v.2

We had our first official family beach vacation earlier this week on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Overall it was a nice time, great to get away and not be sucked in by my computer. There were some trying moments and general things we learned from the trip but I am glad we went. Originally, we were looking to rent a house for a week but it didn’t work out so we found a room at the Sea Spray Motel. It turned out to be more money but with the heated pool option, it was worth it.

We got there around 2:30ish and after a few minute wait, our room was ready. Once Sienna woke up from her afternoon nap, we jumped into the pool! It was nice to be able to get in right away without shivering from the cold water. For dinner, we went to Fred’s Beach Haven and while the food wasn’t terrible, we didn’t have a desire to get back there again. The evening was a little bit challenging as we were not used to being all together in one small room. Her pack and play fit nicely next to the bed and it took her about half an hour before she finally fell asleep while we quietly read our books on the bed. (I noticed that each night, she fell asleep at 8:30 no matter what time we put her down.)


Monday morning was the beach! (Of course, after having a delicious breakfast at The Chicken or the Egg where our faith in good dining on LBI has been restored) Besides a quick toe dip in the sands of Coney Island, this is Sienna’s first time on the beach. At first it seemed she did not like the sand but quickly took a liking to it. The water was COLD!!! I did not expect it to be so cold! So Yves and Sienna developed a quick game of “run away from the water” in between making sandcastles.

Beach Fun at LBI from Lisa on Vimeo.

So one of the things we learned not to do on vacation next time is change up Sienna’s routine. There were a few days before vacation where it was hard for us to get her to take her morning nap. I knew the time was going to come where her morning nap was going to end and thought it was now. So we decided to forego her morning nap and just put her down right after lunch a little earlier. It seemed to work out ok at first but then she just seemed to be more irritable later in the day. Another thing we learned is not to do too much. Monday and Tuesday we’d go to the beach in the morning and then the pool in the afternoon. I think that might be too much for her especially since we usually only have one outing on a regular day.

I had her pool seat on the side of the crib on top of the luggage rack and found her sleeping on it!

Lunch on Monday, we just walked over to the local deli, Black Dog Cafe where Yves got a delicious sandwich (we went back there again on Wednesday). Dinner, we decided to try “LBI’s best thin crust pizza” at O’Malley’s Pizza and Grille although I was skeptical about how good an Irish person can make a pizza. HAHA It was not bad! Yves thought it was okay but he has such high thin crust pizza standards!

Tuesday afternoon, we checked out the playground that was a block away from the hotel. They had some nice slides and there was no one there! It was nice to be able to go down the slide and not have to wait for the other kids to use it. Although Sienna did have to wait for her daddy to finish using the slide. HAHA

Too bad the sun was blinding when you come out of the slide! And of course we got some ice cream afterwards!

For dinner Tuesday night we went to Panzone’s for some pasta and discovered Sienna’s like for spaghetti! The food was pretty good even though the waiter screwed up my order.

Spaghetti! from Lisa on Vimeo.

Wednesday we had breakfast at Uncle Will’s pancake house. It was yummy! You can see what we got by the pictures and this time we learned not to order Sienna her own dish since she only takes a couple of bites from it!

After giving her her morning nap this time (!) we went back into the pool for the last time where we encountered admirers of Sienna. They were totally enamored by her and would not stop following her around the pool! It was cute at first but they were totally violating personal space and it was getting annoying. Their dad finally told them to ease off after we had to tell the girls to give us our space!

We decided to head back home after the pool on Wednesday instead of Thursday morning. We did feel a little cramped in the room but mostly because we haven’t gotten a good nights sleep since the bed was just horrible. For some reason, the mattress was higher in the middle so the sides were kind of sloped down. So we figured there wasn’t any point in staying another night since we were leaving early in the morning anyway.

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For Independence Day, we decided to go into Chinatown for a dumpling lunch since it has been awhile. We went to our usual place right next door to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory on Bayard Street and I can’t remember the name! The food wasn’t as good as it used to be but still tasty nonetheless. The train ride over was a bit of an adventure since Sienna wanted to explore the train but we didn’t really let her, much to her dismay!

We went to J&R first so Yves can pick up new headphones and walked through City Hall Park. Sienna liked the fountain.

After lunch we got ice cream next door (pretty expensive especially since it’s Chinatown!) and went over to the park.

