It's like....Me Me Me Me Me.....

Stationery card

2012-01-25T21:50:00.001-08:00

Many Memories Pink Birth Announcement

Personalized cards for babies, Valentines, Easter and Mother's Day.

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Glacier National Park (Two Medicines) - Grand Falls, National Parks trip Day 6, July 2011

2011-12-13T13:35:00.000-08:00

Went to check out this local lake before we headed to Glacier national park again. (We wanted to go to the east of Glacier which was the Two Medicines area...) Weather that day was bad so we really couldn't tell if the local lake was all that pretty...:p

So we had a pretty interesting experience when we got to two medicines. We were actually in trouble and a "Park Ranger" gave us a ticket for driving 20 miles above speed limit...seriously...park ranger...Oh well...I guess it's something to remember for a life time...

Weather was getting bad and Billy was a little bumped out by the ticket I think....but we certainly didn't look like that in the pictures? :)

Did a little hiking to the falling Eagle fall...There were actually some weird Mexican looking kids (I think they might be Indians) trying to chat with us with bunch of questions...just kinda odd...

While we were driving back south the weather got crazy and was raining really hard on the road...I guess we were lucky it didn't happen while we were still at Glacier...

Couldn't really find any place with high rating open at the time of our arrival...so we ended up having dinner at this semi-fancy Italian place...Not too bad, but also not too impressive :p

Missoula - Glacier National Park, National Parks trip Day 5, July 2011

2011-12-12T13:04:00.001-08:00

The destination for today was Glacier national park. On the way there we stopped twice...1st time to take a photo of a huge lake, 2nd time at the Bison Range...

Can you see the lake behind us? the biggest one on the west coast I think....or west of Mississippi...

2nd stop for the day was the bison range....What did we see? well...bunch of bison...The pile of bones at the entrance was pretty impressive.....:p

We got to Glacier national park and went to the lake which was close to the hotel inside of the park...Water was super clean there...

This reminded me of Canada...right next to the hotel in the park...

The tour bus in the park...

Newlyweds who had a wedding in the park...too bad they don't look too good...:p

There were people riding horses in the park...

While we were driving through the glaciers traffic was very bad due to road works...

Because of the traffic jam we were lucky to see those mountain goats right next to us while we were climbing up the mountains...very rare occasion....

According to what we read the glaciers will probably disappear around 2020...so we will have to come back before that if we still want to see any....

Finally tried the Huckleberry ice cream from one of the stores in the park...

Last shots of the glaciers before we headed out...

I guess this was one of the famous chains around the states we went through on this trip....had dinner here and called that the day....

Cradle of the moon- Missoula, National Parks trip Day 4, July 2011

2011-10-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

For day 4, we went to this place called "Cradle of the moon" which looked like the moon because of the volcanic movements that happened long time ago. There are still some lava flowing beneath the ground....

It was a long drive to Missoula, which is like a small college town in the north. We had to pass through Idaho in the day, and there wasn't much to see....

All we did in Missoula was to eat an interesting restaurant called "silk road". They had dishes from diff. countries along the silk road...I was impressed with the African squash soup and the sea salt ice cream...

Found a huge one....made Billy look like a kid blowing it...lol

Grand Teton-Idaho Falls, National Parks trip Day 3, July 2011

2011-09-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

We spent another day at Grand Teton. Even though we didn't really see any wild animals famous for the park, the amazing clouds and mountains + glaciers really gave us a very nice photo day :)

We went up to Mt. top to look at the lake and the Tetons...Amazing view :)

Jackson Lake Dam in the park...Very pretty clouds with very pretty lake :)

Very pretty views next to a string lake. People were apparently having lots of fun in the lake....

We drove a long time to get to Idaho Falls after we left Grand Teton....Here are photos I got from the car along the drive :)

We checked in at the hotel and headed out for dinner at the highest rating place closed by....They happened to have this lobster week going on....

So lobster dinner we had....

Artificial falls that is famous in Idaho Falls....The Mormon temple and the falls are probably the only famous places in this city...and we accidentally found both of them right behind our hotel :)

Bunch of birds, seagulls, geese along the river....We spent some time walking along the falls and rivers after dinner :)

Yellowstone-Grand Teton, National Parks trip Day 2, July 2011

2011-08-18T12:52:00.001-07:00

2nd day of our trip we took the north entrance instead of the west for Yellowstone national park. There is a famous arch at the entrance, and the little red focus is our ride of the trip :)

We went to Mammoth Terraces and took bunch of pics. I guess that is the most famous spot if you go from the north entrance of Yellowstone....

Quite amazing with all the colors and stuff...

Don't really remember what this fall is....a smaller hanger fall. Can you see the rainbow at the very bottom of it? Saw a squirrel that looked as fat as Mintie near the fall :)

On the way to the falls....I thought it looked like Europe....

The upper and lower falls....

Best hair style ever....the wind was crazy big....

Found another place to have better view of the lower fall....

Went through Bison area of the park and Yellowstone Lake before we left Yellowstone National Park....

Since it was still early, we went through parts of Grand Teton as we drove to our hotel for that night....

We stayed at a resort that was about 40 min from Jackson Hole and basically there was nothing around the place. We could only eat at the hotel and the food wasn't too great even though they looked pretty good....

View from the back of our resort was actually not too bad....It's the snake river which runs through a lot of places right behind us....

Yellowstone, National Parks trip Day 1, July 2011

2011-08-10T21:09:00.000-07:00

So We took a National Parks Road trip in July....I guess it would be the last long trip we would be able to take for a while...We flew to Bozeman in Montana, and the trip started from there :)

Breakfast at LAX....

