I am officially really Asian.

Actually only half. Until I start doing math for fun, building awesome robots, and collecting Hello Kitty junk will I be fully nerdy Asian. Anyhoo. I forget most of the time that I am half Japanese and that I look Asian. If someone points to me and calls me "the Asian girl" I usually look behind me to see who they are talking about just to find out there is no one behind me and they're talking about me. So, I decided to get in touch with my Asian roots and make kimchi--spicy fermented cabbage. Sounds delicious doesn't it? This stuff stank up my kitchen like a fart parade. Who made this in the first place? But even with the stink of just wilting the cabbage and the fact that it sat in our downstairs bathroom for 3 days it turned out pretty good! (It must be because I'm Asian).

Kimchi is quite the acquired taste though. I didn't used to like it, but eating it more and more I have come to like it. (Good thing because we've got four and a half jars of it in our fridge). It's super good fried in a sushi roll with tuna (my fav way to have kimchi), as a stew, and in fried rice. Plain/straight out of the fridge...not as good.

Well, I better go and brush up on my math and maybe practice the Rubik's cube.

Cape Meares

On Saturday Michael and I decided to go down to the coast since we live so close now. It was windy and cold in Portland, but on the beach it was SO NICE! 60 degrees...mmhmm. Actually we've had some record winds here in the city that have really started to cause some problems-- power outages, fallen trees blocking roads, fallen trees on houses, etc--but that is beside the point.

First stop on the journey. The octopus tree. Eight arms, no joke, all coming from one trunk. Kind of weird for a spruce.


The octopus tree overlooked this beautiful cliffy beach scenery. The life of a tree must be pretty nice.
Cape Meares lighthouse. One of two of a kind in the world. The other one is in Hawaii.
We took a hike from Cape Meares to the beach. I seriously thought we were walking through Ferngully! Trees had fallen and other stuff started to grow on'em, like moss, other trees, plants that I don't know the names of, and these neato fungus dudes (like on Ferngully)...
Cute mini waterfall.
This is how far we got from the beach after hiking for quite a bit and decided to go back to the top and just drive to the beach.
We got to the beach.
We had a contest of who could stick a stick in the sand the farthest out without getting drenched by the waves. Both participants were slightly biased, so a winner was not chosen.
Poking beached jelly fish with a stick.
Goobs.
The end.

I know some pretty awesome people...

I have the best husband ever. Yes, he's more awesome than yours. He came home from the store and was wandering around the kitchen. I was wanting to help him out (he doesn't spend much time in the kitchen), but he wouldn't tell me what he was looking for! I turn around to the table and there were flowers! He was looking for a vase. haha. The first thing I commented on was how cool the green flowers were--he said that's the whole reason he bought that bouquet. =)
I also have the best in-laws ever--thank you so much, Ashley & Julie! I almost thought the postman left the box of flowers at the wrong address! I had no idea who would be nice enough to send me flowers! They are beautiful!

I's gonna git me some pigs

We've spent our Christmas break in good'ol Star Valley, Wy-O-min'. Not much has happened, but today we finally got some action when some renegade animals tried to escape. We looked out the window, and sure enough four 300 lb. pigs were waltzing down the road.

Of course, at noon I am still in my PJ's, so Michael goes to try to lure them back into "storage" while I get all dressed up for such a special occasion. A truck comes down the road and stops. The pigs got so scared! One peed right there on the road while the others ran all the way back to their pen.

Not really...that's what should've happened though. Instead, they walked up to the truck, smelled the bumper, smelled the tires, they would've smelled the driver if they could have. By the time I got outside, the four beasts still hadn't been wrangled. There was Michael, Maison (nephew-in-law), Brandon (brother-in-law), and me--four people to four pigs, but so far they were winning.

Brandon's weapon of choice was a rake, Michael had food, Maison had...well nothing really...he just wanted to wrestle one, and I had my...wit. I also got left all alone with the last pig! I told him...hmm I guess it was a her....she was stupid, because all her friends were on the other side of the road and had food. With sheer brilliance and maybe a little chasing I got the pig to it's safe shelter. All by myself.

Now I can cross off "be a pig herder" from my list of things to do before I die.

Happy 2 Years Together!

I love you cwapface!

=)

Completely Handmade Gift

Whew! I have always wanted to make everyone's gift for Christmas...but some things you just can't make...especially boy gifts. Anyway, this year I made a whole gift for my sister-in-law (Mike's sister) by hand! ...And hopefully she doesn't have a link to this or else I just ruined what her gift is! Oh, well. I am just so proud of it...I would keep it if it didn't have Carolyn's name on it.
Here's the basket...


Handmade book with helicopters that I laboriously collected from the parking lot and cut a window in the binder's board for. Sorry I didn't flip the picture.
Custom gift tags that I designed...


With matching thank you cards all wrapped up with envelopes.
It doesn't seem like much now that I post about it, but all this took several days of work! I am glad I went to the effort though. I guess it's always a good sign of a good gift when you don't want to give it away.