2 in 1

This year we have the privilege of celebrating 2 occasions in 1. Well, sorta. Not sure if it's good or bad but... it is what it is, right. It is John's birthday today and 4 days later is our wedding anniversary, June 28th! Yep, it's been a year since all the wedding planning craziness & stress. Ask me if I would do it again? Definitely! Only if it's with the same guy! ;)

Anyway, it's John's 32nd birthday today. woo hoo..... a big shout out to my dear husband. A very good accomplishment for surviving another year of putting up with me. :P I made reservations for 2 at Beckham Grill in Pasadena tonight. I know John loves prime rib and after doing some googling, Beckham Grill seemed to interest me the most. Lawry's is another good prime rib restaurant but since it's a Wednesday night, I didn't want to bother with the traffic to Beverly hills.

Beckham Grill is different from any other prime rib restaurant I've been to. Probably because it's a British style restaurant rather than the usual American prime rib place we go to. The restaurant/ pub is fancy, filled with antique english-themed decor. Very nice atmosphere. Prime rib was good but we probably spoiled our appetite by eating too much appetizer. Their garlic bread is superb! We cleaned it out in minutes! I had to let John have the last piece since it's his birthday. :( We ordered fried calamari, hearts of romaine with bleu cheese dressing and when our entree finally came, we were too full to enjoy it. Overall, it is a good place for dining. One strange thing about the restaurant is, their customer's median age is probably 65! No kidding. We are probably the youngest couple there. Most of the customers there are old, like really old. Not sure if it's a coincidence or what.

So aside from taking John to wine and dine on his birthday, I also got him a few gifts. Note: A FEW. I figured his birthday is so close to our anniversary, I might as well get them all at once. And since we won't be in town for our anniversary, I decided to give him all at once. So it is really up to us to interpret which gift is for birthday and which gift is for anniversary. Here's what I want the gifts to be:

image borrowed from here.

the one i got from him is similar to the image above but i am not sure if it's the exact same model. This would be the birthday gift.

The rest are anniversary gifts:

image borrowed from here

image borrowed from here

the wallet is similar to the image above but not exactly. I got it from ebay (my new shopping website addiction!). I have scored multiple good deals from ebay recently of which, includes a j crew knee-length dress and a beautiful black evening gown (in transit to LA right now).

image borrowed from here

His favorite cologne and most important of all, my favorite as well :)

He loves each and every one of his gifts. they were something that he needs/ wanted for a while. In return, my anniversary gift from him is a pair of roundtrip tickets to NY in October (no surprise here). I am excited and much looking forward to our next vacation!

oh Great timing.

Found out about this yesterday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090618/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear

Hawaii.... here we come!

ONE DAY IN A LAND FAR AWAY

One day, long, long ago, there lived a woman who did not whine, nag, or bitch.

But it was a long time ago, & it was just that one day.

The End

strawberry picking

June's latest post reminded me of my own strawberry picking experience that I never finished writing. 2 weeks ago, we went strawberry picking at Tanaka Farm in Irvine. Unlike June's privilege of having a farm as close as 10 min away, we had to drive down to OC to a farm where we could pick our own strawberries and joined the little wagon strawberry tour. We were about 10 min late, so the wagon took off without us. We rode on a tiny golf cart that later caught up to the wagon.

It was a beautiful day for an outing like this. This was my first experience picking my own strawberries and I am sure I will be picking my own strawberries again when next season comes. we had a choice whether to pick our strawberries in little potted plants like that or join the wagon tour.our first driver in a little golf cart

our very knowledgeable tour guide after we finally caught up to him. He was promoting healthy eating habits and gave us lots of information on vegetable growing. Can you tell i wasn't paying much attention? :P

we were given some carrots & corn. they were absolutely delicious. we ate the corn raw and it was so sweet. i think this would be the only time we would actually eat a raw corn. :)

Finally, we stopped and it was strawberries picking time!

john trying to reach out to the little guys

hard at work....

you can eat as many strawberries as you wish while you pick.

we were each given a little container like this to fill.

the produce stand where you can get fresh veggies and fruits. it is slightly more than a regular market but they are guaranteed FRESH.

