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More Post-Christmas Meals

On Tuesday, we had an impromptu lunch with the family including my parents, Jes’ parents, the Suminos, Jason and Jia, and Marie’s parents!  Good thing we planned on having dim sum because they can accommodate a table for 13.

It was so much fun to see the boys again and Brandon sang “Joy to the World” for me.

I promised that they’d get a surprise if they ate all their food and were so excited to open their Christmas gifts. Cole even gave his Uncle Jesse a big thank-you hug.

After lunch, we took Jason and Jia to the airport and then spent the afternoon just kickin’ it in the Magical House.  Later that evening, we met up with the Sokol-Juns who were sans children.  We shared a big meal of Japanese BBQ with at a taste of almost every part of the cow.  It’s a place called Tsuruhashi and it’s hidden away in Fountain Valley.  Good times…

On Wednesday morning, we headed out for our drive back to SF.  It started out pretty rainy and hit a little bit of traffic in Commerce but once we were out of the Grapevine, the rain stopped and the sun came out.  I think we saw 4 rainbows on our way home! Too bad I was driving while it all happened so I have no photos to show for them.

Dog did a good job just hanging out in the backseat again but seemed relieved to be back in his bed again.

Here are photos from our Christmas Vacation in Southern California.

Early Christmas

Koa got an early Christmas present from his buddy, Little J.  We named him Señor Fluffball.  Here’s a video of the dog opening his gift.  He loved it so much that within the first 5 minutes, he killed the squeaker.  Señor Fluffball has been silenced.  WHA. WHAAAA….

Pre-Thanksgiving Weekend

Last Wednesday (11/17), Brother, Joy, and Mommy came up to visit me.  The timing coincided with a bunch of things that I already had planned for the week and they somehow came together just fine.  I picked them up on Wednesday night and they spent Thursday exploring the city and also went to Alcatraz.  Meanwhile, I went to work and we also had our annual Craft/Bake Sale Fundraiser.

We always have a Happy Hour afterward so the family took BART over to the East Bay and got to meet the gang at work.

HH was at Marc 49 and we had a fun evening decompressing from the crazy month of planning and the actual fundraiser.

The interesting part of the evening was that I saw my mom drinking a beer for the first time!  For all my life, she didn’t drink but I guess retirement has changed things.

On Friday, I already had the day off to visit the de Young Museum with Stephanie.  So, that morning, I took the family to Mama’s for pancakes and waited a good 45 minutes to get in.  Luckily no one was in a hurry so we endured the wait and had a feast of pancakes, french toast, eggs, and corned beef hash.  Afterward, we met up with Stephanie at the mall and headed out to Golden Gate Park.

The family went to the California Academy of Science and the two of us went to the Van Gogh exhibit.  It was a rainy day but it didn’t matter.  We all still had a good time.

Later that evening, we met up with the rest of the girls at Embarcadero Center for Light-up Night.  HH was at Osha Thai where we enjoyed appetizers and Effen drinks.

By 6:30, we paid the tab and headed outside for the lighting and caught the fireworks in the rain.

Immediately after the fireworks, we walked over to the Hyatt for the tree lighting.  Unfortunately it was quite a production and we had some time to kill.  That was when things got a little fuzzy since people were at the bar and bringing me tasty drinks.

About 20 minutes later, they started the countdown and the snow fell while the lights turned on.

My mom eventually got tired and took Muni home.  Meanwhile, the girls took off for snacks at Palomino while Jes, Brother, Joy, and I headed over to One Market.  Sometime between the Hyatt and the restaurant I fell ‘cuz I woke up the next morning with a huge scuff on my knee.  Whoops.  As dinner started, Joy wasn’t feeling well so we went home early while the boys finished dinner.  As I was taking care of Joy, I got a text from Jes that said “Peanuts in your brother’s dessert.  Hooray.”  Here’s his side of the story:

Yep, he was struck by the peanut monster once again and ended up yacking at the restaurant and in the street on the way home. What a mess.

The next day we took it easy as everyone was recovering from a fun fun evening.  We had porridge and fried dough for breakfast, grilled cheese and tomato soup for a snack, and then Bakesale Betty’s for lunch.  Yum Yum…if that doesn’t take care of a hangover, nothing will.

Before taking the family to the airport, we stopped at Modern Mouse for Eleen’s anniversary party.  We got to hang out with friends and browse the merchandise as the rain poured down.  The drive to SFO was a little scary but we made it and the family got home safely after an hour-long flight delay.

Here are the rest of the photos from the weekend.

EuroTrip: Paris, Sept 4

On Saturday morning, we said our goodbyes and rushed off to the Tube station to get to St. Pancras Station for our 2-hour train ride to Paris on Eurostar.

The train station itself was beautiful and they had free WiFi!  We bought economy seats and were pleasantly surprised at how comfy they were.  We originally got window seats but this older couple was already seated and settled into our seats.  I was a bit annoyed at first but realized that we were better off in the aisle so that we could go wander the train to find the buffet car without disturbing them.

In the buffet car, we got a bottle of wine and enjoyed the scenery whizzing by.

