Cousins in New York

The 6 Hill cousins live large for a weekend in New York: Adam and Rachel live there, Ryan and Eunice used to, Nate and Eddie had never been before... but none of us have seen the Big Apple like this!

Brian and Ellen's Wedding

We headed out to Baltimore for Brian and Ellen's wedding... Click here for a slideshow of our photos! (and let us know what you think about this new addition to our site!)


We headed out to Baltimore for Brian and Ellen's wedding... here's the snazzy couple in their stylish "bride" and "groom" hats.


We spent the day of the wedding with Jesse and Eileen, touring the nearby battleground of Gettysburg, the site of the largest battle in the Civil War. We got an audio CD to play as we drove around, complete with historical facts and the ocassional battleground background noise to add to the excitement. Made us _almost_ understand the enthusiasm of the re-enactment buffs who come here each year!!

Eunice, Eileen, and Jesse brave the howling winds to defend Little Round Top

The wedding itself was wonderful. A special surprise was seeing Spencer and Marney, visiting from Cambridge. Spencer is a Australian friend of Ryan's from back in high school-- always fantastic to have some time to hang out!

We spent Sunday with Cora in Washington DC. It was a little too early for the cherry blossoms to be in full force, but we managed to find a single tree with the famous flowers on a great walk around the Jefferson memorial.

Funniest part of the weekend: screaching to the side of the road in rural Pennsylvania after seeing this roadside restaurant: Eunice's "A Little Touch of Heaven" Restaurant. Eunice was the Quaker grandmother who founded the place, and there's still a whiteboard for prayer requests when you walk in (top request: pray for the animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina). We had to get Eunice a hoodie, complete with a halo around the "E" in Eunice. That's my Eunice: a little touch of heaven!

Its a boy!

The doctor is 90% sure... its a boy! Our second sonogram shows a healthy litte guy, moving around a ton and generally giving mom a hard time (not really). The video is pretty incredible-- its easy to imagine a personality already. The real question: does he look more like a Waukegan or an Ajax? :)

Home sweet home!

Welcome to our new home in San Mateo! Room for our growing family, blocks off a main street with lots of good restaurants, in a cute neighborhood with a good school district, half way between San Francisco and Palo Alto... just about perfect! We saw the open house on the way to drop Ryan off at the airport for a week in Germany, singed the papers in the car 30 minutes later, and took care of the rest via fax and email 6000 miles apart. Gotta love buying at what feels like the top of the market.... Crazy!


Moving day was the next weekend... our moving truck was bigger than our house!


Eunice breaks the record for time till first parking ticket... on the windshield before the moving truck leaves the driveway.


This courtyard is one of our favorite parts of the house: the living room and dining room open out to a sunny brick patio perfect for al fresco dining


The backyard has a nice wooden deck and a small grass yard, perfect for a cozy BBQ.


Finally no running outside to do laundry!


And an entire drawer of the freezer dedicated to homemade dumplings imported from Monterey Park.


A decent size kitchen with a full set of appliances...


Plus a spare bedroom for "junior" (useful for storing boxes in the meantime!)


Our first visitors: Dad and Nancy come down from San Francisco. Things are still looking a little bare, but we're on our way!


Home sweet home!

Brian's Bachelor Party

Ryan spent a weekend away at the bachelor party of his New York roommate Brian Elieson, held in the Cascade mountains of Washington state. I caught the last flight out of San Francisco on Friday after work, which meant carpooling to arrive at the cabin after 2 in the morning, only to find ourselves locked out and without a bed to sleep on... rough start!


The house was fantastic, complete with sauna, jacuzzi, and (most importantly) a fooseball table


Yummy flank steak dinner was complemented by gag gifts for Brian and shots of Jack Daniels.


We got out of the house to enjoy a snowshoeing expedition into the Cascades.


NY roommates reunited a long way from Manhattan... at the summit!


Rock stars on the descent.


Farewell to bachelorhood, Brian!

Arastradero Hike

A beautiful February day for a final hike in Palo Alto with our friends Jesse, Eileen, Lee and KB.


The green hills of the Arastradero Open Space Preserve


Ryan, KB, and Jesse climb the hill to catch up with Eunice and Eileen.


The boys at the top of the hill, overlooking the South Bay, the Dish, and NASA's Aimes Space Center


Jesse, Eileen, Ryan, Eunice, Lee, and KB... winter in California is tough!

Sundance Film Festival

The exhausting 2006 Sundance Film Festival: 4 days, 6 people, ~10 movies per person, 12" of snow, and a little bit of skiing and snowshoeing to top it all off!


Crowds, crowds, and more crowds. Mastering the logistics of Sundance is a fine art-- we'll have to go back to just to exercise everything we learned this year.


Park City turns into a madhouse: we were lucky to score a great condo right in the center of town within walking distance of the Egyptian Theatre, the ski lift, and lots of good people-watching.


The movies-- we were lucky to see many of the audience award-winners:

• Right at Your Door, a thriller about a man trapped during a bio-chemical attack on LA
• God Grew Tired of Us, a documentary about the Lost Boys of Sudan
• Quincenera, a drama about life as a latino teenager in Echo Park
• Eva and the Fire Horse, a very funny story about a Chinese girl's spirtual journey
  

We were too busy watching movies to really get into the Sundance nightlife, but did have a good but overpriced night out on the town. Here's the crew: Ryan, Alonzo, Grace, Eileen, Jesse, and Eunice.


It snowed the entire weekend, which meant lots of good activities outside of the movie theatre!


Jesse and Ryan on the top of the slopes...


And Alonzo, ready for some fresh tracks on the way down!


Fresh Utah Powder


Jesse and I spent a movie-free afternoon snowshoeing oustide of town


Did someone say fresh Utah Powder? Farewell Sundance!

