Seven Twenty-Five Oh-Nine

Hi Everybody!

Wow, this is a long blog because I've been quite neglectful of it recently.. but big changes have happened recently.. the biggest, of course, is my impending wedding in October.. but I've also finished residency and started a job at Kaiser here in San Jose in Northern California.. Moved to a new place (plenty of room for visitors!) much closer to Amy.. but all is well and I'm looking forward to seeing many of you in October! Included in this episode are pics from last year's ski trip, my brothers visiting LA, a couple trips to Vegas, Jeff's Bachelor Party weekend and Jeff's Wedding, Harsha's birthday weekend, my recent trip to Peru and several small babies... enjoy!

And please drop me an email if I haven't heard from you for a while and if you're in the bay area, come stay with us!

-Nik

Let's start with our now Annual Ski trip in January to Tahoe..

Here's a great group picture of us at McDonald's before we head off to the slopes...

Amy looks kind of like she's smiling but if you look closely you'll see she's really terrified out of her mind.. we both always face plant getting off the ski lift..

After skiing, we went to Reno.. Amy with Barry Bigfoot Bear.. he's a new addition to our collection of many stuffed animals :)

I also won a bunch of mini Shreks at the Hammer-the-Chicken-into-the-Pot game.. really, it was the easiest game of the boardwalk..

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My brothers came to visit at the end of the year..

Xmas stuff and us at the Grove in LA.. I'm still sad that they cut down this giant tree every year for the Christmas tree.. but I guess it happens in a lot of places..

Waiting in line for dumplings at Din Tai Fung.. this place is famous for Xia Lom Bao (shanghai style soup dumplings)..

Chris and I.. the dumplings were pretty good.. though we noticed most of their dumpling makers were Mexican..

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Amy and I went to Vegas in February for fun..

The fountains at the Bellagio.. they were pretty cool but the fountain I saw in Barcelona was still cooler..

I hadn't been to Vegas in like 10 years so it was nice to see all the extravegant new hotels like the Bellagio, Wynn, Venezia and such.. We didn't gamble at all though..

We hit the Wynn Buffet.. made it in right at the end of lunch, which means we paid less but got the dinner entrees.. score!

What's scary is that the thing I'm holding is not a candle but the drawn butter used to dip the crab in after it got cold.. holy coronary, Batman!

Nothing says Vegas like a giant slot machine..

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For Jeff's bachelor party weekend, we all went to Houston to bring the party to Jeremy.. I tried to get these guys to do something risque but the most Jeff did was wear the hotel robe and sip scotch :)

A toast to Jeff..

We decided to dare ourselves by jumping into the pool in the chill night air.. turns out the pool was heated.. thank god or I would have died from hypothermia..

A brunch at Jeremy's before we all left Houston.. good times..

Soon after came Jeff's wedding weekend.. Reddy, Edwards and I took a road trip up to SF.. I convinced them to take an hour long detour to get Popeye's.. yeah!

Getting ready in Jeff's room.. this is some good lookin' peoples!

Jeff and Gloria during their first dance.. they look great.. need I say more?

A number of our friends are having babies.. here's Barb with her little Audriana..

We also took a weekend trip in May for Harsha's Birthday.. this year we decided to change it up from the pure desolate nature to nature with a side of Vegas.. Reddy and I made everyone get up at 3am and we drove to Death Valley.. this is the sun coming up over the desert..

The Castellanos brothers.. looking all sensitive artisty..

We found this awesome abandoned house.. got some spectacular pictures with the clouds in the back..

After that we went to Vegas and walked about.. what do you mean this isn't the bathroom at the Bellagio???

Makin' millions at the electronic poker.. I actually did make about $20.. sweet!

On our way back, Reddy just had to get one more picture of the desert... if you zoom in you can see him on the lower right..

In late May, Amy and I took a trip to the East Coast..

Our first stop was at Mike's Pastry in the North End for the famous canoli's.. Amy approved!

Messing with the statuary on the Freedom Trail..

.. and in front of Trinity Church.. The Tortoise and the Hare!

