Category Archives: life

friday at comic-con

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I ended up having to work last Friday but I did so from San Diego so I could still go to Comic-Con. Sneaky but I don’t care because it was my first Comic-Con ever and I had SO MUCH FUN.

Since I had to work most of the day and only had a 1 day pass, I decided to skip all the panels and just check out the booths and exhibits in the main hall. Sadly I don’t have a lot of pictures, especially of costumed attendees (so many Wonder Women!) — there was just so much to see that I forgot. 🙁 But I’ll share what I do have!

Click for bigger.



WE MADE IT. !!! Taking the escalator to pick up our badges upstairs.



Rob and Sebastian. Do you feel our excitement?!?



After picking up our badges, I found a bench and outlet on the 2nd floor, which became my makeshift workstation for the day. Thank goodness for Google and their free wi-fi. Do you see the crazy line to the right of the picture? That’s the line for Ballroom 20, which is one of the rooms used for the really popular panels.



There are SO MANY people walking around and handing out various little tchotckes. Rob got this “tie” from someone promoting the upcoming movie Fantastic Mr. Fox. The “tie” is pretty darn awesome.



When I finally made my way to the main hall later in the day, I saw Iron-Man…



… and Star Wars figures at the Hasbro booth.



Rob loved this superhero squad display.



Aaahhhhh!!! It’s Adam Baldwin (aka Casey from Chuck and Jayne from Firefly)! Lurve him.



Edward James Olmos was also there…



… as was Michael Hogan (aka Colonel Tigh from Battlestar Galactica).



And probably the highlight of my day was seeing KIEFER SUTHERLAND. He was heading to the FOX booth and I happened to be near it. Look how close he was to me!!! *swoon* Katee Sackhoff (aka Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica) was walking right behind him (she’s going to be on 24 next season) but I totally missed getting a picture of her because I kept staring at Kiefer. She is so gorgeous in person.



Back to walking around. The Warner Bros booth — I managed to score one of their oversized tote bags! I think I accidentally cut in line, though. :/ Sorry! I swear I didn’t mean it. The one I got has Chuck on one side and The Big Bang Theory on the other. I really wanted the Harry Potter bag but they ran out. 🙁



One of the toy booths was selling this Comic-Con exclusive stuffed wicket. SO CUTE! Only $10! No, I didn’t get it.



Found my favorite Star Wars character R2D2 at the Sideshow Collectibles booth. If I remember correctly, this figurine was $5,450. WHAT.



And finally, here we are after a very looooong day. My back and feet were KILLING me after all the walking. You can see the oversized Warner Bros. tote bags we got in this pic.

Can’t wait for Comic-Con 2010! And I’ll be sure to request vacation on time to avoid the mess I had this year. 😛

i FAIL at life

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I am SO PISSED at myself.

I mentioned a few months back that Rob and I bought tickets to go to Comic-Con on Friday, July 24th. I have been looking forward to this FOREVER. I don’t know why I didn’t ask for the day off back in April but I didn’t. I procrastinated. So OF COURSE, when I finally submitted my request this week, I find out that I might have to work that day because we have a project due the following Monday.

%$#@!&%!

I guess I better get my work completed before the 24th, right? Maybe if that happens, there’ll be a chance I can go. I mean, just look at the scheduled programming that day. It’s Star Wars day! And the casts of 24 and Bones are going to be there along with soooo many other awesome TV/movie/comic panels. *sigh*

I realize I’m being totally dramatic about the whole situation but I work because it’s something I have to do to enjoy the rest of my life. I don’t love it. And I would much rather be at Comic-Con.

out and about

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Can you believe that I’ve actually been out doing stuff recently? I can barely believe it myself. 🙂 A quick rundown with pics…


A few weekends ago, Rob and I went to the Team LA store at the Staples Center to see what Lakers goodies we could find. Sadly, not much. They had A LOT of stuff but nothing particularly exciting. So disappointing. I mean, LA is a long way from Orange County. Wowzers. I did find this awesome Mickey Mouse tee and had to take a picture of it. No, I didn’t buy it. (They didn’t carry it in women’s sizes, heh).


The following weekend Rob and I “crashed” an old friend’s surprise 30th birthday party. HEE! We were invited by a friend who actually WAS invited. That’s not technically crashing, right? Anyway, he had a freaking In-N-Out truck at his party. I took full advantage and enjoyed a Double Double cheeseburger. Sooo good.

And yes, I cut my hair. I go back and forth between liking it and not. It’s a *tad* shorter than I wanted. Oh well.


