21 Weeks

Our wine group has gone mobile! Last week we took a trip to the Santa Barbara Community College's Gourmet Dining Room. The SBCC culinary school is a two year program, and as one of the final classes, all the students work in the kitchen and wait tables for the dining room. So every Thursday and Friday night the public can get a 4-course meal with wine pairings for $40. We've been there 4 times over the last 3 years and the dishes are hit or miss, but the menu is always changing, so it's worth the risk.
An amuse bouche of watermelon with smoke trout skin and a fried sage leaf....

For the first course Brooke had the Fried Oyster Salad and I had the Poached Pear Salad (not shown). For the second course, we had the Lobster Pot Pie and Wild Boar Ravioli with chanterelle mushrooms....

For the third (main) course, Brooke had a large Asian-seasoned Breaded Pork Chop and I had the Roasted Duck Breast with a Veal Stuffed Poblano....

Our wine group's next purposed field trip is to Cafe Firenze in Moorpark, CA. It's run by Fabio, a contestant on Bravo's Top Chef. If we're really lucky, we may actually see the pseudo celeb chef.

Besides the SBCC outing, we haven't done anything even remotely worth writing about. Our lives have been a repeating cycle of working, studying, and eating out. It's a disgusting existence, but one good thing has come from this....we've discovered a good new Vietnamese restaurant. Noodle City, in old town Goleta, offers possible the best pho in the Santa Barbara area (although that's not saying much). They also offer a Chinese menu which Brooke was excited about since she's always craving wonton noodle soup. Although the wonton noodle soup was good, it wasn't made in the style she was used to. It had taken on a distinctly Vietnamese style with the addition of cilantro and fried onion chips. Being only a 5-minute drive from home, this place will certainly be weekly stop (if not more often).

Here's Brooke's belly at 21 weeks. There's no obvious growth since last week, but we've observed a slight formation of a linea nigra (we've learned so many fun new medical terms since the pregnancy).

20 weeks

Brooke's belly has exploded! Well, not literally, but it has certainly expanded quite a bit over the last few days. She has gone from looking questionably pregnant to obviously pregnant. As a result of this growth, this weekend is going to be the last time she's in normal jeans for a while. Here's a picture of her taken this afternoon....


So you may be wondering what we've been doing besides taking pictures of Brooke's belly. We're still going to (and sometimes hosting) the wine tasting events. We've sort of dropped the name "WWWT", since it's no longer a regular Wednesday event. Up until last week when Brooke finally announced her pregnancy to the lab, we've had to discretely swap wine glasses so that I could drink for the two of us. Let's just say my liver has gotten a real workout....


Our most recent wine event featured Rieslings, with a 2007 Chateau Ste. Michelle (Columbia Valley) taking 1st place. (No, that's not Brooke who is passed out on the floor)


A large timesink on the weekends is Brooke's work and studies. For this quarter, as a requirement for her PhD program, she is TA-ing a subject outside her specialty. In fact, it's a subject she never even took as an undergraduate. She has needed to study at least 20 hours per week to become proficient enough to teach. Pictured below is Brooke catching up on her lab work during the weekends. I'm just there to keep her company. Check out the view from her lab in the first picture...




Brooke is still doing pilates once per week, but all of our other exercises have been placed on hold. To keep from rusting over due to inactivity, we've added a walk to our local farmer's market as part of our Sunday morning routine. A farmer's market trip always includes a stop for bagels and coffee...





BTW, it wasn't long after trying my brother's lens during Christmas that I had to buy one for myself. I got the 50mm f/1.8D (a cheaper equivalent to my brother's 50mm f/1.4D). But why stop with just one lens, right? I also got the 24mm f/2.8. Look at the 1.8 aperture of the 50mm lens. Isn't it big and beautiful?

Halfway there!!

Today marks the midway point of my pregnancy. I can't believe it has gone by so quickly. I was very lucky to escape morning sickness, but have definitely been exhausted (hence the absence of posts from me in the past few months). My only other symptoms were some minor heartburn from around Week 6 to Week 8 and a husband who has turned into the paparazzi. As you can see from the last post, I can't do anything without Van taking a picture of it. This child will be well documented.

