just us.

what's growing in our garden

Mike got busy this weekend, planting our vegetables:

the larger bushes are cherry tomatoes, which are already coming in!  And it's not a new plant that we went out and bought, it sprouted from the dirt on its own and has been growing ever since!  There are some garlic (or onions, I can't remember) bulbs sprouting to the left of it too.  I think Mike is planning on making a potted herb garden with the herbs sitting to the right of the cherry tomatoes.

 
I'm not exactly sure what one would do with daikon leaves, but my dad gave the seeds to us.  We have daikon growing too, so I'll have to learn to make the chinese-style daikon cakes.  Bok choy is something we enjoy, especially with mushrooms and oyster sauce.

 
Cauliflower and bacon is a family recipe, something my mom's mom made when she was a kid.  Broccoli beef made by Mike? yum!!

the strawberries are starting to flower.  Can't wait until we actually have some to eat!  Need to figure out how to keep the critters away from them though.

and last but not least, we have peas.  I still remember as a kid, picking peas from the vine in my parents' backyard.  My dad was always the green thumb when it came to the vegetable garden, and I'm so glad that he is sharing his knowledge with Mike so he can grow his own.  Our hope is that Keira will show some interest in helping us pick what we grow.  Her school has an on-site garden, and I know the kids get to help take care of it.

here is a random thought....how do people gather carrot seeds?  Carrots don't flower or have seeds in them to harvest like peas or tomatoes do, so where do carrot seeds come from??

my dad also gave us some squash plants, and I think we are giving eggplants and carrots another go.  The weather is getting nicer, so I'm  looking forward to spending more time outside!

I got a little baking done on Sunday, and used some strawberries that Mike's coworker gave us.  I was going to use a vanilla cake recipe I got from my brother's pastry chef friend but I almost lost my marbles when I saw it asked for 3 sticks of butter.  THREE!!  Lucky for me, the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens came in the mail and I used the vanilla cake recipe from there.

Eunice (my brother's friend) said that I could add the strawberries into any standard vanilla cake recipe.  If I wanted the strawberries to simply be in the cake, to add it once the batter was made.  If I wanted the cake to be a strawberry cake, then the strawberries need to be macerated and mixed with sugar so that the juices come out and flavor the cake batter.  I opted to have the fruit in the cake.  

Boy, was it good.  Lightly sweet and not too heavy.  Eunice gave me a simple cream cheese frosting recipe to try, but I think I'll save that for another time.

today's feeling: content

while in the busyness of making tonight's dinner and getting the dishes washed, a sense of contentment came over me.

I am happy with where my life is right now.  Not that I was unhappy before this, but things just felt like they are where they should be.

 

Keira: for the first time ever, she went pee-pee in the potty last night. I sat her on her Dora potty seat, like I've done many times before, but this time she actually made magic happen.  And this morning, she ate cereal with milk for the first time.  And the preschool drop-off went better than usual.  She walked to her classroom (rather than being carried in), wasn't crying like she usually does when we went in, and managed to let me leave her with just a look of "I'm going to cry some more" on her face.  She also learned how to scoop the water, climb out of the pool, and went under the water too this weekend at swimming lesson #2.  Baby steps!

Mike: He'll be turning the big 3-5 this weekend, and I'm throwing him a little fiesta at home.  He's been working tirelessly at getting our condo ready and rented out...which lucky for us, happened very quickly.  The previous renters moved out Saturday and the new ones moved in Sunday.

 

Neighbors: we are blessed with having really nice neighbors.  One of them is celebrating Ramadan right now, and brought us some Ramadan inspired Banana and Dates Bread.

Home: I made dinner for tonight using some stubby carrots and zucchini from our garden.  And the other night, I used our batch of tomatoes to make tomato soup (adapted from this recipe) and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Work: there are days were I could do without it, but there are days that it is my break from home.  I'm just thankful that we both have jobs that aren't so bad and help us maintain the life we live.

Me: Overall, I feel like I'm finally getting into my groove.  I'm getting into a rhythm at home, whether its getting the laundry done, or putting the clean dishes away every morning, or picking up around the house.  At work, I've been doing a lot of purging, mainly because we have a remodel coming up fairly soon.  I'm starting to make use of the time I have while Keira is at school, whether its to do chores or just have some time for myself.

