New Yorkers

I was bummed out that I never got to see E & A’s place, but we did spend a perfect day together on St. Patrick’s. First we stopped in and glanced at the parade, which apparently is New York speak for “a bunch of boy scouts and policemen walking down 5th Avenue” and “drunk high school audience cheering and fighting.” The bloody noses were probably the most exciting part of the parade.

  After that we went to E’s office and saw their amazing projects, which you’ll find out about soon, I’m sure.  Travis was there, too, and I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of him. We ate lovely Vietnamese food, and then went for our sugar walk where Minnie got a photo op with the guy from The Doughnut Plant.

  Amy is awesome pulling off four kids with style. I felt a little wimpy leaving my one behind in Portland. Pizza at Lombardi’s followed our sugar binge. Enoch knew enough to order the white pizza, even though we were all skeptical. Ezra ate about 5 pieces of pizza. I was impressed.

We ate lunch with Aaron the next day. Luckily he knew the best Chinese restaurant in the city, and we ate “this will scald your mouth at about 300 degrees celsius” soup dumplings. 24 of them, actually. When we showed up he said he had ordered already, and, “I may have gone a little overboard.” Since Da and I hadn’t been hungry for days, we were just fine stuffing our faces for yet another meal.

This is Aaron explaining to us how amazing Momofuku is, which we went to eat at the next day, while we are consuming our 10 plates of food for 5 people.   Take note, people—orange chicken in NY is actually orange. Not some pale, bland, soggy mess. We walked from lunch to Aaron’s office. He works at the same building as Food Network. !!!! Unfortunately we saw no one famous. To console myself I ate gelato, pistachio and panna cotta flavors, and bought a bunch of gourmet chocolate. We finally drew the line at the cupcake store and just window shopped instead.

Mary had a little lamb

someone gave Maria a lamb that makes noise. It doesn't make lamb noise, it makes heart beating, rain falling, whale something, noises. I find it creepy but she has been loving it and Enzo loves it more and is always turning it on for her. I call her Ms. Homecoming Queen because she is super social. When we were at the airport on our way back from NY I was trying to nurse her but the loud speakers would go off with some announcement about not leaving your bags unattended and she would immediately latch off and look around and smile. She always thinks people are talking to her. I think she loves the lamb because it's constantly making noises at her.

Mexico

We took a cruise to Cabo San Lucas for Spring Break. Everyone thought it was extravagant. It was. When I was g-chatting with Sienna and Austin a few days before I left, I was in the midst of finals and I hadn't showered in who knows how long and I hadn't seen the light of day for a week as I was glued to my desk studying, but Sienna said - don't feel sorry for her, she's going to Cabo. So it's true. We sailed on the "Carnival Elation." It was fun. And the cruise went to great lengths to make sure we knew we were having fun. The daily print out of activities was called the "fun times" the pool area was called the "fun deck" the musical program had huge block letters spelling out "FUN" on the stage and Cruise Director Steve only referred to the boat as the "fun ship."


There were a few pools on the boat. It made me think about how unsustainable cruise ships are. It's more fun when you don't think about it. Although, I was happy to learn that the ships no longer dump raw sewage into the ocean. We're makin' progress! (as Bush would say).

Anyway, I tried to tan. It didn't work. I couldn't help but re-lathering my sunscreen every 10 minutes. Our friend Deats was like, wait, aren't you from Hawaii? I said, being from Hawaii doesn't change your genetic make up. He didn't get it.



My favorite part was the time we spent in Los Cabos. The ocean was beautiful. The marina area was cute. In the picture above you can kind of see our cruise ship waaaay in the background above the rock. Los Cabos is pretty touristy, but I still had fun practicing my Spanish. I tried to bargain down the price of a regalo I was buying for my mom, but señor would not have it. I said "pues, es todo lo que tengo." He said, "es todo lo que tienes."






Hoku loves ATVs so she wanted to do a "land excursion." I wasn't that sure I was going to have fun, but it was actually way better than I though it would be. We went on tandem ATVs so it would be cheaper, but we took turns driving. I liked that we got out of the touristy areas of the city and into the mountains. My favorite part was all the cacti. It felt very..."mexico."



We took a little boat out to see the arch and went snorkeling. The snorkeling was pretty good. I would say it was definitely as good as Shark's Cove. The masks kinda fogged up a lot, though, and they made us wear these awkward blue life vest things. Enrique said I didn't have to inflate it if I didn't want to, which I didn't. But this Mexican lady on board kept yelling at me to "inflate tu veste!" I told her I was just going to leave it, but she wasn't happy about it. On the way back, two giant humpback whales swam right up to our boat (I couldn't get a good picture though.) Our captain "Brian" (is he American?) jumped out so he could snorkel with the whales. Right. I suggested we sail away and leave him there.


At dinner every night we sat with these guys from the University of Utah. When we asked them how they liked Salt Lake City they said, "Well, aside from the Mormons, it's awesome." It made for some interesting dinner conversation. They made fun of Mormons for liking pizza and ice cream (in place of alcohol). I was like, whatever, pizza and ice cream are delicious. Get with the program.

Thanks Austie and Dad for the blue ray bans. I'm happy that I finally got to be in some sunshine so I could use them. I hope Spring is here to stay.

Missing this person

NY Storm

On Saturday we thought the house was going to blow away. On Sunday we went for a walk around E and Amy's place.

this is their old house. Good thing the tree caught the broken pole.

Still no electricity where they live, poor Amy!

It was pretty coldy inside their house so we all had to bundle up.

Still, it was delightful to be with them and today we're going to meet up in the city to go to the Saint Patrick's day Parade and then hang out with E.

I'm really hoping their electricity will come back soon and the roads will clear up so they can resume their normal life. However, I am mainly just thankful that no trees fell on their house and that we were all safe.

We love the Bells!

 

 

 

Liz, Brian, Logan, Brody, and Baby Sienna came through Santa Barbara on a little vacation. It was so fun to see them. The boys had so much fun playing together. They were immediate friends. We had fun swimming in their hotel pool and the dads got in a quick surf session while the rest of us walked and sat on the beach. It is so fun that we have the same little family configuration. I wish they lived here too.

Natalie and Lilikoi

 

The Ormes (sp?) came to SB for Christian's birthday and the girls came to visit Lilikoi (and the rest of us). This is Natalie and Lilikoi. Natalie loves babies. I wish they lived here so that she could come over and play with my baby so I could get something done every once in a while. Come visit again soon.

Dear people on the internet that actually know me and my family

Notice how her eyes are all red around them. When she wakes up she can't even open them. They're cemented shut with all the eye goo she accumulated during the night. Both of her tear ducts are clogged and have been since she was born. Constant green nasties come out of her eyes. The doc suggested she have surgery, which means that they have to put her out. The thought of it makes me want to throw up.

any other suggestions?