Rich and Lorien's blog

Festivals of Light

2012-01-04T13:16:00.000-08:00

This holiday season has been packed full of bright activities. We took Dylan up to the Tilden Merry-Go-Round to see the lights.

We also participated in our neighbourhood luminaria Christmas eve display for the first time. We had some friends over and went for a stroll along the candlelit streets.

And Hannukah wrapped up a few nights later. I love it when Hannukah falls at the end of the solar year.

I baked some cookies.

Dylan enjoyed the candles, but I wasn't able to get a shot of him like last year because now that he's got motor control and other big-kid skills, he was hellbent on setting himself on fire.

We hope everyone who reads this had a happy holiday!

Thanksgiving in Indiana

2011-12-27T17:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Larry and Galit for hosting the whole family in Indiana. We spent the long weekend hanging around the house, and going for walks.

Rich has gotten the entire photoset up on Flickr, which you can see here. Here are some highlights:

On a walk with Larry, Dorothy, Lorien, Matthew, David, Laura, Steve and Dylan

Dylan and Aunt Laura at Ball State University

Dylan with cousins David and Matthew (Renoir, eat your heart out)

Dylan with Grandmom and Grandpop

All the Fromms (back from left: Larry, Galit, Dorothy, Eli; front: Rich, Lorien, Dylan, Matthew, Laura, David, Steve)

Dylan rides his trike

2011-12-04T22:13:00.001-08:00

We have a gazillion pictures from our Thanksgiving trip to Indiana to sort through, but while you wait for those to be posted, here's a video of Dylan on his trike, taken yesterday.

Dylan's second Halloween

2011-11-14T22:18:00.001-08:00

I can't believe we're into seconds now! We carved the pumpkins into shape sorters for Dylan to play with.

Dylan was a monkey (costume courtesy of Grandmama and Grandpa), and entertained the local trick-or-treaters by butt-scooting around on the sidewalk outside.

You can find more pictures in our Dylan Y 1 Q 1 photoset.

13 month stats

2011-11-14T22:05:00.001-08:00

We had to reschedule Dylan's 1-yr wellness appointment a couple of time, and it ended up getting pushed out until today, when Dylan is actually 13 months. He weighed in at 20 lb 8 oz, was 30.25 inches long and has a head circumference of 48.5 cm.

By the way, Dylan's birthday party pictures are up on Flickr here. There are many babies in pumpkins, like so:

And here's Dylan trying his first cupcake. After all our angst that he was going to abandon healthy food and go on an all sugar diet given his first taste, his reaction was more "meh".

Kicking it Toronto-style

2011-11-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

Dylan and I took a little mini-break to Toronto to visit the family last week. We had visions of crisp fall days and bright sunshine (or at least I did), but unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. However, we did get some breaks in the rain and got outside to make the most of them. Here's some pics, courtesy of Grandpa Fono.

Dylan learns to climb stairs


Dylan and Mommy and Riverdale Farm in downtown T.O. (probably our favourite stop on this trip)


Dylan learning about "fall"

3 generations

Goats are just like big cats


Dylan and Grandmama on the teeter totter at Sherborne Commons in the Toronto portlands


Men in plaid at the Don Valley bike and pedestrian path

OMG fall colours!!

Dylan and Grandmama at Huntington Park near the house

And we managed to get a group shot of the whole family, minus Rich who was languishing in California sunshine, and Grandpa George, the photographer.

Happy Birthday Dylan !!!

2011-10-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, Dylan finished his first trip around the sun. Here he is playing with his new piano. He also got to open awesome new presents from all his grandparents (pics to come once they're assembled).

Dylan continues to scoot around on his butt, and walk around holding mommy's or daddy's hands. He's also taken to pushing around furniture (since mommy and daddy are mean and won't buy him a walker). He's got his first word (can you guess what it is?) and his first sign, "all done", which he uses when he's done a meal.

The things you learn from your blog stats

2011-10-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

Go to Google Images, and search for "cute pumpkin photography". See anyone you recognize?

However, I'm generally bamboozled by the locations of our audience. I don't know anyone in Iran or Brazil. And this week, we got more page hits from Russia than we did from Canada. Здравствуйте, Russian friends!

Song and dance

2011-10-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

Dylan showing off with a little song ...

... and dance

11 months

2011-09-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

Dylan's 11 month birthday was over a week ago, so I apologize for being late on the posting. Dylan continues to scoot around on his behind, which you can view in the video below. He's getting better at drinking from a cup, and he has seven teeth. He's constantly babbling, and while there are "words" to be found in his babbles, I'm not sure that any of them count as language yet.

I can't believe he's almost a year old!!

Montana

2011-09-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

Before it gets too far in the past, I wanted to post about our visit to Montana. Kevin and Leah got married on July 16 at Holland Lodge, the weekend after Robyn and Alan's wedding. So we did the ever-popular San Francisco to Toronto to Missoula to Oakland open-jaw trip.

We used their wedding as an excuse to visit Glacier National Park for a few days. It was an incredibly snowy year, and they didn't open the Going-to-the-Sun Road, the main road through the park, until our first day there. There was still snow over the pass, and there were waterfalls everywhere. The full photoset is here on Flickr, but here are some highlights:

Avalanche Lake


Waterfalls onto the road


Snow over the pass


Mountain goat at Hidden Lake Overlook

The whole family at Sun Point

Rich didn't take many pictures at the wedding site, leaving that to the hired guns, which you can see at the photographer's site, here. We did get a few shots of the site, showing how lovely the area was.

There was a brief but violent thunderstorm during the reception, and one of the poles of the tent was destroyed by winds. However, Leah and Kevin were rewarded with a full, double rainbow after it blew through.

And finally, on the way back, we got a half-day in Missoula, a fun little college town, or Montana's squishy liberal center. We stopped off in two farmer's markets to buy snacks (one in Seely near the wedding and one in Missoula), which is always fun in new places. Dylan got to ride on Missoula's famed carousel with Daddy.

Trying to get home was a bit of a clusterf**k, since our plane had been disabled by a hailstorm in Denver, but we were ultimately successful at getting on a different flight.

10 months old!

2011-08-16T23:05:00.000-07:00

The months seem to be flying by faster as time goes on. Our little guy turned 10 months old on Saturday, which was the day we had friends over to celebrate Rich's and my birthday.


Dylan with his friend Anju

Our little guy is now sleeping through the night (with the help of a little Ferberesque sleep training a few weeks ago). He eats almost anything, except baby food, including cat food and dirt, which I try to discourage. He loves thai food, macaroni and cheese, chicken soup, and peaches and other stone fruit more than anything. Favorite activities include being pushed really high on the swings at the playground and going down slides. He also still loves being tossed in the air, but it's not as easy as it used to be. We have adventure baby!

Dylan is getting efficient at scooting around on his butt, thus ending the days of just plunking him down with some toys and knowing he won't get himself into any trouble. I don't know why he's particularly drawn to things that are dangerous, disgusting, or breakable. Dylan can also pull himself up and cruise around, vastly increasing the amount of the house that he can get to.

Our Birthday Horoscope:

2011-08-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

From The Globe and Mail:

IF TODAY IS YOUR BIRTHDAY:
Does it matter that you can’t seem to get a handle on the meaning of your existence? No it does not. What matters is that you always follow the little voice that comes from your heart. Follow it this year and you’ll find all the meaning you need.

Very appropriate for Rich's 42nd birthday.

It's been a lovely day so far, and we will shortly head out (sans Dylan, who will be at home with a babysitter) to a nice dinner.

Trip to T.O.

2011-07-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

My best friend from junior high and high school, Robyn, got married to her fiance Alan on July 10, giving us an excuse to visit the folks in Toronto.

Although it was brutally hot and humid, we did manage to get outside some. Here we are enjoying an evening barbeque in the lovely backyard:

Me, Grandmama, David and Dylan

And a second barbeque with the Bayers in their fabulous tiki-themed backyard:

Me, Dylan, Great Aunt Maureen, Great Uncle Jonathan and Cousin Rebekah

We also went winetasting in Niagara. Here's a picture from that day:

And here are some more family pics:

Dylan with Grandpa


Me, Dylan, Great-great Uncle Joe and Great-great Aunt Martha

Dylan with Rich's Aunt's sister, Sarah

More pictures are here on flickr. Sorry, no pictures from the wedding, since we leave that to the pros. Congratulations to Robyn and Alan!!

Grandma and Grandpa visit Berkeley

2011-07-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I'd like to blog Dorothy and Eli's visit in mid-June. While we were hoping to impress Grandma and Grandpa with how smoothly things are running around here, Dylan foiled our plans by going into his first ever sleep regression. While he had been sleeping consistently through the night since he was three months old, he started waking up every two hours or so and refusing to be put back to sleep. Needless to say, he was killing his parents. Thanks goodness Dorothy and Eli were here for the worst of it so we could hand him off in the morning and get more sleep!

