Cutest Pregnancy Ever?

I am in LOVE with this most adorable video documenting this gorgeous gal's pregnancy.  Dad and writer is a photographer, and blogs Pacing The Panic Room.  You can see the series, as well as the stories and the video there, every week, they did a photo shoot of her wearing American Apparel and I wish I was a skinny as she was, but love the idea of NOT buying maternity clothes.  Way to go you two, this video is FANTASTIC.


Magic- A Belly Grows from The Panic Room Videos on Vimeo.

Parenting hopes and dreams

We read a really interesting article in this weekend's Wall Street Journal comparing French parenting to American parenting, and the resulting toddlers.  The article is written by Pamela Druckerman, an American mom, living in France, and it's the kind of article that makes me think I CAN have the kind of children I want (French todlers) instead of the kind I'm afraid of having (American toddlers).

Why French Parents Are Superior

Soon it became clear to me that quietly and en masse, French parents were achieving outcomes that created a whole different atmosphere for family life. When American families visited our home, the parents usually spent much of the visit refereeing their kids' spats, helping their toddlers do laps around the kitchen island, or getting down on the floor to build Lego villages. When French friends visited, by contrast, the grownups had coffee and the children played happily by themselves.

She wrote a book about it, Bringing Up Bebe, and it's coming out tomorrow, published by The Penguin Press. You can read a great review of it (from the WSJ) here: Parenting A La Mode, or, in tomorrow's WSJ.

Get your own copy here.

Central Europe 2011 Part III, Austria

After our stopover in Czesky Budjrovich, we continued on and crossed the border into Austria, and stopped off in Salzburg.  Not the highest place on our list, we only planned one full day in Salzburg, but it turned out to be our FAVORITE place!  We talk dreams of moving there to have babies and live a small perfect life.  We rented bikes, bought picnic goods and spent the day riding around and tracking down all the sights from The Sound of Music, and fulfilling the fantasies of the 7-year-old girl inside of me, singing the songs and dancing around. We had nice weather for the first time, and loved every minute of the day.

An Alpen in her natural habitat 

Maria's Church! At her Abbey! Nonnburg Abbey 

The FRONT Von Trapp mansion, can you believe they used two different ones, a front view and a back view??  We picnicked across the lake looking at the back view, where the kids fall in the water in their play clothes! 

the 16 going on 17 gazebo, and below, is Andy indulging me in my 7 year-old girl fantasy of being Liesl when she dances around with Rolf, leaping from one bench to the next!

Seriously. Favorite Day.

The next morning we got up, rented a car, and drove to Vienna.  It was an amazing drive, the Austria I'd been longing for -- huge Alps, expanses of lush green grass, and those hunky brown and white cows with big bells on!  We packed our left-over picnic food, bought a map, and hit the autobahn! We made two significant stops along the way, in the tiniest ever town of Hallstatt in Salzkammergut, and to take a gondola ride and hike a mountain top.  Hallstatt is built on this teeny tiny bit of land between a huge mountain and a beautiful lake, not even room for roads, so everything is quite literally on top of each other.  It's charming like crazy, full of incredible views on all sides, and home to the Kirche und Beinhaus, which is the Bone House church.  No space to live, and no space to die, they didn't have room to bury their dead, so instead, they placed the cleaned, dried out, and decorated skulls and femurs in a chapel, a bone house. The year of death was painted on the skulls and they go back to the 1800's.

Onward to Vienna, but not without finding a gondola to an alpen summit!  We took a ride up two gondolas to the top of this crazy mountain, and hiked out to a view point where there were all these paragliders, and "relaxation couches" where we ate our little lunch, and watched people jump off the side of the mountain and sail over the lakes and valleys below. Dream life. We continued the trail to another overlook, and tried these five "fingers" -- little planks that extend over the cliff and give you five different thrills, before we had to head back and catch the last ride down the mountain or be stuck there overnight!

 Andy and our rental:  a Ford Fiesta

Last stop, Vienna!  Where, we didn't take many photos it seems.  Which might be because I left the plug converter in the room in Prague, and we ran out of camera battery and were unable to charge it... but I can't remember.
Vienna: we discovered that the same operation that we rented bikes from in Salzburg, was in Vienna, where we were already set up! You pop your credit card in a machine, enter your password information, and it unlocks a bike for you to rent by the hour, seriously, why is this not in San Francisco (and for a euro an hour!)??   So we tried to see Vienna on bike, but got lost, and had an unsuccessful day.  We made it out to the Danube, and saw a much more real-life side of Vienna then we maybe needed to, but we capped off the night with our favorite dinner treat:  a sausage served "hot dog" style, meaning they take a long roll, like a sour dough roll, cut the top off and make a little hole and stick it on a spike. Then in the hole that the spike makes, they pump in mustard, and then shove in your sausage!  It's all perfectly contained in the bread, and is all the sausagey perfection I could ask for. YUM!

The next day, we had tickets to see the Lipizzaners at the Spanish Riding School.  They only had performances on Saturdays, which we weren't there for, but they sell tickets to their morning practices on some weekdays.  Oh MAN, soo great!  Word of caution, the arena is indoors, and if you're allergic to horses, like me, it's pure misery.  You're not allowed to take pictures, and I obeyed.  We then toured the Hoffberg's palace, Schlas Schonnbrunn, and got wine on the canal in the Palace Urania.

