Welcome to the Family!

I would formally like to announce the birth of Ms. Arion into our sorority family!
This is also the day I realized how old I really am... Here's a little family history lesson:
Back in 2005, it was just me and my big sis before she left me alone in our family. Then it was just me for a long while until I took my lil sis. As soon as I took her, I graduated but it wasn't too long before she fell in love and took a lil. So we spoiled our newest baby and let her break tradition and take more than one lil sis because she was our little overachiever and she was going to take them at the same time because they were inseparable. I've never seen two different girls act like twin sisters more than these two... Anyway, so one of our lil twins took her first (apparently they've decided the get the privilege of killing tradition all together and taking as many as they want) lil sis recently and I could not be more happy to welcome her into our little family. It also occurred to me just how old I am because I don't know anyone in the chapter anymore. It's highly unfortunate that in attempting to do a tiered (its a sorority thing) picture, I'm the shortest but the oldest, and Arion is the youngest but the tallest... I should have warn heels. As you can see I'm having difficulty trying to be the top of the pyramid.

Happy Birthday Jenn!

It was actually yesterday, and we celebrated yesterday, but this is me today writing about yesterday! For dinner, we went to Javier's in Newport Coast. The place was gorgeous, the food was good, and the pitchers of margaritas were well worth the extensive price. I'm pretty impressed I remembered to bring my camera, but I can really only give Natalie credit because she reminded me to take pictures. Here's Ila and Jenn... notice we've gone through almost a full pitcher of margaritas, and we haven't even finished the guacamole...
The other side of the table: Jason, Natalie, and Me
Hiroki was there too but he was enjoying his iphone4 and finding ways to try to get me to get one too... damn him.
So then came the end of the meal and Javier's ran out of candles for the flan, so Natalie told them to improvise... Minutes later they return with a lighter, a flashlight (not pictured), and a latin man to feed flan to Jenn as they sang to her. I don't know about you, but no candle can hold a light (get it? hahaha.. sorry.) to what Jenn experienced in place of no candle on her flan.
After we headed over the Pierce Street Annex for a few more drinks. A few others joined us and then we went off to finish the night at karaoke. A very good night indeed and hope Jenn had a good time too!

Hawaii (Part 1)

I've been back from Hawaii for a week, caught up with life for the most part. I spent 8 nights in Waikiki and had a fabulous time with 25 of my most favorite family members (minus Dad who had too much work to leave). Since there were 25 of us, this was the only way to get from the airport to the hotel: Limo! Actually there were 4 limos, yes, this is how my family rolls.
It took me awhile to figure out what pictures of post because a lot of them were just sort of silly and uninteresting if you're not related to me but I figured a few of the pictures were appropriate enough to post. Really, I didn't take as many pictures as I thought I did (surprise, surprise) but one of the days we did our own tour of the island (25 of us practically equals a tour group anyway) via limo. First stop Hanauma Bay.
Then to Nuaanu Pali lookout. It was really windy.
Then we hit up the Macadamia Nut farm. I'm thinking picture: Macadamia Nut God? I don't really know but they had some yummy products and I bought plenty.Then of course, the Dole Plantation. It's not a trip to Hawaii without pineapple. We didn't really have time for a tour, especially since I spent all my time trying to figure out how much dried pineapple a really needed/didn't need. Answer: a lot. whether i mean need or don't need, I'm not sure. But either way I bought enough, and then some. Btw, lady in green is my mother. Hehe.
That was pretty much most of the touristy stuff we did on our trip. Everyday we went to the beach at least once if not twice. We rented mopeds, if you ever saw my facebook, I didn't officially crash the moped but I did sort of have to stop because I was sort of losing control... anyway. Our days pretty much centered around what we were going to eat so everyday was, what do we eat, and how far do we have to walk or can we get the limo? We also jet skied, went to china town, aloha stadium, and Ala Moana. Some people went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, but I passed on that. Then on one of the days I met up with my sorority big sis! And she took me to her roommates' wedding! It was so much fun and a great experience. Plus I got to meet her hometown friends and she took me around a bit to see where she grew up.
Next up, what I ate.

Week/Weekend Recap

Sadly, I'm dragging myself to do this post. If I'm going to continue to procrastinate writing my paper, I might as well update my blog. I could this as being productive. So to recap my week I finished that design project with the magazine image. Here's the final product:

Not too bad. I was feeling really eh about it going into class. The drive up all I could think about was how much work it needed more and even if I had the time I feel like I couldn't do it. I just had a huge debbie downer moment over it. I was really happy with how some parts went but really unhappy with other parts. The point of the project wasn't to perfectly draw the image but more the get the graphite tones that correspond to the image correctl so that the colored image became a black and white photo (not drawing because those are 2D and we still wanted that 3D quality) which I guess I felt I did for the most part. So before critiques started my classmates were extremely impressed by my art work and even asked if I had art experience which really turned the night around. My critique wasn't too bad and I suppose I fared better than a lot of the class who had fabulous drawings but needed to majorly work on darkening their shading to give areas more of a 3D look, etc. I felt emotionally drained over this project so the rest of the week went really slow.

But last night was pretty much the highlight of my week. Urban Family dinner! Minus boyfriend for the first time. So once a month a few of us get together for dinner. It's always been with boyfriend, his old female dormmate and her boyfriend now fiance (!), his old female roommate, and various other guests we would bring along. Tonight's guest was fiance's friend! He was a fun addition and I hope he comes to more dinners... provided the girlies didn't scare him away. This was my first family dinner without boyfriend and first for the officially engaged couple which mad me a bit sad and made me miss boyfriend that much more. Weekends are hard with him being gone and I somehow manage to sadden myself each week and get just a bit teary-eyed (or more), but I know how important this is for him and want him to be there. Just wish it didn't involve him being in foreign countries, lying on beaches and sightseeing without me. IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK? =) Anyway, on to our yummy dinner!
Kimchi pork, side dishes, and sauces galore! So delish!
Cooking the meat ourselves! Korean barbeque may be my most favorite food ever, but it's even better when you're eating with family. Because of the love and joy experienced? Yes, I suppose but really it's because we can then order more things (I'm a horrible person sometimes).

After we decided to do a little drinking at home and that meant also playing some video games so that the boys could have fun too... OK I had fun too (except when I'd lose). =)

Boyfriend's old roommate is one of the most amazing bakers ever! And I'm so glad to know her because then I get yummy treats when I see her. Like these:

Pumpkin scones! So delish. The glaze.. yummmmm and the scone... *drool*. I happen to love scones and these were exceptionally fabulous, very moist (for scones at least)! They even came in the most adorable box too. I'm going to be so fat after this weekend.

What's on the agenda for next week? My fundamentals paper on good design/bad design. Beginning Project 5 for design. I started it a bit since it involves looking for patterns but I will have to a little more work before any sneak previews.

One thing I'm looking forward to are boyfriend's next project is in the states! Things can always change last minute and he doesn't have specific instructions but hopefully they'll land him in norcal and that will be a super easy visit for both of us! Also, his PTO days in April were approved so we'll be in Sonoma one weekend and hopefully somewhere else (but maybe just Chicago) the last week for our 4 year!