Family Fun & Some Clean Up

Late post - Family's in town.

Early July, my aunt came to LA to take my grandma home to Japan. I am deeply sad to see my grandma go back home, and of course, it's always depressing. But I know I will see her again soon and I hope she stays well. I'm glad I was able to bring her to LA during my trip to Japan in April. She's a strong lady, funny as anything with the best sense of humor an 84 year old can have. She's the best grandma ever. 

(Wine tasting at San Antonio Winery. I was the chauffeur)

(Every time my family comes from Japan, we have to have lobster. It's like a tradition.
This time it was BBQ lobster and it was delicious! My mom and aunt look funny, it
was so dang hot!)

(Fourth of July, watching fireworks at a nearby school)

(This kid never let's me down. He's so funny, sleeping sideways. My little baby P)

(Look at all these red tomatoes!)

(This was a big, but SO satisfying job!! Finally got tired of the dirty hallway, so decided
to mop up and clean the floor and lay out the runners! Boy does it make a difference! I
LOVE the huge mirror from Ikea too!! Makes a world of a difference in this dingy
hallway!)

(Can't wait to get the walls and the ceiling done in the hallway too. Love the runners!
Now I can walk barefoot upstairs!)

(Another HUGE undertaking of mine. Cleaned up the yellow room!! Wow, it was nasty
and dirty, and dusty and messy!! Took all of the Man's tools downstairs and emptied
out this room. I must've mop this floor at least a good 10 times because it was filthy!)

(But now we have a whole other room which will be my study! The vanity should've been
demo'd, but maybe later. The make-shift curtain is temporary as well. We've gotten
blinds from Ikea, just haven't put them up! Can't wait to get my projects started in
this room!)

(This Guy......my love)

Missing my family,
The Lady

Photo Dump

Lately, lots of things have been going on and it's hard to have the time to blog! Nonetheless keep up with daily activities, work, work on the house and still have time to sleep. How do my friends with children do this?!

Being lazy, here's a photo dump of photos from our lives lately. Not a particular topic but lots of topics in one blog entry!

(A particularly well taken picture of my grandma and I. We have similar eyes)

(It's been a month today since we've discovered his "growth" and he is healthy as a horse!! Thank goodness!!
I love this little guy to pieces, my sweet pea)

(Well, the second round of lettuce has sure been doing better than the first round)

(Same with the basil, looking good and healthy! Can't wait for caprese salad all summer)

(Speaking of caprese salad, our tomatoes have finally started turning red and ripening!)

(We've enjoyed our peas in many dishes already. Really sweet)

(Our baby niece Aly, she's so darling. We had a chance to babysit her for a few hours
and boy was she lots of fun!! And so adorable too! Full of energy this one)

(She loved looking at the colorful fish at the pet store, the Man holding onto this cutie.
She's actually quite heavy, I got tired of holding her after 10-15 minutes! What a
workout!)

(Of course we had to take her to see the Punas or Robo hamsters!! It's the Puna's uncles!
They were so cute and she was fascinated with them!)

(We took a little time out from the house work and checked out a music festival in Pasadena. We stopped on the
Suicide Bridge/Colorado Street Bridge for a photo op and to enjoy the view)

(Google's fun. It put together this gif of us taking selfies at Vista Hermosa park in DTLA.
We took a Sustainable Landscape tour this past weekend and checked out this gorgeous
park! It was amazing to find such a gem in the middle of busy DT!

June Gloom Go Away,
The Lady

Mother's Day 2015 - Blueberry Picking at Underwood Farm

Late post for Mother's Day.

We went blueberry picking in Somis for Mother's day taking along my grandma as well. She loved it so much!! Fruit is so expensive in Japan, it was a treat for her to be able to pick and eat blueberries. It was lots of fun and they were really big and sweet too. The strawberries were fun picking too, a little harder since you had to search for them. The blueberries were so abundant, you could just stay at one bush or one row and be done. There were lots and lots of blueberry bushes. The day started off cloudy but eventually the sun came out and it turned out to be a humid day. My heart was not into this wholeheartedly because of Little P. This same day, we took him to the vet after blueberry picking so I was worried the whole morning. Nonetheless, we had a fun time picking and everyone got their share of blueberries (and I felt a bit more humble towards farmers and pickers who pick and harvest fruit, it's tough work!).

