what a way to start off the year....

It's the middle of January now, I still owe my blog my NYE celebration in Laughlin. Well... anyway, here it is. We went to Laughlin to welcome the year of 2009. This was kind of a last minute decision. We thought we would be going to Steve's casa if we were in town. On NYE, John's friends called and asked if we should go out of town instead of doing the same thing every year. (We were at Steve's too last year). It was easy arranging this trip because Shane's generous parents allowed us to stay at their house. We left pretty late and didn't arrive until 9pm. After a nice dinner at the Joe's Crab Shack, we hung out at the casino.

jenn & tim... looking so cute ready for some gambling

lots of people... but not as bad as we thought it would be at 12 am sharp, the balloons were released and everyone was trying so desperately to pop them our new year's toast, minus Dustin the boring one, who doesn't drink nor smoke but, hey it worked out for us! he of course was assigned the most important task- to drive us home! :D happy new year from me & john! I don't really fancy gambling, i sat at one of the penny slots while waiting. pretty darn proud when my one dollar turned into....

The next day, we woke up to Tim & Dustin trying to fix the water pipe. Can you smell disaster? Because i can....

checking out to see if they know what they were doing

Sure enough.....

the pipe broke under tim's handling we made him take a picture with it because it will definitely be one memorable new year for all of us. Poor tim, he was so depressed the whole time until it finally got fixed. At this point, shane finally had woken up. On the phone reporting the incident to his dad. Gary was so cool about the whole thing and told him to just update him with the progress. After several calls for help, he finally found someone who was willing to come out on new year's day. help is finally here after about 25 min of waiting and water shooting out like crazy. stood and watched helplessly at our hero of the day He finally was able to get everything fixed in about an hour. He replaced the pipe like nothing had happened before...... this guy was so nice. He didn't charge us any money, and even refused to take the tip that Tim offered him.

We finally have water to shower, brush our teeth and flush the toilet (thank god!) at 4 something in the evening. Yep, and that's how we start off our new year. A chaotic day without water. It will definitely be one of our most memorable new years.

our mini getaway

We woke up bright and early the day after christmas to drive to San Francisco. I did pretty good during the whole journey... i only slept for 30 min or so out of the 5-6 hours drive. :)) We finally arrived at SF bay bridge after a crazy detour from our crazy GPS system. on the way in to the island, we saw q big fire going on... which slowed down the traffic

into the bay bridge! We 1st checked in to our hotel to get refreshed a little.... and then visited... the golden gate bridge. we went to the other side of SF, the Marin county side the gorgeous view of san fran
my very attentive husband didn't bother to let me know that i buttoned my coat wrong so i can have picture of this to remember for the rest of my life :\
Since we were at the Marin side, we decided to drove around Sausalito. The water stink so bad..... -_- you think they get used to the smell?? i definitely cannot imagine living in one of these houseboats. Next visit was Union Square. We met up with eng jo and her brothers who coincidentally was visiting SF the same weekend. Union Square was so pretty. Decorated with lots of christmas lights. Almost looked like ny... a mini ny. So christmassy feel.... :))) It has a mini outdoor skating rink... pretty cool. We walked around town and had crappy chinese food at chinatown.

Next morning, we went on the Alcatraz Cruise. We both had not done the tour before and heard it is worth visiting. We took the early bird cruise to beat the crowd.

A very nice Saturday morning, unlike what the weather forecast said. on the ferry.... going to the island

the self guided audio tour makes the tour a lot more interesting. The narator explains the history pretty good. behind the bars if you don't listen to your wife :| the jail kitchen. surprisingly, they were one of the prisons that served the best food (according to the audio narrator) John had to go half way during the tour ;) and my curiosity prompted me to smell the toilet... emmm... not nice -.- after the tour, we had lunch at the fisherman's wharf. We shared a plate of fish & chips. Pretty good. Here at the Lombard Street, the famous crookedest st in the world. We walked from Fisherman Wharfs all the way to Lombard Street. Thanks to "Smarty Pants", who kept saying that it's very close but dind;t realize that every street that we had to go is uphill!!! on the famous famous trolley.... we went to union square again at night.... it was just so pretty the view from macy's top patio Next morning before we hit the long journey home, we stopped by the Golden Gate Bridge again for a better picture. This time, we didn't cross the bridge. SF City Hall.

It was a fun trip. I brought home from San Francisco a sore leg and John a bad knee. :P

PHO

I was craving for pho for quite some time. So last Sat was the perfect opportunity to drive down to San Gabriel for my PHO. Plus, we needed to get some chinese groceries to stock up, especially rice. We are totally out. Another reason to drive down there!

On the way down, we stopped by IKEA to check out their winter sales.... neh... nothing worth buying.

We went to Golden Deli. I think they have the best PHO in town. :)
Well, it looks like they were voted for the best PHO in town. Didn't know that until I checked out their website.

my delicious PHO...

of course john, who doesn't know how to appreciate all thing soupy, ordered rice with charbroiled beef and egg roll. Their rice dishes are good too.... he had almost gobbled up the whole thing before i told him to take a picture. :-)


I was a happy camper that night... i got to eat my PHO, had my favorite dessert (mango tapioca) and bought lots of chinese groceries. Guess what? I got sidetracked at the grocery store. I got everything except my bag of RICE!!!! grrrr.....
I guess we'll have to go again.... :P