This is the virtual home of the Udkow family (pronounced "uhd-koh"). This website is run by Ben, so it mainly features pictures of and stories by Ben, Tammy, Maya (born March 24, 2007) and Owen (born July 1, 2009). Most of our "adventures" now involve playdates and walks around the neighborhood, but we do mix in the occasional trip to somewhere with a beach, pool or comfortable couch.
For those of you who don't know and are wondering, Tammy is a Pharmacist and Ben is a Network Engineer with Verizon Wireless. Maya and Owen are currently unemployed. Gail and Mike have both retired from Kaiser Permanente. Mike to a life of skiing, biking, cleaning and babysitting Maya, and Gail to a life of piano lessons, babysitting Maya and enjoying quiet time while Mike is skiing. Jonathan works at Rosenblum Cellars (you can read his wine blog here), and Flavia works at the Palomar Hotel in San Francisco.
Photos of Maya and Owen
I'm taking a photo-a-day of both Maya and Owen. Maya's daily photo is called My Maya-A-Day and Owen's daily photo is called One Owen-A-Day. Each day since they were was born (Maya on March 24, 2007 and Owen on July 1, 2009) I take a photo of each of them and post it that same day to allow everyone to see how they are growing and progressing. The photos under "My Maya-A-Day" and "One Owen-A-Day" on the left side of Udkow.com will always be the latest photo for each of them.
In addition, any photos that don't make the cut as My Maya-A-Day or One Owen-A-Day will be posted under the month they're taken in Monthly Maya or Monthly Owen.
Finally, to view all the photos that have been added in the past five days, you can click on Recently Added Photos of Maya and Recently Added Photos of Owen. All three of these collections, as well as photos of firsts, movies, etc can all be viewed under Maya and Owenin the main Udkow.com Photo Gallery.
Welcome Owen Posted by ben on Thursday, July 02 @ 00:06:10 PDT
Owen Udkow was born at 5:26 on July 1, 2009. He weighed in at 8lbs 5oz and is adorable. :) He's been sleeping a lot and letting Mommy rest so far. We plan to take him home on Thursday as long as both baby and Mommy continue to do great. Maya so far is in love with him and keeps giving him kissies and hugs. :)
Of course I'm doing a photo a day of him (called "One Owen-A-Day").
Goodbye Troy Posted by ben on Thursday, June 11 @ 12:46:01 PDT
Last night my parents' dog Troy had to be put to sleep. She was about 15 years old.
She was clearly my parents' favorite child. At first Maya was scared of Troy (as with all things furry), but recently Maya had become much more comfortable around Troy and would laugh and giggle when she dared to pet her.
Troy was a great dog and her constant--though not annoying--begging at the table (which usually left a nice wet drool mark on a pants leg), throwing and fetching her own ball in the backyard and general "Troyness" (if you met her you know what that means) will definitely be missed.
We had a delicious Passover Dinner at the Ram house on Wednesday night. Not surprisingly Maya was the hit of the evening. She had a great time playing with everyone there and especially loved the matzoh and haroset.
On Saturday we went to the Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39 in San Francisco. It's actually a really neat aquarium with tunnels through the tanks so you can walk under the fish. Maya especially liked "tickling" the fish that were up against the glass. I think her favorite were the starfish, but she also did like the sharks. However, she's still talking about how the "Seal smell pee-u" (they really do).
Maya had a lot of fun celebrating her 2nd birthday on Saturday. She loved seeing all her family and friends and running around with everyone. However, Maya being Maya, she didn't eat a single bite of cake. (Doesn't eat cake, is thin, and wakes up early and happy every morning...We're pretty sure she's ours, but we're still waiting on the tests.) The weather was perfect and the enormous party next to us with 30 4-year olds didn't start until after we had left. Thanks to everyone who came. :-)
We found out on Friday that Maya will be getting a baby brother. :-) Unfortunately this means that we'll have to buy all new clothes, but on the plus side the daily photos of #2 will be in all new outfits (rather than repeats of My Maya-a-Day photos).
I am definitely intending to do a daily photo of #2 as well. I mean, how could I not? :-) I'll probably do some "dual posts" of the two of them for the same day, but we'll see. We haven't decided if we'll be doing the Walrus photos again, but they were fun until Maya started hating the Walrus.
By the way, we are not planning on revealing the name of #2 until he is born, so it'll be something for everyone to look forward to (Tammy shot down "Benjamin Jr."). Right now there are a couple ultrasound photos, one of which CLEARLY shows that he is going to be a boy. :-D
Tammy, Maya and I took a trip to Sayulita, Mexico. What? Never heard of it? We hadn't either before our neighbors told us about it (thanks Bart and Amy). Sayulita is a small town of about 2500 people 45-minutes North West of Puerto Vallarta. Even though you fly into Puerto Vallarta which is 2-hours ahead of California, Sayulita itself is across a timezone so it is only 1-hour ahead. Perfect for avoiding jetlag with Maya.
