We be Parents

A week late on the post, but here nonetheless.  Last week we made our first trip out of the state with Hazel, heading to the Boston area for my business trip and then down to Connecticut to my mom’s place for the weekend.  In the last post I mentioned that Hazel did great on the flight out to Boston – she mostly slept, bounced around on our laps, ate, and eyed the tv on the backs of our seats.  We survived too – traveling with a baby is definitely a whole lot different than the traveling I’m used to…so many more things to carry, much more time needed, worries about feeding, crying, and accidentally leaving some critical piece of baby gear behind!

Yenari and Hazel stayed locked down in our hotel the whole time I was at work both days – they didn’t leave at all without me!  Last post I had some photos of Hazel swimming in the pool, so I’ll skip ahead to the end of the second day.  Yenari checked out of the hotel around 4pm (thanks to their kindness in letting us have a super late checkout) and I made it back to the hotel after work to pick them up around 4:45.  Then it was off to the Southborough train station to pick up Liza and then drive down to Connecticut.  Again, Hazel was a travel champ, passing out and sleeping the 2 hours down to my mom’s house in Durham, CT.  After some dinner, chatting, and baby playing we went to bed.

The first thing on the lazy day agenda for Saturday was the arrival of grandmother and Hazel’s great grandmother.  Even though she’s a great grandmother she’s still ‘Nana’ to Hazel.  This was her second time meeting Hazel – she first met her when she was only about 3 weeks old, so Hazel was a lot bigger and more responsive this time around.  Here are a couple pictures of Hazel sitting and smiling with Nana:

Next up was a visit from my college friends Joe and Sophia.  They’re expecting a baby anytime now – Sophia’s about ready to burst!  We had a great brunch with them filled with baby talk, baby play, and catching up.  Here’s a couple photos of them playing with Hazel:

It was great to see them.  Best of luck to Sophia and Joe in the coming weeks!

That night my mom planned a dinner party to show off Hazel to many of her friends.  Some of these friends I’ve known my whole life, so it was great to see everyone and the excitement everyone had for Hazel and for us.  Here are a couple of (out of focus – guilty me) photos of the girls and the boys of the party:

After the evening of great company and excellent food Hazel was a bit cranky from the over-stimulation but eventually got to bed and slept well.  In general she wasn’t really phased by the 3 hour timezone switch on either end of the trip, so we lucked out in that regard!

The next morning Hazel’s aunt Kathleen came over and we had a great time playing with Hazel on the couch, with high spirits all around…photos of Hazel with my mom (meeeeeeeemaw), Liza, and Kathleen:

The whole Connecticut trip was great – we got to pack in a lot of time with a lot of great people without having to even leave the house!

The trip back wasn’t so fun though.  I’ll skip the full story and just mention: long drive back with tons of traffic on the Mass Pike, lots of traffic near Liza’s place with students returning to college, GPS suddenly not working leading to aimless driving through Boston, boarding pass that didn’t mention Hazel requiring second trip through security, Yenari and me being in different rows of the plane with others only agreeing to switch so we could be together halfway through, crying toddler keeping Hazel awake and crying, more crying, and finally back home.  It was about a 14 hour trip door to door and definitely not too fun, but we survived, and had a great time on the trip, so it was worth it…

Coming to you live from Framingham Massachusetts…where I’m on a business trip and Yenari and Hazel have come along for the ride.  We’ve been a bit lacking on updates recently despite a number of visitors, first meetings, and this trip.  Here’s a quick recap:

First off, we had a visit from my Aunt Janet (Janet Brown that is…two Aunt Janet’s if you’re counting) and cousin Morgan.  Here they are playing with Hazel:

Two days after the visit from Janet and Morgan, we drove up to Yenari’s Aunt JungHae’s house to see Yenari’s grandfather who had just arrived from Korea.  This was Hazel’s first introduction to her great grandfather and my first introduction to my grandfather in law.  Because this was the first time I saw him (and the first time Yenari saw him after getting married) we bowed to him and he gave us advice on how to have a good marriage.  When he came from Korea both of his checked bags were for us: a big and colorful playmat sent by Yenari’s mom and the second suitcase filled with food from Yenari’s grandmother.  He is a very sweet man and it was great to finally get to meet him and to see him playing with Hazel and keeping her entertained:

