Sometimes, there are moments when you realize that you’re not perfect.  In fact, sometimes, you realize that you just plain suck.  Today was one of those days.

Today, at around noon, I realized that it was July 23rd.  Which means that my dad’s birthday was 10 full days ago.  Somehow, in the recent madness of moving, a constant stream of visitors and honestly, my own self-centeredness, I forgot to wish him a happy birthday.  And that sucks.

So dad, because I know you read this, I cannot tell you how sorry I am, and I really want to wish you a belated happy birthday.  I don’t have a good reason for forgetting- you raised me better than that, and I feel really bad.

You are an amazing person.  You have always been an incredible father, and even though it’s late, I want you to know that I love you and am wishing you an admittedly belated but nonetheless heartfelt happy birthday.

Thank you for being such an amazing dad.  Not only have you always been way too generous with me- whether it’s helping us with our wedding, buying our house, or just mailing me awesome glittery purses with cartoon characters on them- you gave me the best childhood ever.

Whether you were trying to stay positive about my lack of athletic ability…

or cheating a little to ensure that I could do the seemingly impossible…

or just ensuring that we were all impeccably dressed…

I love you.

And I always will.

I’m sorry.  Happy Birthday.  Keep an eye on the mail.

- Aubrey

Mike left on Tuesday morning for his testosterone-fueled west coast pilgrimige, meaning I after 4 solid weeks of visitors, I got the WHOLE freaking house to myself.

Well, for two days at least.

Being part of the Bach family is like being part of a very special, very time-consuming club.  Once you get in, you’re in for life.  Everywhere you turn, there are Bachs.  Even if you move out of state, Bachs sneak up and surprise you- they are literally around every corner.  So, after 58 hours of blissful solitude, I traded one Bach (Mike, the one I married) for another (Amy, his sister).

Thankfully, I really like Amy, so having her come up and visit while Mike was gone was actually a really good thing.  First of all, she is definitely the easiest guest we’ve had in a while.  Having been here before, she knows her way around Seattle and doesn’t need to be given the grand tour.  Instead, we get to do things that are far more awesome and don’t require much in the way of planning.

At this point I should note that all pictures in this post are stolen from Amy, because she is an awesome photographer and I am the world’s crappiest taker of pictures.  Thanks sis!

Amy flew in Thursday night.  I picked her up, we came home, I gave her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, we talked for a bit, and then I was in bed before midnight because I am an old fogey and had to work the next day.  While I spent the day at work, Amy wandered around downtown and spent some quality time with the SAM.

Once I got home, we set out for dinner, with a short detour at the new apartment so I could water the plants.

Um, yeah, Amy photographs everything.  Thankfully, she also got some pictures of how awesome our new house is:

Don’t worry, we’ll have you over for some barbeques soon.  We just have to actually move first.

The original dinner plan revolved around eating something fabulous at END, the supposedly more subdued a la cart version of the multi-course behemoth that is Elemental at Gasworks.  They had a really cool sign in the entrance:

Unfortunately, that was the coolest thing about our experience at END because after hanging out at the door for 5 minutes we were kind of gruffly told that they were full until 9:30 that night and basically dismissed.  Um, yeah, thanks.  I am still curious about their food- I’ve heard great things and I loved the look of the place- but even if you are full for the night (which is weird because they specifically don’t take reservations)- can’t you at least say it nicely?  Boo.

Thankfully, we were only half a mile from another place I’ve been dying to try, Cantinetta.  So we went there.  When we put our name in with the host, he apologized for their having a 20 minute wait and pointed us toward the bar, where we enjoyed some much-needed Prosecco.  And dinner was fabulous.

The gnocchi with creme fresh and garlic shoots made my heart sing.  So freaking delicious.  Roasty little pillows of yum.

Salmon.  With asparagus.  On some green puree of deliciousness.  Mmmmm.

We also had an appetizer of pancetta wrapped dates, which we failed to photograph mostly because we scarfed them down in mere seconds.  But I mean, they were pancetta wrapped dates- sweet and salty and just about perfect.

We decided to prep for dessert by walking a mile to Molly Moon’s, where Amy learned that sometimes it is worth it to wait in line for 30 minutes for ice cream, like these people:

The next day we switched gears a bit and picked up my friend Barrie to get in some appreciation for the outdoors via a 6 mile hike to Snow Lake.  Nothing quite says “July in Washington” like sliding around in the snow in 85 degree weather wearing shorts.

