Playoffs Baby!

NBA playoffs are here! WOOOO.

So Jenna was in LA this weekend and I had always wanted to take her to downtown near the Staples center to walk around and check out the shops. I thought, hey, Sunday (today), we're not doing anything... nothings going on... lets go down to the Staples center and walk around. So we wake up and I watch some NBA playoff games! The first of the day is ...Lakers vs Thunder in LA. It didn't even don on me that ..oh yeah, I live in LA and the place where we're trying to go is the STAPLES center. haha. So we drove all the way there just to find a massive amount of traffic and NO parking. ooooooops.

No biggie, we just decided to head over to Japantown instead for some ramen!

Here is Jenna is her bucket sized bowl of Miso Ramen from Orochan Ramen in Japantown. I'm pretty sure she thought it was delicious even though she only managed to eat 1/3 of it. I asked her if she could eat the whole thing and she said she could if the prize was great enough. I jokingly offered to move to SB if she'd finish the whole bowl and she guaranteed that she would finish the bowl for that prize... That would be an awesome sight.

While Jenna got a level 6 spiciness Ramen, I ordered a level 3 spiciness Shoyu based Ramen. It was HOT! I was sweating the whole time... Luckily there were plenty of napkins around to help me mop up my mess. There was a guy at another table who ingeniously decided to wear a headband while eating his spicy ramen. Maybe that is something I'll have to do next time.

Another funny thing that we saw in Japantown was our "supposed" family crest on the window of a sushi restaurant. Does that mean Ouye stands for Mako Sushi? And does that also mean that my brother and cousin have tattoos on their body that say 'Mako Sushi'?! haha. jk.

One last note to the weekend... Jenna and I decided to check out the LA only grocery store: Fresh and Easy. Or as we call it... Fresheeezy! When we went on our Ensenada cruise this past summer, a comedian was ripping on Fresh and Easy saying how it was for rich LA folk and blah blah blah. However, we found the store to be very fairly priced and I will definitely be going back to buy things like fresh meat and cereal. All their stuff looks very fresh and I even saw my cousins shopping there! Anyways, we saw thing canned thing on the shelves and had a good laugh. Don't even wanna know what it tastes like...

Ok back to the NBA. Go Cavs, go Thunder, go Nuggets, go Suns and for the others... i don't really care.

Avatar 2.0

Just another little project for a friend....

My friend gave me a really crappy picture but I tried to rock it out.

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter these days is not like Easter when we were kids. I mean, where's the candy and toy baskets from Grandma and where's the annual Easter Egg hunt set up by the parents?! haha. Remember those good days when your parents would put money in the plastic eggs instead of candy! YEAH.

Although those days are long gone, there are still some simple traditions that can be still be done with very limited time and energy. Last weekend, Jenna and I decided to dye eggs! I also really wanted to make Jell-O eggs (ala my Auntie Sara) but didn't plan very well and was kinda scared of trying to break a hole in the egg without breaking the whole thing...

We were thinking about buying individual dye colors from the grocery store but instead found an awesome $1.99 alternative at Target! A little kid Easter Egg Dying kit! Cheap, easy and included 9 colors!

Here's our kit all laid out. We had the 9 color tablets (including BROWN?!?), the little wire egg dipper, some stickers, cardboard egg holders, a memory game (random) and of course, the white crayon for drawing designs.

Jenna apparently drew on a bunch of designs and words on her eggs but the crayon was so sucky that nothing showed up when we dunked em in the dye... Oh well.

If you can see in the picture, there is some rice wine vinegar that is supposed to be used in sushi rice. Well, we were supposed to add some vinegar to the color tablet + water but the only thing I had was the rice wine. Lets just say that our eggs ended up smelling like sushi!

We neglected to use the nasty brown color but used 7 others. Blue, Pink, Orange, Yellow, Green, Purple and Teal. The pink produced the brightest, most saturated color out of the bunch.

Here's our finished eggies.

Another View.

Haha, you can't see it, but Jenna is sad that a couple of her fingers were stained blue or purple or pink.

A very beautiful tri-colored egg topped off with a couple flower stickers.

Did anyone else out there dye eggs or do something more traditional?

For your stinky body.

So I found this pretty ridiculous Old Spice Body Wash commercial featuring Terry Crews and decided I wanted in on some of that clean action!

