mine? yours? or ours?

Last week, we went out to Geisha for dinner with John’s friends. It was sort of a graduation celebration for John. I used to work at Geisha for a couple months part time on the weekends, so I know John’s friends will like it there. It was nice, we got to sit in one of the booths so it was kind of private. I think they have the best sushi in town. My rating is not biased because I honestly think that their food is great. I like the restaurant décor too and they play our favorite music. So all in all, it’s the perfect place. I have no picture to post because we didn’t think of bringing our camera. So why do I post this right, you are wondering. Well, it was funny I thought about this conversation we had that night.

We were talking about what the rehearsal plan was for the wedding. Since all of John’s groomsmen were there (except for Matt), it was the perfect time to let everyone know the schedule and everything. We told them where the rehearsal dinner is going to take place and it is strictly for the bridal party only (in case they are wondering if they can bring their s.o).

Steve: why do people call it bridal party? Why not grooms party or something? Why does it have to have the “bride” word in there?

Jen: steve… because the wedding is about the bride. It has nothing to do with the groom. The groom just shows up. The whole thing is about the bride, it’s about “her”. Nothing to do with “him”.

Steve: oh…. So when it comes to wedding, it’s “HER” wedding, but when she’s pregnant, it’s “WE” are pregnant.

Jen: Exactly!

I couldn’t have agreed more. ;)

you did it!

On May 20th... John finally walked his graduation ;) . It started at 8 am!!! His mom came over to the house at 6 and we all left together in our car. His dad wasn't feeling too good, so he didn't come with us. We got there bright and early. We beat the traffic, beat the crowd. A price we paid... woke up at 5:30am! Anyway, we were glad we went there early cause we got the best seats we could get. 1/2 to an hour later, everyone started to arrive.

on the way walking in, i stopped john to pose next to this board, he obediently listened and his mom patiently waited.

this is where the ceremony is going to take place. it's one of the library of this school.

when people started to arrive and took their seats. boy... there were a lot of people. there were probably more than 10,000 students graduating.

We waited forever for John's turn to get on stage to receive his diploma. It started to get very hot at around 9 to 10-ish. We were sitting baking under the sun. No shade anywhere close at all. Finally, they announced "John Joseph Mallard". His mom suddenly shouted giving her piece of support "woooohooo....." or is it "yay...."?? i forgot, i have to admit i was kind of shocked of his moms reaction. I didn't even make a single noise... pretending to be really busy videotaping the whole process. I needed to keep my "good girl" image in front of his mom. :-p

he coming back from the stage holding his diploma

a big warm hug from mom, mom said "congratulations, i am so proud of you" or is it "wow... it took you 10 years to get this stupid s*#%@??"'

my turn my turn.. it's my turn to take picture with the graduate

then the 2 most important women in his life

a group picture

on the way out, I took another one of him in front of the Oviatt library

me being silly...

All his hard work and patience paid off. I am so proud of him!

wedding projects

I bought these little guys from ebay. 32 of them (cross my fingers, hopefully I am able to have 5 or 6 for each table.) The hotel does provide 3 votives for each table but I thought the more candles the more warm and romantic the environment it will create. I've seen pictures with a lot of candles and with no candles. It does make a lot of difference to a room. So don't call me crazy ok?! I am not wedding obsessed. .... umm... right??!

they were not a very good quality of glass, it was kind of yellow-ish. So I decided to dress them up!

I wrapped each of them with printed leaf design vellum paper. It looks so much nicer with these wraps especially when you lit a candle inside.

since the votives are tapered at the bottom, it was kind of hard to make sure that the vellum were just the right size. I cut one out then drew along the lines to a card stock paper. I then used that as my template to draw each one on the vellum paper. Carefully cut them, and patiently wrapped them. :))) Not too bad, it only took me 2 nights to finish it. Hopefully it does make the room look nicer with these guys or else... all my effort will be wasted... :(


Next up is my favors project! :) I ordered a bunch of chopsticks from Malaysia as a wedding favor. The price was great and it works out perfect because my sister can bring them to me when she comes. Then we decided that we should give out candy as well since there was a poll about wedding favors and everyone says candies or cookies make the best wedding favors. So we came up with this!
little boxes with m&m's. they are grey, pink and cream colors! I initially wanted to personalize the m&m's. You can order them here. But the price is way out of our budget. So i stayed with the regular ones. Even this cost a lot more than what we wanted to spend. Anyway, they look cute and I am glad we did candy favors so the guest will have something to snack on. Who doesn't love chocolates, right?