Post-hike, we napped like champions and then headed out to Ballard to check out their monthly Art Walk, where we sipped on free wine (yay) in galleries, clothing boutiques and even in one speaker store.  Weird, but good and free.  Plus, we got to take pictures like this:

We finished off the night with some sushi at Moshi Moshi, which not only features a great selection of sushi that is NOT drowned in nasty mayonnaise-based sauces, but also has a really pretty lit-up cherry tree on top of the bar:

I am a fan of all things sparkly and this definitely caught my attention.

On the way home, we had to make one final stop at 7-11 so Amy could properly celebrate the fact that it was Free Slurpee Day:

Coming soon: getting rained on, discovering giant Pocky and celebrating the boys’ return with crab.

Did I mention that the four days my family spent with us were jam-packed?  This was inevitable, really, due to two combining factors- a) the fact that my dad and I are both chronic fidgeters and neither of us can ever stand still, and b) our house is way too small for 5 people to just chill out for very long.  So while the weekend was a bit exhausted, at least we got a lot of pictures out of it.

Saturday was July 4th.  Maybe it’s a result of having grown up so close to Disneyland that their nightly fireworks shows were not only visible from our front yard but annoyingly loud when we were trying to watch TV, but nobody in my family gets particularly excited by the idea of fireworks.  And Mike only likes fireworks when he’s the one lighting them, so instead of braving the crowds at GasWorks park, we decided to take a day trip to Whidbey Island instead.

Whidbey Island is a one hour drive and a 20 minute ferry ride from Seattle.  This really isn’t a long trip, but it felt a little long for me because I got to sit in the back seat the entire time, along with my mom and brother.  This was made extra uncomfortable by the fact that both of our cars only seat 4 people, so we made a makeshift middle seat in the back for my mom, who spent the whole trip sitting on a pillow on the center panel.

At least it made her taller than Michael and I for the first time in forever.

Our first stop on the island was for lunch in Coupeville, where I ate a gigantic bowl of mussels and we did some wandering.

We even made our way to the Coupeville Farmer’s Market, which I had high hopes for.  Quaint island town in Washington State in July?  I expected to see berries and cherries galore.  Unfortunately, even I’ll admit it was more like a flea market in the middle of somebody’s poorly maintained backyard than an actual farmer’s market.  The boys were not impressed:

Sans produce, we piled back into the car and made our way to Deception Pass.

Deception Pass is beautiful.  Not much else needs to be said.

We explored some of the shorter trails below the bridge.

Mike, my mom and I headed down to the beach below:

The water was cold:

By about 4:00 we were ready to head home.  It had been a long day:

Is that a giant insulated 96 oz Diet Coke in front of our house?  Well, that can only mean one thing- my parents are in town!

After living in Seattle for almost a full year, my family FINALLY made it up here for a visit!  Poor Mike had to suffer through 3 full days of all of us squished inside our tiny little house and almost as much time squished inside our cars- both of which, we discovered once we packed into either one, only comfortably seat 4 people.

So what did we do to keep the folks entertained?  Typical stuff really.  Some good eats, some tourist attractions, a long-ass drive to see a bridge, a trip to the beach (because my parents, who live in California, definitely don’t get to see the beach often enough) and a secret wedding.

For dinner Thursday night, we decided to eat at Pike Brewery in the market.  While we were figuring out how to get down there, I jokingly said that we could all take the bus downtown.  My mom was instantly thrilled by the idea of riding a bus for the first time in 35 years and thought it would be “fun.”

Yeah, that’s my mom video taping her bus ride.  At this point I was starting to regret the fact that we ever introduced her to the wonder that is the flip cam.

And then she stood up to get a better shot of one of us.  It was at this point that I instantly turned into a 14 year old again and kind of wanted to die.

My favorite thing about the Pike Brewery are their freaking amazing dinner rolls, which are made from spent grain used in beer making.  (It would have been awesome if I took a picture of said dinner rolls, but I was too hungry and ate them before I thought of that.)  The rolls are 50% of the reason I picked this place for dinner.  The other 50% was because I knew they didn’t serve Michelob Ultra Light, and I am on a personal crusade to expand my mom’s palate.  She was forced to drink their house-made light beer, Naughty Nelly, which she bravely chugged down, even if she thought it was a little too strong.  Evidently the change in flavor inspired her to branch out her culinary choices as well, and she ordered a Ceasar Salad with Dungeness Crab instead of her usual Ceasar Salad with Grilled Chicken.  I felt like I was watching my kid take their first step.