Schonnbrunn Palace

ein Sachertorte und zwei cappuccino

And then we flew forever, got delayed on the runway for four hours and missed our connection in Boston and got a wonderful nights sleep at a hotel courtesy of the airline, before giving up our seats the next morning and getting a $700 voucher! And then we're home. Whew! Can you believe it?

Resolutions: 2012

2011 resolutions were largely culinary, and we did pretty well, aside from some weight gain:
*produce from the farmers markets, go weekly. (this turned into a CSA box instead)
*pick up our wine shipment in person at least 4 times a year (good reason to get out of the city for the day)
*meal plan weekly
*try at least two new recipes a week
*leave the country at least once

So, for 2012 I'm resolving to:
*buy only seasonal veggies if more than the CSA is needed --this means no tomatoes for a while, and right now it's meaning a LOT of bitter winter greens and squash.
*fight the inappropriate growth of my body
*run a race
*limit meat to one meal a week, if that
*allow myself the freedom to be a better friend, even if I can't be a perfect one
*deepen my relationships at work
*leave the country at least once

four month sum-up

we traveled, we loved, we ate, we celebrated!

September and October were nuts for us.  Saudi Arabia (Andy), San Diego, Seattle, Berlin, Prague, Salzburg, Vienna, 30!, Holiday, Bend. whew.

Andy and I celebrated our 1st year of marriage in Seattle, where Andy had a conference.  We spend a couple days in his conference hotel downtown, and while Andy taught and learned, I saw friends and played in the City, and then we spent the weekend with some friends in Ballard, along with some other friends who drove up from Portland.  We got to see my family for dinner one night, and spent Sunday with them, eating an amazing brunch and swimming in a fabulous pool.  It was full and lovely. We didn't take any pictures if you can believe it.

I marked 30 with glam.  Call these the crisis of turning twenty-ten, by Valentino:

(I was also spoiled by my wonderful husband, who also felt the need to mark the occasion.)

Hello Central Europe!  We took a fabulous trip to Central Europe, into Berlin and out of Vienna.  We had thought we'd spend the time in either Argentina or Italy, but with Andy's recent travels to the Middle East, we had enough airline miles to book a trip, and those places were unavailable.  We decided to pick the dates, and go where ever we could get tickets, and this worked, so we booked it, and started planning.  Two glorious weeks that felt like a second honeymoon, and were a blessing to be away from work, away from life, and enjoying each other and our spirits of adventure.

We spent Thanksgiving with The Coughlin/Walther side of the family, but here in the Bay.  Andy's folks came down and cousins came up, and it was a huge, fun day of family and fun, before the misery of the Holiday shopping season hit my life. We spent Christmas just the two of us, and cooked a fabulous meal where I roasted my first chicken. Vegetarian no more!

 Andy headed up to Oregon the next day, and I joined him a few days later, and we got just enough snow to satisfy before we headed off to the high desert for New Years.

Now, enough wrap-up, here's some hot NYE shoe:   Palais peep toes from YSL.

Happy New Year!!

Publish Post

We spent our 2011-2012 transition in Oregon with Andy's fam, and spent NYE and a friend's Birthday by renting a cabin at Brasada Ranch, about 30 minutes outside of Bend, Oregon.  If you are looking for a perfect high-desert resort with mountain views and amazing facilities, I highly recommend it.

Central Europe 2011 Part II, Czech Replublic

We kicked it down to Prague for the next week.  Oh Prague.  Those copper-topped buildings, and cobblestone streets (murder on your feet but so pretty to look at), pints of delicious Czech beer for less than $2! Bridges and rivers and palaces!  We saw The Marriage of Figaro, performed by the Czech National Opera, in the same opera house debuted Don Giovanni in.  Beautiful.  We spent our last coins on two champagnes during intermission, instead of dinner.  La Vie Bohem!! After the opera, we went out dancing, and learned that we were just too old for it, at least for that club.  We tried.  We spent several days exploring the streets, the sights, the many cathedrals, and fighting the cold air by drinking our weight in hot wine.  We ate heavy Czech food, too much sausage and cabbage and dumplings, but the perfect amount of delicious pilsner. 

wine at the palace vinyard

on the Charles Bridge

John Lennon wall

We took a day trip out to Kutna Hora, a mining town about an hour train ride away, where we took a tour of an old silver mine (!!!).  Incredible, but maybe a little wetter and drippier than I had expected.  (Andy loved every second of it, I was creeped and ready to be out after about five minutes of the 90 minute tour.)

On our way down to Austria, our train had a stopover in Czesky Budjovic, which just happens to be where the Budvar brewery is (Budvar is the 2nd largest Czech beer brewer after Urquel), and so we decided to extend our time in Czech Republic by extending our stopover and getting out into the town.  Like so many other things on our trip (Guggenheim closed for a changing of exhibit, Josefhov sites all shut for Yom Kippur, funicular railway out of service) our timing was off and it wasn't a work day, so I didn't get to see any machines in action, but the beer was delicious.  We hung out in the pub to kill time before our train, and tried all the beers we could drink.

