Things white people like.

A fitting title, when you see my two displays of glorious pictures for today.

A couple of days ago, my dad sent me this picture, that he said he took when he had to drive by Jack in the Box a second time just to make sure he wasn't seeing things:

Who knew that any 4-wheeled vehicle could go through a drive-through? Classy.

 Today Nolan had to get some dental work done, so when I got a text with this picture, I decided that I need to make sure and look this awesome next time I go to the dentist. Seriously, why didn't I think of wearing sunglasses to guard against the hellish lights? Why didn't I think of bringing my own music so I don't have to listen to Celine Dion one.more.time. while I'm sweating in that chair?

Seriously though.

This week is chock-full of work, both professional and personal. Each day, once I'm done with work-work, I start on other chores and things on my to-do list. Pretty normal for me, except that this week that involves more house-shopping, which I semi-really love and semi-loathe because I just find it exhausting to get excited that much. Hah.

Wish us luck!

Thankful Thursday

It's Thursday again, and I sit here with a belly full of avocado and sore feet from a lovely run early this morning. This week has been crazy busy, as a lot of new things come down the pike and a lot of old things come to a close. I've gotten to spend time with out of town colleagues, good friends, and try a new lunch haunt with our developer that I'm adding to my short list of good places to eat. However, this week has also been crazy productive and you know how I thrive on that feeling. Woo!

I've already written down my massive "to-do" list for the weekend, and I still have another workday between now and then.

Anyway - let's get on to the good stuff.

1. I'm thankful for a bit cooler weather. For awhile there, I thought it was time to haul up the huge A/C for our bedroom again. Phew.
2. I'm thankful for a wonderful Easter with family again, and that our families love each other and love God.
3. I'm thankful for chocolate avocado mousse! Hah! For real, though.
4. I'm thankful for my little lacrosse ball that Natey got me, because it saved my quads from some real bad soreness this week.
5. I'm thankful for the many homes we are able to search in order to find just the right one for us. I know many people don't have that luxury, and I am so looking forward to finding something perfect for our family.

What are you thankful for?

mint condition

Ah, Easter. The season of bunnies and peeps and green grass and family. We kicked ours off with a trip to our favourite sushi spot with my dad and our friends John and Julie. Please note that Julie and I controlled ourselves this time and didn't get the all you can eat. It was a tough decision. Possibly also the first meal where we haven't eaten more than our husbands, as is our habit.

We also spent a little time house-shopping, and got so close to finding what we're looking for. It's exhausting, but exciting. We've narrowed it down pretty far at this point, so I think one of these next forays will lead us to "the one". Phew.

Saturday morning we celebrated my father-in-law's birthday (Happy Birthday, John!) with our traditional breakfast out at Sweetie Pie's. Nolan and I also spent part of Saturday learning how to recycle his "baseball cards" (business cards a la Stanford), since he won't need them anymore. Hopefully my dad's rental car company won't mind finding an extra picture or two laying around of some random dude from Stanford. It's nothing in comparison to the plethora of these babies that lurk in odd places in my parents' house, waiting for discovery.

The rest of Saturday was spent with family, celebrating Easter up on Easter Hill, and enjoying the gorgeous weather and good people around us. This is a terribly nondescript picture of some of us, but I was eager to get back to the festivities, so I didn't bother trying to get a decent one.

Sunday while we were driving back, I came down with something. I think it was mild food poisoning from the symptoms, but not really sure. Anyway - after making it home and deciding to suck it up, we drove over to our friends' for a game night and dinner. We drove separately because Nolan had to stay until about midnight to work on a residency task, and I had grand plans of nursing myself to health again with an early bedtime. That plan didn't work, because I barely slept at all that night. Blah.

Anyway. As I was driving, I get a text with this in it:

And I got another one tonight as Nolan was headed to work. These make me laugh out loud and smile to myself at how full my heart feels when I think of him :)

Thankful Thursday

You know, it's past 10, I have to get up before 5, and I'm still here. That's commitment to trying to get back to my blogosphere right there.

This weekend we're celebrating Easter with our families, visiting with some good friends over sushi, and house-shopping (yay!). So I am totally hyped up with anticipation, and I'm thinking that's why I'm okay not being in bed yet.