The next day we hit the market.  My mom got to see some fish get thrown and my dad got to stare at people.  I think they were both happy.

I was especially excited when I found what is obviously a secret room in the market where they keep rabid plastic pigs.

I was SO excited that I had to call somebody about it.

Ok, not really, I think I was on the phone with our new landlord.  But it would make a better story.

After lunch at the market (Three Sisters Bakery and Pike Place Chowder- yum!) my parents came with us to pick up the keys to our new place!  Then they took the requisite prom-style photos of us in front of it.

Finally, we capped off the day by dropping my family off at the Locks so that Mike and I could attend the secret kind-of elopement of one of my knitting friends.  Because it was a super small ceremony, she asked that nobody post public photos of the bridge and groom, but these detail shots (and a few of some guests) are too cute to not post.  I can’t wait until I get permission to post pics of the bridge and groom.

(I am wildly flapping my arms because I’m in the midst of defending my skirt, which our friend Shaun- the bizarrely tall person in the picture- likened to a “potato sack.”  I tried to explain to him that it was “deconstructed,” but Shaun is obviously a little slow when it comes to fashion and likes to chide me for wearing “silly outfits.”  It’s a good thing that I love his wife, Brooke, and his barbeque, because otherwise we’d have a problem.  Anyway, back to adorable wedding details:)

At the conclusion of the ceremony, Brooke noticed that a strange woman was hiding in the bushes video taping the entire thing.  When she alerted the group, I turned back to realize that it was my mom, who had obviously had enough of looking for salmon, and had not only found the secret wedding, but decided to capture it on video with her damn flip cam.  Priceless.

More recap of the rest of the trip, which included a mini-roadtrip, a really tall bridge, the overconsumption of cherries and a beach pilgrimage coming soon.

I love my parents.  I really do.  But whenever I spend more than 7 minutes with them, I am immediately reminded that they are crazy.  Usually I laugh.  Then I remember that this is probably a sign that one day I’ll be crazy too.  I mean, come on, I’m pretty sure that most people who know me will tell you I’m already halfway there.

First off, I’m always telling my dad that he needs a hobby.  The good news is that it seems like he’s found one and is taking it pretty seriously.  The bad news is that it consists of hording toiletries.

Now don’t go and get all worried that my dad is wasting his retirement on toothpaste and razors.  The whole point of this hobby is that everything you see here was completely free.  You see, he recently discovered this site and has been making the rounds at local CVS drugstores, combining coupons and collecting script he receives for certain purchases and amassing this half of a walk-in closet full of stuff.

The scariest thing is that he only started this 7 weeks ago.  Every Sunday morning he prints out a shopping list, clips coupons out of the newspaper and then makes the rounds to 4 different stores to collect his booty.

::sigh::

My mom, on the other hand, is just as crazy in her own right.  On Saturday afternoon she joined me for a hike in one of my favorite places in Southern California- Peter’s Canyon.

Peters Canyon is a great place for an easy hike if you live in Orange County.  It’s never crowded and has a couple of different trails ranging from three to seven miles.  It’s hiker and mountain bike friendly.  And it’s really pretty.  On a gorgeous day like Saturday, it made me really happy.

See the little dog at the bottom of the picture?  That’s Lucy, my parents’ Maltepoo, and definitely their favorite child.  We couldn’t go hiking without bringing Lucy, but bringing her out into the wilderness (which butts up to a fair share of McMansions) definitely showcases the fact that my mom may be a little TOO worried about her dog.

Not only is my mom carrying Lucy in this picture, she was also strategically positioning her hat to make sure that she didn’t get sunburnt.  Huh?  My mom carried her about 2 miles of our 4 mile hike because she was worried she might be tired.

The other weird thing about Lucy is that even though she’s a girl, she went through a phase where she would pee like a male dog- leg up style.  This concerned my mother so much that she tried to “train” Lucy to pee like a girl.  It didn’t quite work, but it definitely changed something:

Yeah, now she pees like she is doing an Eagle pose in yoga or something.  It’s bizarre.  Almost as bizarre as the fact that my mom tried to teach her the right way to pee.

I shouldn’t really judge weird peeing habits though.  This is a picture my mom took right after I went to pop a squat behind a storage building while we were hiking.  Hey, when you gotta go you gotta go.

