Merry Christmas from LA!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We're here in LA to celebrate with my parents, Edwin's mom, my sister, and Edwin's sister. It was a lot of family time. I'll post pictures soon, but in the meantime, here are the pics from our anniversary trip to New Orleans. I finally had some time to finish them!

New Orleans Anniversary

Who's that in the big, red suit?

Last week was super busy. On Monday, Edwin was Santa Claus. On our street, the men take turns being Santa Claus until December 23rd in the evenings 6:30-8PM. Edwin, I mean Santa, sat in the sleigh while kids came up to him. There was a steady stream of kids. Some of the kids were pretty docile. Most gave him their Christmas list while their parents watched, listened, and sometimes laughed at their requests. I overheard that Hannah Montana products were very popular for the girls and video games were popular with the boys. Who is this Hannah Montana? Anyway, we had a great time.

I also participated in a gingerbread house making contest at work. It definitely makes work a lot more fun. There were 10 teams of 2-3 people. We had kits with prebaked houses that we had to decorate within one hour. My coworker Renee and I created a replica of our 2 work buildings. Here's a few pics...

I also previously posted a few pics of the decorations from our house, but here are some updated ones.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

Though each holiday season brings a lot of celebration and festivity, it also can be very busy. In years past, I feel like I have enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. This year, I'm going to try and relax a little more. Most of the time, I am the person that is constantly making lists and checking things off. I enjoy buying gifts for other people. However, lately, I have been reminded more and more that Christmas shouldn't be a time where I have to do stuff like buy a gift or write Christmas cards (or decorate our house!) It should be a time to reflect on God and family. Since we moved this year and we are hoping to remodel the kitchen, we still have many of our things in boxes. There are still a few things that I would love to find (like our can openner!) but for the most part, do we really need those things? Not really. I find myself looking every quarter for things that we don't need and being able to find a lot of stuff that we can give away- yet our house is still full! And of course, we are also buying a lot of new things for the house. Though it's still tough to get rid of something that is perfectly new and nice, but we never use.

On Friday, we attended my company's holiday party. It was held at a club called Mezzanine. It was fun, but I realized that there are still a lot of people that I don't know. It was pretty posh with open bar and lots of appetizers. They even had a photographer there who would take pictures of you "prom-style." There was also dancing, so it did feel a bit like high school. There were people dancing on the stage and I kept thinking to myself, "I like dancing onstage like the next person, but these are people that I work with. I just don't want to make a fool of myself and then have to explain it on Monday."

On Saturday, Show and I baked Christmas cookies. We made sugar cookies, cupcakes, and snickerdoodles. It's funny- I don't particularly like eating Christmas cookies. Chocolate is usually my dessert of choice, but I do like to make Christmas cookies. I don't really bake very often, but I do like doing it around Christmas. I think that we end up giving away 90% of what we make so that we don't become complete gluttons.

Today, we also went to see a really cool band in Alameda. That's right- I said Alameda! The band was playing in a tiki bar called Forbidden Island. The bar itself was pretty cool, but the live music was really great. It was pretty crowded for 4PM in Alameda. The music was kind of bossa nova/ Jazz/ 60 style. One of the guys was playing a thermidor. I have no idea if I spelled that correctly. It's this really cool instrument that works based on 2 antennas and the left hand controls volume while the right hand controls pitch. If you have ever heard the theme song to Star Trek, then you know what this thing sounds like. It's a little twangy and kind of electrica. I wish that I could remember the name of the band. I also found it very amusing that the lead singer was pregnant. It was unexpected how cool this experience was. The music was great and Edwin really liked the bar.

Redo!

Tonight I went out with the girls to watch the Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular at Pac Bell Park or whatever they're calling it these days. I think that most of you know that I used to skate in my younger days. My parents also used to take us to the ice capades a lot too. I didn't realize how much I missed it. For some reason, Edwin didn't want to go see the show... totally his loss. Though we were one of the youngest people in the audience, we had a blast. The added bonus is that the show had Barry Manilow singing live. Though they advertised that it would be set to Barry Manilow music, I just figured that they would play his music, not have him singing it. So, we got a 2-for-1. Now, I can say that I have seen Barry Manilow in concert. I went with Michelle, Monica, and Jen. None of them knew each other, but they all knew me. Surprisingly, there were 4 guys sitting in front of us who also went together (and they weren't even gay!)

I really enjoyed it. I forgot how much I admired the people that could do that and make it look so easy. I had fun skating, but I never thought it was easy. Dorothy Hamill was so graceful and I have always really liked Yuka Sato- she's just such a great jumper. Viktor Petrenko was another highlight. All of them were former Olympic skaters. There were also these 2 Russian skaters who were just amazing. It was like watching Cirque du Soleil on ice. They were doing one-armed handstands while skating. I've never been a huge pairs fan, but I think that it's just crazy that someone can carry another person with one hand and make it seem so easy.

We might also be on TV because they were broadcasting the show and the cameraman sat next to Michelle to get some close-ups of us watching the show. (Like I said, we were one of the youngest people in the stadium.) Here's what we didn't know before the show: after they tape the whole show, the skaters got to redo parts of their routines in case they didn't do a jump well or if they flubbed something in the routine. I guess that since these guys are getting older and not training everyday, they make more mistakes than they did for the Olympics. The jumps definitely did not seem as big until they got to do the redo. Made me suspect that Barry Manilow was lip- syncing too.

It made me think about being able to redo things in my life. Some would say that's like admitting a regret, but I disagree. Redoing doesn't mean not doing something that you have done, but I think of it as just being able to improve upon something that you did, not replacing it with another experience. What are some things I would re-do? I would have purchased things that I like that are girly. It's a lot harder when you have to share a bank account to make big purchseses. There's not too much that I can think of that I want to do again. Maybe our wedding day, but I don't want to actually change it, I just want to do it again.

I'll be posting up photos when Michelle sends me copy.

Lights Up!

Some of you may be wondering why it's been a while since my last posting. Both Edwin and I got colds last week. I found out that Laura, Alex, and my dad all got colds. I guess that at least it did not ruin our holiday. I just uploaded some photos from our Thanksgiving in Cincinnati.

