Happy Holidays!

Welcome! You've made it to our Blog!  We wanted to be able to create something that would allow our friends and family to stay connected.

Our blog started back in June of this year with a "re-cap" post from our wedding in April.  We tried to keep up on our postings but sometimes life just gets so busy and I only managed one post a month! Hum, do I perhaps see a New Years resolution is in order here? Haha.

I'm sure a lot of you want to know how married life has been.... IT'S BEEN WONDERFUL! Alicia and I have a had a great time enjoying each others company, furnishing our home, making plans for the future, and even just figuring out the daily housekeeping tasks.

For those of you who don't know, we live in the Temecula Valley which is about one hour north of San Diego. On our days off we love taking a quick drive to the local area wineries!  If any of you every want to come and check those out- we would be happy to show you the best of what Temecula Wineries have to offer! Lake Skinner is also just a few short miles away from us. Besides taking the pups (Ella, Bentley, and Rocco) out to expend some of the never-ending supply of energy that they seem to have, we love just hanging out at home. Alicia has this new found addiction to Pinterest, and she always has some new home improvement or recipe for us to try!

After the wedding, Alicia said goodbye, a sad goodbye, to Loma Linda University Children's Hospital- PICU and began a new job at Loma Linda University Medical Center - Murrietta in the Emergency Department. It was definitely a change, but the staff there welcomed her with open arms and the good friends from PICU provided much support and encouragement. I started my second year at Kaiser Fontana in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. It's great to see how far we have come in just one short year. Both the PICU and the ED are growing every day. It has been such a great experience to be apart of a new and growing unit. We both are learning so much everyday.

As this year comes to a close and the Christmas season is upon us we reflect on all its' unforgettable moments - Our wedding, trips and vacations, quality time spent with family and friends, and learning to be a husband and a wife. Christmas is such a wonderful time of the year, it's cliche, but it would be cool if Christmas was everyday! well... minus the crowded stores and long lines of course. We hope this holiday season brings you, your family, and friends closer together and that new memories and traditions can be made.

We're looking forward to 2012 with much joy and anticipation as a every new year brings new adventures, new memories, and opportunities.

Continue to check back in and read our blog as I'm sure we'll be posting more in the weeks and months to come.

May God bless you and your loved ones this holiday season!

With Love,

Aaron and Alicia Akamine

Remember, Remember... something November

Happy November Everyone!

It seems that this month has come and gone all too quickly. I tried to think of a clever title for this posting, but I think it's suppose to go "Beware Beware..." I don't know, so I left it as is.

November 2011... What is there to say? First off, it was my brother Tony's 24th birthday! I can't believe that we're officially in our mid twenties... or, well that he's in the mid and I'm in the late. I bet our parents can't believe it either.  November is also when our dog Rocco was born, I think he was born on November 2nd actually. He's officially two human years old.

This month we also got to participate in Alica's uncle, Sybren's annual cook off. This year the theme was salads. I'm just now realizing that we didn't take any photos that night! Bummer. Well to describe it as best as possible.... There were about 30 salad entries and everyone got to partake of each others entries making for an amazing and healthy dinner! There were two winning categories, Most Original and Best Overall. Alicia and I put together a gourmet salad - Salmon and Hearts of Palm with a lemon caper vinaigrette.

Unfortunately we did not win, nor place in the top three... But it was such a great time! It was fun seeing all the different types of salad and meeting new people. We're definitely looking forward to next years competition.

November is also the start to the holiday season! We spent our Thanksgiving day at my cousin's house in Westlake, CA. It's quite a drive but it's worth it. After picking up my mom at her house, we loaded the car and drove out. We had a delicious Thanksgiving lunch consisting of two types of turkey, smoked and oven baked, the traditional fixings, then of course the Asian fixings. I think that's one of the best things about our Thanksgiving meals, it's always your traditional eats and then some.  Lisa and Craig recently renovated their house with a brand new kitchen and wood flooring, we appreciate them opening their hour year after year for family get togethers.

My uncle also decided to break out his mochi maker (It's a Wikipedia link, but at least you'll get the gist of it). He had everything prepared the night before and it was just a matter of steaming and then impelling the rice into a sticky white gum paste. We had little to no idea what we were doing... But after about four rounds we got the hand of it! We made some plain and we also made some that were stuffed with azuki bean! Delicious.

Hope that this month has treated you well and that you're prepared for the holiday season! Alicia and I are excited to be celebrating our first holiday season together as a married couple. We were just talking the other night that in just about four more months we will have been married for one year! Man, time really does fly when you're having fun with your best friend.

Happy Holidays!

October Round-Up

October was quite a month! About a week after my last post early last month I meant to write a blog entry...  obviously that never happened, hence, the "October Round-Up" post, more than halfway through November...

Lets see.... After we picked out our pumpkins last month nothing too exciting happened until the weekend of Leslie and Darin's wedding.  The lovely couple tied the knot at, Longshadow Ranch - Vineyard & Winery , a winery located in Temecula Valley.  They had a cute outdoor ceremony followed by an indoor reception.  I wish I had taken some pictures to post on my blog but fear not, their photographer did a fantastic job of capturing their special day. Great job Kimberly Loya Photography!

This was our first wedding attending as a married couple. I felt so grown up! Haha. No more garter toss, no more bouquet catching for us. At least Alicia and I have the dance floor, we love dancing!

Last month also concluded a nine week teaching contract that I had with Mt. San Jacinto College for their (ADN) Associate Degree Nursing Program.  My clinical site was Hemet Valley Medical Center for critical care nursing. As I reflect on those nine weeks, I had a good time becoming familiar the community hospital setting and instructing an amazing group of driven, motivated, nursing students. As of now I'm scheduled to start again in January 2012 to finish out the second semester teaching Fundamentals, who would have thought.

