Archives 2009
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June 07, 2009 10:53 PM - Last updated

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YEAR 2009

Wow....what a year.....lots of ups and downs!  Things like, YAY - new house, but BOO, big mortgage!  Despite doing a lot of housework, we managed to go on several trips this year to fun places like Aruba and Japan and visited places we never been before like Seattle and Houston.  We also attended several good friends' weddings and lots of little activities here and there.  It was an interesting year, quieter than the other years and definitely a lot less pictures.

Click here for 'Shawn Speaks'!

YEAR 2009
(Click on the pictures or the links to view each album)
Dec 24-26, 2009
bullet Christmas Weekend 2009 - For the first time in 3 years, we were in the country during the festive season, only to find that most people left town to visit family!  We chilled in our new home, watched movies, played video games, cooked, baked, and generally just relaxed after a pretty stressful year. 
Dec 14, 2009
bullet Crepes Nite! - With a ton of left-over crepe materials that we didn't get to make the previous day, we had a crepe dinner nite!  We had so much that everyone who came had several crepes, salty and sweet!
Dec 13, 2009
bullet S&M Housewarming Party - New place, new challenges, hopefully new fun!  Despite the rainy weather, people made the long trek to check out our new place.  There was the inaugural poker, which Dave managed to get started right away, our slideshow of before/after pics, and of course, PS3 gaming like Buzz! 
Nov 26-29, 2009
bullet Thanksgiving Weekend 2009 - Yup, decided to bundle all my Thanksgiving weekend events into one album.  Had two turkey dinners, stuffed myself at least 3 times this weekend, spent 4 hours at Lowes, spent 5 hours putting up 7 glare shades in house.  Yay! 
Nov 19-23, 2009
bullet Elaine & Doug's Wedding - We attended my old friend's wedding in Houston the weekend before Thanksgiving and visited our relatives since we're in the neighborhood.  Things sure are different in Texas, everything is more spread out and bigger. 
Oct 31-Nov 8, 2009
bullet Japan Vacation Travels - Ok, it's kind of redundant - vacation travels, but seriously, we did a lot of traveling in a week's time!  With the Japan Rail Pass, we rode the high-speed train as if Osaka and Kyoto were neighboring cities rather than many miles apart!  We traveled to SF-> LAX -> Tokyo -> Kyoto -> Hemiji -> Kobe -> Osaka -> Tokyo -> LAX -> SF.  Yeah, that's a ton of traveling for a vacation!
July-Oct, 2009
bulletSorry, no pics here.  Didn't do anything other than work and more work.
July 10, 2009
bullet BBQ for Henry & Diana - Since they were back for a few days from Japan and was about to head back out, we threw a little home bbq party for them.  Despite being a Friday evening, a lot of people showed up, bringing food, playing games, and trying to knock me off the top scores on SingStar!  We never made it to VIP due to that reason!
July 3-5, 2009
bullet Jeff & Jean's Wedding weekend - For their official (and 2nd) wedding, Jeff & Jean planned a weekend retreat to the Santa Cruz mountains, where everyone could experience the outdoors, get some sun and fresh air.  We learned to share the forest with raccoons (they like cupcakes!) and mosquitoes (they like juicy city folks!).  It was a fun-filled weekend and it went by way too fast!  Congrats, Jeff & Jean!  
June 27, 2009
bullet Jay's Graduation - After 3 hard years, Jay is finally done with his residency and is ready to move on!  We joined them in Ventura for the graduation celebration and spent the weekend shopping and chilling at a local club with big beds!
June 20-21, 2009
bullet Lazy Camping & Shopping - A very 'whatever' camping trip to just get away for a little while, so that we can take a break from all the craziness of work and other stuff.  Ate lots of food, then checked our flexibility, sat around the fire, got some deep sleep, then we went shopping!
May 31-June 6, 2009
bullet Aruba Vacation! - Decided to take a break from our crazy schedule for the last couple of months to do a little of ....pretty much nothing!  Just chilling on the beach in Aruba, doing a little tanning, lounging, reading a book. 
We also went diving, but that turned out to be too much work too!  haha!  Click here for pictures and explanation.
May 30, 2009
bullet Lynn/Jeff's BBQ Party - Lynn and Jeff finally decided to throw a little party to show off their new place in the city and we took an early afternoon personal tour of the place.  Very nice place with high-end appliances and modern feel.  Lots of food with the BBQ on the roof.  Great party!
May 24-25, 2009
bullet Memorial Day Weekend - A much needed restful weekend! Caught up on movies, played video games, basically, a weekend to just let my head relax a bit.  Oh, we also had a delicious (meat-heavy) BBQ, with lots of pork and chicken, but we also had lots of fresh fruits.  A lot of people dropped by, some new faces, others we haven't seen a while. 
