Trying to help out

Just spreading the word and trying to help out! Donate what you can!


Last week Christian and Stephanie Nielson were in a very serious plane crash. They are a young couple with four children under the age of six. They are in critical condition. Stephanie has third degree burns covering 80% of her body and Christian has third degree burns over 30% of his body. The recovery will be very long and very expensive.



If you are able, please consider contributing to this fund that will go directly to the family: Nie Recovery.

Today, several websites are auctioning off items for their benefit. Go here to see the comprehensive list: Design Mom.

Updates about Stephanie and Christian here on her sister's blog.

Or you can buy a bracelet from Evlove to help out.

Hanging with my nephews

I love my nephews. They came out to California for a full month and we got lots of play time!

Here's Johnny smiling (a rare occasion) for the camera.

It's not hard to get Hudson to smile or yell "CHEESE" He's a wild boy, his face is proof of that, an incident on the rocks down by Lake Tahoe.

Hudson loves "Jawred" Whenever I'd go visit them in the East Bay at my parents house when we returned from Tahoe, the first thing he'd ask was, "where's Jawred." (He was working.)

One day we took them to see the animals at Sulphur Creek where they take in sick or injured animals.

Johnny didn't like how loud the birds were.

A rare occasion to get them in the same shot.

The boys doing their tricks and exercises.

Playing with planes in their pajamas.

I love these boys!

Taking Fabian Shopping

Fabian (our friend from Zürich doing research in UCBerkeley for a bit) needed to go shopping. So of course I asked the professional (Amanda) to come along...also she's super fun!

What did I do while we waited for him to try things on? Practice posing of course:)

What's this sly boy up to?

Amanda and I rocked out in the Apple store for a bit.

ya, I got in the groove.

Some more yellow and blue

I need to learn how to sew. Of course I would wear this sweater and skirt together, some goodness from Anthropologie!

You can never have enough shoes.
Top it off with these "Ferry Boat" heels!

I'm not really the biggest fan of gold, however I do like brushed gold.

Colorful houses

I love the color of the house we're staying in the right now.

And the color of the house next door. Perfect together!

Sunday lunch at Mom's

Dinner and Mom's is always fun and delicious! Here she is working away!

Menu:
Green salad with fresh sweet tomatoes from the garden
Enchiladas
Spanish rice with delicious gourmet sausage
Japanese sweet potato and goat cheese quesadillas on roasted red pepper tortillas

Hudson laughing as usual

Johnny needing snuggles.

Hudson loves green.

The clan: Emma, Sam, Alice, Fabian, Annika, Johnny, Hudson, Jared, Shelley, Eric, Emily and Mom...plus the ghost sitting in the extra seat that my mom accidentally set.

Hudson, "What about me Jawred? Take a picture of me."

Dessert:
Mixed fruit and

The special New York Times cookies. Oh baby, I couldn't even finish one they were so rich and delicious. I will never make them because there's a science to it. Maybe my friend Tanya will take the challenge. My mom made them and the boys measured and weighed.

My friend Shelley who I grew up with was briefly in town with her husband Eric. It was fun to see her since it's been years. She's very important in the interior design/architecture world. She gets flown first class to Dubai to work on those giant skyscrapers they've been building. Very talented indeed!

Goodbye Google!

After a little over 4 years Jared had his last official day at Google on Tues. Aug 5th. He finished up work in Zürich and then went in to the Mtn. View office on Tuesday to do some last minute things and an exit interview. He was a bit nostalgic but his new job is great. He now works for a start-up and is the 7th employee. There are almost 20,000 employees at Google now. On to smaller and better things.

Goodbye code reviews, goodbye gym, and free lunches and dinners. Goodbye friends and family complaining to you whenever anything doesn't work at Google -- even when it has nothing to do with the area you work on. :)

How I'm getting around these days!

Hiking in Tahoe

Switzerland is very beautiful...however we have beautiful places in America also. For example Lake Tahoe. A bunch of us went on a beautiful hike while at Tahoe....well Jared and my cousin George ran...actually later you'll see Jared did a bit more than just running.

Jared climbs.

Jared makes Alice laugh.

Jared leaps.

Here's the lake that we hiked to. It was refreshing.

Jared, me and George diving in.

Then Danny jumped in.

It was glorious and the sky was so blue.

My Mom was all decked out with her hat, hiking polls, compass, emergency whistle and camel back. She really has taken on the roll of being prepared. Jared always makes fun of me for taking everything, toilet paper, wipes, water, gum, camera...these are a few basics for our everyday outings. Now I know where I get it from.

Hudson, a party in your pocket.

The power of a camera and the internet...you get to take incriminating photos of your brother in his underwear;)

The clan, Mom, George, Danny, Amy and Lee.

Emma and the boys.

A rare occasion for Johnny to smile for the camera.

Hudson, "Daddy I want to throw rocks into the lake."