What else happened last month... OH! Not sure if you saw my semi-inactive/neglected Facebook page... But we sold our 2003 Honda Element. Alicia and I decided to find a buyer via Craigslist.com and within a week of being posted we had it sold! We filtered through about 30 emails of potential buyers... To be honest, it became a little overwhelming. I ended up filtering emails by those who could spell and those who could not, those who could speak English and those who could not, and those who were mentally stable and those who were not.  We met our buyer at the Dos Lagos mall where he test drove it around the parking lot and it was a done deal! Sad to see the green box car go but "times a changing."

In October we also started taking our backyard seriously... For those of you who may not have seen it, there's not much to see except for dirt, weeds, dogs, and... Well I'm sure you know what comes along with dogs. We had a landscaper come by and draw some amazing plans for what will someday be our backyard, a beautiful outdoor entertaining and living space. Thanks to Gio, owner of Affordable Landscape Solutions for helping us take the first step by putting our vision on paper.

To finish out the month Alicia and I hosted a Wine and Dine party at our home. We had a great time!  One of the things that we had people do was to bring a dressed up wine bottle, and the best dressed wine bottle would win! Take a look at the entries...

At the last minute we decided to make it a costume party so a few of us dressed up. Great time with family, friends, and of course, good wine!  Our friends Tina and Melinda also stayed the weekend and the next day we got to show them the sights of Temecula Valley. We spent the day in Old Town Temecula and had lunch at one of our favorite wineries, Thornton Winery.

As November is already upon us, and quite frankly, is coming to an end; it's my goal to get a post in next week! Hope this fall season is treating you well.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Rabbit Rabbit Fun Day

Happy October!

I can't believe how fast this year has gone by, summer days seemed to have come and go with lingering days of heat into fall. Yesterday, Alicia and I got to spend the day with some friends in Oak Glen.  We met up in Hemet then all followed each other to Riley's Farm.  Alicia and I went to Oak Glen last year but it was on a week day and crowds were slim to none. Yesterday, Saturday, it was incredible and not in a good way.   I have a feeling that Oak Glen thrives and lives for this time of year, especially the weekends.  Riley's farm was 100% full with parking only available alongside the highway (which by the way, Riley's farm is not responsible for.) 

We kept on driving and headed towards another apple/pumpkin picking place called Los Rios.  Yes, Los Rios was probably just as crowded but at least we were able to find parking and get some BBQ sandwiches into our stomachs! They had live music, people picnicking, kids playing, and a petting zoo! Unfortunately, I guess the majority of pumpkins and apples had already been picked so their selection wasn't so great...

With that in mind we crossed the street and hiked to a pumpkin patch only to find... a field of pumpkin greens. Where were all the pumpkins?! At least the scenery was beautiful to look at...

 Leaving our disappointment behind us we took a short cut back to our cars and headed to the pumpkin patch at Live Oak Canyon. This is the place! ...I think maybe from now on we'll be going to Live Oak Canyon for our pumpkin picking adventures... Although, Alicia and I heard of a patch down in Temecula wine country... we haven't had a chance to check it out though.

We enjoy picking our own pumpkins, it's such an adventure! We found four beautiful pumpkins to liven up our home this fall.

Hope everything is going well with you readers. Enjoy the fall season!

Labor Day BBQ at the Akamine's!

Happy Saturday Everyone!

Last weekend Alicia and I hosted a Labor Day BBQ at our home. I think this was one of the first real get togethers that we've had since our house warming in July 2010!  We had an amazing time spent with family and friends.  The menu was simple, American Picnic. Of course that weekend had some record breaking heat which made BBQ-ing quite a task but everything turned out well.

We had hamburgers, hot dogs, three different salads, and too many desserts! Also, it was Dylan's big reveal to the extended family! He was a hit! He was so well behaved as he made rounds in everyone's arms.  This was also Ouma's (Alicia's grandmother) first time meeting her first great-grand child! What a special occasion.  Daddy, Jason, was right there taking photos and capturing the moments.  Later in the afternoon Jason's dad also stopped by and checked out his grandson. That little boy is so loved! 

Check our spread!

I also took the opportunity to try my hand at making sangria. It came out pretty good, the only think I would change would be the amount of ice I put it! ...After a while it got diluted and just didn't pack the same "punch" as before.  Alicia made a delicious sugar free strawberry lemonade from scratch! It was delicious, the perfect drink to quench your thirst on a hot September day. 

We also had some fresh homemade guacamole, love that stuff! Eat your heart out El Torrito!  The key is to use RIPE avocados, duh...haha.  Say for instance, if you have five avocados but only four are ripe, then make a guacamole with the four avocados - don't even think about adding that questionable 5th avocado, it's going to ruin your guacamole and its raw texture and flavor is going to go viral in your drip and ruin it!

After we had our desserts and were stuffed out of minds Alicia's brother, Alan, had brought his X-Box Kinect and set it up!  I really want to get a Kinect... I think that thing is so cool! Have you seen those infrared pictures of how Kinect "see's" your playing environment? ...It's kinda creepy and cool at the same time, there are 1000's and 1000's of dots.  My dad also brought his new "toy" ...an Apple iPad! ...I want one of those too. Hahaha.  Anyways, back to the X-Box, we played the Kinect Sports and all took turns bowling, sprinting, and playing ping pong.  I think that the coolest feature of the Kinect is that it takes video of you while you're playing the games and in the review it shows the videos! They are so hilarious!

Isn't is so crazy to see what kids are growing up with theses days?  Even in my line of work I've seen a huge change from what the little kids play with while in the hospital... Things like books and toys are quickly being replaced with DVD players, iPads, and cell phones. It's strange, or...rather it's becoming more normal to see a little toddlers navigating those iPads with the greatest of ease. 

Hope you all have survived the intense heat this week! Have a restful weekend. 

I'm NOT too busy to blog...

