Pack it Up

This weekend hubs and I will be taking off for a much needed and deserved 2 week vacation.  I've been super excited to take some time away from work with hubs and do some traveling, but the thought of packing for well over 7 days away from home is a little daunting. Not to mention that we'll be experiencing 2 very different climates.

When I was in college and I'd go home to Hawaii for extended periods during Christmas and summer break. During those long trips I just tossed anything and everything I thought I might remotely have a desire to wear into a huge suitcase. Needless to say hubs, who would lovingly chauffeur me to the airport,  didn't love lugging around my huge baggage.

Through the years hubs has helped me pare down the amount of clothes I travel with... mostly by convinving me that if I don't start off with a full suitcase I have more room to pack things I buy throughout the trip. But I have yet to be able to reach the coveted ability to pack a week's worth of travel necessities into a carry-on luggage like this popular pin on pinterest.

For this trip I tried to be as disaplined as possible. I uaually try to pack a few extra shirts so I'm not stuck wearing an outfit I'm just not "feeling" at the time, but that usually means that at the end of my trip I usually have a ton of unworn clothes. This time a took a note from other bloggers who suggested to plan your travel outfits very specifically - including matching outerwear and accessories. I even laid out each outfit and took pictures of them so that I'd remember them all and no pieces would be left unworn by the end of the trip.

I like to pack my bras in a sturdy box so that I don't have to worry about them getting crushed and misshapen during travel

Thanks to my all my hard work, this is what my suitcase looks like. I know it looks full, but rest assured I will be fit a lot more in there...not to mention I have 20 more pounds till I reach my 50 pound luggage limit.

Do you guys have any tips for packing for extended trips?

Anniversary Celebrations

This past weekend hubs and I celebrated our first year of wedded bliss. We've had an amazing year full of fun and laughter. I couldn't in my wildest dreams have imagined our first year of marriage would include traveling to Rome, buying our first house, and surviving a bathroom rennovation. We're truly blessed to have had such a memorablefirst year of marriage.

Everyone know it's good luck to eat the top tier of your wedding cake on you're first anniverssary. However, being the non-conformists we are we didn't save the top tier of our wedding cake (we actually ate it the day after the wedding while we opened gifts with family). I've heard a few people say that after being in the freezer for a year their cake was as delicious as their wedding day, but the majority of stories I've heard were that the cake tasted like poo. Not to mention we got married in Hawaii and would've had to transport the cake back to our home in California. Instead I baked a replica of our funfetti cake with buttercream frosting. It was delicious and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

We spent the day in our favorite way, lazing around and watching the first season of Game of Thrones. Hubs spent the majority of the day assembling my anniversary gift to him, a Lego R2D2. And I got to open my anniversary gift which was tickets in the lower level to the next Warriors basketball game.

top L to R: bacon bread with seared ahi amuse bouche, maguro bite with lobster tempura, hybrid wagyu filet
bottom L to R: A5 wagyu NY with truffle foam, handsome hubs, complementary dessert, chocolate fondant

Then we had dinner at, 5A5, a steakhouse in downtown San Francisco known for their class A5 (highest grade) wagyu steaks. This was easily the most expensive meal we've ever consumed, but OH MAH GAWD was it worth it! We started with some complementary breadand a seared ahi amuse bouche. Of particular note was their bacon bread which quite a tasty conundrum as it tasted exactly like bacon, but had the texture of bread. Then we moved onto a maguro appetizer bite, which we shared since I only wanted a taste, and a delicious lobster tempura. Then it was onto the main course. Being the gentleman he always is hubs let me get the A5 wagyu NY cut and he got the hybrid wagyu filet. We always trade plates halfway through, that way we can both enjoy a little of everything. The A5 wagyu NY cut was litterally the most amazing thing I've ever put in my mouth (insert "that's what she said" joke). It was so amazingly tender and juicy...it's making my mouth water just thinking about it. Unfortunately when we were there they were out of the A5 wagyu filet - of the NY cut was so tender I can't even imagine what the filet would've been like. Hubs' hybrid wagyu filet which was much more moderately priced than mine; and while not quite as tender as the wagyu I had, it held it's own and was very delicious as well. We also got some truffle fries and truffle mac n cheese since these fancy schmancy places always seem to be ala carte. The truffle fries were good. Definitely a solid side, but nothing to write home about. The truffle mac n cheese was super cheesy and creamy - delicious. And for dessert we were treated to a complementary chocolate cake that was a real disapointment when compared to the chocolate fondant we ordered. Holy cow was that yummy - I had to resist licking the plate since we were in such a classy joint.

