Christmas in Vegas

Spending Christmas Day in Las Vegas might have been a little overwhelming with the madness of drunkards and obnoxious tourists especially since I always thought that Christmas would be quiet since the hotel prices were ridiculously cheap. But spending time with the family on Christmas Day in Las Vegas was the best way to deal with Vegas :)

• city center's Halo exhibit •

• art inside city center •

• pretend paris •

Christmas Eve in Disneyland

Holidays at a theme park can be a bad combination...lots of families, little rugrats that you can trip on, crazy tourists and long lines. But surprisingly, Disneyland wasn't that busy on Christmas Eve. It was quite crowded but the line rides were short (average: 20-30 minutes per ride). We even had a park hopper pass so we were able to ride all the major rides at Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure (which serves beer which is the biggest bonus). Seeing the park decorated for the holiday was excellent and the perfect way to spend Christmas Eve!

• entering the "happiest place" •

• day •

• night•

• poinsettias brings in the holiday spirit •

• it's a small world magically light up •

Stumbling upon a new venture...

Since September, I have been a happy, unemployed camper (i.e. housewife). It's given me the chance to travel to Europe and South Africa, discover new hobbies (welding, motorcycle riding), build up my tasty cooking skills and challenge myself with my photography skills - which is by far, my favorite when it comes to hobbies (photos)...but that can only last so long.

When the weather started to get a tad colder and rainer here (although it didn't last long), I figured that it was time to do something, I just wasn't sure what. I emailed my fitness trainer and asked if he had anything for available for me to help on. That's all it took for me to have my first client as a freelance producer. For the next couple of months, I'll be producing, shooting and editing over two hundred videos for a mobile phone application. It's nice to keep busy and have something new and creative to do. It was also the best excuse to get the new MacBook Pro, the full Adobe creative suites package and perhaps, eventually a new HD camera to work with.

One of the drawbacks that I am discovering is how to work from home. I spend about two days a week working at the studio and three days a week editing from home. It's been quite an adjustment to try and figure out how to work in my "office" without my pajamas on. What it took was a friend stopping by to fix our keg-a-rator only to have him find me in my pajamas and mismatching socks (I don't have the heart to throw away my perfectly good, wacky socks so the solo ones, I put together and wear around the house :)

It is quite nice to work for myself, especially since it gives me the flexibility to travel and work from anywhere in the world so not having a boss to ask for time off is an incredible experience. I've also had to create my own office although it's sad that I've taken over our dining table since I use two laptops to work. Perhaps that just means that we might need a bigger place at some point?! :-)

Overall Christmas Celebration

Originally, we were going to host our first Christmas in Santa Clara. My parents and sister would come up, we would open presents, make lots of home cooked meals and just celebrate with each other. But of course, things can always change quickly so instead of having our first hosted Christmas, we are now heading out to the Netherlands the day after Christmas to visit Marijn's family, mainly because his grandma has fallen quite ill.

Since our original plans have changed, we've decided to make the most of it. Christmas Eve: Disneyland! Christmas Day: family gets up early to drive us to Las Vegas (only way to fly out to AMS based on miles). Spend Christmas Day in Vegas and then get on a flight for the Netherlands on the 26th. We'll be in the cold, snowy and hopefully not rainy, Netherlands for two weeks, spending quality time with his grandma and family. Hopefully we'll be able to sneak away for a ski trip in Belgium. It also gives us the chance to celebrate New Years in Amsterdam (which I am not sure my liver or lungs will never forgive me for) It will be nice to head out there for the last of the Winter celebrations, it's just unfortunate it has to be under these circumstances.

Lensplaying

I recently bought myself a Canon 50mm prime lens and have been having so much fun with the new toy. I thought that it would be limiting to work with a fixed lens but it's been a learning experience to work with the limitations and learn to be creative in order to get the desired shot. It's a fast lens, perfect for the price (less than a hundred for a Canon lens!) and works really nicely with low light. It doesn't have the best bokeh (like my other favorite 70-200mm lens but that's heavy to always carry around) but it works for me and my playing. Of course, it's only just playing but it's been a lot of fun building up the mad camera skills. There are a few more camera lenses that I'm looking into getting but for now, I'll just keep playing with this lens!

• happy bokeh •

• sitting by the fire? •

• holiday lights •

• two in one holidays •

new itty bitty second cousin!

My mother has a very small family: one older sister who lives in California nearby and a younger brother who lives Vietnam. My mom's sister has no children and her brother has three boys and one girl. We don't get to see our cousins often but every time we are in Vietnam, it feels like there is no distance between us. The middle boy was married earlier this year and just had a baby (the first, second cousin of our family) so it was a great surprise to find that they had named their first baby girl, KimMai! What a wonderful surprise it was to hear that she was named after myself and little sister! We are looking forward to meeting her in June next year!