Random pics I took from the plane....weird there was a red river....

Funny how McDonald has this kinda welcome sign....I guess we are at cowboy area....

Decided to go to Yellowstone 1st since we had enough time...

So the 1st animal we saw in the park was a black bear....

We went to the basins since it's the closest to the entrance. We were lucky to get through most of the famous and colorful ones for the afternoon :)

So this is the most famous Geyser in the whole park...The Old Faithful...It goes off every 90 min or so...

While we were waiting for the eruption, this little guy stood there for me to take some photos of him....so cute...and he reminded me of Mintie :)

See how many people were waiting for the geyser to go off? I think we waited around 20 min...

On the way back to hotel....Isn't it interesting to see all the smoke coming from the ground???

4th year !!!!

2011-07-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Ok....I know I still need to update stuff from May and June, but here is a more recent post for July. We just celebrated our 4th year anniversary on the 8th of July....scary huh? 4 years already...The only thing we really did is to dress up and go to a relaxing dinner on that Fri. Yeah I think my belly is not that obvious but at the same time feels a little bigger...Anyway....

Here is Jar steak House in West Hollywood....We were pretty lucky cuz we went there early with a 5:30 reservation so there weren't many people at all...

Appetizers we got....Those eggs with crab meat was kinda interesting...

I was wearing the anniversary gift necklace....and we obviously had too much food on the table...

My skirt steak and Billy's ribeye steak....

Dessert was kinda weird with the hot stuff right below the ice cream....

Anyway....time flew by pretty fast....and I guess this will be the last anniversary we will have with the 2 of us alone :)

April 2011 stuff....

2011-06-26T19:02:00.000-07:00

Didn't realize I didn't even update stuff from April yet....anyway....here are stuff from April....

One day Kitty and Dorcas called and told me they were in LA....They wanted to visit that night so that was that....I got Jay to come as well and we had fun chatting and drinking while eating some cheesecake that night....The last time I saw Kitty was probably a little after we got married....Time surely passes fast and I am still very surprised Kitty remained friends with me since I really didn't know her that well....lol

They brought me one of my favorite cookies all the way from HK :)

Ok....change of gear after the old friends part.....We went to Newport Beach one weekend and walked around on Balboa Island....Didn't really see much....

Saw this dog that was following this little boy around...I thought this dog belonged to the boy's family....

This....for some reason....reminds me of Halle Barry from the 007 beach scene...hahahaha

Here is the real owner.....lol....they do look alike huh???

Interesting purple paper umbrella....

The true purpose to go to Newport beach is to use our credits from the Landry dining club....We picked Chart House to try this time....and it was only ok I guess....

Bread and Calamari....

Salad Billy put together from the salad bar....weird they have a salad bar.....

Our entree and dessert.....

Nice view of the boats from the windows....

After meal we went to this small beach where not a lot of people were gathering...Very windy day as you can see from our hair....

Nice color as the sun was going down....

Best photos of the day were probably the bird photos....

This guy should be very proud I was using him as a model for a nice pic like this....:p

Billy and his prime rib steak....

2011-05-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

Well....little uncle is now back to TW again, but he came back in March and Billy wanted to treat him dinner so he can be a judge of Billy's cooking....So here is what Billy cooked....

We got that big chunk of meat from Pavilion....lucky it was on sale or else it would be expensive...Here is before and after....

Billy tried to imitate Lawry's salad....looks pretty decent but too bad we don't have the Lawry's dressing....

Cream corn....

Finally someone would be able to share the wine with me.....I like guests who drink....

Table all set up for the guests.....

That is the steak for the night....

Group picture after dinner :)

Akiang's BD 2011

2011-05-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

Akiang had her BD before she left for TW. We took her to an Italian restaurant in Arcadia. The place is kinda interesting cuz each table has it's own light and they are all diff...

Food we got for the night....

Asked the waitress to take a photo for us....and she totally ignored Akiang....lol

Pics with Akiang....the BD girl :)

Desserts we got. I was pleasantly surprised by the looks and the taste....I guess after the entree I didn't expect too much :p

Cool lights I saw right before we headed out....I think the best part of this place is the lights and the dessert....will be a while before we come back again I think :p Well...Happy BD to Akiang for 2011 :)

Palm Springs, 3rd day

2011-05-09T14:31:00.001-07:00

Ok.....about time to wrap up the Palm Springs trip. I guess I just got really lazy and totally forgot I didn't finish writing about it....Anyway....3rd day of the short trip was the last day. Checked out and said good bye to the hotel before we went to get breakfast....

This coffee place was supposedly popular at Palm Springs. Not too bad....and it was crowded...

Half of my sandwich and half of Billy's...

another weird desert plant...

After breakfast we went to take the world's largest revolving tram. It's kinda cool cuz you get to see the whole palm springs at your feet and the view of the 360 degree tram was also interesting...but too expensive I thought :p

There was a state park on the top of the mountain....

There was still a lot of snow in the park :)

Loved the huge dead trunks....

That's how old it was up on the mountain....very diff. from the city...

I guess it's hard to take a photo of the view plus people....we covered it all up....lol

View of Palm Springs from the top of the mountain :)

Took pics of the tram from the other side while we went down....steep ride....

So that is the old tram I guess.....and how the tram cables looked like with the view from highway...

Last photos of the windmills before we got home :)

Palm Springs trip, 2nd day.....

2011-04-11T21:39:00.000-07:00

We started the 2nd day of the Palm Springs trip by going to this breakfast/brunch place called Cheeky's around noon. The place was crowded and we waited more than 30 min just to get seated...