some boxes have pink & cream and some have grey & pink with thank you tags

pardon my messy coffee table aka my working table. i was packing them up like a crazy woman running a marathon. :)

we bought too many bags and now we have a few bags leftover. notice that ladle? john used that to scoop up the m&m's. so it's totally hygienic, in case you were wondering. we didn't dig our hands into the bowl of m&m's. :))))

so what do you think? pretty or wedding obssesed??

a year ago... today

we exchanged our vows.....

guess what? it was so much fun that we decided to do it again! LoL

the air race show

A few weeks back we went to San Diego for the red bull air race show. We saw it on the TV commercial and thought it would be cool to watch that. So John bought the tickets online for the Sunday show. We thought since we are down there, we should spend the night there and make it a mini vacation for us. I booked the room through hotwire.com. For those who are familiar with this website, they can find you the best deal of hotel rooms anywhere. One downside about it though, is you won't know what hotel you are booking with. There are no cancellations allowed once you book it. All you know is the area of the hotel and the star rating. I found this 4 star hotel at the La Jolla area for a pretty good deal. That wasn't our 1st choice, John wanted to stay at Gaslamp Quarter but there are no deals that can beat this one. So, taking the chance I booked it. It turned out to be the Hyatt Regency!!! I was excited because Hyatt has always been a good hotel. Well, they didn't disappoint us. It was indeed a nice hotel, service was great and the room was great.

our room- non smoking with one king size bed.

After checking in , we went out sight-seeing. We went to Pacific Beach for a walk.

me on the beautiful beach, i was so tempted to sun bathe... the weather was gorgeous. But we weren't prepared. We then went to a local bar call "Luigi's" for snacks, which they claimed to have the best beer in town.

I ordered onion rings... it was delish, but I am not a big fan of onion rings though. :P

We kept talking about having lobster for dinner even before we drove down here, so for dinner we were so determined to look for the best lobster restaurant. After circling the Prospect street, we decided to ask the local people there for a recommendation of a good lobster restaurant,. and he suggested, "The Spot". It was a small noisy restaurant, not what we had in mind for a nice romantic dinner. Anyway, we ordered different dishes so we can share.

i forgot what this was but it's a fish dish, mahi mahi maybe?

lobster dinner! This was a deal, it came with salad as an appetizer, lobster entree and bread pudding for dessert for a mere $24.95! Absolute delicious!

wa- hahahaha, my big lobster. it's cute, they provide you with bib as well, how thoughtful.

empty shells lobster

Dinner was great. We went back to the hotel and hung out at the hotel bar for a couple more martinis.. yum yum. Next morning, we headed out to watch the air race show!! Actually, John's sister and Jocelyn were there too. Unfortunately we couldn't get the same section tickets so we were separated. We were on the north end and they were at the south end.

only in america.. :P at the entrance, they have a booth for id check.

they then tied your wrist with this if you pass the requirement

so u can...

buy alcohoL!!!!! LoL

before the actual race, they have ... An F-18 flyby....

These helicopters circled the bay with an American flag

This was cool! They performed a seal team extraction right in front of us.

It's kinda hard to see, but the redbull helicopter did a bunch of flips and barrel rolls... Very impressive for civilian aircraft

More helicopter pics...

These guys hung below the helicopter and flew around the bay for 10 minutes or so!!! Nice view.

This is the redbull helicopter that did all the flips.

We were right in front of the first chicane where the enter the course at top speed of 250 mph!!!

We also had a good view of the knife edge section. Here the plane has to cross between the pylons with the wings pointing up and down.

John was all smiley...

i was all wrapped up like this... still freezing. I was too proud to use sun screen. coming from malaysia.... a hot country, never have problem with sun burn... i got burnt! took me a week to heal. was so afraid that it will leave scar on my face.

it was a cool cool cool show. i forgot who won though haha... we had a very good view as u can see all the clear close-up pictures. the weather got chilly the 2nd half of the day. I was glad when it's over. After hours of staying outdoors... I just couldn't wait to hop back into the car and come back to my home sweet home. :)

my bridezilla moment

hahha... saw this cute picture on one of the wedding blog. How funny!! i can totally relate to this!

janet & jimmy's wedding

Janet and Jimmy's wedding was held at the beautiful private estate by the Malibu beach. The view was breathtaking. I was in her wedding party, so I didn't take many photos. These pictures were taken by John. Enjoy!

getting professional hair & make up done

the florist was setting up her centerpieces


because it was kinda windy that day, they had to set the reception tables on the front patio

her ang pow box that matched her theme- cherry blossom

guest book
gorgeous view

they're married... yay!!!

cocktail hour

me & John

me & Natalia

we were all wearing big jackets during dinner reception..

toast/ cake cutting

their first dance

i was so happy to see Art again

the wedding was beautiful... too bad it ended early because it got too cold.