anthony and i went to my parents' house for dinner tonight 'cause they cooked porkchops. this is going to sound really gross, but there's still like half a pig left in the fridge!! my dad bought a huge roast which he was supposed to cook on Christmas, but never had the chance to. we're gonna be eating lots of pork in the days to come! anyway, while i was waiting for my laundry to dry, my grandma came out to the family room to use the bathroom. a few years ago, she used to have a sleepwalking problem. anthony and i would be up watching tv, and whenever we heard her door open we would try to guess whether or not she was actually awake. fortunately, that problem has been fixed.. and so i'm no longer afraid of my grandma when she comes walking out of her room in the middle of the night. haha.
tonight we had dinner at guppy's.. for probably the 20th time this year! it was exciting all over again, though, 'cause anthony and i recently found out about their chicken wings. super delicious!!! they were so good that nicole ate a bunch even though she wasn't hungry. i already want to go back for more. haha. i wonder if i just have low standards for classifying something as delicious.. 'cause i say that a lot on this blog. well whatever, it tasted good to me!
happy birthday, vince!
oh holy night, the stars are brightly shiiiiining. it is the night of our dear savior's birth.
toni's visit to LA is already almost over. boohoo. i wanted to see her one more time before she left, so after i bought my lunch earlier, i brought it to her brother's house so i could eat in her presence. haha. before i said goodbye, we asked her two nieces which one of them wanted to pose for a picture. immediately after, the older sister locked herself in a room. man, i didn't realize this whole "face of the day" thing was going to be met with such resistance!! haha. toni ended up bribing katie by telling her she would only get her Christmas gift if she posed for the picture. haha. how sad. good thing this blog is almost over. you know things are getting bad when little girls are threatened to have their presents taken away. =D
i was in a pretty bad mood earlier 'cause i found out about yet another crazy project. even though i'm only starting today, it needs to be done by next monday. so that means i get to spend another weekend (Christmas weekend nonetheless) working!! ugh. so yeah, i was pretty pissed when i found out. to help me blow off some steam, rianne picked me up and then we went to do some Christmas shopping. while i was looking at some t-shirts at the mall, i kept thinking that some freak was standing there staring at me. i was like, "what is this guy's problem!?" but everytime i looked up, it was just this cardboard cutout of the twilight guy. haha. i must have a short attention span, 'cause it surprised me more than once.
after working all through the night, i finally took a break and went on a lunch date with gen and toni! as soon as we got to gen's house, toni asked for some water and said that she needed it right away. and then when we were on our way to thai bbq, she said she knew what she wanted to order, and again, she wanted it right away. haha!!! toni is not usually so demanding like that, so we got a kick out of it 'cause it was totally unexpected both times it came out of her mouth. anyway, lunch was lots of fun. it's been years since the three of us have gone out to eat together! and after our delicious meal, we went to guppy's where gen treated us to boba and brick toast. thanks, gen!
today we went to villa nova in newport beach for my company's Christmas party. the restaurant was right along the harbor, so we got to watch the newport beach Christmas boat parade before dinner started. for dinner, we had so much food. it started off with three kinds of pasta. that would've already been enough for me, but then the main course came out which was steak, chicken AND salmon. those weren't the options.. we got all three! geez! after eating, we got our Christmas presents. this year, the company gave each of us a digital frame. sweet. and then we received our lovely bonus checks. haha. overall it was a good night. it's nice to know we're appreciated, especially after all the long hours we've been working lately! aye yi yi!
haha!!! this is probably my worst "face" of the year!! (or was it this one?) first of all, i did not bother asking permission before taking this man's picture. because of that, i did not use my real camera. i took a sneaky pic from behind the bar using my phone instead. an unmotivated photographer + a low quality camera = a real crappy picture! haha. what can i say? keeping up with this blog is a lot of work, and some days i am just not in the mood for it. next year i need to do something that is a lot less stressful. i appreciate a good challenge every now and then, but many days i simply don't feel excited about approaching a stranger. haha. so anyway, after another tiring day of work, anthony and i had dinner at daikokuya because i felt like eating the best ramen ever. chef daiko did not disappoint!