Hello Readers, if there are any of you still out there... Perhaps I should start with another re-cap or another welcome post! Alicia and I have been so busy lately, not that there's a ton of stuff going on though, just work and life. I honestly had to re-read our own blog to find out when my last entry was! ...That's bad.  I've seen people on my Facebook news feed committing to daily blog entries, a song-a-day, photo-a-day, and I always thought that'd be such a cool project. I don't know that I have enough motivation to pull something like that off so I'll stick to my... whenever-I-have-time commitment.

In recent weeks we started checking out a local church here in the valley called The Lamb's Fellowship.

They seem to have a pretty awesome mission going on.  Dynamic speakers, uplifting music, and soul nourishing-spiritually fulfilling sermons.  Unfortunately, Alicia and I work every other weekend so we're unable to attend every service. When we first went we thought that their Saturday night service started at 8:30 pm, but we must have heard wrong, it started at 6:00 pm. We both rushed after work church only to find out that we were the only two cars parked in the parking lot! Haha.

One of Alicia's coworkers hosted a summer time pool party for friends and families in the La Cresta neighborhood. This area is absolutely beautiful with breathtaking views of the valley and estate size homes and land.  We had a great time hanging out with everyone there, even took a dip in the pool as the kids squirted us with water guns.  I think one of my favorite parts was the food, they had a taco guy there! Muy Delicioso!  Alicia had one of our neighbor's bring a celebratory cake for the whole ED staff. It was quite impressive!

We also met up with some friends/ co-workers at Tom and Heather's house in Yucaipa for a "wine n' dine" evening.  Alicia and I brought these stuffed mushrooms featured in the Atkins Diet, they came out so good!  If I wasn't a nurse I'd be a chef for sure... We had a great evening catching up with old friends and making new ones. Guess we're going to be hosting the next one!  Our friend Meagan and her daughter carpooled with us and her daughter used the backseat DVD player. First time I ever used that thing, I think it'll come in handy one of these days when we have kids of our own.

Speaking of kids and babies and such... Jason, Patti, and Dylan are coming down for a visit this labor day weekend! We're so excited to have them over. This will be Dylan's first big trip to Southern/ Southeastern California.

What else? Well, we could always chat about the weather! Haha, well, speaking of, it has been very warm the past few days with temperatures reaching over 100 F daily. Today the valley actually actually had a few fires, one of which I think is still burning down close to the Riverside/ San Diego county line, hope it doesn't spread any more because there goes wine country...  What's nice though is that sometimes the hot weather brings us beautiful skies...

Alright readers, I've taken enough of your time. I'll post more as the days, err.., weeks go on. Hope you had a restful weekend and hoping you have a great week! At least Monday is out of the way, phew.

Home Improvement... Again

Being newly married and living a newly built house... I have a feeling that there are going to be quite a lot of posts relating to home improvement. Well, maybe it's not so much home improvement as it is making our home uniquely ours. You've seen our backyard, that's going to be quite a project! We even have a side yard that Alicia is eying on transforming into our own vegetable garden as well as some hanging plants to dress up the view from our dining room window.

Driving around our neighborhood we've noticed that the builders use to construct these homes fairly large, with each home featuring a "courtyard" like area for sitting and neighborhood watching.  Transforming our front door area is also a project that we're considering. I drew a sketch of what we hope to accomplish sometime in the future, maybe it will be one of those weekend warrior projects!

Also, here is an inspiration board that we've put together to tie all the elements we're looking to incorporate into the design.

But, since it's been so hot the last few days we decided to take our improvements inside. With a handy picture hanging kit a few tools - mission accomplished!

We've had these photos laying on our living room floor for quite some time now. Today, Sunday, they have found their new home on our stairwell wall.

Our friend, Mandy, visited a few weeks ago and she said that pictures on the wall make such a difference to a home! She was right!

Home Improvement

Work seems to be getting the best of us these days! Haha. This past week my parents came down for a few days to help us out with some projects that we've been wanting to complete around the house. Two things in particular, a gate for our side yard and assembling our new dog run.  Unfortunately, the time they spent with us was also some of the hottest temperatures that we've experienced all summer long! Heat wave for sure... We made sure to keep ourselves hydrated as well as take breaks during the peak hours to avoid heat stroke and other ailments from sun overdose.

The gate that my dad and I put together was no easy task. I'm almost positive on this one, I think our backyard dirt is composted of clay and cement. I have never dug into dirt so hard in my entire life! (I had actually started digging the holes about one month ago, a couple inches every day...) At one point I even considered renting a jack hammer! Haha. My dad, mom, and I made a trip to Lowes and got all our supplies - I'm sure the people at Lowes know my parents on a first name basis by now. My mom says that Lowes is where all the young suburbia families shop and Home Depot is... Well, it just is. The fence went up with little to no problems. I still have to add the trimmings (lock, handle, etc...) but for the most part it's all done! I'm just waiting for the stain to dry - it's still a little tacky to touch.  The top portion of the gate is going to be filled in with trellis to give it a more quaint feel for when our backyard is fully completed... Some day!

The other project that we wanted to get up was a dog run that Alicia and I had purchased a while back. The box alone weighed in at 200 lbs so it was definitely a two person job. The dog run took a little longer to put up than I thought - mainly because I had never worked with chain-link fence before.  It was funny, as soon as we got it all set up Rocco and Bently went in and started wrestling - MMA style.

We're so thankful that my parents were able to spend a few days with us!

"A San Francisco Treat"

Hello Readers!

It's been too long! My appologies. Alicia and I worked a four day stretch and then headed off to San Francisco! We absolutely love that city, we both agree that if there was any city in the world that we could live in, San Francisco would be it. The buildings, the culture, the neighborhoods, the restaurants, and the public transportation make the city so appealing.