I am a super noob when it comes to flash so this video took me a long long time. Even though it's rough, I hope you watch it a couple of times and leave our site with a smile or a chuckle!

7 Years!

Can you seriously believe that we've been together for 7 years now?! It's crazy to think that I've been with Jenna for over 1/4 of my entire life!

Our anniversary is April 1st (hehe) and this year, I decided to celebrate by making a surprise visit to Santa Barbara! Tuesday night, I drove straight to Santa Barbara from my short trip back home in Danville. I got to Jenna's apartment at around 9 pm and she wasn't there because she was partying it up with some friends! haha jk. But actually, she was out which gave me the perfect opportunity to set things up and catch her totally by surprise. I had bought a bouquet of flowers, which I set on the dining table, so it would be the first thing she saw when she walked into the front door. I also decided that I wanted to make dinner but... would save it for Wednesday which was supposed to be the 1st (according to the calendar in my head).

As Jenna was coming home from her dinner, she called to make sure I had safely made it back to LA.

Jenna: "Hey, where are you now?"
Me: "Oh, I'm just hanging out at my apartment. Where are you?"
Jenna: "I'm almost home from happy hour."
Me: "ok good. Well....I'm gonna go eat something or go shop for some groceries. I'll call you later"
Jenna: "ok bye bye"

A few moments after hanging up, Jenna opened the door to her apartment and found me sitting there on her couch watching TV! haha! It's so funny seeing someone's truly confused and shocked face! It was pretty cute though and I think she was pretty surprised. I did feel bad about lying to her about my whereabouts but I think this was a good exception.

The next day, as Jenna went off to work/school, I told her that I would be going back to LA sometime during the day. But again, I fibbed and decided to stick around to have a home cooked meal ready for her when she got home from work/school. Apparently I thought that this idea would be really cool because 1) It would be another surprise that I was still there and 2) It would actually be on the day of our actual anniversary: The 1st. Well apparently I can't read a calendar right and Wednesday actually ended up being the 31st of March! haha... dang. Oh well. It's the thought that counts.

I went out to Albertsons and bought a schmorgishborg of ingredients to make homemade Coq Au Vin, Roasted Brussel Sprouts and Baked Potatoes. The recipe was from The Pioneer Woman and it seemed like a pretty safe and easy choice for a mid-level cooker like myself.

I started off by chopping all the veggies and aromatics. Onions, Carrots, garlic, parsley, mushrooms and BACON!

The fresh chopped parsley was more for a garnish at the end when the dish was done. And shoot! I forgot to take a picture of the BACON. It was the tastiest smelling part of the dish and is always a welcomed addition to make a dish more delish.

Once I had all my stuff chopped up, I proceed to fry the bacon (not pictured) and sweat the vegis. The instructions from the recipe told me to use the fatty goodness from the bacon to cook the vegetables and the chicken. SO I DID.

Even though I despise mushrooms, the Pioneer Woman included them into her recipe and so I decided to keep them in mine. Plus, Jenna is quite the fan of the gross little Fun-guys...

Next came the chicken. I only need to brown each side because I was supposed to throw everything into a dish and stick it all in the oven for an hour or so. Again, I used the bacon fat as a lubricant.

One of the best parts of the dish was the sauce. Alls I had to do was take that skillet, that had all the burnt pieces and bacon fat, and deglaze it with a couple cups of red wine! Who doesn't love red wine?! When I was at Albertsons looking for wine, I wasn't really sure which one to get so I just looked at the labels. One of them said that it had been ranked high (in some category) and went well with meats... so that one was the winner. See how much the design and appearance of a product effects a consumer's choice! Must remember this when designing.

I believe the wine was Barefoot something. Maybe Barefoot Sean...haha jk.

The whole thing bakes in the oven for a little over an hour and comes out looking like this! Its super funny how the chicken turns purple because of the wine. Still tasty though.

To go along with the Coq Au Vin, I made roasted brussel sprouts with bacon and baked potatoes.

Here's the brussels sprouts, which were ridiculously delicious, and I don't have a picture of the potatoes because they took too long to cook...

Here's the meal.

And here's the eater!

Happy 7 Year Anniversary Jenna! Love you lots and hope for another great year of fun times and happiness. We will continue to cook and design and hopefully, one day, live in the same zip code!

Attacked

Blogger is currently crashing.... like my car!

More to come later about my car and my experience....