I took a picture last week of my fancy pearls that Nolan bought me for my birthday (in July...hah), and was going to post them last week but totally forgot to blog so...here it is. Aren't they gorgeous and glow-y?!

I finally was able to connect with a breeder today about a potential puppy litter that would allow us to adopt our dream dog in the Fall. I didn't want to wait that long, but Nolan's right - we've waited this long for a dog, so we might as well get exactly the one we want and wait until that's possible. 

This house thing is exciting but tiring too. I almost have a hard time looking at homes these days because I just want to find the right one and stop weeding through duds! Nolan seems okay with it - he's spent hours looking at homes, and doing a lot of work on that front. Ah well, maybe this weekend will be fruitful! Speaking of which:

1. I'm thankful for the opportunity to own a home soon.

2. I'm thankful for a job that will allow me to move to that home and still keep working and doing what I love for a company and a team that I love.

3. I'm thankful for hopefully finding a good breeder to help us get our puppy! EEE!

4. I'm thankful for a tiny bit extra time to cook recently...almost every night! It's been awesome, and has yielded some stupidly delicious food that happens to be healthy, too!

5. I'm thankful for productivity and opportunity. Even though it's been a super busy time at work and at home, it feels good.

What are you thankful for?

Real World: Bay Area

Back to real life. After I got home from our vacation, I spent a day in the office and then flew down to Scottsdale for an offsite with our Corporate partners. We stayed in a gorgeous resort at the base of Camelback mountain, and enjoyed lots of great discussion and learning, awesome food, and the most beautiful weather. Friday morning, we all even fit in a long hike up to Piestewa Peak, and enjoyed the view of the whole valley. 

As you can see, by Friday, many of our colleagues who had joined us had already flown back home, and so it was just a large party of women left. Fun!

One of the best parts about being back and settling into routine again is cooking. I love cooking, and have been able to make a whole bunch of new and delicious recipes, mostly from the wealth of deliciousness at paleomg.com (like this one! serious caution: only use half the cayenne and chili called for; even with half the amount, it was really hot. I'm also going to add a little sweetness next time, per Nolan's request :)). No, we're not paleo - we just practice clean eating, and these recipes fit the bill for a fantastic dinner! Try this one and this one, too - they're both going in the rotation as they are fabulously delish!

Milo's been loving having us back home again, and been very affectionate in the hours we spend with him around the house. But his habits haven't improved. This is what I found (below) the other day when I got out of the shower and had been letting my cooked broccoli cool so I could eat it. When my parents were over this past weekend (fun!), he made off with a piece of asparagus and was ferociously growling over it. Seriously, I can't even trust him with greens. The vet told me I have to be careful about him stealing veggies, too, because the calcium in those babies isn't good for his already-susceptible urinary system. 

Last night I was supposed to pick Nolan up from work after my bible study ended, and since I was a little late, he started biking and told me to find him from my location. Since I had a good guess which route he would take from Stanford home, I had to estimate where he would be along that route, and at which point in time so I could intercept him while I was coming from another location also. After his challenge, he was dismayed (but I think impressed!) when I pulled onto a street and flashed my brights at him JUST as he was coming towards me on it. I demanded my prize and felt very pleased with myself for guessing just right. And this was before I had time to read the tiny street sign in the photo he sent me!

After a serious lack of energy for the last couple weeks, I'm finally starting to be back to my normal levels, and back to getting in hard workouts and checking a million things off of my lists. This includes buying a house, finding a puppy, and starting to de-clutter and pack up things in our house. We've got a lot of fun stuff coming up, but a lot to do in the meantime. It's good to be back and at it!

Leavin' on a jet plane

Time to finally complete my travel musings, before I forget all the adventures!

Friday, we slept in a little and then set out to explore Jaipur. We took a cab to the fort on top of the hill, and hiked up the staircases carved into the hillside. The fort itself is massive and beautiful. It’s built into the side of a mountain, and overlooks the whole valley. It was originally a home and stronghold for Mughal emperors, and now is simply a truly lovely tribute to Mughal workmanship and culture. The fort itself houses several palaces. One of them is the palace of mirrors, and it actually still has all of the mirrors in place. The sun and everything in the courtyard is reflected a thousand times off of the mirrors, and it’s just beautiful. We also walked around the outer walls to view the surrounding mountains, and explored a tunnel down into the bowels of the fort that was filled with dust and bats and smelled, frankly, of urine. On our way out of the fort, we heard music playing and stopped to see what the deal was. Snake charmers! I forgot that snake charming is a thing out in the western and northern states of India. We watched (Nolan was HORRIFIED) as cobras rose out of baskets, swaying, and occasionally snapping around other directions. I thought it was fascinating.