On Wednesday we headed to the airport but got there a little late so we had to park in the closer lot which meant more money! Oh well.... Better than missing our flight that's for sure! When we got to Oakland, we headed over to the rental car place, then to yet another off site rental place to pick up our car.  We booked with Advantage - mainly because of the price.  We're still not sure whether waiting a full hour from the time we picked up our bags to the time our bags ended up in the trunk of the car was worth it...

After making our way to the city and checking into our hotel we headed out to Rocklin, about two hours inland, to see Jason, Patti, and Dylan! The drive took forever. We hit each city's traffic, during rush hour, not fun.  Jason and Patti had dinner waiting for us when we got there! We had Buca Di Beppo's and then frozen yogurt for dessert.  I got to hold Dylan for the first time! He's one cute kid!! I'm an uncle! How crazy... Alicia was right, seeing pictures of Dylan is one thing, but then actually being able to hold, feel, and smell him is just something you can't but help fall in love with. ...Well, some smells I could do without. Haha.

We stayed at the Warwick - San Francisco, an older hotel with all the quaint amenities and decor of the euro-american old world.  What really happened is that we got lucky and won the "name your own price" bid on Priceline. I don't think we have any photos of the room but lets just say we now know what our dining room would look like if we put a bed in it. Haha. We enjoyed our stay at the hotel though, it was close enough to major BART stations, MUNI lines, a sketchy backpackers hostel, and a "Massage and Sauna" parlor...

The next day (Alicia's Birthday) we spent in Santa Cruz.  We love exploring little beach towns like that - it reminded us of the trip we took up the coast a few years back.  [Which, by the way, is a road trip that I encourage everyone to take - it's relaxing, carefree, and you get to see all the beautiful sights that California has to offer.]  We spent the majority of the day at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.  This may sound strange, but from the moment we walked onto the boardwalk I had a strong sense of deja vu - come to find out my parents had taken my brother and I there when I was about five years old. Can you imagine, twenty two years later, and I still remember the roller coaster and smells of the boardwalk!

Per the birthday girl's request we had dinner at an Ethiopian food restaurant off Geary St at Assab Eritrean Restaurant.

One of Alicia's old roommates, Rebecca, met us for dinner.  She is an amazing person, humanitarian, physician, and all around fantastic human being. I feel that if there were more Rebecca's in the world, the world would be a much happier place!

On Friday we decided to go out and have a famous San Francisco breakfast at Dotties! ....Yeah right! The line was at least an hour long. Moving on... We ended up eating at this place called Honey Honey Cafe and Crepery. Good food! It definitely hit the spot - chocolate waffles, pecan pancakes, can't get much better than that! Shortly thereafter, we were on a mission. We had tickets to go to the Giants game on Saturday but had no team attire! So strolled, strolled, walked, hiked, ran, etc.... all the way down to AT&T Park to get some Giants paraphernalia.

 Then! We got the call. The others had arrived! We had planned to spend the rest of the weekend with Monique & her husband Jeremy, Meagan, and Heather and her husband Tom. Such a great bunch!  We had lunch at a little cafe off Union Square where we were serenaded by a wannabe broadway singer. Meagan swore that he had a hidden microphone on him, but I think his voice was just that "boomy," he reminded me of that "man with the golden voice."

We met up with Heather and Tom at the Grand Hyatt and watched people repel from the top of the building - Scary and amazing all at the same time. Turns out it was for the Special Olympics or something, that takes guts! I don't know that I could have done that sober - that's for sure! Kudos to those athletes!
We ended the afternoon with drinks at the GH Lounge 36 floors in the air! Yup, your ears pop in the elevator going up and down! The view was amazing! I didn't know that you could take in such a spectacular view for free.

Friday night we had dinner at One Market. The food was great and the half price wine bottles were even better!  I definitely recommend anyone to dine there, make reservations though, it fills up quickly.

On Saturday we met up with some old friends, Melinda and Rick. They had graciously enough saved a spot in line for... Dottie's True Blue Cafe! We're so lucky! Breakfast was amazing - it was like a home cooked meal but better. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to making breakfast... mainly because of the whole waking up part...

Saturday afternoon was relaxing. We walked around Ferry Building and along the piers.  There's so much to see and do in San Francisco! Our on foot journey eventually lead us to AT&T Park for the Giants vs. Brewers game. This was my first Giants game, ever. And I think... my 4th baseball game? I'll be the first to say that I'm not a sports fanatic by any means.  Enter, my wife.  She patiently explained all the in's and out's of the game and laughed with me... or at me... when I called it a "double out" instead of a "double play."

After the game a few of us went to a piano bar on Geary St for some post game beers! ...The atmosphere was kind of a buzz kill though. The piano guy was mediocre at best and his covers were kinda... well, I'll just say we didn't stick around to finish our beers...

Sunday morning was our LAST day in the city! The whole group got together at Honey Honey again and had breakfast.  Alicia and I got there early and waited the line out for everyone else. That place was so packed but we managed to stick a few tables together.  I think eating is one of the ultimate social activities a group of friends can do. Before long, it was time to say our goodbyes and head back home...

We arrived at the airport in good time actually! Alicia and I have learned that between us we can master public transportation! ...Well, maybe her a little more than I.

On the airplane we were in line with this little old Asian lady.  She was shorter than my mom! I don't know, maybe it's my approachable face, my friendly aura, or the fact that I'm a young Asian male with a genetically ingrained cultural respect for elders... But she kindly asked me to help her with her luggage. Of course, I was more than happy to! As we were preparing for lift off the steward had moved her bag three rows back and I could see the poor lady turning in her seat, stretching her neck trying to catch of glimpse of where her luggage was relocated to.  I reassured her that I would get her luggage for her once the place landed.  Pauline, my little old Asian lady friend, was so grateful. I felt like I was on one of those pay it forward commercials...

There you have it! Quality time with your better half, great food, amazing friends, and random acts of kindness.

