One last underwater post:

The biggest porcupine fist ever!



2 of the endemic Hawaiian cleaner wrasse (specializes in cleaning turtles and fish) and one Christmas tree wrasse - how appropriate.



the camouflaged flying canard



and the infamous green sea turtle. We've been participating in identifying and tracking these turtles on a database built by our friends at the ocean project.

Here are just a few pictures from Christmas Day in Austin.



The lovely Christmas Tree.


Cinnamon Rolls pre-icing


Mia and Me.


Jennifer and Thumper and the traditional Christmas Strata


Mom and Mike wearing the Christmas Cracker crowns


Jennifer, Tom and Thumper


Mia looking very cute in her special Christmas outfit.

Mel cam over for fresh-challah french toast, ham and fruit for breakfast x-mas morning with me and the fam. After, I shared some 'irreverent' internet videos with them... they loved it. After exchanging food and ideas we headed north for a series of short hikes. The wind coming over the cliffs was over 20 mph on the ridges!



Sorry, the food was too good to take pictures of... meaning it got eaten before I thought of it :-)

I promised some diving pictures so here they are




Also here is a movie shot by Mel. If anyone reading this ever wants to learn more about Hawaiian biology or do one of their family oriented educational projects with these guys on Maui I have to give them props. They are the absolute best.

Aloha friends and loved ones. I thought I'd blog the latest from maui:

rainbows! The rainy season means rainbows every day... actually several different rainbows every day... sometimes several different double-rainbows every!!! day!!!!!


So, yes it was a long flight getting here from nyc so I had to lay over in LA to see the lovely Liz (and good thing I did since no flights were leaving the northwest for several days there) Here's liz lookin' all gangsta... in a painterly-photoshop kinda way.


and here's how I felt after emailing in my unfinished processing project from LA after taking a long flight and generally being exhausted at having classes and projects last till Sunday night PLUS a good dose of Californication.


So the trip to LA was wonderful and lightning fast. Much love to Liz and her family. Thoughts and prayers for your dad's fast recovery. And thanks for taking me around some of the best places.

And I finally made it to maui after another long flight


We've been doing lots of diving-perhaps some underwater photos soon... also a challah-brunch Hanukkah/Christmas update shortly. How can anyone not like this?

I've been spending this Christmas in Austin with my family. The weather has been wonderful, temperatures past 70 degrees on several days. This is the first Christmas to be spent in my parents new house. The house is lovely, and much to my liking closer to town. Christmas eve was spent preparing for our Christmas feast.


Their new home.


The mess from my making Christmas Crackers for the first time.


The beautiful crackers- filled with the traditional paper crown, jokes, and prizes.




My mom and dad and I had a tamale making contest. I'm convinced mine were the best- they were filled with corn, onions, peppers, green sauce, and mexican cheese.


We prepped or made many more dishes for Christmas that were not photographed including traditional egg strata, cinnamon rolls, and enchiladas.

I re-used the branch used for our Thanksgiving decorations for hanging my Christmas ornaments this year. A few pictures of our not-so-traditional Christmas Tree.

We had a beautiful snow cover today. I was working at the Brooklyn Museum, so I skipped over to the botanic garden with a few of the education interns to enjoy the freshly fallen snow.

This year for Thanksgiving we had people over for a fried Jive Turkey and lots of delicious food made by us and our friends. Here are pictures from the wonderful festivities.



Pre-Festivities


Making Gravy


Pretty labels for all our delicious dishes.


Look at that pretty turkey!


Our lovely guests.


Pretty labels for the tables.

This year for Halloween I went as the Salvador Dali art piece Lobster Phone. Although most people didn't get the costume those that did were immediately liked. Adrien once again wore his childhood bear costume. We went out with some of his friends to a party at a fancy hotel where once of the first year architecture students works.

My parents visited over labor day. Since school started back up just after their visit I have not been able to post any photos from the visit until now. It was a busy weekend and included me showing off my new neighborhood, seeing the cities best museums(the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum), eating some wonderful food, walking across the Brooklyn bridge and trekking out to Conney Island.

Another example of why I love my neighborhood...

This evening when we were taking our regular walk through Fort Greene Park we came upon an event kicking off the several month long centennial celebration of the monument in the Park. There was some opera singing, and a movie screening of the film 1776. We didn't stay for much of the movie since I'm not such a fan of musicals, but it was great that we just stumbled upon such a fun event.

My goal of this summer was to make BBQ pizza, actually an unfulfilled goal of last summer carried over to this summer. With the fall winds just starting to be felt in Brooklyn I finally got a chance to make my BBQ pizza and it went off without a hitch. We got our dough from Luigi's, loaded up my bike saddle bags with all the fixings, strapped the grill to Adrien's bike and biked over to Daniel and Ann's for the BBQ-ing. Sure the first couple text pizza didn't come out quite right, but once I got the technique down they were delicious. I was even able to get the crust perfectly crisped, with the toppings melted.

We went this week to Portland to spend time with Adrien's parents. Considering his grandfather had just past away it was a somber trip. We tried to make the most of the trip, because we both agreed we probably won't be heading back to Portland any time soon. For now our home is in New York and we won't to make the most out of our living here. Here are a bunch of pictures with a brief description of what we did in Portland.

The morning after we got in Adrien and I visited our favorite Portland restaurant, the Screen Door. I had an amazing waffle smothered in strawberries, and Adrien is clearly enjoying the Cathead Biscuit sandwich filled with egg, cheese and Bacon (so named the cathead for the biscuit being as big as a cat head.)



We took a dinner river cruise with Adrien's parents, taking in the sites of the city and surrounding area by boat.



One night we got away to Olympia to hang out with my friend Alison, along the way we pigged out on amazing fresh local blackberry milk shakes and fries at the only fast food joint I actually like- Burgerville.



We hung out a bunch with one of Adrien's good friends from high school- Colin. It was great hanging out with Colin because he would indulge my Portland diet of Whiskey and sweets. Here is my delicious cupcake from the amazing Saint Cupcakes, and a picture of Colin watching in disbelief as I eat a third cupcake.