On Monday I got to enjoy the hubs present to me, lower level tickets to the Warriors vs. Raptors game. We've gone to many Warriors games over the years and have even sat in some pretty good seats, but nothing compared to the midcourt seats hubs got us this time. It was a fun and exciting game, but best of all it was a winning game.

We had an amazing time celebrating our first year of marriage together and I look forward to many more with the man of my dreams.

Good Reads

Just spending a lazy day at home today. Here's a few links to some good reads found on my google reader this week to keep you occupied on your lazy day.

Food: Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps - Can't wait to try these out at the next dinner party.

6 Awesomely Geeky Snow Projects - My inner geek is totally jealous that it doesn't snow where we live

Before & After: "Barnwood" Coffee Table Ikea Hack - I always love me a good Ikea hack

Artist Spotlight: Scott Zaragoza - Now that we're mostly settled in our home I'm always on the hunt for some good art

Weekend Warriors: Automating Sprinklers

Okay everyone...I have a confession to make. I, Mrs. Honda, am not good at taking care of plants. I am so terrible at taking care of plant life that when we were looking for homes to buy. I immediately vetoed homes with too many flowers or bushes or trees. In fact, Mr. Honda bought me a pink orchid plant for my birthday last year - in less than 2 months I turned the beautiful plant blooming with orchids into a stick in a pot due to a lack of watering.

Needless to say, this has left most of the gardening at our home up to Mr. Honda. Every couple of weeks he goes out and mows the grass and pulls up the weeds. He's actually quite good maintaing the plant life we have. However, even with the best intentions we forget to water our grass and plants regularly. It's really not our fault though. You see, even though our front and back lawns are equipped with a sprinkler system it lacks the automated feature we need for our busy lives. In the morning we're busy with the hustle and bustle of getting ourselves presentable for work and by the time we get home we're so tired from our long day that we just want to relax on the couch with our favorite DVR'd TV shows. Okay...maybe it is our fault a little.

A couple of weeks ago hubs had some landscaping guy come out and do an estimate on how much it would cost to have our sprinklers automated and get an drip irrigation set up for our other plants. They quoted us a whopping $1800! Sheesh! That much just to automate our sprinklers and irrigate our plants? I mean a girl could easily buy 2 pairs of beautiful red soled Louboutins for that price. 

Instead of spending the big bucks on such a simple project hubs decided to enlist his dad and DIY the whole thing themselves. Thank goodness for his dad's help or else I would've had to be the helper - and I'm sure his dad's help is a lot more helpful than mine would've been. Instead I got to spend the morning having breakfast and hitting up the farmer's market with his dad's girlfriend. 

When I got back, hubs and his dad had gotten all of their parts and had started digging up a trench for the piping that needed to go in. (Boy am I glad I missed out on that part!) The plan was to set up 2 "zones" in the front yard - 1 to feed the sprinklers and 1 to feed the irrigation. In order to do so they needed to set up PVC piping for the 2 different valves which would control the flow of water for the 2 different zones. To make sure that we had good seals and didn't have any leaks between the joints of the PVC piping we used red hot blue glue. It's really amazing how fast this stuff bonded the pipes together.

Once they finished assembling the piping for the valves the next step was to piece together the PVC pipes to connect the main water source to the valves and the valves to the sprinkler system. Then it was simply a matter of wiring the valves up to the timer we mounted in the garage.

They chose to go with the Rain Bird SST Series Timer from Home Depot. This bad boy lets you set up 6 different watering zones and lets you individually schedule each zone as you please. It was pretty easy and straight forward to set up a basic watering schedule - which means hubs was able to set it up without even reading the instruction manual. We are very excited about being able to basically set it and forget it.

