Visiting our newest family member! August 2, 2009

Mike and I are both excited for the arrival of our newest family member! Our nephew Ethan arrived on July 1st and has already captured our hearts. We had the pleasure of visiting our new nephew and their parents in Az recently. Mike was only able to make it for the weekend, but I took advantage of my unemployed status and visited for almost two weeks!

I was able to pal around with the little guy and watch him grow during the two weeks I was there. When I first arrived he was unable to hold up his head and he wasn’t super aware of his surroundings. However, by the time I left he was tracking people with his eyes and was able to hold up his little head on his own!

I will sure miss the little guy when I return home!

Hope you enjoy a few pictures from the visit!

-jaime

Sleepy Time

Cuddle time with Auntie Jaime

Big Yawns!

Hanging out

Baby and Mama

Taking a nap with Uncle Mike

Day one of our visit!

Our First Summer In the ATL… August 2, 2009

Mike and I have been enjoying our first summer in Atlanta. We are both getting use to the humid weather, but so far we have been lucky and its been pretty mild. We’ll see what August has in store for us…

Over the past two months we settled into our home enough to host a house warming party, which was a lot of fun. We had a lot of great food and company. Here are some pre-party pics-

House Warming Party

Making the chocolate fondue

We also had a fun visit from my mom! While she was here we visited the Atlanta History Museum, The Martin Luther King Center, (which is home to MLK Jr’s tomb, birth place and an amazing museum). We also went on a day trip to Palmetto, GA. Palmetto was an interesting community about an hour south of Atlanta. It is a self -proclaimed “environmentally conscious” community. They did have a large farm that supplies the local restaurant, but we were disappointed that the huge homes on display did not have any eco-friendly modifications. We had a good time, but we left a little disappointed.

Jaime and Mom at The Blue Eyed Daisy in Palmetto

We also celebrated Mike’s birthday with a home cooked lobster feast, complete with chocolate chocolate cake!

Yum! Lobster!!

Jaime's first cake making attempt!

Hope you are all having a great summer!

-Jaime and Mike

CA Visit and ATL Visitors May 29, 2009

It’s been a fun and busy two weeks for us! We had a great visit to the Bay Area for a friend’s wedding. It was fun to see family and friends!! There we enjoyed a family BBQ and had a lot of laughs playing with our niece. We also got to visit our favorite sushi restaurant in Half Moon Bay and we were reminded that the sushi in Atlanta leaves a lot to be desired!

The next weekend the ‘W’ fam paid us a visit from Delaware. We had a great time with our visitors! The highlight for us was a visit to the world’s largest aquarium right here in Atlanta! The aquarium was pretty impressive and we’d definitely recommend it to any one who is visiting the Atlanta area. I think the adults had just about as much fun as the kids.
We hope you enjoy the pictures from our adventures over the past few weeks!

-Jaime and Mike

Mike and D playing in the yard

Enjoying the CA sun and BBQing with the fam

Mike and Jaime at K&B’s wedding

Having fun with old friends at K&B’s wedding!

Mike and Jaime at the Aquarium

The W family at the aquarium

Wow!

Home Photos May 29, 2009

Not posted quite as soon as promised. But here they are. We are making process with getting the new place set up, but still have a way to go!!

Hope you’ll all come and visit soon!

-Jaime and Mike

Our Place!

Unpacking

From Living Room

Dining Room

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Guest Bath

Guest room- ready for you!!

Weekend Visitors!! May 3, 2009

There was lots of excitement in our household this weekend as we hosted our first guests!

We took a day trip and headed north to Dahlonega and visited two wineries: Montaluce and Wolf Mountain. We learned that the wine in Georgia isn’t that bad. Actually, it’s pretty good.

Montaluce is a new vineyard that we are excited to visit again as they grow. Their vines are still young and they are not producing their own wines yet, but the property is gorgeous and the Italian wines they are currently tasting were delicious!