• introducing the new lil' cousin •

• nguyen thi kimmai - i can't wait to pinch her cheeks! •

Finding the Holiday Spirit

Last year, I couldn't muster up any holiday spirit but I am happy to have the holiday spirit this year! We're throwing a Sinter Klaas holiday party for our friends this weekend and will give them a little taste of a Dutch holiday. For Christmas, instead of dealing with the traffic of heading down to L.A., my parents and sister are actually coming up here so we are also going to host our first Christmas. It's quite exciting to be throwing these holiday celebrations because I think that it gives me the holiday spirit. Now I just have to figure out what to cook!

• our christmas/fourth of july holiday sparkles •

• finding the holiday spirit •

• christmas lights swirls •

• swirling joy •

• model husband •

• holiday lighted angel •

Biker Chick?!!!

That's right, I will soon be a biker chick. Marijn and I are taking our first motorcycle lessons so instead of always riding bitch with my family, we can finally ride alongside them. I'm a little nervous but also excited about being able to finally ride a motorcycle and don't worry, we won't go for the crotch rocket when we start motorcycle shopping. I am partial to getting a Vespa but Marijn is a tad hesitant about riding around on a "girlie" bike.

• this mug will finally be a true biker chick mug •

• my dad's triumph although it might be too large for me •

The Joys of Halloween

Pumpkin carving, haunted houses, spooky amusement park rides, horror movies and creative costumes makes Halloween one of my favorites.

• my albino vampire pumpkin •

• great america's halloween haunt •

One of the best things to witness each year is watching Marijn's outfits get more complicated and unique each year especially since the first time he celebrated Halloween was in 2006. I think that he just has a lot of catching up to do!

• 2006 - Army Man •

• 2007 - Park Ranger •

• 2008 - Pinhead and he successfully scared people •

• 2009: zombie clown with high creepy factor •

• He wandered the streets of Pacific solo, following people and freaking them out.
He even made a little girl cry which was quite priceless •

• zombies in love •

Scuba Diving Birthday

I started off the first day of my thirties with an incredible boat dive off Anacapa Island (which is part of the Channel Islands off Ventura). This was my first boat dive with the Spectre Boat and they were so great. The team was friendly, their lunch was delicious (BBQ chicken for most, veggie burger for me) and their fresh water hot tub was perfect after three tank dives.

Of course, I always learn a lesson with each dive trip and this time, I lost my mask by not having a secure grip on it and watched it fall in off the side of the boat, oops. The boat did have an extra mask for me to use but it was such an old mask that it didn't allow for easy decompression. I actually had to dive with only one glove so I can stick my hand up the mask to decompress which was a tad annoying but it was my fault for losing my mask.

Since October is my favorite month, it's only fitting that October is the best time to dive in Southern California. The water was a nice 68 degrees with visibility from 50-80 feet. The sea life was out in full force with lots of lobsters, sting rays, starfish, a baby octopus, sea lions and even a giant sea cucumber pooping. It was the perfect way to bring in my thirties.

• wearing my underwater birthday hat •

• channeling my under water michael jackson •

• first enc0unter with a baby starfish, too cute •

• bang bang •

my october...

My favorite month is here! It just holds so much goodness that October has always been my favorite time of year!

• season change: as much as California does not have a true change in seasons, I can still feel the small changes from the different breezes to the subtle color changes in the leaves. So ha, there are some seasonal changes in California!

• my birthday: this year, it's the big thirty! I love celebrating birthdays and don't mind the whole getting old factor (ask me again though in about ten years). I am even now embracing my gray hairs. I want to be one of those old, rocking woman who has a full head of gray hair.

• random woman i saw rocking out in little toyko...i envision to have her wild hair, kinda •

• oktoberfest: a wonderful excuse to drink lots of delicious beers (it even starts this year on my birthday)
• halloween: need I say more?! Although I'm not sure what to be this year since I haven't had a lot of time to think about it or put an outfit together. Perhaps this year I will be a zombie but what kind?! Halloween also has more significance now since it's when "Army Man" met "Audrey Hepburn."

• army man and audrey hepburn •

So yea, I heart October.