If nothing else, I’m a lady.  A lady who one day will hoard freebies and worry about my dog getting sunburnt.  The upside of this scenario is that by then I will have a dog.

We just got back from a whirlwind tour of our friends and family back home in Southern California.  It was quick, but it was actually one of the least stressful trips back that I could imagine.  The weather, for the most part, was glorious.  GLORIOUS.  Friday and Saturday were both warm- high seventies to low eighties- and sunny.  After months of living in the arctic tundra up here in Seattle, I cannot tell you how good the warm sun felt on my skin.  And this coming from an honorary albino.  I’m not dumb- I loaded up on sunscreen- but I most certainly appreciated the warmth more than ever.

The first day back basically consisted of me being reminded of how incredibly random our lives our.  For starters, what started out as my typical morning run turned into a dog rescue.

Poor thing!  Just a few blocks from my parents house, I found this pathetic little dog running around in the middle of the street, almost getting run over by multiple cars.  He had a leash but no tags.  I didn’t know what to do really, so I grabbed his leash and rang the doorbells of some houses near me to see if they recognized him.  Sadly, nobody knew who he belonged to, so I took him home and found a no-kill shelter who would come take him.

After that little adventure, my mom took Mike and I down to city hall to take care of some paperwork on our house.  My dad got all excited when he saw Tom Daly, the Couny Recorder, in the office, so he came up with some excuse to go make smalltalk.

Yeah, my dad is a major dork.  Who knows what their county recorder looks like?  Who thinks it’s exciting to talk to them?  Who tells their daughter to post a picture of them talking to the county recorder on their blog?

After the joy that is beaurocracy we went to have lunch with Mike’s mom.  Of course, lunch with Mike’s mom is never your typical lunch.  Mike ended up getting solicitations for business advice regarding her latest idea, which somehow combines a health expo with a bikini contest (don’t ask), while she shared her newest skin cream with me.  Of course, she only told me the secret ingredient AFTER she had me rub it all over my arms and hands.  And the secret ingredient was fish sperm.  Awesome.

After chatting with my old co-workers and saying good-bye to Mike’s mom, Mike and I parted ways so that I could go get my hair done.  A little random, but my old hair girl had an opening and my roots were way out of control.

Hawt.  Too bad I forgot to take an after picture.  But it’s much redder than before.  It’s gloomy in Seattle- I need something bright to combat the grey.

That evening, my parents offered to barbeque for us.  A couple of our friends came over to feast on grilled chicken, carne asada, and lots of sides to make Mike happy.  The ability to cook and eat outside all year is definitely one of SoCal’s greatest virtues.

An recounted stories for us.  Mary was super interested.

Part of the meal included a huge platter of grilled veggies, which prompted Derek to eat zucchini for the first time ever.  After he thought about it for a while, he decided he liked the “burned vegetables.”

There was plenty of delicious food, which the boys dug into.

Mary and I dug into the wine.  (See the red hair?)

As the night wound down, my parents decided to really get the party started and tried to put their karaoke machine to use.  Yeah, my parents have a karaoke machine.  No wonder I married an Asian guy.

Thankfully, they couldn’t get the machine working, so we took the opportunity to take off before any singing started and went to the movies.  We saw I Love You Man.  It was eh.  But Friday was good.

I freaking love it when people comment on my posts.  Seriously, even on days when I don’t have the energy or inspiration to post, I still check to see if people have commented at least 4 times a day.  Sometimes the posts are helpful (like the great glasses poll- which, don’t worry, the surprise results are coming soon.  Don’t worry SaraH, we can still talk), sometimes they are funny, and sometimes they are just plain educational.  For example, this is the comment my darling mother made after I posted the picture of Mike and I on the stretching measurement thing at the museum yesterday:

“Aubs, I’m glad you can stretch so far, I must have taught you that while you were growing up. Maybe I forgot to teach you about germs. Can you imagine how many weird people were sitting on that same bench in shorts & trying to stetch and their mouths were touching the same red bar that your mouth was touching when you took this picture. Oh well, now you know! Love you, me.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I’m crazy.  Mike is constantly mocking me for my bizarre germophobia, which is especially odd if you know me and therefore know that I’m a total slob when it comes to any sense of organization or order.  I am incapable of making our living room look orderly, but heaven forbid if I don’t microwave the dish sponge for one minute to kill germs after it touches any kind of germ-containing food.  (Seriously, I nuke it an average of 3 times during a dishwashing session.)  I use straight bleach in the bathroom once a week and I take a shower as soon as I get home when I take the bus.  I refrigerate my peanut butter sandwiches when I get to work because they have butter on them (by the way, it’s also my mom’s fault that I have to put butter on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I know you’re gagging, but try it, it’s SO good.  Just butter one slice of bread before you smear on peanut butter- it makes a huge difference.  Mmmmm, now I’m hungry.)  I wear surgical gloves when I cut or cook any kind of meat.

