Graduations all around!

Whew what a weekend.  I haven't gone to a graduation in a few years now and I had two to go to in one weekend.  They weren't as unbearable as I thought they would be.  Usually graduations have terrible speakers that I find to be really boring.  At Christopher's graduation they had a number of musical performances which sped up the process and then it was really hot at Nick's so all the speakers kept it short and concise.  Thank goodness.  At Nick's they asked that the audience stay for all of the graduates, but as soon as we heard Nick's name we cheered and then were out of there.  We had been there since 12:45 to take family pictures and the commencement didn't even start until 3pm (he had to line up at 1:30).  I think that if we would have stayed until the end of the ceremony that his little cousins would have passed out.  I'm pretty sure that one of the little girls was starting to get heat stroke because her face was really pink and she was very quiet and sitting very still, which is abnormal for her.  It's also good that we left early because I was really burnt and probably would have been crispy like bacon if we would have stayed.  I usually don't burn, but I sure did this time!  I used some of Mr. Fong's sun screen but only put it on my shoulders so my chest and arms are really red.  There's also a funny finger-like tan line where I haphazardly applied the lotion.  At least I know that his screen screen works.  I went out and bought 100+ SPF at Target the other day.  I've read once that your body can only really absorb SPF 40 or something like that, but I'm not taking any chances on the cruise.  I already have dress-shaped tans on my chest.  Aiya!

Christopher's Graduation

The top picture took me forever to get Christopher's attention.  When they lined up to go on the stage they all had their backs facing me so whenever one of his friends sort of turned around I was flailing my arms wildly.  Morgan finally saw me (I probably looked like I was have an upright seizure) and I was able to get a good picture of Christopher before he went up to the stage.   The boy in the bottom picture is Christopher's fellow Eagle Scout, Pierce.  We're going to be going on the cruise with their family.  I remember when this kid was shorter than me!  When we go through all the old scout pictures for Christopher's Eagle Scout Court of Honor it makes me feel old that they're both so big and I get all sentimental like they're my kids or something.  I've always told Pierce that since he doesn't have a big sister that Christopher will share his, which gives me license to give him a hard time.  I thought that it was nice that at his Eagle Court of Honor that he said that my parents were like a second mom and dad to him. 

Graduation BBQ

I finally got to meet baby Briana!  She's so cute and little.  I like how quiet she is.  I want a quiet baby.  Hahah, but doesn't everyone?  Christopher's bbq was a success.  Yes, that's a mini mortar board on Nick's head from Christopher's cake.  That's my boyfriend!  Mr. and Mrs. Fong came for the celebration and got along splendidly with my aunts and uncles. It was abnormal to hear so much Cantonese being spoken at one of our get togethers.  Usually my family only speaks Chinese to my grandma.  Nick and I could hear my Uncle Tommy going in and out of English and Chinese while he was telling all of his traveling stories.  It was pretty amusing to hear. 

 

Emmy's wall

While my parents were out at Nick's graduation dinner they put Emmy into my bathroom.  She's usually okay in there, but this time she completely freaked out.  I think it was a combination of us leaving her two days in a row, once for Christopher's graduation the night before, and having the light off.  Whenever we leave her in the bathroom it gets super hot so I tried putting our oscillating fan in the bathroom for her.  That didn't help much.  My dad realized that it was the lights that was making the room so hot.  Edward and I had always thought that doggies could see in the dark so they turned off the lights and plugged in a night light for her, but I guess that just made her snap.  She tore off the door frame and part of the dry wall while she was literally trying to claw her way out of the bathroom.  At least she had no stress poops (little raisin sized poops that happen when she gets scared) since she was busy working at the wall.  So this week I've been plastering the wall back and will get a new door frame once we get back from vacation.  The bathroom is in dire need of a painting anyway, so I'll probably do that as well and then it shouldn't be noticeable that she got to the wall.  Next time we'll just have to leave the lights on even though it gets hot.  Her crate is disassembled now because she tore that apart too and I didn't want to put her back in it when she could cut herself on the plastic.  I think she hated the crate because it's what she goes in when she flies.  She is much better in the bathroom, well except this time.  I guess whenever she comes back we'll have to leave the light on for her.  I'm pretty certain that it was having the lights off that scared her.  She didn't even finish her peanut butter bone because she was so freaked out. She always finishes her peanut butter bone.  Poor little Woof.

Father's Day dinner

Since we'll be on the cruise for Father's day I decided that I'm going to make my dad a grilled dinner tonight.  We're going to have grilled shrimp and scallops.  He also requested ceviche so I have that marinating too.  I had to squeeze so many limes for the ceviche that I broke the lime juicer.  I must be stronger that I thought I was.  I think I was only on the second out of 19 limes that I juiced when it broke.   I have a little mark on my hand from where the plastic snapped and caught my skin in between the pieces.   I ended up having to squeeze all the limes by hand with a fork.  I don't want to see limes for a while unless they're in my beer.  I have since switched the ceviche into a glass bowl because we were worried that the acid would do something to the stainless steel and make it leech into our food or something.  Hopefully it turns out well.  My dad had said that he didn't want to get sick before the cruise.  Well maybe he should have thought of that before he requested it and I bought all the seafood.  If it's questionable then we'll just eat the grilled stuff.  It would just be a waste and shame if we didn't end up eating it.  There's a pound and a half of bay scallops and a pound of shrimp in that.  He better at least try it!