Death Valley Roadtrip: Our Last Adventure of 2005

After spending Christmas with family in the Bay Area, we woke up before the crack of dawn on December 27th, packed up the Xterra, picked up Grace and Alonzo, and headed south for Death Valley, embarking on our last adventure of 2005!



Several hours into our 400-mile journey, we happily traded highways and towns for fields of cactus and desert scrub.



Finally, we caught our first glimpse of Death Valley's vast desert vistas, salt flats, and mineral-enriched mountains.



This rusty, bullet-hole ridden pickup truck somehow fit in perfectly with the barren landscape.



We arrived in Ballarat, an old mining ghost town with a few dilapidated buildings and a "museum" where we purchased a $0.25 Mountain Dew in exchange for some advice on off-roading conditions in the area.



Armed with $0.25 worth of information, we headed with confidence up Pleasant Canyon's rough and narrow 4x4 trail.



An hour and a half later, miles from civilization (i.e., Ballarat ghost town!), our trusty Xterra got a spectacular flat tire...



...No worries, though. We got the flat just as we pulled into our destination for the evening, a rustic cabin built and maintained entirely by local volunteers. We unfurled the cabin's American flag to indicate the place was occupied, set up camp chairs, and celebrated a successful first day with wine, cheese, salami, and pears.



Before the chill of night set in, Alonzo started a fire in the cabin's wood-burning furnance. The cabin also came with a propane-powered gas stove, sink, solar-powered lights (perfect for playing poker later that evening), and cots. And, as promised by one of the locals we met in Ballarat who helps maintain the cabin, there was even an outhouse, complete with toilet paper and seat covers, "which the ladies will LOVE!"



Sunset view from the cabin, looking back down Pleasant Canyon.



The next morning, we replaced the Xterra's flat tire with a spare, put away the American flag, cleaned up our trash, packed everything back into the car and headed out of Pleasant Canyon.



On our way out, we explored a fascinating mining ghost town.



In addition to fallen buildings, old machinery, and boarded up mine shafts, we also ran across rusty tanks labeled "Cyanide Poison."



Grace, exploring an old mining building.



It took the entire morning to make our way out of the mountains to Furnance Creek Visitor Center where we spent a logistics-heavy afternoon stocking up on water and fire wood and finding someone who could fix our flat. Afterwards, we had just enough time before dark for Artists' Drive loop, where we hopped out of the car every few minutes to explore the mineral-filled mountains.



Eunice and Ryan, stealing a smooch while checking out the cool terrain.



Grace and Eunice, posing in front of salt flats below sea level as the setting sun hits the distant mountains.



We were treated to a picture-perfect sunset as we headed off-road to our camp spot for the night in Echo Canyon.



Alonzo and Grace cooked up delicious dinners, night after night. Steaks one night, chicken curry another, spaghetti with clam sauce the next night. Talk about eating in style!



We woke up the next morning and saw for the first time what a spectacular canyon we had stumbled upon as our campsite.



After packing up and navigating washboarded roads out of Echo Canyon, we headed north, stopping to scramble down to the bottom of Ubehebe Crater, an old volcano.



A close up of Death Valley's desert holly which flowers in the winter. Its silver-colored leaves reflect sunlight, allowing it to survive in low moisture, intense sunlight environments.



On our way to the "Racetrack," we stopped at quirky Teakettle Junction, where a hand-painted sign clutterred with tea kettles told us we were still 6 miles from our destination.



Finally, we reached Death Valley's mysterious "Racetrack," a vast, dry lakebed to the west of the Panamint mountain range. We grabbed lunch on top of the "Grandstand," large rock formations located on the north side of the Racetrack.



After lunch, Grace and Eunice wandered along the sun-cracked floor of the Racetrack.



Close-up view of the cracked lakebed.



View of the Grandstand.



Scientists believe that the phenomenon of the Racetrack's mysterious "moving rocks" is caused when rain wets down the lakebed and a strong wind blows the rocks along the ground, creating lines in the lakebed. To this day, nobody has ever actually seen the rocks move (except for Grace, who claims she saw movement out of the corner of her eye!).



Sometimes, the rocks move in clusters...



That night, we took a bumpy, off-road path to Lost Burro Mine, where we camped out in the Mad-Max-esque remains of an old mining ghost town. Our coldest night yet, we huddled by our campfire while star gazing.



Grace and Eunice, warming up in the morning sun in their terraced tents before venturing out for breakfast.



Steps away from where we camped are the remains of the Lost Burro Mine cabin.



We walked past the cabin up a trail and hiked around the mountains until we got a bird's-eye view of the Racetrack and Grandstand.



Alonzo, Ryan, and Grace at the highest point on the trail.



On the drive away from Lost Burro Mine, we stopped for lunch while enjoying our last views of Death Valley and the surrounding mountains.



We hightailed it south to Red Rock State Park where we caught a dramatic sunset before pitching our tents for our last night of camping. The next morning, we packed up and headed to L.A. to celebrate New Year's Eve.



After five days of off-roading and camping, we drove through pouring rain to Beverly Hill's funky Hotel Avalon. When we opened the back door of the Xterra, the doorman said in horror, "You don't want to move ALL of that to your room, do you?!" After getting cleaned up, grabbing some food, and taking a disco nap, we met up with our friend Jon to ring in 2006!



We celebrated New Year's Eve at an L.A. club and then headed back to the Hotel Avalon for some "high-stakes" poker which lasted until 4am. After sleeping in, we drove to Monterey Park to hang out with Eunice's mom, her cousin Vincent (on the left), and her grandparents. Armed with 200 frozen Chinese dumplings in our cooler and a $5 haircut for Ryan, we finally headed back to the Bay Area...