There were so many people waiting...even the outside seats were filled....

Billy concentrating on the menu....

Cool orange juice in the beaker....but very small at the same time....

Billy's short rib, kinda salty and chewy I thought....

They claimed to have diff. flavors of bacon, but the only one we could really tell is the spicy one on the left....

My French Toasts were kinda interesting....with Lemon filling in them....

A lot of windmills again while we were driving to Joshua Tree National Park....

This is the main reason we made the Palm Springs trip :)

Here.....bunch of Joshua Trees....The piles of rocks are actually from volcanic movements...

I was surprised there were many people in the national park....I guess they all came for the rocks...

Peeking through :)

Billy doing rock climbing...or pretending to....lol

Such a sunny day....

That is Joshua Tree right there....they can go up really tall....

Many Rock climbers....

@ hidden Valley where there were a lot of huge rocks.....

Looked like a nuclear bomb....

The line in the middle is St. Andrea fault, which is where all the earthquake happens....We were sitting at a view point where you can look over the whole valley....

Look @ that tiny person next to the weird rock....

We had to climb up to the top for this pic :)

Skull rock really looked like a skull....

So pretty with the clouds and blue sky....

There was an area called cactus garden....very dangerous place....lol

Our car "little gray" looks pretty good in the desert :)

That....is actually a sort of tree, not cactus....Very interesting tree with very little leaves and red flowers....

Saw that on the way back to the hotel....guess there was some sort of fire...

Dinner was at Copley's. I fount the place on Yelp with the highest rating and the food didn't disappoint. We finished the day with full stomach and lots of photos :)

Palm Springs mini trip, day 1

2011-04-03T22:59:00.000-07:00

Akiang was heading back to TW after she ended her 1st semester at school. We decided to take a short trip before she goes so she can take care of the cats. Since we didn't have that much time and really didn't know where to go we just decided to make a Palm Springs/Joshua Tree road trip so we can use our national park pass again. It was raining for the week at LA, but we got lucky as we headed east to our destinations even though for the 1st day weather wasn't all that great.....

View of the resort we stayed at.....We didn't really got to the golf course or swimming pool for the whole trip though....lol

As you can see it was a very "cloudy" day even though sun was out....I liked how the clouds made the hills prettier with all the shadows....

Since weather wasn't that great we just went to the outlet to walk around and had a nice dinner to end the day....We went to Cork Tree which of course I found on Yelp. The interior was all dark so it wasn't good for photo taking but the food was nice...

Special salad was quite special....never had this type of tomato salad before....goes well with the skinless asparagus :)

Cute little soup sampling....squash, tomato, onion soups...

Billy looking happy with the soup....

I got scallops and Billy got short ribs

Billy looking happy with his red wine....

Desserts....Trio of creme brulee was kinda cool with interesting flavors....

Cork Tree it is....

clouds were cool after we finished dinner....and we just finished the 1st day of trip after dinner :)

Date nights, Feb-March 4th

2011-03-09T18:54:00.000-08:00

Decided to put up photos of our date nights since Feb because we didn't really have a date day in Feb due to all the rain. A lot of food here since we do it once a week. Anyway....just for records :)

@ Raymond, LA restaurant week, Feb 4th

Double date @ Petrillo's, Feb 10th

@Cafe Massilia, Feb 18th

Lunch date @ Sesame Grill, Feb 25th

@Yoshida, March 4th

BD 2011

2011-02-22T19:30:00.000-08:00

It's almost a month from our BD already, and here are the photos :)
Billy got me a watch he thought was cool cuz he saw it on a magazine....and he said the sunglasses will be our anniversary gift....lol

For the actual BD night we went to a French restaurant @ Pasadena for dinner cuz it was the restaurant week for LA and they had set dinners for a cheaper price :)

Their salad was interesting. We had to cut the lettuce by ourselves. The soup was a veggie soup (they said the veggies were from farmer's market) with huge beans...

Billy ordered skirt steak, and I got the duck.

The waitress had problem using my camera....but at least we got one decent photo....

Interesting dessert we had....

Some friends came to our place for a hot pot BD dinner. There was so much food we ate the hot pot for 2 meals actually.....Irene and Akiang spent the afternoon preparing for the food....

We have 3 people with the same BD for that night since Ming is going to school in LA now :)

There....we are one year older again :)

Random Jan photos....

2011-02-22T18:51:00.000-08:00

Here are some random photos for Jan.....I didn't realize I didn't post anything on my blog for a long time....Most of the photos are from Descanso Garden for the 1st half....

Here are some food photos for Jan (cooked by Billy of course). Billy was craving for Korean BBQ for a while so we finally bought some from Korean market and cooked them by oven.....

Didn't have chicken cooked by the oven for a while....

Billy cooked chicken soup again one of those nights....
Huge pork roast Billy cooked and the veggies which were supposed to go with the pork....

Looks pretty with all the colors huh? Tasted really nice too, even after a whole week....We had way too much food in the fridge for that week and I just kept on getting fat every single day...

Mission Inn, Date day in Jan....

2011-01-30T14:05:00.000-08:00

For our date day in Jan we went to Mission Inn hotel @ Riverside. It is a historical landmark which was built by the original owner and then expanded into this monster by his son....The trip was short and I didn't end up taking too many photos cuz it was not all that easy to come up with nice photos @ the hotel since everything was put together kinda in a weird way....

They offer high tea in the hotel...

Spanish style on one side....We found our way to sneak into the hotel and went up to the top level to check out things. It's supposedly not open to the public so you have to be hotel guests to go inside of the hotel...but oh well....

