riverECHO

It’s hard to believe that my nephew Sam turned 1 month old yesterday. I must admit that 4 ½ weeks ago, I was a little terrified meeting Sam for the first time. I thought that I would surely drop him, squish him, or do something terribly wrong. But after a couple of days, I didn’t want to put him down. It was amazing to watch him change not only physically, but in his awareness of his surroundings. I have loved every minute … getting up with Shalyn to help feed him in the middle of the night, watching Randall nuzzle him every time he came home from work, and laughing hysterically at his many gestures, facial expressions, and massive poops. Most of all, I will miss dozing off on the couch with him snuggled closely in on my chest. It’s hard to compare my feelings about the last four weeks to anything else I’ve experienced. It was emotional and exciting, and yet totally natural and peaceful at the same time. My time here has gone by so fast and it has been such a treat to be able to share the first month of Sam’s life with my sister and brother-in-law. Shay and Randall, you two are already such amazing parents. Sam is one lucky little guy … and incredibly cute too.

I took a few weekends to visit other family and friends and to experience a bit of the Bay Area’s wide array of culture. I went to a handful of movies, had high tea in the city, saw a play called Marcus about a young gay African American man in the south, went to a Wake the Dead (a Celtic Grateful Dead cover band) concert, and saw Thievery Corporation & Massive Attack (one of my faves) at the Greek Theater.

It’s been such a nice month back “home” and sometimes I wish I could just pack everyone up (including a few cultural events) and take it all back to Victor, Idaho with me. Well, that would be with a stopover in Nicaragua of course to join BJ and friends for a little surfing.

As a side note, something must be done about the bay area radio stations. I swear that some of the stations that I used to listen to in high school (like Live 105 and KMEL) play exactly the same songs … Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, oh and Warren G’s “regulators.” Don’t get me wrong, I like all of these artists. But I can’t believe that these stations haven’t found anything new to play over the last 10 years.

Just after Christmas, we picked Shalyn and Randall up in the Melbourne airport to spend a handful of days exploring the city, driving the Great Ocean Road, eating at only the best restaurants, becoming thoroughly engrossed in the sport of cricket, and simply enjoying the company. We packed a lot in to the few days with Shay and Randall and we wish we could have held on to them even longer.

We spent our first day together exploring Melbourne with a visit to a couple of the popular Sunday markets and a long walk across town to the beach side neighborhood of St. Kilda. It didn’t really matter where we ended up, we were just excited to see each other and catch up.

Day two we rented a car (Slim isn’t suited to take four people on a scenic drive) and headed to the Great Ocean Road. Although the entire day was spent in the car, save a few delicious burgers in Lorne, the sights were beautiful. The guide books warned that the scenic part of the drive doesn’t start until you reach the 12 Apostles, what is today 6 rock stacks just off the coast. The funny thing is that it was the opposite for us. The initial part of the drive from Lorne to Apollo Bay was stunning … turquoise blue water, lush green hills, and a curving skinny road. Despite the fact that it was Monday, it was the perfect Sunday afternoon drive. Once we reached the highlight of the drive at the 12 Apostles we also encountered every single tour bus and its occupants in the country, as well as the flies. Yes, it was really pretty, but the crowds took a bit of the splendor away and we only truly appreciated where we were when we looked through the photos at the end of the day.

A theme was quickly building during our visit as Randall was engulfed by the intricacies and wonders of the sport of cricket. This is a sport that BJ and I have continuously looked upon with a set of rolled eyes … boring! Oh, but how wrong we were. It just so happened that Australia was playing Pakistan in Melbourne for a test match. A test match is old school cricket, spanning over 5 days. Players start at 10am and play until 6pm daily, with breaks for lunch and, of course, afternoon tea. We hadn’t made any plans for our final day together and at the last minute decided to catch a half day of the match. I won’t go into all the details but after prying Randall with questions over and over again during the match, I think we all discovered a new found respect for the sport.