My photo project during our trip!

Smells like wet dog!

HAVE YOU MET OUR KIDS?!

I can't believe I haven't blogged about our pups! We have three pups! Ella, Bently, and Rocco.

Ella is a Dalmador (Dalmation - Labrador Mix). Her original name was Cruella (Creative right? Her face must have been the inspiration behind that name) but Alicia wasn't too fond of that name so it was shortened to Ella. Ella is the oldest and most mischievous of our pups.  She's been known to clear a 6 foot fence in a single leap! 

Bently is a Golden Retriever. He's probably the most friendly dog you'll ever meet! I think it's in their breed, I know other people who have the same dog and they always say that their dog wouldn't even harm a fly. We actaully adopted Bently from our friends Ryan and Heather Walter when they moved to the east coast. Bently is quite the pup! He follows whatever Ella does and one day that landed him a stay in the Dog/Cat Hospital in San Bernardino after he was injured by a car!! He's all healed now and is usually the one who starts an impromptu wrestling match with either Ella or Rocco.

 

Rocco is a weimaraner and is the youngest of our pups. He was my Christmas present from Alicia two years ago!  He's been such a handful! You should have seen how much trouble he's gotten into in the past... amazing. But he's probably the one pup that tries the hardest to listen and behave, he's cute. He just has so much energy and is still very puppy like in his demeanor. Loves to lick, play, and wimper for attention.

So the other day Alicia and I were talking about how our dogs (Ella and Bently) use to love playing in the water at the dog park in Redlands.  While Alicia is enjoying a girls day at Glen Ivy spa I went out to K-Mart and found a cheap hard plastic dog pool for our pups as the summer days grow longer and hotter! I filled up the pool and of course who jumps in immediately? Ella. By breed, Ella and Bently are natural water lovers. Rocco is freaked out by it - I think he thinks of water as nothing more than a means of hydration.

Well, there you have it.  Our pups, our kids! Have a great day!

The Refrigerator Saga...

This is my first mobile post. I'm not sure if there is a blog app or an easier way to do mobile blogging... I'll have to look into it for sure though. So in the quietness of the living room this morning I listened to the sounds of the neighborhood, the backyard, and the house. However, aside from the regular mundane sounds of a typical Saturday morning there was something else, something I had never heard before. The quiet humming of our GE refrigerator was tainted with what sounded like a little Japanese boy playing with chopsticks and a fan. tat tat tat tat tat tat tat tat... (you like that description? ...yeah, I'm sure I did that once or twice back in the day. Haha) There goes the cooler again. Sure enough, when I checked the temperatures the freezer was reading in the teens. I checked out the cooling grate in the freezer and it had started to ice over again! ...lame

After speaking with Alicia we figured the best thing was to call and check the warranty stuff. As it turns out, the refrigerator is still under the manufacturers warranty for 11 more days then our Home Depot extended warranty will kick in. This is probably the first time in my life I'm glad that we had purchased one of those warranties. So I got on the phone with GE and after five different 1(800) numbers and five automated menus the earliest appointment GE can offer is in 9 days - I'm told that until then I can chip the ice away on a daily basis... Really? Anyways, so this turned out to be one of those life's lemons and lemonade moments. We got the family activated and with my mom and brothers help we're loading my old fridge that was in San Bernardino and taking it down to our house in French Valley!

Alright, I'm gonna get ready. Just got the text that they are getting close.

So, As you can see. I really made sure that there was no way this fridge was going to open up on the freeway or fly away! We had that thing taped up and tied down like no body's business! The fridge was surprisingly light. I didn't tell Tony but I'm pretty sure he pulled the whole thing on his own. The most I was doing was making sure that it didn't tip backwards. Haha. When it came time to unloading Alicia and I were able to do it ourselves with no problem.

Our GE fridge continues to have fits where it's warm and cool, warm and cool. I'm not sure what to make of the situation.  The other fridge is up and running in the garage. It'll be nice to have two working refrigerators. Our current situation is this - we bought a GE profile series french door stainless fridge to match the other GE appliances, however, we purchased a counter depth fridge so that it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. It looks great and fits in with our kitchen perfectly the only down side is that counter depth fridges do not lend themselves to much storage space! 

I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear about the Refrigerator Saga... Remember, 8 days from now GE is going to come out and fix our fridge - hope that goes well.

As for today, we're eventually going to make our way to my parents house and switch the vehicles back. Then just relax - Monday starts another work week!

Vanilla Ice Ice Baby...

Yesterday I noticed that our freezer was reading 0 degrees and the fridge was reading in the 50's! I'm not sure what caused it but i took a look at the freezer and saw that some ice had accumulated around the ice maker and fan area so i brushed most of it off and turned off the ice maker. Later that night the freezer temperature had dropped to -3 so naturally I thought that everything was getting better. Even this morning when I made my lunch the freezer temp was still less than 0 so I figured that everything had returned to normal and I had avoided a monumental task of defrosting....

But tonight when I checked the freezer...

 NO BUENO MIS AMIGOS, NO BUENO...

So... I've seen this one other time in my life and this is kind of a Slumdog Millionaire moment for me so... pay attention! When I was working at Camp Cedar Falls the cafeteria freezer had stopped cooling because the grid/ motor froze over.  If I remember correctly it had something to do with the increase in amount of foot traffic in the walk in fridge/freezer that was allowing the warm air to mix with the cold air, humidity, air condensation, etc... that lead to the machine freezing over.  So going with that I took a picture and sent it to my dad and he said that the fan and motor were probably shot... So I took off that back cover to the right of the light and sure enough, ICE everywhere.  Using a rubber spatula I started to chisel away at the ice and eventually took a hairdryer and sorta warmed things up. The cooling grate was frozen over so I spent about 10-15 minute melting it.  Leaving the fridge unplugged and the freezer open, I finished washing dishes, spoke to my wife, and watched a little about HP and the Chamber of Secrets.  I just plugged the fridge back in about 20 minutes ago and it sounds good. The fan and motor weren't frozen over because when the back cover was removed the fan was still spinning - a good sign! 