Hazel on her great grandfather's lap

Hazel hanging on the couch with her great grandfather

Just a couple days later my brother Andrew arrived for a short trip from DC to come see his niece for the first time.  Andrew balances a pretty wild schedule between work, law school, and breathing, so it was great that he was able to make it out to see us in one of his few free moments of the year.  Just after picking my brother up at the airport and visiting Yoni, his friend from college, we went to the Button’s house in Alameda for the annual bbq which was a lot of fun (as usual).  Hazel saw her first competitive croquet match! Here are a couple shots of my brother playing with Hazel and a video he took of her dancing (with a bit of Yenari’s help) to the Flight of the Conchords’ The Humans are Dead:

And finally…catching up to the present…we made our first big trip with Hazel yesterday, flying from San Francisco to Boston (yay direct flight, yay Jet Blue) and Hazel was a real champ.  She didn’t cry much – she spent most of her time sitting happily on our laps watching tv, sleeping, and eating…all the things ‘real’ people do on flights!

She and Yenari spent their time in the hotel today, and then when I came back from work we brought her down to the pool for her first swimming experience.  Here she is, decked out in her bathing suit doing her thing:

I can’t say that Hazel loved her first swimming experience, but at the same time she wasn’t crying, so it must not have been too bad.  The water was a little cold for her, but we made the best of the short experiment by taking a lot of photos.  And yes, Hazel has the fanciest swimsuit in the family – thanks to Sarah Lee for Hazel’s stylin’ Juicy Couture suit!  After the swimming we brought her back to the room and Yenari took a warm bath with her – definitely a more enjoyable experience for her.

And next up?  After I finish work tomorrow afternoon I’m going to pickup my sister Liza at the train station and we’re going to drive down to Connecticut to spend the weekend at my mom’s house and then drive back up to Boston on Sunday evening to fly home…

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Long time no posting – I’ll make it up with a painfully detailed post!

Yenari had a rare 3 day weekend this past weekend so I decided to take off Friday so that we could do something fun.  We decided to return to our roots – LA.  I was born in LA, but more importantly, LA has the biggest Koreatown in the US and thus the best Korean food in the US…and Yenari is definitely a fan of Korean food, so we settled on an eating tour of LA’s Koreatown.

We drove down on Friday morning, stopping at In-N-Out Burger (the only non Korean food for a few days!) and eventually making it to our hotel by around 2.  Once settled in, we headed down to Koreatown and drove around to get our bearings and eventually made it to a Korean salon where Yenari got a haircut.  Here she is mid-haircut:

Yenari getting her hair cut

Yenari knows several Koreans who live in the Bay Area that travel down to LA regularly to get their hair cut by people who ‘know how to cut Korean hair’.  After the haircut (the outcome can be seen in some of the other photos) we lazed around for a while and eventually headed out for dinner.  Yenari’s cousin (who also lives in the Bay Area) has become an expert in LA Korean restaurants and gave Yenari and cheatsheet of her favorites which we dutifully followed.  Our first pick was OnDal 2, known for their spicy crab soup.  They first serve the soup, you eat the crab, then they cook homemade noodles in the broth, and then they cook fried rice…all stages are pictured below:

Ready to start the crab soup dinner at OnDal 2

Crab soup closeup

Homemade noodles in the crab broth

Fried rice made from the crab broth

This was a truly excellent meal – each step was so good and so filling that we were stuffed beyond belief.  Yenari and I both can pack away a lot of food, but we had no chance here – we took about half the rice back to the hotel and passed out at about 9:30, exhausted from the eating (and maybe a little from driving 5 and a half hours).  I awoke at 7:30am to the sounds of Yenari chowing down on the rest of the rice!

After a passing out again from the great food, we eventually got up and decided we needed to be a bit active, so we headed down to the pool for some swimming.  Yenari has been convinced that she’s turning into a whale, so she figured it was time to bring it too fruition.  Here goes the swimming!