This past weekend, we put up the Christmas lights on our house. We spent most of the weekend shopping for lights and then putting them up. Everyone on our block was supposed to have decorations up by December 2. It was quite the experience. We have a theme, but I didn't realize how much work it would be. We're not quite done yet, but here are some photos of what we have so far. Edwin is in all black on the picture to the left and the right picture is a close up of our surfing Santa. He's going to get a surfboard and we'll be making a wave, but that's still in production.

We also attended our first block party on Sunday night. There were over 100 people that showed up for the potluck. It was fun and very interesting. We got to meet a lot of our new neighbors. I think that the remarkable part is that the party started at 6 and promptly ended by 8PM. We weren't even finished eating and they started taking down the tables.

So the Christmas decorations have been a little distracting from the home renovations, but this week we had a contractor install a new furnace. We're still getting used to it, but it's louder than the old one because it has a blower. However, we're hoping that it's going to be more efficient. This nice thing is that we got all new ducts and they moved the furnace to the crawl space, so now we technically have more room in our unfinished basement in case we want to finish it.

So the parade of cars has already started. They come to see all the lights. It was so embarassing to be one of only 3 houses on the block to not have their lights on Saturday night. Though we were told that we should have lights on by Sunday, there were a lot of people that had their lights up by Saturday. Note for next year. If anyone wants to visit Santa this year, Edwin will be making an appearance as Santa on our street this year on Monday, December 10th. I'll be the elf beside him.

This video was something that made me laugh. It really does describe some of the experiences I've had getting my nails done. Michelle- remember in San Diego? They kept trying to upsell me all these services and I would say yes, then they would tell me the price and I would say no. Funny how that works.

By the way, most of you were right on the poll- Edwin is 36 this year.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year, we flew to Cincinnati to celebrate Thanksgiving. We flew in last night on the red-eye. It's been a while since we have flown on the red-eye, but every time we do, we vow that it's the last time. This was no exception. You walk off the plane all bleary-eyed and it just wrecks you for the whole day. We flew Delta and while the seats looked comfy, they were so NOT.

We arrived in at the same time as Edwin's mom. Everyone else was already back at the house- Grace and CiCi and my parents. Grace made a 22 lb turkey with Chinese style stuffing AKA rice with Chinese sausage. It was delicious! We had so much food that when we finished the table was still full of food. We took a lot of pics, so I'll add them when I can. As with most Thanksgivings, there was a lot of eating and a lot of sleeping though I think that the red-eye caused us to sleep more than usual. Here are the before and after shots of the turkey.


I was trying to remember what we did for Thanksgiving last year and I realized that we were in Australia on our honeymoon, so we didn't actually celebrate Thanksgiving. I was also really looking forward to it because we were at Jamie and Kaori's place before we left for the airport and they were cooking up a storm in preparation for the big day.

I finally sent out the notice that we moved. I realize that it's been almost 2 months since we moved, but time has just flown by. I guess with all the home renovations and projects, it has just usurped a lot of our free time. Anyway, Happy Turkey Day and hope everyone gets a bargain shopping on Black Friday.

Here are some more pics of the spread that we had and Hannah and Edwin playing Chutes & Ladders. I guess Hannah is at that stage when she poses for all her pictures with her tongue sticking out and making a face. I think that maybe I'll tell her about Santiney and how difficult she found it to be to find a picture of herself without making a face from ages 6-10. Not sure that she'll grasp that what she's doing now- she may regret later when she needs pictures of herself when she's younger and she's got all these photos with her making a face.

How Old is Edwin?

Last weekend, we celebrated Edwin's birthday by going out to dinner in Alameda at a restaurant called Asena. It forced me to try and remember how old Edwin was. I didn't know. I had to calculate it based on his birth year. Do you know? Prove it by taking my little poll to the right. I'm just curious to know how many people know. Sometimes I have to think for a while before I remember how old I am. Remember how when we were young we could remember how old we were to the month? I'm 3 1/2. Nobody says I'm 32 1/2.

We also painted the guest bedroom. We were going for a sage green color (you know, the kind of green you see at weddings), but it turned out a little more celery than I wanted. I think it will look fine once we get some furniture in there, but it's just a little different than what I imagined. However, the thought of the time and effort required to repaint the room makes me think that I like that color more and more. Though I think to myself, "Are we just being lazy?" Chris and Corinne advised us to get the rooms painted before we unpacked because waiting has left them with white walls 4 years later. I have a tendency to agree with them in that if we don't paint these walls now, they won't ever get painted. Still, that doesn't mean that I'm not anxious to get it done so that we can really begin to unpack our things.

How small is San Francisco? On a whim this weekend, we went into the city to run some errands. One of our errands was to visit the custom cabinet makers to look at the different finishes and ask some questions about a plan that they had created for us. We knew that they were located on Minnesota in Potrero, but I couldn't remember the address. We decided to stop and ask for directions at the Whole Foods. They didn't know, so I suggested that we stop by Chris and Corinne's or Nikki and Ed's since they live in the neighborhood. He didn't want to bother them, so we started to walk back towards our car when who do we see but Chris and Corinne taking an afternoon stroll? Now if that wasn't crazy enough, while we are talking to them, we spot Sin Yen walking across the street on her way to Whole Foods. We haven't seen her in months because of scheduling conflicts, but on a random, unplanned day, here we are. Coincidence? Maybe. I tend to think that these things are part of a bigger plan. In science, we're taught to believe that life stems from chaos (Big Bang Theory, for instance) but things like this make me think otherwise. It's just like beautiful things that happen naturally that we can't explain such as sunsets, Uluru (a big rock in the middle of the desert in Australia), etc. All these things happened by accident? Why is it more acceptable to think that they resulted from complete disorder rather than orchestrated by a higher being? Just something to think about.

I love that this is going to be a short work week. Only 1.5 more days and tomorrow should go by pretty fast. What I am not looking forward to is the red-eye flight that we will be taking on Wednesday night for our trip to Cincinnati during the busiest day of the year for air travel. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving with the family. Though it makes me think that I should start planning Christmas card lists and gifts for the family. I guess Christmas really is around the corner. We have started planning our outdoor decorations. We attended the neighborhood planning committee for Christmas. Edwin signed up to be Santa Claus for a night. I'll take pictures- I promise!

