Date Night

One of J and I's Chinese New Year's resolutions (We were a little late getting started on the resolutions and just decided we would make them CHINESE new year's resolutions so we wouldn't feel so bad being slackers. See, it pays to be Chinese!!!) was to reinstate date night. And we've been pretty good at keeping this resolution! However, after an inspiring conversation with K, we decided that we needed to come up with some dates that didn't revolve entirely around eating and drinking.

A couple of weeks ago, we caught the Olafur Eliasson show at the SFMOMA. WOW! I was very impressed...his work seemed to me all about making us more aware of our environment; in specific, those elements that you don't really pay that much attention to, like the nature of light in a room, or the way the air moves around a space. Our favorite was this piece:



The room was a seamless circle that seemed to glow from the walls, and the color would transition ever so slightly every few minutes. When we walked in, the room was bright white and everyone was chattering away. About two minutes late, the light completely dimmed and all of a sudden everyone became completely quiet. Now that's a successful piece! I love how interactive the show was and I was happy to see the MOMA move towards the contemporary.

A week later, we went and saw the Magnetic Fields (as I mentioned in a previous post), which was a super fun show.

Date night this week involved the opening night the SF International Asian American Film Festival. This was extra fun for me because the Center for Asian American Media is one of Noon's clients and we did all the design for the event, from the trailer to the catalog to the t-shirts to the website. I really like the festival campaign this year, it is very different from Noon's typical super-clean, super-refined look and everyone worked together to make it gel. The concept was "conversations," and Leah did all original illustrations for the campaign. One of the characters is based on me (with long hair)! Here I am holding up the 108-page catalog I designed, the character based on me is the gal with the striped tunic on in the upper right hand corner of the catalog cover:



I also designed the t-shirts and badges, shown on some volunteers here:



The film was "A Thousand years of Good Prayers" by Wayne Wang (director of The Joy Luck Club), and it was a sweet little film about an estranged father and daughter. Wayne was at the opening night gala:



As was henry O, who acted in the film. Here is Do Young getting his autograph. So cute!



Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu was also there, though I don't know who he is. Tomo was quite excited to see him in person, though!



Next week date night just involves dinner plans, but we deserve it! :)

Queen SHRED!

We spent this weekend in Sun Valley, Idaho, visiting with Jeremy's parents, Laurie and Randy, and their two adorable pups, Aki and Mia. As is typical in the Hermann household, "visiting" means spending all daylight hours outdoors doing some sort of physical activity, and evenings at home lounging with the puppies, eating yummy dinners, and watching movies or reading.

We flew in on Friday and immediately got down to the business of getting our gear (this is another Hermann activity...the acquiring of gear) and headed out for some cross-country skiing:



The next day we went up to Mount Baldy for some downhill skiing. The Hermanns were very sweet and got me a private lesson with an instructor, who worked some serious miracles. Some may know that I have been scarred in the past with bad, bad skiing experiences so he had some physical as well as psychological issues to contend with. At the end of my lesson, though, I felt (for the first time ever on skis) fairly competent. Here's the view from on the ride up. Pretty stunning:



Randy bought me this stylin' jacket as a bday present...maybe he figured that if he can help me make a proper outfit, this skiing thing might just stick in my repertoire. Does he know me or does he know me, people?



Saturday was our "rest" day, meaning we we were ONLY going to go snowshoeing. It was a beautiful day and we actually got quite a workout while we were "resting."







The next day we were back up on Mount Baldy, and I am please to say that I was SHREDDING it! OK, maybe not by most peoples' standards, but definitely by mine! I declared to Randy and Jeremy, "Skiing is fun now!" I think they were pretty happy to hear that. :)

We ended the trip with me taking a walk to shoot some photos while Jeremy, Randy, Aki and Mia went for another cross-country ski. What a beautiful place with beautiful people (and dogs). We love you, Randy, Laurie, Aki, and Mia! Thank you for sharing this time with us!





See the entire Flickr set here

the 411

Whoa, has it really been a month since my last blog entry? Time goes so fast these days it's getting kind of scary. Here's some of what we've been up to...

Several weeks ago we went up to Tahoe to stay with our friends Susan and Craig (Susan is the one who married us). They recently purchased a beautiful 2-bedroom home in Truckee area and we were delighted to hang out with them, Sacha and Maureen, and Suzy and Jeff. Here's Jeremy enjoying a beverage in their kitchen:



We spent one day downhill skiing at Sugarbowl (sorry no photos--the camera battery was dead), and the next day the boys went back-country snowboarding while the girls did some cross-country skiing (my first time!). Here's photographic evidence (with Maureen's dog Raja in the foreground):



Cross-country skiing is a hilarious sport, especially after getting used to the downhill skis. I have never in my life felt so out of control going so damn slow! Here's a cute thing we saw while on the trail:



The following weekend was Valentine's Day and J and I's 5 year datingversary. We celebrated by eating at Quince. Adam had generously given us a gift certificate there and we loved our meal! The only thing is, if we're ever out to dinner together, please remind me not to get the wine pairing. It's just a little too much for me to handle these days. ;) Here are the gorgeous roses J bought me for V-day:



I also celebrated by chopping off all my hair...don't have any great photos of the new cut yet, but you can get a feel for it in some of the photos below.

This last weekend was my bday and we started celebrating on Wednesday night with a big dinner at one of our faves, Bodega Bistro. Good friends and good food, what could be better?





On Thursday night, we saw a fantastic show at the Herbst Theatre with the Robucy...one of our favorite bands, the Magnetic Fields, were playing as part of the Noise Pop festival. WOW! What an incredible show! Stephen Merritt's voice is even more incredible in real life, and though I've never really loved Susan Anway's voice on their albums, I found her really charming live. While Stephen's voice is all dark chocolate and cigars and bear-skin rugs, Susan's is like that sweet, quiet girl in the back of the class with the heavy bangs and the Trapper Keeper. Beautiful.



On Friday we headed up to Orr Hot Springs for the weekend and spent our days sitting in hot water, reading, and making yummy food. Typically we are one of the youngest couples there, and everyone is making delicious, amazing meals in the kitchen beside us. Well, perhaps because they recently renovated the place to be more modern, there were tons of young people (mostly couples) and they were all eating yogurt and salads as we prepared meals like bacon-wrapped scallops, marinated hangar steaks, egg scramble with mushroom, sausage, and onion atop cheesy polenta. Funny!

We also took a gorgeous hike on Saturday morning in nearby Montgomery Woods. It was a beautiful time of year, as brightly colored green moss was growing over EVERYTHING. We also encountered many, many mushrooms and salamanders. Just gorgeous...

Doesn't this look like a postcard or something?



These don't look poisonous or anything:



OK, just a question, how the heck do salamanders stay alive? They are the slowest things EVER. Talk about an easy meal for some hawk or woodland creature...



And, the requisite "hold-out-the-camera" self-portrait:



So that's what we've been up to these past few weeks. This weekend we head up to Sun Valley to visit with J's parents, where I can put my newfound cross-country skills to use. I promise to update about that trip in a more timely manner. :) 'Til then! XOX