Well, that's all. I'm no plumber or GE fridge technician but at least I gave it a shot. I'll check in the morning and hopefully, hopefully, everything will be in working order. 

One man's trash is another man's treasure

Remember from the last post about our first Craigslist experience? Well, we got the table all fixed up and it turned out so well! All the products came from our local Lowe's store - That store is going to be the end of me, it's my second home, well...maybe third. (Work being my second home. haha. sad. ) As you can see in the "before" picture the table was kinda dull and unimpressive, aside from it's craftsmanship of course. Alicia and I saw it's potential and the diamond in the rough. After stripping off the old varnish/stain... hand sanding... re-staining... re-varnishing... We now a beautiful finished product!

For everyone wondering, we went with Minwax's Ebony stain and clear satin finish. Beautiful, right?!
Today was also a great day in the valley, warm but not hot, but kinda humid I suppose. We did get a few heavy drizzle drops shortly after lunch. Seeing the drizzle reminded me of one of the few jokes I've memorized. I actaully added on to it today...

Q: What's Snoop Dogg's favorite weather?
A: Da drizzle!
(BUT...My new modified response from this day on will be...)
A: Yo yo, snoop doggy dogg, d-o-double g, fo shizzle my nizzle I love the drizzle!

In other news, our lawn is dying... I'm not sure why or what I can do aside from watering and fertilizing (believe me, we've done PLENTY of that) So I finally resorted to some that turf rebuilder particle mix by Scott's. We'll see if that'll help the grass grow again. I should post a picture because I feel that it's dying in such a weird pattern... You'd think that it's a combination of dog's peeing in the same spot plus possible gopher/ rabbits tunneling... Any suggestions? I've dug up the dry spots and surprisingly enough the dirt under neath is MOIST... but the grass is as dry, well, as dead as heck!

Have a good night fellow readers... Of which I think there are none... I'm just going to keep blogging until I get on Good Morning America though. Hahaha. G'nite!

Fourth of July - Recap

Hello Readers,

Not much has been going on in the Akamine Household.... Alicia and I are working, eating, sleeping, working, eating, sleeping, repeat... The other day though Alicia and I went to our friends house in San Jacinto (The Thompsons) and went swimming! It felt so good to take a dip in the cool water since it was at least 100+ degrees out. Jen and Jeremy have two awesome kids, Brayden and Logan. We played all afternoon and then when Jeremy got home we had dinner and just hung out. Time spent with friends over food is just priceless!

Alicia and I had brought a bottle of Cab Sauv and it was very tasty. Thank you Doffo Winery.

[ Side note: Doffo has some of the BEST wine in the valley - 

and are conveniently located 6 minutes from our driveway ]

We had a simple dinner, Velveeta shells and cheese, salmon and hearts of palm salad, and barbeque meats. Muy Delicioso! 

Have you ever been on Craigslist? Our neighbors are always saying how they got some awesome deal on craigslist, how they got this and that, etc... So the other day Alicia and I were browsing for some furniture and found a pretty awesome antique table! I'll post about it tomorrow with before and after pics.  BUT, there is a story to share about our first Craigslist experience! We have been looking for a dog run for quite some time now and we found one that was brand new, never been used, about 30 minutes from our house. I contacted the guy and tried to bargain which I'm not very good at. Good thing is that it's via email so I don't have to be quick on my toes for a response! haha. Anyways, so this gentleman and I finally get talking on the phone and  I can tell he's one of those old cheap Asian guys. We decided on a price after some bargaining and then it came time to schedule a pick up. The guy says that he's free all day so I thought that would make things easy.  I asked him if 12:00 would work for him and then his response caught me off guard... "How about 10:00?" ...I'm sorry, but my schedule isn't up for compromise let alone bargaining! haha. Anyways, to make a long story short we ended up purchasing the same exact one, brand new, never been used at our local Lowe's for about the same price... 

Stay tuned for... Whatever life has in store for us tomorrow! Oh, and the before and after post about our new table!

Happy 4th of July!!

It's always nice to look, right?

On Sunday my beautiful wife and I went in search of a new home. Haha, just kidding, we're not moving! We love our home now but we did take a little joy ride over to Murrieta-West and checked out some of the semi-custom homes for sale.  I had no idea that such a neighborhood existed in our valley! The Bear Creek area is a beautiful mature area of Murrieta that has only become more desirable over time. The house we went to look at is of course out of our price range but it's fun to look around, isn't it? Below are a few snap shots from the home. They were asking like $850,000+ for this home. It had an office, 1 large bedroom, 1 master suite, dining area, kitchen, and detached guest house/pool house, 4000+ sqft of living space. Honestly, if we had the money we probably would have made an offer - the house sits on like three acres of land too! The only downside was that there is an HOA fee of about $200 dollars a month which does not even grant you access to the integrated golf course and county club! Boo!

Then, we checked out another home on the other side of Lake Skinner. On the internet, the home looked beautiful! High ceilings, lots of land, etc... However, on our way there the the drive definitely made the house undesirable.  The winding paved road eventually turned into a winding dirt road! I don't know what it is with the valley and dirt roads... Imagine how it is when it's pouring rain out here?! I'm sure it's mudslides galore.

Anyways, It's always fun to dream!

Hi Aunty, Hi Uncle!

Welcome Dylan Liam Ball!

Patti and Jason Ball (Alicia's sister and husband) welcomed their first child into the world on June 23, 2011!

He was a big healthy baby weighing in at 9lbs! Baby, Mom, and Dad are doing well.

That makes Alicia an official aunty me, an uncle! I can't wait to meet the little guy. Alicia and her mom are going up for a few days after Fourth of July to spend time with the new family. 