(The Man picking blueberries)

(Beautiful bushes of berries)

(Aisles and rows of blueberry bushes)

(My sweet grandma fooling around with her hat as she picks berries)

(The Lady and her grandma)

(Grandma and my mom)

(I love this photo of these two)

(My grandma was full of energy that day, she kept picking and picking!)

(Super sweet strawberries!)

(I love my grandma's happy smile)

(Selfie with grandma!)

(Strawberry picking! Was a bit harder since it was low to the ground)

(Bento lunch time!! Courtesy of my mom and grandma: onigiri, tempura, tamagoyaki)

(We went to the Flower Mart in DTLA together and bought some beautiful orchids)

(Three generations!)

Thankful,
The Lady

The garden state

Well, a week being gone and some if not most of the veggies were just destroyed by pests and insects!! The butter lettuce, gone. Absolutely obliterated. Basil, non-existent. Kale, goodbye. Cilantro is doing okay, but needed some TLC. The peas were half eaten, some are surviving but it's not looking too good! So sad!! The only thriving plants are basically the tomatoes. Lesson learned about this......there is no such thing as organic planting. One cannot grow veggies without using some form of pesticides or pest control :(

(At least my tomatoes are thriving, if nothing else)

In other news, of course I've been enjoying my grandma's company while she is here in the States, as well as her home cooking. She's the best cook ever! I love everything she makes, including her world famous (just kidding) Potato Salad, which the Man loves as well, her Kinpira Gobo (burdock roots and carrots) and Shirae (tofu mixed with spinach and sweet miso). All my favorites!

(Chikuwa brought from Japan!)

The Man also finally finished (well almost) his work table project, which we started in February. It came together quite nicely but it's heavy and sturdy as heck. It took both of us to flip this table over.

My grandma loves organizing and one of her things is cleaning up the unwanted weeds and growing plants. She basically took off all the fern on the shared fence so the tomato plants could get better sunlight.

We also planted more basil since the original ones got all eaten up. I also brought back some Shiso seeds from Japan which we also planted. Hope they come out well this time!

Green thumbing it,
The Lady

The Lady in Japan, the Man in LA

So the positions have swapped, the Lady was in Japan for a week, the Man stayed home. Sorry for the late post, it's hard adjusting and getting back into the norm after being away for a week. Plus there are a ton of images that I have to upload, picking the best ones.

The plane ride was long but I expected it to be long I guess. Flying ANA was nice, the service, food, seating was all very good. It's just so damn long. Flying redeye, I thought I would be able to just sleep the whole way through, but that was not the case. Woke up about 5-6 hours in, just to realize we still had about 6 hours left.

Boy, I was glad to land in Osaka at 8am finally after having a stop over in Haneda, Tokyo, It's nice to be back in familiar grounds. My aunt and uncle came to pick me up in their new car and we drove back to their place. I love the smell of my aunt's house for some reason. That first whiff of smell you get as you enter her place brought back a flood of memories. Something about certain smells that trigger so much in your memory. I love it.

After washing up and getting settled, off to lunch!

(Sandaya, where we had lunch after my arrival)

(My dear old grandpa, he's the sweetest. Started crying when he saw me. This
is the appetizer ham and sliced onion salad)

(My sweet family, everyone looks well, grandpa's a bit teary)

(Oh the love of my life, love this woman so much. I was so happy to see her)

(Feast!)

(Yummy steak on a sizzling plate)

(On the way to lunch, I luckily caught some sakura sightings)

(Beautiful sakura cherry blossoms)

Back in LA.......

The Man had started to rip down the ceiling in the entrance and begin putting in more lights and drywall it....Apparently, the house was a great bloody mess. Thank goodness I wasn't there, because as the Man said, I probably would've had a heart attack.

(That's a lot of plaster rubble)

(Blocking off the way to the living room)

(New recessed lighting is in!)

(More recessed lighting and hot wires for the surface mounted light fixtures we
haven't picked out yet)

Busy busy!

The Lady