One of Shalyn and Randall’s favorite activities while on vacation is finding and eating at great restaurants. They had done their research and had picked out a handful of places to eat before flying into Melbourne. I could go on and on about every place we ate but nothing will compare to our final lunch together at Movida. We were denied the evening before because we had failed to make a reservation, but we were able to sneak in for lunch the following day, just after a morning of cricket and right before Shay and Randall had to head to the airport. Movida is a tapas restaurant so all but a few of the dishes were single servings. We must have ordered about 20 things all together and my mouth is starting to water just thinking about it. At the end of our many-course-meal with dishes like anchovy with tomato sorbet, croquettes, truffle custard in a perfect egg shell, shaved lamb in macadamia gazpacho, and our favorite, smoked mackerel with pine nut sorbet, I honestly felt like we should go hug the chef. If you love food, go drool over this menu for a while: www.movida.com.

We said goodbye to Shalyn and Randall as they were on their way to spend New Year’s Eve in Sydney, home of unarguably the best firework display in the world. We were almost convinced to drive the 10 hours as they flew the 1.5 hours to meet them to ring in the New Year in Sydney, but we ended up with no plans but to head downtown Melbourne on New Year’s Eve. Just as we hit the streets, dark clouds started to close out the evening light and we soon found ourselves trying to dodge rain drops. We spent most of our evening in a bar just below Federation Square with fellow travelers and others avoiding the rain, but made it back outside just before midnight to join in on the countdown and firework display over the city. 2009 was an eventful and fun filled year for us but we can’t deny our excitement to return home, see friends and family, and of course, plan out a number of adventures for 2010. Happy New Year!

The last few days in the San Francisco area have given me such a warm and satisfied feeling. I won’t get too mushy or emotional, but it was great to spend some really good quality time with so many people right before leaving for an indefinite amount of time. Unfortunately, BJ is trying to wrap up so much at work before we head out of the country that he probably feels much differently about the last few days than I do. I have already decreased the number of hours I will be working for Jed while we are away and relished in it greatly this week. While I was out and about visiting friends and family, BJ was holed up in my mom’s spare bedroom working and meeting with people over skype.

My mom and stepdad, Steve, threw us a small going away party on Tuesday night and it was a pleasure to spend time with a group of family and friends that mean so much to me . . . my mom and dad, Steve, Fran, Katie, Michele, Merrik, Shannon and Jimmy. Our last night was spent with Shalyn and Randall in the city. We stayed up much later than we all normally do, drinking wine that they still have left over from their wedding. It felt like way to short of a visit with them. I think Shalyn and I could spend a week straight together and still have stuff to catch up on. My dad and Fran are picking us up in a couple of hours to head to lunch and then on to the airport.

I am not sure it has fully hit me yet but I am generally excited about the days that lay ahead. I have spent so much time with my family and friends out in California this year, more time than usual, and I fear that I will be pretty family-sick while we are gone. But there is an easy solution to this. Everyone that I love will have to come visit us! Please let us know when you will be arriving.

My sister Shalyn and her now husband, Randall, got married this weekend in Healdsburg, California, in the heart of wine country. They had been dating for 10 years after meeting in their freshman dorm at Stanford. Shalyn took what she called “Jewish 101″ last year and had a mikvah this summer, which allowed for a Jewish wedding. Traditional in some ways (breaking of the glass, blessings, signing of the ketubah, the chuppah) and very non-traditional in others (basically everything that happened once the ceremony ended and the party began), their wedding was absolutely beautiful and a ton of fun.Three days of events kept us busy, excited, full of tears, and drunk on champagne.

It was fun from the get-go. I arrived with Shalyn on Wednesday night to Healdsburg where we prepared Welcome bags, had massages, had pedicures (yes, I had a pedicure), eat a ton of food, drank a lot of wine, and enjoyed some quality sister time – I loved having her all to myself. Looking back I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard, cried so hard, was so incredibly embarrassed or was so exstatically happy in such a small time amount of time.

It was moments like these that I will never forget: Serenading Randall with all of the bridesmaids to our own version of Madonna’s “True Blue”; balling my eyes out during Sheila’s, Randall’s mother, speech on Sunday night and continuing to cry every time someone said “shalyn” or “randall”; Shalyn telling me she thought my eyes were really pretty after I was crying cause they are really red and really green – uh, yeah right; dancing at the wedding with BJ, my dad and Fran (both 73 years old), all the bridesmaids, Shalyn and Randall, and her 7 year old cousin “Emma”; meeting up with my sexy boyfriend at each event after not seeing him all day; and finally, realizing how much I love my older sister and her husband Randall!!