Fall Left & Now Winter is Here
Fall is among us and October through December went by in a blink of an eye. It’s true, the older we get the quicker time flies. This last quarter was filled with so many fun adventures all packed into 12 short weeks. Where do I even begin?
October:
We started off October with a long car drive to Yakima and Wenatchee in search for Kevin’s favorite pizza place, tamales, and just to get out of the house for the day. We drove out to Yakima since I’d never been to grab frozen tamales and then to Kevin’s favorite pizza place in Wenatchee is Saddle Rock Pub and Brewery — you have to get the Wenatchee pizza which has bacon and apples. It was absolutely delicious! It was quite a long drive, but we made it and then proceeded to go to the Kraken pre-season game at the Showare! It was great to see hockey in action again!
We added some new plants to the backyard and inside the house; brought over Kevin’s fish tank and got some fishies and a pleco we named Quinn! I had a night out with my best friend Cory — I bought him Dan and Shay concert tickets like 2 years ago and we finally got to use them. It was a bit strange to be at a concert, but so nice to hear live music again — Dan and Shay are amazing live! Halloween was upon us so of course we bought and carved pumpkins! We both did ours turned away from each other and they actually both turned out really similar. Can you tell which was mine versus Kevin’s? We also decided since we have a fake fireplace inside we needed a real fire pit for roasting marshmallows and making smores for outside so we bought a cute like one for entertaining in the summer! We went to our first official Kraken game in the new Climate Pledge Arena (still has some old Key Arena feels), and it was just awesome to be in the new stadium! We were out Halloween night so we left out candy for any trick or treaters. We actually got a decent amount (I bought a huge sized bag of candy from Costco so I hoped it all got taken otherwise we were going to be eating it), but we had around 40 kids stop by — best costume was a jelly fish made from an umbrella, very creative.
November:
Another busy month ahead was November, except we both caught a little cold — basically a sinus infection that lasted quite a while. We both felt fine, no COVID — went and got tested to be safe, just had sinus build up, think tension headache/migraine for 2 weeks.
I’m the secretary for the Robert Chinn Foundation and Asian Hall of Fame. We had our exclusive Seattle reception at Ben Bridge Jewelers to honor our Seattle guests, donors, and honorees and celebrate the Asian Hall of Fame Class of 2021! We normally have a gala every year, and due to COVID it’s been online for the last 2 years. This mini celebration the week prior to the event was super fun, very intimate, brought together many leaders in the community to witness and share in the mission of celebrating Asian excellence in the community and aboard! We had a ton of musical powerhouses there too, which was very humbling to watch them play and to also speak in front of everyone!
We spent the rest of November doing lots of random things. We went rock climbing, went clam digging, celebrated my dad’s birthday, took my parents to their first Kraken game — my dad loves hockey, played some golf on Thanksgiving day, celebrated our first Thanksgiving together and had to split time amongst our families, got a punching bag, put together a new armoire for our dining room, and oh yeah got stuck on the light rail after the Apple Cup with Kevin’s brother and sister in law…To say we did a lot was an understatement. The light rail incident was nuts though — we were stuck for an hour on the train; the brakes just kicked in about 1/4 mile out of the station and it was pure chaos especially with drunk people from the Apple Cup. But we got out safely and back home.
We celebrated the end of November by getting our first Christmas tree — a huge 8 footer. He was perfect and made the house smell like Christmas. Somehow we got the tree in, added the lights, and combined all of our ornaments and I got Kevin a cute stocking. Now to wrap all the presents!
December:
Finally it’s December and December went by way too quick. We started December with Kraken games, celebrating my mom’s birthday, having a mom and daughters date day, and celebrating Friendsgiving with friends.
Then went we left for San Francisco for a quick extended weekend getaway. We went for my board annual holiday party at Noel Lee’s house for the Asian Hall of Fame and decided to extend our time there and go explore the city a bit. We stayed in a cute Airbnb right on the beach and drove around to all these cute little places! Kevin had been to SF many times so he was my tour guide. We both had never done Alcatraz so we decided spur of the moment to go and it was definitely worth the $. It was so cool learning about the history and just being on the island — the audio tour was worth doing, very well paced and not boring. We got beautiful weather while we were there too so of course everything looked even prettier. We walked the Golden Gate Bridge (I walked in my boots and gave myself blisters on day 1 of our trip, granted we walked 7–9 miles each day we were there…good thing I brought running shoes too). The other main reason we came to SF was to eat. We ate our way around the city with mission burritos, bbq pho, french toast, dim sum, In-n-Out, and more!
After SF we made sure we were COVID free and then celebrated an early Christmas with my immediate family as my sister and brother in law went to spend the holidays with his family in Hawaii. We hosted at our house and soon discovered the house is too small for 3 dogs and 3 couples, and my grandpa who’s 94 using a walker. Each couple made 3 different types of cookies for our cookie exchange (matcha, maple brown sugar, chocolate cheesecake, cannoli, spritz, lemon ricotta, whoopie peanut butter pies, lemon filled cookies, and peanut butter cup topped cookies).
Then we got to celebrate Christmas Eve with Kevin’s parents and Grandma making homemade pasta. Christmas day with my dad’s side of the family playing money games, and then just chilling at home before the snow 8 inches of snow dumping the next day. With my sister in Hawaii my parents watched their dogs and we watched my parents dog. Luna loved being on vacation with us — went out and played in the snow, ate lots of treats, and slept in our bed which she normally doesn’t do back home.
And now it’s New Years Eve and we still have snow on the ground. Not sure what we’ll be doing tonight, but hopefully we can stay up for the Space Needle fireworks at midnight. It’s crazy how long, but short this year has been. Reflecting back Kevin and I have spent 361 days together, been cooped up at home due to the pandemic, but also got out to travel safely when we could to Jackson Hole, Long Beach, Hawaii, and San Francisco. I’ve learned this year to be extra thankful for the health of myself, my family, and friends with the uncertainty of the virus. I’m thankful to have bought a house, moved jobs, and strengthened my relationship with Kevin, done many house projects, and tried a lot of new things in 2021. I’m looking forward to 2022 and seeing what’s in store.