Life is in a good place right now.  And that makes me feel good all around.

hmm...

we have a 2.5 year old in the house:

 
who has new Princess sheets to sleep on and is now sleeping on a twin mattress OFF the ground:

 
and who had her first official swimming lesson yesterday:

 
 
as for the parental units, we enjoyed dinner at a new crawfish place in Irvine:

 
I'm not usually one to eat crawfish, mainly because it takes so much work to eat a small piece of meat.  But this night, I totally held my own (and surprised both Mike and myself in the process!)  I ate a majority of the pound of shrimp and maybe a 1/2 pound or so of crawfish.  Can't forget the order of garlic fries too.

We decided to walk off our dinner the usual way...at Target.  Well, Mike spotted a food truck in the parking lot of an apartment complex across the street:

 
so, the tub o' lard in me decided it was time to eat again.

I ordered their combo #1: 3 tacos and a drink.  You get to choose the meat for the taco, so I opted for 2 short rib and 1 spicy pork.  I only ended up eating one, because...duh!...I was still pretty full from dinner.

our garden as been doing pretty good, and we were able to pick our very first tomato off the vine:

 

I was able to pick two more yesterday, and we are up to our knees in cherry tomatoes too.

so that's it for us for right now.  Our vacation to Oahu is all booked for October and we can't wait!  The last time we were in Hawaii was for our babymoon in August 2008, so this will be Keira's first time there...well, outside the womb at least :)

the fruits of HIS labor

the first crop:

one zucchini and 5 cherry tomatoes.

These were picked from our garden this past weekend. We came back from the Bay Area and immediately Mike went to check on his green babies.

the weekend prior Mike had a field day plucking catepillars and catepillar-eaten fruit from the plants.  He stopped counting after he reached 30!  As soon as he noticed the black catepillar droppings, he found that they had gotten to more of the tomatoes.  We're still hoping that we'll get to enjoy some of our beefsteaks.

The cherry tomatoes were sweet, but the skins were a bit tough.  We have yet to eat the zucchini and have since picked another one straight off the vine.

you can call him Farmer Mike.

Our next door neighbors are growing a garden of their own too, and we're looking forward to trading veggies with them.  We're still waiting for our eggplants and carrots to mature, but the eggplants seem to have fallen victim to the catepillars too.  Either way, it's pretty gratifying to say that we are growing a small portion of our food.

life around these here parts.

a photo from this morning, as requested by Keira.

It warms my heart when she asks to "take a picture of mama and Keira".  I know there will be a day where she won't want much to do with her mama.

a few more:

I had an eye opening event happen at work yesterday.  Sometimes I need one of those to wake me up and help me realize that how I think and act doesn't always come across in the best way.  This is something that I am constantly trying to work on, and obviously, there are times where I am not so successful at it.

I started the fourth HP book yesterday.  I am still determined to read all seven before the last installment of the series of movies comes out on July 15th.

Father's Day was low-key for us.  I had to work, so we celebrated in a tiny way on Saturday by having breakfast at the Filling Station.  What you see is a breakfast quesadilla (for me), blueberry pancakes with eggs, bacon and wheat toast (for Mike) and mac & cheese with fruit (for Keira).  We thought about going somewhere for the day, but ended up just hanging out at home.

We went to Disneyland last Friday night, and caught the All-American College band on our way in. For most people, it's not a huge deal but for me...well it can bring tears to my eyes.

Here it is people...I was a band geek.

And Mike may say I still am.

I was in the band and marching band for three years in high school (I played the flute since I was in elementary school), so seeing something like this really brings me back.  I need to find some pictures of my marching band days and the lovely blue and gold uniforms with black patent hats and yellow plumes that we had to wear.