Finally, this past weekend on the 4th of July, we went to a barbecue at Daniel and Carolyn’s place across town. There was this guy using the grill next to us (he’s behind me in the above pic) and he was wearing… get this… cargo shorts, white sunglasses, a red/white/green wristband, Louis Vuitton belt, Gucci loafers… and no shirt. He was such a character! My friend Rob (not to be confused with the hubs) really wanted a picture of him so he pretended to take pictures of me. Too bad I leaned over too far and got in the way. We’re so mean! I’m going to rot in hell, aren’t I? 😛

Anyway, no SYTYCD updates tonight. Rob’s out of town again so I have to wait to watch this week’s episode until he returns. Can’t wait!

Wedding: Walking Down the Aisle…

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With our first anniversary coming up, I’ve been reminiscing about the wedding and realized I never finished my recap… so here we go again…

All photos taken by Apertura unless otherwise noted. Please feel free to click for bigger.

The ceremony’s about to begin!



The scene. Our guitarist, Pete Goslow, is serenading our guests as they take their seats. The “aisle” is the staircase on the left.



Over at the groom’s Tommy Bahama lounge, the boys are dressed and ready to go. (As an aside, they had a MUCH bigger room than us girls did — it was spacious, had a large TV, and a whole bar. Lucky ducks!)



Meanwhile in the bridal suite, my bridesmaids and I are toasting with my dad…



…and dealing with last minute dress emergencies. EEEK. The straps on my cousin’s dress wasn’t staying up very well so she decided to cut them off and turn it into a strapless dress right before the ceremony. Hee.



The boys take the “secret” route to the courtyard.



This is one of my favorite photos… such a unique view of the girls’ getting ready upstairs and Rob and our sponsors downstairs.



Rob’s view of the courtyard before walking out…



…and there he goes escorting his mom to her seat. The processional song was “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles.

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anniversary vacation

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I FINALLY got approval for 3 weeks (!!!) of vacation from work in August.

So what am I planning to do with all that time off? Rob and I are taking an anniversary trip to the other side of the world — first stop is the Philippines to visit my grandma in Manila and then we’re off to Australia. We purchased our airline tickets as soon as I found out I could take the time off.

Here’s our plan:

Manila – 3 days
Melbourne – 3 days
Cairns – 6 days
Uluru – 2 days
Sydney – 5 days

YAYAYAYAYAY. SO exciting!

I know that airline charges have become ridiculous lately but can you believe that we saved almost $1,000 by booking 2 round trip tickets to Manila and Sydney from LAX when we’re only planning on flying one leg of each ticket (LAX to Manila then Sydney to LAX)?!? There is something seriously wrong with that pricing.

Now I’m off to research hotels… 🙂

a day of (california) adventure

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My friends Ruby and Jason were in town a few weekends ago and where did we go? California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort.

🙂

The park is undergoing major construction right now (it’s scheduled to be finished 2010-2011) but we managed to keep ourselves busy for a few hours.

I’m not allowed to post pictures of Jason (hehe) so I’ll share random ones instead.



First we hit Toy Story Mania. I love this ride. Too bad I suck at it and only scored 91,600 to Rob’s 171,800.



The Food and Wine Festival was going on and while we didn’t attend any culinary demonstrations, we saw Food Network Star Guy Fieri. I love him! I could watch Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives all day long.



We stopped in the candy store at Greetings of California to drool over the treats. Look at those HUGE caramel apples. YUM!



If you’re familiar with my love for all things Disneyland resort, you know that Rob and I always go to the Animation Building to draw at the Animation Academy. This is one of our favorite attractions ever. This time we drew Mickey’s best friend, Pluto.



Since we were in the Animation Building, we thought we’d check out the Sorceror’s Workshop. Surprisingly, I’ve never been in there, hehe. In Beast’s library, you can find out what character you’re most like. First, you get your picture taken and then you answer a few random questions. It turns out I’m most like Mulan. Pffft. Just because I’m Asian. HAHAHA.



Here’s the picture Rob took.



Rob is most like Timon. BWAH.

We had fast passes to go on Tower of Terror but I just could not convince Ruby and Jason that a multiple drop thrill ride is fun. Hee. I’m always a little apprehensive before I get on the ride and I’m totally screaming and clutching at Rob for dear life during all the drop sequences but I just love it when it’s all over. I guess it’s the adrenaline kicking in.

