Dates

It's always such a treat when Darin and I get to go OUT on a date, like, not just the stay-at-home Netflix and popcorn Friday night date (which we definitely love as well, especially right now as we are hooked on Occupied). But going OUTSIDE of our house is pretty great. 

While my parents were here for Belén's birthday we were hoping to be able to go up to the temple for our date. It's been like, a year since we've been able to go to the temple together and were really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. The temple was closed for maintenance (good thing you have to call ahead for a reservation). This is the third time we've tried to go together since being here and none have worked out. The first time, we were literally walking out the door when I realized I had no idea where my recommend was. The second was over Thanksgiving break while Darin's mom was here. The temple only had evening sessions the day we could go, not day sessions and Belén was still nursing in the evening then so I didn't want to leave her or bring her to the temple so late (about a 6 hour trip there and back including the session). So yes, that was a little frustrating. We'll get there together some day, I hope.

We still took advantage of my parents being here and went to The Cornell Chimes concert at McGraw tower and then visited the art museum. We climbed all 161 stairs to the top of the tower. It was really cool to see the big clock from the inside.

This is the little area inside the tower where we got to listen to the 20 minute concert. 

She played a wake up song (played at 10:15 a.m. on Saturdays, but at 7 a.m. on weekdays), then she played 4 Les Miserable songs which was really cool considering how much we love that music.

At one point during the concert we stepped outside where the bells were. It was LOUD, but breathtaking. I just can't get enough of this beautiful place.

 

After the concert we walked over to the Johnson Art Museum. I was really impressed with how big the museum was. I did not expect it to have so many exhibits. 

 

 That view again. The top floor of the museum had a big open window looking out over the lake. We will definitely have to come back in the fall.

 That quilt! 

There was an entire floor of Asian art which we really enjoyed. It gave us an itch for Asian food so we tried something new and went to a Vietnamese restaurant. Everyone raves about Pho so we tried some. Neither of us loved it. There just wasn't much flavor to it. I think we'll have to go somewhere else someday because we weren't very impressed with the restaurant in general. Kind of a sad ending to our date, but we still had a really good time. (Thanks mom and dad for watching the kids!)

Then last Friday Darin asked me to go to Indonight (A taste of Indonesia) with him on campus. (Thanks AshLee and Conner for making this possible!) We're hoping to spend some time in Indonesia at some point in the future, so it was really fun to get a taste of the food and culture, and I got to meet Darin's Indonesian teacher which was nice as well. 

The evening was set up so that we received a course of food every half hour or so and while eating there were musical numbers, dances, and trivia questions about Indonesia. The first musical presentation was Gamelan (traditional Indonesian ensemble made of mostly percussive instruments originating in Java). It was...interesting...kind of loud and it didn't sound like anything really went together...but I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to Gamelan. There's a Gamelan class on campus so maybe I'll convince Darin to take it so that we can learn to appreciate it more.

(I forgot my camera so please excuse the blurry phone pics).

I really enjoyed the dance numbers. Tari Topeng Blantek is a traditional mask dance. She started out without a mask, then put this white one on, and then ended with a red mask. Very cool.

We finished the night by learning how to dance Poco-Poco (Indonesian line dance). Darin caught on quickly. He's a stud when it comes to dance moves.

No one else but me probably cares what we ate but for memory sake I'm writing it down. The appetizer was Gado-Gado (blanched vegetables with egg, tofu, chopped veggie fritter, garlic crackers, and peanut sauce). For the main course we got to try Beef Rendang (our favorite), Opor Ayam (Chicken in a white curry sauce), Sambal Goreng Kentagng (potatoes cooked in spicy red pepper sauce), and Oseng Kale (Sauted kale with spices and soy sauce). We ate everything with Nasi Putih (rice) of course. For dessert we had Bubur Pacar Cina (sweet tapioca dessert in coconut milk). 

After it was done, while walking back to our car we stopped at a building where we could look out over Ithaca. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but the lights and the moon were just perfect. I couldn't help but think about how blessed we are to be here in Ithaca, at Cornell. Darin has worked so hard to get here and has worked extremely hard every single day since we've been here (at school, at work, at being a dad, at pleasing his wife). I love being here with him and I especially love that I don't have papers to write and thousands of pages of reading to get through each week :). 

I can't imagine a better place to be for a super long graduate program. Ithaca, you've won us over easily (as long as this almost spring but not really spring snow doesn't keep up too much, okay?)