HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Happy New Year!  Can't believe that 2011 is right around the corner and I'm excited for what the year has to come!  But, I will go into that a little more at a later time.  New Years is such a fun time to reflect and then look forward simultaneously, definitely one of my favorite holidays.  Oh and it just happens to be the anniversary of my first "date" with D (or more like a first interview, as he refers to it).  I'm off for a run in Redondo Beach, but just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful new year!!

PS - D and I saw "True Grit" last night and we absolutely loved it!  I'm considering reading the book that it was based off of now . . . but I have lots lined up that I need to read first, so we'll see how it goes . . . News Years is all about making resolutions, right?

Holiday Party

Last Friday, my company had their holiday party in San Francisco. Luckily, my boss was kind enough to fly me up for it, which D and I used as an excuse to spend the weekend in the Bay Area.  Needless to say, we had a fabulous time!  Went to all of our old haunts and caught up with a lot of family and friends.  We were definitely not stoked to leave it all behind to return to LA, but I'm hoping once our lives have more free time to explore the surrounding area we'll be able to settle in better.  Here are a couple pics of me and my coworkers out and about.

On a side note, we also did a Secret Santa exchange.  One of my coworkers is a huge Michigan State University fan, so my gift to him was a MSU snuggie, which I wrapped in University of Michigan wrapping paper. He didn't like the wrapping paper very much but he loved the snuggie, as you can note by the gnarled box in front of him.

Inspirational

Don't have much to report on right now except lots and lots of work!  I suppose its a good thing, because then I can things out of the way for the weekend!  I thought I would post a couple quotes that have been very inspirational to me lately, hope they are to you as well!

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” George Bernard Shaw
 

“Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.” Jimmy Buffett

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." Harriett Tubman

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us." Helen Keller

Waldo the Christmas Tree

Last week, we got our first real Christmas tree!  We have had a few lovely "Charlie Brown" Christmas trees in the past, but this tree is definitely our first real one.  After our first stop, we had major sticker shock, but realized that neither of us had actually purchased a tree before, so we didn't know how much to expect to pay.  Alas we continued on our quest and came across a real beauty.  We bought our tree, got it tied to the top of the "Legend," and headed on our merry way back home.  Luckily, we've acquired a nice assortment of Christmas ornaments from friends and family, and ended up with a beautifully decorated tree.  Once we were done, we realized that we didn't have a topper for the tree.  As D scrounged through our decoration bin to look for a make-shift topper, he gasped and then triumphantly pulled out a small red and white stripped cap.  I gave him a quizzical look about the hat, which he then promptly placed on top of our tree.  D then said, "This will be our ‘Where's Waldo?' Christmas Tree."  Hence, I present to you, Waldo, our first real Christmas Tree.

Waikiki

I was lucky enough to experience the spirit of Aloha last week while on a business trip to Waikiki.  I know I've shared my love for Hawaii multiple times before, but it was wonderful to be back in the islands again.  During my business meetings, I toured about 15 different hotels in Waikiki, so by the end of my trip I was very familiar with the area.  While I was in Waikiki, I got to have dinner with a couple family members.  V is my Grandma's cousin, who happens to live in Honolulu with some of his children and grandchildren.  He is great story teller with a large number of extensive photo albums, so it was fun hearing stories about when my Grandma was little.  One of the neat stories I heard about, was when my Grandma took my cousin J out to tea at the Moana Surfrider hotel in Waikiki. My Grandma really enjoyed dressing up going to posh places, and since the Moana Surfrider was one of the many hotels I looked at while in the area, I could easily picture my Grandma enjoying herself at the historic and elegant resort.  I will be back soon Hawaii, ALOHA!

Westin Moana Surfrider

Saturday Night Sunset

On a random note, here's a picture of the beautiful sunset we had tonight.  You can even note Catalina Island in the background.  There are times that I wish I was living somewhere other than Socal, but I have to admit, sunsets like these make it a wee bit easier to reside here.

Thanksgiving

I'm way behind on my blogging, but wanted to share some fun pictures I snapped last month. The day after Thanksgiving, my family and I went on a Hollywood tour!  On our tour we stopped in Venice Beach and only got to spend about 20 minutes there.  It was my first time at Venice Beach and I definitely want to go back and explore some more.  Its a funky area with tons of great people watching.  Here some pics from our stop at Venice Beach:

D's Parents with my Aunt C, Uncle O, and Cousins W & S

D's Dad interacting with the locals (forgot what the guy's name was)

Venice Beach

While in Venice Beach, I picked up a little souvenir.  Its a hand painted calaveras for "Día de los Muertos" (Mexico's Day of the Dead).  I don't know why exactly it spoke to me, but I thought it was beautiful.  It also happens to be my favorite color too.  D's Dad, J, thinks I should go back and ask him to paint me one in Washington State's colors of crimson and grey.  I think one calaveras in our house fine for no, now all I need to do is figure out where to put it.