We had to scale back our plans for their visit due to our general stupor. However, we did manage to get out one day and visit the Little Farm in Tilden Regional Park. Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed showing Dylan the farm animals:

Here's Dylan with Grandma:

And here he is with Grandpa (and his new stacking cups and toy train, courtesy (of course) of Grandma and Grandpa:

More pics in the Month 8 Flickr set.

9 months old!

2011-07-22T22:59:00.000-07:00

Dylan turned 9 months old last week. For his in/ex utero equinox we drove him across the continental divide. More on our Toronto/Montana extravaganza in the next post (Rich is editing the photo set down from 600 pictures so that we don't overload our flickr followers), but here are his 9-month stats from his doctor visit today.

Length = 28 inches (30th %ile)
Weight = 17lb5oz (11th %ile)
Head Circumference = 46.75 cm (90th %ile)

So our little guy is packing on the pounds thanks to his new and improved diet of actual food (well, mostly fruit still). He's got five teeth, and is babbling and clapping. He can't crawl, but is working on cruising around while standing.

Here he is at 9 months (taken last week at Glacier National Park):

Today in the grocery store a woman was admiring him and said that his skin looked like peaches. I came home and repeated this to Rich, who replied that it should, since that's half of what he eats these days.

More cuties

2011-06-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

Our mom's group had originally planned a bbq get together at Tilden in May, but decided to postpone it until June so that we knew there would be no chance of rain, and the ground would have dried out. However, this weekend hosted an epic downpour, which was apparently "5 standard deviations outside the mean weather pattern," according to one of the dads in the group. Adding further insult, after we made the call to cancel due to several days of heavy rain, there ended up being a window of no rain after all during the planned event. Grrr....

We went ahead with a get together, but at our house. Mojitos and cupcakes (baked by Rich) and babies were all in abundance.

You can see the entire set on flickr here, but here are some of our favorite photos:

Our living room becomes a play area.

Gaby and Dylan

Like Samson, Dylan's copious hair is his one weakness

Dylan and friends

2011-05-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

The women and babies I met through the Berkeley moms' group are continuing to meet, so Dylan has friends to play with and I have mom friends to kibbitz with. Anna was kind enough to host a get-together at her house on Friday.

Here we are with Anna's son Hayden:

Here are the moms and babies hanging out:

Here's Hayden, Dylan, Gabbie and Simone. Since Dylan is the most photographed baby in history, he knows about looking at the camera.

Dylan hung around until Hayden's nap time. Hayden was kind enough to share his toys before going to sleep.

More science!

2011-05-30T23:14:00.000-07:00

Dylan participated in a follow-up to the pingpong ball experiment. This test was to see whether he reacted differently when unrepresentative samples of colored pingpong balls were selected at random, versus when the researcher could be seen to pick them out.

We don't know the results, but they gave him his MA:

Dinner party

2011-05-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

We weren't sure how long it would be before we were able to entertain in style again. At the end of April, we hosted a French dinner, and friends Ryan, Becka, Mike, Matt and Laura came to join us. Dylan went to sleep between the frisee salad course and the main course of beef bourguignon.

I'm feeling lazy, so I'll just point to Becka and Mike's blog about the event, posted in more detail than I ever get around to here.

Qualified success

2011-05-30T22:59:00.000-07:00

Previous reports of success with solids were premature.

Dylan continues to insist on feeding himself, either with purees on a spoon, or finger foods. This is when he consents to eat solids at all, which is only about half of the time. On a positive note, he demolished a floret of cooked broccoli last week. I guess he liked that it came with a built in handle.

Tooth and beauty

2011-05-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

We managed to get a few shots of Dylan showing off his first tooth right before its next-door-neighbor popped in:

And here's a close-up:

Success with solids!!

2011-04-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

Dylan refuses to let us feed him. He grabs the spoon away from us as soon as it's near his face and then plays with it. So our solution has been to buy some soft silicone baby spoons and let him practice with them without any food. After about a week of this, he's actually getting okay at putting the business end in his mouth. We've been dipping the spoon in food, and letting him have it, then once he's gotten most of the food off, we deliver a second spoon with food, and take the first spoon away while he's distracted.

So, this week, we've had some decent success at feeding him mango pureed in yogurt, oatmeal, and cream of wheat. Today, he had what seems to be his favorite food so far. What was it? Hummus, of course, like a good Jewish baby (possibly in honor of Larry and Galit's upcoming wedding in Israel).

Here's Dylan post-cream of wheat:

More Science

2011-04-26T23:54:00.000-07:00

We took Dylan to participate in another experiment at UC Berkeley. They were comparing the spatial skills of walkers and crawlers to pre-crawlers. Since Dylan was in the control group, this experiment wasn't as exciting. For example, they wanted to see if he would look when they pointed at a picture, but he just stared at the pretty grad student talking to him. Still, necessary work in the name of science:

6 months old

2011-04-26T19:38:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late to post, but on April 13, Dylan turned a half-year old. He had his six-month wellness appointment, and he weighed in at 14lb10oz (5th %ile), was 26" tall (25th %ile) and his head circumference was 45 3/4 cm (97th %ile). The doctor was not concerned that all his calories seem to be going to grow his head, since he's very active.

Here's our big headed baby showing off his sitting skillz:

It's the tooth!

2011-04-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

I was wondering why little Mister Congeniality had morphed into little Mister Crankypants over the last week. I assumed it was a growth spurt. We figured he wouldn't cut his fist tooth until approximately 1 year, like I did. However, lo and behold, there's the first little chomper peeking up in the front right-hand spot on his bottom jaw. I'll miss my little guy's toothless smile.

By the way, if anyone posts "you can't handle the tooth", or similar, in the comments, I will unfriend you on Facebook.

He sits!

2011-03-28T18:14:00.000-07:00

Well, with some support. Dylan's much happier sitting than laying down, since he can see his toys and the world around him more easily.

Rolling over progress seems to have stalled. He's mastered rolling from front-to-back, but doesn't seem to think that back-to-front is worth practicing any more. He did it once and ended up with his arms pinned underneath him, so he likely figures that back-to-front rolling is for chumps.

First foods

2011-03-26T23:49:00.000-07:00

Dylan is five months old, and the pediatrician gave us the go ahead at his four month appointment to start him on solids whenever he's ready. We were all excited and bought some local, organic avocados, apples and squash. First we tried avocado:

He was not terribly impressed. Then we tried apples, then squash. He seemed to like the flavor of those foods better, and was willing to take a few spoonfuls, but then used his tongue to push most of it out.

I know some apple and squash got into his tummy, since about an hour after eating he spat some up brown (for the apple) and orange (in the case of squash), on my crisp white shirt. Motherhood is so glamorous.

On a side note, I know I shouldn't be feeding him this, and that it doesn't count as "solid" food, but I gave him a few small spoonfuls of my chicken soup the other day, and he ate it up. So between that, and his enthusiasm for licking and gumming my apple cores, he does seem to like the taste of food, but he's not developmentally ready yet for the physical process of eating solids. We'll give it a rest for a few more weeks and then try it again.

Oh, and there's no 5-month wellness appointment, so we don't have any 5 month stats.

We donated Dylan to science!

2011-03-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

Actually we just loaned him.

Dylan took place in a study at UC Berkeley's Infant Cognition and Language Lab. He sat in a high chair and was shown boxes of yellow and pink ping pong balls. The researcher took samples of balls out of the boxes. Some samples were representative of the color distribution of balls in the box, and some were not. The point of the study was to determine whether babies have a sense of probability. They timed how long Dylan looked at each sample, since babies are known to look longer at unexpected things.

4 month appointment stats

2011-02-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

Dylan weighed 13 lb 6 oz (13%ile), and was 24.75" long (32%ile). His head circumference was 43.75 cm (80%ile).

And I think the smart money says he'll have blue or grey eyes (photo from this past weekend).

Cuter by the dozen?

2011-02-16T16:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the last official meeting of my new mom support group. We'll continue to meet ad hoc on our own.

Here are the babies:

Dashiell, Elliot, Leo, Dylan, Gabby, Evan, Indira, Simone, Zachary, Kylie and Maya. (Hayden was sick and had to miss the meeting)

4 months old and in the snow

2011-02-15T21:01:00.000-08:00

Dylan turned 4 months on Sunday. For the full 3-month photo set, click here.

We spent the weekend up at Kathy and Craig's house in Tahoe. We all went snowboarding on Saturday and the spouses traded off babysitting in the lodge. On Sunday Rich, Dylan and I went cross country skiing at Tahoe Donner. The weather was in the 50s, so we didn't have to do much in the way of bundling up:

Here's Dylan with Kathy and Craig's son Cooper, who's almost 3 months old:

Another day in paradise

2011-02-07T17:37:00.000-08:00

The high in Berkeley yesterday was 76F, so we decided to do a hike up in Tilden that included the Bay Area Ridgeline Trail.