Fluer De Lys

Fluer De Lys was spectacular.  We got to meet Hubert Keller!  Like, shake his hand an grin dumbly at him.  We were so star-struck/dumbfounded that we could barely utter a thank you to him.  You may all recognize him from Top Chef Masters on Bravo, but I know him from his PBS show Secrets of a Chef.  I used to watch him before we got Dish Network in NY.  If I had my wits about me, I would have said something along the lines of "I'm a big fan of your PBS show," but all I could say was "Thank you so much," and "Yes, it is very nice weather outside" when the lady was pulling my coat from the check.  Okay, let me start from the beginning.  When we first got there we were about an hour early because traffic moved really well (we were late for our House of Prime Rib reservation last time so we started really early).  When we got in there they had our table ready, but we decided to sit at the bar for a little bit and have a glass of champagne.  Even the drink menus were fancy.  Nick thought that they might have been covered with ostrich skin or something.  Anyway, we tried a champagne from the Russian River area.  It was a nice bubbly pink color.  After that, they seated us and like the bozo that I am, I went to the wrong chair.  The hostess took us to the table, walked around, and pulled out the chair.  Where did I go?  To the closest chair and pulled it out myself.  She had to run around the table to pull my chair out for me.  This is where Napoleon Dynamite would say "Idiot".  I think I should have brushed up on my etiquette before going, but I didn't realize it was that fancy.  They even laid your napkins on your lap for you and gave you new silverware for every course.  Let me just say, I frequent Kevin's Noodle House for pho almost every weekend where giant bowls of soup are $7 and I blow my nose at the table because it's so spicy.  I'm not exactly what you'd call classy, but I tried my best at FDL.  I even used my inside voice, which doesn't happen often.  Once we were settled, Nick got up to go to the bathroom, where the waiters actually walk you all the way there so you know where you're going.  While he was gone, I heard the matradee say that "Mr. Keller" would be coming into the restaurant in 10 minutes.  I nearly pooped myself with glee.  We were sitting near a doorway so I shifted Nick's chair closer to me so that he could get a glimpse of him when he came in.  While we were waiting to see him they brought out these cute mini martini glasses of cold asparagus soup and a crab meat mixture on a Chinese soup spoon.  It was very yummy.  Then, to our great happiness, Hubert Keller quickly ducked into our little dining area and headed back to the kitchen in his whites.  Nick said that my mouth was hanging open for the two seconds that he was in the room.  Oh, we were ecstatic.  That made our night, or so we thought.

For dinner we ordered the four course meal which consisted of an appetizer, seafood, meat, and dessert or cheese platter.   Nick had the appetizer sampler that had chicken sausage, watermelon with cucumber gelee topped with caviar, and mini fois gras burger. For his seafood he had the sunflower crusted sea bass over pickled radicchio, and "french toast" topped with mushrooms.  His meat dish was the braised wagyu beef cheeks coated in mustard pretzels with an Anchor Steam reduction spatzel, and side of creamed sauerkraut.  For dessert he got the espresso platter that came with an array of different chocolate delights.   My dinner consisted of a Maryland softshell crab with a scallop and sea urchin sauce and little pieces of soft bread. (My memory isn't as great as Nick's and the crab isn't on the menu that they have on the website.  The rest I've copied from the website.) For my seafood selection I had the Maine scallops with toasted pine nuts, sliced potato marbles, sun-dried tomatoes, olive sauce and Banyuls reduction.  For the meat course I had the "duo of Colorado lamb and lamb shank 'tagine'" with eggplant confit, golden raisins, pine nuts, pearl couscous, and Tunisian spices and harissa.  My dessert choice was the cheese platter.  Oh, how I love cheese.  They were all really good except the blue.  I'm not a big fan of blue cheese, but I did try it.  It's a little too strong for me, but I did manage to gobble the rest of it up.  At the end of the meal they also brought us out an awesome strawberry mousse since it was for Nick's graduation and a complimentary tiny dessert plate.  Since we both enjoy food we were tasting each others dishes and pretty much feeding each other.  I think we may have disgusted the couple across from us with our lovey-doveiness.  I did notice that the lady tried to be more coupley with her hubby (I assume hubby) by touching his arm and leaning into him during dessert more. (They weren't touching at all during their dinner and there was a significant amount of time between courses.)  Heheh maybe we inspired them to be more affectionate.  Who knows. 