guess where i went today?! and guess who i went with!? haha. i asked rianne to come to disneyland with me earlier because i was hoping she would be able to take advantage of the "one hour shopping pass" that i read about online. we both had something in mind that we wanted to buy from there as Christmas presents. it turns out that they no longer offer that pass, though, and so i ended up going inside the park by myself while rianne walked around downtown disney by herself! what a couple of loners! prior to going to disney, we did some Christmas shopping at lakewood mall. i can't wait to be done with all my shopping!
we went to gel & jason's house earlier to watch the UFC fight. well actually, the boys watched the fight and us girls decorated gel's Christmas tree. (= while we were there, we met their new dog, charlie. charlie and their other dog, holly, like to fight for attention.. and i mean literally fight! it's so funny that the two dogs get jealous of each other whenever the other one is being played with. you have to pet both of them at the same time, but even then they still get competitive with each other.. and so you end up being overwhelmed with two dogs jumping up at you! haha.. it's so cute!
so anthony and i tried again. after enjoying 500 days so much the other night, we tried our luck again with another movie. this time we watched paper heart. i was always so excited to watch this one. i tried so many different times to watch it while it was still playing in the theaters, but it never worked out. and now that i finally saw it, all i have to say is, "meh." haha. cute idea, but the story was just alright. we both felt that it dragged a lot of the time. 
anthony and i watched 500 days of summer tonight and we both LOVED it! it's such a cute movie. we especially enjoyed the dancing scene. haha. i highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
today was a loooong day. it started very early in the morning when rianne, ricky and i drove out to irvine for the paul frank warehouse sale. we were a little behind schedule (because i didn't hear my alarm go off) but we still got there before most of the rest of the people in line. by the time the doors opened, the line was wrapped around the building. yikes. we were kind of disappointed with the sale 'cause there wasn't very much PF stuff, but i bought quite a few Modern Amusement items. after that sale, we ate lunch and then attempted to brave the line at the RVCA sale in costa mesa.. but after 20 minutes of not moving up at all (and being surrounded by a swarm of bees), we decided to go home.
once again, i ended my busy work week with a relaxing trip to disneyland! first, anthony and i went to CA Adventure to ride Mullholland Madness. it was his first time riding that, so he had no idea what to expect. he is afraid of heights, so was nervously laughing/yelling during the whole ride! haha. it was sad and funny at the same time!
tonight was fun. for dinner, i met up with gennie at seafood town. it was nice catching up with her and hearing about all the new, exciting things going on in her life. haha. we ordered salt & pepper fish, green beans, and white rice. and even though we ate 'til we were full, we still had so many leftovers. because of that, we decided that we would bring the food to denise! we went to visit her, billy, and the kiddos at their new place. it was really cute! victoria made us smoothies, ava gave us pretend boba, and will drew our pictures. haha. you can't really tell from this pic, but he even drew my earrings in. great attention to detail! (=
santa claus 
i had to drive out to cerritos tonight to drop something off for work, so to make the most of it, anthony and i decided to get some dinner out in that area. we ended up getting chicken flautas from taco san pedro! yum!! and since we were out in their hood, we asked jenn and mark if we could have dinner with them at their lovely new home! it was my first time being to their place, and i thought it was so cute! it totally suits them as a couple. they're not completely moved in yet, but i could already see both of their personalities represented through the few things that were on display. so of course, the place was lined with all kinds of cute things, including jenn's jelly donut pillow! 