I have a sewing project I am thinking up right now, and it's something that Keira will need when she starts school in 2 weeks.  I just hope I have enough time to get it done and that I can execute it without any patterns.  I'm thinking it's a bit ambitious, but if I can follow through, I'll be pretty darn proud of myself.

and maybe make a few kids want one too :)

yes, please!

remember those chocolate croissants I showed you from my freezer?  here they are,  last night, being set out to proof, i.e. rise, overnight.

here they are, this morning, after sitting out since 10pm last night.  oh my, how they've grown!

here they are, out of the oven.  I figured I'd take a picture of them before I eat them all.  haha, I've only eaten half of one.  I should save at least one for Mike, right?

the package did say you could brush an egg wash over the tops before baking, but I opted not to.  The crust is a bit crunchier than I had hoped, but still good all the same.

I thought to myself earlier today, I better enjoy eating all this stuff now before I get preggos with the next kid.  It's going to be so hard to have to give up this stuff all over again....

good morning

I'm at a loss for words.  I guess blogging before everyone gets up isn't such a good idea after all.  My body and brain are still waking up.

Keira slept in our bed last night.  Mike went out and I didn't want to move her to her room, because moving a sleeping child is never a good thing.  Well, she ended up there anyway because she woke up in the middle of the night screaming and wouldn't go back to bed.  Our solution?  Put her in her room so that she can scream herself to sleep.  Problem solved.

I made a trip to Porto's yesterday.  I walked away with 6 potato balls, 2 chicken empanadas, 6 guava struedels, a chocolate croissant and a creme brulee.  I only ate 1 potato ball, 1 struedel and half of the croissant when I got home.  I held back, since waiting for Mike would be the nicer thing to do.  I've forgotten how good those potato balls were.

It's been warming up here in So Cal.  It was too warm to take Keira to the playground, and I thought about but failed to follow through on taking her to the pool to cool down.  So Mike got home and decided to water the plants...and Keira too.

I kept hearing, "You need to ask Mama first." come from outside, and I guess Keira wanted to play in the water.  Permission granted:

I almost forgot to take our monthly family picture yesterday.  Good, not great, but at least I got it.

I love that Keira is saying "cheese!" when we take pictures now.

Little booger is up now, watching Kai Lan.  My day has started...

vacation part 2

Our time in Mammoth was NICE.

Tuesday morning we planned on heading to the Bay Area, but not before giving Keira a chance to play in the snow.  We took the gondola up to Canyon Lodge and let Keira play for a bit.  We bought her a pair of snow gloves, but she insisted on wearing her cotton ones.

after checking out of the hotel, we headed to a little area we were told about for sledding.  To say Keira liked it is saying it lightly.  Little homie couldn't get enough!  She went with both Mike and I a few times and I decided I wanted to see how she would do on her own.

  

Keira sledding by herself! from Jamie Ko on Vimeo. 

 

She would scream and giggle the whole way down, and ask "can we go again?" as soon as the ride was over.  She only spilled once and would tell us "I'm okay!" as if it didn't phase her.

We were soon on our way to the Bay Area, going through Carson City, NV and then crossing back into California via South Lake Tahoe.  Our original route was snowed in, so while it might have been a tad longer than we had planned, it worked out in the end.  The highways weren't as windy or desolate as our trip from Las Vegas to Mammoth Lakes, nor were they simply a 2-lane road.

We made it to the Bay Area before 9pm, and we were pretty much done with long car rides.

We chose to keep it lowkey on Wednesday and went shopping in Berkeley.  The weather was rainy, so that sent us home after just a few hours.  We had dinner with our friends Fiona and Eric later that night and finally got to meet their newest little girl, Naya.

Thursday we headed up to Fairfield, CA to visit the Jelly Belly Factory.  I've wanted to go there since I was a kid, especially since my 6th grade class didn't get to go (it was something my teacher always did with her students).

on our way back from the Jelly Belly Factory, we picked up my brother from school and headed to Santa Rosa to have lunch at Johnny Garlic's.

the food was good and tasty, but I'm not sure if its worth the hour drive to get there.  The restaurant is owned by Guy Fieri, the blonde spikey haired dude from Food Network.  Yea, that's what I call him.

We stayed home on Friday, partly to wait for my brother to come home from his internship and partly because we wanted to just vegetate.  I sewed another bag, Mike watched tv, we did laundry and Keira played.  nice and easy. 