Walking Down the Slide from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Sienna is ready for grilling!

Saturday we had a BBQ and we were ready to invite more people and have different foods to grill. I was actually concerned about inviting too many people and that actually worked against me because it was a low turnout due to everyone’s busy summer plans. But Richard came!! He brought along his boyfriend Billy and dog Casey, which Skippy took an instant liking to….all afternoon! Yup, looks like Skippy fell in love (or lust) and would not stop humping poor Casey, which confirms my belief that Skippy swings both ways. It got to the point where we had to separate Skippy several times!

Anyway, they also brought a wonderful fruit salad and sangria! Brenda came and brought ice cream sandwiches. I saved myself some trouble and bought pre-made beef burgers and chicken burgers. I was at this supermarket in a predominately Italian ‘hood and they had all sorts of pre-made burgers with stuff in them and kabobs and such. I could have easily gone crazy! I also bought hot dogs and made pasta salad. Joy, in true Joy fashion, showed up a couple of hours late with her lime marinated chicken, after we all ate! I even called her to make sure she didn’t get run over by a bus. Guess that is the mom in me now! (Me and Joy ended up cooking the chicken later on for a late night snack. Late for me cuz it was 9pm!) Even if the low turnout we had such a nice time and the weather was fabulous! Wonderful breezes and not humid.

Sienna such a party animal!

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Friday was my birthday. If you don’t know how old I am, you don’t need to know. 🙂 My parents were taking me out for dim sum so Yves left work early to meet us in Sunset Park. We tried a new place on 65th street, where the building used to house a Saturn dealership! I think the name was East Garden. Overall, it wasn’t bad but I prefer the new place we went to for Mother’s day instead. Afterwards, we went back to the house and had strawberry birthday cake. YUM!

A dim sum family portrait

Sienna loved the don tat!

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Sunday Pete, Nate and Mari came over for game day and a BBQ. We kept it simple with just burgers and I made potato salad and pasta salad and for dessert, banana bread and blueberry crumble (all that morning since I was lazy from Coney Island on Saturday!) Yves claims he is ready to expand his repertoire so next time we’ll have to do something other than (or in addition to) burgers. Pete also brought over Two Bite Brownies from Whole Foods and made deviled eggs (YUM!) and Nate and Mari brought watermelon! Ok so besides the food, we had a variety of games to choose from that Pete and N/M brought over. After Sienna went down for her nap, we decided to try Grass since they did not have an opportunity to play that one yet. The instructions were a bit long but once we started playing, we were getting the hang of it and it was quite fun! After a practice run, we got to play one game before Sienna woke up. We moved inside so we can keep an easier eye on her shenanigans while still playing games. Inside we played Pit. Oh, my gosh, WHAT FUN!! I look forward to playing that game again!

I love how Sienna is looking up at Pete!

Sienna checking out the neighbors!

Making sure Yves isn’t burning down the garage!

Lots of games to choose from!

Nate playing with Sienna.

Sienna sharing her toys with Pete.

Pit! Such a fun game!

Sienna wants to play games too!

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Saturday we met the Michaleks for lunch in Queens. We met at Zam Stammtisch and I warn you, do not continue reading if you are hungry! 😉 I had an Open Faced Rueben Sandwich, Tammy and Yves both had one bratwurt/one knockwurst and Mark got the Weinerschnitzel (although he meant to order the Jaegerschnitzel). My dish came with a side of home fried potatoes so I shared that with Sienna, although she ate a pickle!

We didn’t think she would like the pickle but she ate it! Of course after I put the camera away, she gave the sour face. After lunch we went to the Eddie’s Sweet shop down the road from Trader Joe’s that me and Sienna went to last time. That was what I was really looking forward to!! Me and Tammy both got banana with hot fudge and whipped cream (homemade!) but Tammy also got marshmallow on hers. Mark got a root beer float (made from syrup not root beer soda! Impressive!) and Yves shared butter pecan with Sienna. YUM!!

Tammy’s with the oozing marshmallow!

Mine not so oozing

Sienna loves ice cream!

The happy couple!

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Last Friday me and Sienna went over to Park Slope. I had 4 rolls of color 120 film I wanted to develop and have been meaning to check out Accurate Photo (13th and 5th Avenue) on a suggestion from some flickr folks. I’m so glad I finally did! What a nice lady! I was getting develop only and she told me to come back in 15 minutes!!! I was ecstatic! I came back an hour later after lunch and was even more thrilled that I was charged just $3 a roll!! Woweee!! I’ll have to test out their B&W developing and scanning.