Mission style bells....

We found a decent spot to take photos of the chapel in the hotel...

Other than the chapel this is probably the only place that I could take cool photo with cuz everything else was just a mingle of a lot of sight distracting objects....

I thought it's weird that they had diff. styles of buildings if you look in diff. directions...

On the roof level there were several fountains...

Views of the court in the middle of the hotel + some rooms on the top from the roof level....

There were people who were taking wedding photos at the staircase....

Looking up from the bottom of the stairs...

Outside of the hotel....I think they have a restaurant which belongs to the hotel....

Sun was setting while we were driving home. Took those two photos from the car to conclude my photo day :)

Year end trip of 2010, last day--St. Luis Obispo-Home :)

2011-01-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

On the last day of our trip we didn't really do much. We visited the St. Luis Obispo mission while it started raining. We took few photos and just got on the freeway to head home...I don't know if I would want to visit SLO again since the town is so small and boring....:p

This was the last place we visited before we headed home....

We decided to eat breakfast at their cafe cuz the interior looked kinda cool and we really had no more plans on places to go at SLO...

Since we had to wait for 30 min we walked around in the hotel....Can't believe how crowded the place was....

Took a photo outside of the cafe....

Our seats were right next to the very heavily ornamented window....

They make huge cakes...

Foor we ordered.....very expensive for the quality of food I thought....

Very spooky clouds which I took on the car on the way back. It was actually snowing around Santa Barbara we heard...Weather was going a bit crazy...

Saw bunch of birds flew by....didn't know they were the big ones until I stopped to take photos of them....

I actually got some really decent pictures from the car when the sun was going down....

Best part of the trip was when I got home and my cats were there waiting for me....but our year end trip sure was fun and relaxing....That is a good way to wrap up year 2010 I guess. Hopefully 2011 will be a better year :)

Year end trip 2010, Day 5--Monterey

2011-01-21T16:21:00.001-08:00

Our main goal for the 5th day is to drive on Pacific Highway down south to St Luis Obispo where we would stay for the last night of the trip. We went through Monterey Bay, 17 miles, Big Sur and all those beaches on the way. The weather was actually not too great, but the photos we took with our random stops actually turned out to be better than I imagined. I guess the views would really be superb if the sun was out with a clear sky....Oh well...there is always next time :)

We went to this light house cuz we saw it on the magazine at the hotel. It's the tallest lighthouse in the states...or so they said....I personally think all the hostels built around it just destroyed the scenery...

We saw A LOT OF birds at one place....so many of them....

We stopped by Monterey to look around, but I wasn't impressed at all. I guess it would of looked better if the weather was good...

Stuff I saw at Monterey fisherman's wharf....I think the jazz performance was too bad the old man there needed to plug his ear....lol....

Some nice scenery photos after we left Monterey....

That is the famous Bixby Bridge from pacific highway....

We saw a lot of people and cars at one point and stopped to check out what's going on....It turned out to be a place where a lot of sea elephants rest and breed....It's the 1st time I see so many of them at once....and they were ugly....

The restaurant we wanted to try for the new year eve dinner was all booked even though I tried to call in the morning. I guess people do go out to celebrate for new year even in this economy....We ended up trying this place @ St. Luis Obispo. It turned out to be really nice and they had a new year special set dinner which Billy ordered. I would totally go back again if we happen to pass by any time...

The hotel we stayed @ St. Luis Obispo was very cozy. The lobby had free tea and coffee + lemon water, and a fire place where you can sit around and chat....Couldn't really take a photo of the whole room but there was a sofa bed with the queen size bed and also a sliding table...anyway...last hotel night of year 2010 :)

Year end trip of 2010, Day 4--Santa Rosa & Sonoma

2011-01-19T20:42:00.000-08:00

Here is the hotel we stayed at Santa Rosa with the day time view....We took some photos with Peanuts characters on the street and later found out they have a map of all those characters hidden in this small town. I guess that will be our next goal when we get to come here again--to find all the characters on the map :)

We went to their gift shop and cafe to check out more characters since the museum was not open yet when we arrived....

We took some photos inside and outside of the museum. The big wall in black and white with Charlie and Lucy was actually put together by little comic strips....very impressive...

That is where all the Peanuts characters came from...the studio Schultz worked from....and I think it was just moved directly from his house....

We decided to check out some more wineries at Sonoma after we went back to Napa to get the case of Merlot and some white wines....We stopped by Ledson for some photos, and then went through most of Sonoma just by driving.

We did wine tasting at Chateau St Jean, which surprisingly turned out to be very pleasant. We joined our 1st wine club in my life time, and I am quite excited about that :)

Took a photo with the old guy who explained wines to us and got me interested in signing up for the wine club. We will be getting our 1st shipment in Feb supposedly. We also bought two bottles of Gewurtstraminer which has lychee flavor :)

Drove through San Francisco to get to our hotel at San Mateo. The hotel was nice but they charged us 20 dollars per night just for parking....amazing how some hotels do that just to rip customers off....

We had dinner at San Mateo....The place was called Astaria and the food was nice.

Desserts looked nicer than how they tasted....still....it was not bad....

Year end trip of 2010, Day 3-- Napa

2011-01-17T19:29:00.000-08:00

On the 3rd day of our trip we went to Napa. The weather wasn't all that great when we 1st headed out, but we saw a fat & short rainbow half way. After the rainbow I guess the weather just turned better :)

We decided to do our wine tasting at Sterling cuz they have the cable car and also supposedly the nicest view in Napa. The ride and wine tasting was 25 per person...