Sure beats football :)

A little bit of sunshine

2011-02-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

We continue into our third week of freakishly warm weather, just as the East Coast is getting socked by blizzards. We took Dylan out to the farmers market and park today, where he got to hang out on the grass in the sunshine.

Here he is showing off his ample, yet adorable head.

Even bigger head Dylan

2011-01-26T13:33:00.000-08:00

Dylan's head continues to grow to large proportions. He had his 3 month doctor appointment today, and at 12 lbs. 11 oz. is at 22% for weight. His height is similar, at 26%, but his head size is now up to a whopping 82%. So basically, all of his weight gain is going to his head.

One month formula free!!

2011-01-24T15:00:00.000-08:00

Breastfeeding is supposed to be "natural", but it certainly wasn't so easy for me. Dylan lost 14 oz after he was born, so we were supplementing his diet with formula for the first two months, while I struggled to get my supply up. Taking fenugreek supplements seemed to do the trick for me, and between that, lots of support from Rich and perseverance, Dylan hasn't had a drop of formula since Dec 23.

Here's your dose of Dylan, who has learned to grab at toys (and everything else) within the last week.

One of the women in my new mom's group said that Dylan reminds her of Charles Wallace from A Wrinkle in Time

2011-01-19T20:54:00.001-08:00

This makes me very happy.

Dylan at the beach

2011-01-19T20:52:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, we took the Tennessee Valley trail in Marin out to the beach. Dylan napped in the Ergo on the trail, but was awake and alert and enjoyed the beach.

Cool Dylan hanging out in Mommy's shades:

Dylan is big enough now to ride on Daddy's shoulders.

Before taking the trail back to the car, we climbed to the lookout and got a view from above.

For all the pictures, click here.

Dylan's first hike

2011-01-11T22:50:00.000-08:00

We were feeling cooped up, so we took Dylan on his first hike on Sunday. We got a late start, but had time to do the Stream Trail loop in Oakland's Redwood Regional Park. He enjoyed looking around at the trees for the first fifteen minutes or so, then conked out, but reawoke for snack time, shown here:

Rich also got to try out the Ergo carrier for Dylan, now that he can hold up his head.

We're looking forward to more adventures with Dylan, and welcome any insight on how to change his diaper outside when it's cold.

Flying baby

2011-01-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

We were told that flying with an infant is pretty easy, and it turned out to be the case. Dylan nursed or slept during each of the three legs of the trip. For what it's worth, the whole family avoided being either groped or scanned in the X-ray backscatter machines in San Francisco, Toronto and Philadelphia. TSA employees were courteous (although a little less so in Philly) and tried to make it easier for us to get through security with all our baby paraphernalia, since now we're those people you don't want to be behind in line.

Here's Dylan smiling at the gate in PHL:

Week in Philly

2011-01-10T14:06:00.000-08:00

After Toronto, we flew to Philadelphia to visit Rich's family. The big news on that end is that Larry and Galit got married! Here's a pic from their ceremony at the Media courthouse. They'll have a Jewish wedding in May in Israel. Click here for more wedding pictures.

Dylan looking suave in Daddy's fedora:

Taken at the celebration dinner, here's Dylan with cousin Matthew, who seems to have quite the way with babies (or at least our baby):

Here are pictures of Dylan with Grandmom and Grandpop Fromm.

We took Dylan to visit Rich's nursery school, although the kids there are quite a bit older.

We also took Dylan to the Macy's light show downtown, and then went to the Reading Terminal and the Christmas Village by City Hall. Here's a pic in front of Philadelphia City Hall:

Click here for the full Philly photostream.

Thanks to all Fonos and Fromms for a great visit. If there are any other pictures you have that you'd like posted, send them along.

Toronto visit

2011-01-07T23:31:00.000-08:00

Happy new year, loyal readers. As promised, here's the backfill for our trip. We already posted the group shot. We also went to visit Dylan's great-great-uncle Joe and great-great-aunt Martha. Here's Judy presenting Dylan to Joe:

Bob and Sherri brought their crew to visit as well. Here's Dylan with the Sorger kids Jarett, Elly and Sendi (forgive any misspellings):

The trip also afforded us the opportunity to take Dylan into the snow for the first time. Now he's all ready for Tahoe!

We also went with Judy and George on a trip downtown to The Coffee Mill so that Rich could have chestnut puree for the first time. We walked down to the Eatons Center and saw this year's Swarovski Christmas Tree. Dylan was entranced by being in a mall for the first time. Should we be worried?

Photo credit to Judy for this picture. And of course, for more pictures, go to Rich's flickr photostream.

flickr

2011-01-03T00:26:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a decent job of taking digital pictures over the past few years, but I've been doing a somewhat less stellar job of organizing them and making them available to others. I wrote a bunch of homebrew scripts that I had been using for making web based albums, and a fairly small subset of my photos have been up at http://richandlorien.org/pictures/ courtesy of these.

I have been meaning for quite some time to do some work improving those scripts, but I never can seem to find the time. And with Dylan's arrival, I am finally forced to admit that it will probably never become a high enough priority.

Enough people I know seem satisfied with flickr as a photo sharing tool that I've decided to give it a try. My flickr account is dingdingwikki. My sets and photostream are respectively available at:

If you already have a flickr account, feel free to send me your info and/or add me as a contact.

If you do not have a flickr account, one is not required to see (most of) my pictures, but you might want to consider getting one anyway. Having a flickr account will allow you to comment, tag, etc. And while the vast majority of my pictures are publicly available, this is already not 100% true. Also, I may in the future only make the high resolution originals available to my contacts. Note that a basic flickr account is free. (You only have to pay if you want a pro account, which I did, since I quickly hit the 300 MB monthly upload max on the free account. I decided that unlimited uploads and unlimited storage and usefulness for distributing high resolution originals was worth $25/year.)

There will continue to be blog posts (with selected pictures) here, and I will continue to post quick stuff and snapshots on facebook, but for the time being I will be using flickr for more serious photo management.

So far I started at Dylan's birth and have caught up to the present. It will take a bit of time to go through several years worth of digital photographs and get them edited and captioned and uploaded as well. Eventually, but not in the near future. Maybe someday I'll scan in film negatives, but I don't actually have that many of them from my adult life.

Dylan of two cities

2010-12-28T17:15:00.000-08:00

In the interest of making sure there are always up-to-date baby pictures on the blog, here's a pic of Dylan taken by my father George in Toronto:

Here's a picture taken at Larry and Galit's wedding in the Media courthouse (near Philly). Thanks to the Taves for getting Dylan his fancy attire.

Back from back east

2010-12-27T11:55:00.000-08:00

We just got back on Saturday from our Grand Tour of Toronto and Philadelphia where we took Dylan to visit his extended family. It feels like we're bringing back a very different baby than we left with. He seems to be acknowledging the cats, and he can hold up his head on his own, more or less. He's also sleeping longer than before we left, leading me to have visions of actually getting things done!

We plan to post plenty of pictures from our trip, but here are a couple to get started. This is a shot of the whole Fono (+Fromm) clan, taken by Robyn.

Here are the three Fromm grandsons, taken at Eli and Dorothy's house.

One more cute picture...

2010-12-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

This didn't really fit in with the other posts but is worthy of sharing. Dylan is somewhat ambivalent about being worn in a sling, but he sure is cute in it.

Into the double digits!

2010-12-09T15:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was also Dylan's 2-month doctors appointment at 8 weeks old. He weighed in at 10 lb 1 oz, putting him in the 19th percentile (up from the 7th when he weight 6 lb). The doctor is very pleased with his growth, especially since he's almost entirely off formula now. She's also pleased with his development and his big smile. He also received his first vaccines, and we're very proud of how brave he was.

Dylan's first Hanukkah

2010-12-09T14:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the last night of Hannukah. Dylan was suitably impressed by the full array of lit candles.

Here he is playing with his first toy, a gift from Grandma and Grandpa.

Dylan's namesake

2010-12-01T21:28:00.000-08:00

Dylan's middle name is Rigel, which is the brightest star in the constellation Orion, which first rises in October.

Due to our schedules and light pollution and objects obscuring the horizon, we hadn't actually managed to see Rigel until now. Lorien was leaving the house to run an errand earlier this hour and pointed out that Orion was visible in the sky. Including Rigel. We took Dylan out to show him.

No pictures -- I really don't have suitable equipment for astronomy photography, even if we lived out in the boonies.

He smiles!

2010-11-28T22:57:00.000-08:00

Well, he has for a little while now, but we finally caught a bit of it on camera.

Showering Dylan

2010-11-22T01:07:00.000-08:00

Alice and Alicia hosted a baby shower for Dylan today, at Matt and Alice's house. Thank you to everyone who came out to meet Dylan, for the lovely food spread (especially featuring not-safe-for-pregnancy items), and for the wonderful gifts.

Anjali's Birthday

2010-11-20T00:12:00.000-08:00

We went with Dylan last Sunday to the 1st birthday party of Anjali, who is Arnab and Alicia's daughter. There were lots of kids there, although none quite as young and tiny as Dylan. As we were getting ready to leave, Anjali took a bit of an interest in Dylan (and vice-versa).

