Goodbye 2008!

2008 was a great year!Got married to the bestest man ever and became a Mrs.!

Had a fabulous and fun honeymoon with my new mister at Walt Disney World

Became a first time pet owner and welcomed Tiger and Sierra into our home.


Got addicted to this

And lastly, started this blog.

Looking foward to seeing what 2009 brings.

Christmas 2008 - A Recap

This Christmas was a little bit different than past Christmases. It was the first Christmas for the hubs and I as a married couple but also the first Christmas we have actually spent together. Usually I head up to the Bay Area to spend Christmas with my mom's side of the family. Since I only had 1 day off of work this year, I wasn't able to go. But it was nice to have a nice quiet Christmas at home with the hubs. We started with a yummy Christmas breakfast.On the menu: baked french toast, breakfast quiche, and mimosas

Then we opened presents...followed by a relaxing afternoon....

And for dinner, we had prime rib (yum), twice baked potatoes, and rolls

And for dessert, creme brulee.

Our bellies were real full after our wonderful meals.

Meowy Christmas!!!!

From Tiger


and Sierra

The streak is over

I have never been the athletic-type of person. I didn't play sports when I was younger (unless you count my stint on the 8th grade volleyball team, but I really don't). My husband, on the other hand is athletic. He played tennis and basketball in high school and is now an avid golfer. So me beating my husband in any sport is pretty much impossible. But...I did have bowling. I'm not saying I'm a great bowler, just better than my husband. Bowling was the one sport I could always beat the hubs at. I say WAS because today my streak was over. :-(


GAME 1: hubs = 112, me = 126 YAY ME!

GAME 2: hubs = 162, me = 129 BOO TO ME!

GAME 3: hubs = 111, me = 108 SOOO CLOSE, BUT BOO TO ME!

Oh well! I guess the hubs had to beat me sometime. I'll just have to settle for trying to beat him playing Wii sports.

A year older but not necessarily any wiser ;-)

December 9th was my 32nd birthday. YIKES! 32!!! I'm getting old! This past year was probably one of the best as I married the love of my life as a 31 year old woman. And now, another year older, it was a great to celebrate my first birthday with my new husband. The hubs took me out to dinner. My request was thai food as I'd been craving it for awhile so we headed out to one of our regular spots President Thai in Pasadena. I wish I had pics to share of our food but I don't. Sorry. The hubs, for my present, gave me some bling to wear on my neck.


Lastly, for dessert, the hubs bought a yummy tiramisu from Tous Les Jours bakery in Rowland heights. All in all, a pretty low-key birthday but I wouldn't have it any other way. :-)

Fresh & Easy

When the price of gas skyrocketed so did the price of groceries. Now that gas is cheaper, it seems that groceries are still as expensive. Because of that I'm a coupon clipper, I read the grocery ads when they come in the mail, and I love Fresh & Easy. This store has been open in our neighbordhood for a little over a year now, but I didn't discover it until recently when a co-worker told me about this place. I describe Fresh & Easy as a neighborhood shop like Trader Joe's but with a Costco-esque feel to it. No, they don't sell stuff in bulk. They have a great selection of foods under the Fresh & Easy brand but they also sell a lot of of name brand products you'll find in your major grocery store chains such as Ralph's, Von's, or Albertsons'. I love Fresh & Easy for their selection of produce, meats, and pre-made meals and their prices are great. The best thing is there are coupons that come out in the mail for $5 off a $20 dollar purchase so the savings are even greater. The only caveat is that the checkouts are all self checkouts and you pack your groceries yourself. However, there are always 1-2 employees up front who are there to help and often they'll even pack your groceries for you.

Here's a little sample of great savings. These are the ingredients for my chicken noodle soup I'm making tonight as the hubs is a little under the weather. All this cost me a whopping $8.38! My soup should make about 6 servings so that's $1.40 a serving!!!