Now, I know what you're thinking. Dylan needs cousins to play with... Well... It's going to happen, just not yet. Alicia and I have plans for the next year or so - We both want to  enjoy each others company before there's our own little bundle of joy. Here's a cute poem I found - Dedicated to Jason & Patti

Precious Baby A new family member has arrived,
Your darling, precious baby.
Your lives are filled with amazing love,
And sleep has become a "maybe!" Congratulations! Now enjoy
Your dear and special treasure;
Your lives are better, now transformed
With childhood’s awesome pleasure. By Joanna Fuchs Congratulations Jason & Patti!Welcome Baby Dylan

Timeshare Nightmare!

This is going to be short and sweet because I have to move onto the stuff that really matters.... Our Nephew!!!

Remember how at the TVBWF (Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival) we were bombarded with timeshare people? ...Well, I got suckered into attending one of their meetings down in Oceanside.  We talked back and forth about if we should go or not because we had a busy work week and it would take up an entire day off! But we decided that if we want to get our $40 bucks back and a free $50 dollar American Express card we should probably attend.  We arrived at the Wyndam Oceanside at 1200 ready to say "no!" The night before we even rehearsed! ...So we were paired up with a sales person who must have had a history of recreational drug use or something - she wasn't normal.  She started off by asking us "Do you like to travel?" So of course we answered "yes," then she goes "oh my, you're just like me, this is going to be easy and fun!" - Well, maybe not entirely verbatim but pretty close. We sat through their sales pitch lecture with a guy who swore he was Brad Pitt's cousin, or brother, or relative...

I think that timeshares, for the most part, are not a bad idea. I think that for some hardworking American families that's the way to go when it comes to vacation.  When you figure the costs and break it down into vacation days per year for a lifetime... It does make sense.

So we toured the hotel and were quite impressed with some of the rooms, beautiful views, great location, but the one thing they never mentioned was the price! When we finally sat down and went through the brochures and booklets and tried to plan our own trip to see if this timeshare thing would make sense our little ex-druggie sales lady was really getting on my last nerve. I don't know how Alicia coped with her presence but every time she opened her mouth I cringed and my heart would beat faster.

To make a long story short we went through four different sales persons each with 3-4 different offers ranging from a $12,000 down payment required that afternoon which would award us with 300,000 points to no payments for 6 months, with monthly payments starting at $100/month awarding us with 32,000 points. Such a headache!! I'm not sure how many times I can say "no" politely. The last and final lady was our "exit survey" where in addition to our survey she tried one final attempt to make a sale. When she realized that no one was going to get a "yes" out of Alicia and I her entire demeanor changed before our eyes - she became cold, snotty, and passive aggressive.

Realizing our victory we quickly went around the corner and picked up our $40 deposit and $50 AmEx card!! ...Realizing that it was now 4:30 in the afternoon, we weren't sure whether sitting through all that was worth $90...

Have any of you ever had a timeshare experience? ...I'm sure it's some form of initiation or right of way for all newlyweds. For now, we're just going to enjoy our own travel time without all the hassle of points and location and time constraints.

Happy traveling!

Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival

So this post dates back to April 16 (Our Wedding Day!) As per tradition, Alicia and I exchanged Bride/Groom gifts. She got me a super cool underwater digital camera and cologne and I made her a slideshow of us and purchased tickets to the Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival.  If you've seen our wedding video then you saw the part where she open's her present and see's the iPod touch.

Our day at the festival started out with a semi-private balloon ride over the Temecula Valley. It was a cool but beautiful morning.  After arriving at the check in grounds we loaded into trucks and were driven away from Lake Skinner and down into the wineries.  Our pilot stopped at several sites and released a helium balloon to check for wind direction and speed.  Eventually we found a spot to unload and start our adventure.

I've always wondered how they inflate those things so I made sure to post some pictures of that part so that you guys can see as well.  I got to volunteer to help hold the opening upright! ...There was a lot of wind from that industrial sized/strength fan.  After we loaded into the basket a couple blasts of the flame and up we went.  Take off was so smooth, quiet, and exciting.  It's all physics!!! ...I think. Hot air rises?
Our pilot wasn't very chatty but we asked lots of questions. For instance.

1. Did you know that you can purchase your own hot air balloon for around $65,000
2. If you own your own hot air balloon you can take off whenever and wherever you want, no air traffic controller needed
3. Hot air balloons can collide mid air, but nothing really happens... The balloons squish, the baskets get close, people wave, and eventually separate.

Anyways, that's enough balloon trivia. We landed after a mere 45 minutes in the air, it was such a great experience though! Not sure I would ever do it again though, I thought for the price and time spent in the air... a little unbalanced. We were initially told to allow 3-4 hours for our time spent ballooning but were back on the ground around 8:00 am (forgot to mention that we got there at 6:00 am!)

I had also planned a lunch food/wine paring at the festival but that didn't start until 11:00am. So, now we faced a dilemma, what are we going to do for 3 hours? None of the booths were open yet so we walked around and watched people set up and eventually got some breakfast.  In doing so, we got sucked into attending a timeshare meeting... Yes, this will turn into it's own post for sure!

So our food and wine paring started out well... but didn't end as well as we had hoped. Instead of 3 full courses and 3 wine parings we had 2 mini-taste sized courses and 2 wine parings. Uhhh, not sure if I would do that part again either.  Later as we used our complimentary wine tasting tickets - I think this is the part we had the most fun, we walked around, tasted wine, and eventually just sat down on the grass and listened to the live music.

Nevertheless, it was a great day spent in each others company!

Aloha!

Alicia and I may be done with graduating (for now...) But we have younger cousins that are embarking on their journey to adulthood! Enter - Kelvin Akamine.

