Three happy families!

This weekend, Ashlee and I had the chance to visit Grand Rapids, Michigan for Amber Cox’s baby shower. We carpooled the three hour drive with the Scheffers, during which we had deep conversations about the future of the American in between bites of Dairy Queen blizzards and yelps from Hannah.  Hannah was in her car seat sleeping most of the way with her hands up behind her head.  She did wake up for about the last 10 minutes while we were finding our way around GR, and she was not happy.  Bryan and Michelle were cuddled up very tight in the back seat of the truck since Hannah’s car seat takes up a lot of space. We had a late night Friday catching up. Saturday morning started out with a very gooey pile of oatmeal. The ratios got off when we didn’t thoroughly read the directions and tried to compensate.

Bryan prepping his breakfast.

After breakfast the men got ready to go for a bike ride and tour of the city. The ladies went shopping and then to the baby shower. I will have to let Ashlee, Michelle, or Amber fill you in on the details of this. I got to see most of the city in which I was quite impressed. Ryan lead us to a 20 mile paved trail for our bike ride. Things started off great, we had a little tail wind and were feeling fresh. However, at the 20 mile point (when we had to turn around) things started going bad fast. Bryan was still feeling pretty good and took most of the wind while Ryan and I drafted as much as we could. At the 30 mile mark we all collapsed and had to bring the intensity way back. About 2 mile before the end I had to stop and work a cramp out of my hamstring and Ryan staved off a calf cramp with some serious moaning. Eventually we finished and had a pretty decent ride considering it was the first hard one of the year. After that we drove straight for Yesterdog, a restaurant that despite its location in a super liberal part of town actually had some pretty delicious hot dogs. We were so hungry that we risked running out of gas in order to eat before we filled up.

We were starving after our bike ride!

We eventually made it home without running out of gas. After about 2 hours of pure laziness, the girls got home and we started making dinner which I must say turned out delicious. Check out the video for some added hilarity.  Hannah kept us entertained as well and handed out the kisses a little to freely if you ask me.  I am going to have to work on that with her before she gets much older.

Hannah and the guys.

Time to eat some delicious BBQ.

Last Sunday our favorite restaurant reopened after almost 2 years of being closed. The old location was no longer viable because the owner got into some tax trouble and that building remains closed. The new location is just down the street and has been totally remodeled with a train theme. The menu is almost the same, but we hear rumors of expanding the menu in the coming weeks, by the time they have the official grand opening. Everything was delicious, they have the best fresh baked bread and French onion soup. I had fish taco’s that were delicious. The Scheffers and Flinns were also in attendance. Click the photo for more.

The Ladies of the Train

The family dinner is an interesting entity. Mainly because it is really three families that get together. The Paces, Scheffers, and Flinns. We all each bring something yummy and lighter on the deserts than in the past. They occur sporadically, but it seems like we get to do it about twice a month in the winter and even more often in the summer. They usually occur on Sunday evening. Always a lot of fun. I linked the photo gallery and there are some cute pictures of Abbey and Hannah. Click the photo for more.  (By the way, we played a six person round of Settlers after the babes had been put to bed and Brian stompped us with a come from behind sneak attack.)

Last night we played one of the best board games ever made.  It is called Settlers of Catan.  The board is made up of hexagonal pieces of cardboard that each represent a different resource.  The goal is to collect resources in order to build towns, cities, and roads.  The first player to reach 10 points wins. For anyone that hasn’t played this before we definitely recommend it.  There is trading and alliances and it gets pretty cutthroat.

Brian and I were on the same half of the board and started battling early on. Meanwhile, Ashlee and Michelle expanded their settlements rapidly. About halfway through the game Bryan and I realized that we were in a pretty sorry state. Ashlee and Michelle continued to expand their empires. Finally, Ashlee with all the shrewdness of the Mongolian Emperor, conquered most of the world and won the game.  The coolest thing about the game is that even when you’re losing you feel like you still have a chance to win.  The games are always close and action-packed.