Heading into the Holidays

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week. Edwin's birthday is this Saturday. Last year at this time, we were preparing for our honeymoon in Australia. 2 years ago, I had just gotten back from Tokyo while I was rehabilitating from my hand surgery. I feel like there is so much that has happened this past year. I think that a lot of people reflect on the year on New Years, but for me, that generally happens right before the holidays. I think it's because I know that the next few weeks are going to rush by with holiday activities. So I figure that it's my way of preparing for the fun and for the excitement.

Last weekend, we had a 2 sets of visitors from out of town. First, we saw Janet who came from Hawaii for work. She came over for the Pre-Thanksgiving dinner and we had dinner with her on Sunday. She's always so much fun and so sweet. We also had a visit from our friends Char and Tom and their 2 kids Annette and William. They were on their way back to LA from a trip to Sacramento. It was great to catch up and hang out. I've been fighting a cold and I think that friends always make you feel better when you're not feeling well.

Our sidewalk is finally been paved. When I got home yesterday, it had finally been done. I'm just glad that we don't have to walk over the lawn anymore. It's still drying, but I'm guessing that it will be done tomorrow. Hopefully, that's another thing done with the house that we don't have to worry about.

We've also started thinking about what to do for Christmas decorations. We have a planning meeting tomorrow for the block. We were informed that lights should be completed by December 2 and that cars will be coming through December 2-December 31. Edwin is thinking about volunteering for Santa duty. (The men on the street take turns being Santa during the holidays.) I guess we better go buy some lights!

Where the Sidewalk Ends- 3279 Thompson

So there have been a few stories that I have been meaning to tell about the house. Some of them have just been too long and involved and I just didn't have the energy at the time to talk about it. Others are just too frustrating to talk about until you have had a period of time to digest was has happened.

Water Heater

On the first day of being in our "new" house, we had a little incident with the water heater. It was moving day and Edwin had scheduled for PG&E to come turn on the gas. They told him that someone had to be at the house from 8AM-5PM. The cable company actually is better because they it's at least only 4 hour time windows! Given that Edwin could probably lift more than me, he got to move our furniture while I waited at the house. This is after we had about 3 hours of sleep each because we were packing until the wee hours of the morning. Though we had started packing a month before, we were unable to have everything packed when the movers arrived at 10AM the next morning. Back to my original story, I'm waiting at the house for PG&E. What time do you think they showed up? That's right, 4:45PM.

The guy goes to look at the gasline and then returns saying that he was able to turn on the furnace, but not the water heater. He said that there was a leak in the water heater assembly because the screw is stripped. (???) Translated- that means that we will have no hot water. He says that we need to have a water heater technician to come and repair it before we PG&E can turn on the water heater. Edwin calls PG&E to schedule another visit and they tell him that the first appointment they have available is Thursday. (It was Saturday.) I tell PG&E guy that Edwin is pretty handy, so I asked him if the repair was something that we could do ourselves. He tells me that we could just purchase a pilot assembly from Home Depot and do it ourselves for about $100. (Imagine how much it would have cost us if we needed to pay for labor in additional to the materials.) I remember that we have a home warranty, so I called our real estate agent Tony to ask him if this qualifies.

Tony is out at a construction job (he is a construction contractor by day.) He offers to come over to take a look at the water heater when I tell him what PG&E had said to me. He takes out some plumbers tape and repairs the stripped screw, connects the gas to the water heater, lights the pilot light, and checks for leaks by spraying the line with soapy water. (I had seen this done many times in HGTV, so I know that this is good.) He does this in less than an hour. Have we told you all how much we love our real estate agent? How many agents do you know who could and would do this for you? So if you're looking for an AWESOME agent in the East Bay, let us know...

Sidewalk

About 2 weeks after we had moved in, the city of Alameda started repaving the sidewalks on our street. We were pretty happy that they were going to do this because the sidewalk in front of our house was very uneven and we didn't want to have to do that ourselves. After they removed the sidewalk, we discovered a leak in the main water line coming into our house. The city came out to take a look at it and patched the leak. However, we decided that since the pipe was old and they had already removed the sidewalk, it would be a good time to replace the galvanized steel pipe with a copper one. Since it had already leaked and we were seeing signs of corrosion, there was a good chance that it would leak again, but then we would have to dig up the pipe and sidewalk again and on our dime. To save some money, Edwin decided to dig up the ditch himself on our front lawn (with some advice from our man Tony.) Edwin met a plumber friend of the guy that we bought our refrigerator from who happened to live in Alameda. So we called him up and he gave us an estimate and told us that he could finish replacing the pipe in about 6 hours. He works for a plumbing company, but this was a side job for him and his brother, so that he could help pay for his upcoming wedding. Given that we just finished paying for a wedding ourselves, we were eager to help someone else out (and his pricing was very reasonable.) All of this happened while Jeannette was in town, so we were relieved that this did not monopolize our entire weekend. Afterwards, the water pressure to the bathroom sink improved significantly, so we were happy with our decision.

It is now 6 weeks later and the sidewalk has still not been replaced. The city noticed that there was a sinkhole next to the manhole on our property. They said that they could not repair the sidewalk until the sewer people came to repair the sewer which had a crack in the main. We were worried that someone would fall or get injured on the missing sidewalk because we were expecting so many kids. Friends we told joked about telling the city that someone had fallen in and they wanted to know who in the city their lawyer should contact. We were prepared to put in a cardboard coffin with signs saying "Fresh graves- Keep out!" in an attempt to use it as a decoration so that people wouldn't walk into it. Someone must have said something to the city because on Halloween, the city came in and filled in the sidewalk with gravel so that people wouldn't fall in. The sewer has been repaired, but the sidewalk still is still not paved.

Painting

So we have completed painting the living room, entryway, and bathroom. We find that having people come over to the house really motivates us to finish painting and to clean the house. For Halloween, we had just completed painting the living room and entryway. For the entry, we chose a High Society reddish-orange color and for the living room, we chose a tan color called Spanish Sand. You can use this link to search for those colors on the Kelly-Moore website. This past Friday, we painted our bathroom a sky blue (the top half.) We didn't get that one from Kelly-Moore, so you won't be able to look that one up.

