Hi from sunny (and damp) So Cal!

Ahh! It's nice to be home in Long Beach for the holidays! I arrived Tuesday night in the midst of Day 6 of seven straight days of rain - LA is not set up for this! Mudslides, floods, and general chaos hit pockets of areas for commuters and the like. Thankfully I landed in a respite of rain - had I arrived a day later and I would've been delayed by the torrential downpours. But it's not like this is Hurricane Katrina or anything, though the local news would like you to think otherwise. I can only take a few minutes of "STORM WATCH 2010" before I gag...I guess LA needs its drama.

Today I see blue skies and comfortable 60 degree temps. Yesterday my mom and Anthony went shopping for some last minute stocking stuffers and made it to Gloria's Cafe which was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. We ordered a couple of the specialties that were covered by Guy Fieri - Carne Adobada, and the Seven Seas Soup - delicious!! The soup was pretty amazing, it reminded me of a Vietnamese soup called Hu Tieu that my mom makes. My brothers and I call my mom's version the "Noah's Ark Soup" because it's loaded with pork, shrimp, crab, and a quail egg to boot. There are unlimited versions and you can really put anything you want in it - dried squid, octopus, pork stomach lining...whathaveyou.

Here are a few pictures of my trip thus far - a visit with my first niece, Luella, and some shots at Gloria's Cafe.

xo!

Merry early xmas for hannah!

This was an early xmas present from our dear friends Iowa (Kerri) and her pup Ellee!! Hannah had a blast "opening" up her present! Enjoy!

What up ya'all?!!

The holiday season...

Ahh!!! It's been a very nice week of mostly relaxation and calmness after the hubbub of returning from Iceland and studying for finals. All the students have cleared out of town and traffic is slow in town, we can park on campus for free, and the hallways are free of undergrads cramming for tests. The Christmas tree is up and we've put up a few other decorations, but for the most part we keep up the Christmas spirit by listening to random holiday songs and watching holiday specials on hulu. We recently watched Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas which is Dan's favorite Christmas show that he's watched since he was a kid. It was pretty adorable and as he said, the songs get stuck in your head as simple as they are. Here's a youtube clip of outtakes I found...adorable...

Yesterday we went to a new burger place that we've been reading about. They have a solid greasy burger with slightly sweet fries and onion rings. It hit the spot on a chilly Friday that also happened to be my birthday. The day before we celebrated my birthday with a birthday brunch. The pictures document much of the spread we had - Dan went all out on his cinnamon bacon rolls, we made ham and green onion omelets, the neighbors made waffles with an apple topping and of course our beverages were mimosas and bloody marys...delish! All in all a delightful last few days have passed us by....

We both can't wait to fly home to our respective homes - just a few more days!! yippee for Christmas!!

xo

ct

Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

Today we got our Christmas tree! It's a squat little guy we bought from the Home Depot. Chau is actually taller than it but that is exactly what we wanted. We don't have a lot of space in our house so a nice small tree is perfect. Besides, we don't have many decorations to decorate a large tree anyway. We actually don't have ANY decorations...just lights and popcorn garland that Chau made. For the topper, we passed on the star/angel and went for the traditional cowboy hat. Here are a few pictures. Merry Christmas!

Christmas decorations part I...

Hi!!

Here are a few random pictures for you to enjoy...Dan got back from Iceland yesterday afternoon..It's great to have him back and Hannah seems very happy as well. I went to a Pho place for some pho to-go in Bham before picking Dan up (it made me a few minutes late to the airport...whoops). Dan had the chicken pho (which I think should not exist in this world), I had my usual pho tai (with the rare steak) and a couple of spring rolls. Everything was very tasty - the broth was very flavorful and aromatic so I am pleased to have a decent pho fix somewhat close to us.

I can't believe it's December already! While Dan was away I started some minor Christmas decorations, we still have to pick out a tree together sometime this week. We are both very excited to be visiting our respective families in less than two weeks! Dan hasn't been home in quite a few years, while I haven't been back since last Christmas. I'm excited to see the new improvements my parents have been making to the house and also ecstatic to eat some In-n-Out burgers, lots of good Vietnamese, and stir fried lobster from a Chinese restaurant which is a Christmas time tradition (usually because that's just when all the kids are home and can enjoy it!).

I tried my hand at a slow cooked boston butt pulled pork studded with garlic and rubbed down with liquid smoke, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. I also slapped together a random BBQ sauce I found on chowhound:

1 part yellow mustard, 1 part apple cider vinegar, 1/4 part sugar, 1/4 part light brown sugar, 1/4 part water, 1/8 part chilie powder, 1/16 part Worcestershire sauce, 1/16 part black pepper, 1/16 part cayenne pepper, 1/16 part soy sauce and maybe a tablesoop of butter. Place this in a sauce pot, bring to a boil, make sure you have enough liquid, cut the heat back and let simmer about 30 minutes.

We made pulled pork sandwiches, drizzled with the spicy bbq sauce and a sprinkling of some nice crunchy slaw. It doesn't stand up to local bbq joints that actually smoke their meat on a smoker (rather than our cheater liquid smoke way), but still does the job in half the time.

It's been in the mid 40s during the day while at night it dips down to the low 20s! We've cranked on the heat and it's nice and cozy at home. The only thing that would make our ambiance perfect is stoking a nice fire in our non existent fireplace.

Here is my birdhouse I won! Tilt your head to the left...now:

Some people think it looks like a scarecrow..what do you think?

Anyhow, enjoy the other pictures!

Random news

An email I got today:

From: Kentuck

Subject: Congratulations!

Date: December 2, 2010 7:16:57 PM CST

To: Chau

You have won the George Shelton birdhouse featured at the Kentuck Museum Gallery Shop!
Stop by to pick up your prize anytime between 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday and 10am to 4:30pm Saturday.

Congratulations!

Valerie

*************************************************************

Woo hoo!! The Kentuck is an art center that hosts the annual art festival I went to earlier this year where I made my birdhouse that now decorates the yard. I can't fully remember what the birdhouse I won looks like, but I entered a random drawing during last month's Art Night that we went to with the neighbors and some other friends. We've only gone to a two so far, but we've upheld a tradition of getting a drink afterwards in case we have to console ourselves about Tuscaloosa's meager art scene. Art Night occurs every first Thursday of the month. In fact, there is one going on right now! I opted to stay in today and mellow out with a Hot Toddy some Ratatat, and some garland in hopes of decorating the house a little...we'll see how it goes.

I hope to pick up my new birdhouse soon so I'll post pictures soon!!

Weeee!!

xo,ct

Halló from Ísland #2

Hello again! Tonight I am in a great mood. Today, we just finished our field work for this trip. Oh Joy!!! Today was a beautifully sunny day despite being a frigid -7 degrees C. At least it didn't rain. Enough about that. I have a few more pictures to share. Chau told me to take a lot of pictures because apparently I don't. So here are a few more. Enjoy!!

Hello from Iceland!!

Hello! Or should I say the Icelandic word for hello which is...well I guess I don't know it. Icelandic is a very difficult language to learn. Anyway, I believe I'm writing our first "International Blog". I am sitting in my posh apartment at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. I arrived on Sunday morning and am already into day 2 of field work. I will not be leaving for another 4 days so I hope to blog again while here. I am making this post fairly short for a couple of reasons. The first being that i am extremely tired from field work today and I need to get some decent sleep at some point this trip. The second reason is that I have a paper to finish writing tonight for my Microbial Biology class. I need to get that in by tomorrow and I will be in the field all day tomorrow. So I'm just going to post a few pictures of what I've been up to thus far. ENJOY!