emile & austin

the main reason we came out to LA this weekend was for my cousin, laurie's, wedding at the trump national in rancho palos verdes this sunday! 

a side perk however is that we get a chance to hang out with kevin's brother's family and our good friends, mel and gary, and of course, their collective munchkins: emile and austin! and in a month or so, we'll have two more little reasons soon too (bryant & hudson)!

emile is walking now!!! the last time we saw eric, carlin, & emile was in the end of august for jaime's baby shower in boston and she was just starting to totter around then.

now, confident and chest puffed, emile can walk around us adults in circles! i found emile and her abe in this adorable reading nook on saturday morning and frantically snapped the next photo in the afternoon at central park in pasadena with her older and more experience playground pal, austin.

austin was teaching emile how to take the slides down on her stomach and on her behind, and at one point, even trying to catch her at the bottom with eris's help. *sweetness*

although we were not directly impacted by the drought, we did see carlin & eric's neighbor put up this sign on their formerly luscious green lawn. i'm impressed! if only everyone would do their part to be a bit more conscious about the environment and resources ... some of the other neighbors were busy running their sprinklers! and of course, never shocked to see all the masses of SUVs on the freeways with just one person in each vehicle. sigh.

best: seeing my entire family in high spirits on the west coast! i think the last time we all saw each other was at jess & ben's wedding in june 2014, and prior to that, at our wedding in october 2013.

worst: because i'm a coward and a little scared of the wide multi-laned freeways in la, kevin did all of the driving, which included three one-way trips between glendale and palos verdes today.

worse than worst: oh gosh. after dinner with the cheng's and tsai's, i had a tummy ache from what had to be the 5-6 oven-hot chocolate chip cookies i grabbed on the way out (so greasy, so good), so kevin got off the 110 at the nearest exit, which happened to be smack in the middle of inglewood. at the first intersection we arrived at, there were 2 unfamiliar burger joints and 2 liquor stores, lined with couches, chairs, alcoholic beverages, and intimidating characters up and down the sidewalk. we walked right into the middle of a tupac song ... i was actually frightened that for the 2 minutes it took for me to walk from the burger joint back to the car in the parking lot.

smile: austin is going to be such an awesome big brother!! on the swing, he would say "more faster, please" hahaha ... what great manners and the way he would show emile the ropes at the outdoor structure! i can't believe that quarter pounder as i used to affectionately call him is 2.5 already!

off to lalaland

BUSY friday at work scrambling to get notes out before our 6pm flight from newark. interesting flight seating arrangement.

my aunt got my round trip flight upgraded to first/biz class, so i gave kevin my upgraded seat, which turned out to be the row right in front of his economy plus seat. unfortunately in giving him my seat, i got his economy plus middle seat in between a HUGE hair project manager and an even larger black woman, who was lucky enough to be upgraded to plus seating. after 15 minutes of sitting separately, i think we both were a bit miserable, and kevin got up and offered her a second upgrade to first lol. :) so he and i were back in our original plus seats.

traveling in class is no fun alone!

first stop after landing ~ TSUJITA ANNEX. they have the tastiest tsukemen and most QQ noodles! we ate this at what was 2:00am NY time :)

best: relatives who offer their unused free airline fare upgrades! thanks to my auntie, i will be flying back to nyc in biz class, which is especially nice since i will be taking three sunday night red-eye flights back from the west coast in the course of the next month and a half.

worst: super thin united airlines seats. ow ow ow. the aisle seemed extra cramped too - what's going on?

smile: when male coworkers bring up photos of their kids on their phones and walk them around the aisle with big grins on their faces:) of the six dads on this desk, there are 7 daughters and 2 sons. proud daddies!