Happy Chinese New Year (Jan 25)

Welcome to the Year of the Rat!!! Wishing everyone a healthy and prosperous New Year!  I don't normally check horoscopes until of course I feel that something is going really wrong.  So, so far so good - knock on wood!

The week before Chinese New Year, a new friend (whom I met during the Emergency Preparedness Meeting a few months ago) invited me and the boys to have dim sum in Little Saigon.  This Vietnamese community was perhaps about 40 minutes away, a bit closer than I had expected.  But gosh, was it busy!  The line to wait for dim sum was over almost 1.5 hours!!!  So we ditched that idea, spent probably another 15-20 minutes just trying to park the car, and walked into one of the first noodles stores that we saw.  Yummy and cheap... perfect combination :-)

After that, we walked across the street to an open air market.  Hey look! Lion dance!

I'm glad the boys were able to see a lion dance.  It was one of my favorite things growing up in Malaysia.  Graham ended up donating his "Emergency $1 ring" to the lion:

If you're wondering what Graham's "Emergency $1" is... it is a real $1 bill that Graham folds using origami into a ring that he wears on his finger.  I will have to take a photo of this fancy ring the next time he makes/wears one! :-)

This place is crowded today.  Boys are busy looking around and Mommy is busy trying to find some new Chinese New Year outfits for the boys:

I couldn't believe all the plants this place was selling!

We left the area and drove a little bit further down the street.  After driving around and trying to find another parking spot for about 10+ minutes, we walk into a few stores. Hmm... "spicy baby crabs"??! Looks crunchy!  No,... I didn't get any:

I did find some dinner!  Roast duck and roast pork.  YUMMMM!!!   The duck was a bit on the skinny side but the remnants made some really good porridge the next day :-)

A New Year means a new door mat!  No, not really but our old one was starting to look pretty bad.  Love this new pineapple one and it was Bobby-approved!

I also hung some red lanterns that the boys made during the Chinese New Year festival organized by their Chinese school a couple of weekends ago.  Check out this fog at night! How weird!

First day of Chinese New Year normally means a night of dumplings.  This year, in addition to just making plain minced pork dumplings, I also had to make a vegan/veggie version - garlic, cabbage, spring onions/scallions, and "meatless" ground beef.  I might have overdone the scallions but not too shabby!

Charlie was happily being Mommy's helper:

Graham is obviously having too much fun playing with Mommy's phone camera:

Charlie literally said "I waited a WHOLE YEAR to wrap dumplings!!!"  I love his enthusiasm. I hope both boys continue this tradition when they are older:

Looking good!

Hmmm.... I wonder who is getting ALL that garlic to dip with their dumplings???!

Glad everyone is enjoying the meal!  Graham and Charlie are still using training chopsticks:

Family we-fie!

I busted out some fancy chopsticks.  I bought these chopsticks in Hong Kong many years ago.  Might have been almost the same time I met Bobby in China.  Something about chopsticks and bowls... I just love collecting them :-)

Successful dinner! And now, the next morning - somehow I was motivated to try and make some Chinese pancakes.  The dough (just flour and hot water) had to rest for about 30 minutes.  It was not rising as much as I thought, so I put it above our new electric fireplace.  PS: Love LOVE this new fireplace!!!  And the 3-D effect on the fire looks pretty cool too:

 I love how Charlie pretends to be warming up his hands by the "fire". Ha ha!

The dough is still not quite rising!

The dough was rather thick with the first batch.  I didn't quite completely read the last bit of the instructions where it says to flatten it to a specific height.  Well, it was obviously too thick and did not cook all the way through :-(

For the 2nd batch, I tried folding it like the way my Grandma did (my dad's mom).  She used to make these "lau ping" as we call it in Chinese all the time when we were growing up in Malaysia.  I watched her plenty of times but never really did get my hands dirty to make them.  How I wish I did now!

