Christmas Fun and Scouting

Christmas is here, Christmas is here! And.... It's gone. Honestly, I think the two holidays are too close together (Thanksgiving and Christmas). You're barely recovering from your Thanksgiving dinner food coma, and here comes Christmas. You didn't even have time to sexify yourself for Santa.

Well, in my case, I haven't gotten over how tired it was to cook a full time luxurious dinner. Like a whole turkey.

Despite my better judgement, I made another fancy dinner on Christmas Eve. Cream of carrot soup. Mashed potato and gravy. Chicken piccata. Steamed broccoli. And cherry pie. If people don't understand how hard it is to be a housewife, tell them to try making those things for ONE meal. Imagine having to take care of breakfast, lunch, and other household chores. Who said being a housewife is not a full time job?

Thank God for canned food and instant meals!

Other than that, I really enjoyed getting my FIRST Christmas tree! Ever! And decorating it. It feels so festive when you're decorating and have Christmas songs playing (courtesy of Pandora). I gotta say our Christmas tree looks pretty badass. I mean, I guess it's nothing special compared to other people's trees, but it's badass for me. :)

Before...

After! Pretty awesome :D

And Chewie posing by the lit up tree.
He's wearing my scarf, btw.

The tree makes the apartment smells good, too. Tony keeps saying how it smells like Christmas whenever we get back home, but I never really smelled Christmas. I only know what it sounds like. So I thought that was very interesting. And it just generally feels happy, if you know what I mean.

My family doesn't really celebrate Christmas, so I'm not too sure what you're supposed to do on Christmas day. From what I'm hearing of friends, it's a lot of visiting family on their mother's side then their father's side. Lot's of eating and drinking (of course).

What did we do? Borderlands 2!

I mean, nothing was really opened. I, for some odd reason, craved McDonald's. And the closest one to us on Lincoln is closed! Can you believe that? McDonald's closed on Christmas day! I mean, where are all the obese families gonna get their fill of fast food? Where was I supposed to get my filet-o-fish?!

Luckily, another Micky D's was opened on Olympic. :) So I satisfied my craving with filet-o-fish, 10pc chicken mcnuggets, and a large french fries.

Tony kept on saying how our kids won't know what McDonald's is. Oh hell, they will and they won't eat it. That's what's gonna happen. Who wants to stay naive and stupid? It's better to know about it and be strong enough to not indulge. Like alcohol and drugs. Note the word "know," I'm not saying "try" as in putting it in our body.

How did I go on such a personal tangent? The human brain is a mysterious thing indeed.

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On Friday (Dec. 28th) I went scouting. Now you might wonder what that means. I'm going to do (or at least try to do) this series of hike I'm calling "Hike to Sunrise." The basic idea is that we hike to a peak right before the break of day and sit and watch the sunrise. I wanted to do the Sandstone Peak, highest point in the Santa Monica mountains, so I went there to scout out the trail. You know, to see if it's actually safe to scramble to the peak in the dark.

I took the shorter route by the Backbone Trail from the parking lot. It took me around 40 mins to get to the peak (1.5 miles), which would probably convert to around an hour in the dark plus morning slowness. It took me an hour to get there from the apartment. So basically I have to give it around two hours before sunrise.

It's probably better to do it around now when the sun is still rising later in the day. It's pretty darn cold though, especially up on the peak. Oh well. Something's gotta give.

The trail was pretty rocky. As in big rocks rocky. Kind of annoying actually. You have to keep watching where you're stepping. Plus, the whole time it was an uphill hike. Pretty tiring. I was dead when I got back home.

But it was sooo beautiful up there. I met two doggies, too!

The two adorable doggies at the peak!

The view was spectacular!
Especially because it has rained a couple days ago so everything is green(er than usual).

Up, up, and away!

That's the parking lot where I parked my car :)

In the end, I came to the conclusion that Sandstone Peak would be a wonderful sunrise hike. I just gotta set a date for it and look at the weather to see that it won't be raining. I recently caught a cold so I don't think I want to be waking up that early to go hike in the freezing air just yet.

But soon... Soon that peak will be mine!!!

Thanksgiving Extravaganza

Cherry Pie before baking.

Cherry Pie after baking! :3

Our amazing turkey!!!

A side of mash potato...

and gravy (made from the turkey dripping).

Thanksgiving has come and past. Man! Was it fun and tiring! At first we were going to go to Tony's family for the dinner. But what ended up happening was we got a free turkey from our neighbor, Robert the Red.

Free turkey!!!

It's not like we're gonna leave a whole turkey lying around in the fridge! So we decided to have our own little Thanksgiving dinner. Tony's first time. My first time. Good thing I just bought that big ol' cooking book, right?