We're hoping she'll be up for babysitting in a few months. ;)

Big Head Dylan

2010-11-17T22:31:00.000-08:00

Dylan had his "1 month" doctor's appointment today, although it was actually on the 5 week anniversary of his birth. As we suspected, our previous concerns about weight gain are no longer an issue. Dylan has zoomed way past his birth weight and now tops the scales at 8lb. 8oz. Apparently his birth weight was only in the 7th percentile (which seems a bit surprising to me -- I thought the high 6's was fairly typical, and it's what both Lorien and I were), but now he's up to the 14th percentile. His length is somewhere in the low 30s percentile. But his head size is right around the 50th percentile. So basically we have a skinny, somewhat short baby, with an otherwise big head.

One month birthday

2010-11-17T19:30:00.000-08:00

Saturday was Dylan's one month birthday. We had a busy day in celebration. We took him to the Kinetic Steamworks open house, which he pretty much slept through. Here he is with Rich in a snail, and with me on a steam powered tricycle.

Then we headed over to Alice and Matt's place for indian food. They just got two kittens, Ramekin and Juneau. Here's Ramekin investigating the little human kitten.

Happy Places

2010-11-16T14:24:00.000-08:00

Changing Dylan’s diaper was a struggle until we set up the super plush microfibre changing pad with a space heater to blow warm air over him. Now he relaxes as soon as we put him down. Here he is relaxing after a bath.

Here's Dylan in his living room bassinet being watched over by the elephant sent to him by Grandma Dorothy and Grandpa Eli.

Dose of Dylan

2010-11-16T14:17:00.000-08:00

Sorry, we’ve gotten behind on blogging. Here’s a pic to whet your appetite from week 3. No worries, we don’t cosleep, but it’s nice to bring Dylan into the grown up bed for morning cuddles. Selena is a fan.

Little monkey

2010-11-06T00:34:00.000-07:00

The heat arrived, and Dylan developed a little case of baby acne. The heat has subsided, and the acne seems to be diminishing as well. Or maybe it's all just hormonal; I hear that's a possibility.

Here's Dylan in a little monkey suit. Well, not really a full blown monkey suit, although we do have one of those too. It seems that monkeys are "in" -- an unusually high percentage of the clothing we have seems to have some sort of monkey theme. I guess that's okay, I don't have a problem with monkeys. I can think of worse things to be "in".

Trying the newer editor in blogger. I wouldn't say it's necessarily that much better than the older editor, just that it sucks in different ways. Oh well.

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

Since Dylan is an October baby, Halloween was his first holiday.

Our Halloween pumpkins this year reflected our newly expanded family, with Daddy, Mommy, and baby pumpkins. (As opposed to the ridiculously old Halloween pumpkin family pics still up at http://richandlorien.org/ -- we ought to change that...)

The Daddy pumpkin was big enough (30#) and Dylan is small enough (~7#), that we were able to subject Dylan to the minor indignity of some in-pumpkin photography. He took it in stride. (Better than the passport photo sessions.) We got some nice ones out of it, and the cute pumpkin hat helped.

At night, after lighting our pumpkins, we dressed Dylan in his pumpkin shirt (thanks Alice and Matt!) and took him out for a tiny bit of trick or treating. Mostly it was just showing him off to the nearby neighbors. In light of Lorien's central role for Dylan's food supply, she got to keep the candy collected.

Your papers, please

2010-10-31T23:19:00.000-07:00

So we'd like to take Dylan this winter to see both sets of grandparents. Which means traveling to Canada. Which means getting him a passport.

You wouldn't think that this should be so hard. Dealing with some bureaucracy, paying some absurd fees, maybe waiting in some lines, and waiting some time, but it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

The problem is that they want passport photos. For an infant. Which will be completely meaningless in that he won't look anything like what he does in the photos by the time he travels, let alone by the time the passport expires.

The State Department has some pretty stringent requirements about what constitutes an acceptable passport photo. Mind you, these requirements aren't that difficult for an adult. But they're pretty ridiculous (and hard to meet) for an infant.

We decided to just do things the "easy" way and pay some money to have them take the photos at the post office, where we had to go anyway to apply for the passport. The problem is that whomever I spoke with on the phone basically totally lied to me about what they were and were not willing to do with respect to infant passport photos. So after some unsuccessful attempts there, we gave up, left, and went home.

We've had a few photo sessions over the last few days when Dylan seems to be in an agreeable mood, trying to get a usable picture. We're still not 100% there, but close. But in the meantime, I thought I'd post a few of my favorite outtakes, while ranting against the State Department.

More Dylan

2010-10-31T00:26:00.000-07:00

Life continues.

Dylan is still cute.

My Mom continues to help us out.

Dylan recently discovered sucking his thumb.

And we discovered just how happy Dylan is with the pacifier we bought him today.

Babies and cats

2010-10-31T00:04:00.000-07:00

They're getting along just fine.

and Dylan and Grandma

2010-10-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

Photo ibid.

Dylan and Grandmama

2010-10-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

Picture taken by Grandpa(pa?)

Avraham Naor Fromm

2010-10-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

Thursday was the 8th day of Dylan's life. Jhos, the rabbi who officiated our wedding, officiated his Bris at our home. We gave him two names -- Avraham, which means the father of compassion, after Lorien's maternal grandfather; and Naor, which means light (both illumination and enlightenment), after Rich's maternal grandmother.

Out for a walk

2010-10-23T23:02:00.000-07:00

We finally got a chance to try out the Moby wrap today -- we took Dylan on a short walk to the Edible Schoolyard at the nearby middle school, before the deluge of the first winter storm arrived (sympathy going out to our friends Heather and Ed for the wet weather on their wedding day). I think it may have taken us longer to get out of the house than it did to actually go on the walk. Dylan seemed to enjoy the walk to the extent that he can enjoy things as a 10 day old -- he basically slept through most of it.

Just to make sure that we had the hang of it and didn't drop the baby, we first tried the Moby out with Snoopy. Snoopy seemed to enjoy it too. :)

Lorien's parents depart for Toronto tomorrow morning. Rich's Mom is staying to help out for about another week and a half.

More cuteness

2010-10-23T00:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is out of order timewise (this was taken last week when we were still in the hospital), but we finally had a chance to sit down and look at all of the pictures taken so far, and this one strikes me as pretty adorable, and somehow I overlooked it before.

Settling in at home

2010-10-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

We're settling into a routine at home. Feed. Change. Sleep. Repeat. The total amount of sleep we're getting in every 24 hour period isn't actually that bad, and it's much more than I was expecting. It's just not one single continuous sleep period. Lorien's parents and Rich's Mom are all in town, and they're helping out, which is making things easier. We've also been blessed with a pretty mellow baby -- Chillin' Dylan as I like to call him.

Our biggest concern so far has been his weight. Having both Dylan and Lorien spend time in their respective ICUs made it a bit more difficult to get feeding going. All babies lose weight after birth (something I hadn't realized before), but the doctors get a bit concerned if the loss is more than 10%. In Dylan's case, for a 6 lb. 14 oz. birth weight, that threshold was 6 lb. 3 oz. He bottomed out at 6 lb. 0.1 oz., but before we left the hospital he was up to 6 lb. 4.5 oz. We just got back from a visit to the pediatrician, and now he's up to 6 lb. 8 oz. So we're halfway back to regaining birth weight. Yay Dylan!

We just took him on his first walk with the stroller, wandering around North Berkeley on some errands. It seemed to go well, in that he slept through the entire time.

We're home

2010-10-19T14:34:00.001-07:00

Not much time to say anything more, and not uploading any pics right now, but I just wanted to let anyone know that might be reading this that we got home from the hospital yesterday (that's Monday -- right?) afternoon. And last night wasn't too bad. The sleep wasn't continuous, and not what I would have considered reasonable a short while ago, but the overall length wasn't actually too bad.

Still at the hospital

2010-10-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

We're still at the hospital, hoping to come home tomorrow (Monday). If that's the case, we'll have been here a full week -- just like the old days! We're starting to reach the point where we're getting eager to be home.

Busy juggling a bunch of things, so I don't really have the time yet for a detailed posting. But here is your daily dose of Dylan.

All together now

2010-10-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

Lorien and Dylan are continuing to make progress, although the time spent apart has made feeding a bit more difficult than we had hoped.

Last night was the first night that we all spent together as a family. As might be expected, I'm kind of tired today.

Special thanks to Kim for the cupcakes, Alicia for the coconut juice, and Alice for being willing to run errands for us and check up on Dirk and Selena.

Out of the NICU

2010-10-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

As helpful as the staff was in the NICU, I'm happy to report that Dylan was able to leave this morning. Mom, Dad, and baby are now all sharing a regular room. Being able to hold Dylan and move about without having to worry about a tangle of wires and tubes is a wonderful feeling.

