restored

| October 11, 2010

Oh man. On Thursday, I slept through my alarm and BJ had to drive me to work (since me + stress+ Houston highways = bad morning), dealt with a few difficult kiddos who made me consider throwing in the towel, and, for the third time, missed seeing Beach House! And this was only 1 day out of a pretty rough work week for the both of us. So this weekend—filled with food, family, friends, and alliteration—certainly restored our spirits a bit.

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We had friends over on Friday for wine, snacks, and girls-versus-guys Taboo. After the girls beat the guys, I went to bed early, but everyone else drank and talked until 3 a.m. The next morning, we hung out with Mai and her dog Scrappy at the new Market Square Park downtown. She invited our cousins over to her place afterwards for slowly cooked lamb shanks, ribeye steaks, mashed sweet potatoes, and bacon-looped jalapeños loaded with cream cheese. Highlight of the weekend, though, had to be playing with Scrappy, who loved to jump onto the bed and spoon. (Meanwhile, Igby was in such a territorial, jealous mood all day; her inner Napoleon rose to the surface.)

sun kissed

| September 29, 2010

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(photo by Bill)

Last weekend, we made our trip up to the northeast for a backyard wedding party. BJ’s mom went all out with the decorations, cooking, and assorted prep work. She even had a cartoonishly enlarged close-up of us that BJ half-jokingly referred to as the Asian funeral poster. We were so lucky to see many of his relatives and parents’ friends and to have Uncle Bob sing and play his accordion during the party.

We badly needed a break, and we couldn’t have asked for better weather, which was surprisingly chilly at times and much much drier than Houston’s (hello, smooth hair!) Saturday morning, as we walked from his dad’s to his mom’s and toured the town with the windows rolled down, I was like a broken record expressing how awesome the weather was. I loved being in the valley surrounded by all the hills, and the drive back to Seattle was picturesque with the evergreens, low clouds slash thick fog, fly-fishermen, orchards, and rocky cliffs.

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BJ’s dad also let me test-drive an old Canon of his and—ahhhh!—I thought I took a good amount of nice portraits, only to discover I left the flash on. Those flash-on photos were washed out and gave people unhealthy, morgue-like complexions. Above are a few sun-kissed photos that I liked. With all that light in the lens, they suggest amateur versions of Fader photos. The girl in the second photo is Carly, my fellow cake lover and a little friend of the family. (And daughter of the sultan of Brunei’s former oral surgeon.)

mismatched

| September 21, 2010

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Mismatched photos from the last few weekends, which have been relatively busy and continue to be. We’re looking forward to seeing B’s side of the family and visiting the east coast this weekend.

And after that, I hope for a little bit of stillness, some time to work on my own projects, a moment to sit, and a chance to sleep in.

Brooklyn Wedding

| September 7, 2010

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BJ and I were fortunate to travel to Brooklyn over Labor Day weekend for our friends’, Cassie and Jamie’s, wedding. There was sunshine and breezes the whole time; I can’t remember when I last slept with the window open. I wish our trip had been much longer, but we squeezed in plenty of eating and visiting in those 2.5 days. After the beautiful ceremony and reception, the highlight of the trip was meeting our friends for brunch. These trips are also a little bittersweet because they are a reminder of how dispersed our old ND community is. So we live for these mini reunions.

I shot with an inexpensive film camera during our trip and will post them soon*, but this was the invitation cover BJ and I made for the couple.

Update: A few good pictures from the camera. I think I had the focus setting wrong so a lot were blurry.

* One of our bags was stolen on our last night, and I thought the pictures were lost forever, but Vanessa found it lying in a neighbor’s trashcan. Unbelievable!

things worked out differently

| August 30, 2010

My plans for the weekend included plenty of grading and lesson-planning, but things worked out differently. (And Monday has been relatively stress-free, so it was worth it.) Saturday, we played volleyball at the park with our cousins, watched several episodes of Mad Men, ate sushi, celebrated Tuey’s birthday with delcious mojitos at Anvil, and, on Sunday, we spent the day at the lake playing some more volleyball and jet-skiing.

lake Multitasking: Grading and relaxing

long_igbyShe was super-concerned when anyone was in the water

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We also really enjoyed driving around with Trang and Ben through the smaller streets around our neighborhood. All the homes were pretty old, well kept up, and small but beautiful. It’s funny how we grew up in Houston, yet we rarely ever got to explore down here. (I’m a late bloomer—I got my license at 22!)