The reason we went was for Andy Wang's wedding actually... I was a groomsman for the first time.. Amy on the Cliff walk near Providence..

Looking sophisticated in front of my mansion.. he hee..

Sensitive artist shot of Amy against bright blue sky..

The energy of the party was Ron's son, Luke.. he's very cute and got so much energy (in fact, he's just a blur in this picture :)

After I taught Luke how to roll down the hill, we did it over and over until I was exhausted and then he sat on me..

I think they mixed up Luke's and my tux shirts.. all fun and games until you can't breath cause your shirt is choking you..

After Boston we went to NYC where we met up with Siavosh and Greg and Suzanne and Neil.. this is a picture of Amy at Max Brenner's.. they run real chocolate in those pipes!

On our last dinner together before leaving LA we went to the Hunan Taste (we called it the Human Taste) to celebrate.. it was the first restaurant we went to when we got to LA so it was apropo to go.. but the food there isn't so great.. we only went to it those two times..

The Taste of Human...

In June, we also went to Minh and Denise's wedding.. wow, seems just like yesterday we were all doing internship together.. Congrats, you two!

It was quite the reunion actually.. A bunch of use from internship were there.. I really like this picture :)

Messing around with the centerpieces.. they were really nice.. and probably pricey.. that's why we're making out own on the cheap!

Amy and I dancing at Minh and Denise's wedding.. she's a touch drunk but she's funny when she it so I encourage it :)

I look funny here because Amy just head butted me.. oowww..

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For our big international trip this year, we went to Lima.. Harsha and Amy weren't able to coordinate their schedules so I went to Macchu Picchu twice! Once with each of them..

Amy and me in Lima on the shore.. it was quite nice when sunny and there were all these parasailers swooping around the cliffs..

Amy had to get a couple pictures with the cute alpaca baby.. that's what they make all the soft clothes and tourista hats from..

All of us on the one day we overlapped... We had excellent ceviche (raw seafood and veggies marinated in lime juice) at this place in the Mira Flores district in Lima.. (and no, Alice, we didn't have any guinea pig (it's served rosted in Cuzco)..

There was this ice cream place that decorated their scoops, like the Spider-man.. Very creative.. we thought of importing the idea to the US..

Reddy and I at Ollantaytambo town.. the rock looks like a face in profile :)

Some of the buildings at Macchu Picchu.. you can see the terraces going all the way up the mountain in the background..

The sun rising over one of the sacred mountains surrounding Macchu Picchu..

This was one of the coolest things we saw.. it's a salt field.. the weird thing is it's in the mountains and all stems from this one salty river..

The salt fields cover over half the mountain side.. and it all starts from this little stream flowing out of the mountain.. where does all this salt come from?

The workers in the salt fields.. now that's tough working conditions..

A close-up of one of the salt pools.. really cool to see all the salt crystals forming on the surface.. this entire place was very other worldly..

One of the Incan sites in the Sacred Valley called Moray.. supposedly each different level of the terraces had a slighty different climate which they used for testing different types of crops..

The Incan slip and slide.. They are bigger than they look and kind of scary to go down..

One of the churches in Cuzco at night.. I was quite proud of the mini-tripod's ability here..

He builds stone fortresses single handedly overnight.. He is the most interesting man in the world.. This is the Sacsaywuman fortress.. look at those huge stones!---

Slowly, I am integrating myself into the Huang Family.. we went to Outback Steak House for Amy's mom's birthday..

A couple weeks ago, we also went to Vancouver to visit Amy's grandma.. she's 95 this year! And still pretty with it too :)

This is a picture of me climbing into Kristin's house sometime earlier this year.. They were cooking upstairs and didn't hear the doorbell so I climbed up the fence, onto a bush and then onto the balcony.. Amy says she was scared for my life..

I'll end with a picture of me and Kari.. She's Sabrina's daughter (one of Amy's good friends).. she's such a happy baby.. it's cause she's half-Thai .. Hope everyone is well.. let me know how life is or if you're coming to the bay area! Take care, everybody!