May 17, 2009
bullet Kevin & Kathy's Wedding - To properly represent the Bay Area friends, about 2 dozen of us headed down to LA for a weekend of fun, visiting friends and of course, to celebrate Kevin & Kathy's wedding in Burbank!  The weather was beautiful for a late afternoon wedding and the fried shrimp was awesome!  Everything went smoothly and of course, the bride looked stunning!
May 15-17, 2009
bullet Visiting Friends in LA - We took advantage of the trip down to LA and visited several friends along way, some we haven't seen in over a year.  Scenic drive down, but it was quick & dirty middle-of-night run back up to SF. 
May 9, 2009
bullet Jenny K's Pre-baby Party - No, it's not a baby shower!  It's a get-together to see Jenny and to see how's she's been over the last few months.  Shaun made the trip all the way to Berkeley for some delicious Zachary's pizza and people brought a nice assortment of sides and desserts!
April 17-19, 2009
bullet Food Trip to Seattle - Another foodie trip to cloudy Seattle, where I felt I walked into a parallel city modeled after San Francisco.  People all wore North Face clothes and Keen shoes and everywhere you go, there are hills to climb!  It was quite relaxing walking from one food place to the next and the nice part was that we had pretty good weather while we're there, no RAIN!  Lots of walking, fun with friends, and fattening foods, what more could you ask for! =)
April 11, 2009
bullet Linda's Surprise Birthday Party - It's a surprise birthday like no other!  Tuxedos, full suits, evening gowns/dresses along with a lot of wine and good food with decorations to match!  Rino managed to pull off this surprise completely without Linda's knowledge! 
April 5, 2009
bullet Impromptu Mexican BBQ - A beautiful spring weekend, so we decided to have an all-day affair of eating lunch, get a few haircuts, play over 3 hours tennis, then stuff ourselves full of nachos with guac!  All followed by an evening of poker, competitive trivia (Buzz), and competitive karaoke (Singstar)!  What a great way to spend the day!
March 13-15, 2009
bullet Rino/Linda's Solid Trip - Another fun-filled trip to Tahoe by Rino/Linda!  After everyone straggled in on Friday, the viewing of the 2008 Solid Trip DVD was amazing!  It definitely upped the ante for the following day's film crew! Be sure to check out all the videos as there are some pretty interesting ones.  =)
Oh, Happy Birthday, Rino!
March 5-7, 2009
bullet Kevin's Bachelor Party - Yup, here's a picture story of most of my 48-hours in Miami!  Our friend, Kevin, is getting married soon and Brian, the best man, stepped up to the challenge of planning a fun-filled long weekend in sunny Miami, Florida in the heart of South Beach!  The seven of us (Brian, Tony, Rich, Chris, Sunny, An, and me) made sure that Kevin remembered the fun times before he enters the sacred bonds of marriage!
More fun pics from An!
March 1, 2009
bullet Rose's Birthday Evening - That's right, it's an evening in Rose's honor to celebrate the day of her birth!  Since it was not actually her birthday and it was Sunday, we kept the celebration pretty chill and had a small group gathering in SF. 
Feb 21, 2009
bullet Clam Chowder Tasting - An annual event hosted at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, where a TON of people jammed the freeways to go test-taste dozens of competitors' rendition of the clam chowder!  Good thing Gordon organized carpooling services to keep the parking costs down to a minimum. Surprisingly, we all managed to meet up and taste a lot of chowder together!
Feb 14, 2009
bullet Valentine's Day 2009 - For this Valentine's Day, we had a relaxing day of running around doing a lot of window shopping for stuff for our potential new place.  Jim/Rita invited us over for a nice Valentine Day's dinner along with Jennie and Jeff.  Making the crust on the creme brulee was pretty fun!
Feb 13, 2009
bullet Lynn's 25th Birthday - A bunch of Lynn's friends (under <26 club) and a bunch of Dave's friends (>26 club) celebrated Lynn's birthday in SF and made sure that she had a proper celebration for her quarter-century moment! 
Feb 6-8, 2009
bullet Friendskit Ski Trip 2009 - We got lucky again with the snow this year!  It hasn't snowed for weeks and the day before our trip, it started snowing lightly, but it snowed enough for us to have a great time at Northstar!  Group ticket discounts are awesome, much better than anywhere else.  Very chill and relaxing weekend, watching movies, playing board games, playing home poker, and of course, eating!
Dec 24, 2008 - Jan 5, 2009
bulletTaiwan Trip and Bali Vacation - We ended 2008 with a trip to Taiwan to visit relatives and to celebrate Jean/Jeff's wedding reception in Taichung.  Afterwards, we headed to Bali for some R&R, doing scuba dives, relaxing by the pool-side and basically, enjoying not having to worry about anything.