But now you know why I am the way I am- it’s because my mom made me that way.  Which means that one day, probably in the near future, I’m going to wake up and be a ridiculously perky hypochondriac neatfreak who forcefeeds her children butter but only eats cottage cheese and Splenda herself.  Well, maybe I’ll be a little better.  I’ll use Truvia.

Some people get chocolates and flowers for Valentines.  I got a visit from the youngest member of the Bach clan instead.  Which is a good thing, because Jimmy doesn’t make me fat or make Mike’s allergies act up.

In case you were wondering why I hadn’t been blogging excitedly about Jimmy’s upcoming visit, it’s because I didn’t know about it.  The Bachs aren’t planners.  Jimmy is no exception.  He called me at 11:30 AM on Thursday asking me what airline had the cheapest tickets to Seattle.  I told him to check out the awesome deals available on Jet Blue.  Then he texted me at 3:30 pm to tell me that his flight came in at 10:30 that night.  I rushed home after work to clean.

When I mentioned this last minute trip to friends and co-workers, most people pretty much looked at me with a mixture of pity and horror.  A lot of concerns revolved around the fact that it was Valentine’s Day weekend.  This was not a big concern for me, and it was probably a relief for Mike.  I know it sounds sad and depressing, but we just don’t do Valentines.  It just doesn’t work from us.  Maybe it was that first cursed Valentines Day getaway 9 years ago that ended up in me crying in a dank motel room in Salinas while Mike tried to convince me that the bars on the window were there as an added safety feature (long story), but we just are not very good at the normal Valentines stuff. (Hence I get Silverlight applications instead of Hallmark cards.  Bah, I can’t complain, that totally made me smile).  So we spent Valentine’s night eating clam chowder with Jimmy, and it was conisderably better than if we had tried to throw together a fancy dinner at the last minute.

Besides fish and chips, we did plenty of other stuff with Jim-Jim, including a surprisingly enjoyable trip to the Pacific Science Center, where we were entertained for hours by giant furniture.

We took awesome pictures of butterflies in the amazing Butterfly Room.  (Rita, you were right.  I freaking love this place.)

And finally, when I found out that the physiology exhibit had a place where you could test your flexibility, I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to show off my bizarre flexibility and make fun of Mike.  This was basically like the stretch test that you do as part of the Physical Fitness Test in elementary school.  For individuals our age, the average length to stretch was 12″-13″.

I got 22″ because I am badass.

Mike got 6.8″.  He is not badass.  At stretching.

Jimmy’s visit was suprisingly well-timed.  We got to eat some good food, spend some time exploring the city and catch up on all the goings on in SoCal.  As much as the Bach family can be a bizarre circus in the background of my life, I am ridiculously attached to my brothers and sister-in-law, and it always feels good to have people around who really know us.

I know I haven’t had a chance to put our wedding photos up since we moved, but this is a start! Happy Valentine’s day, with love from your sometimes forgetful, absent-minded husband. Love, Michael

Click Me!

A recap via some of my favorite pictures from the week.

Mary and I get Ce Fiore and aruge about whose yogurt is prettier.

Picking Derrick up on a street corner in the morning…

and then again at night.

The Ritz Carlton robes my dad bribed a maid to steal for him.

The fact that the boys have spent so much time playing Rock Band that they seem to be starting their own band.

The fact that my parents thought it was funny to hang this up in the guest house.

Some Diet Cokes are just TOO big.

Getting in LOTS of bonding time (too much?) with Mr. An Pham.

Thanksgiving meal #1 with Bachs, Trans, Wests and Phams.

In California, this is what happens after you eat turkey in November.

Mike, animated.

He really likes his gravy.

An’s post-turkey coma.

Post Thanksgiving Ping Pong tournament.

The audience.

What happens when you lose.

Visiting Grandma.

The Tran family Thanksgiving spread.  Eggrolls are awesome.

Time to go home.  Exhausted.