This past weekend, we had friends over for an early Thanksgiving. Matilde and Greg came up with the idea to deep fry a turkey and we volunteered to host. People brought over side dishes and desserts, so we had salad, stuffing, corn relish, mac 'n cheese, scalloped potatoes, homemade apple pie, panne cotta, and fruit tart. It was a good time and good food and good friends. We used our new table for the first time and we were able to fit 14 people around it without the leaf! It was a good thing we just got some new chairs. Though we weren't able to deep fry the turkey because it was raining outside, it still tasted really good because Matilde and Janet rubbed it with salt & pepper and marinated it the night before. Since baking a turkey would have taken hours, Greg had the great idea to cut up the 12 lb turkey and bake it for an hour. Everything turned out great. We'll have to do this again.

25 lbs of Candy

That is how much candy we gave away on Halloween. We gave away all 25 pounds. Kids coming almost non-stop from 6:30-8:30. We have never seen anything like it. Our favorite costume was a kid who dressed up like Napoleon Dynamite complete with walkman and a Vote for Pedro t-shirt. When we ran out of candy- we even gave away Sunsweet Ones that are individually wrapped prunes that I got for free from IRI and Corinne also gave us a box of nutritional bars from Abbott. Our neighbors warned us that you just give it away until you have no more and turn off all the lights and hide out in the back.









Our neighbors had a pumpkin carving potluck. As you can see, there were quite a few pumpkins. I did the "Welcome" pumpkin in the picture on the left and Edwin carved the witch on a broomstick on the righthand picture. It was a lot of fun and my first time carving.

Our favorite Halloween display was a house that used a sheet in front of a bay window with a projector and flash media. They projected images of bats flying, spiders crawling on a web, and skeletons walking back and forth on the sheet.

We had Jamie, Kaori, Sujay, Matilde, Nirav, Bhavana, Michelle, Mike, and Corinne over. It was lots of fun, but we did have a minor incident. Nirav and Bhavana left the stroller in front of our house and someone actually stole it. Up to this point, everything has been great in this house. It has been pretty much a utopia. Then something like this happens to wake you up. I have to believe that random petty theft happened (literally at our front door) because a lot people drive in from Oakland to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. While it was an exciting and fun night, it definitely has helped us to prepare for what is to come around Christmas.

We also hosted a little costume party last weekend. It really motivated us to finish painting the living room and entry. Here are some pics that Alfio took. I think that Jamie took some too from Halloween, but I have to ask him for it. Since we can't seem to upload our own photos, I don't feel like I should be asking for other people to send me their photos! We'll get them someday!

Happy Anniversary!

So Edwin and I went to New Orleans this past weekend to celebrate our one year anniversary. Can you believe it? It's already been a year. Time flies when you're having fun. To reflect on the past 365 days, we spent 24 days in Australia on our honeymoon, we have spent about 40 days in our new home, and we have both started new jobs within this year. (Technically, I have started 2 jobs within this one year of marriage!) Lots of changes!

New Orleans was fun. Though we only went for an extended weekend (Thur-Sun) it was just enough time to feel like we went on a vacation and the location was different enough that we felt like we were in a new place to explore. We arrived on Thursday around 2PM. We checked into the Sheraton where they put us in a room on the 47th floor. We didn't even tell them that we were celebrating our anniversary. I was surprised also because I got the reservation through a package on Orbitz and thought for sure that they would give us a room on the second floor next to the elevator. I don't know how high up you have to be to be invited to the executive club, but they informed us that we were at the club level and could use the amenities on the executive floor. Back in our consulting days, we used to get these things, but it has been a long time since we had any kind of status, so it was nice to get a free breakfast and afternoon snack. I think that they must have mistaken us for some kind of road warrior.

When we arrived on Thursday, it was raining and humid. Even through the inclement weather, we managed to have a good time and get some fun touristy activities checked off our list. We had lunch at Orleans Cafe based on the recommendation from the concierge. I was a bit skeptical at first because the concierge called ahead to inform the restaurant that we were coming. This generally means that it requires reservations and is going to cost a lot. However, the restaurant was really reasonably priced ($7-$12 for lunch) and it had the best jambalaya and red beans and rice we had during the entire trip. We also got some crab cakes for $5. I don't think that I have ever paid $5 for 2 crab cakes. They were good, but no match for Kian's gigantic and tasty crab cakes! (I have no problem admitting that I am mentioning his crab cakes in hopes for another invitation to eat them! You would too if you had tried them!) Anyway, after lunch we walked around the French Quarter to acclimate ourselves and wandered over towards Cafe du Monde, one of the most popular places to eat beignets. I think that anyone who has ever been to New Orleans knows what a beignet is, but for the 2 people out there who don't, it's basically fried dough squares covered in powdered sugar. Somewhat similar to a donut, but not round and elephant ears, but not in a waffle shape. As it rained outside, we enjoyed our beignets while listening to a live band (the first of many we would hear in New Orleans) perform and sipping our beverages (cafe au lait for Edwin and chocolate milk for me) during a lazy, rainy afternoon. I could get used to this! After our afternoon snack, we meandered back to the hotel to take a nice nap because we had woken up at 4:30AM to catch the 6AM flight.

When we awoke from our nap, it was already time for dinner. Yes, we are foodies at heart. A local saying that I may soon adopt for myself regarding NOLA (New Orleans, LA) "There are two times of day in Louisiana- mealtime and in between." To me, that is the sign of a good vacation- you eat and then plan your next meal while you are eating. (This also happened a lot while we were in Hong Kong.) Anyway, we went to the Acme Oyster Seafood House for dinner. We had a 1/2 and 1/2 po-boy (1/2 fried oysters and 1/2 fried shrimp), a dozen raw oysters, and a medley of jambalaya, red beans and rice, and gumbo. The fried stuff wasn't greasy or heavy and it was good, but I would say that it was not the best we had of anything while we were there. This restaurant is also well-known and was recommended by our tour book. After dinner, we went to see some live jazz at Donna's Bar & Grill . It's a well-known spot, but it was very casual and it seemed that most people were locals (one guy we met lived around the corner from it.) We were definitely one of the youngest people there (many of the patrons had grey hair or no hair!) The trio that played had a clarinet, piano, and sousaphone/doublebass. During one of the songs, the clarinet player kept removing sections of his clarinet until he only had the mouthpiece to play. It was very entertaining and I would definitely recommend going there if you get a chance even though we're not the biggest jazz fans.