Afterwards, we went back to our hotel to try and find a good lunch spot. We were originally going to have our driver take us around for the day, but listen: something we learned in India is that everyone has an angle. If someone offers to show you to a good restaurant when you ask them for suggestions, it’s because the restaurant they choose happens to give them 20% commission if they bring us there. If someone helps you in any way, they ask you for a tip. If you happen to give someone a tip, they tell you it’s not enough and demand more. If you don’t give them what they ask for, they turn nasty. We discovered, sadly, that you have to be pretty independent and firm to save yourself from getting scammed at every turn and emptying your wallet needlessly.

Anyway: we started wandering around to find lunch, and ended up taking a rickshaw to a restaurant somewhere in Jaipur. We were more or less lost, as we had no map. So we ate, then went with Nolan’s gut on how to find the main road, and…he led us straight there. Guys, I have to tell you one other thing I learned in India: Nolan’s sense of direction is impeccable. We were constantly ending up in confusing places without maps or directions, and he always led me by the hand straight back to where we needed to be, without asking directions. SO impressive! Not to mention all the other things he handled swiftly – the bartering, the arranging of getting around, and figuring out how to use the train system in India…the list goes on. I often don’t even look up when we cross streets anymore because I implicitly trust his guidance in just about everything.

After lunch, we walked along the main road for awhile, looking for a money changer to exchange our Nepali bills, and then finding a ride back to our neighbourhood. We stayed in our room for a few hours, enjoying the A/C and getting work done, and then sat on our rooftop at the hotel restaurant and ate our last meal in Jaipur and sipped masala tea. Confession: I ordered some fries and a veg “burger” because my last few curries had literally burned through me, and I needed something safe 
Next morning, we got a SUPER early ride to the train station, and boarded our train to Delhi. Once we got there, we took a rickshaw to our hotel, which was in the busy tourist area and easily accessible to the metro station and airport. As in most hotels abroad, they asked us for our passports, to make copies of those and our visas. What I was about to discover, was that my passport was nowhere to be found. The compartment I usually keep it in was open, and there was nothing anywhere. I tore through my bags in our room, but still couldn’t find it. I had copies of the documents in my suitcase, so I gave those to the hotel, but was panicking, as our flight home was the next day. The hotel manager was trying to reassure me by saying, “At least you’re not here as long as one of our customers from America, Mr. Alan! He has been here 3 months. But he is different, it is because he had drugs in his suitcases.”  Hah.

So Nolan started researching and calling the embassy, the police station, and figuring out how we needed to go about getting me an emergency passport and exit visa. I realized then, that I had no memory of my passport being handed back to me at our hotel in Jaipur. So the hotel manager kept trying to reach the hotel, and finally got someone who told him, “I’m at the temple, I’ll call you when I go back to the hotel.” Great. An hour later, still no response on the phones. We managed to get an appointment at the embassy, so as we were about to head out the door to file a police report (you have to file one and bring the receipt to the embassy in order to get an emergency passport, but the tricky thing is that once you file that report, your Indian visa immediately becomes void…so there’s no going back), our hotel manager said, “let me try one more time on the phone.” On the last ring, they picked up, and said that they had my passport at the hotel. PHEW. What you have to understand is that getting the emergency visa would take a day or two or three, so I might have to get a new flight…but getting an Indian exit visa could take weeks or longer, depending on when they felt like processing it. So to hear that somewhere, someone had my passport? LIFESAVING. I was willing to even get back on the train for 6 hours out to Jaipur and come back in the same day just to make my flight. But what we were lucky enough to get was a taxi driver in Jaipur who was willing to drive it to us. Our awesome hotel manager arranged everything, and we ended up paying only $50 in the end, which is pretty incredible. The best part was, he had a sense of humour about the whole thing. When we got back that night and asked if the driver had arrived with the passport yet, he said, “Oh, actually he lied. They now say that they cannot find the passport. I am sorry.” He said this so sincerely, and since we had experienced very similar issues in India, we totally believed it to be true. Nolan started freaking out, I was dying a little bit inside…and then the manager said, “no, it’s only a joke. It’s here.” And pulled it out. Best trick ever. Nolan didn’t think it was very funny.