View from the top is really nice cuz you can see the whole Napa valley....We tasted 5 wines for our self guided tour :)

That is from our cable car ride....

At the entrance....

Robert Mondavi....

Last time we went to Beringer was right after we got married :)

We went to this small Italian restaurant and it turned out to be a very nice place which was packed with people....

We found out Santa Rosa is the home town of Snoopy :)

We stayed at Marriott, Santa Rosa.....

Year end trip of 2010, Day 2--Yosemite National Park

2011-01-13T13:38:00.000-08:00

Ok....so I guess Billy liked how his hair was all standing up after a night's sleep and took this photo....that starts our 2nd day :)

It was raining for the 2nd day of our trip, but luckily we got into Yosemite alright and even drove without the snow chains despite the rain and snow....I was 1st worried photos would turn out bad because of the weather but then because of all the fog hanging around in the air the photos I took actually turned much more poetic and pretty than I expected :)

Very pretty fall with all the fog and clouds....

The big rock called El Capitan really didn't look all that impressive to me....

The water was really clear it looked like a mirror....Too bad weather was bad or else we could check out the mirror lake too....

It just looks very COLD huh?

On the way to Stockton we passed this ghost town which was left by the Chinese people at the gold rush period....Nobody lives there now....

Our hotel was actually quite nice at the water front, but I think not many rooms were occupied...I am not able to rotate the 1st photo here...oh well...it's the restaurant at the hotel...and I only paid 40 dollars for the hotel I think...

Went to a Japanese restaurant for dinner while it was raining really hard. It was packed with people around 6pm. I guess people don't know what to do in small towns....I think we had way too much food, and obviously I wasn't the person who ordered too much....:p

Year end trip of 2010, Day 1--Sequoia National Park

2011-01-07T12:23:00.000-08:00

We took a week long road trip up to N. CA and back after X-mas. It was raining a lot the few weeks before we left, and weather was still not ideal when we started the trip. Our 1st stop was Sequoia national park, and we arrived around 3 in the afternoon....I think...Here are the photos...:)

See weather was kinda bad when we started driving....

Finally arrived at Sequoia national park....

Saw this deer while we were driving up...

Roads were all messed up because of the weather....

People all of a sudden stopped to put on snow chains....that shows you how bad the weather was...We put on our new chains on too...Billy got them just for this trip....

Loved the colors and the clouds...

So much snow....

Us with the giant trees :)

The temperature was really low, and the clouds were just beautiful :)

We had dinner at Fresno after all the drive down from Sequoia. I liked the scallop appetizer the most :)

X-mas dinner....

2011-01-06T14:58:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since Xmas.....but anyway....Here are some photos I took at the Xmas dinner....There were lots of people at the dinner of course....but taking photos of everyone is too much trouble and some people I would rather not have in my photos....Anyway....Check out the outfit Billy's mom had. I thought that was classic :)

Some of the stuff I thought tasted nice....of course we had lots of stuff left after dinner as usual...

Brother and sister.....Kids of Billy's cousin who married American girl. Eva was really happy being my model for the night...They are examples of how mixed kids are usually cuter....

Anyway...lots of food and we will just see how it goes next year....

My X-mas Cats :)

2010-12-18T18:16:00.000-08:00

Got some cute stuff for the cats to wear, but the cats didn't all like the photo shoot session :p I put on the collar on Mintie while was she taking a nap, but then she went totally nuts and ran around the house. She ran into our room and stood in front of the mirror looking shocking when she saw herself in the mirror with the collar.....lol

Cutest reindeer EVER.....

I think being a Santa cat was Hades' least favorite....

Mintie with her double chin.....hehehehe....so serious....

Hades looks like he is from three musketeers....so handsome....:)

Look at that crazy reindeer.....lol

Billy thinks Chap looks like a clown when he has the collar on....I think he was too funny to not be able to walk properly with anything on him....

Just look at his face here....so funny....like the Chinese 冏.....hahahahaha.....

I actually got the reindeer hat on Mintie but she was totally upset she couldn't move after that was put on her....I think the hat was too heavy for her???

The only photos I was able to take with a dressed up cat....She didn't look happy at all though...lol

X-mas is coming....but I have a busy week ahead of me. Let's hope things go smoothly for the last 2 weeks of 2010!!!!!

Random drop by of Jack

2010-12-15T14:40:00.000-08:00

Jack dropped by randomly on a Tue night, and then I realized I completely forgot about his BD few days ago. We ended up eating his BD dinner few days late at Buca and had a stuffed Tue night. Here are photos we took that night....

My favorite dish there, Chicken Marsala.....

The seafood linguine we ordered that was not on the menu....and everything on my plate....I think food just got less and more expensive over at Buca. I am not sure when I will go back again....

I guess the waiter liked my camera he wanted to take another photo for us....

Taramisu that got AKiang really relaxed....amazing how low her tolerance of alcohol is....

Anyway....yet another year of being older for Mr. Tsai....

Sat at the LB Aquarium + Sun dinner with friends :)

2010-12-09T11:45:00.000-08:00

Last Sat we went to Long Beach Aquarium cuz Billy's company gave them free passes. I was quite frustrated with the lenses I had cuz they were not suitable for indoor photo taking. I guess some photos did turn out alright thanks to my photo editing software + my more than usual patience when I am taking photos. Anyway....here are the photos for the weekend....

Just like a painting....and did you know shark eggs look just like a piece of bamboo?

Many diff. types of sharks...

ok....I think Billy was trying to compete with the long chin....

I have no idea why there were birds in an Aquarium....but anyway....here are bird pictures...

Angry looking birds....one of them turned red....okok..bad joke...