Thank you to everyone for the wishes and blessings and congratulations that we've received.

Welcome Dylan

2010-10-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce the arrival of Dylan Rigel Fromm, 6 lb. 14 oz., 20.87", at 5:56 AM on 13 October 2010.

It was a long, hard journey, with 45 hours of labor, and it would be an understatement to say that things didn't exactly go according to plan. Not that I think that many births do. Ultimately it ended with a C-section and both Lorien and Dylan in their respective ICU's. But Lorien and Dylan are both going to be fine, Lorien is now out of the ICU, and the hope is that Dylan will be out by the morning. Rich is also doing much better after having had the luxury of some sleep.
.

Please wish us luck in adjusting and healing in the days ahead. We can't wait for all of you to meet our beautiful little boy

Waiting...

2010-10-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

Today is precisely 40 weeks, and we're waiting with a mixture of patience, anxiety, and anticipation. But it's late enough now that it would be extremely unlikely for us to get the date 10/10/10. Which is fine, there are far more important things in the world.

We still haven't gotten done everything around the house that we had wanted to, but we're actually in not that bad of a shape, the house is in a reasonable semblance of order, and the room that will become the nursery is reasonably clear of stuff. (Much thanks to Tom Cavnar for helping me to move the desk down to the newly remodeled room in the basement earlier this week.)

We're trying to relax a bit and enjoy the time we have remaining before our entire world is turned upside down. So the whole day wasn't spent on baby prep, the latest bout of warm weather prompted us to head downtown for some gelato. And Lorien decided she was up for biking! (It was her first time on a bike since 7.5 months.) Alas, it did not get labor started. Yet.

Hmmm... either blogger or me (or both of us) suck at visual design. See the detailed post at http://richandlorien.blogspot.com/2010/10/waiting.html for the full photo sequence to be visible. [At least with FF3 on ubuntu that is; YMMV.]

I just made two gallons of chicken soup

2010-10-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

You know, in case the baby prefers that to breast milk :)

36 weeks - Sausalito

2010-09-13T23:19:00.000-07:00

My birthday present from Rich this year was a massage at a prenatal massage spa in Sausalito. We had meant to make an afternoon of it, but it was unusually chilly over there, so we returned to Berkeley for gelato. We went to the new place in Epicurious Garden, "Lush", that replaced the old mediocre Chao Bella. Rich is now telling anyone who will listen that Lush has the best gelato he's ever had ("they have two kinds of vanilla!!").

Anyway, here's a 36 week belly shot.

Oh, and this being Berkeley, on the way to get the gelato, we passed a shrine to the late mountain lion.

Another heat wave

2010-09-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

Although not as bad as last week so far. It's like it waited until I was nearly 8 months pregnant to ambush me. The cats are both passed out in the heat, but that's nothing special.

Anyway, here's a link to a local columnist musing about the consequences of our erstwhile cold summer. Indeed, the tomatoes have been rather lame, although the local wildlife are leaving ours alone this year so we actually get to eat some. Perhaps Dirk is earning his keep.

In other news, a mountain lion was shot and killed not far from our house early Tuesday morning. This would be a highly unusual occurrence for our neighborhood.

Never thought I'd say this...

2010-08-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

...but thank goodness the fog is rolling in. The temperature hit 95 degrees (about 35C for all you who don't deal in Fahrenheit) yesterday, and all I could do was hide inside and drink cold water. I will not complain about how cold this summer has been any more, I swear.

Birthday excursions

2010-08-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

Rich and I celebrated our birthday this year by heading into the City to see the Musee d'Orsay "Birth of Impressionism" exhibit at De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The Orsay is circulating some of it's collection while it undergoes renovations. It wasn't a bad collection, and included several pieces that we hadn't seen when we were in Paris last year. When this show closes in September, it will be replaced with the post-impressionist exhibit "Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse and Beyond" which we hope to catch before the baby comes, although if necessary, maybe we'll go in the winter with baby.

We walked around the park some, then headed back downtown for tea at Samovar, where Rich had never been. They provides a ridiculously fancy overpriced tea service, but are also really good. We need to go back some time to sit on the patio, which was unfortunately not feasible due to the high winds and cold cold cold.

We finished the day with dinner at the Slanted Door in the Ferry Building. It was pleasant, although I'm losing the ability to sit still for a two-hour dinner.

We didn't take many pictures yesterday, but the ones we did were from the observation tower at the De Young. Mostly we observed fog (par for the course for this very cold cloudy summer we're having). The first picture shows the green roof at the Academy of Sciences.

And here's a 31 1/2 week belly shot of me overlooking the Richmond district.

All in all a lovely day. As it has been noted by myself and others, what a difference a year makes!!

28 Weeks

2010-07-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

Rich and I just started looking seriously for baby paraphernalia this weekend. There is a dizzying array of choices of carriers/strollers. Also, we need to decide on some bedding scheme so that the baby can sleep in our room for the first few months (bassinet, moses basket, cosleeper, whatever).

We also went to the Silent Film Festival again yesterday, which was a nice break from baby decisions.

Anyway, here's a belly pic at 28 weeks (yesterday).

25 weeks

2010-07-06T18:03:00.001-07:00

Weekend activities

2010-06-29T21:50:00.001-07:00

Rich and I finally took advantage of our birthday present from David last year, which was a gift card giving us access to a menu of "experiences" in the San Francisco area.

Rich took a flying trapeze lesson at the San Francisco circus school. Here's a little video of flying Rich. Now he want to take lessons.

I chose to do the archery lesson for two, so I took Alice to the Archery Range in Golden Gate Park near the ocean. Our instructor, Ed, was very thorough and methodical in teaching us, so we had pretty good success hitting the target from distances up to about 30 feet. We both also hit the bullseye a few times.

Archery is a good sport for pregnant women, since it only requires the arms and shoulders. Highly recommended, especially since flying trapeze was out. Rich points out that flying trapeze results in every muscle being sore the next day (or 3), as well as some fancy bruising behind the knees.

Here's a posed shot by the target before getting started.

And here's an action shot as we're both preparing to take a shot.

Summer Pie Time

2010-06-24T21:53:00.000-07:00

For about a year and a half Rich has been welcoming the new seasons by baking pies with the produce that comes into the market. I've been mostly eating the pies and giving a thumbs up. Here's Rich's second-to-most recent pie, which was strawberry rhubarb (my favorite).

This past weekend we went on a pilgrammage with some friends to Swanton Berry Farms U-pick fields between Santa Cruz and Pescadero. The ollalieberry season was just starting, and the strawberries were in full swing. Rich comprimised his all-ollallieberry pie dreams because they weren't sweet enough and baked a strawberry-ollallieberry pie which may have been his best pie ever. However, it was a pie for eating, not photographing.

Here's Rich and friends with our haul at the berry farm.

Just for fun...

2010-06-07T20:29:00.001-07:00

...here's a belly shot from Kathryn and Gil's wedding last weekend, when I was 21 weeks along.

Ok, I'm telling the internet

2010-06-07T20:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long time no blog. Rich has been posting his 140 character or less thoughts on Facebook, but Facebook sucks and I've got news that I don't want to tell Facebook:
We're cautiously but happily expecting a new member of the family on or near 10/10/10.

Here are some of our 20-week ultrasound pics.

Oh, and it would appear that our first child will be a masculine child (to quote Don Corleone).

Mastering the Art

2009-11-10T21:56:00.000-08:00

Long time no blog.

I guess I've been chattier lately on a finer granularity, on Facebook. It's a bit easier to say something brief.

So there's loads to catch up on (and lots of pictures that I need to go through, which seems to be a recurring theme), but I won't get too into that now, except to say that we enjoyed our 2 week trip back east for my nephew Matt's Bar Mitzvah and then traveling around seeing friends and seeing the fall colors. I will get pictures up eventually...

But the topic du jour is food. After coming back from Europe we had gotten pretty excited about French food and had a desire to expand our cooking horizons a bit. But we hadn't managed to get around to it much. Seeing "Julie and Julia" kind of reminded us again and prodded us to consider it more. Reading "My Life in France" (one of the books that the movie is based on), which my sister-in-law Laura got for us, also helped.

So a little while back we checked "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" out of the library, to give it a test drive. We were pretty impressed with some of our initial efforts (Ratatouille, Garlic Soup) that we decided to go ahead and buy it.

So this past weekend we dived head first into a major cooking extravaganza, Beef Bourguignon. It's quite an undertaking. Start to finish it was about 5 hours of prep time. But it's not really that bad -- a good chunk of that it's just sitting in the oven cooking. A big enough chunk that we easily were able to sit down and watch a movie ("Whatever Works", Woody Allen's latest). And apparently the dish only gets better if you let it sit around a bit, so we made the main course ahead of time on Saturday, and didn't have that much work to do on Sunday, when we were serving.

