Saturday, February 20, 2010

Ahh the weekend...Finally. Danny has been pretty sick the last few days--fever, chills, cough and the yuks; so it will be nice to have him resting instead of working and looking like death. Sadie and I have been fighting it off--me a little more successful than she..Poor little thing is snorfely and snotty, and has been pretty fussy. Since we don't want her (or Danny!) to catch anything else, or get worse, it is looking like a weekend at home. So I have to huge tasks looming over me--one, to make chicken noodle soup for Danny, and two, to catch up on the first 3 episodes of Lost on Hulu. So it could be a pretty crazy weekend.

The good news for Danny is, thanks to cable-guy-Carl who came yesterday, we now have cable television...Carl was quite the character. At first he has a little grumpy towards us--probably since we knew what we wanted him to do, but not how or where we wanted him to do it. He threatened to leave early on when we had him traipsing about our house trying to find the most practical place to put the "router" and cable box. (He informed us that as soon as he had stepped in our house, he was "on the clock"... ) Danny and I know nothing about the practicalities of all this wiring business, so we were pretty much nightmare customers for Carl. Thankfully, Sadie Bug was there staring a hole in the back of his head while he worked and charming his socks off. Soon he was asking us about where we were from (after he had gathered the fact that we were completely lost and clueless here in San Ramon--and in a new house we knew nothing about...He, after being here two minutes, explained to us that our doorknob is NOT automatically locking like we thought, but rather you just have to flick a switch on the knob...); how long we had been married, etc... We told him we were from the Portland area, to which he said Hmm...lots of fine black women in Portland..He then took it upon himself to tell us where he buys meat and produce around here (he mainly eats steaks from the Mexican grocery), and how we shouldn't give in and eat fast food because it's WAY to easy to get fat. By the time he left, he didn't seem concerned at all with being on the clock, because he was telling us about seeing Michael Johnson the Atlanta Olympics, and sitting next to Flo Jo, and telling us how sorry he felt for white folks because they have to slather themselves with ungodly amounts of SPF and wear funny hats with capes on the back to cover their sensitive necks from the sun. (He has a little Irish in him, so he has to wear SPF8, "which is like SPF 60 if you are black"...) He even called us after he left to tell us that there is a Winco in Antioch and a church (couldn't remember the name--he would have to call us again with that) in Livermore that he heard was good...and finally "if you see me around Dublin, say hi but DON'T ask me about cable!"

Thursday, February 18, 2010

So far, we haven't made any new friends...I know, it's only been a couple weeks. We met one couple at a bookstore...I started talking to them about their cute baby boy (3 days older than Sadie!), and they were really friendly. It's easy to talk babies with parents of babies...They gave us their info (email, phone, etc), and said they hoped we enjoyed wine--because they did! We hemmed and hawwed a little, and said sure, or something to the effect of "sure"..The wife commented that we were from Oregon-- a "pinot" area. I was about to ask where pinot was, and then (thankfully) didn't, when I realized that pinot was a type of wine, not an area in general. So I have been afraid to call them. They just might be too classy for us. They might find out that we only buy $3 reislings at Grocery Outlet, but sometimes we splurge and get one for $4 at Trader Joes. They might find out that our wine sometimes has to get thrown away only partially drunk because we broke the cork into the bottle, or just thought it was a little gross to drink that much of. I don't know...their numbers are still in my pants pocket. Maybe someday I'll get brave and or desperate and just call...or maybe my jeans will forgottenly go through the wash and it wasn't meant to be.
The weather has been so nice, and we are enjoying taking Sadie in the stroller for lots of walks and jogs...Exploring a new area is so much fun!
Here we are at Blackhawk mall. It's an outdoor mall about a mile away from our house. It's really extravagant--has a fancy Starbucks, a gourmet grocery that has a gorgeous deli and offers its own cooking classes; a really cute bookstore; an Anthropologie (for you, Katy!); lots of covered areas with overstuffed leather couches for reading; and so many more fun shops... There's a fountain and stream that run through it, and it's beautiful--if you look closely, you can see the ducks and geese that live there. There are also some huge goldfish that swim in the still-water areas!

There's a few outdoor eating areas that would be fun to try someday--really pleasant next to the water and under the lights..

This is us eating lunch outside at home--Sadie's in her Bumbo, of course! Can you believe that this is February?











Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Valentines' Day Hike

  1. Sadie, Danny and I went on a little hike today--the hill that we climbed is right behind our townhouse complex--just minutes away...Awesome view from the top..It was 60 degrees outside and beautiful. The first video we are at the start of the hill. The second we are at the crest.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Sadie's Room

Sadie and I are busy putting together the crib and changing table. She's playing with her stuffed animals from Aunt Katy! I decided to surprise Danny and put them together while he was gone for a job one day..He hates doing that kind of thing, so I thought he'd be pleasantly surprised/relieved and he was :)
Here's my Grandma Dyk's rocking chair--my mom was rocked in it! Notice my little $7 book hanger from Ikea--it was meant for bathrooms, but looks so cute with Sadie's little board books.


Her turtle laundry hamper!


Changing table...I love my dancing froggy lamps!
















Her crib that she's been doing so well sleeping all by herself it! She's been going to sleep at 8 now that she doesn't sleep in our room...it's wonderful. She sleeps till about 4 or 5 and then eats and sleeps for another few hours. I have to take her mobile down when she sleeps. It scares her..!







Happily playing on her floor with her colored rings from Grandma Carol!








Happy little Sweety!














Friday, February 12, 2010

I apologize again for the randomness of the pictures. You might get nauseated from jumping around my livingroom and kitchen...Courtney, I need blogger101 again...Come visit me please. Anyway, as if it needs explaining, the above picture is the view from my kitchen sink. Thanks, Jan for my red dish scrubber from Ikea--it works great.

This is our fireplace and the living quarters of our fish, Big Boy the Normal One. Yes, he survived the trip. He is like 120 years old in fish years. No matter how many times we forget to feed him, he plods on.

Another wonderful window...so much light--I love it!


My vintage ice-cream shop clock that I finally got to work by--get this--inserting a battery.




The Transfiguration!


My baker puppet from Prague that the Snells gave me when I was just a wee little baker...He sits atop my billions of cookbooks.







My kitchen!! It inspires me to actually cook...I have so much counter and storage place now that I can actually use all the gadgets and gizmos that I got for our wedding. I've already used my bread machine more times here than I did during the 2 1/2 years in Tigard...






My teacups from Nana..





The view from our kitchen table of our cute little yard.









Our New Place


Here is our new home! This is the front entry. The top picture--I still don't know how to arrange pictures on here (explaining the random order of my shots) --is the little garden/yard next to our front door.



We are connected to another townhouse that is identical to ours. They enjoy the view of my beautiful Honda. It is the only one of its kind in all of San Ramon.

Superbowl!




Come Superbowl Sunday--a day that is usually spent with our friends/family--and we have no one in the area that we know, and no tv! Turns out the canyons of San Ramon make it impossible to get signals for the local channels--no matter how good your bunny ears. Danny was at Target every night for 4 night buying and returning progressively better pairs of bunny ears to no avail. So here is us at Applebees' enjoying half-price apps and a (unfortunately muted) good football game that I remember nothing of--thanks to Sadie Joy who kept me very entertained..

The Big Move..




This is after two days of moving, cleaning, and driving...Finally we are at our new place in San Ramon! Jon and Katy were kind enough to come with-- and boy they were a huge help...We should've taken a picture of the truck, van and car-load of boxes that we all unloaded that day! Couldn't believe how much stuff we had...!