Later that night, my brother took us to a yummy Thai restaurant right down the street from my parents' house (we walked there in a few minutes!) for dinner.  If any of you know Hercules, there really isn't much as far as quality food goes.  But there's a small area that they are breathing new life into it, and this restaurant is part of it.

dinner was awesome.  We had a whole fried fish, panang curry, pineapple fried rice and both a chocolate mamba AND a passionfruit mamba.  it was SO good.

Saturday, we headed to BakeSale Betty's in Oakland for their famous fried chicken sandwich.  um HELL YES.

there is no sign on the building, so it is easily missed, but just look for the line of people outside.  And they use old wooden ironing boards as tables, lined up along the sidewalk outside.

after that, we headed to San Francisco to try cupcakes at That Take The Cake.  oh HELL YES.

I ordered 6 cuppies: Sassy Sistah, Cherry Blossom, What Competition, Cookies n Cream, Hella Nutella and Prom Queen.  The owner was helping us that day and I mentioned that not only was he highly recommended, but we had come all the way from LA to try his cupcakes.  Well, he threw in a Gentlemen prefers Red cuppie on top of it.  Nice guy, really.

the eating didn't stop there.  We went to Fisherman's Wharf after, where we got a crab salad sandwich.

the thought of crab spurred us to pick some up on the way home, along with some other things for dinner that night.  Mike did a great job making dinner for us, it was sure yummy!

We headed for home Sunday morning, leaving at 8am and getting back to Irvine by 3pm.  we made 2 stops, and let Keira watch DVDs a majority of the way.  thankfully, she did nap for a few hours on the road, but she definitely didn't enjoy sitting in her carseat the whole time.

While we were happy to be home, we were sad that our vacation was over.  The first part of the week was a bit rush, rush, rush, but the latter part of just relaxing and going with the flow was nice.  now it's back to the grind...

gobble gobble

I didn't take a single picture on Thanksgiving Day.  Well, actually I did, but none of the actual festivities.  My memory card was full, and I was too lazy to unload it for more room.  what I did manage to take a few pictures of was this:

Mike inherited the family boat this weekend.  My dad was thisclose to selling it, but Mike opened his mouth and said he would take it off my dad's hands.  My mom was more than happy to oblige and now Ryan has a space to park his car in the garage.

you should've seen my dad instructing Mike and Mike trying to back that thang up (haha) into the driveway.  My brother could be heard yelling at my dad to hush up and let Mike try it on his own.  ah, gotta love when the family is in town :)

Mike claims this is a "starter" boat for him.  yea, we'll see about that one.

anyone wanna be her Gilligan?

as for Turkey Day dinner, Mike and I donned our matching chef jackets and got down and dirty.  well, actually just Mike did, I didn't really do much at all.

rather than spend $80 on peanut oil to deep fry a turkey, Mike spent $70 on a new fandangled infrared cooker.  no oil = way healthier.  the bird turned out pretty nice, juicy and not blackened to a crisp like years before.

there was prime rib too (from Costco) and that came out good as well.  Mike pretty much was the master chef that day, I'm so lucky I married him :)

He made stuffing and gravy, while the vegetables, mashed potatoes, and ham were made by the rest of his family.  My mom prepared appetizers and chiffon cake too.  We had a pumpkin pie and our Julian apple pie for dessert...can't forget the ice cream too!

I love that I was able to put a cute Thanksgiving-ish dress on Keira.  the shoes are from a recent trip that my mom took to Hong Kong.  she even left that clip in her hair the whole night.

(before I forget, most of these pictures were taken by my dad.  I would feel a lot worse about not taking pictures if I didn't have my dad around.)

I was hoping to get a Christmas-card-worthy picture from the weekend, but it didn't work out.  The one moment my dad had to take some for us, the sun was setting and neither Mike nor I were picture ready.  We both looked a hot mess.  so it looks like it might just be one of Keira this year...she is the only one that matters right?

he did get this really cute one of the 3 toddlers.  Matthew was Mr. Cool, Jacob was Mr. Old Man and Keira was Miss Mommy.

so that was Turkey Day in our household.  We're gearing up for holiday parties next...this Saturday with my pharmacy school friends and then Christmas Day with the extended Ko clan.  it's a good thing I don't mind too much trying to keep this house clean :)

weekend getaway to San Diego

since I was on vacation last week, I had hoped to be able to go to Vegas for a few days.  But with Mike busy at work with a project deadline, we couldn't really make plans.

but then I saw that Michelle was going to be at a handmade craft market in Del Mar (San Diego area) and the light bulb went on.  Why not go to San Diego for the weekend instead?!