So we thanked both the manager and of course the driver, PROFUSELY, and then put our minds at ease with an ice cream and settled down for the night.

I should probably mention that while we were anxiously awaiting news about my passport, we took the metro and checked out a couple Delhi markets. The metro in Delhi is super impressive. I can't believe I'm saying that about any kind of train or transportation in general in India...but it's true. It's way better than Muni or BART, and that means it's cleaner (gasp!), faster, goes more places, and is so easy to use. We definitely noticed the British influence in the metro system they've put in place :)

For the most part, the markets we found were retail shops and expensive goods, though eventually we found the Delhi Haat, which was the handicrafts market. Once there, we continued Nolan's hunt for an elaborately carved Kashmiri wooden box. One of the vendors took us on a long rickshaw ride to a shop that actually ended up having exactly what we were looking for. BEAUTIFUL stuff. But, very expensive. So after a couple hours of negotiation, we left empty-handed.

The next day, we woke up for breakfast, then hopped on the metro again and went to about a million shops, emporiums, etc. on a few different rickshaws and MANY peoples' advice on where to get the box we were looking for. Nobody was right, and they all got commission from where they sent us. So we were a little ticked by the time we decided to take a break and head over to a giant temple for some sight-seeing. The temple was beautiful, but due to a recent terrorist threat, we weren't allowed to bring the camera or anything else inside. It was recently built, so not a historical monument, but definitely built in the old Indian style architecture, and very ornate and gorgeous to look at. We hopped back on the metro again to Connaught square, and sat down for some Indian fast food (had to try it!). A random guy found us, and ended up putting us in a rickshaw to what we decided would be our last attempt at finding a shop to buy this box. When the rickshaw pulled up, it turned out to be the perfect (but expensive) shop we were at the day before. Nolan decided to give the negotiating one more try with the bullish shop-keeper, and after almost 4 hours, some ice cream and diet cokes that the shop-keeper bought us (loyalty measures, haha!)...we finally had our prize! Nolan did an amazing job of negotiating down to a price we felt good about, and he's now the proud owner of an amazing, one of a kind (the sculptor is no longer living) Kashmiri piece of art. You'll have to come admire it sometime.

After our long day, we headed back to the market for a last sweep of looking around, then back to our hotel. I feel like we got to be pros at the metro system.

Our awesome hotel manager scored a huge win again when not only did he give us our room for free until we left for the airport, so that we could shower and nap and pack (so great!), but also when we asked him for the best restaurant around, and he sent us to a place that served what I think was my favourite meal in India. We ate slow, as we had a few hours to burn before our taxi to the airport, and it was THE BEST meal ever. We ordered chicken tikka, and the chef humoured our request to make it spicy and served it in a "mutton gravy" which was pretty similar to a rogan josh sauce. SO delicious. The mushroom palak was also super tasty.

We walked around a bit more, bought one last pistachio kulfi, and then sat in our hotel lobby chatting with the manager (who ordered us free chai from the street's chai walla!), and waiting for our flight. The notorious "Mr. Alan" walked in, and we finally got to meet him and hear his story, which was crazy and involved 90 days in Indian prison, drug smuggling, and numerous tales of medication woes. The man's an older gentleman from South Carolina, and if he really ever does write a book like he's threatened to do, I'll be the first to buy it just to hear the end of the story.

When we finally were on our way and waiting at the airport, we finished watching 12 Years a Slave, and said our temporary goodbyes, since we had different flights home. We watched the clock turn to midnight and Nolan's birthday, and got on our respective planes. He had a layover in Beijing, and I had one in Seoul. Though it sounds like his layover was spent in massive security lines for hours on end due to the Malaysian plane disappearance, mine was rather pleasant, and spent  watching a South Korean cultural show at the airport cultural center, and walking literally every inch of the International Terminal. 

When we finally both got home, we kissed the ground (almost literally), and smelled the fresh California air. I picked up Milo, did some laundry, went for a run, and then we went out to dinner at Pluto's (fresh, cold greens! Heaven!) for Nolan's birthday, and finished off the night with a stop at Cream for ice cream sandwiches :) Hey, when you're technically still on vacation, you gotta enjoy the treats on your last day! Especially when it's the birthday of your favourite person in the whole world.