At that point, we headed out of the park and continued our Disney day by watching Up (my review is below — highly recommended). All in all, we had a great day (no, great weekend) hanging out. Miss you guys and hope to see you again soon!

san francisco treat

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A few random notes:

1. I want to see Angels and Demons this weekend. It’s already better than The DaVinci Code because it has Ewan MacGregor. LOVE HIM.

2. I just found out that stamps went up $0.02 again. WTF USPS. Didn’t you JUST raise the price last year? *sigh*

3. Last one… So You Think You Can Dance STARTS NEXT WEEK. (Yes, it really does deserve to be in CAPS). So excited. Seriously, this show is so much better than American Idol. I swear.

Anyway.

If you follow my Twitter, you’ll know that Rob and I were in San Francisco a few weekends ago. My sister-in-law Susie was graduating and we wanted to be there to celebrate with her. Too bad flying United made it such a pain to get in and out of SFO.

On the flight out of John Wayne/OC airport, I found out that United now charges to check-in bags. Originally we were going to pack 2 separate carry-on bags but decided at the last minute to combine our stuff into one check-in bag. Bad move that cost us $15 each way. Really. UGH. Then as we headed to our gate, we found out that our flight was delayed an hour due to rain in SF. Ok fine, so the delay wasn’t United’s fault… whatever. Luckily we were staying with Victor (Rob’s brother) and Susie and they had a really comfy Airbed for us to sleep on. I love those things. Although I discovered that on hardwood floors, it is REALLY LOUD. You move even slightly and it squeaks like crazy.

Saturday was Susie’s graduation on the USS Hornet. Yup, a ship! The ceremony started at 10am but since we were tagging along with the graduate, we had to be there at 8:30am. I think I woke up at about 6:30am to start getting ready, which is the earliest I’ve woken up in a loooong time now that I’m working from home. HEE. It was a good thing we had to be there early because there was already a long line waiting to get on the ship. I think they were doing security checks. You can see a tiny bit of the line on the left of this pic…



Just look at the ginormous ship! It was amazing.

The ceremony was 3+ hours long. !!! The beginning was filled with too many long and forgettable speeches so I played games on my iPhone. Don’t judge.



Finally, Susie was called and this is all we got to see of her! The stage was in the middle of the hangar deck (I think) with the graduates seated in front and all the guests seated to either side. Super awkward arrangement.



Victor and Susie!



After the ceremony, the chairs were cleared out quickly, which gave Rob the opportunity to give his own inspirational speech. Heh.



It finally stopped raining long enough for us to go outside. It was so overcast we could barely see the city across the bay. Boo.



Even more Rob silliness.



We were STARVING but had dinner reservations in just a few hours so opted to get Happy Meals from McDonald’s. YUM YUM chicken mcnuggets with sweet and sour sauce. But the best part was seeing Smush go crazy when he smelled the french fries. Hehehe.

Our day ended with dinner at Tsunami, watching the Pacquao fight at a local filipino restaurant/bar, and I even talked a couple of my good friends into coming into the city to hang out. 😀

Our flight back on Sunday was supposed to leave SFO at 12:45 but again, we get to the airport and find out it’s delayed 1.5 hours. They didn’t give us a reason. When it got close to boarding time, the flight was delayed yet another hour so we wouldn’t be leaving until close to 3:30. This time they said it was because the bathroom on the plane wasn’t functioning. I don’t know if that was the only reason. Still. It sucks. This was the fourth United flight in a row that I’ve taken that’s either been delayed or cancelled. GRRR. Rob called United to let them know about our experience and we managed to get a $200 credit. Hopefully we don’t have any problems when we try to fly United again.

It was great to see San Francisco again – I can’t wait to go back!

As for this weekend, I’ve got a whole lot of TV watching planned. AWESOME.

kogi bbq on cinco de mayo

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First up… Happy Birthday Jimmy (aka roomie)!

Yesterday Rob and I celebrated Cinco de Mayo by checking out the famous LA Kogi BBQ truck. Seriously, it’s famous — even the NY Times has written about it! The heart of Kogi are their Korean-style tacos and burritos served with your choice of short ribs, spicy pork, chicken, or even tofu. The meat is covered with shredded cabbage and a chili salsa and cilantro-lime relish. Mmmm.