But we didn't just stop there, and before we knew it, we were planning a 5 course meal. At times some of the minutia of our planning conversations were perhaps a little embarrassing -- trying to figure out what wine to use for the Beef Bourguignon (it takes a full bottle), or what kind of mushrooms to use (how can Julia possibly just say "mushrooms" -- I guess she couldn't anticipate the dozens of varieties that we have to choose from in Berkeley), or obsessing over what kind of bread to buy for the appetizer, and was it appropriate to use the same kind of bread for the croutons for the salad (we ended up with just one kind).

Regarding the wine, I've always been of the opinion that while it's silly to use too nice of a bottle of wine for cooking, you should also have some minimum standards, and not use anything you wouldn't want to drink. We couldn't find any inexpensive Burgundy reds at BevMo, but I found one bottle of Burgundy for $7 at Trader Joe's, and decided that that would surely be drinkable enough. We poured most of the bottle into the dish before it went in the oven, but I saved a little taste for us to sit down and enjoy with the movie. It smelled decent, and had the right color, but when we actually tasted it, I was pretty horrified -- it was not a very good wine, to say the least. Way too acidic and lacking in flavor. Definitely something I wouldn't want to drink a bottle of. Well, it was too late to do anything about it, and as it turned out, the dish was still amazing. So maybe it's a good thing we tasted it after adding it, because if we had done it the other way around, we probably would have just dumped the whole bottle. Nevertheless, next time I think we may try something else, to see if a better wine makes it even better.

There's one scene in the movie where Julie has this revelation while cooking mushrooms that she's been doing it all wrong. It was kind of neat making this soon after seeing the movie, because I can now somewhat relate to that. Although the main point of Julia's that Julie was realizing (don't crowd the mushrooms) I don't think as much applied to what I've done in the past -- but I definitely did notice a difference from Julia's other point, of using a much higher heat.

Anyway, it was a pretty epic meal, and although it was a lot of work, I'd say it was totally worth it, and we'd do it again. And it gave us an excuse to serve an entire meal on the china that I've inherited. Thanks to Julia (and Julie) for inspiration, to Todd and Ryan for being willing culinary guinea pigs, and to the librarian at the Berkeley public library for helping us pick out some French cafe music to set the right atmosphere. And to Dirk for graciously helping to lick out the sauce pan.

I had thought about adding one final finishing touch by printing out the menu on little cards, but we need more toner and I decided it just wasn't worth it. So here it is electronically, complete with the requisite amount of fancy restaurant-style modifiers:

Dry farmed Early Girl tomato bruschetta on sourdough toasts
--
Frisee salad with white truffle parmesan dressing
--
Beef Bourguignon
Oven roasted Yukon Gold potatoes
--
Assorted cheeses
--
Molten chocolate cake
Fresh raspberries

The smoking!

2009-07-22T18:54:00.000-07:00

In the last post, I remembered that there were 3 reasons Rich and I preferred France, but I had forgotten what #3 was, so I just threw in the language thing, but I just remembered.

The real list was:
1. Public toilets
2. Tap water
3. No smoking in bars and restaurants!!

While the French have the reputation of being walking chimneys, they passed a law a few years back forbidding smoking in public places indoors. So our sojourn there was mercifully free of smoke. When we got to Belgium we were assaulted by smoke everywhere we went, which sucks as a tourist because your limited clothing supply quickly becomes repulsively malodourous.

I think it wouldn't have bothered me as much years ago before I became used to smoke-free environments, but I've become weak and spoiled in my old age.

Barhopping in Brussels

2009-07-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

We really enjoyed our day in Brussels. We were intent on trying as many new (to us) beers as possible, and cushioning them with fries, waffles and chocolate in between. And we did some of the requisite sightseeing as well.

Here our some of the highlights:

1. Some of the most detailed stained glass we've ever seen at the Notre Dame Cathedral

2. The Mannekin Pis, a must-see tiny little statue of a peeing little cherub.

3. Our favorite Brussels bar, Poechenellekelder, where we could watch a constant stream of tourists come by to photograph the Mannekin Pis.

4. Said view.

5. The Hotel de Ville, at the Grand Place at night.

6. Our table-mate at the Delerium Pub, which is famous for its selection of over 2000 beers. This picture shows that one thing is common throughout the world - teenagers go for quantity over quality.

While we enjoyed our time in Belgium, there a three major reasons that we prefered France as tourists:

1. Few public toilets. The ones there are have limited hours and cost. A big problem in a country where you drink beer with every meal and between them too.
2. They won't give you tap water at restaurants. Not that they don't do it automatically like here - they refuse even if you ask.
3. I can't practice my French in the Dutch parts. And Dutch just sounds like fake German.

"If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't."

2009-07-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

Another quote from the movie, for what it's worth.

We liked Bruges. It was very cute. However, we weren't happy at the place we were staying (I had to stand on a chair in the shower to get my hair wet, and a few other reasons). Also, the beer bar that is supposed to be one of the best in the world was closed when we were there. So hopefully one day we'll return and have more success.

However, on the plus side, it was nice to wander the well-preserved/reconstructed medieval streets, and ate dinner the first night at a little cafe filled with locals with a great jazz trio. We also had dinner the second night at Den Dyver, a fancy place where they choose a beer pairing for your meal, which was wonderful. The city is purported to be jammed with tourists, but it wasn't crowded at all when we were there.

Pictures:
1. The view of central market from the clock tower.
2. The clock tower.
3. A windblown me in the central market.
4&5. The view along the canals.

The Luberon - Provence part 4

2009-07-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

On our final day, we drove east to the Luberon, a region made famous by A Year in Provence, which we'd both read earlier this year. We started by visiting Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, which is a town built over 5 rivers, the Sorgue being the primary one. The antiques market was going on when we arrived and the town was hopping Then we visited Gordes, one of the more famous medieval hilltop villages in the area. We finished our day by going by the Abbey of Senaque, which is famous for its lavender, although it wasn't yet in bloom.

Pictures:

1. Rich with his feet in the river across from where we had our best Provencal lunch - salads and white wine.
2. Lorien on a bridge over the Sorgue.

3. A field of irises on the outskirts of Gordes.

4. Gordes.

5. The Abbey of Senaque.

Day in the Alpilles - Provence part 3

2009-07-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

We spent Saturday around St. Remy, stymied in our quest to do laundry, since the one laundromat in town was closed, and buying food for a dinner picnic at the market. We also went up to Les Baux de Provence, a hilltop village and the remains of roman and medieval fortifications high up in the Alpilles range.

Pictures:

1. The village of Baux de Provence, which mostly exists to provide tourist facilities to people visiting the ruins.
2. The ruins of the fortress.
3. Rich and some French women participating in a catapult demo. Minimal language skills were required for this volunteer position.
4. A view of the Alpilles range and the olive groves and vineyards of the Camargue below.
5. Our picnic back at our hotel.

May Day in Provence - Provence part 2

2009-07-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

I was a little nervous that everything would be shut tight on May Day, which is international Labor Day. However, at least in Provence, it seems to be an excuse to parade about in traditional clothing and put on free shows. We started the day in St. Remy, where there was a donkey parade (indeed!). Then we headed to the Parc Ornithologique, located in the Rhone River Delta which is a vast marshland and habitat for migrating flamingos. We finished our day in Arles, where we caught an Arlesian "bullfight" in the Roman Colloseum, which was more of a choreographed dance than a fight, and involved minimal conflict and zero bloodshed.

The pictures:

1. Donkey Parade in St. Remy-de-Provence
2.&3. Flamingos at the Parc Ornithologique
4. The Colloseum in Arles
5. Van Gogh's cafe in Arles

Ah, Provence - part 1

2009-06-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

We spent 4 full days in Provence, and it will take several posts to blog it, since we had a wonderful time, and Provence is beautiful. We were based at the Hotel de Soleil in St. Remy-de-Provence, where Van Gogh was institutionalized, and we explored around the region by car. Provence was the center of Roman civilization in ancient Gaul, and the area is littered with ancient ruins.

On the first day, we went to Avignon and the Pont de Gard. During the 14th century, the Popes made their home here, feeling that Rome was too corrupt. Avignon's skyline is dominated by the Palais des Papes. And of course, there's the immortal pont d'Avignon from the nursury rhyme.

Pictures:

1. The Pont d'Avignon with Mont Ventoux in the distance. As you can see, it no longer crosses the Rhone.

2. The song. Rich learned it for this trip and wouldn't stop singing for days. And yes, we danced on the bridge.

3. Me on one of the windy mideaval streets behind the Palais de Papes

4. The Palais des Papes

5. The Pont de Gard (the remains of a Roman Aquaduct) near sunset.

Rich and Lorien cross the Alps

2009-06-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

Rich may have more to say about our drive through a surprise snowstorm (it was April 29, so it was only a little surprise) but here's a picture from the drive that I really like, taken near Mijoux. This is the most dramatic snowline I've ever seen.