On Friday, we had brunch at Cafe Amelie which we just found as we were walking around the French Quarter. The food was very good, but we unfortunately were seated next to a really loud crowd instead of in the nice outdoor courtyard. I had the gumbo and BLT while Edwin had the pulled pork sandwich. I had originally ordered the muffaletta, but alas, they had run out, so I ended up with the BLT. Everything was very tasty. After brunch, we went on a tour of a house in the French Quarter called the Hermann-Grima House. It was a house owned by some affluent familes pre-Civil War that they have restored. We thought it was well worth the $5 admission for an hour long tour. They happened to have a "mourning" exhibit where they displayed items related to a funeral where they would cover mirrors with black cloth and clothes that they would where for the 4-6 months of mourning. There was a similar house tour of another home (Gallier House) for a middle-class family that we tried to get to on Sunday only to discover that they only do tours on weekdays. After the tour, we went to the Garden District to explore another section of town. It had some cute stores and was a lively neighborhood. We then went back to the hotel for another nap before heading to dinner. Naps are good. For dinner, we had reservations at K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen which is a contemporary New Orleans-style restaurant. This was supposed to be in contrast to the dinner we were having at the Commander's Palace the next night which is old school New Orleans cuisine. It was not bad, but we definitely enjoyed our experience at Commander's Palace more. At KP's, we shared an oyster appetizer, munched of 4 types of bread, Edwin had the beef medallions while I ordered the fish with scallops and shrimp in a cream sauce. At CP, Edwin ordered the 3 course meal (turtle soup, softshell crab entree, and bread pudding souffle) while I had the gumbo (yes, again!) and pecan crusted fish with crab in a cream sauce. Edwin's favorite was the turtle soup which I liked, but was too spicy for me. His softshell crab was probably one of the best dishes we had and it did make me regret ordering the fish since I was attracted to the softshell crab as well. My fish was good, but the sauce was a bit heavy even though it was tasty.

On Saturday, we went on 2 tours. The first was a free tour offered by the National Park Service. It was by far the best value and very informative. (Can you really beat free?) Our tour guide was entertaining and seemed to really like his job. The 90-minute tour is only offered once a day at 9:30 on a first come-first served basis. We highly recommend it. You know I wouldn't get out of bed that early for something that wasn't good! We had muffulettas at Central Grocery Company for lunch. We then took the Cemetary/VooDoo tour for $15. The cemetary tour would have been good if we hadn't already had the National Park Service tour in the morning. A lot of the historical information was the same, though more interesting the first time you hear it and the cemetary information was more about who the people were who were buried there. The VooDoo portion was a joke. I was expecting information about the culture and history like where it originated or why it seems so popular there. However, they took us to this "temple" which was basically a room in this voodoo priestess's house that had a lot of dolls and incense. We had to listen to this woman for 15-20 minutes talk stream of consciousness- she wasn't even talking about voodoo. There were about 10 people from CA in the crowd and she proceeded to lecture us on how we were too liberal. I find that truly ironic given that she is the voodoo priestess- you would think that she would be liberal or at least open-minded, but I guess maybe her "southern" side makes her more of a conservative. She kept talking in circles and asking the 25 of us if she was making sense- not really! It really was bizarre. Our tour guide wouldn't even go in with us and warned us about the 20 minute lecture we would have to endure. I would not recommend this tour given that you can get a better tour for free! (Did I mention it was FREE?) The best part of this tour is that it started at Cafe Beignet which meant that we got to try out the beignets here. These were Edwin's favorites, but I liked the ones at Cafe du Monde better because they were less doughy.

On our last day, we had breakfast at Coffee Pot Restaurant where Edwin had the Cala Cakes with grits and I had the gumbo (what can I say- I love gumbo!) Cala Cakes are deep-fried goodness made of long grain rice and herbs. The waitstaff broke into a capellla song during the middle of our meal, so it was nice to be serenaded. (They weren't singing to us, but near us.) After breakfast, we headed back to the Garden District for a self-guided walking tour to look at the big, fancy houses. These houses were huge. Or maybe they just seem huge to us since a million dollars in the Bay Area buys you a 3 bedroom 1700 square foot house if you are lucky! We headed back to Vioux Carre (another name for the French Quarter) and had lunch at Napoleon House Bar & Cafe where Edwin had the jambalaya (dry) and I had the red beans and rice. (Not bad, but I preferred the ones from Orleans Cafe.) We headed to the French Market for a little shopping and then took the streetcar to Riverwalk (a mall.) The streetcar was fun, but since I used to take one to work everyday, the novelty just wasn't there for me. No need to go to the French Market unless you want to buy souvenirs. (We don't really buy that many souvenirs anymore because it just ends up as clutter for us.) The good thing about Riverwalk is that we got one last chance to have some beignets at another Cafe du Monde before heading to the airport.

Pros for New Orleans- food (gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, etouffee, cala cakes, beignets) and a different culture even though it's US
Cons for New Orleans- smoking (it's unavoidable) and no Asian food (we saw mostly sushi places, one Chinese , one Thai, no Korean, and no Vietnamese)

We would definitely go back and next time we would like to do a plantation tour and have more po-boys. It was fun and relaxing. I also was happy that I was able to finish reading a book called "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I haven't read a book since our honeymoon- "In a Sunburnt Country." Funny how I like to read travel books while I am travelling. I guess it kind of gets me in the mood. I would like to at least read another book before our next anniversary. Such a sad little goal, but I guess that's what happens when you are time-starved. Pictures will be posted when I get around to it.

Our House- In the Middle of our Street...

Here's an article we found about our street and the lighting extravaganza we expect to see during the Christmas holidays. Bernie Roberts, who is quoted, is our next door neighbor. The couple that moved from NJ, the Kennedys, live 3 doors down from us. Can't wait to see all the excitement though I'm not looking forward to the traffic.

What day is it?