So okay, 2nd batch was edible but the texture was still not quite right.  But then... on the 3rd and last batch, SUCCESS!!!  It wasn't quite salty enough for the texture was perfect!  Will have to attempt these again.  My grandma would be so proud :-)

I did learn how to fold dumplings from my Nai Nai/grandma and watched her make dumpling skin from scratch.  Charlie really wanted to make dumpling skin from scratch but I didn't quite have enough time that first night of Chinese New Year.  Some day for sure!

In the meantime, we are trying our best to continue our Chinese tradition in the Lee-Pridgen household.  I did buy some new outfits for Graham and Charlie.  Not quite the traditional Chinese ones but these were from the Vietnamese community of Little Saigon:

The boys really love their outfits and I think it looks dashing!  They didn't quite get their favorite color (they actually swapped colors!) but nonetheless they were more than happy to wear them.

Time to "pai nien" which means to pay respect to your elders and wish them a Happy New Year.  And in return, the boys will get a red packet called "Ang Pow" that contains money in it.

This is obviously the boys' favorite part of Chinese New Year!  It was definitely my favorite part when I was growing up in Malaysia.  We would visit relatives and friends and end up with so many Ang Pows.  And by the end of the night, we would take all the money out and count out all the cash.  I still remember getting over RM$400 (ringgit) one night.  Woohoo....!  By the way, Chinese New Year last for 15 days which means you can get Ang Pows throughout those entire 15 days!

Although sometimes, my mom would have to "recycle" our money, as I put it.  Since the banks were all closed during this holiday, she would sometimes run out of money and hence we would have to put back some of our money into ang pows and give it away to other kids and unmarried/single friends or relatives.  Fun times. Ha!  

Date night (Jan 17)

When we had bought tickets for the Christmas Sing-along months ago, I had also planned for this date night for Bobby and I at the Disney Music Hall.  It was called Bach, Handel, and Telemann.  Honestly, I have only heard of Bach :-P

A good friend of ours were able to take the boys for the night.  The boys were thrilled to have their first sleepover!  I forgot to take a photo. Graham even packed his sleeping bag!

I guess I should have paid more attention to our seat selection.  I totally forgot that Bobby is afraid of height and we were on the balcony.  And not only that, we were in the very first row!

Well, if anything - no obstruction, right???!  Poor Bobby had to really concentrate not to look down too much.  But still having a good time, right?

You can see all those amazing organ pipes from here.  And the structure/ceiling is amazing too!

The orchestra was a lot smaller than I had expected but WOW, they were amazing!!!  The conductor was a lady, who actually played the harpsichord that's placed in the middle.

The conductor would play and then stand up every now to conduct.  And the main violin player - which I now know is called the Concertmaster - was amazing too!!!  I don't have a photo of him, but wow... so nice to not hear a single squeak (no offense to Graham!).

We pre-ordered our snacks for intermission.  Worked out great as we only had 15 minutes to woof everything down!

We were nicely surprised with an opera in the 2nd half of the show.  There was a guy and a gal and wow, the guy was so handsome even from the balcony!  And yes, he had a great voice too.  I looked up the program later.  Check out his photo.... [droooool...] wait, what?! ;-P

And the lady in the photo was the person that our handsome dude was trying to woo in the opera.  What an amazing performance! By the way, we did move up a couple of rows so Bobby was able to enjoy the show :-)

We forgot to turn around and take a photo of the theatre after the show, so we did it with the TV screen in the hallway. Does that count??

This building is amazing!

It is quite the sight at night:

We-fie!  Hmm... I wonder how the boys are doing right now?

We decided to take a little walk after the show... and decided to walk the opposite direction from the last time we were here for the Christmas Sing-along.  Here is City Hall on the end of this street:

Wait... what is this? Grand Park???  Which I now find out was previously called Civic Center Park (renamed in 2012):

Check out this massive lit fountain!

Dedicated to Arthur J Will, who was the Chief Administrative Officer, County of Los Angeles from 1951-57:

Here's the view from the other side of the fountain.  Spectacular!

