Yay for long weekends! This one felt extra-long since I had a half day on Friday and also it was my first real weekend without moving tasks so it was nice to relax and enjoy the new neighborhood.
FridayOn Friday I left work at 1:30, yay half day! It was super-trafficky coming home though. I was struck with hunger pains and stopped by Taco Bell on the way home. They discontinued the Beefy Cheesy Melt, so sad. :( After getting home we ran errands and ended our day of shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond where I exchanged my handheld Dyson for a full-sized one:
I've had the handheld for months and months but I was sneaky and saved the box. We were able to return it for full credit without a receipt (even though we used a 20% off coupon to buy it) as long as we did an immediate exchange. We ended up going with the Dyson slim which was $70 off for the Memorial Day Weekend AND we got an additional 20% off with the coupon. Good deal.
We vacuumed our bedroom carpet + area rug for the first time and it picked up 2 canisters full of new carpet fuzz. The dyson is ridiculous. :)
After enjoying my new vacuum, Vina came over and we headed to CCC for a chicken dinner. Then we went home and watched National Treasure: Book of Secrets on the AppleTV, since the cable guy isn't coming until Saturday. I love these historical/conspiracy theory movies and books.
SaturdayOn Saturday morning, we woke up to the cable guy coming in early to install our cable and cable internet. Finally, some live TV! I was kind of excited because this is the first time we've had HD service -- we didn't have HD with Dish Network before. We had some bagels and eggs while waiting for the cable guy to finish up. After he was done, we realized we needed a wireless router! What the? I haven't bought (or even thought) about wireless routers in years it seems. So off we were to Best Buy.
I really wanted to get the Apple Airport Extreme but with moving costs as high as they came out to be, the additional $100 for something Apple branded just didn't make sense. Instead we bought this Linksys router which was on sale for $79. It sucks and it's not as pretty as the Apple. Boo.
Since we were in Westwood, we picked up Mongolian BBQ on the way home -- when was the last time you had THAT! :) I have to say, they changed the bowls to smaller bowls or something because I was not able to get as much meat/noodles as I used to.
We came home to find Vina napping on the couch, which I'm guessing will be a regular occurrence now that she has keys to our place, and she joined us for dinner. After watching some TV, I had the unnatural urge for Boba (seems to have replaced my Pinkberry cravings) so we went to Volcano Tea. Also stopped by Happy Six which made me realize I think I want a Tokidoki Fanny Pack to go bicycling with. :)
SundayOur first day of cycling -- and a full one! We headed out to Cafe Montana in Santa Monica for Brunch. We took Montana Ave all the way down which had a pretty spacious bike lane so it wasn't so scary. It took me a while to adjust to "cycling" like a car yet handling the bike like a cyclist. At first I was stopping at every intersection until I realized I had to kind of go along with traffic so that meant full stops at stop signs and going straight through green lights. Scary!
So after an eggs benedict, we decided to be brave and continue out west... to the beach. The plan was to check out Adidas/REI while at 3rd street and come back home. The ride wasn't bad. We walked our bike across intersections that were too busy and made it there with a lot of energy to spare. Since we were so close to the beach, we decided to bike up and down the bike path to Venice.
After coming up from Venice, that's when the fatigue started to hit. My legs were burning, I was out of breath, and the thought of going uphill to get home was unbearable. We took it slow and finally got home. By the time we were back on Montana Ave, we were taking breaks every other block so that I could catch my breath!
I collapsed into a nap at home and didn't even have the energy to shower until 2 hours later. We wrapped the day up with dinner at Chabuya. (We drove there, didn't bike!) I didn't realize it then, but I saw Vina every day of the weekend so far!
Monday
On Monday we had lunch with some of my co-workers at Happy Family in San Gabriel. One of our beloved QA folks is leaving this week for Chicago so we treated him out to some vegetarian Chinese food, since he's always eating so healthily.
After lunch I showed them the ways of us Chinese folks and took them to feast on Beard Papa's cream puffs. I think everyone was in a food coma by the time we departed.
When we got home, Vina and Yusuke came over to go biking in Santa Monica. Learning our lesson, this time Steve and I drove our bikes over. :) Vina and Yusuke rented a tandem bike and we went up and down the bike path as far south as Venice. It got really, really chilly so we headed back after about 2-2.5 hours of riding. Their total came out to about $10!
After cycling we went home for a couple of rounds of Mario Kart. Vina kicked all of our butts whenever she used the old controller. Then to satisfy her craving for crab, we ate dinner at Hop Woo -- the closest "authentic" Chinese restaurant on the west side.
Vina:
I want crab.Yusuke:
Well, what else do you feel like for dinner?Vina:
Nothing else. I only want crab.