Next up, hubs will be working on getting the irrigation set up for the trees in our backyard so that we can connect them to our timer. I'm so glad we're getting this stuff out of the way since spring is on it's way and I'm almost sure we'd kill all of our grass and trees due to a lack of watering if it was left up to us alone. 

Super Bowl Sunday Funday

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Super Bowl Sunday. Hubs and I had a little 2 person party with ourselves - complete with meat, cheese, and cracker tray. You really can't go wrong with that combo.

This was an especially fun Super Bowl game for us to watch since one of our bay area teams was actually playing. Don't get me wrong...I'm an east bayer at heart and would have prefered to see the Raiders in it instead of the 49ers, but I'll take what I can get. Unfortunately even though CK7 (aka: Colin Cappernick) played a good game the 49ers didn't get the W.

Not only was it a good game, but as usual some of the best highlights for me were during the commercials.
My favorite was this Oreo commercial - literally LMFAO'd - okay not quite literally.

Hub's favorite was this Audi commercial. I must say it was pretty cute.

What were you're favorites?

Bathroom Remodel: End of a Saga

Well well well...after what seems like forever we have finally reached the end of our bathroom remodel saga. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's what you've missed : the plan, the demo, the guts, the details, and the fall backs.

BEFORE: guest bathroom

Let's start with the guest bathroom. This is what the guest bathroom looked like when we bought the house. Standard tub with yucky shower doors, ugly blue and white linoleum, and a terrible layout that was a grand waste of space.

AFTER: guest bathroom

And this is what our newly renovated guest bathroom looks like. As you can see the layout is much better than what we started with. We didn't want to spend a whole lot for this bathroom sine we figured we'd rarely use it. We decided to go with a standard tub insert and ended up getting the vanity for a steal since the shop had made an error on the size for someone else's custom vanity. As you can see the sun tunnel we had installed brings in an amazing amount of light. These pictures were taken without the bathroom lights on and no flash. Sometimes our friends actually turn the light on when they're trying to turn the light off because the sun tunnel makes them think the lights are still on. Oh, and please excuse the towels that are almost invisible due to the fact that they are the same color as our walls. I guess that's just what happens when you just tell your contractor to paint the walls any "warm color" that will match the tile. Apparently that's such a popular shade of golden brown that they make it for paint and towels.

BEFORE: master bathroom

Now, on to the master bathroom. As you may remember, our master bathroom was SUUUPER teeny tiny. No way that more than 1 person could use that bathroom at a time. And how could you forget the lovely commode that face right out the door...LOL.

AFTER: master bathroom

And here she is...Ain't she a beaut??? We went with a larger shower and no tub for the master bathroom because honestly...how often do you actually have time for a bubble bath? The shower doors we had to special order off Amazon since we couldn't find it at any of the hardware stores around here. Thank gawd we ordered them before Amazon started charging tax - so we were able to save a little there. After we had the contractors rip out the original seat in the shower they redid it perfectly so that even little ole me can sit comfortably on it without my legs dangling around. We decided on the 36 inch vanity instead of 48 inch so that it didn't feel so cramped. And the contractors were able to shift the vanity and lighting further away from the toilet so that there isn't any claustrophobic feelings while you reach for your toilet paper. With the remodel our bathroom space has probably doubled...ah-maze-ing! Best part of all of it is that you don't look directly at the person sitting on the toilet when you're lying in bed. Always a win when you're keeping the romance alive <3

So what's up next on the remodel train??? Kitchen, I hear you calling. Front yard, I know you're in need of some TLC too. I don't really know which home project we'll be tackling next, but hopefully it won't be as drawn out as this one was. Eh, who am I kidding?

Post Holiday Party

Last weekend we successfully hosted our first party in our home. We wanted to plan a Christmas party reunion for my pharm fam, but we quickly realized that December is a pretty busy month for everyone. In order to accomodate as many people as we could we decided to have a post-holiday party in January instead. Although some of our friends weren't able to make it we were happy that most everyone was able to make it.

It's always great to spend time and catch up with friends. We're lucky to have such wonderful friends in our lives.