I can't remember the last time I posted. It's been a long time. Well, a lot has happened since my last post. I finished working at my old job at IRI. I had a week off in between jobs, but unfortunately, I didn't have a computer, so I couldn't connect to the internet. We have had a busy month because Jeannette came in for a whirlwind visit at the end of Sept. She came on my last day at work, so we went to the spa together to celebrate. Then, on 9/29, we participated on a float in Love Fest, a house music parade. I'll get around to posting pictures someday... We also got to take her out for an early birthday dinner. We're hoping that she and John move the the Bay Area, so it was a big sell weekend. Her bday is the same as Alex's. Happy belated, guys!

My mom also came to visit the week after from 10/2-10/6. It was nice and relaxing and I got to show my mom around Alameda while running some errands during my week off. Then, we got to celebrate Kaori's birthday in Central Park in San Mateo. It was a lot of fun just hanging out with friends, enjoying the nice weather, and chatting all day. It seems to be getting harder and harder to schedule things.

I started my new job last week and I am loving it. The people are really great. I'm excited about the project that I am working on. I feel like it's been a while since I have been this excited or happy about my job. Maybe it's still the honeymoon phase, but I really have no regrets at this point and I know that it was the right decision.

Speaking of honeymoon, we are already nearing our one year anniversary. Can you believe it? This week is going to be a short work week because we are taking off Thursday and Friday to go to New Orleans to celebrate. I'm so excited for some gumbo, jambalaya, and beignets!

House update- so we have removed the wallpaper from the second bedroom. It only took us about 4 sessions. The first session of course was the longest, but it really wasn't that bad and we finished on Sat. Next up is painting. We've been struggling with paint colors, but we are thinking a reddish/burnt sienna color for the entry. For the living room/dining room, we'll probably do a tan/beige color. For the guest bedroom, we are thinking of a sage color. We know we want a light blue for the bathroom, but we are waiting until the renovations are done before we paint it. We have some really cool renovations plans, but I'll tell you more about it at another time. We're not starting until Jan anyway, so I'll have plenty of time to talk about those details.

So Many Changes!

So I quit my job last Friday because I accepted a new one at McCann. I can never seem to just tackle one major life change at a time. I get married, I get a new job. I buy a new house and move, I get a new job. I'm really excited about my new job. The people seem really great and excited to be there. An increase in pay is always welcome, particularly when you have a new mortgage and renovation expenses looming in the distance. Decrease in frustration with current job- priceless. I do feel like I'm leaving my teammates in a lurch, but they need to fix the problems and it doesn't seem like they are going to do that any time soon, so the company will just keep losing people.

This past weekend, we went shopping a bought a big dining room table that seats 10. It's massive. We weren't planning on buying a new table, but Renovation Hardware had a really good sale, so we bought it. Kind of a big impulse purchase, I know. We also ended up going to the annual Alameda Peanut Butter Jam. It's a local music festival that had a women's Japanese Taiko Drum troupe, so we invited Show and the Schneiders to join along. We made it for the end of the performance and then Maika and Kaori demonstrated their skills on the Taiko. What was kind of funny is that none of the drummers were Japanese- they were all caucasian. It was still an enjoyable afternoon outside in Alameda hanging out with friends.

Since moving, I am noticing a few things that are different living in Alameda vs. SF. Living in SF, I used to see maybe 4 or 5 kids a day. Living in Alameda, I see dozens of kids everyday. Using public transportation in SF, you never knew when the bus was going to come. I have used the transbay bus 7 times now and it was only late once- 6 minutes. Every other time, it's been like clockwork. Also, I am writing this post as I am on the bus. How cool is that? Internet on a bus? For $3.50 per ride, I can get free internet vs. going to a internet cafe for $10 a day. Living in Alameda, I feel like I have more time after work. Living in SF, I felt like I had no time after work. Now, you might ask, if you have so much more time, then how come you aren't blogging more? Well, I guess that is because we have been doing a lot more stuff for the house. We refinished the hardwood floors, we got a new refrigerator, got internet, got cable, etc. All the things that come with moving. I expect that I'll have a little more time once we settle in a little more. Please ask me if I miss living in SF, but I don't really feel like I have left. I still go in almost everyday for work. I can stay in SF after work if I want to hang out. The bus home can be a little more cumbersome. We went home after dinner on Friday with Michelle and Mike at 9:30 instead of hanging out which is what I think we would have done in the old days. I'm going to bed earlier because I get tired from all the moving stuff and so I am also waking up a little earlier. I guess that's what happens when you move to suburbia.

We have met a few of our neighbors and they all seem to be SO nice. They have come over to introduce themselves and while we knew about Christmas being a big holiday. We were told that Halloween is also big. Apparently, since the street is known for being safe/nice, they bus kids in- so they told us that they ran out of 24 lbs. of candy last year. That's a lot of candy. We still have candy leftover from last year because only 3 kids showed up at our door in SF. They also told us that we have a reputation to live up to- the previous owner used to decorate the house like a haunted house with a spider coming out of the tree! So we have Jamie heading up our planning committee and Show as creative director- should be fun!

Home Sweet Home

So it's been a while since my last posting. As you can probably imagine, we were busy packing. It's been crazy busy. So I had an interview on Friday. I have not been looking for a job, but I have been pretty unhappy at work lately. It's been really frustrating because there is a lot of inefficiency and I have had to work a lot of long hours and weekends lately. Anyway, Nikki invited me to dinner with a few of her old work friends and I met this woman who told me that her client was Microsoft. I told her that I used to work with Microsoft and so she asked me what I did and asked me if I had consulting experience (which I did.) She said that she was looking for 2 people to hire and that she thought that my experiences might be what they were looking for. She sent me a job description and asked me to come meet with a few people in her office.

It was a really great meeting. I liked everyone that I met and the SVP that I met with is friends with 2 of my old coworkers from KSA. What a crazy small world. He seemed really smart and I had a great time talking with him. I spoke with 4 people and none of them had been with the company for more than 9 months. They all sounded really excited to be there.

So, we also moved this weekend. We are officially Alameda residents. The move was so painful. I'll have to tell you about it another time because we're still reeling from all the chaos. We were just lucky to have some good friends helping us. We are currently sleeping on the kitchen floor on our futon while we refinish the hardwood floors. Let the renovations begin!