Cheese and Yellow Wine in the Jura

2009-06-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

We spent 2 full days in the Jura, about an hour drive north of Geneva (in decent weather conditions...I think Rich discussed our ill-fated trip through the Alps in an earlier post). The first day we hiked in the vineyards around Arbois, center of production of the tasty and slightly bizarre yellow wine. That was the day of the cheese debacle. The next day we hiked around the Herrisson waterfalls, then I went for a walk around the village we were staying in, Montigny-Sur-L'Ain, while Rich slept off the cheese. Pictures below:

1. Rich sitting in the middle of a traffic circle in Arbois

2. Arbois seen from the vineyards above the town

3. Rich by the waterfalls

4. The cows near our village. They all creepily stopped what they were doing to watch me walk by.

5. Christelle and Pascale, the proprietress and proprietor of Au Douillet Gourmet, the B&B where we stayed.

A wine-soaked tour of Burgundy April 22-26

2009-06-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

We left Paris Wednesday morning and took the train to Beaune, stopping off in Dijon for lunch. With the help of a hand-drawn map in "Long Ago in France", we located what we think was MFK Fisher's house for part of her time living in Dijon.

We got to Beaune in the late afternoon, and spent the next three full days bike touring in the area. We did a figure-8 route in the red wine area between Beaune and Dijon, including the "Route des Grands Crus". Because the land that is planted with vineyards in this area is actually fairly narrow (about 1 km wide), part of our ride was through canola and wheat fields. The tour company was called "Detours in France" and we were quite happy with them. The person there that arranged everything for us was actually a Canadian expat who had married a local.

Our trip included a private tour of the Hotel-Dieu, which was quite amazing. The Hotel-Dieu is a public hospital that was built in the 1400s by Nicholas Rolin and his wife Gigonde de Salon. Rolin felt that he needed to do something big to atone for his many sins. The hospital was in use until the 1970s, and its operation (as well as that of the modern hospital) was and continues to be funded by the wine grown on the prime terroir that Rolin endowed to the hospital.

Rich has already blogged extensively about our experiences with the heavy food and delicious reds and whites, so I'll just post some of the pictures here:

(1)me in front of MFK Fisher's house in Dijon
(2)Rich in a field of canola on Day 1 of our ride
(3) me at a low-key degustasion in Nuits St. Georges on the morning of Day 2
(4) a vineyard with a wine village behind on Day 3. This picture give a sense of how the vines were just budding when were were there.
(5) the courtyard of the Hotel-Dieu. The glazed tile roof is common on important buildings throughout Burgundy. This was the only really rainy day of our trip.

Backblogging our trip - Paris April 19-21

2009-06-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

We promised to update the blog with pictures once we got a chance. We'll be posting the full set of pictures on our website once we're done editing them.

At the start of our trip we spent 3 days in Paris. We mostly spent the time running around to museums and biking around town using Velib, the "free" bike system. There's a good article about in in the New York Times here. Favorite museums were the Musee de Moyenne Age, which has a fantastic collection of illuminated manuscripts and unicorn tapestries, and of course the Musee d'Orsay for an impressionism overload. Also, I think that Rich has already blogged about the enormous set of eight Monet waterlillies paintings at the Orangerie.

We had a nice dinner at Au Trou Gascon our last night in Paris. It featured cuisine from the Southwest of France. This is where we began our tragic love affair with Armagnac. I also ate Foi Gras for the first time. It was alright, but certainly not good enough to justify the animal welfare issues - for me anyway.

Here's some pictures: (1) me riding a Velib bike near the Bastille in a protected bike lane; (2) a gargoyle contemplating Paris, including the Pompedieu center; (3) Notre Dame Cathedral - this gives a good sense of a sunny day in Paris in the spring; (4) the spiral stairs leading up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe.

In Bruges

2009-05-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

... and it's like a f*cking fairy tale.

(At least the food and drink of) France, in a nutshell

2009-05-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since we posted any kind of update. For a tiny bit we had the excuse of not having any Internet connectivity, but that was only for 3 days, and nearly a week ago. We've just been busy enough that it's been hard to find the time to blog, even with carrying our own mini laptop around.

I'm writing this a bit more than 2 weeks into our 3 week vacation, sitting in the train station in Avignon (in Provence), waiting for a train to Brussels, and then on to Bruges. (Hopefully I won't repeat too much of anything Lorien already said. I can't get the wifi in the train station to work, so I can't first read through the previous blog posting.) I'm looking forward to our mini break in Belgium, although I am concerned that a few days outside of France will interrupt the progress that I've made in picking up French (albeit still with snippets where bits of Spanish continue to come forth from me without me even realizing it).

This might have been more coherent if I had been blogging as we were going along, so I apologize in advance if this ends up coming out as a disorganized stream of consciousness. We were pondering at the other extreme what it would be like to Twitter as we went along, but silly little 140 or character less postings that may have seemed amusing to us at the time (like "Sur le pont d'Avignon") might lose sense out of context.

As I believe Lorien already mentioned, our time in Paris was fun, full of plenty of croissants, pleasant weather, bicycling around with Velib, a decent amount of museum hopping, and a fair degree of success at fighting jetlag. I'm a bit of sucker for Impressionist painting and really enjoyed our visit to Musee d'Orsay. We had made a brief visit during our whirlwind pair of Paris stopovers in transit to and from the Middle East back in Fall 2007, but this time we had the opportunity to come back at a much more relaxed pace. We also downloaded a few free audioguides in mp3 from the Rick Steves website, and while we didn't simply 100% follow that tour, it was a useful way of putting the work in context and learning a bit that wouldn't have been obvious just on our own. We had earlier viewed a small portion of the vast amount of art that the Louvre has to offer, also accompanied by a free Rick Steves audioguide. As the Louvre ends where Orsay begins, this bit of museum hopping was in rough chronological order. Too bad we didn't have the time to continue the journey into more modern works -- but I guess that leaves something for next time. Further along the Impressionist theme, we also stopped by the Orangerie museum, which (as well as having other works), has two large elliptical rooms built especially for displaying a series of huge Monet water lillies paintings. But wait, there's more... on our final swing through Paris later this week we plan a day trip out to Giverny, where Monet lived, to see the gardens that inspired many of his paintings, as well as to see a Monet exhibition that just opened up this week.

... on the train now, just finished up with a bit of lunch. Words of wisdom -- don't try to make a salad on a train. Ok, maybe that should be obvious, but the salad was just part of what was leftover from a Saturday evening picnic, and wasn't originally intended for the train. I guess we concentrated on polishing off the bottle of wine at that picnic more than getting to all of our planned courses. It only ended up being a minor catastrophe as a mobile lunch. But still tasty.

Sitting here now watching the French countryside go by. This is just so much more pleasant than flying. Why can't there be decent inter city rail service in the US? Or decent pubic transit? (NYC excluded, that is.) But I digress.

After Paris, we took a train to Dijon, then a local to Beaune, and spent three days bicycling in Burgundy. This was self guided bicycle touring -- the idea is that your hotels (and some of your meals) are prearranged, and the tour company takes your luggage from one city to the next. You're given a map, and a suggested route, and suggestions for stops, but you're basically on your own to get to your destination, at whatever pace you want to set. It was really the perfect arrangement for us, especially in an area in which we were initially totally unfamiliar, and trying to do everything completely on our own may have been a bit daunting.

I think the most fascinating part of our visit to Burgundy for me was discovering its wines. Back when I had grandiose plans for blogging on a more continuous basis, I was going to call the corresponding posting, Like the whites, love the reds. Back when I first started to drink wine in college (I won't count shots of Manishewitz or the like from Bar Mitzvahs), I pretty much stuck to whites. I'm not sure if that's because that's mostly what there is in the Finger Lakes (upstate NY) region, because a drinkable bottle of white is often cheaper than a drinkable bottle of red, because I hadn't developed enough of a palette for wine yet, or maybe some combination of all of these. But somewhere along the way (and I really don't consciously remember this happening), the situation completely reversed itself. Back home, with the exception of sweet white wines that we pair with Thai and other Asian foods, we basically stick to red wines. My general opinion of California white wines has been that they're usually just not that flavorful, not that interesting, and if they're Chardonnay, they probably taste mostly like oak.

So what a wonderful surprise to discover in Burgundy (and this I guess actually started with a glass of Chablis in Paris) that there are all of these wonderful white wines, full of flavor, and distinct from each other. But as I hinted above, what really captured me was the red wines. I feel like I'm on the verge of sounding like some snobby wine geek any time I try to describe wine verbally, but some of the wines were just truly amazing, with kind of an earthiness and muskiness and full of subtlety -- very different from the full bodied red wines we typically drink in California. Even this light wine that we got for a picnic (which at 6.50 euros, about $8 or $9, is the best value wine I've ever had) was so full of character. I typically think of a light wine as being fruity, but this still had a bunch of complexity; it was just somehow very easy drinking that made it perfect for a stop while biking.