Products that are sold under the Fresh & Easy brand are often cheaper than other name brand products. This 48 ounce bottle of vegetable will easily cost you between $3 and $5 at a major grocer when it's not on sale, but at Fresh & Easy it's $2.55 all the time.

A 32 ounce package of chicken broth is easily $3 + dollars at a major chain and at Fresh & Easy it's only $1.98.

Okay, okay, I'm beginning to sound like a bit of an infomercial but I love Fresh & Easy and for those of you who have never checked it out should. :-)

Food + Family + Poker + Wii = A Fun Friday

On Friday night we had the SIL's and their families over for dinner. I love to cook and immediately started working on a menu for dinner once we decided to host this shindig. Since it was the day after Thanksgiving, we wanted to do something different since our guests would probably we Thanksgivinged out on Thanksgiving food. I decided on a barbeque-esque theme, although not everything was cooked on the barbeque. Yeah yeah it is November, but in So. Cal you can pretty much barbeque all year long.

For our apps (although I didn't take a pic) I made hot spinach & artichoke dip and olive bruschetta. For our meal I made pulled pork bbq sandwiches, baby back ribs, bbq meatballs, a baked potato casserole, cornbread casserole, slow-cooker chicken wings, and coleslaw. My SIL brought the buffalo wings. And being that we are filipino, I had to cook rice. For dessert, I made a trifle. I wish I had remembered to take a pic because it looked so pretty. We had so much food leftover, even after guests took some home.

In the hub's family, whenever everyone gets together we play poker. No family event on my husband's side of the family goes without at least 1 poker game. The hubs won that table at a golf raffle a couple years back and we got the professional looking poker chips as a wedding gift.

After 1 round of poker that nearly took 2 hours, the family wanted to give our Wii fit a try. That's the hub's nephew hula hooping.

Black Friday shopping = success

Let me first say that this year's black friday shopping experience was much tamer than last year. Last year's shopping festivities commenced at midnight at the camarillo outlets followed by hitting up best buy, kohl's, and target and finally crashing to sleep at around 11 on friday morning. After perusing the black friday shopping ads from this Thursday's newspaper the only 2 things that caught my eye were the following:



The hubs and I found these great deals at Wal-mart. We purchased 2 8 inch digital picture frames for $39 a piece and also purchased a video camera at $100 off regular retail price. Wal-mart opened at 5 am this morning and the hubs (who accompanied me reluctantly) and I arrived at Wal-mart at around 4:30 to already find hoards of people in line. I don't have a pic but there had to be at least 1,000 customers in front of us. We strategized and opted not to get a cart, and knowing that we weren't going to make any large purchases requiring a shopping cart, it was the best idea. Much easier to weave in and out of aisles without one. We got in the store by 5:20 am and left an hour later with our purchases. We were satisfied customers. :-)

Do you Fondue?

Since our wedding on May 24th of this year, the 24th of each month the hubs and I go out to celebrate our monthiversary. Yup, we're cheesetastic like that! Yesterday was our 5th monthiversary so we decided to try out the Melting Pot in Old town Pasadena. I made the rezzy on-line for 2 for a "special occasion" and when we got there we were seated at a nice cozy booth in the corner out of sight of other diners. Since it was our first time dining there we went all out and had their 4 course dinner which included cheese fondue, salad, entree, and chocolate fondue.

Our yummy Mexican Fiesta cheese fondue

Our platter of raw meats with a variety of dipping sauces

The Yin and Yang chocolate fondue - mixture of dark and white chocolate. Absolutely delish!

A platter of yummy goodies for our chocolate fondue.

Full bellies!

The Melting Pot was definitely an experience that took us nearly 2 hours to complete. I thought the cheese fondue and chocolate fondue were fantastic but I think I'll pass on the entree. Next time I'll go straight to the chocolate fondue. I wonder what we'll do next month?

It's here!!!!!!!!!!

