January 31 was the estimated delivery date and we had a last visit to the midwives as well as an early morning sonogram. Later in the evening we had a great dinner at Roberta’s Pizza with our friend Jeffery, who we ran into on the way there.
Mariko-san arrived safely from Hawaii last week, during a nice friendly 10°F cold spell and we have been eating, running around and having fun ever since. Michi was finally able to get reservations at La Vara and we met up for a nice dinner and took the train back home together, throwing some pepples at Dane and Chris’s bedroom window on the way.
Our amazing friends and family showered us with love and, of course, material items in anticipation of Momo’s arrival. Special thanks to everyone, but especially Kevin B and Yuka H for hosting and planning.
A mild December turned cold towards the end. Visits from Toronto friends as well as local folks. We tried to stuff as much activity in the last couple months as possible since come Momo all our time will be Momo time!
On our last day in Waimanolo we woke up early to watch the sun rise.
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I know, I know, a super cheesy name for a blog post especially since the waves were hardly big but we did buy and did use a waterproof camera on our last day in Waimanolo.
A video and more photos of Waimanalo and the surrounding mountains in both color and black and white. Truthfully digital color does the surroundings no justice so I prefer the black and white.
Thursday we visited Lanikai Beach—our marriage beach—to celebrate our 6 months of blissful, government blessed living. I forgot what we did on Wednesday but most likely went to the beach and drank beers and ginger ale. Sorry Michi! We also had dinner with Kouji at the Kailua farmer’s market and I really wish I would have taken pictures of the food.
We spent the first night in Honolulu at the Ala Moana Hotel and went to Michi’s cousin Kevin’s restaurant with friends from Japan. The next day we went to Waimanalo for the rest of the week. Waimanalo means potable water in Hawaiian and is named as such for the brackish ponds in the area. The old school folks must have come here for their drinking water. The area has super-nice beaches compared to Brooklyn, although, like Brooklyn, it has its share of colorful characters lurking about.
Honolulu! Wheww! Almost missed the plane because our driver got lost in JFK maze. We had a quick layover, which may as well have been a bounce at LAX and because of United’s Economy Plus seating, had a comfortable and relaxing ride to the middle of the North Pacific.
We took a walk in ugly North Brooklyn with fake siding and sun washed italian cultural center tricolor which looks more irish than red white and green. And finally getting used to our digital camera especially in low light.
We finally splurged and bought a digital camera.
My brother George visited NYC with his family, Bethsheba, Paul, Sal and George Jr aka Buddy. We ran around Manhattan, walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and water taxied to N Brooklyn. Paul stayed with us one night while the rest of the fam travelled to DC. He skated around BK and was totally stoked on the area and terrain and then left us some nice drawings.
Gabri visited from Torino and we took the water taxi from Williamsburg to DUMBO on the way passing the old GH studio and Domino Sugar Factory. We walked to the promenade and through Brooklyn Heights to a new bar where the primos had beers and Michi had ginger ale. Of note are the new condos and renovated buildings across the street from the apartment and glimpses of the new WTC in the photos from BK Heights.
Michi wanted to start taking photos of the pregnancy in the same outfit in the same angle but sadly with only a film camera we lost track of when photos were taken. This is in August sometime.
We broke the news to the Rentz/Bagnaschi family on a July trip to NW Connecticut for a wedding party at Uncle Bruno and Auntie Carla’s. Here are some photos from Burr Pond. Incidentally this pond is where I took my first photos 30 years ago with a Pentax MG.
Momo’s first sonogram.
Starting to collect all the first frames of rolls that cut off in interesting ways.
