Continuing from Day 1 in Los Angeles, we stayed in and relaxed for most of the day on Day 2. March 3 also happened to be Hinamatsuri, or Girls’ Day in Japan, and Megumi went all out to celebrate this special day!
For lunch, Megumi was preparing a Hinamatsuri feast and invited a bunch of her Japanese American girlfriends, as Hinamatsuri is a celebration of girls everywhere! We were all floored by how much food she prepared, all according to the traditional dishes that are served for Hinamatsuri. Of course, she put a few of us to work to help with the food prep. 😉 I love helping Megumi cook/bake — it’s part of the fun, I learn new tips and techniques, and all the effort is rewarded with good eats!
Our time in Southern California was short but so sweet! The LA portion of our trip was over, but we still had lots of fun times ahead of us up in Northern California. Stay tuned!
We spent the past week visiting our family and friends on the West Coast! We first arrived in Los Angeles the first weekend of March, before flying up to the Bay Area to spend the rest of the time with Dan’s parents before we flew back to Virginia this past weekend. We really wanted to make the stop in Los Angeles while we were in California, because some of our closest friends that we’d made in Bay Area had relocated to Southern California in recent years, and we couldn’t imagine making the trip out West without seeing them! Our dear friends Megumi and Daniel graciously opened up their beautiful home in Alhambra for us to stay in, and we have Estella and Brent to thank for picking us up at LAX and shuttling us around everywhere the first day in their spacious car. It’s not easy to host and take care of a family of three (especially when one is a jetlagged toddler), and we can’t express how grateful we were for all their thoughtful preparation and warm hospitality!
As usual, we took so many pictures throughout the trip, that I’m going to break our trip up into separate posts. Enjoy our snapshots from Day 1, below…
After lunch, we headed over to spend the afternoon at Manhattan Beach… while it had been 28 degrees when we left DC, it got up to 85 degrees in LA that day! Life is not fair… made us wonder why we didn’t just move down to SoCal instead of to Northern Virginia! 😛
For dinner, Estella and Brent took us to an awesome Taiwanese place called Kang Kang Food Court for dinner. They’d introduced us to delicious soup dumplings before up in NorCal, but this time they took us to eat crispy soup dumplings! So good!!!
After dinner, Megumi suggested we go get dessert at Fluff Ice, which serves fluffly Taiwanese style shaved ice! True to its name, it was so fluffy soft and light, and we loved it! 😀
When we got back to Megumi & Daniel’s we put Mio to bed, and stayed up playing board games together while munching on delicious desserts that Megumi had prepared! You can see the rest of our stay in Los Angeles in Day 2, which happened to land on Hinamatsuri!
We had a pretty busy weekend, and instead of going into the details of the places we went and the friends we saw, I thought I’d just share some snapshots! I find that I’ve been leaving our camera behind a lot lately… while it takes great pictures, I’ve been lazy and just love the ease of using my phone to take quick snapshots and instantly share them online. I used to wonder what all the fuss was about Instagram, but after a few months of using it, I’ve been bitten by the bug and am now admittedly an avid Instagrammer!
So if you already follow me on Instagram, these pictures are old news, but here are some of our memorable moments from the past weekend!
Thanks Brent and Estella for having us over to celebrate with you all! 😀
On Saturday evening, we drove into the city to have a sushi dinner at Sanraku with Stephanie, who has been one of my dearest friends since college! She’s getting married in late September, and I couldn’t be happier for her! So glad that we could have dinner and catch up before she left to fly back to DC.
On Sunday morning, Mio got to have some fun playing with a bunch of other tots in San Leandro…
In the afternoon, we went to Hayward to attend baby Easton’s first birthday party!
It’s been pretty hot lately, so I’ve been having fun dressing Mio up in cute little sundresses. We’ve been staying cool indoors while enjoying frozen fruit! 🙂
There was a photo booth from Magnolia Photo Booth Co. at Jason & Tarrin’s wedding last Saturday, and we had a lot of fun with it! Such a great idea — a big thanks to the bride and groom for letting us indulge in it. Here are some of the memorable ones….
We were wondering what Mio would look like with a lot of hair. Now we know.
She’s doing the kissy-face, too!
Here I am as a jolly pirate (with a feather boa!) with my awesome coworker friends: Pharaoh Estella and adorable Sarah.
We decided we needed some more Allen family photos, so the three of us stepped into the photo booth once again… but Mio was sleeping. :(Â She retains the same face throughout with those bulldog cheeks, until the last one in which it crumbles from the frustration of disturbed sleep.
Estella, Mio, and I were lucky enough to get a photo opp with the lovely bride, Tarrin!