Once in Paris, it was a little bit of a frenzy trying to find an ATM for Euros, standing in line for Metro tickets, and finding our way to our hotel.  We arrived at our hotel in Montparnasse to find out that Expedia had a glitch at the time we booked it and by the time the hotel received our reservation, they were full.  Oh no!  I thought we’d be homeless until the nice man at the desk explained that they were sorry and made arrangements for us to stay at a more expensive hotel in the 9th arrondissement.  A taxi was called and they paid for the fare and told them exactly where to take us.  On the way, I got my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower in the distance and we drove right past the entrance to the Louvre.  It was all very exciting.

We finally arrived at Pax Opera Hotel and check-in was super easy.  They didn’t even ask for ID or anything!  The room was very clean with modern fixtures and everything we needed.  Hotel also had free WiFi for us to look up restaurants and directions.

We were hungry so we headed back out in search of lunch and some sights.  We walked up towards Montmarte and found the red light district and Moulin Rouge.

Stopped at a Cafe de Luna and had a delicious ham and cheese crepe while checking our guidebooks.  Finally made it to Sacre Coeur where the lawn between the stairs was covered with people and there was a carousel at the bottom of the hill that had a bunch of old ladies riding it.

We climbed the stairs and got a good view of Paris.  It’s just too bad that while we were up there it was overcast.

Afterward we did a little wandering and got a little lost but found our way down to the River Seine in time to catch the sun setting behind the Eiffel Tower in the distance.  Had a quick dinner that wasn’t very good but it was a nice place to hang out and watch people.

Later we walked down towards Notre Dame and walked along the Seine where there were lots of young people hanging out by the water.  Notre Dame is beautiful at night.  Too bad we didn’t make it there in time to climb the tower.  I really wanted to see the gargoyles close-up.  Oh well.

After a little wine stop at a nearby cafe, we hopped back on Metro and made two stops.  First was the Arc du Triomphe at the end of the Champs Elysses. This photo was taken at a stop light in the middle of the crosswalk.

The next was the Eiffel Tower at midnight.  The lights were on and it also had a light display of sparkle lights every hour.

Here’s a video of it:

We happened to arrive as it was starting so we got to see it in all its glory.  If you can’t see the video above, click here.  Metro stops running at 1 am on Friday and Saturdays so we had just enough time to hang out and then hop back on to get back to the hotel.

Here are photos from this day.

Umbrellas are cool.

On Sunday morning, I was up by 5:45 am again and took a little stroll down to the beach to watch the surfers.  Once Jes woke up, we headed down for breakfast at the Beachhouse and then over to the towel hut for a day at the beach.  We rented an umbrella for the day and it was totally worth it.  They set us up with two beach chairs and plenty of towels.  We were there from around 9:00 am and had it to ourselves until 5:30!  So we lazied around in the sun and then under the umbrella and then back in the sun.  We’d take a few dips in the ocean to cool off and then go back to the umbrella.  What fun!  By 10:30, the poolside bar was open and the number tag on our umbrella was flipped over as a signal to the waiter that we needed assistance.  We sat for another hour with drinks on the side table until it was time for lunch.

For lunch we walked over to Ramen Nakamura, Jes’ favorite ramen place, and stuffed ourselves silly.  We browsed through some of the stores on the way back to the hotel, gathered up our belongings from our room, and headed back to the umbrella.  Ah…it was just sitting there waiting for us.  How nice.

We spent another couple hours in our chairs until Yoon and her friend came by to join us.  We asked for two more chairs and the four of us just hung out watching the people on the beach.  Jes also had fun floating in the waves and I bobbed up and down in the water with my waterproof camera watching all the activity around me.

At the end of the afternoon, Yoon took us for a drive up the coast to see China Wall.  It’s actually called Koko Mini Beach Park and it had a spectacular view.  We carefully walked down the rocky steps to a flat area just along the crashing waves.

There’s a series of cut-up rocks and walls that make the water swirl violently in the middle and then crash up against the walls.  It was pretty fun to watch!

We drove farther up the coast to find a few other pretty places to take photos and then headed back to town.

Dinner was at Azure inside the Royal Hawaiian.  We had their tasting menu and I really enjoyed all of the items, well, maybe except for the veal.  Poor baby cow…  By the end of the night, we were pooped and asleep by 11.  It was yet another good day on the rock.  Umbrella day was fun.

Final Four!

Once again, we raised funds for the BORP Roll n Shoot Tourney and played some wheelchair basketball on Saturday.  Last year we got beat up and only scored seven times out of all 4 games.  Of course we came in dead last but had a lot of fun.  This year we didn’t actually get to practice as much as last year so I was bit worried when we arrived at the court.

Luckily we came a little more prepared with our shirts in the colors of the kids on the Children’s logo.  We even got hooked up with tattoos and window clings that we taped to our backs with medical tape.  We were a rag-tag bunch, a little ghetto, but oh so awesome.

We played our first game and we won!  Then in the second game we won again!  In our third game, I scored TWICE!, and we won after an overtime shoot-out. Check out this video clip:

In our fourth game, we won and swept our pool.  That took us to the Final Four and we played the other pool’s second-best team and got beat by only one point!!

Our coach MacKenzie was such a good sport with our ADD tendencies and rowdiness.  We raised money for a wonderful organization and had a fun-filled day playing w/c bball.  Who knows…maybe we’ll get to the finals next year?!

Here are photos from the tournament.