Looks like he had his earphones on and was dancing to music...

Well....fights....

Look at this rocker...

I think they were a couple...

The "third person" was trying to interrupt....

This one was a very colorful and good looking bird....but very short...

I wonder how the legs how the bodies...??

sea stars can get huge....

They were having so much fun playing and fighting...

weird fish in plaids....

I was really surprised how well the jelly fish photos turned out to be....

Billy wanted to pretend he was in the water too....

Huge spider crab which didn't look too happy....

Some of the colorful photos of fish....

@ the gift shop...

Can you tell the weather was bad?? Thanks to my photo editing thing on Mac I don't think anyone can tell....hahahaha....

Sun night my high school friend Masumi came to visit with her husband Aaron and friend Toshiko. Toshiko became friends with me on FB because she kept on seeing my cat photos from Masumi's comments. Both Masumi and Toshiko are cat lovers so I invited them to come and visit the cats + have a get together/dinner thing. It's a lot of fun to be able to just sit around and listen to people talk since those three Japanese can get quite talkative :)

Toshiko brought us some green tea cookies from Japan since she just got back on Fri night....and the wine Masumi & Aaron brought from Napa was really nice as well. We finished the whole bottle with them that night and I would call the night a success :)

Thanksgiving weekend 2010.....

2010-12-01T21:10:00.000-08:00

For the Thanksgiving break we didn't do much at all even though we had day offs for 4 days including the weekend. We attempted to go to diff. places for shopping but usually I would get annoyed by how crowded places were....at the end we would usually just head back home with nothing bought...On Sat we went to the Grove and decorations there actually looked pretty cool cuz it looked like people are ready for X-mas. I didn't bring my camera so the photos here are not with ideal quality....but hey at least we had some photos thanks to Akiang's camera and my low resolution iphone....

That is Santa's house and people line up to go in to take photos with Santa....Of course we didn't get in line.....instead we took photos of the exterior of the house :)

This is actually the entrance....found out after we took bunch of photos at the exit...

Lollipops on the side of the house....and an antic car right at the Farmer's market entrance...

We went to the Farmer's market to have lunch, and had soul food from New Orleans....

Went back to the shopping area and took more photos....Snow man right in front of the Santa house....

Huge ice cream....

Akiang thought taking photos at the rails would be cool....don't ask me why cuz I have no idea...

People probably thought we were nuts....

I wonder the fountain here is also designed by Howard's company cuz the Americana one is...anyway....we headed home after all the photo taking, and basically that is all we really did for the weekend other than eating....oh well...let's see if the next year one will be more interesting then....

Weekend before Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-21T17:41:00.000-08:00

Coming Thurs is Thanksgiving and some companies had already started black Friday deals on line I guess due to the bad economy. I ran into this pretty cool deal that slashed the price of an espresso machine quite a lot (like by 2/3) and got this machine which is a big upgrade from my previous one. I guess I will just keep the old one for spare since it was a birthday gift from one of those years....The new machine at least makes the espressos look like real ones with the creme on the top and everything. The foam making....was actually a lot harder than I thought, but I think I am getting used to that as well....You can see my 1st attempt on making a latte with foam on the top.....not very pretty....lol

Over the weekend there were house updates done. Here are some photos to show the improvements.....Billy did some painting job so now our bonus room door is painted and also the pantry door as well.....The Pantry door is finally put in place but the door knob is not installed yet...but at least we can cover up the messy looking pantry in the laundry room....:)

The little cart with wheels allows us to have a space to put the microwave and cat foods + some paper begs. The counter space is now freed up and looks better....

The stainless legs we got from a sale is finally put into use after we got the table top from Ikea....Now we have a breakfast area which allows us to use the bar stools which we didn't know how to use after we moved here....

So this storage bench is now put together and put in the dining room. Billy wanted one so that cats can sit on the top and look outside from the window. It can also be used if more people need to sit at the dining table...more space to put books and magazines too....

Over the weekend I started the "Cats" wall.....more photos to come after I finish developing the new ones...

Here is the "Us" wall....and the 2nd pic here you can see how the Us wall can link into the Scenery wall if you look from the side of our bedroom....I think we need to go to more places to finish the Us wall since the left hand side still got a lot of space....

Edward's finally married :)

2010-11-15T18:47:00.000-08:00

It was Edward's wedding day on Sat. They were actually officially married about 10 months ago, but the ceremony was held this past weekend....Here are some photos of us all dressed up ready for the wedding. Akiang took photos of us right in front of our house...

My favorite photos of the whole day :)

There....the newly wed....

Interesting wedding favor...There are seeds inside of that paper shell...

Holidays are coming I guess....Here are some photos of the food of the banquet...

Some girls I didn't see for a while....Nancy was the bride's maid again...getting professional :)

Ok so I guess Angela had fun trying my camera....but I think my camera didn't really want to cooperate...color turned out weird....

Edward's bro, James, was Billy's high school classmate.....small world I guess....Alfie and his wife are now working at Edward's church. Alfie is the pastor now :)

The wedding party....1st time I know every single person in a wedding party :)

Anyway....I think I need to get a new lens for indoor photos....:p

Quick Lawry's dinner....

2010-11-13T13:59:00.000-08:00

Went to Lawry's for a quick dinner last night cuz "Xiao Jiu" gave us the VIP coupons again. Traffic was really bad so we were stuck on the freeway for a quite a long time. I attempted taking some photos of downtown LA since the air was quite clean, and the only decent one I got was this....taking photos while the car is moving with dim light is just too difficult for my lens...