Anyway, we invited four neighbors over to dinner. My work began at noon. I started off with making the cherry pie because it apparently needed hours to cool down so that the filling will thicken. And just so we're clear, everything I cooked that day was basically made from scratch. So no Ralph's pre-made pie crust or any of that BS.

I made the pie crust from scratch using flour, butter, and salt. Thickened the filling in a pot with cornstarch and everything. But goddam was it satisfying to see the complete product of my creation before going in the oven (first picture at the top). It's so beautiful! <3

Funny thing was the whole time I was making the pie it reminded me of Snow White when she was making her pie. Except I didn't have little minions to help me. Hahaha! But seriously, I haven't watched that movie in forever. Kinda makes me want to watch it again.

After the pie came out (second picture), I set it aside to cool down by the coffee table and started on my turkey stuffing. Again, everything from scratch. The recipe that I followed was kind of different in the fact that the stuffing basically consisted of rice, apples, raisins, and celery. I think the recipe called it "[Brown] Rice and Apple Stuffed Turkey."

I used white jasmine rice though. Meh.

After the stuffing was done, Tony helped me with stuffing the stuffing into the turkey. I know we have the option of cooking it separately. Where's the yumminess in that? You put the stuffing inside the turkey so it sucks all the juices from the meat!

Remember, this is the first I've ever cooked a whole turkey, let alone see one. So you can imagine how surprised and oddly grossed out by the fact that they give you the turkey neck by hiding it inside the body cavity.

It's like this thick, short cane of frozen bone and blood. Or a long and large penis gone wrong.

I don't know. It kind of freaked me out.

There was also this small paper package that looked like it was filled with a blood clot. I told Tony that it was probably the liver and gizzard and stuff. He dismissed me and said that it was just stuffing paper and threw it out. I was gonna make the dog some kind of treat if it was liver, which it was. But the package was already in the trash with the neck so I didn't bother.

So Tony helped with suturing up the turkey's openings. I brushed the breast with oil, and that baby started baking in the oven around 3:00pm. A little later than what I had planned.

I took a break then. Just by cooking three things I was dead tired! My whole body felt run down. I took a little nap before I started on the mash potato. Last time I made mash potato it didn't come out too well. So I was scared diving into making this one. But it was a different recipe.

Thankfully, the mash potato came out wayyyy better than I expected. Let's just say it came out exactly the way I would have wanted a mash potato to come out. :) Fourth picture, by the way. It was light and fluffy. Good in every way.

At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to make the gravy because Tony kept saying that he didn't see any drippings when he checked on the turkey (I was taking my nap). But he was WRONG! Tons of drippings when the turkey was finally done.

So, of course, my gravy came out super awesome. :)

Then Tony made green bean casserole. Which was actually very good. But it was the only thing that he made. ;)p One of our neighbors brought salad. Robert (the guy that gave us the turkey) helped us carve the bird because both me and Tony had no idea how to do it. He stripped that thing bare to bone, seriously!

Two more dogs joined us. One of which peed on my nice purple ottoman. :( I was kinda mad, but too tired to say something. What's done is done. Can't make the dog take the pee back. But man, at least look to see that your dog is not peeing on your host's furniture! Whatever.

We feasted at 7:30pm!

After everyone left Tony took care of the dishes. I think I was passed out. Or watching something on TV. I don't know. I don't even remember. I was that tired. But I took a great picture of Chewie, our dog, going ape-sh** for turkey. He apparently found his new drug. :)

"Mommy, can me have shum turkey pwease?"
:3
By the way, look at that poor turkey carcass! 

"The smell of turkey fuels my soullll!"

He has never propped himself up on the counter before. He must have loved Mama's turkey! :D

Zuma Canyon Loop

The Zuma Canyon Loop! We did this hike on the weekend when it was chilly, but SUPER UBER clear. Oh  man! The view was beautiful! Perfect timing, too. I wanted to do an ocean view kind of hike and the weather was just right.

We started on the Ocean View Trail going to the Canyon View Trail. We were going to stop there, but because it was very short Tony suggested we keep hiking around the area. So we went up the Scenic Trail onto the Zuma Canyon Trail. It was a pretty anticlimactic end to the  trail before we started heading back. Then we went on the Zuma Loop Trail back to the parking lot.

It was already in the afternoon when we started the hike so luckily there weren't a lot of people there. A couple joggers passed by and a couple hikers spotted in the distance.

Tony said this trail would actually be a good trail running spot, except for the fact that it's kind of far from where we live.

The ocean in the distance!

Happy campers!

Oh, and there was an incident along the trail. Let me tell through a series of photos and voice over narration as follows:

Because the trail was horse compatible, along came a horse and its rider....

