Christmas & 27th Birthday

By in Family and Friends, News and Updates Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Merry Christmas to all! Hope that everyone is having a relaxing, enjoyable time with their families and friends.

Christmas Day also happens to be my birthday, and today I turn 27. We arrived in Dulles airport last night with no delays and a relatively smooth flight. Once I got home, my friend Angel picked me up to go have dinner together, since she is leaving for China and Thailand tomorrow and I would not see her for the rest of the holidays. We were going to have a quiet late dinner at Tachibana, a Japanese restaurant in McLean. Once we got there, I was greeted by some of my closest friends, great sushi and cake, and ton of colorful birthday balloons. I was stunned speechless, and it was totally unexpected. Dan and one of my best friends Hanna had apparently put the whole thing together and coordinated it. I was really touched because with my birthday being on Christmas, I rarely get to celebrate it with friends since everyone is with their families, and things are just so busy in general over the holiday season. There were so many thoughtful presents that my friends had gotten for me, but honestly the biggest gift to me was that they had all taken some time to come out on Christmas Eve to celebrate with me, especially after I’d been away for so long and I had missed them so much. So a heartfelt thank you to all of my friends who came last night, as well as to those who wanted to but were unable to. You guys are the best, and I love you all!

Thank you everyone!
Surprise birthday dinner at Tachibana in McLean

lovely birthday cake!
The cutest birthday cake ever.

so many balloons!
up, up and away!

Dan had also gotten me a Tiffany necklace for my birthday! I immediately felt guilty for bugging him about getting a Kitchenaid stand mixer for the past couple months, because when he gave it to me he said, “You can trade it in for a Kitchenaid mixer if you really want it.” As much as I want the mixer, I am too much of a Tiffany fan to give this darling up. The mixer can wait. 😉

tiffany

Tiffany necklace from Dan
Tiffany necklace from Dan for my birthday

sisters
It's good to be home!

Christmas Day has been fun and relaxing so far. In the morning, we exchanged gifts among the family, and we siblings have been spending much of the day playing board games and on the Wii. My mother made some delicious hot soba noodles for lunch, and we’re going to have a sashimi dinner tonight! Not the traditional Christmas dinner, I know, but I’ll take raw fish over ham any day. 😉

presents under the tree
Christmas morning

Wacom tablet from my parents and Ted!
A Wacom tablet from my parents and brother!

And the snow! Although much of it has been shoveled off the roads or has started to melt, there is still over a foot of snow blanketing the ground. This is the first white Christmas I’ve seen in years and I’m loving it. The white landscape is gorgeous and makes for a true winter wonderland. Time for snow angels and snowball fights!

blanket of snow
snow in our backyard

We’ll be taking a weekend trip up to New York City tomorrow, but we’ll be back in the DC area on Monday. Looking forward to all the fun times ahead with our friends and family! 😀

Weekend Festivities!

By in Family and Friends, News and Updates, Seasonal Celebrations Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

This past weekend was our last weekend of the year on this side of the country, as we’ll be leaving to go back East in a couple days. We spent it celebrating Christmas early with friends and family here in California.

On Saturday, we went to Megumi’s in San Francisco for a holiday party for the Nakayoshi core members. Megumi was a great hostess, preparing so many treats and goodies for everyone, and her apartment was sparkling with holiday decor.

holiday cookies made by Megumi
Megumi's homemade cookies - too cute to eat!

The party was potluck-style, so everyone brought a dish and everything tasted amazing. It seems like everyone in Nakayoshi (especially the ladies) has such awesome cooking and baking skills! They put me to shame… haha* After eating, we had a white elephant gift exchange (accompanied by the characteristic silly gifts and lots of laughs), gingerbread house building, and board games! 🙂

conversations over dinner
cozy dinner conversations in Megumi's living room

the guys in the kitchen
more people crammed into the kitchen.

with lovely Emily, my birthday twin!
With my (almost) birthday twin, Emily! Her birthday is Christmas Eve, mine is Christmas Day.

Megumi making some announcements
Megumi starting the white elephant gift exchange.

Aileen and I :)
Me with the lovely Miss Aileen!

Dan got some Jack Daniels
Dan won some Jack Daniels... but it quickly got stolen away.

very intense...
Dan and Aaron were really serious and intense about the building of the gingerbread house. Very exact and diligent...

the ladies!
Cyril, Megumi and I. Thanks for the great party, Megumi!

For more fun photos from the party, see the Flickr set.

