Browse Month: April 2011

Late Q1 Visit

One of our New Year’s Resolutions is to visit the parents once per quarter.  We were a little late but April is better than not at all.  The first thing I noticed when we arrived in Cerritos was the warmth.  I was outside with shorts, a t-shirt, and no hoodie.  Aaaahhh…we lucked out on being home during a sunny 83-degree weekend.  Even the dog enjoyed it.  I took him out to the backyard and we lounged out in the sun.

On Saturday, we had lunch with Jes’ parents.  We met up at a Chinese restaurant in Garden Grove and had a tasty tasty Chinese beef burrito that was fried.  Mmm…

On Sunday, I took Jes back to Mitsuwa for his favorite bowl of ramen.  He was afraid that it had been so long that the hype in his head was just that, hype.  But it wasn’t!  It’s still ranked #1.

After lunch we stopped at the Irvine house to check on it.  It was really weird driving through the neighborhood and stepping into our little birdhouse again 4 years later.  I was so happy to see my Japanese maple tree alive and HUGE!  We cleaned up the pond and the neighbors came by to hang out like old times.  Hopefully we’ll have renters soon.

On Sunday afternoon, we met up with the family for a big Thai feast.  It was so nice to hang out with the cousins and their kids again.  Makes me miss being away from them even more after I leave.

On Monday morning I had to get up really early to get to the BMW dealership to get our brakes checked.  We got a big red warning light on the way down and it seemed pretty serious.  It’s a good thing we got it checked out because we had to replace the brake pads AND rotors.  Ouch.  I guess it was a good thing we took Monday off.

The drive up and down I-5 was long and boring but totally worth it.  2nd Quarter ends in June and we’re due for another visit.  Hm…when can we drive down again?  I’ll keep you posted.

Here are photos from the weekend (and the Janet concert).

Janet!!!

I admit that when I was in high school, I wanted to one day be one of Janet Jackson’s backup dancers.  She had the best videos with really cool choreography.  Patty and I loved her and we watched videos from the Rhythm Nation album over and over again in 9th grade.  In college, she came out with a couple more albums and I spent hours listening to one of her CDs while I studied.  A few months ago when we heard that she was going to be on tour with her “Number Ones: Up Close and Personal” show, we bought tickets and last night was the big night.

We drove up early to have dinner at Firenze Osteria (belongs to Top Chef Fan Favorite, Fabio Viviani) that was just down the street from the venue.  We had a really yummy dinner and the gnocchi are really good there.  Then we parked and got to the Gibson Amphitheater at Universal City around 8:30 and there wasn’t anyone opening for her, which made it a little weird since the tickets said “8:15” but Janet didn’t appear until 9:20.  She just dedicated two songs to the audience and played the videos for us before coming on stage.  She was dressed in a white tank and black pants and was sporting a new short haircut.  The show was kept simple with 6 backup dancers, lights, and a band.  She looked great at 44 years of age and danced and sang her heart out.  Loved that she performed all her #1s with the signature choreography from her videos.  They also showed a short slideshow of Janet and Michael as kids toward the end.  It got me a little choked up.  Patty and I had such a great time.  The tickets were pricey but totally worth the experience.

Last-minute HH

On Thursday morning, Stephanie informed me that Mai was driving up for a 4-day weekend.  So we rounded up the troops and had an impromptu HH at Marc 49.  Mai stopped by the hospital during the last hour of work and then we all met up for some wine and cheese.

Afterward, Teresa, Steph, and I walked ourselves to the BART station.  The best part of DST is having just enough daylight to safely stumble home.  On our way, we stopped at Jack in the Box.  I don’t remember the last time I had gone there but my chicken pita was tasty that night.

Ballerina

My co-worker approached me a few months ago about taking photos of her.  She has been a ballet dancer since she was little and has been recently feeling her age.  She’s only a month older than me and wanted to get some photos of her while she was still strong and flexible enough to perform her leaps and poses.

So, on Sunday morning, we met up at Golden Gate Park and I got a bunch of shots of her in two different costumes.  It was so cool to see what she could do.  There was a little girl (~5 years old) and her dad and she was so in love with Renee.  We even caught her doing jumps and poses while her dad took photos of her off to the side.  So cute.

I love how many of my co-workers have other talents on the side.  We had a lot of fun during the photoshoot and Renee LOVED her photos.  Yay!  Here are the rest of the photos.

First Date

A couple years ago when Michelle and I went to the watch the movie “Up”, we saw a trailer for “G-Force”.  It’s about a bunch of guinea pigs fighting crime.  Sounds ridiculous but I actually laughed at their antics.  So, Michelle said that I was the official person to take Jack to see these zany kid movies once he’s old enough.

Well, he’s finally old enough so they enlisted me to take him to see “Hop” with Jack.  I actually wanted to see it so it worked out for both of us.  Michelle dropped Jack and I off at the Metreon yesterday afternoon and we were both super excited.  After buying our tickets and a small popcorn, we headed to Theater 12 for a fun-filled bunny movie.

Jack had a great time gobbling up all the popcorn and playing the “air drums” along with the bunny in the movie.  It’s a good thing he packed a juice box in his pocket cuz he ate A LOT of popcorn.

Afterward, we pretended to play some arcade games (playing with the wheel of the car game) and also took a little booth photo.

We also wandered the Yerba Buena Garden a bit before catching the bus home.

Jack did a great job through the whole movie and got a real kick out of riding the bus.  I’d say we had a pretty successful “first date”.  He also found the movies he’s gonna want to see next.  Sweeeet.

Here are the rest of the photos.

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