For lunch we went over to the Chip Shop. Something I’ve been craving since I discovered they opened one in Bay Ridge. The Park Slope one is the original and where me and Joy first tried deep fried twinkie and deep fried reese’s peanut butter cup (not a twinkie fan so I wasn’t thrilled with it but the peanut butter cup, YUM!) Of course I got the fish and chips! They are very kid friendly and not only did they have a hi-chair but also a diaper changing station in the bathroom!

Where’s the Morrissey/Smiths stuff?

After lunch and picking up the film, we discovered a community garden right by the car. We took a little stroll through it as Sienna enjoys walking. It was such a beautiful day out!

And she was getting a kick out of this flower. (E-mail or comment to get password)

The Flower Tickle from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Monday I finally took the time to make homemade pizza dough! I bought fresh mozzarella from the bakery and that is a very important ingredient for homemade pizza. I got the recipe from the Reader’s Digest Homemade book. It wasn’t very hard at all but with a slight Wii injury from playing yesterday, my right hand wasn’t the strongest for kneading. Overall the dough tasted ok. It probably would have tasted better if I put more salt but with my blood pressure, I always put a little less salt than recipes call for. Most of the time, it doesn’t make a difference but I guess since dough only has about 5 ingredients, it can make a difference. For the sauce, I used Trader Joe’s no salt added marinara sauce (which I love! better stock up!) and toppings were whatever we had left in the frig. this included meatballs, mushrooms, goat cheese, red onion and black olives. I had trouble rolling it into a perfect circle but I guess that takes practice. I decided to make personal sized pizzas so it would be easier for the toppings. Sienna seemed to enjoy it! I had extra dough after making 3 mini pizzas so made a little calzone too!

The dough

Rolling the dough

Circularly challenged pizza and a calzone

Ready for the oven!

Looks edible!

What is this Father? (photo by Yves)

I think Sienna likes it! (photos by Yves)

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Pete came over on Sunday to help us do a test run of the first ghetto BBQ pool party sans pool. We weren’t sure how well it would be since there isn’t any grass (hence the ‘ghetto’ term) but we got a nice shade umbrella and 2 fold up chairs with canopies. It’s been awhile since we had a BBQ but I think it turned out well! We kept it simple and just grilled hamburgers and I made potato salad and blueberry crumble! The potato salad required bacon and apples so I was a little leary of that combo but it was delicious! The blueberry crumble was actually a blackberry crumble recipe from Everyday Food but I didn’t have blackberries. It was so good I made it again later that week.

Waiting for Pete!

Checking out our canopy chair.

The Master at work.

The “enough with the pictures and gimme more food” face!

Pete also brought his Wii with him.

I would say the first ghetto BBQ of the summer was a success and it was a great day!

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Saturday my youngest cousin, Peter, got married and I went to the banquet, held at East in Flushing. I was procrastinating writing about it because I did not really want to go. I’m not close with my family at all and I was predicting an evening of awkwardness and idle chit chat. Which was exactly how it turned out. But I thought showing up was the only proper thing to do (Yves stayed home with Sienna, I went with my parents) and figured I had the food to look forward to. I love banquet food. But the food turned out to be disappointing! Most of the dishes were overcooked, the fish being the worst of it. It started out promising with the roast pig platter. Crispy pig skin and baby octopus that was not chewy at all. Then my all time favorite, shrimp with walnuts and broccoli that comes in a creamy mayonnaise sauce. It wasn’t terrible but the shrimp was a little overcooked. And then it went downhill from there. The upside of the evening was the 2 babies sitting at the 2 adjoining tables to us. They were born right around the same time as Sienna. And although it made me miss my little one, it was fun playing peek-a-boo with them.

Roast Pig platter

Shrimp with walnuts and broccoli (walnuts not shown)

Pineapple Filet Mignon (was good actually)

Shark Fin soup (banquet tradition)

Abalone with bok choy

Lobster

Fish

Fried chicken with shrimp chips

Noodles

Fried Rice

Dessert (startiing from lower right-fresh fruit, cookies, sweet red bean soup and the wedding cake)

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