On Sunday, Dan and I went to San Lorenzo to his parents’ house to celebrate and early Christmas and gift exchange with the Allens. We’re really grateful that they were flexible and moved Christmas up a little so that we could celebrate with them before we fly over to my family’s to spend actual Christmas Day with them.

by the Christmas tree
Miwa with Choco

Dan's parents
Dan's parents opening gifts

Dan and I
Dan and I at his parents' house

We’re leaving for Virginia early morning of the 24th, so we’re currently in a packing frenzy. Hopefully the weather will be kind and we will be able to get there safely and on time, with no complications. To our friends and family on the West Coast, thank you for a wonderful time, and to those on the East Coast… here we come!

Scents of the Season

By in Kitchen Concoctions, Seasonal Celebrations Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yet another great thing about the holidays is all the wonderful aromas and fragrances that carry us through the end of the year. Cinnamon, apple, peppermint, pine, gingerbread, sugar cookies, pumpkin pie… everything smells so delicious. Out of the five senses, smell triggers memories more than any other — no wonder we associate all these scents with happy memories of Christmases past!

So I saw my boss doing this the other day at our new studio, and it made the place smell so amazing that I had to try it at home. It’s super easy — you just slice oranges into thin wheels, lay them out on a cookie sheet, and sprinkle them with cinnamon and cloves (you can add allspice and nutmeg if you have those on hand too) and stick them into a heated oven for about half an hour and let the aroma permeate your kitchen and the rest of the house.

They make the house smell divine!

A more long-term way to keep your home smelling like Christmas is to make orange pomanders, but since those take two weeks to a month to completely dry, it’s a little too late for me to attempt them. I’ll have to remember to tackle making them next year! Can you tell I love the holidays?

Frosted Christmas Lights

By in Creative Corner, Seasonal Celebrations Tags: , , , , ,

This year was the first year that we got Christmas lights to put up, although they ended up being more for interior decoration since we live in an apartment. I’ve always preferred the colorful oversized bulbs to the mini lights that everyone has, and it looks like The Nest agrees — going bigger and bolder with your lights is becoming a trend! You just have to do it well so that it doesn’t end up looking tacky.

So Dan and I picked out some Christmas lights at the local convenience store but when we got home, we discovered to our dismay–or more to my dismay–that they were actually not as opaque as we had anticipated. In fact, they were totally translucent and you could clearly see the filament within.

original Christmas lights
translucent Christmas lights

The easy (and probably normal) thing to do in this situation would be to go back to the store and return them, but we decided to be a little creative with the mishap and try making them not translucent nor opaque, but frosted! You don’t see too many oversized frosted bulbs being sold, so we decided to “make” them ourselves.

Dan tested frosting one to see how well it would work.

original vs frosted
What a difference!

Setting up the lights in an array to be frosted.

The secret ingredient!

frosting the Christmas lights
Spraying the bulbs outside. (Please ignore the Trader Joes steamer clams box.)

post-spraying
Post-frosting: the bulbs are set out to dry for half an hour.

soft lighting effect
The frosted lights give off the soft lighting we were hoping for. Success!

Converting the Christmas lights into frosted lights was super easy. So easy, in fact, that this probably didn’t really warrant a post… haha* But it was a fun little collaborative project for the two of us. If anyone ever wants frosted lights but can’t find any, you know what to do!

Meet Diesel, Our Up-and-Coming Star

By in Furry Friends Tags: , , , , , ,

We have a pet chinchilla named Diesel, and although he has a somewhat grumpy disposition, I still think he is the cutest four-legged creature to walk the face of the earth. He is a bit overweight for a chinchilla, weighing in at just over two pounds, and he often just looks like a ball of fur with ears and a tail. He brings out the Elmyra Duff (remember Animaniacs?) in me, and I just want to squeeze him and love him forever and ever and ever. Even friends who normally hate rodents like mice and hamsters are often won over when they see our Diesel.

Diesel is so adorable, in fact, that it would be a pity for his cuteness to go on unnoticed in the world. Recently, I’ve been plotting ways to make Diesel a YouTube celebrity, with his own channel full of viral videos and a fan base of loyal followers. We just have to come across the right ideas at the right time, and Diesel will soon be following in the footsteps of Panda Dog, Heart-kun, and Susan Boyle.

Here are some videos we’ve recorded over the past to test the waters….

Stay tuned for more from tomorrow’s YouTube superstar, Diesel!

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