the middle of scrambling to clean up the condo at that time.  Around 8:30am, we left for our 3 hour drive back to the Santo Domingo airport.
Once at the airport, we had to wade through the crowds and find our proper place to check-in and board.  We had no down time eat or use the restroom since by the time we made it through security (they made me remove Caitlin from my baby carrier and scan the baby carrier before going through the metal detector. wtf? You don't have to do this in the U.S.  Maybe they have no idea what a baby carrier is and thought it was a bomb), it was time to board our flight.  And of course, I was "randomly selected" for a more thorough check before boarding the plane, so the plane was waiting for me.  I say "randomly selected" since the only people selected were people that didn't look Dominican/dark skinned.  The flight to NY went smoothly, Caitlin slept like an angel (it just so happened that the flight coincided with her usual nap time) while I watched "The Five-Year Engagement" and Jeff watched "Snow White and the Huntsman".  

 SDQ --> JFK

When we landed in NY, we didn't have a gate so we had to wait while they prepared for a shuttle to shuttle us off the plane to the gate.  Once we finally arrived at the gate, we had to go through Immigration.  The line for US Citizens was LOOONG but luckily, our family and Connie's family got to go into the "family" line which was very short.  We were in and out of there quickly.
While we waited for the rest of our party (who were not in the "family" line), we got our luggage from baggage claim. (Since it was an international flight, they didn't automatically transfer our luggage to our connecting flight).  After waiting around forever for the rest of our party, we decided to continue on to our next flight since our connecting flight was earlier than the other folk's flight.  After we went through customs and re-checked in our bags for our connecting flights, we were greeted by a long TSA line.  At this point, we realized that our connecting flight was already boarding (for some reason, we thought our flight was at 8pm but it was really at 7pm) so TSA let us go through the fast lane.  If it wasn't for the family-line at Immigration, we would have surely missed our flight -- traveling with kids does have its perks! 
After getting through security, Jeff and I tried to run as fast as we could to our gate, and holy shit, I had no idea JFK was that large.  We were running and running and the airport just kept getting bigger and bigger!  I heard "final boarding" for our flight on the overhead speaker and I was freaking out -- with a baby, I absolutely don't want to miss my flight.  Jeff was able to run but I had so much trouble as I was holding a baby and trying to hold my diaper bag and pull a rolling carry on.  Thank god one of those golf carts that drives old people around stopped and told me "Get in the cart!".  I hesitated for 1 second, glanced at Jeff who was already a speck in the distance, then hopped into the cart.  I told everyone "thanks" for stopping to pick me up and that that my flight was about to leave.  The kind elderly folks on the cart asked the driver to skip their gates and take me straight to mine.  I explained to everyone about my tight connecting flight from an international flight, and others shared to me their stories of how the airport also screwed them over in the past while flying with a baby.  I was dropped off at my gate, waved goodbye to my new friends, telling them I would "hug them all if I had the time", and boarded the plane.  Jeff arrived about 30 seconds after I arrived. We plopped into our seats exhausted and defeated.  The plane took a while taking off, but luckily, Caitlin was in high spirits and the air pressure change during take off didn't bother her at all. When Caitlin's fuse eventually ran out and started crying, I nursed her on the boppy and she slept the entire flight (it just so happened that the flight coincided with her bed time).
When the plane landed, there wasn't a gate for us so we had to wait on the damn plane for an additional hour! Argh!  My coccyx hurt so bad from sitting in the same position for 7 hours.  It was past 11pm by the time we arrived at the gate.  After picking up our luggage and getting a ride home from Jeff's co worker, we arrived home past midnight.  After settling in and putting Caitlin to bed, we had our first meal of the day -- instant ramen.  By the time we showered and crawled into bed, it was past 2am.  Remember we started our day at 6am EST (which is 3am PST), that meant we were up for nearly 24 hours.  It was a really long day, but it was great to be home.

Pictures: 
I already put in a lot of time uploading the pictures to Picasa so you're going to have to look at them over there.

Punta Cana - Dominican Republic

Happy Halloween!

Halloween has come and gone and we have the exact same amount of candy as when we started, since we completely missed the trick-o-treaters! 
That's what happens when you take your kid out trick o treating for the first time and you forget to leave a bowl of candy out on your door step.
Well, we actually made off with more candy than when we started since Caitlin got some yummy candies while trick o treating.
I read online that the shelf life of hard candies is a year (even longer for gobstoppers, which we have a bunch of), so perhaps we can re-use these candies next year?  lol.

Here are our Halloween pictures.  Jeff and I didn't dress up, but Caitlin was a baby elephant this year.  We actually already have her costume for next year too -- ladybug costume from Carters, which I got for 70% off, with an additional 15% off since the tights were missing.

 On all fours like an elephant

I carved the large pumpkin.  It's supposed to be The Count (from Sesame Street).  It doesn't really look like him so you're really going to need to use your imagination. 

For some reason, I thought Jeff's favorite Sesame Street character was The Count, but I got all mixed up.  He actually likes Oscar the Grouch.
Jeff carved Caitlin's mini pumpkin, Cookie Monster, which is Caitlin's favorite.

Trick o treating for the first time.

Caitlin holding her own Halloween bucket, which is filled with candies! 
No, I didn't help her hold it.  She is just that strong.

So happy trick o treating

Caitlin's neighbor/BFF, Peggy 

Family picture!