The flight was direct from SFO (excellent with a baby) and the shuttle company provided a car seat, so we didn't have to worry about schlepping one along with us. We brought the stroller, but only used it as a barrier to keep Maya in the room and to carry our stuff at the airport. Next time we would definitely just leave it at home. (The roads are quite bumpy and uneven and the sidewalks usually have big steps, so maneuvering a stroller is much more difficult than just carrying Maya.)
The best way to describe it is an "authentic Mexican town". It's the type of place where wild dogs run around just looking for someone to throw a coconut husk for them to chase, kids play soccer in the town square, and the food is fresh, affordable and delicious. It's a place where we never felt unsafe, even walking down unlit dirt roads at night with Maya.
There are (currently) no resorts or big hotels anywhere in the city, so accommodations are rented houses, apartments or bungalows. We stayed at a place called Casa Campana in a 1-bedroom bungalow on the beach with a pool (the property had another 1-bedroom unit, a 3-bedroom unit and the owners property). The room was good sized, clean and comfortable, and the toilet and shower were outside! It was really odd at first, but after getting used to it it was very cool. :D We would STRONGLY recommend Casa Campana if anyone is looking for a place to stay in Sayulita. The location, the rooms, everything was fantastic.
Basically our week consisted of the following: wake up (generally much earlier than we would have liked thanks to Maya, but hey, can't argue with her internal clock), sit on the balcony overlooking the pool and beach and eat "Cheerios Multigrano" (Multigrain Cheerios). After we felt sufficiently relaxed and motivated, we'd put Maya in the Ergo carrier (on my back) and take a nice long walk down the beach. Generally we'd encounter a handful of people doing the same thing, and most people would stop to strike-up a conversation or say hi to Maya. We also regularly saw horses, dogs and early morning sunbathers soaking up every minute of the warm sun.
After we got back towards our part of the beach the nice ladies with the fruit stand would usually be up and running. We'd be able to buy delicious watermelon, pineapple, fresh OJ, etc. It always was so yummy and usually Maya ate as much as we did. :D We'd plop down on the sand and let Maya play in the "sandbox" or splash in the ocean while one of us bought fresh made smoothies. Around lunch time we'd buy sandwiches (there were the best panini's there) so we didn't "OD" on Mexican food. Lunch would usually be enjoyed on the balcony to reduce the ratio of sand to sandwich. :D After lunch Maya (and sometimes all of us) would take a nice nap.
While we may seem like the adventurous types (ha) we actually ate all seven of our dinners at only three different restaurants. The first night we ate at a place called Sayulita Fish Taco, which had delicious guacamole, but the rest of the food was "eh". The other nights we alternated between Sayulita Cafe (aka Chile Rellenos) and Calypso. Each place had their own special dishes, and everything we had was amazing. Sayulita Cafe had delicious chicken mole, a unique dish called Molcajete Azteca (sausage, chicken, cheese, veggies served in a spicy sauce inside of a boiling hot stone bowl), and flaming fajitas (they lit them on fire at the table...quite a sight). Calypso had the best seared ahi tuna I've ever had, and their coconut crusted fish used fresh coconut and was delicious (Maya ate half of Tammy's dinner). :-)
Since we were on vacation, each night we'd stroll over to the ice cream parlor to see if Maya wanted any dessert. When we'd walk in the nice lady behind the counter would say "hola Maya" and Maya would start saying "green ice cream!" (color, not flavor was what was important). However, when we'd ask "do you want ice cream?" most nights she would say "no!". It's not clear how a baby of ours could turn down ice cream...We'd usually stay outside the ice cream parlor and watch the local kids run around, or look at the carts selling pies, sweets and deep fried bacon wrapped hot dogs (seriously).
At this point I think I need to mention the "pillow story". On the second night as I was getting the bed ready for us, I grabbed one of the pillows. There was something lumpy in it so I took a look. "Huh", I innocently opined, "some kid must have left his toy lizard." As I pulled on the "toy lizard's" tail, the tail pulled back. At this point I threw the pillow onto the bed and (as Tammy would later tell anyone who would listen) "screamed like a girl". Now, I don't know about that, but I do know that I was a bit surprised to say the least. So I took the pillow outside and managed to dump the lizard out. This thing was a FOOT LONG. I'm serious. It was huge. And it was in our pillow. So, needless to say each night after that began with a sweep of the bed that would make the Secret Service proud. We didn't find any more lizards in our room, but we did get a thrill out of seeing the MUCH larger iguana's climbing the trees (they up to two feet long).
Unlike most people, after a week or so of vacation Tammy and I both actually look forward to getting back home and resuming our routine. However, on this trip we were really REALLY disappointed to have to leave. Even with a 21-month old, it was the most relaxing trip we'd ever been on. If not for the daily posting of My Maya-a-Day photos, we would have gone a whole week without the headaches of technology and modern life. We'll see how things are when baby #2 gets here, but we're already talking about returning this coming December (though a 6-month old AND a 2.5 year old changes things a bit). Hopefully Sayulita doesn't get too commercialized and developed, and before it does we hope to return a couple more times to sit on the sand and just watch the waves break on the shore. :-)