We also have a little video that Edwin shot the night before our move. Enjoy!

Sincerely Yours

So we spent a lot of time this weekend looking at more kitchens. My cousin Billy told us about a Chinese hardware store called Sincere Hardware. What's really great about this place is that they have a lot of the same brands that we saw at Home Depot/Home Expo. The difference is that they charge about 30% less- literally. I was asking the salesperson about a pot filler faucet and he pulls out the catalog and then reduces that price by 30% right in front of me. I'm having them give me an estimate of how much cabinets would cost because we were able to find the exact cabinets that we liked from Home Expo there. We're going to have our general contractor install them, but we'll probably purchase the materials from Sincere.

We're still trying to decide if we should knock down the wall between the kitchen and dining room and replace it with a peninsula or keep the wall. Pros- a more open layout, more seating, more counterspace. Cons- less cabinet space, no more cool swinging door, no pot filler faucet (probably), less wall space in dining room, and no formal dining area. Decisions, decisions...

We're also trying to figure out what kind of sink to put in. I think a stainless steel sink should be fine, but Edwin really likes the farmhouse style porcelain sinks. I like them too, but the price is a little higher than I want to spend on a sink. If we can find one that isn't too expensive, maybe I can be convinced. Only 4 more days until we are officially homeowners!

Moving Sucks

I hate packing. It's making this place a mess. There are boxes everywhere. It makes things stressful because there's this impending deadline. We have 2 weeks until we move. We've been furiously studying cabinets and tiles. We went to Home Depot and Home Expo last weekend. It was good that we went to Home Expo first. They had a very large showroom that had a lot of full kitchens to explore and for renovation ideas vs. Home Depot which just has a cabinet door in one section and tiles in another. Home Depot doesn't really "put it together." You basically have to know what you're looking for and hope that it will match.

What I found is that we may like a light fixture or a set of cabinets, but the styles don't necessarily go together. Designers on HGTV make it look easy. It reminds me of when we were planning the wedding as well. You may like individual pieces, but if they don't work together, you can't use it. I guess you can say the same thing for furniture in general. You might have a chair that you like, but it doesn't match the couch or the wall paint color.

And of course, Edwin and I each have our favorite styles. Edwin likes oak with the wood grain that you find in older houses- very classic and goes well with Craftsman style homes like ours. I like things a little more modern with cherry cabinets and a smooth finish. The model kitchen we saw looked very nice, but I wonder if it will look "old." I mean, that is kind of the point, but I don't want to spend all this money on a renovation to have people think that it wasn't renovated when we sell it and not get our money back. We will probably end up with with the oak because I think that it goes better with style of the house. I'll have my cherry cabinets in our next house. LOL.

We have also been looking at refrigerators. We're considering buying a refrigerator using craislist. In my mind, I have always had a "used" refrigerator in any apartment that I have ever lived in. I have seen a lot of listings where people are renovating their houses and have to get rid of their appliances. Now, that being said, I don't want anyone's cruddy 10 year old refrigerator either. The one that I am interested in is a stainless steel counter depth refrigerator that has only been used for 6 months. They are selling it for half the price that they paid for it because they bought a new house and don't need it. For half price, I can deal with a slightly used refrigerator. It's probably a much nicer refrigerator than we would ever buy otherwise. We're going to try and look at it tomorrow. I bought my wedding dress on ebay. Why not a refrigerator? I think that you can get some pretty good deals that way.

We also signed our loan docs this week. It was pretty painless. I really like our mortgage broker Rosemary Gee. She's been very good at explaining things and being responsive. I got very frustrated with another broker because he kept giving me the run around. I would ask questions and not get very clear answers. I asked for example rates and loan options and I never got anything on paper. During our first and last meeting, I had to write everything down because he didn't give us examples on paper. I think it was because he didn't want to commit to anything. When I told him the loans that Rosemary got us, he said that it didn't exist and that we should go with him. I asked him on 3 separate occasions to email me with loan rates and options and he never did. I went to my bank and asked for rates and they never got back to me either. They just told me that mortgage brokers were blood suckers. The most ironic thing is that our first loan is with my bank. Dumb. The second loan is a line of credit. What's nice about the line of credit is that we can pay it off faster if we want to and we can also take any of the principal we pay back out if we need it. It means that we don't need to have our cash reserves sitting in a bank gaining less than 5% interest when we are going to have to pay more than 5% in interest. Therefore, we get to pay off our debt faster and have access to emergency money if we need it. It's nice flexibility that we did not expect. Have I bored you yet? We hand over the big check this week and we close escrow on August 30, so T minus 6 days until we are officially homeowners.

We're Movin' on Up... to the East Side (Bay)!

Sujay has started calling us the Jeffersons. Remember the theme song? It does seem to fit. I've started packing. We still have all the boxes from when we moved in. I think we moved in with about 65 boxes, so I'm thinking that we'll have about 80 boxes when we move out. I'm aiming to pack at least 2 boxes per day. I know that only means 60 boxes until moving day, but I figure Edwin should pack at least 20, right? :) So I've packed 4 boxes so far- only 56 more to go.

We went back to the house last night to measure all the rooms. We've been thinking a lot about all the renovations that need to get done and the first step is to figure out how much room we have to play with. It seems so hard to figure out what to do first and whether or not we should refinish the floors before we move in since we don't want them to get them all messed up with the kitchen renovations. What to do? We're headed to Home Depot for some ideas this weekend.

Has anyone been reading all of the news about how bad the mortgage industry is doing lately? We read this article about how hard it is now to get a loan. We're thankful that we locked in a loan 2 weeks ago. We're going to sign the papers on Tuesday. Yikes. I guess I'll be glad to have this part over with and being another step close to home ownership.

All By Myself

So this past weekend, Edwin was off on his annual surfing surfari and so I was left to my own devices. What does that mean? I got to leave my clothes out for a few days, not make the bed if I didn't want to, and get some girly stuff done like go to JoAnn Fabrics without being timed in the store.