Wolf Mountain Vineyards was a slightly older and their wines were quite tasty. We will definitely be returning! They have a Sunday brunch that looks amazing and the view was absolutely breathtaking!

We were also able to find time to fit in a Braves game. We all had a great time until the thunder storms rolled in and the game was called due to the rain

Mike enjoying his first sips of Georgian wine

Enjoying the view at Wolf

The view from Wolf Vineyards

Yummy hot dogs at the game

D & A enjoyed their hot dogs too!

D “singing in the rain”

We’ll be posting house pictures this week- promise.

-Jaime and Mike

Spring Has Sprung!! April 26, 2009

We know our blog has been quiet for a while… but we are back! Over the past few weeks we have been busy settling into our new home. We are having a great time setting up and doing simple house chores. I guess we should enjoy it now, because I am sure that yard work will eventually lose it’s excitement.

We have also been enjoying the start of spring here in Atlanta! When we first arrived in December every thing was brown and now the grass is beginning to green, trees have leaves and flowers are blooming all over town! Spring has been beautiful here and getting better by the day!

Along with start of spring came the start of the Atlanta festival season. So far we have been to three neighborhood festivals in the past two weeks. Some have been small and hippie and others have been huge with beautiful artwork. I think our favorite so far was the Inman Park Festival this weekend. Inman Park is Atlanta’s first planned community and is home to many beautiful Victorian Painted Ladies. The festival included a huge street fair, but our favorite was the parade! It included marching bands in drag and people in hysterical costumes. At times we felt more like we were in the Castro than Atlanta- it was great!

Inman Park Parade Butterfly

Inman Park Festival

Inman Park Parade

We are eagerly awaiting our first house guests this week! And we hope that many more of you are able to visit soon! We will post some house pictures later this week, so stay tuned!

Hope you are all enjoying Spring where ever you are

-Jaime and Mike

We’re Back… January 12, 2009

Back in the states with all of our gear!

We returned from our whirlwind honeymoon about a month ago, and I can definitely say that things have not slowed down since we’ve been back in the states!! After approximately one day of rest after returning, we set out from San Francisco to Atlanta by car. If that wasn’t enough for us, a few days after moving in to our new apartment in Midtown Atlanta we headed back west again for Jaime’s sister’s graduation from ASU. After a fun time in Phoenix, we then made holiday visits to the Bay Area and Virginia where we spent our time catching up with friends and family. We were back in Atlanta just in time to ring in 2009 and have our second annual sushi making New Years Eve!

Now it is back to reality… Mike started his new position and, although it’s a lot of work, he’s enjoying it tremendously! Jaime is working on some licensing requirements before looking for a new job herself. So far Atlanta is great- although it is quite cold!! We started the house hunting process this past weekend and we’re having fun with it. Hopefully, we will have some updates on that front in the next few months!

We’ll be updating the blog sporadically, so check back soon

Here are a few pictures from the last month, enjoy.

-Jaime and Mike

Unpacking…

Graduaduation in AZ

Our niece enjoying Christmas morning!!

Ready to make some sushi!

Sushi a la Jaime & Mike!!

On Our Way Home December 5, 2008

We thought this day would never come… but here we are.  We leave Vietnam for San Francisco in a matter of hours!

We enjoyed our stay in Vietnam tremendously.  However, we are ready to return to streets that are not filled with honking cars and motorbikes and we are excited to breathe some fresh (or not as heavily polluted) air.

Over the past few days we explored Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and took a tour to the Mekong Delta in the southern region of the country.  The highlight of the trip was seeing the local life on the delta and taking a boat through the floating market.  At the market people buy everything from fresh produce to noodle dishes and soda.  I’ve included a few pictures from the delta. 

Although we are returning home, we plan to continue to use this blog to update our family and friends on what we are up to.   Next on the list of adventures is a cross country drive that will land us in our new city- Atlanta, GA!