happy black friday! instead of waking up early to go shopping, i slept the day away and caught up on some ZZZs! it felt wonderful. in the evening, rianne, anthony and i met up with his family for a peruvian dinner at el rocoto in gardena. food was good, but we were stuffed afterwards. after dinner, the three of us went to bed bath & beyond and old navy for a little shopping. then finally, we stopped by 7-11 on the way home for some hot chocolate and to rent a movie from Red Box. we didn't know what to rent, so rianne suggested the marc pease experience since she just read about it in an email. we knew nothing about it except that ben stiller was in it. when we got home, anthony looked up reviews and found that people were calling it the worst movie ever. he decided not to watch anymore. haha. rianne and i watched it anyway, and even though i don't think it was funny, i still thought it was an enjoyable movie. ben stiller's character is such a cheeseball.
happy thanksgiving!! anthony and i had a nice holiday. we celebrated with his side of the family first at the gilbertson residence in sylmar, and then ended it with my side at the rivera residence in anaheim hills. of course i wish we could have separate days for each family, but instead of feeling annoyed that we had to travel all over so-cal, i feel blessed and thankful that we have too much family instead of not enough! knawmean?! (=
yay!!! after many headaches and sleepless nights, i am finally DONE with the busy work crunch that's been keeping me indoors for the past couple weeks. i still have a lot of work to do, but i met my deadlines for all the projects that were due today (including the most annoying project of the year). it was such a relieving feeling to drop the packages off at UPS. ahhhhh. i barely made it, too. i delivered the last package just 10 minutes before UPS closed. but really, i love the feeling of accomplishment. so anyway, to celebrate, anthony and i went to disneyland to meet up with his siblings and cousins. we went to CA adventure first 'cause i wanted to ride Toy Story Mania. that ride is so much fun! then after that park closed, we went over to disneyland to go on a few more rides. i had a good time. and with all that weight off my shoulders, i was very happy to be at the happiest place on earth. i love disneyland!
happy birthday, mommy!!
happy birthday, auntie!! 
i was having a pretty horrible day. it started off with bad news that my niece caught the H1N1 virus. =( so along with all the things i have to do for work, i now have another thing to stress and worry about. so when i walked into subway to buy my lunch earlier, my mind was all over the place. i think the guy who was helping me could sense that i was not okay, so instead of asking me what i wanted to order, he just stood there and smiled at me with the cheesiest smile ever. haha. usually, that would either gross me out or piss me off, but today it was exactly what i needed. i instantly snapped out of my bad mood and ended up having a nice (though short) conversation with him. thanks, 'toine, for being the nicest subway manager i have ever met.
i know it's kind of cheating that there are two people in this picture, but if you knew sheryll, you'd know that there is always a baby boy attached to her. hehe. she has three sons who are always trying to get her attention. so yeah, i think i have a good excuse. (= so anyway, we had lunch at back home in lahaina earlier right before the minnesotans had to go to the airport for their flight back home. aww. their visit went by pretty quick, but i'm glad we got to spend time with them. after saying our goodbyes, anthony, venus, grace, and i went to magic mountain to meet up with the rest of chad's birthday celebrants. i only went on three rides (jet stream, ninja, and colossus), but that was good enough for me. i'm getting old! roller coasters are not exactly my cup of tea anymore. =P
i woke up a little later than usual today 'cause i stayed up late last night making a birthday cake hat with priscilla. the only reason i ended up getting out of bed was because silla told me she was bored. haha. after working for a few hours, the two of us headed out to culver city because i wanted to bring her to the "three apples" hello kitty exhibit at royal-t before she went back home. it's probably not a good idea that i keep encouraging all these little girls to like hello kitty. i feel like i am creating monsters. haha! after spending the day with priscilla, i spent the evening hanging out with serena. her parents took a night off from baby duty tonight. i didn't mind at all!
it's wednesday night, and just like old times, priscilla and i are having a sleepover! before coming to my house, though, we did other fun stuff. first, we had dinner with venus, grace, and chad at blenders. when we got back home to my parents' house, she, rianne, my mom, and i started making decorations for the big party coming up in a few days. we made pom pom flowers out of tissue paper. they turned out super cute. then right before we left to come to my house, my mom picked my auntie au up from the airport. auntie au works for united airlines, and since she missed her flight from vegas back to her home in chicago, she decided to head to LA instead to spend the night. what a jetsetter.