Blink, and You'll Miss It

Super quick trip to Utah to see this little guy.

 Marie and Antione's newest addition, AJ - Antione Jr. of course;)

All three aunties, fighting over who rocks the most;)

 Had a birthday dinner for Cora while we were there.  This shot of my sisters, and Joe way in the back, cracks me up;)

 Stop-over in Sin City on the way home - which definitley led to some teaching moments with our kids;)

 Alex wasn't super excited about all the walking we did (about 2 hours).  But the kids did like the outside shows at Treasure Island and the Bellagio.

 Super glad we didn't have to fill up at this gas station, about 15 or so miles before Barstow.  Crazy!

That's it.

I Love Joe.....and Golf;)

For Valentine's weekend next week, we are going to be in Utah to see my new nephew - so we decided to celebrate Valentine's Day this weekend.

Guess where we went?!!!

 Seriously, is there anything more romantic?;)  Check out the view.

 We were very lucky, because the sponsors of the tournament had invited military members and their families to attend the event for free this year.  They had a huge tent set up right on the 15th green.  We actually did not spend any time in the tent though.  We got there later in the afternoon, and as we were walking past the 16th tee, we saw BILL MURRAY!  I snapped a picture of him, even though they said no pictures;) - he's on the left with his caddy.

We watched him play through that hole, and then followed him over to the 17th.  He walked past us, just 20 feet away from us, but I didn't dare take another picture then, because we were surrounded by officials tellings us "no pictures".  Oh well.  Bill is sporting quite the mutton chops these days - kind of like it:)  He was really playing to the crowd, and having fun.  He threw a bunch of hats to people, and even pulled some of the spectators onto the fairway to walk down to the green with him.  On the 17th, he hit the ball into the sand on his second shot, then on his third shot he hit it right back to the same place he'd hit it from on the second.  But on his 4th shot he chipped it right into the hole (for a bogey)....and celebrated with some pretend six-shooters, and some hip thrusts.  We didn't stay with him to the 18th hole because it was sooooo crowded.....and I'm short.....and I can't see over the heads of people.  After that, we walked over to the military tent, but they were closing things up by that time.  They still gave us drinks and hats, and invited us back tomorrow (too bad we have church).

Most of the time we were there, we were just walking, walking, walking, but it was still so fun, and a dream come true for me......and Joe, right honey?  Happy Valentine's Day - I love you!

Our San Francisco Treat

We decided (on a whim, like we always do) to go see if San Francisco has better things to offer than Rice-A-Roni;) 

 

We really liked all the shops down at Fisherman's Wharf - it made us nostalgic for Korea.  In fact, we even bought some souveneirs at a shop owned by Koreans, and Joe got to practice his Korean a little.

 We liked this guy, who created this painting with nothing but spray paint, cardboard, and a scraper-thingy, all in about 10 minutes start to finish.  It was pretty impressive.  Alex was especially fascinated, and made sure we stayed to watch the whole thing.

 We liked the fish and chips and shrimp that we got at The Codfather (we really wanted to eat at a location from Man vs. Food, but it was too far to walk to, so.....).  The young girl who worked there could not get over the fact that we had four kids.  We haven't had that strong of a reaction in quite a while;)  It's still so funny to me that having four kids is considered a Large family, like we're the Duggars or something.

 We liked gazing out at "the jail", as Alex called it, and Joe schooled me with his Alcatraz/Al Capone knowledge;)

 We liked looking at the displays outside of Ripley's Believe it or Not (the Lady Gaga portrait made out of candy was......not edible), because there was no way that we were going to pay that much money to go inside.

 We liked driving across the Golden Gate bridge - my kids were excited because they had seen it on some show on Discovery channel - in real life, it doesn't disappoint.

 We liked driving around the bay, and taking in the skyline.  TALL buildings (not a ton, but some) - again, nostalgia, Korea;)  It's not like we even prefer big cities or anything, but....

