It's a boy!

We had the ultrasound this past Friday and got to see the little wiggly baby that's been making his presence known inside my belly for the last few weeks. Among hands and feet and dozens of other little body parts, we saw the important part that let us know he's a boy! It was such an amazing experience - I don't think I blinked once during the entire hour. Quite a difference from the first picture taken of him a mere 10 weeks ago!

To celebrate, we went to one of the best restaurants in San Francisco for dinner - Gary Danko's - and it did not disappoint. I had the 4 course tasting menu which started off with the most delicious lobster risotto, followed by seabass, then duck, and finally an amazing pineapple upside down cake (a slightly different version of the kind my brother always requested as his birthday cake with canned pineapple rings and maraschino cherries, but it reminded me of him just the same). Nick had glazed oysters, frogs legs, lamb, a cheese course, and chocolate souffle. We left happy and stuffed, and a little overwhelmed by the whole day.

Banana cream tart counts as a fruit...right?

Back in October we went to Carmel for the weekend to celebrate Nick's birthday and while we were there we met a feisty old woman who was there with her family celebrating her 80th birthday. We were standing in line to have lunch at a french cafe and got to talking. She used to live in San Francisco (before her daughter forced her to move to the East Bay to be closer to them, which she was completely bitter about, but in an endearing way). She told us about a little bakery in the Mission called Tartine where she used to stop every week before her computer class. Just listening to her describe all the desserts she sampled made our mouths water.

So after a long weekend with a cranky pregnant woman and a cranky sick husband, Nick decides the best solution is a trip to Tartine. At 6pm on a Sunday there was a line out the door, which had to be a good sign. On the front door was posted "Fresh bread baked Wed - Sun. Served hot after 5pm." Oh man. We left with a small banana chocolate cream tart, an almond meringue, a gruyere and thyme gougere (basically a popover), and a huge loaf of crusty country bread, warm from the oven. I wanted to get a slice of lemon meringue cake too, but you've got to set limits somewhere, right?

The popover thingy was gone by the time we got to the car, we ate half the loaf of bread for dinner and the banana cream tart for dessert. I love being pregnant.

The best Christmas present EVER

Well, it's official! After many months of wishing, worrying, and wondering, baby Tabbal is finally coming! The due date is July 27th, 2007 and needless to say, we are absolutely thrilled! Here's the very first picture of our strawberry-sized bundle of joy :)

Smells like holiday spirit

Yesterday afternoon I was in Union Square where they were putting lights on the tallest, skinniest Christmas tree I've ever seen (I think it was much fatter before it walked up all these hills). I sat and watched for about half an hour, while drinking a latte and listening to Christmas music on my iPod. I love this time of year when the season is just beginning, you're not sick of hearing Christmas carols everywhere you turn, Gingerbread latte's have returned to Starbucks, and you've still got plenty of time to do your Christmas shopping.

Hiking with the hippies

When you meet someone in San Francisco and they ask you "What do you do?", they don't mean 'what kind of work do you do?', they mean 'what do you do in your spare time?'. Each time we get asked this question, Nick and I will look at each other a little sheepishly and answer "Well, we like to eat." So this weekend we decided to grab the lazy, fat bull by the horns and get ourselves another answer to this question - we went hiking.

Sunday morning we drove up to Point Reyes, about an hour north of the city. We picked a hike out from the web that was about 5 miles long and in the 1-3 hour category, ending up at the ocean. Here's a few pics from our trip:



This last picture is the best one I could get of what we thought first was a goat, but turned out to be a white deer. From the web: "The White Fallow deer in Point Reyes National Park are creatures of rare beauty and have resided in the PRNS for more than half a century. The deer were originally purchased in 1948 from the San Francisco Zoo by a Point Reyes resident who released them into the wild to hunt. When Point Reyes became a national park in 1962, hunting was banned in the area and the remaining deer have thrived ever since. At present, about 1,150 exotic deer live in the park."

We ate lunch on the beach, breathed fresh air, listened to silence, saw plenty of wildlife, got a good work out, passed lots of smelly hippies on the trail, and generally had a relaxing day. Are we hikers now? Maybe not. But it was nice to get away from the concrete jungle for awhile.

Get out and vote!

Today is Election Day in the good ol' USA and I just came back from voting. My polling place, in typical San Franciscan fashion, was the garage of some guy's house down the street. In California, we're voting on about a bazillion things, including whether or not we should push to impeach Bush and Cheney. There were 5 ballots, front and back, with large enough print for the senior citizens which forced them to be about 12 inches wide and 20 inches long, and I'm not kidding. They might as well have been stone tablets we chiseled our responses on. Not electronic, and no potential for hanging chads, this time we had to take a black felt tip pen and draw a line to connect the front and back end of an arrow together next to our choice. Once you're finished making your selections, you have to go feed these enormous pieces of cardboard one by one into a machine that then tells you whether or not it will accept your line art. By the time the old man running the machine wheels it back to the Election Board, Arnold will be back in his mansion, sleeping off the victory party. Sigh.

Wedding bells and wine, wine, wine

I know I've been slacking on the blog, but between traveling to DC for my brother's wedding (Yeah Steve!) and unreachable Q4 goals at work, I'm swamped.

Nick and I were back in DC for Steve's wedding which was October 7th and had a fantastic time. It was really, really nice to see everyone again, and it made us both realize that no matter how great life is out here, how good the food is, the weather, how much there is to do...it really doesn't compare to having great friends and family around you. Maybe it will really be a two year vacation after all...
Below are some pics of the happy day - not the best photography ever done, but you get the idea:





















I also have the most awesome video of Steve & Kerry dancing, but I think I'll have to get permission from the happy couple once they get back from their honeymoon before distributing that one prime time. It was a truly awesome day and right now I hope they're lying on the beach in Aruba sipping frozen daquiris. Ahh..

Tonight is another "wine with the neighbors" party across the street from our apartment, and the theme is "Arabian Nights". We're all supposed to bring a bottle of wine and an Arabic appetizer. You'd think that I'd have some more creative ideas, but I'm stuck for anything that doesn't take hours to prepare (see what I sacrifice for the sake of this blog?). So I'm copping out and bringing Lebne (strained yogurt) with a touch of olive oil and sumac and some toasted pita bread. Tomorrow we're heading back up to Sonoma for another route of wineries and a hopefully delicious dinner at a place called Cafe Le Haye that both my chiropractor and the couple we met at the last wine party recommended to me. I don't know how it's going to beat the Girl and the Fig, but I hope it does.