So the trucks are finally making their way down to Orange County and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try it out. I found out from their Twitter that one of the trucks was scheduled to be in Fullerton from 7pm – 10pm so armed with the knowledge that the line starts early and gets looooong, we left Irvine at 5:30. !!! We got there at 6:15 and there were 3 people in line. We killed about 20 minutes at the nearby Sports Authority then headed back. In that short amount of time, an actual line had started to form and we were about 20th in line. Not so bad. The truck arrived 10 minutes early and proceeded to park in the back parking lot. Uhhh… at first there was some confusion. Do we turn around? What about our places in line?! But everyone was feeling the Kogi love — and once we all turned around to walk to the truck, we got right back into the same order we started in.

It took longer than normal for the truck to get prepped and the grill to get going (the truck manager came out a few times to apologize and thank everyone for coming out) so they started taking orders at about 7:15 and the food started coming out about 5 minutes after that. We finally got our hands on all our grub at 7:45. Mmmm. A few pics…



Rob took this pic of me standing in line. You can BARELY see me. I’m wearing a black hoodie.



THE MENU.



Rob placing our order. !!! We ordered the following:

7 short rib tacos
3 spicy pork tacos
2 chicken tacos
1 short rib burrito
1 kimchi quesadilla

NO, all that food was NOT just for the two of us. Though that would be really funny if it was. We were ordering for 5 and bringing it all to a friend’s place.



And finally Rob posing with the Kogi truck. Hee.

I AM LAME and totally forgot to take pictures of the food before we devoured it. ARGH. Sorry. If you’re curious, the yumminess can be seen here on Kogi’s site and here on Yelp. Beware — don’t look at the pics on an empty stomach!

For the record, my favorites were the short rib taco and kimchi quesadilla. I had a couple of bites of the short rib burrito (which has scrambled eggs and hash browns in addition to the salsa and relish) and I’m totally getting that next time. YUMMERS.

april update

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Wrote this last night…

Yup, I’ve been neglecting the blog again. Sooo lazy. I went to Santa Barbara over the weekend to visit my cousin and I brought back a cold and sore throat (no, it is not the swine flu). We had a good weekend eating tons of food (yummy gumbo at Cajun Kitchen and amazing Crab Cakes Benedict at Sambo’s), walking up and down State Street, and running around the Santa Barbara Fair (no rides for me but I had funnel cake!!!). I took Amtrak, which was so easy! It’s been over 10 years since I’ve taken the train anywhere and I was seriously surprised at how CROWDED they are. On the way back to Orange County, there were no more seats so people were standing. Crazy! The trip was roughly 4 hours each way and the time passed really quickly. I brought my trusty MacBook and a few books and the ride was over before I knew it. I’ll definitely make the trip again.

Tonight is the Chuck season finale (haven’t watched it yet because I’m waiting for the Lakers to win the game against the Jazz). I am really, really hoping it’s not the series finale. So much so that Rob went to Subway today to buy a footlong sandwich in support of the Finale and Footlong campaign to SAVE Chuck. NBC, you better not cancel this show!!!

I finally downloaded some pics from the past few weeks — hopefully you don’t mind if I share? 🙂 Click for bigger…

Let’s start with some pics of Diesel…



We bought Diesel this cute little “house” and put it in our “office” so that he could sleep in there during the day. What a cutie.



Rob was bored and thought it would be funny to put my Mickey ears on Diesel’s head. Diesel was obviously not pleased.



Back on Easter, we went to a barbecue at my cousin’s house and were in charge of making dessert. We decided on cupcakes! We used regular Betty Crocker cupcake mix (both chocolate and yellow cake) and then made this strawberry frosting (mostly because it gave us an opportunity to use the awesome Kitchenaid mixer we received as a wedding gift). The frosting was A-MA-ZING. I changed the frosting ingredients to only include 1 stick of butter (2 sticks seemed waaayyy too much) and I used 4.5 tbsps of strawberry puree. The recipe says it’s enough for a dozen cupcakes but I used it for 2. Yummy.

And of course, a few weekends ago we went to Disneyland. Again. 🙂

We got to the park just shortly after the 8am opening and headed straight to Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters!



I beat Rob!



Rob went to Fantasia Gardens (the smoking area) and I wandered around the castle to find Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Awww.



Then we headed over to the Plaza Inn to have (all you can eat) breakfast with Minnie and her friends. I had a traditional breakfast of eggs, bacon/sausage, and potatoes along with some Mickey waffles and a variety of fruit. Also available were biscuits and gravy, tons of pastries, a huge assortment of cereal, and other items I’m sure I’m forgetting. SO GOOD. Plus, we got to meet…



Captain Hook just walked right up to our table, grabbed our camera and started taking random pictures… like this self-portrait of himself. What a character.