 We liked the fact that the Oakland temple was close by, so we drove over there and walked around for a little bit.  Very pretty.

  And speaking of Korea, we got nostalgic enough that we decided to check out Oakland's "Koreatown".  Ummmmmm, this section of Oakland has NO business being referred to as Koreatown.  Very disappointing.  Never go there.  So we got some Korean food in San Jose instead, on our way home, and it was actually the closest thing we've had to authentic Korean food since we moved here.  Madelyn felt VERY sorry for our waitress, because she had never been to Korea before.  And, they had KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) playing on their TV, and THAT, of all things, made Joe say that maybe it wouldn't be too bad to go back to Korea (never heard him say that before)!

If I wasn't Laughing, I'd Cry

So Joe and I just got back from date-night, and the WORST food we've ever had the privelege of eating at a restaurant.  I felt like I had to capture the experience in a blog post, so we can laugh about it forever;)

Right before we went there, I said something like, "In order to find new yummy restaurants, you have to be willing to eat at crappy restaurants."  Sure, it's safer to just go to restaurants that have really good reputations/lot of good reviews, but that's not very adventurous.  And Joe and I have found a lot of places that we LOVE just by driving around and randomly trying places we see - places that nobody else seems to know about, so we never would have found them otherwise.  But this does involve a lot of risk, because you never know what you're going to get, and sometimes you come away feeling less than satisfied.

Tonight, the risk did not pay off.

Oh my goodness, I don't even know where to begin.

We chose a little Italian place, established in 1957.  You'd think that if a place had survived that long, then they must have decent food....but you'd be wrong. 

As soon as we walked in, we both second guessed our decision.  The place smelled more like a nursing home than it did Italian food.  Oh why didn't we leave?!!!

But when we sat down, they were serving other people food, and it actually did smell good as it was passing us, so that made us regain hope.

We ordered some cheesy garlic bread to start our meal, and I was scared when they brought it out.  It was actually cheap hoagie buns (I kid you not - I should have taken a picture), cut in half, with cheap mozzarella melted on top, sprinkled with dried parsley (I assume there was a little bit of garlic powder sprinkled on top too, but I couldn't taste it). 

For the main course we ordered two entrees to share. 

First up was Chicken Parmigiana, which consisted of a very thin, dry, breaded cut of chicken, which I'm sure was previously frozen, and barely resembled chicken to begin with, along with cheap spaghetti noodles toped with what Joe is sure was canned marinara sauce.

Second was another pasta dish with Italian sausage, peppers, and mushrooms in another marinara sauce.  The marinara sauce was different on this one.  I'm sure it was cooked down with some kind of wine, and lots of olive oil.  It was.....interesting.  But the sausage was cheap and gritty, and the pasta was a combination of cheap spiral noodles and cheap shell noodles (what the?).  It was just weird.

The combination of these two did not leave a pleasant aftertaste.  Ugh.

And the cost.  Good grief.  This must be the secret to their "success" and why they've managed to stay in business since 1957 - they are making BANK!  Pretty sure they're shopping at Walmart, but charging enough to fly to Italy every week and buy fresh ingredients.

We didn't eat much of our food, and when they asked us if we wanted a to-go box we almost laughed.

We joked about  sueing them, just for the price of our dinner, and we'd even give them the food back, in whatever form it was expelled from our bodies;)

But really, we are not the type of people to demand our money back for yucky food, or to make a big scene about it either.  The service was very good, and everyone was very friendly.  There might even be people who like their food, and come back for more (bless their little hearts).  So the whole time I was praying that nobody would ask me how the food was, because I didn't know what I would say.

The only thing I can compare it to was when my friend Kimberly and I ordered bibimbap (simple Korean dish with rice and veggies), and it came with muscles and fish eggs in it.  Oh. My. Heck.  Even though I had previously found us some amazing restaurants, I don't think she trusted me after that;)

Ahhhhh, memories:)

Anybody else have a horrible food story they'd like to share?