Again Billy didn't have enough time to finish his meatballs cuz we were called right away with our reservation....My Merlot of the night didn't really have any effect on me....maybe it was fake wine???

Our waitress was having fun spinning our salad....oh and I think she deaf cuz she has hearing aids and talks kinda weird....but a very entertaining person I think....

Here is the salad with beets in it....I like the sauce...

Our steaks getting prepared....

My steak and Billy's....

Us with our "too much" food....

Lobster tails....

I guess it's all normal I can't finish my order....

Dessert was trio of creme brulees....chocolate, blueberry, and maple flavors...

Chocolate one looked like sesame....I didn't try that at all....

Blueberry was still the best one cuz maple was too sweet for me....

ok....done with the dinner...

TW Trip 2010, Part II

2010-11-09T15:09:00.001-08:00

After the 1st weekend, dad and mom decided to take us to Kenting since it's not too far from Kaohsiung and it's been a while since I last went there....oh and Billy has never been there....there are really not that many places he visited while he was in TW I guess....So here are photos of our Kenting trip....

We checked out "cat's nose" before we arrived our hotel. It's the southern most point of TW and the rock is supposed to look like a cat....not sure if people can really tell by looking at the rock though....

Checked in at the hotel (Howard's) in the afternoon and had afternoon tea at the hotel....A lot of native tribal decorations at the hotel :)

At night we went to the night market that is like a whole street next to our hotel. There were a lot of shops and a lot of food stands....and too much walking.....lol...ate way too much for the night....

We took a photo at the door of our hotel and headed back home for the 2nd day cuz the weather was really bad. I don't think I have ever been to Kenting when it's raining like crazy, but all three kids of the family just experienced the rainy Kenting in our trips since this summer....I think that is kinda amusing after all....I mean....How big is the chance for all three of us to get so lucky on three separate trips? Anyway....Here are some gloomy photos for the 2nd day....

Took 2 photos on the way home. Didn't do much at Kenting at all but I guess that would give us a good reason to come back next time :)

We went to a famous pig feet place for lunch and fishcake place on the way home. I think this was the best photo out of those places even though we didn't even try it....lol....Ok....moving on to part III next time :)

Halloween 2010

2010-11-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

I know I stopped the whole TW series for a while already but I will get back to that later....cuz it's the Halloween weekend!!! It's the 1st time I really watched a pumpkin being carved since Billy wanted to carve one. Hades spent his afternoon watching the whole process while the sun was right on him. I think he enjoyed the afternoon cuz he was in his best mood since we got back :)

This was the finished product...quite comical I thought....

Those pumpkin seeds were oven roasted and supposed to be good for health....and that evil pumpkin at night with candles inside was the same one that looked very cute in the day time....I guess it's like how people can appear all nice on the outside and be diff. in the inside...lol....I know I am reading too much into that pumpkin....

On Sunday we went to Descanso again just to check out if they had Halloween decorations....and surely they had a lot of pumpkins in the garden :)

Here are some photos I took from the garden....somehow it turned out to be a colorful photo day....

Us with pumpkins....

Took Akiang with us too and she was having fun taking photos of herself....anyway...two photos I took with her...

Kids came to knock on our door for candies and that kept Billy busy throughout the night while we were watching a movie....I guess it was our 1st real Halloween since we got married cuz it's the 1st time we actually had a door for people to knock on....Alright....more on TW trip later on then :)

TW trip 2010, Part I

2010-10-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

I have to say this trip has been the most fruitful amongst all my trips after I became "legal" again....Met up with whole bunch of people who I didn't expect to meet....and ate way too much food....here are some photos from the 1st few days....

Ivan got home on Fri night, and we set up a dinner with his teacher on Sat. There wasn't much to do on Sat since dad and mom usually have to work for church stuff so they told us to go to the park and take some photos....even though it wasn't all that fun at the park I did have a chance to take some nice photos....I guess the park looked quite diff. after the big typhoon which just left before we arrived TW....

We pretended to look happy when Ivan was taking photos of us while we felt it was too hot and we needed to head back home....You can tell how we felt really by looking at the last photo in this set....Billy's face shows..lol

Few shots of us taken by Ivan while we were roaming aimlessly between 2 department stores in the afternoon....I am very glad there is subway in Kaohsiung now....

Ivan's teacher really wanted to meet us so we did meet, on the 2nd day of our trip....We wasted the whole afternoon basically just waiting for people to show up for dinner....I guess it's really amazing how small the world is and quite interesting how I got to see a classmate who I haven't seen since I was 14....It turned out that Ivan's teacher went to the same elementary school as me too...even though I am not sure if we will ever meet again it was an experience worth mentioning....lol

Finally had a chance to try on my silver skirt....glad Ivan was home to take photos for us on Sun :)

Before Ivan headed back up to school we went to the Sashimi place he likes....way too smelly for me but at least I got that chopsticks set for souvenir.....lol....

Billy's fritatta

2010-09-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of Billy's newest project---fritatta....The photos looked pretty and the taste was not bad...Apparently I cared more about the looks....lol...Nothing to note much for this week, so the photos will be all :)

Lobster fes 2010

2010-09-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

Ok.....for starters.....here are two stupid photos Billy wanted to take. I don't know what happened to him but he was having fun playing with his own hair after shower last night....He was standing in front of mirror for quite a while when I was putting mask on....Oh well....those will make good photo book photos I guess.....lol

On Sat we went to lobster festival. From last year's experience we decided to go early and avoid traffic. The planning went really well cuz we had really good parking spot and basically didn't have to wait on line for anything. The weather in the morning was cool and we had seats for eating without fighting with the crowd. We went with Irene this year, and here are the photos :)

Those were the lobster cutters....