So in a matter of minutes, I got the okay from Mike, booked a hotel room, bought tickets for Sea World and started packing!  and lucky for us, Michelle decided to stay at the hotel too...along with her hubby and kids!

We packed up the car as soon as Mike got home from work (and Keira woke up from her 2 hour nap), and got to the hotel after a 1.5 hour drive.  We hit commute traffic on the way down, and ended up at the wrong hotel initially because I didn't put the right one into the GPS.  oops!  We found Michelle and her family and headed out for a late dinner at Milton's.  Keira slept pretty good the first night...she fell asleep later than usual at 10:30, but didn't wake up until the next morning.  love it!

We had a quick breakfast at McDonald's the next morning and headed back to the hotel so I could shop a bit at the market.  I managed to find myself a few cute handmade things, but since Keira was getting antsy, my shopping time was cut a bit short.  we said goodbye to Michelle and made our way to Sea World.

It has been more than 10 years since I was last at Sea World, and Mike's never been.  So it was a first time visit for both him and Keira.  We decided to go see the Shamu show first.

Keira could be heard oohing and aahing at the things going on, but would get scared when the whales swam by.  Keep in mind the whales were nowhere near her, but I'm assuming they just seemed huge in her eyes.  She did learn to say Shamu though!

I was pretty excited to learn that there was Sesame Street Bay of Play, since Keira still likes Elmo.  There were a few rides, which Keira could go on as long as one of us went with her.

First stop, Elmo's Flying Fish!

I took Keira first, and she was pretty excited to be sitting inside the Elmo car.  But as soon as the ride got started, she held on to my arm tighter than I've ever felt before.  Once the ride stopped, all she could talk about was how she was flying with Elmo.  Mike took her on it again later on, and it was more of the same.

we took her on Abby's Sea Star Spin next, which is like the Spinning Tea Cups at Disneyland.  I don't always do well on rides like this, so I admit I was nervous.  I had to warn Mike NOT to spin it while we were on (yes, I know I'm a party pooper).

I think she might've like this one a little bit more.

how tall is our girl?

just about 34 inches!! (each line was an increment of 3 inches).

We saw another show, Blue Horizons, in between our visits to the Bay of Play, and saw a few exhibits as well.  I think we were all getting tired and had our fix of Sea World for the day.

but not before sharing a Shamu ice cream :)

before heading back to the hotel, we went in search of Lucha Libre Taco Shop to try the highly recommended Surfin' California burrito.  My brother said that this burrito was featured on Man Vs Food. 

you'll have to check out the ingredients for yourself.  it was mighty good!

on Sunday, we decided to head out to Julian CA to check out their apple pies.  I heard way back when during one of my rotations that Julian is known for their apple pies.  Lucky for us this past weekend was the last one of their Apple Days Festival, so we made the 1.25 hour windy road drive out there.

I didn't take any pictures of us in town, but had to get one of our breakfast for the day:

an apple dumpling, with a side of vanilla ice cream.  Mike and I ate the whole thing, Keira didn't want a single bite!

We brought home a frozen apple pie to enjoy for Thanksgiving dinner next week, and a gallon of raw apple cider.  I've never had hot apple cider before, but after our trip to Julian, I'm now a believer!

on our way home from Julian, we stopped in Escondido to see my BFF Jeanine and her family.  I wish I had taken pictures while we were there.  They have a new house on a HUGE piece of land, and while we waited for them to get home from church, Keira and I took advantage of their playground and outdoor trampoline.  We enjoyed a lunch of KFC, chatted for a bit while the kids ran around (Keira included) and bid them farewell so we could get home early enough to wind down.

as nice as it was to get away for a few days, it was nice to be home.  now its back to reality...and work!