"Horsey!!!" said I, pointing for Tony to see. 

It gets closer and closer....

Oh, it's getting extremely close, thought I.

Until suddenly....

A wet horsey kiss! (Which actually really looks like big lips)

The horse kisses me on my breast and nudges me back as if saying, "Sweety, you're in the way."

So I'm left with lovely horse saliva on my shirt for the rest of the hike.

The end.

It smelled kind of bad actually. I mean, it's really only just grass, but still. Wished I brought along some napkins or something. The whole time I just hoped that we didn't run into anyone else so they wouldn't think I puked on myself. Hah!

Other than that, it was a very pleasant hike. Maybe once I get stronger and have more time I'll consider going trail running there. It should only be around 3 miles for the Ocean and Canyon View Trail (a loop).

So yes, this was our last adventure before Thanksgiving. :)

Dirty Girl Mud Run

The first mud run in my life! I mean, I've been in mud before, just never in a mud run. I did a Mangrove tree regrowth project back home and it was like a mud field.

Anyway, the Dirty Girl Mud run is a girl only event where no guys are allowed in the race. However, husbands and supportive guy friends are able to cheer the girls on along the path. I went with a friend, Ploy, and two of her friends, Rebecca and Jeremy (supportive guy friend).

It was fun! The race was a 5k obstacle course (around 3.5 miles) at KOA Ranch in Ventura. Rebecca and I were pushing Ploy pretty hard. Hahaha!

And because mud runs are such a big event, not everything went smoothly. The wait before going into the actual run was ridiculous! We were supposed to get there an hour and a half before our "wave" to register and get ready. They told us to park in this designated parking lot six miles from the course and that they had buses that will transport us back and forth throughout the day.

We waited, literally, for two hours at the parking lot before even getting on a bus.

They only had like three buses running. It was beyond ridiculous! Then after the race itself was another long wait before being able to get back on the bus to take us back to the parking lot. Seriously, if we didn't have any problems with their transportation we would have been out of there in three hours. The actual race itself took us around an hour and a half.

My wave started at 11:00am. I got back home at 6:00pm. That's horrible!

Other than that everything else was awesome. No line for the washing station. It was basically this huge tent with a circle of fountain and running hoses for us to wash ourselves. Locker room status, meaning you'll see occasional breasts as women are dressing themselves. The water was freezing!!! Oddly enough, it felt really good coming out of that cold wash. Really refreshing. :)

The line of people with a couple people playing in the middle.

The looooong line and wait.

Before picture of me and Ploy, hahaha!

Getting ready to start!

Me, Ploy, Rebecca

The start and finish line (the course is a loop).

Posing right before going in :D

At one of the obstacles 2/3 of the way through!

At the top of this rope obstacle thing.

After picture.
Our last dive into the mud!

**photo credit to Jeremy**

One Year Anniversary: Pine Flat Lake

I know I literally suck at keeping this blog updated. Should probably make it more of a commitment. Oh, well. School work is really bogging me down. But here I am again! :) Considering it's Thanksgiving Holidays and all.

Let's start with my one year anniversary with Tony. We really couldn't decide where to go until the very last minute. We wanted to go camping by Lake Tahoe (my favorite place in the whole wide world! Second to Disneyland anyway), but all camping grounds are close during the winter season.

I've just been stuck indoor for the past month or two so I really wanted to spend a night in a tent out in the wilderness. You know, just to get away from the city. But it was a lot harder to find new places than we expected because we had to bring our dog, Chewie, with us. And I was being a little picky about the location too. I wanted to get well away from LA. An hour drive was still too close for me, hahaha!

What ended up happening was I found this campsite by Pine Flat Lake in the Sequoia National Park. It was like a four and a half hour drive. The place was right by Fresno. Pretty crazy for a one night camping trip I know.

It was a beautiful lake when we got there. And apparently I chose the furthest campsite from civilization AND the lake. You can see the lake, but it's a little hike down from the site. It's like one of those plateau you see from the water drying up so much.

A view of the lake when we stopped to take a picture break.
Pretty :3

The little Chewman stretching his short legs :)

There were cows along the way too!

When we got to there, the campsites were very interesting. They were extremely close, as in right next to each other, the ten of them. However, the campsites were very clean and well kept. Apparently Pine Flat Lake is predominantly for fishing. No real hiking trails. It was nice nonetheless. Where we were was right at the river bend.

Our campsite!

Fish stand to clean the fishy you caught
(assuming you went fishing, which we didn't)

Chewie, the fluffy dog :3

The tent ground.

The entrance to the campsites.