End of Dutch Adventures, now to Cape Town Adventures

Family, old high school friends, college friends, work friends and long distance family all journeyed out to the Netherlands for our 09.09.09 wedding celebration and it was awesome. It was amazing to have so many loved ones close by to celebrate again with us and to show them more parts of the Netherlands besides just Amsterdam. We celebrated with a (mostly) true Dutch celebration which included a wonderful three course meal from a Michelin rated restaurant (that is conveniently located across the street from his parents house), a canal trip through the city of Utretch which included a traditional Dutch Pancake lunch next to the canal, a journey into Nijmegan - the oldest city in the Netherlands and of course, endless partying in Amsterdam. My liver and kidneys will probably never forgive me for the damage that I did to them on this trip (example: our wedding celebration evening for eighty guests final alcohol invoice was for: 60 glasses of Prosecco, 275 beers, 20 bottles of wine and 92 shots of a variety of hard booze). We definitely partied a little too much during these past two weeks but when is the next time we are going to have this group of awesome people with us to party in the Netherlands?

• my boys since high school •

• my mom's family from belgium •

• college friends and our awesome neighbors •

• dinner in amsterdam at d' herengracht •

• on top of st. stevens church in nijmegan •

And now it's time for some piece and quiet. Marijn will be working out of Cape Town for the next three weeks so during that time, I will be a glorified, traveling housewife and to be honest, I don't know if I really mind ;) It will be good to venture off to a new country and see if this is a country that we could live in. Right now, the move between London or Cape Town is quite unclear and hopefully during this trip, there will be more definition of where we are going to relocate too. I am a planner and "look ahead-er" so not knowing where we are going to be living in the next couple of months makes me a little nervous but it's just another challenge that I am looking forward to. Since I'm back to being an unemployed traveler, I've re-opened my other blog: traveling kime to write/muse while in South Africa. I'm hoping to write more while I'm there since I will have a lot of time on my hands so I'm sure I will balance between these two blogs although I really wish that I could link them...that would just be much easier to streamline everything. I did find it funny that my closing Euro-Asia blog post from August 2007 mentioned that my next trip would be Africa. Guess it was written back then that this would be my next adventure, heehee yay!

Love Grows, Part Twee.

The in-laws have an incredible green thumb and combined with the rainy/cool weather of the Netherlands, I was pleasantly surprised to see what our plantable wedding invites have grown into (prior blog post here). In Northern California, our invites have grown to be only plants, large green stems with leaves so I have been unsure of what they were to become. But the in-laws have been able to make them grow into something quite spectacular: actual flowers! Bright, lovely orange flowers with a faint sweet smell...sigh. It gives me the warm and fuzzies to know that our invites have been successfully grown into flowers!

• they are quite tall •

• a bee enjoying the flower •

Being back in the Netherlands is always fun but it's more of visiting family than traveling so this trip has included more traveling and experiences. Some of our friends have come out to celebrate our second wedding celebration with us so we've been able to take them out and show them parts of the Netherlands. As the rest of the family and friends start arriving this week, we're going to be in full travel mode and really showing them the nooks and crannies of the Netherlands and it's very exciting since no one has been here before. My understanding of the Dutch language is also getting better. I can only speak a few words/phrases and my pronunciation is quite poor but it's become a fun challenge listening to Dutch and finally being able to start picking out words (which helps me follow conversations better, I just can't figure out the exact context yet). It's fun being able to start picking up a new language and am curious if I will ever be able to fully speak Dutch. That would be quite spiffy.

• i heart the netherlands •

Next Steps

I can't believe that September is already here, what happened to the year?! This year has held a lot of new beginnings and life changes so it's crazy to see that the year is almost over.

We're heading off to the Netherlands to celebrate our wedding with Marijn's family. It's incredibly exciting since my family and some of our awesome friends are flying out to celebrate with us. Most of them have never been to the Netherlands so we get to really show them around besides the standard Amsterdam that everyone normally visits. Of course, to make this journey even crazier is that right after our Netherlands travels, we're hoping on a plane and heading straight to Cape Town, South Africa. Now this is going to be absolutely incredible and I am overwhelmed with giddiness about it.

Although Marijn will be working during our three weeks there, it's going to be the best time to travel and experience a new country but will also allow me to really digest the next personal steps for me in life/career especially since it will be the best time for me to redefine what my goals will be. Being unemployed, it will be nice to take a step back and reexamine what I'm looking for and what better place than the backdrop of Cape Town?

Eek, two weeks!