Okay okay okay, Yes, we realize that we just got married, and just returned from our honeymoon, but family is important no matter how many miles apart we are. In our case, we have the Pacific Ocean between us and my dad's side of the family.  Alicia, my brother and I flew out to Hawai'i for our cousin's high school graduation from Le Jardin Academy on the island of O'ahu.  We arrived Thursday afternoon and all the festivities began!  We had lunch at Kakaako Kitchen, the wait was unusually long but the food was delicious as always. We stayed at my grandparents house and my brother stayed at uncles house down the road. They all live on the same property so it's pretty easy to get from one house to the next.  On Friday we kinda just tagged along with the family. Kelvin went and got his hair cut - Oh here's something interesting. So here on the mainland (California) Vietnamese are typically found in nail salons, in Hawai'i they are not only found in nail salons but in barber shops as well! ...Fo only 5 dolla mo.*
So after dropping Kelvin off at school for all the pre-graduation festivities we were on our way back to our grandparents house when all of a sudden ...**!@#BAM!@#** my coffee went flying everywhere - we got rear ended!!! Ugh, I had NEVER been in any kind of car accident until that day! We were literally stopped waiting for the light to turn green and the only reason the guy behind us stopped is because he hit us! It was quite a jolt and my adrenaline was going! ...Needless to say, the guy was a complete a$$ hole about it but the main thing was that everyone was okay.

* When my cousin Jessica was living up here last fall we took her to to see Anjelah Johnson at the Improv. So funny!! We love her.

Late that afternoon we went to Le Jardin Academy for Kelvin's graduation. It was really good! Somehow graduations always create one of those nostalgic moments for me... "As we go on, we remember, all the times we, spent to together..." Their speaker was Neil Abercrombie, who I thought was the founder of Abercrombie & Fitch but it just so happens that this Neil Abercrombie was the governor of Hawai'i. His speech was really good, although I don't remember any of it except for the part that I'm going to share right now... (i'm going to use quotes because this is verbatim) "and I remember that when I told Barack Obama that he should run for president." ...Alicia and I had a good laugh, OH!!! He's the one that told Barack Obama to run to president, gotcha. Haha.

The weekend was filled with family fun! On Saturday we went to the swap meet, beach, got in another car accident, and Hawaiian Brians. Hawaiian Brians is a billiards hang out place, lots of fun! I suck, but I like to think I'm pro status when I get like 3 balls in a row. Hahaha. Okay, seriously, another car accident??!?!?! I'm getting use to this now. We were leaving the beach and had stopped at McDonalds for some food when all of a sudden, **!@#BAM!@#**, a van pulling in to park next to us decided to nudge us aside... This dude was on something, had no auto insurance, and was just a sticky situation. We called the police department and the officer came out and filled a report... Blah blah, again, at least we were all safe!
Sunday we had a family and friends brunch at the same place where my aunt was married 14 years ago! Check out the picture below (Then and now). We ended the afternoon at Bellows Beach - where we met up with my friend Pohaikealoha and her cousin. I hadn't seen Pohai in years!!! So good reconnecting with old friends, later that night my uncle decided on an impromptu family BBQ. Alicia and I made a tropical ambrosia fruit salad! So delicious. Along with all the standard fixings, meat, chicken, rice, etc... We had such a great time! I've never had a BBQ with my family before, we're always so rush rush rush when it comes to vacation time. Go figure. Oh, I can't forget to mention when we wanted to "kick the party up a notch." my uncle had found a bottle of old wine, like from the 1960's. We thought we'd give it a go but it turned out to be rusted, acid, vinegar! Hahaha. Guess that's what happens to wine in the end. Then we had a bottle of white wine... It was probably the driest and most potent wines we had ever tasted, even my grandma was like "wow, that's strong, I feel the heat." ...Then my uncle asks for a sip and sees the bottle... "HEY!!, That's vermouth!" ....Yeah with an alcohol content of like 17% hahahahaha. Okay okay, so maybe no one took a look at the bottle but it was super funny!

Tony left Sunday night because he had to work the next morning! Crazy guy... So then we decided to go hookah some place in town but when we got there I guess there was some sort of power outage and we were literally walking around the block in the dark trying to find this place - come to find out, since all the power was out they couldn't run the computers/ cash register - no hookah for us.

On Monday my uncle took us to see the family property. It's a beautiful piece of raw undeveloped land with a great ocean view. One day, maybe we'll be able to build a house up there. Better start playing the Mega Millions lottery again.  That afternoon we climbed to the top of Diamond Head! Can you imagine, in all the time I've been to Hawai'i I've NEVER been to Diamond Head. Alicia had been during her senior class trip in high school so she was ready for the 1000's of stairs ahead, me, I had no idea what is store. We had such a great time though. The view from the top is simply breathtaking.

Monday evening we had dinner at Ruby Tuesdays and saw the Hangover 2! That movie was pretty funny. I still think the original was funnier though.  It was funny, but not funny when I realized that we were flying home on Tuesday NOT Wednesday like we had originally thought. I don't know how we got that mixed up in our minds, I think it was a combination of vacation and the holiday that got us all confused! We were all bummed that our trip had been cut short by a whole day! Oh well, at least we figured it out and work wasn't calling me the next morning wondering where I was. ...That could have been difficult to explain.

Our last day on the Island was in search of Noni tea for Alicia's mom. We don't know why that tea was so difficult to find... We must have checked at least 3 or 4 stores including Marukai! Come to find out, my mom had some Noni tea right in her kitchen.

Well, that was our Hawaiian Vacation in a nutshell. We had such great time kicking back with our family and just taking yet another break from the hustle and bustle of life. We miss them every day! But thanks to networking sites like Facebook, they're never more than a few clicks away.

Congratulations Kelvin Akamine!!

Aloha `oe, aloha `oe
E ke onaona noho i ka lipo
One fond embrace,
A ho`i a`e au
Until we meet again