There was actually a bathroom house with running water and light. You can actually  shower there. And it was cleaner than I expected. Good accommodations I would say. :)

And guess what? Tony didn't bring the two essentials on this trip. A can opener and fuel canisters (for our Jetboil). So what we ended up doing was.....

Yes, that is a hatchet.
And yes, we are opening a can of beans with it.
Look at Chewie waiting for some scrap :)

Woo! Campfire dinner! Thankfully we didn't melt off the plastic covering the handle.

And what can be better than to spend the night eating roasted marshmallows, drinking hot tea, and playing a game of Boggle in the tent?

Yay, campfire!!

And we had a neighbor who stayed until very late at night blasting country music with the occasional pop of a beer can. Apparently, he dragged a very large tree trunk to his fire pit, lit it, and left it there. So we made it our duty to put that thing out before it started a brush fire or something.

Our music provider for the night.

The abnormally large tree trunk that doesn't even fit in the pit.
Still incinerating from the inside as signaled by the smoke.

Tony putting out the fierce fire! Moohahaha!

Because we, I mean Tony, forgot to bring the fuel canister, we didn't want to bother starting another fire to heat up our oatmeal so we ended up going to eat at the nearby diner (the only diner really), which was 15 minutes away.

Then we were on our way home!

Sandstone Peak, Santa Monica Mts.

Tony and I did this hike a couple of weeks back, but I've just been so swamped with homework and activities I didn't have time to write until now. :( Pathetic, I know.

This hike was completed on Saturday, September 1st.

The highest point in the Santa Monica Mountains! What can I say? It was pretty awesome! It took us around 3 hours to complete the hike (loop back). We started in the afternoon because, if I remember correctly, we woke up late that day, hahaha!

And dang! Talk about hot and dry! It was a generally easy hike, but we sucked the shit out of that one bladder (3 L.) we brought along.

We started at the Mishe Mokwa trailhead. I know, it sounds really weird. Tony kept making up words when referring to it. Lol! Then we hit the backbone trail. And it hits the Mishe Mokwa again, letting us loop back to the beginning.

At the Ranger's before going to the trailhead.

Mishe Mokwa!

There weren't a lot of traffic on the trail, so we were lucky in that sense. Because it was very dry, we kicked up a lot of dust and dirt on the trail. My socks were pretty gnarly after the hike. And that always mean we got in a really good hike. :)

Stopped to pose at some midpoint.

We passed Echo and it was a good view of the cliff too!

Split Rock!
It was on the way.

So we decided to take a pic!
Although I looked like I was emerging from the rock
instead of having a cool pose like this guy over here. ;)

Along the trail, surprisingly, there were several of what I would like to call "asides." Short trails that spring out to interesting spots. We followed one of these to Inspiration Point, which was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!

Aside to Inspiration Point

The sign was pretty cool.

This compass looking thing on the sign that points to different
landmarks, like Catalina and the Sandstone Peak.

A view around Inspiration Point.

Another view.

Other than Inspiration Point, there was also an aside to Balance Rock. However, we didn't go on that trail because it would take too much time (it was one of the long asides). But the head sign for the trail was really cool! Someone put a rock on it to imitate Balance Rock, which, truth be told, looks very much alike.

Here's the head sign.

Then we finally came upon Sandstone Peak! Tony was pretty tired of the hike at that point, not physically, but he was just worried about homework. Sucks when you're constantly nagged by your conscience about homework, eh? I get it all the time. You just grow used to it after some time. :)

Yeah, yeah!

The short flight of stairs leading up to a trail-less ascent to the peak.

The peak!

Highest point in Santa Monica, check!

After Sandstone Peak, we haven't had much time to do anything else other than school work. So that is kind of a bummer. I really want to go on more hikes.

On a brighter note, I am starting to check off my bucket list, too! I started my pole dancing class three weeks ago. There are just no words that could justify the experience. Sensual. Enlightening. Encouraging. Liberating. A chill in the spine. And just outright BADASS!

If any girls want to connect with their inner beauty, grace, and sexuality that will definitely shine through, I recommend this place: S-Factor Studios. Granted you have the time and money.

I'm waiting to buy my pole. I CAN'T WAIT to buy my pole actually. The only problem is I don't really have room to put it out and practice. My dorm has a slanted ceiling, so that won't work. Gonna wait until I'm better and get a better space I can freely dance in! :)

Other than pole dancing, I'm getting scuba certified! Already took the class and pool lessons last weekend. Gonna go beach diving this upcoming weekend and getting my certification! It's probably pretty awesome too that I have my own gears except for tanks (BCD, regulators, etc.).

Just gotta focus on homework through all this craziness. It's only the first month of school and I'm already kind of falling behind, hahaha! Totally worth it though! :D