Feasting On Korean Food, Iron Man Trilogy and Sam's Club Frozen Yogurt

Last weekend we got invited by our friends Stephanie and Matt and they have two cute boys. Stephanie is Korean and she cooked a storm for us! I'm sad to say that I'm not too familiar with Korean food other than kimchi and kimbap. And she didn't even give us kimchi! Lots of sesame flavor too, yum! Below are the some of names of the dishes that she made. Bruce even liked the tofu salad! It was a wonderful way to get to know Korean food from a Korean. It was a wonderful afternoon and for dinner was, guess what?
And then it was back to watching the Iron Man, yeah all three! But not in the same day as I started from Friday night. Sometimes a woman just needs a bit of sci fi in her life:). We ended our weekend with a celebration to Sam's Club. Grandpa Crews' promised Tessa that is crawls he would buy her a frozen yogurt. So my Tessa crawled last week and it was frozen vanilla yogurt for Tessa! They are such a wonderful couple and we are so blessed. It also has been a tiring week as Tessa was getting over a cold. And going up to Big Bear didn't help her either. But she was a trooper and she started crawling there!

Anyway, here's to a blessed rest of the week!

Clockwise: half pictured of pigs in a blanket (for the kids),
chapchae: ( sweet potato noodles sauteed with omelette strips, red bell pepper, onions, carrots and greens.
Pan fried tofu slices that has lots of garlic in it and made into salad.
Bulgogi: beef rolls with rice cake
Mandoo: pork dumplings
Joomukbap: rice triangles flavored with sesame oil and salt. The filling was plain tuna. I loved how simple this rice triangles were!.

My plate but Bruce forgot the tofu salad, what?

My Sister's Baby Shower Party

Hello from Vacaville!

Yes, I'm very behind and the much neglected updates on my ole blog. It's better late than never. I kind of dislike that saying as I know how I feel when I wait for updates from friends.

Anyhow, I wanted to start off by saying how much I've enjoyed this different kind of baby shower party that my sister held for her guests. Come and eat, no opening presents and your male friend or husband are welcome. I was feeling the emotions that waved through me as I dreaded the travel. It soon lifted as I helped my sister and mom chopped, sliced and tasted the food and desserts ( lagu beef stew, bruschetta, apple crumble and mini s'mores cupcake and many more) that was for the party. The colors and lights soon felt like was somewhere magical.

Before the party, my childhood best friend from junior high when my family was living in Fresno came by. Her and her husband drove three and a half hours to see me and my family. Thanks for the gift for Tessa Judy! It was the right timing for me despite the busyness of the party. Being able to capture these precious moments was amazing.


You gotta have papaya salad at some point.


Bruce and Jon enjoying Laotian food. Saap! (Delicious)



Lemon rinds and fresh whole nutmeg for the apple crumble.




Ahhhh...therapeutic.




Mini s'mores cupcake. Yum!




Judy with Tessa and I.




Judy with Norm her husband and us.








Where's the party?








The spread!








Baby Layla is on the way!
















Jon (middle) welcoming friends.




Let's put the cake pops here.




My cousins Pith and Kit. Thanks for helping girls:)




Bruce with one if my cousin, Pith.




Wow!




Let's pose!








Jon's friends are so easy going.




Arisa's girlfriends!




With Jon's parents, Phyllis and Tom.




Zee MacLeans!








The soon to be parents.

Hello From Thailand!

Sawatdee, sabaidee, hello from Thailand! We've been back almost a week now and still getting our house in order. From dusting and getting the moldy smell out, having all three air conditioning unit cleaned as the one in our bedroom didn't even work, oiling the squeaky doors to buying a new number for your phone as the phone company terminated your number. To re stocking your your pantry for the third time and still manage to forget to buy garlic. Garlic! I know as for someone like me who lives garlic. Anyhow, it will be my fourth time this week to go grocery shopping. Good thing I like doing it. But I'm so tired......enjoy the few photos I have for now.
Back to the colorful city traffic. Not to shabby.

My lunch of beef boat noodles with fresh Thai basil and bean sprouts, oh also with pork rinds, at the food court at the mall. I went to buy some groceries there. 

Started cooking sticky rice to eat with our meal that our friends have brought us. How I missed my stove! But not the green gas tank beside it.

Tessa getting used to her surroundings and smiling even with jet leg, stomach bug and teething.

And visiting with our neighbors. There will be more of that as everyone is asking to see Miss Tessa. 

It's only 8.30pm and I'm so very sleepy but trying to stay up till 9. Let's see.

Safe In Vacaville

Tessa after getting off the plane in San Francisco.

Thank God we arrived safely in Vacaville last night. Also that Tessa slept through the second leg of the 11 hour flight. Although she kept kicking me and turned side to side trying to get comfortable it was way better than having her cried and scream. When she starts to whine especially when she's sleepy, I would tell her to go to sleep. I think she comprehends that more now and just flop her head down.