At the end of the night I got up to go to the bathroom before we left.  While I was in there, Hubert Keller walked out.  Nick was thinking, oh she's going to be upset she missed him.  When I came back out I was like quick, lets see if we can get glimpse!  Lo and behold, he was standing the lobby saying good bye to his guests.  Oohhh that was soooo awesome.  Nick and I were literally giggling like school girls on our drive home.  Nick pointed out that he had surprisingly soft hands for a head chef.  We suspect that since he has like four different restaurants that he just overseas most of the what happens in the kitchen.  Ah, what a night.  It was just so awesome shaking his hand since I said to Nick more than once, "Do you think he touched our food?...or our plates?".

Next up is a full week.  Tomorrow is Christopher's graduation, Nick's graduation on Saturday, Christopher's grad bbq on Sunday, Shanna comes home Tuesday, and then lots of packing before we go down to LA next Saturday and then the cruise Sunday!  It's going to be hectic, but at least the time will pass quickly.

Last week felt like a whirlwind swept through.  Nick and I had dinner together Monday and Tuesday night and then I had my usual dinner with Melanie on Wednesday.  That's when the craziness began.  Wednesday night Bonnie and I went to see the midnight showing of Sex and the City 2. We are getting old.  By 11 30 we were tired just waiting for the movie.  Just imagine how tired we were at 3am when the movie got out.  Bonnie had to get up for work at 7am!  We brought in little plastic bottles of wine in our purses to have at the theater.  We felt so trashy and the wine tasted disgusting, but it was fun.  I'm not sure if my wine wasn't cold enough or the fact that it was in a screwtop plastic bottle, but the wine was so gross...and this is coming from someone who buys cheap wine all the time.  Bleh.  Anyway, I had Thursday night to recover and lounge around the house before I went off to see Sex and the City 2 again with Nick's girl friends.  (I have to make sure to state the difference when talking about girl friends otherwise it gets confusing.  When I saw "my" girls I mean Melanie, Abby, Bonnie, and Shanna if she is in town.  Nick's girls are Linda, Jenelle, Lindsay, and sometimes a few others.  I was starting to confuse everyone by saying that I was "going out with the girls".  My mom would say okay, which girls?)   There were so many more women in the theater this time.  There were only about 30 or so people at the showing Bonnie and I went to.  You could just tell the theater was packed with estrogen when the previews were showing and there were squeals of delight over the new Twilight movie.  Another big BLEH. 

Saturday our family went to Pierce Ryan's Eagle Court of Honor.  We were running around like crazy trying to help the family get everything together.  It was hot too.  After driving all the way back to the Ryan's house to pick up something they forgot and hauling around six bags of ice, I sat myself in the back of the church sweating like a pig.  The ceremony was nice though and now I know what I'm in for come August when it's Christopher's turn.

On Sunday my mom and I headed out to the city for Patti's bridal shower.  I swear, every time we go to Uncle Baldy's place we go a different way.  We were a little bit lost because they closed the park so we couldn't go through and then my mom likes to read the directions on the GPS where as I like to see the map so she was telling me that I needed to turn when I still had half a mile to go before turning.  I was really hungry and just had to keep my mouth shut so that I didn't snap at her.  Then, once we got closer to Uncle Baldy's and were beyond stressed, this man nonchalantly walked up to the stop sign we were stopped at and started shaking the thing so that it made this huge boom/wobble noise.  We were like, what in the world is he doing, and took off.  Crazy San Franciscans! Anyway, to make the shower fun we were all asked to wear old bridesmaid dresses if we had them.  I figured that Jen Jen would wear the one for Josie's wedding, and she did  (the pink dress), so I decided to wear my maid of honor dress from Juni's wedding.  I had actually talked to Juni the day before and told her that I was going to wear it and she was like, "You are!  I'm so sorry I was one of those brides that made you wear something like that!"  It made for some interesting comments at the shower.  I was just happy that I could fit it after four years.  To Juni's defense, she ordered the dresses from the Philippines and they didn't turn out how she pictured them.  It was a beautiful wedding, but the dresses were something else.  At least I got two wears out of mine!  Josie's pink dress would have been much easier to wear though.



On Monday we went to Napa for lunch at Mustard's Grill with Frank, Jenelle, Linda, and Rob.  I had the most amazing lamb burger and Nick had awesome jalapeno rubbed steak.  It was all so delicious.  I want to try to remake the steak.  Anything close to how delicious the steak was will make me happy.  I definitely want to go back there.  We were too hungry and eager to eat our food to take pictures of it this time.

Tonight Nick and I are having a date night.  We're going to eat and then see The Prince of Persia.  I've been spending a lot of time with my girlfriends lately so it'll be nice to see him.  I'm going to wear a new dress that I got from Forever 21 and possibly my new skin tone heels.  I haven't decided what I'm wearing to the Fluer De Lys tomorrow night.  I guess it depends on the weather in the city.  I'm taking Nick to a nice dinner for his graduation.  I've been on an online shopping frenzy, so I need to stop.  It would be nice if my new dresses were here for me to wear tomorrow night.   I placed one last clothing order last night, but that's it for the month!  What am I going to do when I'm bored at work?  Window shop I guess!