First Christmas

Clementine celebrated her first Christmas this year.  We were in Elk Grove as usual, spending Christmas Eve dinner at Tita Yeyet's and Christmas at Erica's.  It was quite the event for Clementine, with her aunties, uncles, grandfolks, and furcousins all under one roof.

Our little girl also got quite sick over the holidays.  She developed a bad cold/cough which hit her hard on Christmas Eve, and the poor baby would wake up crying every now and then through the night.  She was in good spirits during the day, and slept between her mommy & daddy (just like Corser) to comfort her at night.

Pics can be found HERE.

Siete de Mayo Party! Oh, and a Baby Shower too!

Our friends Justa & Tammy threw us a baby shower! Well, knowing Russell and I, it couldn't be a standard baby shower party. We decided to have a Fiesta to celebrate Cinco de Mayo AND a baby shower together! Tammy made gigantic colored pompoms and did all the decorations. Justa worked with Russell on the activities: A "Message To Baby Gong" from our guests, and a guess at "What Will Baby Gong Look Like". We also had a custom-made pinata shaped like a baby... please don't think that's an indicator of what kind of parents we'll be!

Isa flew up from LA for this party, and got to have a preview of what it feels like to be an Auntie. Many of our friends already have chirruns of their own, and a whole new slew of babies were born in the past year (ours will be the 8th). There were tykes galore running around all over the house! Friends were telling us to "get used to it - this will be your life soon!" Ai ya...

Click HERE for our pics.

Click on this image to get a closer look of the potential Baby Gongs.

O Tannenbaum

We had our annual Xmas tree ornament-making party, and boy oh boy did our friends deliver this year! Here's a creepy christmas poem, music and words by Russell, and read by a friend.

Giving Thanks

We spent Thanksgiving at Tita Lorna & Tito Raul's house in Thousand Oaks. What a spread!



Thank you Tita Lorna, Isa, Chris, JP, and Sylvie for cooking up such an amazing feast!



Click HERE for more pics.

K-O-K with JoSun & SikeMo

A rooftop barbecue and karaoke party at Joanne Sun & Mike Sowalsky's condo proved to be our undoing. These are two very dangerous people. Beware.

Happy Birthdaoke!

For my 35th birthday, Russell treated me & our close friends to food, drinks, and karaoke at The Spot Lounge. It's one block away from our house, which is a very good (and sometimes a bad) thing for us because it's too darn easy to stumble home from.
That's me & big bro Roland on the mic. For more embarassing pictures of the shameless debauchery, click HERE.
A HUGE THANK YOU to Russell for such a memorable 35th birthday celebration! You are officially the Best Husband Ever!

Have Yourself A Cabo Wabo Christmas

The de Joya, Chuidian, and Pastor families gathered in Elk Grove to celebrate Christmas together. It was also the 3rd Annual Cabo Wabo Christmas. Here's a picture of my dad, taken in the inaugural year:It's now 2 years later and the tradition is still going strong.

Tita Yeyet made an incredible Christmas Eve dinner of Kare-Kare, grilled pork chops & roasted tomatoes, Dungeness crab, and Lechon, followed by a spread of desserts. It was a raucous night with 4 doggies and 3 cats in the house (Mollie quickly showed them who was boss!), and family members all taking turns at the dining table.
Afterwards, the cousins stayed over at Erica&Chris's house. This year, the "kids" would be in charge of making Christmas dinner, and we had quite a menu planned. It was the first time we'd be attempting dinner for our parents, and we have a lot of expectations from prior years feasts to live up to! It was a lot of work, but a LOT of fun, and it looks like we're going to be doing it this way from now on. Already looking forward to Cabo Wabo Christmas #4!

Click HERE for our pics.

Fugly Sweaters Galore!

"... don we now our gay apparel..."

We held our annual Tree-Trimming Party, in which our friends come over and make the ornaments that will adorn our tree this year. Taking inspiration from our 1970s-1980s childhood memories, we christened this as our Ugly Holiday Sweater party. Our guests came bedecked and bedazzled in their fugliest holiday finest (and we said, the more obnoxious, the better!)



Justa came over early to help prepare the holiday spread (thank you Justa!) There was soooo much food, which kept arriving all night long as more people arrived! Our friends looooove to eat!

Click HERE for our pics. Fa la la laaa, la la la laaaaaaaaaaa!

Haute Dawgs

Lauren and Charles held a DIY Hot Dog Barbecue Party at their place today. Lauren has her own successful catering business (she makes a kickass award-winning chocolate-chipotle chili), and she put together some creative gourmet twists on these regular old turkey franks.



Ahhhh so many fond memories of partying with our girl Lauren. It's no surprise why we love her so.


More pics HERE. Congratulations to Charles and Lauren on your engagement!

Mando+Linda

Russell, Corser, and I drove down to LA and kicked it at my sister Isa's & Jay's swank new place in Toluca Lake over the weekend. We were attending the wedding of our buddy Armando and his ladylove Linda, who got hitched this past Saturday, July 27. The wedding ceremony and dinner reception took place at the beautiful Ambassador Campus in Pasadena.

Click HERE to see a few pics from our camera.


Here's a peek at Armando from the archives:


Felicidades, Mando y Linda!

Maui Madness in March

We were guests at the lovely wedding of Russell's pal Jon Suzukawa to his lady love Christine Martinez, which took place on the island of Maui on Monday March 23. In true Jon & Christine style, they had a gangload of activities for their guests, like scuba diving, Pacific Whale Foundation whalewatch eco-tour, the Old Lahaina Luau, and of course LOTS and LOTS of partying!

Most of us stayed in the Wailea area of Maui, since that's where much of the wedding-related action was taking place. But many guests (including the wedding party) got to Maui the week before and several days exploring the island and meeting & getting to know each other. Russell & I stayed at a condo at Wailea Elua Village with his coworker-friend Rachel & her husband Rich Vigil, which was (thankfully) stumbling distance from Jon & Christine's hotel.

Here's a link to the wedding website for those two crazy kids: Christine & Jon in Maui

And here's a link to our pictures HERE (I only posted small pics, let me know if you'd like me to send you any of the full-size files)

We had a mindblowing time in Maui, experiencing the most amazing things, including but not limited to:
- Snorkeling with the sea turtles, and hearing the whale songs while we were underwater
- Close encounters of the baby-whale kind (our slideshow appears below)
- Spotting a playful seal next to our beach
- Having The Best Giant Mai Tai In The World at Humuhumunukunukuapua'a restaurant & feeding their humongous freshwater carp
- Frying panfuls of spam for Spam Musubi in Jon & Christine's luxury penthouse hotel suite

An awesome time was had by all. Thank you to Jon & Christine for making such an experience possible, and for sharing your love of Maui with all of us! Congratulations to the wonderful couple!

We're totally gay for Mamma Mia & HSM

Last night, we had one of our movie/dinner theme nights: Mamma Mia (the Musical) and a big fat Greek Dinner potluck. Pictures of our feast can be viewed HERE. Of course the meal was accompanied by generous servings of ouzo, wine, and beer.

We actually started off by watching High School Musical 3. I guess one could argue the Greek connection due to the latent homosexuality of the male leads, but I digress...

Here's a bit of the giddiness that is Mamma Mia:

More Potluck Action (cuz ya can't get enuff!)

And here are some more shots from Tu & Herman (click HERE for the pictures)
Although I'm warning you now, there are a LOT of close-ups. So don't click on that link if you're eating. Or just finished eating. Or if you have eyes. Or are a human being.

Potluck "Off The Beaten Path"

Tu & Herman had the brilliant idea to hold a "Bizarre Foods" type of Potluck dinner. Or as they described it, "The theme behind this event is for everyone to share a dish that is 'off the beaten path', something a little exotic/fear factorish or just a little different." Everything was surprisingly delicious, even though I was reeling from all the rich fatty mystery meats the next day.

Russell & I chronicled the evolution of the two dishes we brought: Lengua in creamy mushroom sauce and Sisig, two traditional Filipino dishes that we actually had & really liked during our visit to the Philippines. Pictures of our food preparation in all its gory details, as well as the MUCH more appetizing pictures of the delectable potluck dishes, can be found HERE.

Of course no party of this sort would be complete without that Filipino party staple: The Balut (fertilized duck embryo). Here are some slideshows of balut-eating in progress:

Justa's does a shot of Balut


Tu's turn to eat Balut at her potluck


It took a while to convince Billy, Marco, and Jason to do it, but they succumbed to peer pressure and took the Balut Challenge

Happy Boozemas!

Sister Isa, her Jayson, and their Marley-dogg came up for the holidays and celebrated xmas holiday traditions with the family in Elk Grove. Traditions that include piling presents under Tita Yeyet's xmas tree, sleepovers at cousin Erica's-and-her-Chris, and imbibing ungodly amounts of wine, beer, cabo wabo tequila, and wailing drunken karaoke at the top of our lungs. My aunt & uncle are saints for putting up with us.
After a post-xmas brunch at Sacramento's Tower Cafe with old high school girlfriends, we all went back to party it up in SF. While Corser was at home... um... "entertaining" Marley, we took Isa & Jay to Shabu House, then out for a bottomless champagne mimosas & bloody marys at Paul K brunch, then some wobbly-legged ice skating at the Embarcadero (click link for the video). We later met up with Joey and his Liz at Poleng Lounge and tried to chase away the daytime-drinking-hangovers with more booze & dancing.
Good times (with pictures to prove it here)

Corser's Annual Ornament Party 2008

We had some friends over for the annual ornament-making party, which is part elementary-school-craft-activity, part drunken-mess. Which usually makes for some interesting ornaments, as you'll see below.
The loose "theme" for the night's buffet spread was "comfort food" (as in, food that's really really bad for you). We had hamburger helper cheeseburger macaroni, vegetable thins with a chedddar-port wine cheeseball, chickin-in-a-biskit crackers with spray cheese, mini pigs-in-a-blanket, spaghetti with hot dogs, thomas english muffin pizzas, and white castle burgers (which went SO well with the bartles & jaymes wine coolers). We also had pumpkin pie and DIY cupcake-decorating afterwards.
But the real attraction was the tree, which now is a true reflection of what kinds of people we consider to be our "friends". Behold:

WTF was that?!?




And last but not least, the piece de resistance: our Treetop Angel, courtesy of Rachel:

I like that she's pregnant... wearing a bikini... and has a pouting devil at or around the general crotchular area.
Thanks a lot, guys. Y'all are the greatest.

Crawdaddy-a-go-go!

Back in mid-July 2008, Russell & I held a crawfish boil in our backyard. The weather actually cooperated with us and it felt like summer in the Sunset District (what a rarity!). We shipped in 40 pounds of crawfish from Louisiana, and it was quite a task to "purge" and cook the dang things.
Tu & Herman made spicy fried chicken. Justa made jambalaya and cornbread. I made the collard greens. Punam & Wency made beignets for dessert. Lawdy it's good to have friends that can cook! And of course, everyone else brought BEER (can't do a proper boil without the beer!)
It was such a memorable occasion, and our friend Ryan took the most amazing photographs! You can see them on his site here: Ryan & Jen's Crawdad Pictures