It has been pretty well known that I have felt a little "depressed" about my career situation. I work for such a small company and although I have enjoyed working with the people, the challenges that I love are no longer present. They were there when I first started but then this silly economy went downhill, we lost a lot of clients and my hours were cut back significantly. They were so flexible with my constant vacations for the wedding and traveling, it was the best to stick with it for some form of income. But it's funny how quickly things change and so, I put my two week notice in yesterday (which is exactly two weeks prior from when I was leaving on a three week vacation to the Netherlands). Originally I was going to be coming back to the grind and working (barely) but the husband's job decided to throw in a little surprise (OK, it's not really a surprise since we've known that there would be a possibility of relocation, I just didn't realize that it would be sooner rather than later). So after our Dutch wedding celebration with our family and friends, we are heading down to Cape Town, South Africa for a few more weeks. I know that while someone has to work, I am very sure that I am going to soak up everything that Cape Town has to offer and relax in the funemployment world of traveling and adventuring. Besides, I have to soak in everything that Cape Town has to offer in case that becomes our temporary new home! ;)

• after placing my notice in, the amazing husband sent flowers to my office to start counting down until my thirtieth birthday so it was perfect timing: two months until i'm thirty and a congratulations for leaving your job that you were unchallenged by.
it was the perfect surprise gift •

Wedding Photos - highlights

I have finally sorted through all the seven hundred plus photos and love every single one. If people's attention span could actually filter through all the images, I would have posted them for our family and friends but instead, I found all the favorites the represented our wedding day and uploaded them.

Calamigos Ranch in Malibu was the perfect place for our wedding but what made it more memorable were all the unique locations that we had as our playground for our photos: ferris wheel, red barn (interior and exterior), old bridge, old log cabin, big green field, the giant oak tree from the ceremony and of course, the yellow school bus that was the best rental we could have done. I love all the photos and looking back, it would have been pretty cool to have some cotton candy as a prop to use instead of the bouquet :)

Of all the wedding costs that we had to deal with, the most important for us was the photographer budget and am so happy that this was one area that we didn't hold back on. We loved working with Joy of Wildflowers Photos and her husband, Donny, they made us so comfortable in front of the camera although most of the time, we didn't even realize that they were there. The final photos are truly magical and memorable for us and having these to look back on definitely gives me the warm and fuzzies!

Wedding Ceremony Reflection

*i thought that i was done with any reflection on the whole wedding process but we just received all of our photos (700+) and going through them, i'm getting waves of emotions/thoughts/feelings that i forgot all about. since i didn't do too much writing during the whole process, i guess it's time for me to release a few more wedding reflections blog. hope you don't mind? :)

Back in the days of the wedding planning, Marijn and I discussed having my childhood pastor marry us off. It was a very brief idea that was quickly shut down when we realized that neither of us are religious but the most important part was that my childhood pastor was just that: a person from my past who knew nothing of Marijn and I. We wanted to have someone marry us that knew both of us as a couple as well as an individual. We thought of our friends and realized that the best person would be our friend, Matt (the State of California allows for someone to get officiated for a day). We asked him early on and after thinking long and hard about it, he agreed! It was so wonderful knowing that we all worked together on putting together a ceremony that was meaningful and special not only for us but for our family and friends that sat through the ceremony.

Besides our individual vows to each other, we also included vows for us as a married couple and said "we do" instead of the standard "I do." The vows that we wrote were touching, heartwarming and even silly since some of them caused laughter from our families.

•will you make sure to never waste an opportunity to say I love you, never forget to ask "what can I do to help?"

• because conversation is always better with sand between your toes, will you take time to walk on the beach together?

• getting out of the house will always be frantic in the morning. It will only get more crazy. Don't leave without a hug and a kiss. The world will wait those five seconds. The same is true when going to bed. Always kiss goodnight. Even when you're so exhausted you can barely lift your head. Will you promise to hug and kiss?

• the days are long but the years are short. Will you promise to appreciate what you have today because it all goes by so fast?

• a bottle of wine at sunset is a true pleasure in life, don't sour it by talking about work. Will you promise to talk about something important and enjoy these moments?

• will you go on date nights together and remember why you fell head-over-heels in love with each other in the first place?

• will you remember that the money you make apart is not nearly as important as the time you spend together?

• will you promise to care for and support each other in the joys and sorrow of life and to share the responsibility for growth and enrichment in your life together?

We also included my grandfather into the ceremony as he was the only person to do a reading. It was so touching to have my grandfather, who has been happily married for over 61 years read for us this quote from "Union" by Robert Fulgham:

"...You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes, to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making commitments in an informal way. All of those conversations that were held in a car, or over a meal, or during long walks – all those conversations that began with, “When we’re married”, and continued with “I will” and “you will” and “we will” – all those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” – and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.

The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things that we’ve promised, and hoped, and dreamed – well, I meant it all, every word.”

Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another – acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, even teacher, for you have learned much from one another these past few years. Shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same.

For after today you shall say to the world – This is my husband. This is my wife."