 (I LOVE how things are made)

 Fun fact:  When Anheiser Busch was coming up with a name for their beer, they chose Budweiser because  the Czech's Budweiser Budvar is synonimous with "good beer."  

Central Europe 2011 Part I, Berlin

Per usual international travel, I got sick on the way over, and our first few days, in Berlin especially, were full of fevers and constantly watering eyes and a raw, red nose. Unfortunately, we kind of missed out on Berlin.  We were there for Sunday and Monday nights, the two nights that Berlin, the city that doesn't sleep, slept.  We found no dancing, no clubs, and empty bars. We did see all of the historical sights we could, go to an outdoor flea market, see the Lars Van Trier movie Melancholia in a fabulous old theatre, and become proficient in the Berlin train system.

 We did, however, catch the tail end of Oktoberfest, and found Berlin's little celebration of it, where we drank beer, ate pretzels and danced some polka.  It felt like our time in Berlin was a huge history and cultural lesson, as we experienced the city torn in two, and full of a tortured and horrific past, coming to flourish in art, fashion, and culture. It was also the birthplace of my love of mulled wine, or there called: hot wine.

I love to sit around with other members of the church who want to glorify God and who have been given creative gifts from God and together to craft plans and strategies for the church. I can walk away from such conversations with great anticipation in my mind and great zeal in my heart for God to bless our work for his name’s sake.

But there is a subtly deceptive, ultimately dangerous assumption inherent in doing things this way. The assumption is that God is somehow obligated to bless the plans we create. Yet nowhere in Scripture has God promised to bless my plans or anyone else’s in the church, no matter how innovative or creative they may be. Neither has God promised to bless us based solely on our motives. Sure, we are supposed to do everything for the glory of God, but that doesn’t mean everything we do for his glory is assured of his blessing.             

                            --David Platt, Radical Together

A Breath Of Fresh Airline

I love Virgin America's ad campaigns. I'm desperately dreaming of a get-a-way weekend ASAP, whether it's camping in the mountains, exploring a new city, lounging pool-side, or eating on a patio over-looking the water (beach, sea, lake, sure), I'm hopped up on dreaming of summer weekends (two things that don't go hand-in-hand in my life) and looking for a quick August vacay.

Have you driven a Ford lately? I have.

Funny thing:  I'm somewhat afraid of ANY abnormality having to do with our car and driving.  One of the very first days I started my new job with my new car commute, (literally, like day 2 or 3) I had to drive down San Jose for a meeting. It was a stormy morning, I said goodbye and good luck to my dashing husband, walked up the street and found the car with a flat tire. Umbrella in one hand and coffee in the other, I ran back to our apartment, hoping Andy hadn't left yet, and could help me change the tire in the windy, rainy, messy, morning, and not ruin my tights or dress by kneeling in the muddy street.  Turns out, I had driven over a screw, which was slowly leaking all the air out of the tire. I think that day shattered all my confidence.
Since then, I find myself checking before I get into the car for flat tires and the like, and realized last night after dropping Andy at the airport, that I was nervous something might happen with the car while he was away.  Perhaps it's because I didn't buy it, perhaps it's because I spent four blissful years not driving, perhaps it's that marriage has made me seemingly less independant (before, had I a flat tire on my own car, I would have just changed it myself, and did a number of times). It's true that I know next to nothing about our car. It's a Ford; I've never owned an American car. I know that the gas tank is on the wrong side, the gear-shifter works differently, the windsheild wiper controll is goofy, and the headlights turn on with a dial on the left dash.  I just assume that under the hood is equally backwards, and live in constant fear that I will be stranded, late, scared, and in danger somewhere, sometime.
I much prefer to be a passenger.

Ahh the hatchback, her most redeeming quality.  We moved our SOFA in it.

"I say 'America', you say 'freedom!'"

We spent 4th of July weekend up in Bend with Andy's fam, giving us three full (and fully packed) days of Oregon-style F.U.N.
We spent the whole weekend out doors:  We went for a long trail run by the river, we bbq'd, we rode bikes, we picnicked in the forrest, we fed trout at the hatchery, we drank good Oregon beer, we went out on the town and danced until we were sweaty and falling over, we floated the river, we lit sparklers.  We saw the fam, the grandparents, friends, Mike preaching on Sunday morning, the brothers, the Fishers, The Christensons (who were also in town for the weekend!) babies, dogs and magnificent fireworks.

gearing up for the Freedom Ride through town. excellent.

It was a great weekend away, out of the city, and enjoying the slower life of Bend.  Being outside in sunny, warm weather, it felt like Summer.

Pick Ben F.!

I'm embarrassed to say how very into The Bachelorette I am.  It's more than a guilty pleasure, it's a guilty obession. I'm so excited  that I squeal through it, and am sad when each episode is over and I have to wait another week to see what will happen next.  

I am, OF COURSE, pulling for Ben F., the winemaker from Sonoma (who also grew up in San Diego!).

photos:  abc.com