Browse Day: December 23, 2012

Dinner with Old Friends

hsiang yuenBack when we lived in Irvine, we used to throw a big Christmas party every year.  Now that we live in SF and everyone else is on a tighter schedule, we usually just go out to eat and have drinks afterward.  This year, we met up on Sunday night (12/23) and had dinner at Hsiang Yuen and it was so nice to have everyone (sans Agustins) together in one place.

bwwAfterward, I dropped off the kid with my parents and picked up Brother and Joy for drinks with the gang at Buffalo Wild Wings.  Ah, gotta love the ‘burbs.  Drinks were cheap, there’s plenty of parking, and the drive home is just 10 minutes.

Magical House Grubbin’

macarons

We spent Sunday at The Magical House and it was awesome. Brother and Joy spent the night and had brought some of their homemade French macarons.  They were DE-licious!

kanom krok

In the morning, Mommy made some Kanom Krok for us and I was so happy.

crabWhile Jes and I were at church, Brother and Joy went to Redondo Beach to pick up some crab and clams for our tasty lunch.

clam chowder

brother

Jes and I made clam chowder from the Hog Island Oyster Co. recipe and it came out quite well!

feastWe ate the steamed dungeness crab with a special sauce that my mom made.

familyShe cracked all the shells for us so we were grubbin’ at a record pace.

What a long drive.

rest stopIt was the shortest day of the year but the longest drive ever.  On Saturday, we left the house at 11:30 am.  The drive started out well but then as 1-580 was merging with I-5, it became a bumper-to-bumper nightmare.  Here’s a photo of Kumquat when we stopped for lunch at Panda Express.

sleepingLuckily, Kumquat did well on the drive down.  However, at about the 7-hour mark, she was done. We were all done.  Fortunately, traffic was moving past Kettleman City but it took us about 6 hours to get half-way down and then a total of 10 hours to get to Cerritos.  *sigh*

dinnerWhen we arrived at the Magical House, it truly was magical.  My mom had prepared a tasty Chicken Rice dinner and had ice cold Singha waiting for Jes.  Thanks, Mommy!!