original little hellraisers

owen just told me grandpa, lola’s grandpa drove on the sidewalk.

me (parallel parking)
owen are you on the sidewalk?
me no. why?
owen grandpa drove on the sidewalk.  he’s a bad driver.

dad, is there anything you want to tell me?

ah.  what a great weekend we had.  saturday morning we woke up to the sun and after nearly two weeks straight of rain we were all itching to get out.  made fried dough for breakfast, grabbed some coffee and walked down to the beach.  built sand castles.  tried flying a kite in nearly zero wind and just enjoyed the warm sunshine.  kids napped.  walked to outerlands for dinner with friends.  lovely.

sunday was uneventful and it appears the kids still have a bug sitting in their stomachs, but other than frequent trips to the bathroom they are in good spirits.  a side affect to the frequent bathroom trips is dylan finally understands to use the toilet for number two or in his case right now, we can call it number 3.  he’s also congested and is running a low grade fever off and on.

i guess in hindsight as i type this, it was only a so so weekend because the kids aren’t feeling 100% but i’m still high from the perfect saturday.

owen can do the spoon on the nose trick.  he saw a kid on tv do it and just picked up a spoon and put it on his nose.

ugh.  owen is sick again.  he woke up last night with a fever and puked in bed.  woke up this morning with a fever puked on me and the couch. after which he apologized for not puking in the bucket and for getting puke on me.  even when sick he’s still sweet.  was good for most of the day with the help of motrin, but his fever starts to sneak back after 4 1/2 hours after his last dose of motrin, an hour and half to early to give him another dose.  then again at 6:30pm while i was trying to get him to eat something he told he was going to puke so i got him the bucket and he puked again.  passed out on the couch for about an hour. woke up and felt like eating dinner.  went back to bed at 8.  i feel really bad for him.  he really doesn’t feel good this time around.

UPDATE:

owen is feeling much better.  his fever never returned after last night.  the only trace of him being sick is well… um… let’s just say he went through three pairs of underwear this morning, but i think that’s really from drinking apple juice and not eating much.  it’s not as bad as it sounds, let’s just say his farts were fully loaded and now he’s paranoid that every time he farts something else is going to sneak out.  i told him he had sneaky poop.  he thought that was very funny.

(me) say night night to papa

(dylan waving) night night choo choo

(me) say night night to papa

(dylan waving) i love you, papa

(papa) i love you too

(dylan waving) i love you, owie

(owen) i love you too, dylan

i made fried dough this morning from trader joe’s pizza dough.  it looked and tasted like i remember situ’s but i’ll need john’s opinion to get the real judgement.  either way they were really good and easy to make.  owen even help make the little balls.

funny how they all sleep the exact same way!

what happened to my clean and neat boy?

(totally unrelated but dylan slept through a trader joe’s shopping trip today)

dylan is speaking in sentences! granted they are still toddler garbled but they are definitely sentences.  the day before we left for our trip dylan started saying “mama, where are you?” but now he also says, i love you and i need you.  since we’ve been home, i feel like he’s had a language explosion.  he pretty much mimics anything you say.  asks for things he wants in complete sentences, like “please, can i brush my teeth, please”  one of his favorite activities i think because he’s getting his molars.  he’s clearly copying owen in his sentence formation, it’s so cute and surprises us daily.

day 15 - january 12th, 2009

so — this was originally the day we were supposed to go home.  we booked another hotel in buenos aires while we try to jump on standby flights to get home somehow.  i have never done standby with luggage before, so i don’t know that it’s actually possible or not.  we’re going to try though.

we got up early again (8am) to get to the airport in time.  this is one of those back country airports that has one counter agent and a million people in line.  our flight was delayed an hour.  and on and on our travel luck continues to disappoint.

we landed in buenos aires for the second time this trip — and this is where our buenos aires luck went stratospheric.

we had no place to stay, so yesterday we booked a place on hotels.com.  we were skeptical — it was 87 dollars a night (plus 20% taxes) and was one of those places where you know they staged the photos ever so perfectly to make it look too good to be true.  fine, it’s not in palermo soho (rather palermo hollywood), but it’s shorter to walk from here to the center of town than it was from the vain hotel (where we previously stayed).

and the room is probably one of the better hotel rooms we’ve had on this trip.  it has that same modern appeal that kara likes.  it has a hd tv, iphone docs, hardwired internet and wi-fi on every floor.  they give you power adaptors and will arrange for your transfer back to the airport.  not only is it a fantastic deal, the business model is particularly interesting.  the rooms meet a certain size criteria in argentina to be classified as apartments, so each ‘room’ of the hotel is owned by a different investor who pay a management fee to own hotels and voila, a hotel is born.  kinda cool.  if you ever come to buenos aires, stay here.  it’s well worth the money.

and then we headed out into town again for lunch at bar 6.  after 4pm, they stop serving lunch and go back to serving breakfast (i know, makes no sense, right)?  we ordered a few beers and then were going to hit up uriarte — a highly recommended place by all the travel books, kasey, lexie, etc.  it is being remodeled.  so we decided to head to casa cruz (no website i can find, unfortunately) instead. we had no reservations but walked in anyway.  guido, the maitre’d met us at the door and told us he could find us a seat if we sat down on the plush couches.  we did.  then ordered some swanky drinks (kara = lychee martini, me = sidecar).  the whole interior of the place is decked out in plush red and dark wood paneling.  we had this huge, homo-erotic painting on the wall near us (that we wanted to take a photo of, but that felt, well, too touristy) with a bunch of gladiatorial midgets (yes, i’m serious) wearing nothing but their birthday suits and, on occasion in the painting, getting frisky.

the most stunning part of the whole place though is the wine cellar.  the ceilings were probably 30 or so feet tall and the wine cellar went the whole length of the back wall and to the ceiling.  a giant wine rack, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, walled off in the front in glass.  it was absolutely stunning.  they leave the middle portion of the rack empty so you can have a view back into the kitchen to see what the chefs are up to.

we had a palette cleanser to start — some sort of gazpacho.  we weren’t sure if it contained crab, so I got to cleanse my palette twice.

kara had a small green salad with goat cheese (too salty by her admission) and i got a grilled white asparagus salad with a warmed egg, bread crumbs and some finely diced red pepper (delicious).  for mains, kara got the veal with a bearnaise sauce and papas fritas, i got the smoked pork with a corn mash, smoked cheese sauce and a quince jelly. they were so confident with the veal that they set kara’s place with a butter knife.  fancy trick.

both dishes were absolutely amazing.

we ordered a bottle of wine from mendoza where the vintner grows his grapes “roman style” — that is to say, he plants them where they will grow best, not in the organized rows you see in other vineyards.  and he’s growing at an altitude that people said wasn’t possible.  i guess he’s a bit of a wine-making rebel.  it was delicious.

kara got an apple tart with black pepper ice cream for desert — at this point, the clock is at about 1am.  we settled up — most expensive meal so far, but by far the best — and decided to hit the bar next door for one drink.

we must have, unbeknownst to us, joined some secret club of exclusivity today.  the bar makes you buy poker chips at this swanky front desk to then go order your drinks with.  turns out the restaurant next door owns the place — now it all makes sense. we ordered our drinks with our chips, sat in the back patio near the fireplace and took a moment to reflect on what has been an incredible trip.

we head home tomorrow.  can’t wait to see the boys.