the mallard's version of earth day

On Sat night 8:30, we turned off the lights. Not knowing what else to do, we headed out to our community spa, jacuzzi whatever you call it. We got back 1/2 hour later and lit every candle in the house. One hour went by quick. At least we contributed to the earth day.

on a perfect sunny cali weather...

the Mallards went kite flying. :) you heard it right. Flying a kite. I always thought flying a kite was a very cheesy thing to do. Not sure if all the Chinese movies i watched when i was younger influenced the way i think. correct me if i am wrong. back in the day, like long long time ago, it almost seemed like flying a kite was the only thing couple does when dating. the cheapest way of dating. In the movies, couples always seemed to fly a kite during their courtship, and they would look so lovingly at each other, running around, occasionally holding hands...etc...

So when John suggested that we go flying a kite, i jumped at the idea. I have this whole very cheesy and loving image in my head. Except, ours didn't quite turn out the way i thought it would be. Ours is much better! Lol... because in reality, this could happen:

We had fun flying the kite though. Here are more pictures...

That's when it all went down hill... :) the wind was so strong that day.

john tried to fix it
he fixed it, and we flew it for quite a few more times, until finally we gave up.

We got home later and he superglued it together. Now it's good to go again.... :-)

i survived...

... my 6 wks of class and I am proud to present to you my lovely certificate. Boy... it's been so long since i received one of these. Now i am considering attending some other classes just so i can get more of these certs. :p I think I would like to collect as many as I can... haha... kidding!
I told John to take a picture of it... a professional picture, just like how a professional photographer would take it. He came up with this: he took a bunch... and just one made it to my silly blog. :) haha... don't worry guys, he will be sticking to the aerospace industry for a long time... i mean really long time. :P

Just like the Malaysia style...

... but not quite! We went to Belacan Grill at Redondo Beach last Sat for a taste of Malaysian cuisine. I heard about Belacan Grill but have never been there. Mainly because it is so far out of the way. I've been talking about going there for decades. So last week we finally got our arse up and took a drive down there. I wasn't too impressed with the food. Probably I ordered the wrong dish? Not sure. They are good but I just didn't think it's worth driving all the way out there for it. If I am around the area, I would probably eat there. If not, I would rather go to Yazmin, at Monterery Park (for their famous Char Kuey Teow) which is probably 20 min less commute time.

their pretty menu. I believed on the 1st page, they had "Selamat Dating" instead of "Selamat Datang". yea..... pretty sad, i know.

john's hainanese chicken, the sauce was pretty good. and i of course ordered my nasi lemak (coconut rice)! I love love love nasi lemak but I don't think i can ever get the malaysian kind nasi lemak here... anywhere. I did find something similar from Java Spice (Indonesian Restaurant) though. It's weird that they can do all other food pretty similar like, laksa, char kueh teow and etc etc. But just this one nasi lemak, it's never the same. I miss the nasi lemak (the hawker stand style) in malaysia, where they wrapped your rice with pandan leave and newspaper. The sambal squid, sambal chicken... i'm drooling now. So to my friends in malaysia, when you have nasi lemak next time, please at least think of your poor friend here who love nasi lemak to death. Take a picture of it and show it to me.... I'm afraid i will forget how it looks like.
john's fortune.... and this is mine......

A few weeks ago when we were in Rowland Heights for my haircut and dim sum with my friends, I stopped by Java Spice to take their famous nasi bungkus to go, which is only available on the weekends. Then I was told they have a Nasi Lemak special, which of course I couldn't resist and took that to go as well. here's the nasi lemak. It is pretty good and so far the closest thing i can find. However, I still prefer their nasi bungkus better. Spicy! I love all thing spicy so it probably win this over because of its spiciness.

the hiking adventure again..... and many more

we finally went on the 5 mile loop .... ummm.. 2 weekends ago? It was tough ..... but it was fun!!! there are many more things to see... Plus we had each other to motivate us! I hope to tackle different trails each weekend... hopefully this weekend we'll go to Placerita Canyon which is about 4 miles. Here are some pictures I took along the way....

this is just the beginning... walking up.....


spring is here......!!!!

lots of obstacle along the way....

just keep going , just keep going... i was thinking in my head. just like dori thinking just keep swimming just keep swimming in Finding Nemo- my favorite animation movie!
I am not sure what this is

tar pit, yes bubbling hot tar pit!

there is so much to see when you go hiking.....
very proud.... we made it to the top!!! Although he did take a "short cut" route... once. ;P
of course.... at least one picture of us! :o)
i don't remember but i was probably thinking "geez.... how much longer is this going to be!!!"

yes.... cross the river

janet & jimmy took the lead.....

