Christmas At Home

This Christmas, we had our family over for a traditional Taiwanese hotpot dinner, Secret Santa, and a nice stroll around the neighborhood to enjoy the holiday lights. 

 J was the chef of the night!  The rest of us just filled our tummies.  =)

Fish balls, corn, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, ribeye, dumplings and shrimp!

 

 Opening our Christmas gifts

 Merry Christmas!

Here's to holiday hearts filled with gratitude and a new year full of blessings!

Holiday Spirit

I always knew that I loved the neighborhood we moved into because of the residential spirit, but little did I know this little community has holiday spirit too!  Apparently, people come up to our area to view Christmas lights every year, so some people go all out with their outdoor decorations.  We are starting out slow, with warm lights outlining the home, big ornaments hanging off the tree in the front lawn, and a wreath.  Here are some snapshots I took while taking a stroll around the neighborhood with Echo today.

Honeymoon

For our honeymoon, J and I went to the Big Island and then to Oahu.  Our first week as hubby and wifey passed by way too quickly.  It was super relaxing on the big island and a little hustling and bustling in Waikiki.  We snorkeled, sampled shrimp trucks and shaved ice, checked out a number of waterfalls, ate a ton, and more!  Time to start planning for our one year anniversary trip!

 I was terrified, but we went "swimming" with the manta rays on the Big Island.  Seeing them with their huge mouths swim toward you, and then barreling right underneath your belly was so scary!  I kept screaming and failed miserably at floating all the while J kept yelling at me "Stay calm!  You need to calm down!", lol.

We rented a Jeep wrangler and had to make good use of it by taking it off-roading!  Note to self, it is no fun.  Talk about whiplash and headache!

 My horse was super old and didn't want to walk the trail.  I felt so bad "forcing" it to hike to a waterfall that was not very impressive.

 This was my first time down a water slide, believe it or not!  Super fun!

Woohoo!  J braved the cliff and jumped at Waimea Bay!  (see him halfway down?)

Yummy dinner at Alan Wong's to end our trip!

Wedding DIY - Part Deux

Since we love to travel, we continued our destinations theme by collecting our gifts in a vintage like suitcase.  I painted GIFTS on the burlap (yes, I made very good use out of the burlap!) and hung it across the suitcase.

I also designed and printed out a banner to hang on our sweetheart table. 

That's the extent of my DIY projects for our wedding.  Simple!

Wedding DIY - Table Cards

Chalkboards.  Movie Names.  White wooden frames.  Regular table numbers.

How should we designate and identify each table?

Attempting to stay true to the rustic/romantic theme, I decided on a DIY project which was inspired by perusing Joann Fabric, Michael's, and Aaron Bros. over and over again.  I had a roll of burlap, loved lace, and didn't want to spend a lot of money.  

 Here are the materials I started with

 We decided to go with destinations, each table representing a place we have visited together.  I loved the texture the cardboard brought to the overall card and aimed for the rustic feel using burlap and the romance feel through the use of lace.

 Voila!  The finished product proudly displayed on an easel.