Enjoying a boat cruise

Whole pineapples that were for sale at the floating market

Mike about to enjoy the best pineapple EVER at the floating market

Hope to see all of you soon!

-Jaime and Mike

Halong Bay, where the dragon descends into the sea … November 28, 2008

Ever wanted to go to Never Never Land?  Perhaps be a character in Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride at Disneyland or the first movie … because the other movies were awful)?  Well, Halong Bay is the place for you.  Situated in northeastern Vietnam and visited by every tourist, Halong Bay means “where the dragon descends into the sea” in Vietnamese.  As you can see from the photos below, hundreds of huge limestone karsts rise up from the water along the coast of the Gulf of Tonkin.  The water has shaped the rock in this region over the past 10,000 years or so. 

To truly experience Halong Bay, one must take an overnight boat trip.  Keep in mind that your voyage isn’t on just any ordinary boat or ferry – it’s on a ”junk.”  Yes, the boats are called junks!  Some looked more the part than others, but think three story wood vessels with about 10 rooms on the bottom floor, a dining/sitting room in the middle, and a sun deck on top.  Every junk is equipped with pretty orange sails which do absolutely nothing because it’s powered by motors below.   All in all an excellent way to see the bay.

On the first day we stopped at one of the many limestone caves situated around the bay.  It looked very similar to Carlsbad Caverns in NM (but smaller) if you’ve ever been.  Our guide, Anh, was a spunky girl who pointed out all sorts of animals, mythical creatures, and gods in the rock formations.  We saw dolphins, a dragon, Buddha, a couple getting married, and Jaime identified a brand new formation: the screaming rat!  You had to see it to believe it.  In the evening we were witness to one of the most glorious sunsets ever — on the only sunny day of our entire time in Vietnam.

View from the mouth of the cave

Junks with sails up

Sunset on the water

From the sun deck on our junk

-Mike and Jaime

Whirlwind tour of Vietnam! November 28, 2008

We’ve been pretty busy here in Vietnam!!  I guess we are making up for the two weeks we spent lounging on the beach in Thailand…  We are enjoying our time here and feel like we are getting a good feel for the country.  We’ve been to cities, fishing villages, ancient temples, historic sites from the Vietnam war (or as they call it here, the American war), pagodas, caves, limestone formations… we’ve been good tourists.   We’ve been especially good considering the rainy weather Vietnam has experienced over the past few days!!  We’ve seen a lot of flooding! We have also been enjoying the food, although we were a little sad not to have Thanksgiving day turkey!!

It has been very interesting learning the history of the war from the Vietnamese perspective.  We went on a day trip to the DMZ (demilitarized zone), the name is misleading because this is where some of the bloodiest battles of the war were fought.  We got to climb through some of the tunnels that the Northern Vietnamese used for shelter during the war.  They were quite extensive and impressive.

We are taking a break for a few days in Hoi An to catch our breath.  It turned out that this was the perfect place for an extended stay because we are staying in a brand new hotel that just opened 5 months ago.  Because the hotel is new and is still pretty empty, we were upgraded to a deluxe room (which is the nicest room we have stayed in our entire trip- we have not been traveling in style!).  We are hoping that the clouds will clear long enough for us to enjoy the pool before we leave.

Here are a few pictures from the past week:

Beautiful scenery from our boat ride at Tam Coc

A cave at Tam Coc that we boated through

Rowing at Tam Coc caves

At the Pagoda near Ninh Binh

Mike in the bunker at the DMZ tunnel

Rolling insence which is burned every where!

Trying to keep every one dry at the King’s tomb

Wading through the floods to see the sites in Hue

Mike at the My Son ruins near Hoi An

Our AWESOME hotel!

Typical scene with the modern and traditional worlds living togethe on the same street

It’s so hard to believe we have just over a week left of this trip!  We hope every one had a wonderful Thanksgiving and hope to see you over the holidays!

-Jaime and Mike