I can’t wait for this weekend! We’re going on a quick trip to Brooklyn for our dear friends’ wedding. Unfortunately it’s only for two nights, but we’re looking forward seeing fellow Domers and visiting places we missed on our last trip like Cog and Pearl.

all pictures taken from family’s phone camera

hanging out

| August 10, 2010

What we’ve been up to: cooking breakfast almost every day (and sometimes having it for lunch & dinner), using the immersion blender to make orange-blueberry smoothies, hanging out with Igby who loves to exert herself and her little legs running up the stairs, discovering that all the smudges on our window were from Igby rubbing her dirty nose against it while spying on the neighbors, stuffing ourselves at White Linen Nights, celebrating Brandi’s birthday with filet mignon and red snapper at Del Frisco’s for Houston Restaurant Week, playing sand volleyball with our family, watching several episodes of So You Think You Can Dance on Hulu (That would be me. Go Lauren!), falling in love with The Kids Are All Right, and getting back to the grind with lesson plans, cleaning my classroom, and mini but fewer “omg it’s coming so soon” freak outs.

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NYC P.3 Diana instant back

| August 2, 2010

Woo hoo. I finally scanned all the instant photos from July. Thank you, Rice Media Center. Below are some of my favorite shots from our trip to New York, and I uploaded the rest here.

We were gifted a Diana camera and instant back from Catherine and Trevor for our wedding. More than my digital camera, it ended up documenting the majority of the trip. I guess we’ll just have an itty-bitty photo album to hold all these memories. Plenty of trial and error happened before we got a better handle of the settings, but we loved the instant results (especially me, Ms. Impatient) and having something tangible to hold and look at. Thank you, C + T!

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Calder MOMA

Annie BJ MET

MET Statue

Bklyn Museum

Vanessa Double

NYC Skyline from Brooklyn

BJ Bookstore

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BJ Broadway Soho

Me Broadway Soho mural

I desperately want to buy a scanner, but I guess a washer and dryer, vacuum, and forks and spoons should be more important on the list. Unless we don’t mind a slightly dirtier house and eating with our hands ….

Next up: Austin photos.

NYC P.2

| July 19, 2010

During our stay in NYC, the first two days were spent buying essentials that we didn’t have time to pack. Honestly, we were happy just to make it to the airport on time. So we ventured down to Rockefeller Center to pick up things like socks, underwear, t-shirts, shoes, etc. We didn’t buy too much after that, but here are some of my favorite things we snagged besides the books BJ got.

Madewell Oxford229.99! oxfords on final sale at Madewell. They kind of slip off my feet when I walk, but I’m determined to fix it!

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WarriorsRadness2Yoshitomo Nara towel (already doubling as my movie blanket) & a Warriors of Radness sweater from Opening Ceremony.

1968_Calendar1968 (BJ’s favorite year) calendar towel from 10 ft. Single *

NY_Ties2J.Crew tie & Steven Allen Tie from Bird **

Bird_EarringsMelissa Joy Manning triangular earrings from Bird

* Kudos to Lena C. for the tip
** Spotted George O’Malley + was probably very obviously about it

New York I love you P.1

| July 14, 2010

We’re back! Our feet are worn out, our bellies are full, and our brains are about to explode from all the noise, art, people, sights of New York City. We ended up taking more photos with our new Diana Instant back (Thanks you Catherine!), and once those get scanned, I’ll post them here and write more about our trip later…

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10.75 lunch specials at Azusa, Grand Central market lobby, Pearl River Market, Despana tapas, water towers, MOMA, the Met with Annie, Brooklyn Museum to see Kiki Smith + the fashion exhibit, Vanessa, and looking at the skyline from a dock in Brooklyn.

Coming up for air

| June 22, 2010

Hi there,

Just coming up for some air. Whew. My house is covered in paper scraps, my head is spinning, and 24 hours seems like too short of a day! I finally settled my car situation, and we decided to take out a loan to buy a new car. At least I’ll have more peace of mind during my long commutes to work. And we’ll both be sharing it, so I think it’s a good idea in the long run. Still, timing? Not so great.

I thought I would share this piece BJ did a few nights ago. I swear he busted it out so quickly. Don’t you think he should do more?

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I’m so excited to see all my friends and family next week.