The best thing about the whole night was Michelle’s cinnamon bread.  The bread came out as a delicious doughy mixture of cinnamon and butter. The four of us ate a whole loaf and Brian and I washed it down with a couple Thai beers. We had a great time, thanks Scheffers.  Check out the pictures below and as always click the photo to see more.

Playing Settlers of Catan

We wish you all a very Happy New Year and hope that 2009 brings you many great joys and blessings.

My poor mother is flying into this tomorrow.  Hopefully, we will not get hypothermia and die.  When it is that cold here you can not even breathe outside and it feels like your eyeballs are going to freeze.  This really makes Aaron and I miss Washington and makes Hannah mad that she had to be born here.  Stay warm  and enjoy the snow in WA.  We miss you!

Issued by The National Weather Service
Chicago, IL
11:02 am CST, Sat., Dec. 20, 2008

A WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 3 AM CST /4 AM EST/ SUNDAY TO 12 PM CST /1 PM EST/ MONDAY.

WEST WINDS WILL INCREASE TO 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS OF 35 TO 45 MPH LATE TONIGHT AND CONTINUE THROUGH THE DAY SUNDAY. THE STRONG WINDS WILL COMBINE WITH TEMPERATURES NEAR TO JUST ABOVE ZERO TO PRODUCE WINDS CHILLS OF 20 TO 30 DEGREES BELOW ZERO

A WIND CHILL ADVISORY MEANS THAT VERY COLD AIR AND STRONG WINDS WILL COMBINE TO PRODUCE WIND CHILLS OF 20 TO 30 DEGREES BELOW ZERO. THIS WILL RESULT IN FROST BITE AND LEAD TO HYPOTHERMIA IF PRECAUTIONS ARE NOT TAKEN. ONLY VENTURE OUTDOORS IF YOU MUST VENTURE OUTDOORS

I am mainly writing this to entertain my fellow dermatology residents, but also to share some cultural knowledge that I think is a great idea.  The picture is of Jessica on the left feeding Tricia (the birthday girl) on the right a piece of birthday cake.  Jessica’s family has an interesting tradition. Her husband is Indian, and it is an Indian tradition for every birthday party, that everyone present gets to feed the birthday person a bite of cake and the last person to go gets to smear the cake on their face.  Now that sounds like a great birthday tradition to me, as if we need any excuse to eat a little more cake on our birthdays. Fortunately for Tricia, only Jessica felt obligated to feed her and did not smear her with cake.  Here is another interesting tidbit from Wikipedia about birthday candles.  Enjoy.

Though the exact origin and significance of the candle blowing ritual is unknown, the history of placing candles on top of the cake is well documented. This tradition can be traced to Kinderfest (Kinder is the German word for ‘children’), an 18^th century German birthday celebration for children. A letter written in 1799 by Goethe recounts: “…when it was time for dessert, the prince’s entire livery…carried a generous-size torte with colorful flaming candles – amounting to some fifty candles – that began to melt and threatened to burn down, instead of there being enough room for candles indicating upcoming years, as is the case with children’s festivities of this kind…”. As the excerpt indicates, the tradition at the time was to place candles for each of the individual’s life with some added candles ‘indicating upcoming years’. Candles, being slow-burning, are believed to be symbolic of the passage of time. In fact, they were often used as timekeepers. The origin of birthday cake candles can be further traced back to the 16^th century German tradition of placing tapers on Christmas trees.  This tradition was then brought to North America by German immigrants. By 1927, the Sears Roebuck catalogue offered birthday candles and holders for sale.

Some photos of the few of us who got together over Thanksgiving, click the photo to see the rest of the pictures. The Steilacoom 1999 grads represented were Robbie Sortore, Steve Rybolt, Isaiah Tchobanoff, Andi (Lopez) Vann, James Choe, and myself (Aaron Pace).  And I would say we all looked pretty good considering we are much closer to 30 now than 20.  Several spouses and significant others were present as well.  We had just the right number of beers and thankfully only one round of Tequila, so there are no embarrassing stories to tell.  However, we did get to try a new drink imported from the southern California coast, 7up and mandarin vodka.  I hope next summer at number 10 will be different and there will be plenty of videos getting posted to youtube.  Fair warning to all those in attendance next summer.