Spring Break Part 2

After our maple sugar expedition, we headed to Washington, D.C. for a few days.  Mario and I had never been there, so we thought we'd take advantage of its proximity.  The weather could not have been better - it was in the 60s or 70s and perfectly sunny every day we were there.  We stayed in Arlington and took the Metro to the Mall (the main area with the Smithsonian museums and a lot of the memorials and stuff) every day.  It was really amazing.  There was a very special feel to all of it. 

The little monkey also had his first experience with a swimming pool, which he loved even though it was a little on the chilly side.

Spring Break Part 1

We've had an exciting few weeks! My mom came out to visit during Mario's spring break. We had a great time with her! The weather here in Boston was pretty terrible her first weekend here, so we spent some time letting Mario study and letting Grandma get reacquainted with Joshua. On Saturday, there was a slight break in the rain and we took advantage of the opportunity to do a quintessential New England spring activity - maple sugaring. There are "sugar shacks" scattered all over New England where maple sugar farmers tap their maple trees in the spring to harvest the sap, which they then boil down into pure maple syrup. It takes about 40 gallons of maple sap (which looks and tastes just like water when it comes out of the tree) to make one gallon of maple syrup. The sugar shack we went to is called Parkers Maple Barn and has won award after award for the food served at their on-site restaurant. Their sugar shack (and it was an actual shack) was pretty awesome, and surprisingly small. Unlike a lot of local maple sugaring farms, they boil their sugar over a wood fire. When we walked in, we were hit by a huge cloud of steam made of the sweet fumes of boiling maple sugar mixed with the warm, homey smell of a super-hot wood stove. It was absolutely divine. In true New England style, the man tending the fire saw me trying to capture the place on "film" and let me through the safety cords to take these shots. Pretty cool, huh?

Here's their super-high-tech bottling apparatus. That would be a traditional truck stop-style coffee dispenser.




After our maple sugar steam bath, we visited the restaurant for some fresh maple sugar donuts, maple-glazed ribs, maple walnut pancakes, and a maple hamburger with Virginia ham. We weren't disappointed.

On the way home, we saw these sap collection buckets just off the road. This is one of my favorite shots of the day.

I found some New York sirloin on sale the week before Mom got here.  We called on Tyler's Ultimate again for some inspiration and came up with this.  We had pan-seared steak with oven-roasted Russet potatoes tossed with parsley, olive oil, and fresh parmesan.  After we seared the steak, we cooked some mushrooms in the drippings and then made a pan sauce with reduced red wine and heavy cream.
 

More stuff that's not Joshua!

In my desire to write about something besides just Joshua, I've stumbled upon something I love to do, take pictures of, and partake - FOOD!!  For Mario's birthday, we got him a Tyler's Ultimate cookbook by Tyler Florence and the Simply Ming cookbook by Ming Tsai, two of our favorite chefs.  We've been trying some fun new recipes and taking pictures of them - we sure enjoy it and think you might too.

Mario's first foray into Tyler's Ultimate recipes was this:  Creamy cauliflower soup with a toasted topping of crunchy bread, pine nuts, roasted cauliflower and fresh parsley.  Definitely going to make this again!  It was really a great dish.  Mario also made an awesome garlic bread where he stuffed the insides of a baguette with a paste of parsley, parmesan, garlic, and olive oil.

We also made a dish of root vegetables - parsnip, carrot, turnip, shallot, and beet - roasted with balsamic vinegar and honey, topped with goat cheese.  It was, as our Chinese students would say, not delicious.  But, we did get to try a few new vegetables we hadn't had before, which was fun.

Something besides Joshua!!! :)

I actually have something to write about besides my kid! I don't know why, but I'm not terribly motivated to have a blog just about my kid. I could of course go on for hours and hours about him, what he does, how much we love him, etc, but I don't really want to.
That's why I'm excited to finally have something else to blog about! We had a Chinese New Year party a few weeks ago with some friends. I was planning on taking photos of each part of it, but I only remembered to photograph the prep for the meal. I wish I had taken some shots of our rather small living room with 16 people plus three kids or some of the cooking, but this is all I have. We love to cook! We especially love cooking recipes from China.


Here is our prep for the party.
This is enough garlic for exactly 3 dishes. I think it was 18 or 19 cloves. Yum!

I forgot to post pics of Josh in his Beavers outfit that Mike and Christine sent us. College football season was over, but he did get to wear it to the Superbowl party we went to!

And Joshua LOVES to go visit Mario downstairs in his man-cave to "help" him study.

I'm trying to get better at this, especially for those who wish they could be closer to Joshua during this time in his life. Here's a little of what we've been up to lately.

He seems to be a little tired of his usual toys. This was his solution: he found his diaper basket and proceeded to remove the diapers, rub them on his head a few times, and throw them on the ground.

We're trying to start good habits right from the start, so we brush his teeth every night after his dinner and then give him the toothbrush to play with. This was the first time he got a hold of it.

And this was the little monkey helping me fold laundry.








We try to get out at least once a day when it's not snowing and this is Joshua's preferred method of travel. He does get some pretty wicked hat-hair, though!

Our little Joshua will be one month old tomorrow and I think it's about time I started getting more serious about keeping everyone in the loop!
He was due July 26th but wasn't quite ready to come out then. I walked every day, went jogging, ran up and down the stairs in our apartment multiple times every evening, etc. None of it helped at all. He was born at 9:08pm on Monday, August 3 after being induced late Sunday evening. My contractions started at about 6am and were 3 minutes apart after only 20 minutes or so. I got my first set of pain medication around 11 and asked for an epidural at 2:30, after which Mario and Leslie (Mario's mom) got some lunch and we all watched Ghostbusters. I had been hoping to go without medication, but now I wonder what the devil I was thinking to even consider going without medication!!! Getting that epidural was the best decision I've ever made! Things were so much better for everyone after that until it started wearing off right before it was time to push. Suffice it to say I screamed. Really. A lot. Joshua came out with his fist by his head, which resulted in me getting a third degree tear. He was 8 lbs 5.5 oz and was very calm right from the beginning. He squawked once when he came out and spent the rest of his first evening just checking everything out. His hands and feet were purple, as you can see in the photos, which went away after a day or two.

We had a great deal of trouble with the whole nursing thing for the first few weeks, but we're doing a lot better now.

Joshua loves to pee on Mario when he's changing his diaper. I very rarely get urinated on, but for some reason it happens regularly to Mario.

He's a very good baby over all. He LOVES to be outside, which we discovered when he had jaundice and we needed to get him into the sun for a few minutes each day. If he's ever fussy, we just take him for a little walk or sit on the porch in the sun and he quiets down. He is apparently fascinated by trees, especially at night.

He's a great traveler too. We've been out quite a bit with him. He had his first ride on the subway at 4 days. He's been to 3 movies and Cape Cod. Not bad for only 5 weeks, huh?

I also put on my normal jeans at 4 weeks exactly. They were tight, very uncomfortable, and horribly unattractive, but at least they were on!!

I forgot to write that we went to a Red Sox game the day before he was due. We got a group rate with a bunch of people from our ward, which was awesome because we knew everyone we were sitting with not to mention it was pretty sweet to see the Green Monster. It's a beautiful stadium and we had a really great time.


We have a lot more pictures posted on my Facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=97345&id=571718027&l=8aba2e3c79

Being induced . . .

Since our little guy seems to be as shy as his daddy and hasn't decided to join us yet, I'm going in to be induced tonight at 8pm. They'll give me prostaglandin tonight and start the pitocin in the morning, so hopefully by tomorrow we'll meet our son and have some pictures up in the next few days!