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.

my sister wedding

I went back for my sister's wedding, March 15th. It was good... too short though. Managed to catch some precious time with my good old friends... Ah Yeek (Denise) and Pei. The soon-to-be mama Pei. Feels weird to see the pregnant Pei. She is one beautiful pregnant lady. You can get more info and pictures here. I didn't just meet with one pregnant woman, I met with 2. I saw Tammy, she is due around the same time as Pei. Boy, was her tummy big!!? She was huge even though she hasn't hit what they call third tri-mester. I called up Swee Kim, and shockingly found out that she was at the hospital inducing. I knew she was going to give birth around that time, but just didn't expect her to be in the hospital when I called. Wow, is it me or are all my friends becoming mamas at the same time? Sure enough she texted me few hours later to tell me she gave birth to a baby girl, Kayla.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my sister's wedding. There were too many, just managed to upload a few.

the groom picking her up, all the chaos in the house

lots of games were in action before the groom can see the bride. This is one of my favorite, where the groom had to do push-ups on top of another guy

my turn to pour tea? to the newly-wed

she was at the groom's house now, pray-pray :)

me kept guard of my sister's ang pow

she changed into "kua" at groom's house. I love this outfit

unity candle

me all smiley- john snapped this

exchanging vows...

took a picture with the cake

the backdrop of the stage. The ballroom is huge......

the end......

another brave DIY attempt

And of course after the invitations are out, we forgot how many problems it has brought to us, we went for another DIY project attempt. The centerpiece! This time, John's idea. We both decided to go with a bowl of water with floating candles & flower petals to save cost. John said leave it to him to handle this project. Me? Worried and happy at the same time. Happy that he is willing to be involve with wedding planning. Worried that ..... what do guys know about weddings?? So again, many visits to the store and fights later....

this is what he came up with. Okay, it looks pretty easy but wait till you see this.....

the led lights shining from the bottom of the glass bowl!!!

he totally made the led lights himself.... where later we found out you can just buy them ready (cost the same with making one your own) Result from this DIY attempt: failed & many fights. The centerpiece does looks pretty but when adding up the cost, it would cost the same as having a simple flowers arrangement as centerpiece. We decided it's not worth the stress, time and money over this. We obediently handed the centerpiece project back to our florist.

our fruit of labor

I was looking frantically for wedding invitations that would match my wedding color scheme but to no luck. Apparently, charcoal grey is not a popular wedding color. I found a wedding invitation company that can customize it for me but after getting a final quote from her, I decided that it's too expensive to pay for the invitations. I know many people said that the wedding invitation is very important because it gives your guests the 1st impression of how your wedding is going to be but I still do not think it's worth paying so much for the invitations. So me and my brilliant idea, decided to DIY. John was so against the idea and would rather pay somebody to do it. I had to promise him that I will not need his help and he reluctantly agreed. After many nights of research and looking at different types of invitations, I came up with a simple one-sided card with band around it. To soften the look of the invitations, I added a ribbon around the card. With the type of invitation in mind, it's time to get the materials needed. I cannot tell you how many times I had to go to the store to buy different kind of papers and to return papers to get the final result that I'm satisfied with. Finally, I decided on charcoal grey metallic card stock for the base, white card stock for printing and printed pink papers for the band.

here's the printed invitation with lavender watermark (forgot to rotate it before uploading ;P)

... and then i dragged him into helping me cutting the papers

he patiently helped cut the papers with Jimmy's paper cutter that we borrowed

He printed the invitations, cut all the papers. I glued them together and tied the ribbons. I must say, the hardest task about this invitation is tying the ribbon! After 2 weeks of slavery, many arguments and a very very messy house, we were so done and ready to get these invitations out the house!

the final package... card, rsvp card and directions. The RSVP card, I use the same lavender watermark to match the invitations. all papers used are shimmery heavy duty card stock except for the directions card.

just for the heck of it, we mailed the invitation to President Bush. :)

the invitation sealed in a silver shimmery envelope, with a pretty pink stamp- ready to be mailed out!

Lesson learned from the 1st DIY experience:"never attempt to do it if you are not crafty and if you are running out of time". It would only add stress and arguments with your fiancee. NOT WORTH IT. Nevertheless, I am quite satisfied with the result. :)))))