Thanksgiving '08

This is late, but I wanted to post the pictures either way.

I had been prepping for Thanksgiving for a few weeks, figuring out what I needed to make and how it would all come together.

The night before I had set the table with the china we received as wedding gifts. We had never used it before, so it was kind of exciting.

I woke up early on Thanksgiving morning to get ready. We finally got the turkey thawed out (oops!) and got it in the oven.

We at a little bit later than planned, but everything turned out great.

We had a full blown Thanksgiving meal: turkey, stuffing, gravy, veggies, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberry jello, rolls, etc.

A Little Too Close for Comfort

This past weekend a string of fires broke out in Southern California.

Early Saturday morning we saw smoke rising from the fire in Yorba Linda (less than 10 miles from us). When we arrived home in the afternoon, we learned that the fire had jumped the freeway and was also in Anaheim Hills. We live on the other side of the hill from Anaheim Hills! That's when it started getting pretty scary. Down the hill from us is lots of brush, so if any embers flew our way and hit that, then we'd have a fire on our hands also. Luckily (for us), the wind was blowing away from us.

We were glued to the news trying to figure out exactly where the fire was. We saw TONS of people fleeing the Anaheim Hills area in their cars. It was like a massive exodus.

We heard that it was right behind the Costco we go to and actually burned a building in the same shopping center.

There were so many huge million dollar houses that were damaged or destroyed. It was really unbelievable!

Cuong's parents were supposed to come over and have dinner with us on Saturday night. Apparently they had put a police officer at the bottom of our major street who was turning people away. It took them about 1 1/2 hours to move just 200 yards.

I walked down to the corner to see if I could see what was going on. I brought the camera along:

This was when I was on the corner of our street looking up towards the Anaheim Hills/Yorba Linda area.

This is our house, along with LOTS of smoke!

Next I walked down to the major street that Cuong's parents were trying to get up. On a clear day, you can get a glimpse of the ocean, but today it was all smoke. I think it will be a while until there is any views of the ocean.

From the major street corner looking back up towards Anaheim Hills/Yorba Linda. That's our house on the right.

Since it was getting pretty close and embers were flying all over the place, I started making up an "Evacuation Packing List". I even started putting all of my scrapbooking stuff my the door. These are my albums and pictures....it looks like so much more stuff once I pulled it out of the cabinets.

Phew!

Can I just say how happy I have to finally have ZERO new items in my Google Reader. It's official, I subscribe to way too many blogs. I even went through my subscriptions to try and decide who I could delete, but I didn't have the heart to delete anyone.
The other day I had over 500 new posts to read. UGH!
And you would think that with me being at home that I would have plenty of time to post to my blog! For some reason, I feel like I'm super busy now. Now my days are mostly filled with exercise, running errands, some tv, and chores.

Scrapbooking!

Back in late October I participated in the Survivor Crop that Ever After scrapbook store put on in Oceanside. It was their 7th annual event. You basically are srapbooking for 24 hours straight with 150+ of your closest scrappers. hehe

There were about 20 tables and each table had a team. Our team was the 'Monster Croppers 4 the Cure'! We were lucky enough to have some Monster Energy stuff donated to us to use. We had stickers, bracelets, lanyards, temporary tattoos, etc. It was so cool!

This was my first time at the event and I wasn't sure what to expect. I wasn't even sure if I could stay up for 24 hours...but I did it!

On Friday afternoon, I headed down to Oceanside to get ready and spend the night at Connie's house. I got my t-shirt iron on done, and Connie taught me the dance that we need to incorporate with our song. Each team needed to have a song and dance to perform.

We had so much fun!

Here are a few of the projects I worked on:

Towards the early morning, I had run out of things to do..and out of adhesive! Luckily Ever After had a little mini store set up. I was able to pick up some paper and adhesive right there!
Luckily I had brought pictures from the Fraternity days, so I made a little mini album. Here are a few pages:

Anniversary Weekend

This weekend we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. My how time flies!!

Our actual anniversary was on the 21st, but that weekend didn't work for us to go on a little get away.

It was my turn to plan our anniversary get away this year. I had been debating about where to go for a few months. I finally picked the Hyatt in Long Beach. It's right across the street from the harbor and has a great view of Shoreline Village and the Queen Mary. We actually looked into getting married at this Hyatt!

We arrived on Saturday afternoon to check in. Since our room wasn't ready yet, we checked our luggage and then headed across the street to the extended Shoreline Village. They have tons of newer restaurants & shops, and plus the aquarium at the end.

We headed out onto a little pier to take in the scenery along with taking a few pictures.

About a minute after we took this last picture, the sky opened up and poured on us! We ran for cover and hid out under some thick trees until it reduced down to a sprinkle.

From there we headed back to the hotel bar to catch most of the USC game. They kicked butt of course.

A little while later we headed up to our room, which had an awesome view of the harbor. I couldn't have asked for a better view. I was nervous about the quality of room we would get since there were two different functions going on at the convention center. Phew!

After settling into our room, we got ready to head to dinner. Since we both love Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co, we ditched the fancy, romantic anniversary dinner and went for some yummy shrimp. I got a Lt. Dan's Pomegranate Punch and Cuong got some sort of limey margarita. Delicious!

Gusty Winds - and a few creatures I've captured

We've had a few days of really gusty Santa Ana winds recently. On Monday when I came home from work, I went over to the sliding glass door and thought, "Where is our patio furniture?" Well, smart us, we didn't crank down the umbrella on our patio table, so the wind basically picked it up and tossed it across the yard. Chairs were knocked over, our table was flipped upside down and the umbrella was on the other side of the yard.

We had been prepared enough to at least bring our little herbs in to sit on the kitchen table. On Tuesday I was checking out my little Basil plant. I had been wondering what was eating all of the leaves...and then I saw it! A little green caterpillar! He was sitting there just munching away on my beautiful Basil! So I captured him. I felt like a little kid all over again. I put him in a little Tupperware jar and covered it with plastic wrap. Then I poked holes in the plastic wrap with a toothpick. I decided I might as well give him the rest of the half eaten leaves since I wouldn't use them after he slobbered all over them! Now he's my pet. haha

Cuong had planted a green bell pepper plant out in our little "garden". Recently that's been getting eaten up pretty badly. I went out there after work yesterday to check it out. More munching had occurred! I was about to walk away when I saw the biggest caterpillar I had ever seen! I ran inside to get another Tupperware cup. He wouldn't let me just scrap him off the branch...so I ran back inside and grabbed a chopstick. I figured I would just flip him into the cup. That didn't work either! That sucker was STRONG! My only option was to cut his little branch off and then put the whole thing in my cup.

I watched him periodically while watching the debate. He munched away on the little branch. You could actually hear him eating by just sitting there!

This morning I took this picture and he had practically eaten everything I had already given him! Little pig!

Ahhhh, nature!

Not quite Everyday!

I at least made an attempt to do Ali Edward’s daily photos….but I just wasn’t as committed to it as I wished I was.
I basically only took pictures on my way to work, at work, on my way home and right before work.

I'm headed South...to work! I'm at this signal at about 6:40am every morning.

It can get pretty backed up as everyone is trying to get on the freeway. Luckily there are 3 entrance lanes!

This is what I usually grab in the morning. My granola bar, my Trader Joe's chocolate soy milk and a bottle of water...then I'm off!

At work...that's my phone. I tried to take pictures while no one was looking. People would probably think I was crazy...or a spy.

Heading home! I'm on the 55 North. My exit is only 2 exits after the 22 Freeway splits off!

There's my exit! I'm almost home!

Fixing one of Cuong's new favorite dinners: Chicken Chilaquiles w/ Chipotle chiles. See that little box of frozen cilantro?! It's from Trader Joe's. There are little frozen cubes of cilantro. That way you don't have to worry about having fresh cilantro on hand when you need it!

Another dinner. Crispy Ginger-Lime chicken with cous cous and salad.

A super easy dessert! Crispy sugared wonton skins layered with whipped cream and strawberries. Yum!