my boys...

i'm extremely lucky that my sister and i are super close. she only lives 4 blocks away from me and has 2 boys, one that is a year older than aaron and the other is a year younger. the boys get along really well and my sister and i look forward to seeing them grow up together. here are just some shots of them together. they are soo adorable!! yes, we go on vacations together too.

 tahoe aug 2011

 disneyland may 2012

 boston oct 2012

 

water park jul 2013

tahoe aug 2013

serpentine

one sunday, we made an early morning visit to the sports basement in the city; getting ready aaron's first camping trip. while we were in the city and in the neighborhood, we decided to try a new brunch spot, serpentine. On yelp, it's actually described as not "kid friendly" so we were a bit hesitant. however, i'm so glad we went! it is definitely one of the new restaurants that i definitely would recommend and go back.

 aren't my nephews precious?

 aaron's buckwheat pancakes

my delicious salmon benedict w/ grapefruit mimosa

entryway

these were the pros and cons of the house we purchased back in october:

pro:
- great location
- close to the city; shorter commute for steve and i
- decent floor plan
- good lot size

cons:
- EVERYTHING is original
- everything needs to be remodeled...the bathrooms, kitchen, windows, lighting, front and backyard...you name it; it needs to go.

before we purchased this house, we lived in our old house for 5 years and spent those 5 years doing exactly that:
- remodeled 2 bathrooms
- remodeled the kitchen
- replaced all windows
- relandscaped the front and back yard
all of the above was also done by the husband (and some great friends and family); with the exception of the landscaping.

1st thing to tackle: the entryway

 before:

after:

steve put in the rails when we first moved in. there was urgency in that for safety reasons obviously. i hated the old, dirty and cold tiles. once steve started scraping off the tile, the wood underneath was actually in good condition. so, after several weekends / rounds of sanding and staining, we have ourselves a new entryway! my brother helped put up the new light fixture and this antique persian rug was from esalerugs.com. kudos to steve and shoutout to my brother for his help!

april: prospect

benu and morimoto were my selections. for april, steve made reservations at prospect. this also served as our anniversary celebration (9 years woo hoo!)

it was actually a blast from the past, as the restaurant is right across the street from gap inc, where i worked at for 6.5 years. dinner was good; service attentive but i didn't leave there thinking i had to go back w/ any urgency. it was more like, good to try since we've never been there but would rather try a new restaurant that go back to prospect. also, since we were there on a friday night, the bar brought back too many memories of happy hours in my younger days. =)

 bubbly for the mrs and their prospector scotch cocktail for the mr

oops...

so clearly, i still need to work on this work / life balance. as you can see, i haven't posted anything in almost nine months. i'll have to play some catch up as steve and i have been fairly disciplined about our monthly our dinner dates and we've done some work around the house as well. however, i did lose several months of pictures as i upgraded the os on my phone but absentmindedly did not save and lost several months of pictures (mostly february - march).

to backtrack to the months that i lost my pictures:

feb: benu
mar: morimoto

to date, morimoto is one of my new favorite restaurants. if it weren't for the fact that it's in napa, i think i would drag steve and everyone else there all the time!