American Idol

For the past few seasons, I've only started watching American Idol when they get down to around the Top 12. This season, I've watched it almost from the very beginning.

Last night they were down to the Top 20 and they eliminated 4 more people. They're (almost) all really good. There was one person that I for sure thought was going home....but she got lucky. Darn! There's no way she'll keep going further...right?

In other news...I've been bringing boxes home from work and started packing up the stuff that we don't use on an everyday basis. Most of our life has been in boxes for the past 8 months! We found out that boxes really aren't made to be stacked on top of each other for that long. The boxes in our storage unit are starting to give under the weight of each other. Luckily, we just paid our LAST month of storage! Yes! Good thing too because prices are starting to go up next month!!

WE GOT THE HOUSE!!

After spooking the agent a few times by telling him we went out looking at different houses, Countrywide FINALLY approved our offer! We're so happy!

It's a gorgeous house that will be just perfect for us! Not too big, not too small.

We should close escrow and be able to move in around the end of March!! Yay! Apparently by the lunar calendar, the 20th is a good day to begin moving in, even if it just means one bag.

The official move in day will probably be the 29th.

We'll be in the house in time for my birthday and a graduation party for Cuong.

Aerial View

House lit up at night

Living Room
Dual Staircase

KitchenFamily Room
View down from staircase into Living Room & Dining Room

Linen & Tech Center

Secondary Bedroom

Secondary Bathroom

Master Bathroom

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is super romantic while you're staying at your parents' house. No candle lit dinner at home, etc. etc.

Instead, we opted to go to a restaurant we had never tried before. We went to the Fish Market at the Irvine Spectrum. It was really yummy! We both got the steak and jumbo prawns (shrimp). Yum! With a Heff & a pear cider....what's more romantic. haha

We had to turn to the camera's timer in order to get a picture outside the restaurant. We asked this old dude to take our picture, but he didn't quite understand how the camera worked. Once a younger guy saw us trying to use the timer, he asked if we would like him to take our picture. Thanks goodness.....then the battery dies! So alas, this was all we were left with!

Go Ducks!

On Friday night, Paul & Yolanda invited us to go with them to the Ducks hockey game against the Stars. It was Cuong’s first hockey game that he had ever been to. The tickets that Paul had were really good! They were center ice and about 15 rows up. If the puck came flying over the glass, it would’ve hit us in the face!

The Ducks scored in the first period….AND there was a fight in the first period. Apparently one of the Ducks guys came out of retirement for that game. Everyone started clapping and we had no idea why!We’re not huge hockey fans, but it was definitely a change of pace for us and it was pretty exciting!

We left a little bit early to beat the rush of people out to the parking lot. Poor Ducks lost!

Can’t Beat California Weather

This weekend’s weather was just perfect! You would never know that it had been raining for the past 2 weeks!
Cuong was lucky and got to take Thursday off of work, and this Friday was his regular Friday off. He also has today off for Lincoln’s Birthday or something! Lucky duck! He got a 5 day weekend!On Saturday we had a nice, kind of lazy day. We decided to go check out some model homes down in Ladera Ranch just for fun. We took our camera along to take pictures of any good decorating ideas…although there weren’t many, surprisingly! After we toured some models, we headed to the Irvine Spectrum for lunch. Cuong had never been to P.F. Chang’s before, and since we had a gift certificate, we definitely had to go! Since we weather was great, we decided to sit out on the patio. It was such a beautiful day to relax outside!

Since we went to the Irvine Spectrum to see a movie on our first date, I had to get a picture of it! I've been meaning to do that for a while, but we never head down to Irvine.

We definitely need more relaxing weekends like that!

Vacation Planning

I think we finally figured out what we're doing for a vacation this year. We planned on going together with Paul & Yolanda on a BIG trip before babies!
At first we were thinking Australia/New Zealand/Fiji. But our summer is their winter and it can get pretty cold in some places. If I'm going half way around the world, I want it to be nice weather!
So then we tried to figure out where else to go. I announced that I didn't think I could get a full 2 weeks off in a row, so we decided to split it into 2 1-week trips. Fine with me!
None of us had been to the Big Island of Hawaii, so we looked into doing that plus Maui....2 islands got to be more expensive than we thought. So instead (for some reason), we're just going to Maui. So we leave April 3rd from San Diego.
We thought our next trip would be an Alaska cruise...turns out those are expensive also! Plus, if you get a balcony, you want to be on the side that is cruising along the coast, otherwise you just see ocean! People must book it a year before the trip because, all of the good cabins were GONE!
Cuong and Paul started looking at other trips. They found an 11 night trip on TravelZoo.com that goes to South America. It includes your flights, tour, hotels and breakfast every morning for about $2,000 per person. The flight alone to S. America is about $1,000!
I'm sure we'll have to be vaccinated just in case...and we have to get a Visitor's Visa from the Brazilian consulate before we go. Apparently you have to pay $100 cash as an entrance fee to Chile also.I just hope that this is the LAST time we change our minds about where we're going to go. It's been a few months of indecisiveness!!