Celebrating With Dear Old Friends

We've known the Yousefians since our girls were young. They are like family. Our girls and Neda and Saba are like sisters. We may not see each other for many weeks but when we get together it feels like coming home.

Today was a 'coming home' of sorts, with Saba on break after finishing her third year of residency in Pennsylvania and Neda and Freddy visiting from Germany for the first time as a married couple. The grandmas were there, aunts, uncles, cousins, and Baha'i friends as well. It was a wonderful gathering. As always, Marzieh cooked her delicious food and even made two vegan dishes for us (she's an on-again off-again vegetarian so this is an area she knows well.)

Mehrdad and Marzieh in the kitchen (one of the grandmas on the right) working their culinary magic.

We celebrated Saba finishing her residency. She plans to take a bit of a break but will do some locum tenens work (physicians who fill in for other physicians on a temporary basis) in various locations to keep her skills up. She was talking about going to New Zealand. My dad used to talk about going to New Zealand. It just seems so far away....

Neda and Freddy got married in May in the quaint, beautiful village in Germany where they currently live. They were talking about having to find jobs when they go back. Ahh... the reality of settling down.

The rest of the pics are of people. Here the boys are staring at the cake, willing it into their mouths. Behind them are Gabriel, Lua, Freddy and Neda.

Neda and Freddy said the cake was really hard to cut into and laughed at their struggles.

Apparently they didn't get to feed each other wedding cake at their reception so they did it today.

Saba got help from both her sisters, though with her new surgical skills she probably didn't need any help.

Grandma Vafai, Shirin, Saba, Grandma Yousefian, Sharareh with her mom and dad.

Sharareh's parents again, Doug, Willie, and Richard on the couch.

The two grandmothers catching up over cake and tea.

Uncle Jamshid and cousin Elham.

Elham's boyfriend Bashir (she and Bashir are applying for med school.) With all the doctors and potential doctors in the room I felt right at home.

Saeed and Saba.

Kai enjoying his lemon cake.

Sorry Shirin, I have to post this picture. Shirin, Cyrus, and Willie.

I didn't get a picture of Kamran and Aram who came later, but they were there as well. I also didn't get a picture of Shirin's vegan carrot banana nut cake (which looked like a little hobo next to the professionally decorated cakes!) but it was scrumptious. I was very grateful to her for making it.

Lunch In The Middle(-ish)

We met up with Tita and Daniel for lunch today in Columbia. It's definitely a longer drive for them than for us but it is sort of a mid-point between our two cities. We were hoping they could come home this weekend due to a gathering at the Yousefians on Sunday but Daniel and his brothers are participating in a triathlon tomorrow, so lunch in Columbia was a good compromise.

Both of the girls and Daniel went to USC. The girls always talked about one of their favorite restaurants, Blue Cactus, owned and run by an American man and his Korean wife. It turns out that both Tita and Daniel lived in apartments above the restaurant during different but overlapping years. Daniel realized after clarifying the years Tita lived in Columbia that she was actually the girl Daniel knew as "Saskia's roommate." How about that for coincidence!

Blue Cactus serves both Korean and non-Korean food and seems to have a loyal following. We had actually eaten there before when the girls were still students at USC. I wondered if the married couple were still there. They are indeed. 

The weather, for Columbia in July, was very comfortable. We were able to eat outside in the fresh air (other than periodic cigarette smoke from students passing by and the older gentleman you see in the back of the picture) and I enjoyed myself very much.

Tita ordered "tofu fingers", something we would never order because they are fried, but they were delicious!! I followed Daniel's lead and dipped it in the soy sauce concoction first and then the other sauce and my gosh it was yummy.

 We all ordered  bibimbap, a signature Korean dish. The word literally means "mixed rice". Bibimbap is served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with namul (a general term for a Korean seasoned vegetable dish) and gochujang (chili pepper paste), soy sauce, or doenjang, a salty soybean paste. here's a picture off the web:

Here's mine before I put the gochujang sauce on, and of course without the egg. Tita explained that it's important to mix everything up with the gochujang sauce and I did as I was told. It was definitely made with fresh ingredients by someone who knew what they were doing and it was good, but I'm not sure it would ever be my favorite. I'll probably try something else next time.

I'm not sure what Saeed was thinking but I wanted to include this picture because I think Daniel looks very handsome and is certainly performing admirably with his chopsticks.

Although Shirin and her family didn't join us she placed her order for her favorite Korean tofu soup that we brought back home for her. Saeed, of course, wanted to tease her that "oh sorry, we forgot" or "oh sorry, we got bibimbap instead" but I knew better than to let him do that. You don't stand between Shirin and her food. Hey Shirin, it's in the refrigerator so don't let him tell you otherwise. Sigh, I'm always protecting my children from the Persian tease master.

Hey ya'll, next time let's go to Al-Amir on Main. To be continued...

Experimenting With The Videos

OK. Can you guys go to the two previous posts now and let me know if you can watch the videos?

The Fourth Of July In Charleston

As I said, I'll take better pics next time, and I only took pics of our visit to the beach. Even so, it brings back good memories.

While most of us go to the beach to swim, talk, read, and/or get some sun, Saeed goes to the beach to sleep. There's something about the heat, being away from the demands of life, and perhaps the sound of the waves (?) that performs better than any sleeping pill on the market. He slept the whole time we were there. A few dogs came up and sniffed him and a game of running bases came within inches of him, but he slept through it all.

Tita with a few of her nieces and nephews.

Daniel's brother, Jake, bought his kids a surf board and spent most of his water time pushing them through the waves on it. Here he's getting ready to push Cyrus toward shore.

Here he is on his first surf board ride (it's blurry because I had zoomed to take a close up and forgot to unzoom it before starting filming, sorry.)

And just general water fun:

We had hoped to connect with Daniel's parents while there but they were in NY. We did meet up with his aunt and uncle whom we like very much and had a lovely visit before we left to come back home.

Returning To The Blogosphere With A New Computer

I haven't blogged in months because my computer was on the fritz. My son-in-law took pity on me (and he loves to build computers) and refurbished mine to near new condition. Yay! So my first post back is one about the simple pleasures of life, like spending the day with family.

Shirin worked this morning at the vet office so we had the bubsies till she returned at about one. We did all our favorite things: ate yummy food, read books, played games, and drew monsters. Some of the finished monsters went home with their creators, but some got to stay at Nama and Baba's house.

One of the artists at work.

The Monster Posse

Baba taught the boys about composting.

Hellooooooooo in there! (talking to the worms)

Turning the heavy drum over was hard work.

Kai lent a helping hand.

 

 Mommy, still in her scrubs, poses with Cyrus...

... the boys' Baba...

... and Kai.

Then a thunderstorm and some rain brought out the dancing: