Punchbowl Falls, Eagle Creek, OR
I shot this from my iPhone once we got to this creek. I wanted to wade to the falls but the water must have been 35F.
Filed under: Stuff We Ate | Tags: banh chung, banh tet, bánh chưng, bánh tết, food, lunar, new year
Sticky rice cake with mung bean paste and pork, steamed in banana leaves, served with a side of carrots and radish pickled in sugar and fish sauce. MMMMMM!
I’ve been waiting a year to eat this.
These days, with so many choices, it’s really hard to choose the right rice paper. Either its too thick and chewy, or its too thin and it breaks easily. Tonight Tivian made some really good cuón with bánh tráng from the Ba Cô Gái (Three Ladies) brand. For the record, it was the perfect rice paper.
Ba Co Gai rice paper
In case you want to know what we put inside of these things, it went something like this:
- Tri-tip cut beef cut into small pieces (salt, pepper, garlic, onion, soy sauce & lemon grass)
- Veggies: mint, lettuce, green onions, cilantro
- Vermicelli (thin rice noodles), aka bún
Filed under: Uncategorized
A lot has happened since we last posted, so here is a quick update:
1) We moved to Irvine. We moved mostly because Sam needed to be closer to work and our community of friends are mostly down here as well. We were commuting to Irvine so often that it didn’t make sense for us to be in Santa Ana anymore. Sam is enjoying riding his bike to work and I am enjoying running to the farmer’s market on saturdays.
2) Sam turned 26! Yes, my beloved husband turned 26 on July 1st. We had a nice dinner with friends and family. Sam’s request for his birthday dinner….PHO! I am so thankful to be married to the man of my dreams.
3) 4th of July
Well folks, The Nguyen Family, all two of us, went to the happiest place on earth to celebrate Independence Day, Disneyland! We both have not been to disneyland in over 10 years. Here are a few pics from the day.
modeling the cool 3D glasses from “Honey, I shrunk the kids” show. The show was full of neat surprises.
Cruella giving Sam a “Cruella makeover”. He was such a good sport about it!
We brought lunch instead of paying mad disney money for okay quality food. Here’s a quick snap of me in our parking lot picnic.
We attended a disney art institute class and had a free session of learning how to draw disney characters. This one is Sam’s….(the instructor specifically told us to round out the corners of Goofy’s teeth so he wouldn’t look like a villain. Sam had his own agenda though…)
Tivian’s drawing.
Whose do you like better?
In the end the drawing class was one of our favorite attractions at disneyland.
Click here for the rest of our disneyland adventure
This concludes my post. We will try to post more frequent, so updates like these won’t bore you!
Here’s some cool stuff to check out that I’ve consumed lately, including a couple things from TED:
5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do
Use knives, play with fire, let them drive, and a few more. Excellent talk along the lines of Jim Hancock’s 10 Things We Should Never Say To Kids and even Bernard’s post Nontrepreneur Nation. We gotta let our kids live a little! (Not that I have any)
Watch 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do
Steven Levitt (Freakonomics): The Economics of Gangs
Here’s a real interesting history of crack cocaine and gangs, and an analysis of cash flow inside of an African-American gang, and even how the gang’s organization chart is set up. Turns out gangs are a lot like McDonald’s franchises and crack dealers only make about $3.50/hr. The only thing that bothered me was that he kinda makes light of a serious situation…pretty stereotypical ivory tower type, I guess.
Watch Steven Levitt — Why do crack dealers still live with their moms?
Evernote — Human Memory Extension
Have you ever had a great idea for a program but just never had the time to get around to it? I used to wish that I could just take pictures of things I needed to remember, and be able to search for them later. Now with Evernote I can! I can snap a picture with my iPhone, e-mail it to Evernote, and back at my laptop I can use Spotlight to search for that photo (yes, Evernote can read text in a picture). If you want to try it out, I have 20 invitations left (its still in beta)
Filed under: Photos
So tonight we got to have good dinner with some great friends. Check out this long table…
Why should one own a house?
Filed under: Photos
Tivian just borrowed a bike from her friend so now we ride around the neighborhood at night.
Here’s some pics I took around the apartment tonight:
A gift that she made
We on the couch
Stuck in the eye
Under the light
What is church? What is community? How does our work and business life fit into that?
Filed under: Photos
Ok, so here’s the real haircut. I call it, “The Magneto”. Doesn’t she look cute?
Filed under: Uncategorized
We’ve all cut our own hair when we were kids, right? I think I was 4 when I cut my own hair with scissors.