I had a very special doctors appointment yesterday, the "big ultrasound". After we got there, the doctor told us that if we had brought a DVD we could have recorded the whole thing. We were really frustrated no one told us beforehand. Van had brought a video camera and asked if he could film the ultrasound, but the nurse quickly shot him down. So without further ado, I will leave you with the pictures from our visit (including a few from previous visits) and you can see the big news for yourself.......

Brooke is Pregnant !!!

WEEK 14


WEEK 16



WEEK 17 - First Baby Kick



WEEK 18




WEEK 19

Good Bye Italy

Here's a photo recap of our entire Italy trip....

Thanks IDS for all the help!

As you can see, I've made some modifications to our blog. For help with widening the main post area of the blog, I followed the easy instructions in "The Blogger Guide". I chose to deviate from his instructions just a bit by widening by 390 pixels instead of 240 pixels. The extra width allows me to use the standard 800-pixel Picasa embedding photo link.

Italy - Day 16 (Rome)

Day 16 - our final full day in Italy. :-(

It felt good to be free of the tour group. We were able to wake up late and finally get our postcards written and sent off....
Our plans for the day were to simply walk around and take in the city (literally, by eating). Our first stop was a coffee shop for some espresso and pastries. By now we've really got the Italian pricing system down. Many places have three prices for the same cup of coffee: the cheapest price if drinking coffee while standing at the bar, a bit more expensive to sit indoors, and the most expensive for sitting in the outdoor patio.

At the place pictured below, we got 2 cappuccinos, 1 croissant, and 1 bottle of water for 4 Euros total. Earlier on our trip, we paid 4 Euros for a can of soda and 3.50 Euros for a cappuccino while sitting indoors at a similar coffee shop..... It was a Sunday, so we decided to visit the St. Peter's Square and get blessed by the Pope. I'm not Catholic, but as they say..."when in Rome, do as the Romans". I'm borrowing this aerial picture from wikipedia...Brooke is in front of the building from which the Pope is to appear at noon. He will usually bless the crowd from the top-floor window, second from the right.....

We wait, and then we wait some more. Finally, the large tv screens turn on and they show the Pope giving mass in some Latin American country.....As we're disappointingly walking away from St. Peter's Square, we see a Peruvian religious procession heading the opposite direction. I still not sure what happened, but I'm guessing the Vatican and Peru were doing some priest exchange program....We continued walking toward the Tiber river, past Castel Sant'Angelo....Tree-lined walkway along the Tiber.....To paraphrase Anthony Bourdain from a recent episode of No Reservations:Venice...
"In France, the chef is the star. In Italy, it's all about the ingredients".
This phrase really explains the caprese salad we had for lunch in Piazza Navona. I realize caprese salads are inherently simple (tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil), but when this dish arrived, both Brooke and I were still shocked by it's bold simplicity. It looked even more plain prior to Brooke added the oil and balsamic.... Campo de' Fiori....

Largo di Torre Argentina, the former site of Roman temples, is now a haven for stray cats. Brooke and I could count at least 20 napping cats immediately upon arriving...I liked the little, colorful buses in Rome....Vittorio Emanuele Monument - a monument to the first king of Italy. I'm told that most Italians see this place as an eyesore, being obnoxiously large and glaringly white.That evening we had a nice dinner with two other couples from the tour. The next morning (at 4 am) we took a 40 Euro taxi ride to the airport. I don't think we've ever traveled faster by car. The driver averaged around 95 mph for the 15 mile journey.

Unlike at American airports, you could get decent food for a reasonable price. At this coffee shop in FCO airport, we got 2 cappuccinos, 1 pastry, and a bottle of water for under 5 Euros....Our final moments in the Rome airport.....
At this point, we were definitely ready to head home. But after reliving our trip through these posts, it makes us ache to get on the road again.