Yenari in the pool at the hotel

After the swimming we headed down to Koreatown on the subway for a late lunch at Myung Dong Kyoja, a restaurant from Seoul that opened up a branch in LA.  Yenari used to go the the restaurant in Seoul so she was interested in trying out the noodle soup and dumplings that she remembered eating there.  Here they are – both of ‘em excellent:

Steamed dumplings at lunch

Noodle soup at lunch

After lunch we took a long walk all the way across and through Koreatown to the Galleria shopping center – a massive Korean supermarket and mall – Yenari was in awe of all the things that had there and decided that a return trip with a car was needed.  Before leaving the city we did make that trip back and stocked up on lots of stuff that the Bay Area Korean markets don’t have.

For dinner we just kept on going with the Korean theme, dining at Dong Il Jang, a BBQ joint.  We went with a BBQ beef dished that we grilled at the table.  This wasn’t the standard marinated beef (bulgogi or kalbi), but instead was very high quality unmarinated beef that is just grilled and the dipped in sauce made of sesame oil and salt, eaten with a simple Korean salad.  It was great, and just like the crab dinner the night before, ended up with fried rice being made at our table.  Here’s the food!

BBQ beef at Dong Il Jang

Fried rice cooked at the table at Dong Il Jang

After stuffing ourselves with beef and fried rice we walked across Koreatown for another spot on Yenari’s cousin’s list – Pinkberry, a frozen yogurt place.  I don’t like frozen yogurt, so luckily I wasn’t tempted to add to my already loaded stomach, but Yenari was….here she is daintily going for the first taste:

Yenari taking the first stab at her froyo at Pinkberry

and then diving in head first for the rest!

Spoons are too slow

She actually didn’t eat the whole thing sans-utensils, just took off the pointy top part that way, but its not too difficult to image her just tearing into it.  With the noodle soup, dumplings, BBQ beef, rice, frozen yogurt, and a heck of a lot of walking under our belts, we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.

Yenari started off our last morning in LA by swimming again, we packed up, checked out, and then we headed out for our last meal in LA, a stop for some abalone rice pooridge at San:

More food!

Abalone pooridge for breakfast

After the tasty meal – the first non-massive meal of the trip – we headed back to the Galleria market for shopping and then headed out of LA.  On the way out of town we stopped at one of my favorite places in LA – the Getty Museum.  This was my third trip to the Getty in the last 10 years.  While the exhibits are great – we saw a couple good photography exhibits on portraits and early California photography in addition to the permanent collections of 16th – 18th century paintings, my favorite part about the Getty is the outdoor space, gardens, and architecture.  It is a beautiful place, perched up on a hill (you need to take a tram to get to the top) with great views of LA and great open space.  Here we are:

At the Getty Museum

The gardens and museum in the background

and yup, proof that I went on this trip too!

Yup, Greg was there too

And with that, after a great 2 day trip to LA, fueled by stomach busting quantities of Korean food, we hopped (as best we could after that much food) into our car, and made our way back home.

Phewf…the mega post is done – congrats if you made it this far!

This past weekend Yenari and I went to visit my dad in Chicago.  We were lucky enough to have excellent weather and had a great time seeing the sights, eating the eats, meeting up with my good friend Michael, and hanging out.  Here are a couple photos from the weekend…

Guacamole made at our table at the Adobo Grill

Yenari and my dad walking into the Second City for a comedy show

'The Bean' in Millennium Park

Yenari under 'The Bean'

Under 'The Bean'

Greg and Yenari

Yenari and her new friend

This was Yenari’s first time in Chicago and she absolutely loved it.  Some of that love was definitely directed at the hot fudge sundaes at the Ghirardelli shop right in front of my dad’s apartment.  She was also pretty pumped about the good restaurants – there was even a Korean restaurant that met her high standards.  My dad’s apartment has a great view of the Chicago skyline and the lake and when she saw it, Yenari seemed ready to move to Chicago!  When she learned that the building across the street was actually a women’s hospital, she started salivating over the super short commute.  We have no plans to move now, but Chicago is definitely on Yenari’s mind…