They picked up the lobsters and I took photos....

Irene was so happy.....

We had 6 lobsters all together.....some kinda crazy breakfast I guess....hahahaha

This year I had 2 lobsters too....

That was my lobster #1....

Those lobsters were buddy buddies.....

Those are the lobster hats people actually buy and wear at the festival....lol.....

We walked around at the fish market after we finished eating the lobsters....not much to see at San Pedro I guess....

At the fish market there were two Mexican bands playing....almost looked like we were at Mexico....

We decided to swing by Long Beach on the way home, and really didn't do anything there since the air condition was bad and all photos turned out ugly....oh well....The lobster trip was quite short I guess :)

PV......

2010-09-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

Took a short trip to PV Sunday afternoon.....spent around 2 hours there and got some photos even though the weather sucked....Irene came along with us and actually enjoyed her time according to her :)

Fountain of Poseidon was made up with those weird mermaids who had boobs that spring out water.....Funny how Irene was making comments about them and Billy took a good photo of the mermaid....

I had people asking me where we went after they looked at the photos....I get amused when people think we travel somewhere again when the places in the photos are just local.....

I guess I am into bricks....they just look nice for some reason...

The fountain at the library was actually quite ugly....oh well....at least it looked kinda ancient...

and we saw two peacocks roaming around.....

The weather was quite bad when we drove by the coast line....

Here is the light house which was really small.....

just thought it's a cute picture with the old people looking at the ocean....I actually feel like I want that kinda life already....geez I am feeling really old at heart....

All of a sudden the sun came out for us to take some nice photos....It's like between day and night within 5 min of distance...

Went to check out this church which was completely silent without people on a Sun afternoon....kinda interesting.....

This guy was fishing at the beach beneath the church. This photo made it look like a dangerous environment....lol....

It was kinda hard to catch those birds considering how far they were and how the weather was.....The ocean looked so polluted that way....

Last photos taken from PV.....hopefully next time the weather will be better.....

Labor day weekend.....It was all about eating.....

2010-09-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

It was labor day weekend this past weekend. We didn't really do much other than eating with various people. Billy had to work over time and I basically just "uploaded" photos up to two of our walls in the hall way. Our walls are a lot smaller compared to our apartment walls but then I never tried to put photos up all at once so it was a little tiring this time around. Anyway....next time I will have to deal with the "cats" wall....or "our" wall....We will see when that's gonna happen....

After two days of eating out Billy cooked for Mon. We were watching this Korean drama my students and their mom insisted I should watch called "pasta". I guess Billy was inspired by the drama and wanted to try and make some pasta.....I just thought the drama was boring but I didn't mind having my husband cook for me of course :)

Here is the spice rack I got for Billy to cook with. We finally started using them after we moved to our house....

That was the "olive oil" pasta with scallops....

Those weird looking thingy were crab cakes....I guess next time will be better on this one....lol

salad with crab cakes and scallops....oh and Italian dressing which does not look like it's there...hahahaha

You can tell he was busy by how much stuff was on the counter....

That was our dinner made by Billy over the Mon of Labor Day Weekend :)

Here is the chef and his food.....again it was a stuffed weekend....I gained 4 lbs and I don't even understand why my stomach is not digesting at all....sighs....

G2 try out

2010-08-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

Went to Descanso garden to try out my new toy. I think I need little more time to get used to the functions...but anyway....here are the photos...

I know....not exactly pleasant to look at....but focusing on the flies was cool....lol

not my friend....but looked alright....

Spider web was hard to focus on....

Bunch of photos of trees and lotus....plus dragon flies, moth, and bee....

Two cat pictures....

Here is Billy's newest dish. He cooked those scallops and Katty came over for dinner...I really liked the dish cuz the salad dressing was nice :)

Photos from Eva's wedding.....

2010-08-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Went to Eva's wedding last Sat. She is a friend who was in our prayer meeting for a year or so. She is also from Hui-Ling jie's fellowship so it was nice to see Hui-Ling jie after our last crab dinner get together....There was really nothing much to say about the wedding since I am not a big wedding fan. The special music sounded scary and I am not gonna say why....lol....I could of put some of photos of bride and groom but then they all turned out kinda blurry and messy from where we were sitting....plus they are not really in my close friend circle anyway so I guess nobody reading this blog would care much....hahahaha.....For one thing the couple looked happy at the wedding and that is always a good start I guess....:p

Here are few photos taken after the wedding and at the banquet. I wore the pearl necklace grandma gave me so here are the photos to prove to her I got it. That is if someday I can show her the photos....lol....The pink pearls worked really well with my dress :)

The hotel where dinner banquet was held felt very Latin American...

At the banquet...yeah I actually went to the dinner cuz I know who I would be seated with....food was no good but oh well....

Pittsburgh, Last Day

2010-08-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

Last day of our trip we still woke up relatively early and had breakfast at M's on the way to our final destination. McDonald's here had a very weird breakfast sandwich which we don't have at LA.....

So here is our final destination before we head home to LA. It's a house that is built on a waterfall by a famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It's basically in the middle of nowhere and we had to drive around 2 hours to get there from where we were....

The little area with flowers was kinda cute.....but we also looked dumb staring at the camera while everyone was passing by....

I think this was the 1st time I had chance to take photos of butterflies....got one with broken wing and another black one...

Creek from the fall....and there is the house...covered with a lot of trees around it....

Really not much to say about this place. I guess it was just really green and building a house on a fall was kinda interesting....

Last look of the house before we left...

Back to LA after a long flight....and I was very happy to see my cats....:)