**
This post has been sitting in my draft since last wk. I figured it's about time to get my act together and finish this up.. This hike was probably done 3 wks ago. Since then I've done twice of this hike and the Placerita hike last weekend! :) Seriously, I am probably missing something here. After all these work outs we did, 2-3 times a wk at the gym and hiking on the weekends, we realized we continually gain weight. I mean we have done way more exercise than before and still are gaining weight. We have probably consumed way more food? Whatever it is, i am not giving up on my food. I love to eat! If it means double the amount of time working out, bring it on baby! hahha... now i say that out loud, we'll see how long my motivation can last.....

continental air sucks

because my husband said so! we recently booked our flights to maui. Yay!!! but we need to make some minor adjustments to our itinerary but continental refused to fulfill our wish without an obscene fee. i am not quite sure what's going on but i know one thing for sure.... they suck! they have the worst customer service ever!!!! .... why? because my husband said so! i trust my husband... he said they suck, so they suck big time! so try to avoid continental if you can! because of that we will be wasting 5 hours flight time. We will be flying in to maui from Honolulu... and then fly back to honolulu. how stupid is that when we can just stop at honolulu, spend 2 days.... and take the next flight to maui?! 

so that's why continental sucks....!

P/s: i'm sorry i sounded like an ass (i've had 2 glasses of chardonnay), but the above statements are true! i find that it's dangerous to drink and blog.

you're my cup of tea

If you are a tea person you gotta try this:

When John was fighting over a cold last weekend, he was drinking this tea like crazy. He is getting a lot better now, which surprised us because usually the cold lingers in him for weeks and wont go away. We want to think that it’s the tea that helped him recover so fast.

John is not a tea person. He started to turn to tea when he quit drinking soda. He had massive headaches due to caffeine withdrawals. His co-worker offered him the tea hoping that it will help him in some way since tea has some amount of caffeine. Since then, he has been hooked on it. He picked a couple boxes up when we were at Trader Joe's getting our 2 buck chuck wine. Now he just wont stop drinking it.

I am not really a tea person either. I tried some and I like it.

You know you can never be “American-ized" when

... you are woken up by the alarm, half asleep, and mumble Chinese to your white husband.
“huh” he said half asleep. Didn’t bother to respond, I turned my body to the other side of the bed, only to hear “6:45” a few seconds later.

My husband is a genius. :)))))

p/s: I asked what time is it. :))))))))

I can’t wait…

I can’t wait for this new Holographic Conferencing technology to become big. My boss dropped the istep newsletter in my inbox earlier this week. In this issue they have an article about wind turbine technology that he thought would help me in my wind turbine project. Then I saw this other article about holographic conferencing which caught my attention right away. Anyone who saw the presidential election will remember when the hip-hop musician Will.i.am was beamed in to Anderson Cooper's studio in NY and CNN reporter Jessica Yellin was beamed in from Chicago to New York to talk to Wolf Blitzer. I was so amazed at the holographic newscasting when i saw it. So I heard in Star Wars III, Yoda virtually attends Jedi council meetings by beaming a holographic image of himself to the meeting room. Maybe that's how they got the idea....?! :p

It is projected that in 3-5 years, it will be widely used among businesses & hotels and it will only get better! I hope soon…. Very soon , it can be used at home. Isn’t it cool to be able to appear at 2 locations at the same time? I can virtually walk into my parents’ house anytime I want. How awesome is that? I can see them whenever I want without having to go through the painful 20 hour plane ride???! Our family is scattered all around the world with me being the farthest & this new technology will do magic to bring us all together in an instant!

I somehow have a feeling that this new technology will take a long long time to be perfect and affordable to use. :(

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