When we were done picking, we were so full from eating too much strawberries. Till next season again...... Our friends came over later that day and we shared the first batch of strawberries. The next day, we made chocolate dipped strawberries with our second batch. ooo.... i am now craving for more! except now i am not about to drive about an hour and a half away to pick the strawberries. I will have to settle with store bought ones. =)

they weren't exactly the prettiest but they were the most delicious!

a surprise graduation party for jr.

Last Saturday, we were invited to Jen's oldest sons graduation surprise party. Jenn had this surprise party planned way ahead of time. She took the time and effort to plan this surprise party for her son. No doubt, Jr. was really surprised and touched. Families traveled as far away as San Jose and friends traveled all the way from Corona, they came together to celebrate Jr. success. Needless to say, that was some party. jenn really spent time and effort decorating, very nice.

jr. was surprised ... and touched

giving mom a great big hug after watching the special video that jenn put together for him. it was pictures of him during the early years and over the years. very emotional. i shed some tears :~(

they had taco stands.... neat idea. don't have to bother slaving in the kitchen. so there is no need to get stressed out over what to serve your guests. leaves you looking pretty and time to entertain your guests. :)

different kinds of salsa

i offered to bring my signature rasberry white chocolate cheesecake. it was a hit. as u can see, it is almost gone. i know better now. :) to stick with a familiar recipe when serving your food up to public. :-)

we had to try the chocolate cake they got for jr. we shared a piece cause I didn't leave room for desserts after having 3 tacos!

Apparently we left the party too early and missed out on the fun part. The dancing till midnight part where everyone was drunk like hell!

Almost a year....

Hahaha... sorry i have to start off the blog with a laugh. It's too funny! I finally got my wedding album and video from sir today! Yes, almost one year! We are big time procrastinators. OK. So what's so funny you may ask! It's the video!!! God.... it is cheesy..... big time! haha... seriously. I feel so bad for sir who had to sit through the whole thing, play it over and over again and do the editing to the video. I guess the video is cheesy in the 1st place because of the editing skills? Well, I can't complain the about the video quality. After all I didn't sign up for it. There wasn't much editing done, there were some cuts here and there. Nothing major. We watched it tonight as soon as we got it. I felt pain for myself at some parts... haha. Of course somewhere in the video, I felt the giddy part and the "awwww....." kind of feeling. But boy... some parts are just too painful to watch. So that's how i look like in real life. Haha... when I talked, my mouth was kinda side ways... haha not sure if you know what I mean. And my double chin was showing most of the time. Yuck! The worst worst part is the little monologue that I did. I was told to say something in front of the camera, something sweet, a short msg for John. I was totally caught off guard. I was unprepared. I was already so nervous that I already was, and now they wanted me to talk in front of the camera with an unprepared script. So there I was, in my traditional chinese red dress, "kua" looking into the camera, giving John the short love message. For some reason, you can't see my neck. You heard it right. I have no neck in that short clip. I think I was slouching, and the "blouse" kinda made it look like i have no neck. And as I talked, my mouth was moving in a very weird way. Ahh.... I have to say that was excruciatingly painful to watch. lol.... John's little monologue was so much better than mine. haha.. I guess he is a natural in front of the camera! :)

There are many sweet moments. Our vows exchanged, Best Man speech, Maid of Honor speech, bride as in ME getting ready, grand entrance, walking down the aisle, first dance... etc etc. Did I mention that Janet gave the best maid of honor speech?

Anyhoo..... it was kinda nice to be able to see the video. As I have said before, the day went by so quick and everything was a blur. I don't seem to remember anything. The video is good to bring back all those sweet memories... and also the painful moments. :P Don't know if I am ever going to be brave enough to show the video to anyone! I know one thing for sure, sir will never use it for demo. It will definitely chase his potential customers away!

I just remember that i never did finish writing my wedding re-cap. I will... one day... one day....

this picture was used for the opening of the video

this was the end