Browse Category: holidays

Christmas Vacation: Part 1

Monday, December 21, 2009

We packed up the car on Monday morning and headed down Interstate 5 for a week at home.  It was smooth sailing all the way down until we hit LA traffic starting at Dodgers Stadium.  The last 30 miles home was a very painful 1.5 hours long.  Yikes.  Once we arrived in Cerritos, we had an awesome Kao Mun Gai dinner that my mom prepared along with a chicken soup with tofu made especially for Jesse and his cold.  After dinner, Jes passed out early and I took a solo trip to Target.  It was GREAT.  You can always rely on suburbia to give you wide streets, two convenient locations to you favorite store, and ample parking.  I finished up my Christmas shopping there and picked up a bunch of gift bags and wrapping paper.  It’s a good thing I left this errand for that evening.  It would have taken me about 2 hours to do the same in SF.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

On Tuesday morning, Jes and I took care of some personal business: a haircut for Jes at Supercuts and eyebrow threading for me.  Why is everything so cheap in Cerritos/Artesia?!  I got my brows done for 3 bucks!

For lunch we drove up to Santa Monica to meet up with Brother and his wacky co-workers.  We dined at Fraiche and it was pretty tasty.

The only disturbing part was the “pork belly salad” that Jes ordered.  It was literally two slabs of fat bacon over a tiny bed of frisee salad.  Ridiculous.  I also took an impromptu video of the table and it got turned into the WORK Christmas e-card.  Pretty funny stuff.

It was fun to drive around our old ‘hood and we even took the long way back to the freeway by driving down Wilshire Blvd.  Sometimes I really miss West LA.  Later that evening, we had a Chimmy Family dinner of spicy spicy Thai food.  Jes was very pleased while the rest of us couldn’t slurp down our Thai Iced Tea fast enough.

Too tired…too overwhelmed…

Now that Christmas has passed and we’re back in SF from a week-long vacation in Southern CA, my body is tired, my mind is clear, and my heart is full.  I’d start posting photos from the week’s activities but I’m a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of photos I took.  It’s like getting back from our trip to Italy again!!  So much happened and I don’t know where to begin.  I’ll start tomorrow after I have a good night’s sleep.  It’s too bad that I have to return to work tomorrow for a full week (yes, even New Year’s Eve and Day).  It was great seeing all of you!!!

Prime Rib Bday

dinner table

This evening we celebrated Ryan’s 35th birthday.  They made the roast and Yorkshire pudding and we made the creamed corn, green beans, and mashed potatoes.  Vyl made an iceberg lettuce cobb salad and brought mochi/taro cake.

birthday crisp

There was birthday apple crisp (compliments of Tracy) instead of cake and it was delicious.

Charlie Brown Christmas

We also watched A Charlie Brown Christmas with Jack spinning himself in circles by the end of the night.  Good times…

Here are the rest of the photos.

Apple pie will win one day.

Pie Party 2009

Michelle and Ryan threw their annual Holiday Pie Party this afternoon and once again I made an apple pie.  They say I’ll never win with an apple pie but dog gonnit I’m going to keep trying!  To switch it up a bit this year, I used a new recipe that involved adding fresh cranberries and topping it with a crumble.  As an apple pie, I thought it was quite yummy with a little sweet, a little tart, and a little texture from the chopped pecans.

mixture

Here’s the mixture of two kinds of apple, cinnamon, brown sugar, lemon juice, and cranberries.

assembled

Here’s the pie right before it goes into the oven.  Check out the little cubes of butter that I had to add to it!

finished pie

After 30 mins, I added the crumble and baked it for another 45 minutes.  With some final touches of my little cut-out stars, it’s done!

mini pies

I also had some filling and crust leftover so I made some mini pies with just filling and crust on top.  Aren’t they cute?!

counting the votes

Well, after everyone voted for their top three favorites and the points were tallied, a savory pie won again.  Aw shucks!

The winna!

Vyl (for the second year in a row) won with a bacon and egg quiche that was super tasty and totally deserved to win. Perhaps it was because she pulled the Bacon Card?!  Next year I’m going to make a bacon and apple pie.  That should win it!!

Here are the rest of the photos.

Only 20 Days ’til Christmas!

Koa Reindeer

Can you tell that Koa’s super excited for Christmas?!  Haha.  Jes found the antlers today while he was digging around in some boxes.

Little Tree!

This afternoon we went to the tree lot and picked out this cute little tree that will live in our home for the holiday season.

Tree in the Car

It was even small enough to fit in the backseat of the car!

Christmas Tree

The tree might be small but it was perfect for the corner table.  With some lights and ornaments, it became the perfect Christmas tree for 2009.  Yippee!!

To top off the weekend, I might just bust out the flour and do some baking.  Michelle’s annual pie party is next weekend and I need to work on my pie crust.

Sunday Outing

SFMoMA

For the past 2 years, Jes has said that his company has special membership privileges at certain museums in the city.  We finally used it today to visit SFMoMA.  Fortunately for me, there were lots of photography exhibits on display this weekend.  It was also the last day of the Richard Avedon exhibit.  He’s a well-known photographer who took lots of black and white portraits with plain white backgrounds and also shot fashion photos for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

richardavedon_01

Dovima with Elephants

richardavedon_02

Carmen (Homage to Munkacsi)

These two were my favorites, which also happen to be soe of his most famous ones that are also displayed at The Smithsonian.

holidaylights

Afterward, we took walk around Union Square to find lots of holiday shoppers, lights, and signs of Christmas all around.

thai iced tea

For dinner, we had some Thai food and just the smell of the restaurant made me happy.  There’s something so comforting to me about the smell of garlic fried in oil.  Reminds me of Mommy.

Anyway, this evening was a nice way to end this year’s Thanksgiving weekend…especially since I spent most of if at home in my pjs.  🙂