Minnie dropped by…



… and Tigger too! We also met/saw Eeyore, Max, White Rabbit, Mad Hatter, Alice and Rafiki. Definitely lots of fun.

When we finished up with breakfast, it was HOT HOT HOT. The weather had been pretty chilly the days prior and then the day we go to DL, it got up to 96 degrees. CRAZY. Anyway, CA Adventure opened at 10am so we made a beeline over there to ride Toy Story Mania. We arrived shortly after opening and the line was already at a 30 min wait. We figured this was the best it would get so we wait in line… only for the ride to BREAK DOWN about 10 mins before we got to the front. We decided to wait it out but after awhile, we were all instructed to get out of line. ARGH. It wasn’t meant to be on this trip again.

We decided to get out of the heat and hang out at the Animation Academy. This ended up being an AWESOME decision because…



… I met Sorceror Mickey! I’m upset the picture quality is crap, though. I will meet him again! And take a better picture.

It was almost time for the Laker game so we went over to the ESPN Zone at Downtown Disney to watch the first game of the series and also to wait for my best friend Robyn to join us. YAYAYAY.



The Lakers were up by 20 points at half time so when Robyn arrived, we headed over to Animation Academy again since she’s never been there before (!!!). We drew Minnie and mine was terrible as usual (Rob’s holding mine on top).



We headed over to Toy Story Mania to see if it was open again and found that the wait was 60+ mins. INSANE. Instead, we went back over to the Hollywood Pictures Backlot to ride Tower of Terror. The three of us are at the bottom right of the picture. I’m in the middle scared out of my mind (the constant drops feel never-ending), Robyn has her hands at her face to hold on to her glasses, and Rob’s egging on my screaming.



Back at Disneyland, we go on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters twice in a row. The second time I think we found a Hidden Mickey on one of the maps visible in line.



Robyn beat Rob! And Rob was not pleased. Hehehe.



And finally, for our last ride of the day, we hit It’s a Small World. I haven’t been on this ride in YEARS. They recently made some changes and sprinkled Disney characters throughout the ride. I saw Alice, Aladdin, Jasmine, Pinocchio, Nemo, Ariel, Flounder, Woody, Jesse, Lilo, and Stitch. SO CUTE.

That’s it! We’ll have to schedule another trip before the summer heat sets in for good… YAY.

Wedding: First Look and Portraits

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First. I’m going to Comic-Con in San Diego! I bought the tickets a few days ago for Rob, our friend Sebastian, and me. YAY. We originally wanted to go on Saturday but I procrastinated and tickets sold out before I could buy them. So Friday it is! It’s not until July 24 but I am so excited.

Second. CHECK OUT THE NEW HARRY POTTER TRAILER! It looks awesome. I cannot wait for July — Harry Potter on July 15 then Comic Con on July 24. WOOT.

So… more wedding recap anyone?

Rob and I decided beforehand to do a “First Look” before our wedding ceremony. I know it’s tradition to wait and see each other for the first time when walking down the aisle but to be honest, when we were developing the timeline of our day, I just could not fit in enough time for photos. The only time was during cocktail hour, which did not sound appealing to me. I mean, what if the ceremony ran longer than expected? How would we gather everyone needed for the photos? Is it too much to ask of our bridal party to miss out on cocktail hour? And selfishly, what about my hair/makeup? After all the crying I was sure to do, I would have crazy face and that is not cool. 😛 So when Angel mentioned the idea of a First Look, I knew it was a great solution. We’d have the time to see each other in a more calm and relaxed setting before the craziness started and take care of photos all at the same time!

I set aside an hour and 45 minutes for photos (both with and without our bridal party) and honestly, if I could go back and do it again, I would bump up the time to AT LEAST 3 hours. That’s probably my biggest wedding regret. Seriously. You cannot have enough photos.

Anyway, on to the First Look!

All photos taken by Apertura unless otherwise noted. Please feel free to click for bigger.



Our photographers staged our First Look at the bottom of a staircase at our beloved venue, the Grand Newport Plaza. I loved that it felt very private (even though we had an audience!) and it was away from the flurry of wedding preparations going on all around us.



Here I am sneaking up on Rob…



Seeing each other for the first time. I know it sounds so cheesy but it really felt like the rest of the world fell away and it was just the two of us. Awww.



Showing off my pretty pretty dress (or at least *I* think so). 🙂



Our audience. 🙂



Portrait time… I had no idea how hard it is to “model.” I pretty much suck at it, lol.

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