Crunch Time!

It's crunch time for momma piggie! I'm taking a quickie break from my frickin' thesis.... After a beautiful long weekend in the Bay Area, it's back to good-ole reality.

Some Bay Area foodie highlights (pix coming soon):

• sumptuous porcini ravioli and lobster fettucine dinner at La Siciliana Trattoria in Rockridge (Berkeley)
• fried green tomato BLT and spiced rubbed quail at Mustard's Grille in Napa
• soft-shell crab sandwiche and prosciutto soft egg scramble with arugula at the Ferry Building's farmer's market
• halibut and scallops at Boulevard Restaurant
• dark choc bailey's irish cream and red raspberry truffles from Joseph Schmidt Confections (Ferry Building)
• home-made bisteca milanese w/ delicious twice cooked potato poppers: compliments of chuperman's auntie at their beautiful 5-acre lot new home in Fremont
• super creamy super smoothy Green Tea Matcha Freddo from Peet's coffee... I'm addicted to this stuff!
  

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED HOTEL:

• Hotel Vitale is an amazing boutique hotel which is part of Joie De Vivre Hotels. Hotel Vitale is hip, modern, clean, luxurious and extremely convenient. I hope to stay at a JDV hotel soon again. I was in charge of booking our super duper last minute hotels and I luckily stumbled upon Hotel Vitale which happened to have vacancy! Thank God! Little did I know that Hotel Vitale is quite literally across the street from the landmark Ferry Building. I used my usual charm and of course the pregnancy card, to get us upgraded to a killer room with wonderful views of the Bay Bridge, Ferry Building, and the surround Embarcadero area.
  side note: key difference b/w Chuperman booking hotels and when tiramesu booking hotels..... CLASS. Staying at Hotel Vitale was somewhat of a point of contention for us. Of course Chuperman wanted to stay in Hayward at his friends house so that we can save $, etc etc... I was all for it UNTIL on the first night, the boyz decided to play the loudest war videogame on the PS3 on his new 58" plasma... with the volume on FULL BLAST to of course get the full effect until 2am! Of course the pregnant lady literally in the next room did not appreciate this. I was then forced to make an executive decision and booked Hotel Vitale for the remaining 2 nights. When we got to the hotel, Chuperman was actually pretty happy with the hotel and its bomb-ass location and even said he was "glad" that we stayed in the hotel. HMPH.
• complimentary yoga class at the hotel. after I'm done with this beeeatch of a thesis I'm going to take prenatal yoga classes for surez!
  
• prenatal massage at the hotel spa (not complimentary) haha. I was actually really surprised that the masseuse knew what she was doing. After getting the world's best massages in Thailand for $6 for 2 hours, I'm always doubtful of the masseuses here in the States...i hate getting ripped off for sub-standard service but b/c my back was killing me, I thought it wouldn't hurt to try out a prenatal massage. She had me lie on my side with plenty of pillows. I flipped once, then she had me lie on my back and reclined the massage table. She did a great job with my lower back and even gave me a scalp and face massage to address my TMJ. Prenatal massages are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I have much more to expound upon including the, oh yeah, friends and relatives that we met up with in the Bay Area... including the cutest lil munchkin (Coral) getting into my purse or "bao bao" and trying to get me to open or "kai" the box of choc truffles I was hiding in my purse... but my thesis take priority for now hehe...

Upcoming: for the next 4 nights - 5, yes FIVE, of my relatives from Taipei are staying with us, including a 2.5yr old boy and a 5 month yr old baby girl. This will be good practice for us. I hope the toddler doesn't go through my underwear drawer and doesn't destroy my thesis.

On Friday AM, I get to have a 20 week U/S!

Thank you Lord for everything :)