I guess you could say we had an exciting trip. It was definitely an adventure, very stressful, but very fun at the same time. It was such an interesting place to go, and though I'll do things a little differently next time we go back there, it was a great way to spend the last 2 weeks.

Onward, ho!

Monkeys be the boss

Taking advantage of the wifi while I have it-sitting in the airport in Seoul, South Korea. I have a 4 hour layover, which is just an hour shy of how long you need to do a layover city tour, so I've walked every inch of this place and now have about an hour left to wait before boarding. Not too bad. Let's keep going with the adventure re-telling, though, or I'll start to forget stuff!

The day after Holi, we woke up early to catch our train to Agra. It took an hour for a rickshaw driver to show up from the time Nolan first had requested one (hey-oh, Indian standard time!). Our train was a quick 40 min ride or so, and we had the nicer A/C chair car class tickets. INFINITELY better than sleeper class. We had our own seats, air conditioning, and they even served us breakfast and free water bottles. You have to understand that this is very fancy in India.

We arrived in Agra and met a rickshaw driver who dropped us at our hotel and then drove us around for the rest of the day.  He took us first to see the Baby Taj Mahal, which was built as a tomb and memorial for the in-laws of Shahjehan (the Mughal emperor and builder of the actual Taj Mahal), who were Iranian. It's very beautiful and has a lot of the delicate scrollwork and intricacies of Persian architecture. Then we saw a few smaller sites, stopped along the river for sweeping views of the Taj Mahal at a distance, and stopped for lunch at a little restaurant and garden in some random back alley that our driver knew.

After lunch we went to Agra fort. I feel like the Taj Mahal gets so much hoopla that nobody hears much about Agra fort, which is actually very impressive and beautiful. It was built by 4 Mughal emperors over 95 years and stands on top of a hill in lovely red walls and entrenched by double moats. Inside are several palaces made of red and white marble- some decorated with mirrors, others originally with gold and gems, others simply marble with Persian script. There are old gardens, breathtaking views of the city and river and the Taj Mahal itself, whose royal builder was imprisoned in the fort by his son and had to view his masterpiece through windows in the wall.

After Agra fort, we finally arrived at the famous Taj Mahal. We've seen many of the world's wonders, and this one certainly did not disappoint. All the pictures you see can't prepare you for the beauty of the place. It is so perfectly designed that it looks fake in pictures, and when the sun is setting on it, it looks like it's glowing. We walked through the actual tomb, around the other areas and temples and took pictures for a long time, just enjoying such a gorgeous place. Nolan took this picture of me enjoying the view during sunset. Nice, eh?

Our hotel was walking distance from the Taj Mahal, so we wandered home to rest briefly before finding dinner and looking for wifi. We found both at a weird little place that turned out to have the best chicken tikka masala and palak paneer we'd had yet. It was fabulous-and so spicy that I could feel it burning its way through me. Ah well. A little ras malai cured the burn quick.

Next morning, we were at the train station early for our early train, which was running a casual hour late. Indian train stations aren't the most pleasant places to wait for long times. I won't go into detail, but let me put it this way: Nolan refused to eat a banana there because it was so gross there that it felt like the filth may have seeped through the peel. Once the train arrived, we were on it (in little bunks) for 6 hours on our way to Jaipur. We went through desolate areas and remote fields, and I'm telling you: I saw people every second of the way. The population of India is just so large that people are EVERYWHERE.

Finally we made it to Jaipur and settled into our hotel briefly before hopping back into a cab to go see the water palace. It's a small palace built in the middle of a lake, and very pretty in its setting, though a relatively plain building in itself. Next we went to the monkey temple, and climbed to the top of the hill. Though there weren't monkeys in the temple itself (we are wondering now if we ended up at the wrong place), they were totally swarming the hill on the way up. They were all along the steps and street as we climbed up, wrestling, eating little nuts, scratching themselves, staring at us...a little scary to be surrounded by that many wild monkeys, but fun! They were super cute. We stopped for dinner, saw a couple shops, then went back to our neighborhood in the rickshaw and walked around for awhile and ate kulfi (like ice cream but made from actual thickened cream and in this case, pistachios). Mmm. Another fantastic day!