 

SAC Visit

I went to visit my friend KTong in Sacramento a couple weeks back and thought I would post a couple pics from the trip. Besides having a good catch up session, the other main reasons for the trip was to help her with some wedding planning items. She's getting married in July in Tahoe and I'm excited to stand by her and be a bridesmaid in her wedding. This is the first time that I've ever been a bridesmaid, so its been fun to see wedding planning on the other side of things. I'm even helping to plan a bridal shower for Miss KTong in January!  Besides all of the wedding planning things that we did, we also got a chance to get a run in together.  She's a major marathoner while I'm just a building up my running career, but was still fun to run together.  After our run, KTong and her fiancee took me to their favorite Sunday breakfast spot, called the Zebra Club.  The Zebra Club was basically a locals bar that served breakfast, but the bloody marys and pancakes were delicious!  D and I need to find a spot like this in our neck of the woods.

KTong and Me in our running gear, with KTong's Fiancee hiding in the background

Farewell Dora the Explorer

Tuesday I had to say good bye to a dear friend, my garmin. Somewhere between 6:30 pm on Sunday and 6:30 pm on Tuesday, my car got broken into. My honda civic, which I affectionately refer to as "Lil Blue" got broken into, my garmin was stolen, all the contents of the side pockets and center console were thrown everywhere, and the door was left open so her battery was dead when I found her. Although the only valuable thing that was stolen was my garmin, also known in our household as "Dora the Explorer," it still makes me sad. The cop who filled out the police report says these things happen at lot more often during the holidays. I just hope who ever did this is treating Dora with the respect she deserves! Farewell Dora the Explorer, hope you're being taken care of!

Pie

Source: She Wears Many Hats Blog - Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

I finally recovered from my cold and then bam! Thanksgiving arrived!  Luckily I was able to jump right in and have a fabulous time!  My in-laws stayed with us for a couple days and my aunt and her family came down from Portland to visit too.  Luckily my father-in-law and D were super eager to take the reins on cooking Thanksgiving dinner, so I gladly stepped aside and became a helpful sous/pastry chef instead.  I made some Irish Beer Bread (mix provided by Trader Joes) for our stuffing and it was scrumptious!  Also, I'm a big fan of the Pioneer Woman blog (she was recently on Food Network doing a Thanksgiving Dinner Throwdown with Bobby Flay). On one of her posts, she posted a pie recipe from this blog and it reminded me of a "Kentucky Derby Pie" that I tried once when I was in 3rd grade, so I had to give it a whirl. Although I've been taught throughout my life to never try a new recipe when you have company coming over, I just couldn't help myself.  Luckily, it was a huge hit!!!  Looks like we'll be keeping this recipe around for a while!

Holy Moly

This weekend was an absolute blast!  I'll post some pics from it soon, I'm just majorly beat.  The last couple weeks have caught up with me and now I'm sick :(  Plus D's working night shifts in the ER right now and so we only see each other for a couple hours a day.  I'm feeling pretty blah, but hopefully I feel like myself again in the next couple days.  Get excited for Harry Potter!!!

Cocktail Friday Fun

Aloha Friday everyone!  It has been a crazy couple weeks for moi and I am often to Sacramento to hang out with my lovely lady friend KTong.  On a side note, did anyone ever remember the cartoon series Lady Lovely Locks?  Definitely one of my childhood favorites!  Anyway, I realized that after this weekend I will have been to six different airports in 11 days.  Kind of intense and hopefully my travel for work will slow down soon.  As a celebration for Aloha Friday, I'd like to share another one of our favorite cocktail recipes.  We don't really have a name for it, so I'll just call it Passion Fruit Punch for now.  The recipe is as follows:

• 1 1/2 oz to 2 oz of Passion Fruit Infused Vodka (it has been our experience that Skyy makes the best)
• Pomegranate-Blueberry Juice (we prefer the no sugar added kind)
• Splash of Lime Juice
• Lime wedge for garnish 

Tadaaah!  Very simple and the aroma from this concoction is wonderful!  Hope you enjoy it as much as D and I do!


PS - The new Harry Potter movie comes out in a week!!!

Chronic

D and I had a fun weekend, where we got to spend one whole day together!  Things at work have been crazy for both of us, but we both took advantage of Saturday to spend some time off together.  D went to hit some golf balls at the driving range, while I had my first training with TNT. Afterward we came back home cuddled on the couch to watch college football.  After a quick game of Wii sports, not sure if I'm sorer from the run or playing table tennis on the Wii, D and I drove over to Weeman's Chronic Tacos in Redondo Beach. We've been curious to try out the place and were pleasantly surprised by the results. The service was excellent and the guys behind the counter were surprisingly very friendly.  Weeman is the little person character on the slapstick show Jackass, which can be a little extreme, so we weren't quite sure what to expect. D had the carnitas burrito and I had a carne asada taco and an al pastor taco.  This place will definitely be a repeat for us, two thumbs up!  Might even have to go see Jackass in 3D now . . .