My friend just texted me saying that San Francisco international airport is a dump comparing to the two airport that I've just been to. I have to agree. You're not missing anything there! Not looking forward to waiting for our flight out because airports are like a second home when you're waiting long hours, you know.

Today, I'll try to stay awake as much as I can. Tessa just laid down again and it's only 8:19AM. I would keep us busy visiting Family and going to Target, yes May L., I will shop for you too:). And there's coffee to help me get through, I hope.

This is more of my jet legg and not Summer meals! I thought this saying was cute (picture below). I'll post pics of our time in my Instagram feed but for sure will be posting and writing here too as I don't like repeating the same pics on the blog. So do come back here for more. Have a great day everyone!

Hello from Taipei!

Hi there! So yeah we are traveling again to the USA for three weeks. It wasn't planned but we had news of Bruce's niece wedding happening and we are off.

It's a quick trip and I'm so excited to see and spend time with both sides of the family. Also meeting my new niece, Layla, my sisters daughter.

Hopefully we can get to go on a short road trip somehere, even if it's somehere familiar but not the touristy sights.

Tessa was slight fussy as she couldn't get comfortable to take a nap. But with Peppa Pug cartoon it helped a lot:).
Ok, the second leg of the flight is Taipei to San Francisco. This is my first time flying into San Francisco. I think the flight is shorter but nevertheless I'm excited! Prayers are appreciated, thanks.

Suvanahpoom Airport, Bangkok
New photo booths for tourists:)

Taipei, Taiwan
In front of a baby changing room, well Hello Kitty!

Lately, our trip to the USA

As we get ready for our trip to the USA I've neglected my sweet blog. I don't know where to begin as I feel a lot has happen.

One the main thing is I've been involve in is prayer. Mainly with a group of women in and outside of church. It is the one thing that is essential  in my walk with Christ is a deeper prayer life. The exciting part is praying in Thai. Maybe not the beginning as I was struggling with my Thai words. My friend told me if you want to learn proper Thai start with praying! I tell you it's another language for sure!

We have been enjoying Tessa 'chatting' with us. I've noticed her babbling when we were on our trip to Krabi beach. I think she likes her voice to much. This picture here is way pass her bed time about 10:25pm but happily 'chatting' away!

In the kitchen I have just been cleaning out the fridge and cook whatever I have. I would buy what we really need like milk and yogurt and fresh produce. So papaya, cucumber and other veggies are made to spicy salad. That works for me.


Also my yogurt would have lots of different seeds and fruit in almost every morning and evening.

In this case here I mixed the yogurt with cucumber and tomato and sprinkled cumin powder on. I had it with sautéed crimini mushrooms. Yummy 'clean your fridge' breakfast.

This morning I went to one of the salon that my neighbor suggested. It's like 30 minutes from where we live. I think it's worth it and he uses real scissors too. I told him I would definetly come back.


In a way I'm looking forward to our trip as it gets closer. It just seems so quick to be going to visit again as we were just there. Ah, that was about 9 months ago. It's going to be wonderful to see Bruce's first niece getting married. I'm sure we'll plan for a road trip somewhere along the way. Stay tuned!

My Mom's Asian Zucchini Soup

A few days ago when I logged in my sisters computer it was a nightmare trying to blog.  I forgot that Yahoo was getting to this secure thing. Let's not talk about Apple. Yeah, it's Apple. They are doing their job. Note to self: don't log to anyone else's computer.  Anyway, here I am! It wasn't about the nightmare I had with Apple but I'm having a wonderful time here with family to fully blog. I do more Instragram-ing, yeah. And the occasion of Facebook.

Let's get to the title of the post of my mom's Asian zucchini soup, shall we?

A typical Laotian family would have a garden anywhere they live. They would make it work in their super small apartment balcony. And the first plant will be chilis. Whenever I come and visit my side of the family in central California, you know we'll be eating Lao food everyday if we didn't have our white husbands. And we're so blessed to have our husbands to let us eat our stinky food and they can go to Long John Silvers ( a restaurant that serves 'fresh' seafood). They are so happy that it's still around.

I have totally forgot about this humbly delicious dish until my mom made it. Just an Asian zucchini (mak buap) soup with other herbs, beef and seasoned with padaek ( fermented whole fish with its juice). You can put in other kinds of meat like chicken. My mom made it spicy which was a surprised because I thought it round be more mild. Perfect when eaten with sticky rice but I didn't have any as I was still a bit full from lunch. It was still perfect eaten as it is.

Mak buap the Asian zucchini isn't as firm as the regular zucchini and has more water content. When making soup you don't need a lot of water. And I was told that stir frying is tasty too.

Big bunch of lemongrass leaves simmering in the water. Then add sliced shallots, pounded chili to taste and padaek., boiled a bit.

Add the sliced zucchini, beef and lemon basil in as the water boils. Smells divine! And makes you cough as the chili tickles your throat. Don't cook it up long or the beef gets tough and the zucchini gets soggy.

Eat, slurp laugh talk and repeat!