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!