Pre-28th Birthday Celebration!

Since my parents are out visiting this weekend, for my actual birthday - Paul decided that the weekend of the 13th would be our weekend to celebrate my birthday. One of the things we did together last weekend, which was so much fun - was a Dim Sum cooking class. I am a huge, HUGE Asian food lover, and dim sum is one of my favorite things in the whole world to eat.

The class was pretty small - there were about 10 of us and we got to make all different kinds of dumplings. Steamed dumplings, boiled dumplings, fried dumplings AND Paul and I made our favorite dim sum (pictured below) pork buns.

Pork buns are basically balls of dough (hence bun) that are filled with basically barbeque pork, with scallions, cilantro and onions... they are amazing!

New York Christmases!

Every Christmas season, we break up the time we have off from work and spend part of it in Syracuse/Rochester and the other part in New York City with my family. This year was exceptionally busy, for me in particular because I went out to New York City to work from my company's NY offices for a week prior to Christmas - and even managed to squeeze in a Toronto business trip while there.

Paul joined me in Syracuse just before Christmas in Syracuse/Rochester.

For me - Christmas has always meant me, my Mom, my Dad and my sister - we decorate the tree Christmas Eve, listen to Christmas music, my Mom makes us all wear santa hats :) and then on Christmas morning my Mom makes muffins, tea and fruit and we open presents and lay around in blankets most of the day watching Christmas related movies.
This year was my first Holz/Kinsella Christmas - which was so much fun - who knew you could have 4 Christmases! :)

We started off in Rochester, at Omi and Opa's where we had Christmas dinner, Christmas Eve mass and a Holz family Christmas extravaganza!

About 1,000 cookies and Home Alone quotes later - we waddled (after all of the eating) to Grandma and Grandpa Kinsella's for a quiet Christmas at their house. Somehow, overnight at Omi and Opa's Paul had gotten sick. He woke up at about 5 am in the middle of the night with the most awful flu - but he powered through, sipping Theraflu all day and taking catnaps.

The next stop was Aunt Jill and Uncle Jim's - for more present opening and more dip eating. I am starting to love this 4 Christmas idea.

Christmas also wouldn't be complete without Lights on the Lake, back in Syracuse/Liverpool. It was wonderful as usual.

A day before we were scheduled to go back to New York City via Jet Blue, we received an email (at 11:30pm) from Jet Blue saying that our flight was cancelled. After much scrambling and bad hold music, we decided to scrap the idea of flying and pack all of our stuff into a rental car and drive down to New York City. 6 and a half hours later with traffic, we ended up in New York and at the Hotel East Houston on the Lower East Side - only a 5 min bus ride, or 15 min walk from my parent's house.

Shortly after being back we commenced what I call - "Foodventures." As some of you may know, I consider myself to be a bit of a foodie - and LOVE to eat. I always like to try new restaurants, new food, new chefs, etc. This year was no different and the day we arrived in New York we made our way to our first sushi restaurant of the trip (I can't go more than 4 days without sushi!).

We then had our 4th and final Christmas at my parents house, with my sister, our muffins, blankets, and tea. We also went to see Cirque du Soleil's winter show Wintuk - which was tons of fun. We had a blast in New York and also went to the Museum of Natural History - which is huge! I hadn't been since I was really little. And it was Paul's first time.


Finally on January 2nd, we made our way back to Los Angeles - where it was raining and 50 degrees - and we were confused. Fortunately, the world has returned to normal and it is back to 72 and sunny - and we are enjoying a wonderful start to the New Year!

Ang

Malibu Half Marathon

So it's been a month since I ran the Malibu Half Marathon, and Angela has been on me to write a blog post about it (my first one!) so I finally did it. I had been running just to stay in shape for a while, but had been getting kind of bored ever since I ran the full marathon back in February of this year. With nothing really to train for or look forward to or strive to, the runs on the same old routes were getting tedious.

I signed up for the Malibu Half Marathon and started training. I wasn't exactly starting from scratch so the training was a bit easier this time around, although it had been a while since I had gone as far as 10 and 11 miles for training runs. I missed a few training runs and didn't have as great of times as I would have liked while doing it, so I was a little apprehensive going into the race. That and the fact that I played hockey at 11pm the night before I had to get up at 5:30am to drive to the course didn't make me too optimistic about my time.

The course was beautiful! The start was right next to the beach and the whole run was right along the ocean and through the hills of Malibu. This was much more hilly than the other races I had done, but I was able to pace myself pretty good on the uphills, and take advantage of the downhills. In the end, my time was only 30 seconds slower than the half marathon time I ran while training for my full marathon. I finished the Malibu Half Marathon in 2 hours 1 minute. Angela and Jules were also there at the finish line to cheer me on.

My time was much better than I expected, and I hope to do another race next year. Maybe another marathon at some point, although I think I might take a break from running for a bit at the end of this year. I have one more goal for this year - after I run 8 more miles, I'll have run for 500 total miles this year!

1st Friday - Food Trucks!

The first Friday of every month in Venice, the street virtually shuts down as Food Trucks from all over the city swarm on Abbott Kinney boulevard. All of the restaurants on the street have specials, art galleries are open late, there is live music, happy hours commence and people fill the streets. This past Friday, Paul and I decided to stop by with some friends and try some of the city's tasty treats. We stopped for tacos, lamb gyros and cheeseburger sushi from the Yatta food truck!

Hockey!

For the last few months, Paul has started playing hockey again. One of our neighbors who lives across the street plays in a league and after speaking to Paul about it off and on, Paul decided to join. They play at the Toyota Sports Center in Hawthorne, CA - only about 20 minutes southeast of our house. They play almost every weekend and a few weeks ago, Jason, Danielle and I went to watch Paul play.

Last week, Jason invited us to see the LA Kings play the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Staples Center! Although I am sure you thought this was the packed hockey game for Paul... BUT these are some pictures from how close we were to the ice at the Kings game at Staples!

Omi & Opa Visit LA!

This weekend - Omi and Opa came to visit! They arrived on Saturday morning and we relaxed on our patio and got to catch-up. It was the first time that they had seen any of our apartments or homes in LA so we showed them around and introduced them to Riley.

We decided to drive up to Venice to show them the Venice canals and go for a walk. We ended up getting gorgeous weather (after several days of rain) as we walked through all of the canals and showed Omi and Opa the houses.

After a long walk around the Venice canals, we drove to Playa Vista and had a light lunch at Piknic restaurant. We spent the early afternoon looking at wedding photos and hearing all about their recent travels from Germany to Philadelphia and of course how the family is doing back in Rochester and Syracuse.

Paul had always wanted to go to the Warehouse - which you may recognize from Meet the Fockers (the sequel to Meet the Parents). We had a great table outside to wind down the day, although the steaks were the biggest we had ever seen!

Whale Watching - Danielle's Birthday

Last weekend, we celebrated our friend Danielle's birthday by going Whale Watching in Redondo Beach, CA about 30 minutes south of our house. LA is extremely spread out, similar to San Francisco or even Boston, in that areas that are over 20 miles away from Downtown or Central Los Angeles, are still a part of Los Angeles County.

We have been whale watching before a few times and had gone in Dana Point with my parents a few years go. We have never seen whales! But we always see tons of dolphins, sea lions and spend the day out on the ocean which is always nice.

The boat took us out off the coast of Redondo Beach and then south towards Palos Verdes, where we saw lots of beautiful houses set into the cliffs. The afternoon was spent eating fish and drinking beer with our wonderful friends. Another beautiful weekend in Southern California!