Five months after our wedding we've finally gotten our album! Eeeek!!!!! So excited. Gina and Mike Goldman of Pix of Life did a fabulous job with our wedding photography and we couldn't be happier with our pictures and the final product of our album.

You can take a look at our album layout here

Brotherly Love

We adopted our two kitties, sierra and tiger, a few months back. They came from two different litters but we fell in love with both of them at the shelter and just had to take them home. They didn't like each other first but look at them now. :-)

snuggle time on daddy's chest

cat napping on the floor

chillaxin' with daddy on the futon

Aren't they the cutest?!

10 reasons why i love my new job versus my old job.

10. When i get dressed in the morning, I don't have to think about how much my shoes cost for fear of getting them pooped or peed on.

9. I can wear "normal" clothes. Scrubs are sooo unflattering.

8. A 4 mile one-way commute is waaaaay better than a 30 mile one-way commute.

7. I only fill my gas tank once every 10-14 days.

6. Better leadership

5. I can go home for lunch.

4. I don't feel the need to shower after work anymore.

3. More money with less reponsibility.

2. I get holidays and weekends off.

1. More time to spend with the hubs. :-)

With the folks

So, yesterday the hubs and I figured it was time to pay my parents a visit. We had just received the multiple copies of our wedding video and they hadn't seen it yet so we wanted to stop by and give them their copy. Also, usually when the hubs and I visit my parents my mom always is always sure to please and has a huge lunch spread for us of filipino food. My hubs absolutely loves my mom's filipino cooking, as do I. When we got there there was no spread and instead we went out to lunch at a fairly new restaurant in the area called Famous Dave's barbeque. Although a little upset I wouldn't get any of mom's home cooking, barbeque sounded like a good option.

I don't know who Dave is but the food was pretty decent. After lunch we headed back to my folks' house to watch our wedding video, which brought a few tears to my mom's eye and just hung out. As we were leaving, my mom was sure to please. Even though we didn't get any home cooking this visit my mom had a "to go" back packed for us with filipino treats she made: palitaw (the filipino version of mochi), kalamay (sticky rice dessert), and toasted mamon (our version of biscotti). YUM! Gotta love mom's cooking!

What could have been

I'm a wife (established May 2008), daughter, friend, hopefully someday a mommy but right now mommy to two kitties, sierra and tiger. I'm a also a [insert occupation here]. For a long time I defined myself by my occupation, and to an extent I think I still do. Whenever asked to describe myself that's usually the first thing that comes out of my mouth. "Hi! My name is Aileen and I'm a [my occupation]." I like what I do but whenever people ask me why I'm in the field that I am in, this is usually the answer that comes out of my mouth: "You know those high school surveys that you take that match your skill set, well whenever I took those [my occupation] would always come up so I figured, okay, I'll be a [my occupation]". Most people I know went to college not knowing what they wanted to do and college is part of that self-discovery to lead you to that path of becoming whatever it is you discover it to be. I went straight from high school with a firm (at least that's what it seemed like at the time) decision on what I wanted to be. College was simply a means to get to graduate school to become what I am now. I went to grad school and am now [my occupation]. I've been doing this for 7 years now and I like to think I still like it, and hope to continue liking it as I've got a long time before retirement. But part of me always wonders if I hadn't gone on the straight path what else I could have ended up doing.

Why blog?

So why start a blog? It's only been in the past year and a half that i've discovered the world of blogging. Prior to that, I had no clue as to what a blog was. Now, I stalk numerous blogs and I guess this is my way of giving back.


I don't lead a very interesting life but I guess this will now serve as an outlet for me and i guess you can call it a new hobby. An on-line diary I suppose. Although I've never really kept a diary - well, i've started many of them that lasted at most a week. The longest diary I've kept was when I went on a whirlwind trip of Europe in 2000 for 3 weeks. Hopefully this blog will last longer than that. How often I will post, I don't know. I guess when I think of something blog-worthy to post then i'll put it up there for the rest of the internet world to read. For now, let's see how it goes.