Another aspect that's different -- we're used to thinking about a wine primarily in terms of what type of grape it is. But in Burgundy, it's pretty much all the same grapes -- Pinot Noir for red, Chardonnay for white. And the land is divided into ridiculously small geographic regions (like hundreds of them in a few square kilometers around a town), and the conventional wisdom is that it's the land (the terroir, if we want to get precise in our terminology) that the gives the wine its distinct characteristics.

I wish we could bring more of it home, although there are various logistical difficulties involved. I've been a little bit on a quest to get a full bottle of this one particular wine that we had a half bottle of at dinner one night (I think it's the best red wine I've ever had), but unfortunately I'm somewhat resigned by now to the extreme likelihood that that's just not going to happen.

Ok, I've clearly rambled on way too long about Burgundian wine. Biking in the countryside was quite nice too. We didn't just spend our entire time drinking. Although we demonstrated that drinking and cycling don't have to be mutually exclusive, especially when the terrain is relatively flat.

Following Burgundy, we rented a car and drove up into the Jura, an area nearby and at a slightly lower elevation than the French Alps. We didn't have too much planned there in the way of activities -- saw the countryside a bit (being able to cover more of an area by car), we went hiking a bit, stopped by the town of Arbois for a bit. For our lodging, we were staying on the property of a couple (Crystelle and Pascal) who run a dairy farm in a very small village and rent out some rooms to tourists. Crystelle doesn't speak any English, and although she claims that Pascal does in theory, I'm pretty sure that the only English words we heard him speak during our entire time there were "Yes we can!" Lorien is managing to impress people with her relative competence in French, and I'm managing to pick things up at a decent rate. Some of it may be coming back from the one year of French I had in 6th grade. I'm not sure how much knowing some Spanish helps or hurts. On one hand, there are lots of similarities, although I think going from French to Spanish (like Lorien did when we were in Mexico a few years back) is easier than the other way around. But on the other hand, I keep at times confusing Spanish and French and end up coming out with a sentence that's a bit of a mixture of the two. But people still generally get the gist of what I'm trying to say, even if I can't always understand the response that I get (thankfully I have Lorien to try to assist in that case.)

More new wine discoveries in the Jura, a type of aged white wine known as Vin Jaune ("yellow wine"). Rich and full of flavor and aroma, andunlike any other white wine I've ever had.

But with so much talk about wine, I've neglected to mention the food. It's been a little bit mixed. I'd say on average it's been good, with some of it being very, very good, and I don't think we've had anything that was really bad. Some of it (esp. in touristy areas in Paris) is a bit overpriced, but we've also had some very good food at fairly decent prices. Not too much of it has truly wowed me (although some of it has) -- I wonder if being around so much good food in the Bay area we've just gotten a bit spoiled, or I had too high expectations, or am I just starting to sound like a food snob now... My biggest issue with the food up until this point in the narration is just that in Burgundy andthe Jura it tended to be so heavy and so much meat. I can't understand how people in those areas don't get fat. It's wonderful as special occasion food, but eating it day after day was starting to get to be a bit much. And forget about the myth that French portions are supposed to be small... I think our one salvation was that every day from our arrival through Burgundy we were bicycling at least some, and then in the Jura we were walking and hiking a bit. But I finally got done in by the cheese. In Arbois we had a lunch that included fondue. Little did we know that for dinner that night (there was no choice in the menu on the dairy farm) the main course was fondue. And then, of course, following the main course is the cheese course (would you like cheese with your cheese?). That one day was a bit too much for me, and it took another full day for me to really recover.

Which brings us to Provence. After the Jura we drove down south. Since we hadn't really made it up into the Alps, we decided to take a somewhat indirect route that first headed east a bit along the border with Switzerland, hoping to get a view of Mount Blanc. That didn't really work out so well, since we ended up driving into a snowstorm, which although was somewhat pretty in and of itself, somewhat destroyed the possibility of any panoramic vistas. And, it also illustrated the risk of driving into the mountains without a weather forecast, since we didn't have internet access in the Jura. (And I was mildly worried about how well our rental car would handle in the snow.) But we made it out of the storm without too much trouble, and by the end of the day we were in the warmth (almost heat) and sunshine of Provence.

We spent 4 full days (5 nights) in Provence. We stayed in St. Remy de Provence (a small city a little south of Avigon) and used it as a basis to explore the area. We saw various Roman ruins, midaeval cathedrals, pink flamingos (real ones), charming villages, wandered around a bit with no particular purpose, and had some wonderful food (and more good wine) in an area where they seem to recognize that food also consists of fresh fruits and vegetables and isn't limited to meat and cheese and potatoes. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, and like I said above, we did have some very good food before Provence. But Provence felt more like the kind of food that we can eat every day. Perhaps it's also because it's more familiar. The food is more similar to what we're used to eating, the red wines I think were more similar to Caliornia reds (although the crisp white wines were yet another new treat), and even the somewhat Mediteranean climate where we stayed (which was a bit inland from the sea) was somewhat similar to home, although it gets both quite a bit colder in the winter and quite a bit hotter in the summer in Provence.

I worry that reading over what I fear has become way too verbose of a monologue will have little to say that isn't related to food or drink. Not all of our time has been occupied with that. Although admittedly it is a major focus of ours, and we did plan things that way. Perhaps I'll fill in other non gastronomic details later in other postings. And there's more room for that when captioning pictures. (Full sets of pictures will be online following our trip. I'm not sure whether we'll get around to posting any highlights in this blog.) But Lorien is nearing the end of her book and perhaps I should take the opportunity to end this posting and switch from writing to reading now that I've chronologically caught up with the present. We've got numerous books with us, but I don't think I've yet gotten past the preface of one. Guidebooks, phrasebooks, and either our French dictionary or French grammar book don't really count.

So all in all we've been having a wonderful time. Keeping fairly busy, although I think we've been keeping things to a reasonable pace so that we're still having plenty of time to just relax and enjoy our vacation (the focus on food and wine clearly is helping with that). In general the people have been extremely friendly, and in general the weather has been quite nice. Other than a bit in Paris, and a bit over the May 1 holiday weekend we have experienced very few crowds and almost no other North Americans. It's definitely not yet peak tourist season -- I think we've picked a very good time to visit.

So it's on to Belgium for a few days, with an accompanying temporary switch from wine to beer. And further exploration of chocolate. :)

Today I ate snails

2009-04-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

...and I liked them! And if you've known me since the days when I was a fussy eater you'll know that was a big deal.

Anyway, we're having a lovely time. We're doing a lot of eating and drinking and bicycling to burn it off. My French is quickly improving, and Rich's is no longer nonexistant. Everyone has also been very nice to
us - there aren't a whole lot of other North American tourists here right now.

This will be a pretty bare bones description with no pictures because its been a packed few days and I'm having trouble typing on Rich's XO keyboard. We spent our first three days in Paris. We got in on Sunday at
the crack of dawn and were intent on staying up until after sunset, which is 8:45 pm here. While, we were sucessful, our souls didn't really start catching up until some time Tuesday. Since this is Rich's
first time here, we focused on catching him up on the must-sees such as the Notre Dame tower, the Louvre and Musee d'Orsay. We had made a reservation at a fancy restaurant that specializes in cuisine from
Gascony, since that's a region we won't be visiting this trip. I'm glad we waited until Tuesday since that was the first day we could have enjoyed it. We also biked around Paris via Velib, the "free" municipal
bike system that we'd been looking forward to. I'm sure Rich will have more to say about that later.

Yesterday we took the train to Beaune via Dijon where we had lunch. This is in the Burgundy region. We're currently on a self-guided bike tour based in Beaune. We rode 45km today to Nuit-St-Georges where we'll be
staying tomorrow as well. Today's ride was through fields of blooming canola and tiny villages. Tomorrow's ride takes us up to Gevrey Chambertin and the Cotes-de-Nuits vineyards. We're fuelling ourselves
with wine, cheese and coffee, and large quantities of meat in rich, winey sauces. If the French eat small portions, I haven't seen them yet.

Anyway, in sum, we're having a good time and we'll post more later.

And we're off again...

2009-04-18T01:21:00.000-07:00

It's way too late and I need to get to bed b/c we leave early tomorrow morning for France and Belgium.

I'm posting this because I've been lax in captioning and summarizing and putting up a link to our Yosemite pictures. We went on the first weekend of Spring. Spent Saturday cross country skiing. Saturday night it snowed. About a foot and a half up at the elevation we were staying, but a few inches even made their way down into Yosemite Valley -- where I had never been, always fearing the crowds. Sunday was gorgeous -- we spent the time just driving around from place to place, doing small hikes around waterfalls, and taking pictures.

I will do a better job one of these days in the hopefully not too distant future, but for now the pictures are up (and somewhat edited) at http://richandlorien.org/pictures/2009-03-Yosemite/index.html. (No link from the main page yet.) There's a bunch that we like, but our favorite is http://richandlorien.org/pictures/2009-03-Yosemite/html-large/dscn4998.html.

Au revoir, tomorrow in Paris.