Birthday Weekend Recap (9/22/16 - 9/25/16)

Thursday (9/22):

• For my actual birthday, we treated it like a regular day. Go to work and then go home.
• Earlier in the week, Vince bought 2 new dresses at EVER and a necklace at Old Navy at Town Square for me to wear for my birthday weekend.

Friday (9/23):

• Met with my Auntie Auring, Auntie Francine, Uncle Bobbit, my mom and my dad at Buffet@Asia for dinner.
• WE ARE NEVER EATING THERE AGAIN. That was suppose to be the nicest location with the better food quality over the other Buffet@Asia locations and it was just horrible. The food was blah. The food stations were poorly maintained, and they even had plastic plates and bowls out.
• My auntie Auring got the staff to surprise/embarrass me with a plate full of crappy coconut cake squares with a lit candle as the 2 waitresses sang to me. I got an envelope from my auntie with cash in it.
• After that, the clan all left for The Cannery to find a club to dance in. Vince and I went to Lowe's.

Saturday (9/24):

• We went to Vince's parent's place to drop off the truck early in the morning and it turned into home improvement day.
• Their washer was leaking so Vince had to help his dad. Then we went to Ferguson to buy shower faucet stuff, then to Floor & Deco to return stuff, then to Home Depot, and to Lowe's again. By the time we got home, it was 2:30. We had a short break to get ready before the 4 pm dinner at Gen.
• Aside from Josh, everyone was freaking late. Christine and Michael had trouble finding the place. Joel and Pam ran late (as usual), and Andrew and Joanne couldn't leave until their house viewing was done. We didn't eat til after 4:30 pm. Still, we all had fun and ate heartily for 2 hours. It's a good thing I brought cash because I covered Josh, Joel and Pam who forgot to bring cash.
• After dinner, Tanisha and her daughter Nix met up with us at our house and we had an official housewarming after dinner. We all just gathered around to talk and stuff.

Sunday (9/25):

• Went to Smith's to do some grocery shopping before heading to the Lion Habitat Ranch. I paid extra for the hand feeding for any lion.
• Awesome little side note: I was wearing my Dirty Deeds shirt and one of the staff members recognized it. He came up to us and talked to us and said that Dean Ambrose was here last year. He wasn't sure if it was him but the Tapout logo on his shorts gave it away and he took a picture with him. He said he just showed up out of the blue and no one else recognized Dean besides him. He also said he was there with his girlfriend who does Talking Smack (Renee!), and they wanted to see the cubs. He also mentioned Ryback and other local celebrities like David Copperfield and Britney Spears stopping by too. But he kept going on and on about how weird it was to see him show up out of nowhere, so it sounds like he made this guy's day :D
• I had to wait a bit for the trainer to get the food ready for the hand feeding. One of the staff members suggested picking Jesse, who's one of the male lions who makes a lot of growling sounds when he's hungry (that sounds nice). While we were waiting, one of the other lions in the cage turned around and pissed right at the crowd. One couple who actually got peed on practically shoved Vince out of the way.
• Vince has a video of me feeding raw meat balls to Jesse through through a plexiglass barrier. It was pretty scary to be that close to a full-grown lion O_O
• Went home to make some Spicy Coconut Chicken curry and watched Clash of Champions. To be honest, I thought the overall PPV was decent. The matches were great but I didn't agree on most of the matches' endings and shenanigans. New Day retained using Fracesca. Sheamus vs Cesaro's final best of 7 match ended in a ref stoppage after a pretty long and grueling match (both guys came out great btw), Reigns defeats Rusev to become the US Champion. And Owens retains thanks to Jericho and Stephanie sending out a second ref at the last minute to distract Rollins. Owens freaking won but the focus was on Rollins vs Stephanie. It honestly felt like RAW on Sunday. One major positive was seeing TJ Perkins' official PPV debut with an awesome new theme song.
  
  

What to expect for Monday Night RAW & Smack Down Live!:

Going to be honest here, I've actually stopped watching RAW a few weeks ago. I'll watch a few matches based on the east coast results but I'm not investing myself to watch from 8pm - 11 pm anymore. Conversely, I've been watching all of Smack Down and watching the wrap-up show, Talking Smack. So considering that I just described Clash of Champions as another episode of RAW, I can't bring myself to watch it live tonight. I'm bias but I'm more eager for Smack Down and their next PPV, No Mercy, since it has a better build.

Birthday Weekend

Friday 9/21

We picked up our friend Dan at the butt crack of dawn, just before 6 am. Made a short pit stop at Barstow and made another pit stop at Chino for some breakfast at IHOP. Then it was straight to Anaheim from there. We encountered a bit of heavy traffic before noon due to reports of the Endeavor Shuttle flying over Disneyland. There were people standing by the sidewalks, at the top parking garage and at the roof of Paradise Pier, hoping to catch a glance. It wasn’t until we were waiting in line to buy the tickets that it flew over us. It was quite a sight to behold as everyone cheered as it flew over and the mass stood still for a few minutes to update their statuses and upload their pics (I only recorded a few seconds of it). Vince got to see the redesigned Carthay Circle Restaurant and admire his work. Of course, he won't get credit can't put it in his portfolio :/

Originally, I wanted to try doing the day hopper but we settled for Disney California Adventure since I’ve never been to it while Dan and Vince haven’t been there for a few years. In no particular order, we rode at Radiator Springs, Tower of Terror, Monsters, Inc., Goofy’s Sky School, Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, Grizzly River Run and Soarin’ Over California. We checked out the Frankenweenie exhibition, Sorceror’s Workshop and the Aladdin Musical at the Hyperion Theater. We met up with Corinne and ate at Tortilla Jo’s before riding Goofy’s Sky School. By then, most of the rides were full. Although we missed World of Color, we got to catch the fireworks at 9:45 pm over at Disneyland. I bought my first pair of ears, something I didn’t do when I first got to Disneyland.

Saturday 9/22

One minor bday gift was seeing pics of Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars for Kick Ass 2! This day was somewhat more laidback. We drove to Torrance to eat at Capriciossa for Lunch. It’s an Italian/Japanese restaurant that I use to frequent on Guam. Vince and I had to black ink squid pasta (family size) and it was well worth the price and trip. Next stop was Little Tokyo, although we took an odd turn and ended up in the bad part of China Town before we got to the right place. The Japanese Arcade that Dan and Vince talked about was… okay. We eventually made our way to the Kinokuniya bookstore and Marukai market. We checked out a little art exhibit/show called Tokusatsu and bought a few shirts. There wasn’t enough time to check out other places so we ended up grabbing some White Castle burgers from Stater Bros and playing some SNES games.

Sunday 9/23

Woke up early and had a big breakfast at Original House of Pancakes before going to Downtown Disney. We only stayed for less than 3 hours for the free parking. I bought a Tokidoki shirt from D Street since we were not able to go to Tokidoki at Melrose and we enjoyed an Apple Pie Apple from Marceline’s Confectionary. Well, I did but Vince's stomach didn't. We drove home to check up on our girls. It looks like they survived not having any human contact for a full 2 days. We weren’t able to get anyone to watch them at the last minute. It was a short weekend but it was a good birthday weekend :)

More pics and/or video to be uploaded soon!