Hudson, " I want to sit by Jarwed."

Johnny (hiding from the camera) and my sister Emma.

If you look closely you'll find Jared in this photo.

Tahoe for the 34th year!

The day after returning to California Jared and I headed up to Tahoe for my yearly family reunion. It's always packed full of hiking, biking, kayaking, swimming and water skiing.

We started early one morning with water skiing. It was a crisp Tahoe morning with clear blue skies and a calm lake. The perfect recipe for boating.

Here we are, Jared, cousins' Scott, Danny and Matt and Uncle Scott, waiting for the boating place to open.

Switzerland may be beautiful, but we have beautiful places in America too.

We headed out on Poppie's Passion for a fun morning.

We chose numbers to see who would go first. Jared was the lucky one. Jumping in the freezing lake at 8 in the morning is always a shock to the system.

Danny showing his stuff. Great form!

Matt, saluting the world.

I wasn't gonna go since I haven't water skied for a few years and the skis wouldn't tighten very well. I did fine, getting up on my first try.

Everybody falls though.

Except for me, I let go before I knew I was going to fall. I had a bad experience last time. I don't need to go into details. Trust, it wasn't fun.

Then there's Jared who was trying to get some air.

Before we headed back to the dock to let the other family members have a go, Jared and I were towed in.

So far so good, I'm still smiling.

Then Jared thought he'd make things tricky.

We got going fast. Lets just say that the tube wasn't meant for two adults.

The turn was really difficult. I lost my toe ring. (waaaaah, I had it since H.S.)

Notice how Jared is hanging off.

WHAT IS THIS? Jared is telling my Uncle to up the speed? Are you kidding me? I would not have approved. Who gave him the authority to make us go faster. We are already having a hard enough time staying on.

It really wasn't a good idea.

Where did Alice and Jared go?

Why am I smiling? Because we're still alive.

Family photo summer '08

How do you get 14 people together for a photo?

Do it QUICKLY!

An adventurous Saturday in South Carolina

It all began with that accident on the freeway. Jared and I were driving back from Charleston, (the kids were with Dad) and we had a GPS with us, so we thought we'd attempt to avoid the slow traffic on the freeway. Well the GPS took us to some random dirt road. We tried to turn around but got stuck in a sand pit.

Thank goodness I pay attention to random things that I see on tv, because I told Jared to put some sticks in front of the wheel to create some traction for us to get out, so he did, I got in the driver seat and reversed and then forward again with a little push from Jared we were out of there.

Did I mention that it was 101° outside.

Then later the swimsuit soaking got out of hand and we flooded the 2nd floor bathroom.


Then, (Jared blames this all on me, he says that I summoned the thunder storm because I wanted to see one in South Carolina.) Anyhow, it was wild, it was crazy thunder and lightening with a huge downpour. My sis-in-law Genean and her husband Boyd were moving on Saturday. Jared and his brother David went to help Boyd move some more things Sat. evening after dinner. The girls, Jenny, Genean and I hung out at their new house.

Well, the boys were taking a super long time. Apparently the power went out at the storage unit where Boyd and Genean had a few things and the boys were stuck inside because of the electric gate. They had to call Jared's Dad to come get them, but while waiting they needed to hop the barbed wire fence, in the pouring rain, with lots of lightening.

After that they needed to come rescue the girls. Well, trees were falling left and right. They had to off road around a few. Power was going out everywhere. It was exciting. Good thing Jared's Dad has a back-up generator because the kids can't sleep at night without their fans going. The ear plugs went in again for Jared and I, if you've ever heard a generator going you'd understand why.

All in all everything turned out ok, Jared and I got out of the sand pit, the upstairs floor is dry, and we retrieved our cars from the storage unit and were able to enjoy a beautiful, BUT HOT Sunday!

Charleston, SC

Friday Jared and I took the kids down to Charleston to go to the beach and enjoy America's #1 friendliest city. Unfortunately I did not take a ton of photos, especially of the beautiful houses that are historical and are well preserved.

We caught some amazing clouds.

Ate some delicious crab cakes and Charleston Crab House.

OK, so the highlight for me was going to the Piggly Wiggly. The kids really couldn't understand why I thought it was so cool. Well, 1. The Name and 2. It's always fun to go somewhere that you've only seen in movies.

I was so proud of them for being environmentally friendly and selling reusable grocery bags for $.99.

My sis-in-law got Moonpies and couldn't believe that I'd never heard of them. See, America is great, you go to a different state and it's like you're in another country, because they talk different and have different food in the grocery store.

The next day we drove around a bit. Here's a nice ol' southern church.

I just liked the look of these old beat up houses.

Charleston is like the Bay Area, in that there are lots of bridges.

Then we explored Fort Moultrie. Learned a bit about the Civil War.

Gained a bit more patriotism.

I liked the contrast of this roof against the blue sky.