On Friday, I worked from home. I was meeting Matilde, Sujay, Chris, Corinne, Greg, and Cary for dinner in East Bay, so I met up with Matilde a little earlier to do some Friday shopping at the Embarcadero Center. Then, we went to Coriya for some hot pot after sitting in traffic for like an hour. Good thing I had Chris and Matilde to keep me company. There was a big debate about where to go for dinner since there was a possibility of going to hot pot on Sat night as well with Show and Derek. Anyway, we stayed until closing and I ate until I could eat no more. I couldn't believe how much I ate though I like to think that most of it was liquid because I drank a lot of the soup!

On Saturday, I volunteered to help remove graffiti in SF through my church. Though it was publicized in the church bulletin, it was actually organized by another volunteer group. I get myself out of bed and arrive by 9AM in the Sunset as requested. I was a little grumpy because when I got there, I waited around for a few minutes before someone came up to me and told me that they had moved the meeting location. Then, they didn't have any designated parking and we were told that we would get light refreshments, so I didn't eat any breakfast. When you say light refreshment, I think of food. (The last time I volunteered for something like Habitat for Humanity, they gave us muffins and juice.) All we got that day was water.

There were about 3 people from church, about 5 more from different organizations, and then 8 more from SWAT. I thought it might be some kind of police force team. So I started talking to one of them. His name was Junior and he lives in Bayview/Hunters Point. He was really friendly and revealed that he had to do 90 days of community service. So I asked him why and he tells me that he was caught with 5 oz. 5 oz. of what? No idea and I didn't ask! I did ask him if it was for posession and his response to me was, "Hell no! I don't smoke that stuff!" Sorry- did not mean to offend! JK! Anyway, he told me that he had to do the community service on the weekends and pay $150 each day because he couldn't do it during the week since he had a job. I asked him what his job was and he told me that he was a security guard at a jewerly store. Interesting. Though it was a little scary to be working with these guys, they were all very nice. I guess that I never realize that people that are so different live so close. I usually feel the same way after I have been to the DMV or in traffic school. Actually, meeting this guy Junior was kind of the highlight of the day.

We started walking from 19th and Noriega and headed west towards the ocean. It was a total pain in the butt because we had to carry these buckets of paint and wear latex gloves. I was hoping to get some practice painting for the house, but we were mostly painting mailboxes, garbage cans, and utility boxes. Believe me, the city is very picky and they get quite upset if you confuse garbage can green with mailbox green. This definitely was not as fun as the last time when I helped to paint an elderly woman's house. I was told by one of the coordinators that they are out there repainting these mailboxes and garbage cans every week. Every week they get spray painted and every week, they repaint them. How senseless. I don't even understand why someone would pay for the spraypaint to do it. Such a waste. That's why I probably won't volunteer for them again. That, and I couldn't stand how disorganized they were. I really have no patience for that. When I volunteered last time, they were super organized in the list of tasks that needed to be done and had the supplies ready to go. We didn't even get started for like half an hour because they weren't prepared. At the end, I didn't have the patience for them to drive us back to our origination. Since we were at 47th and Noriega (that's right, I walked almost 30 blocks with a bucket of paint.) I decided to walk over to my Uncle Glenn's house which was another 5 blocks away on 47th and Irving. Good thing I did too, because when I arrived, they were having a BBQ and since I hadn't eaten anything that day, I was starving!

For dinner, we went to San Tung again and then over to Chris and Corinne's house to watch Hot Fuzz. I feel asleep within 20 minutes, but I am proud to say that I was not the first to fall asleep. Matilde beat me by 5 minutes.

On Sunday, we had dim sum and then I dropped off Show and Derek at the airport. On my way home, I did some window shopping and "research." I was thinking about what colors we might want for each of the rooms, maybe buying a new kitchen table, window treatments, and trying to decide if I should make or just purchase the cushions of the banquette that we are going to have in the kitchen. I think that it might be easier and maybe even cheaper just to buy cushions from Pier One. I'm looking forward to building it. I think it will be fun. We still have to think about what renovations will be done when and start planning the move. I guess we should start packing. We're planning on moving out on Saturday, September 8. Anyone want to help us move to the East Bay? :) We're very lucky that we have some good friends and family that have already said that they can help. I can't wait. It should be fun. I'm really looking forward to it. Part of me wishes that we could move in sooner, but part of me is relieved that we have some time to set things up.

2 Days Left

So we have 2 more days until the contingency period is over for the house. It basically means that we are locked in at that point. Until that point, we can still get out of it. So we spent 3.5 more hours at the house last night with our real estate agent. So now we are thinking that we may change our original plans. Instead of having a bathroom in the basement, we are thinking that maybe we will try to convert the current bathroom into a master bath and then convert the hallway and linen closet into a second bathroom off of the kitchen. According to Kian, he recommends doing remodeling before we move in or at least before we unpack. We're leaning towards this option as well. I like the idea of having it done earlier so that we can enjoy the changes longer. Why pay for changes for the next owner to enjoy? This plan requires that we do the kitchen remodel with the bathroom addition. That's just a lot of money up front. No problem, right? JK!

Our mortgage broker also told us that the appraiser said that we got a good deal on the house, so that makes me feel more confident that we are making a good decision. She also has been telling us that the lenders are definitely getting more stringent. She said that the day after they approved our loan, they stopped accepting applications. I didn't think that all the activity around sub-prime lending would affect us, but I guess that it could have even though we have great credit.

At this point, Edwin and I are pretty sure that we are going to go through with the offer. I feel like we know what the issues are and what we have to do and how much it will cost. It's more a question of when we can tackle each of these projects. We should be busy for years! JK! I think that it will be hard work, but it will be worth it. Given that it's one of the cheapest houses on the block, the value can only go up, right?

We also met one of our neighbors who is an elderly gentleman who has lived in his house for over 40 years and prior to that he lived across the street where his daughter lives now. I guess he must like the street. He did say that Christmas time is very busy because it is known as Christmas Tree Lane since Alameda decorates the entire street. I have never heard of it, but I am looking forward to it.

We also found a really great Hawaiian restaurant called Hawaiian Drive Inn. I had the saimin and a spam musubi while Edwin had the garlic shrimp. Each of the entrees was like $4 and the bill came to $12 without tip. The place is a family run establishment and we were served by the dad and his son who was probably around 12 years old. It was so tasty- we will definitely be back.