What a Zoo!

Things have been pretty busy here lately. Laura, Alex, Hannah, and Timothy came to visit for a week from 2/8-2/14. Alex had a conference in SJ, so he brought the family to visit. I took a day off of work to hang out with Laura, Hannah, and Timothy. I originally wanted to take them to the Exploratorium, but unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays. So we ended up going to the Oakland Zoo instead.

Fengs Visit Alameda

We have officially begun the kitchen remodel. They started and finished the demolition on 2/13. It's amazing how fast they removed all the cabinets, flooring, etc. in literally a day. Again, I'll start posting pics once I can find the cable. Right now, we have our microwave set up in the guest bedroom and most of the contents of the kitchen in the dining room. On Friday and Saturday, they moved some of the pipes and changed them to copper and installed the backer board on the floor for the tiling. Today, they started putting in the recessed lighting. It's actually happening very fast. The only thing that is in the kitchen right now is the refrigerator. So far, eating out hasn't been too bad.

This past weekend (hooray for Presidents Day!), we stayed up in Napa with the Banerjees and the Schneiders. It was a very relaxing time. Jamie's sister Jenny is engaged to one of the owners of Dutch Henry Winery and they let us stay in the house that is part of the winery. This is the second time we've stayed in Napa and it was just as relaxing as the last time when we went up with Priyanka and Matt. We did a little wine tasting at Whitehall Lane and also walked around St. Helena and Calistoga. It was just what we needed. It's been pretty stressful trying to find things for the kitchen and not being able to find things that used to be in the kitchen. We are still looking for a sink, fixtures, and knobs/pulls. I'm happy that the renovation has started, but it also means that we need to make some decisions and find things quickly. We're also discovering things that we never knew could cost so much in a kitchen remodel like lighting or knobs.

We have heard that you should be prepared to find things when you open up the walls. So far, we've been pretty lucky in that there haven't been any surprises so far. We suspect that the worst is over because they have openned up most of the walls and already boarded up the floors. Still, we'll keep our fingers crossed. Hopefully, by the end of this week, we'll have new floors installed. We were even able to save a few of the cabinets to put up in the garage. I wonder how long those cabinets will be sitting in our backyard...

Happy belated valentines to everyone. Now, Edwin and I have never really been into celebrating this "holiday," but this is how we spent our valentines day. We didn't get each other any gifts. I tried to buy him a card, but gave up because I couldn't find parking in the city on my way to pick him up for dinner. We had a quick dinner of pho because we had to hurry to make it in time for the real highlight of the evening- our romantic stroll through.... Home Depot (closes at 9!) to shop for some grout for the floors. Yes, that's right, we bought a 25lb. of grout in Pewter for the floor tiles. Some women get flowers, chocolate, a romantic dinner. I get grout. For all you ladies who are still unmarried, please make the most of your valentines dates because this could happen to you.

Happy belated bday, Jamie! Glad that we were still able to celebrate with half a cake!