We walked around the block and honestly, I was quite terrified with the random homeless people and strangers.  Somehow I would have this thought about them sticking a knife to us.  Sheesh!  Looks like we are not walking around this same route after dark!

And after dark... after 11pm and yet, what is with this traffic! 

It was actually an accident along the side of the road, so okay perhaps LA traffic isn't always so bad.

What a fun night!  And in the morning, the boys were up and already playing video games when we showed up at our friend's house.  They obviously did not want to leave!

Our next show is actually tomorrow - Peter and The Wolf.  I have heard of the title but don't really know much about the story.  We will be sitting in the same area where we were during the Christmas Sing-along, by the organ pipes.  Looking forward to it! :-)

Happy 13th Anniversary! (Jan 6)

OMG... 13 years!!!  I can still remember the day when I sent Bobby home on the airplane in my hometown - telling him that I couldn't/wouldn't be his girlfriend.  And look what happened??! 13 years later and in another new country/city/house... now I have to deal with these 3 monkeys:

I started out the day by picking up some yummy bundt cake from favorite bundt cake store:

It's funny though now that I think about it... it is our favorite cake but we don't really visit it very often. Only on special occasions I suppose.  The cakes are loaded with this icing that in my opinion is just a bit much.  But of course, Graham and Charlie don't think so.  Graham's favorite is lemon and yummm... it is delish!  Although on this night, he was hoping for Red Velvet:

Charlie likes Confetti:

I personally like their carrot - minus some of the icing.  Unfortunately there is no vegan version but we let Daddy cheat just that little bit for this special occasion.  We ate at one of our favorite Italian restaurants - which again like the bundt cake shop, don't visit very often. Ha! Only on special occasions :-)

I'm trying to think now if there was an anniversary gift.  Hmmm... nope!  No gift!  Just a card.  Bobby would always say (when we are in the house) to just look up - i.e. look at the roof under your head.  That is your gift! :-P

I did just recently buy myself a new watch (among other things - Ha ha!).  It was on sale. I have been eyeing it for a long time now and it has come up on sale a few times and I had always resisted.  But not this time!

Isn't it too cute?!  My sister and I had a Mickey Mouse watch when we were kids.  Mickey's arm would go around just like this one.  Love it! :-)

Happy Anniversary, honey!  Here's to many more! XOX
(I mean more anniversaries and maybe just limit the more of moving/packing/new cities/countries/homes).  Loooove you!!!

Skate boarding? (Jan 3)

I always wanted to learn how to skateboard.  Well, I finally had my chance earlier in the year.  We had bought - I mean, Santa had bought Charlie a new scooter this past Christmas.  And since my bicycle is still not working properly, I thought... Why not try Graham's skateboard??!

Well, first we have to wake Charlie up!  He was so excited he even had his helmet on for the car ride:

Okay, here goes!!!

Graham's "I am the Stig" shirt is finally getting so small for him!  We had it in the drawer for him for the longest time because it was so super big and then, blink of an eye and it's almost ready to hand down to Charlie!

Charlie had a couple of crashes but all good!

Okay, so I didn't have any photos or videos of  myself skateboarding.  I didn't want to break my phone (or myself!) in case I fell over trying to work the phone. The boys were thankfully very patient with me and went ahead and turned around several times while I slowly progressed along the beach.  After a little while, they decided to just play on the sand which I was almost thankful for.  My hip was really feeling it by then!

Graham and Charlie just LOVES being by the beach.  It will be tough to beat if we had to move away:

Lots of shells on the sand here:

And here are just some random sayings that I like from one of the local stores:

This one could be a good one to paint on a bathroom wall :-)

Haven't been back on the skateboard since.  I may need to just secretly practice in the backyard before the next trip out.  Just happy I didn't fall on my face or bum! And that the boys weren't laughing at me on any of my attempts to skate.  They were super supportive riding their scooters next to me at times.  So sweet!