May your days be merry and bright… hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!
Seasonal Celebrations
Christmas Eve with Friends
On Christmas Eve, we went to lunch with a bunch of my girlfriends from college — we went to Bon Chon Chicken in Centreville. I’d heard of how great Bon Chon was from all my friends in Virginia and had to try it! True to its reputation, the chicken wings were some of the best I ever had! Great flavor but not too greasy! (I ate mostly the soy garlic flavor ones because the hot ones were too spicy for me… although Dan was all about the spicy ones!) It was great catching up with familiar friends… felt like I got transported back to the good old college days! 🙂
The girls surprised me with a birthday cake! Red velvet… so delicious!
It was great seeing everyone and catching up! Thank you everyone for the delicious birthday cake!
Later in the afternoon, Miyoung and Mike came by to visit us at my parents’ house. Miyoung and I had a great time having a couple hours of girl talk while our hubbies played video games together and Mio napped.
Miyoung brought by these lovely macarons… they were almost too pretty to eat!
Some more random pre-Christmas photos…
Gingerbread House
My sister Miwa and I built a gingerbread house this evening! I love building them but hadn’t built one in years, and so I determined to construct one this year! It came out a little messy because we didn’t have a piping bag and tips back at my parents’ house in Virginia, but we like to think it has personality! 😛
I can’t wait until the day comes when Mio is old enough to build gingerbread houses with me! 😀
An Early Christmas in California
We arrived in Virginia early Thursday morning and have been having a great time relaxing and spending time with family and friends since! But before too much time passed, I wanted to post about some of the festivities before we left California. Last Sunday, we celebrated Christmas a little early with Dan’s family. Here are some pictures!
Mio opening more Christmas presents from her grandparents…
On Monday, Aileen came to visit us to drop off Christmas presents and delicious coconut macadamia cookies for our whole family! She also handknit this scarf for Mio… so sweet and thoughtful of her! 😀
On Monday evening, we drove over to Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley to check out their Christmas Fantasy. Their Merry-Go-Round was surrounded by Christmas trees decorated in different themes, and there were bright illuminations outside. Mio had just woken up from a nap, though, so she looks serious in all the photos… haha*
We wanted Mio to get her first picture taken with Santa, but he unfortunately couldn’t be there that night… maybe next year?
From the pictures, it looks like Mio didn’t enjoy the illuminations and Christmas decorations as much as Dan and I did. Hopefully her appreciation for the holiday season will grow in coming years.
Stay tuned for photos from Virginia! 😀
Christmastime in San Francisco
On Saturday, we spent the day in San Francisco and visited the Fairmont Hotel to see the largest-ever gingerbread house to be built in San Francisco! It’s constructed of 7,500 gingerbread sticks, 1,200 pounds of chocolate icing and 650 pounds of candy! It was beautifully decorated and everything had so much detail. Thank you Megumi for suggesting we check it out! 🙂
Before we went to the Fairmont, we had lunch at The Stinking Rose, a garlic restaurant in San Francisco. I love garlic, so everything we had there was amazing!
Megumi brought thoughtful, generous Christmas gifts for everyone… so sweet of her!
Megumi brought her signature sugar cookies… they’re always so adorable, and get better and better every time (if that’s possible!).
It was so great seeing some of our San Francisco friends before we fly back East for Christmas! We had just all recovered from being sick the past couple weeks, so it was nice to be enjoy some holiday cheer! 😀
