Saturday, December 29, 2007

visit from the dwyers

cousins came up to visit from LA. always love kidding around with uncle mike, auntie anna, and the boys - tim, john and paul. uncle mike was soooooooo great and helped fix a machine at the store. whew! saved us so much money! my dad also learned from him and now he's able to help me fix the machines at the shop (they are such a pain). while the cousins were here paul decided to shave his head and had a mohawk for a few minutes to freak everyone out. then he shaved it all off except for a little tuft of bangs. haha. however after family protest, he did shave off everything - including the tuft. got to have some time with the boys when hunny and i took tim, john and paul to go see I am Legend. ok...so i didn't know it was a zombie movie! but it was still good. we were also able to meet up with my uncle raymond and his family for dim sum. amazingly enough the entire family made it out! too bad ryan, michelle and lucas were not there, otherwise the sit family would have been complete. i'm really glad the entire lee family was able to make it out. these days it gets harder and harder to have everyone together in one place.

paul got a haircut

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yum yum dim sum

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godiva chocolates

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Tuesday, December 25, 2007

merry xmas!

merry xmas and happy holidays everyone!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

STIRR holiday soiree at the merchant exchange building

a swanky, classy affair filled with good food, dancing, a live band and a whole bunch of good times due to a wonderful wine sponsor. hehe. jon and kris came out to help out, along with elaine and her new guy, as well as cmu friends and friends of friends. something like 350 in attendance and put together in about 2 weeks. weeeee! go stirr! sanford is DA BOMB.

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funny larry is a character

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pic of the room before all the people got there

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jon and kris!

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food

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fancy bar

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dancing feet!

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Saturday, December 15, 2007

most wonderful birthday

i was feeling a little down about my bday since i was getting one year older. i remember when i was younger, i'd look forward to getting older. now it's completely reversed! however my awesome friends and family made me completely forget about feeling down. diana organized dinner at Alexander's and it was AWESOME! it truly was the one of the best dinners! however i'm not sure if i will get the same dinner if i return. hah. DC knew the owner, I knew him through the connection of his architect, and diana had gotten the same person waiting on us as her previous dinner there. therefore we got free cocktails, special treatment, free champagne and a plethora of little tasters - amuse bouche, palate cleansers, tiny dessert cups. fabulous! me, hunny and will shared the 2lb rib eye and a whole bunch of other sides - squash, truffled macaroni and cheese, spinach and truffle fries. mmmmmm. after all the food and dessert, we also had the sassy apply cotton candy! yummmmm! i LOVe cotton candy! i always get it when i see it being sold. and the apple taste was sooooo much better than the other blue and pink kinds! and THEN afterwards cindy planned an AWESOME gathering at santana row. just close friends, nothing too crazy - just how i wanted it. although unfortunately dinner lasted so long - from 9 until 11:30 and some people left before I was able to get to Sino. sorry!! i had no idea dinner was going to last that long! nor did i have any idea that Sino did last call at 11:30. sux! but it's was ok since we migrated over to vbar where i had more drinks and just had a great time hanging out with good friends. :) couldn't have asked for anything better. it was a perfect nite!

and THEN hunny surprised me and took me to Gary Danko on Monday - the day of my real bday. he was so sneaky, told me that we were going to my fav restaurant - the House. i kinda knew something was up but didn't think too much about it. my hints were - he took baby number 2. (he never drives baby number 2 to the city! it stays in the garage!) he knows i'm awful with directions so he parked and said we had to walk over a hill. i knew the House was not near any water areas so i thought this was strange. He also told me to wear a dress, but i thought this was because he maybe had something planned after dinner. as we were walking and talking, all of a sudden he turns and stops. i walked right into him because i didn't know he was planning on stopping. and what do my eyes see? Gary Danko's sign! this is my first time there. sooooooo yummmmm. and sooooo fancy! i had some tissue i used in the bathroom and i didn't know what to do with it! i almost stuck it back into my purse because everything was so spotless i didn't want to mess up anything. i threw the tissue into what i thought was the garbage can - a wooden box like thing with what looked like a marble bottom. there was even a special hook to hang my purse so it didn't get in the way. dinner started with a potato truffle amuse bouche. The rest of my menu is as follows.

Risotto with Lobster, Rock Shrimp, Fall Root Vegetables and Sage Oil
Roast Maine Lobster with Yellow Chanterelle Mushrooms
Quail Stuffed with Porcini and Foie Gras with Sweet Potato, Brussels Sprouts and Pomegranate Gastrique
Baked Chocolate SoufflÈ with Two Sauces
Wine - it was so superb that i had the waiter write it down for me so it can me MY wine. However i will have to post the name later because i forgot what it's called. hehe.

i loved th lobster risotto appetizer. YUM! loved the flavor and the little rock shrimp it had in it also. for the roast lobster i wanted to lick up all the puree it came with - but i didn't. ;) also loved loved loved the quail i had. the flavors were so rich and i even liked the pomegranate - i normally have a rule - no fruits with my meats! my souffle was delish with the two sauces. since there were two sauces - one was chocolate and one was sort of creamy - it was not overly sweet and tasted just right. hunny's dessert was also really good too! we both were intrigued by the fact that it had different stages of taste. first you taste coffee, then vanilla, then salt from the vanilla salt. i'm not nearly good enough with words to describe the dinner. imagine an orgasm in your mouth and that would be about it. haha.

i'm hungry now...


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oh so happy

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Thursday, December 13, 2007

starting to get the hang of things

so after 1.5 weeks, we are just starting to get the hang of things. finally configured the credit card system and set up internet access so we can view the store over the internet from the cameras we have set up. so many little things to figure out. it's not figuring out what to do, but figuring out what the most efficient way of doing what we need to get done. we also interviewed this really good girl, but she might get an offer somewhere else! :( but we are still hoping we can get her so i'll keep following up with her. hehe.

some people have started becoming regulars and we recognize them by name. now that i have figured out the most comfortable shoes, my feet don't hurt so much anymore. we got some great advice from uncle johnny and are hyped about some of his suggestions. i really can't wait until this place is exactly how we want it!

Friday, December 07, 2007

hard work

i'm sitting in the yogurt shop now. our first day of biz was saturday and we have not even finished one week yet. however i've now learned to fully clean and assemble a yogurt machine all by myself if i have to. those darn things are more complicated than u think! one was making a funny noise yesterday and totally freaked me out. luckily once we took it apart and put it together again it worked. visitors are starting to come by now. yay! thanks for your support! it totally makes my day to get a familiar face as a visitor.

this is definitely much harder work than i thought it would be. it's pretty hard to be at the shop so long. the last couple of days we had to clean the machines so i was here from 10am until 11:30. ugh. my feet were hurting so much. i'm not used to this manual labor! although i do get some perks - i get my feet massaged by hunny when i get home. ahhhh......feels soooooo goooooood. my whole fam has also been super supportive. i know i'm totally spoiled by them and am grateful because i'm just so tired by the time i get home. although with all this work, one thing i noticed is i don't eat as much as i normally do. the last few days i ate oatmeal for breakfast - about half a bowl, then a banana or some yogurt for lunch, then dinner is some home food that was packed up. so i don't eat a real substantial meal until dinner time. however i find that i'm not super hungry during the day. weird.

anyhow, it's not very busy obviously since it's been cold out. come visit me!

Thursday, December 06, 2007

hilarious bubble video



and to validate my geekhood - i'm familiar with all the companies and terms they threw out. in fact, many of the founders came to stirr when they first started. it's pretty cool to see familiar names!