Here are the highlights of the trip.  (there are some funny videos, so please be patient)

Shawn Speaks - 2009

11/17/09 Yeah, half a year later, I finally have a few minutes to devote to my little website here.  I think I'll probably be doing a website re-vamp in the near future to remove all the other little things that I don't update.  Probably just keep the 'blog' thing, pictures and its archives, and of course, the home page's jokes! 

Anyways, it's been a crazy past 6 months!  No pictures posted, but tons of housework done and we've moved into our new place!  Still a lot of little things here & there, but it's getting there.  Enough to say that we'll probably have a housewarming before the end of the year.  It's sure a change to move to a different place after being at my old place for so long. Lots of new adjustments.  Hopefully, this will be all worthwhile when I look back to this from the future. 

5/26/09 A good weekend.....to the end of a rather hectic week.  Lots of house stuff was done, which was stressful, but good.  Late nights, early morning definitely took their toll on us, but we powered it through.  Our weekend started out with a recovery, just chilling and hanging out with family.  It ended with a BBQ party with friends and it felt good to see them. 

Speaking of BBQ, I think when it comes time to feed like a couple dozen people, one grill is just not enough!  I think it may actually be necessary to start a 2nd grill just to make sure that food is always coming off the grill at a continuous rate.  Otherwise, people start to eat the sides or desserts before the main course is even cooked.  I may have to look into getting a gas grill probably in the next year or so.  Maybe after we settle in at the new place and get used the surroundings.  Anyways, always good to be grilling again. 

3/9/09 Almost two months later, just got back from a 48-hour trip to Miami.....wow, flying cross-country is killer when you take a red-eye out and an early morning flight back!  There's a very good reason why a red-eye flight is called that.....my eyes were all jacked after only sleeping for like 4 hours on the flight there. The trip back was better, bigger plane, longer flight, more comfortable seats, so I got more sleep. 

On another note, we took a big risk and bought a house in this recession and oddly enough, people ask us if that was a good idea.  I thought that was rather funny because I'm no smarter or wise than before I bought a place!  My answer to that is that I'll let them know in 2-3 years from now.  I pray that we look back at 2009 in 2015 and say....man, we should have gone 'all-in'!  But, who knows how things are going to turn out in the future. 

1/12/09 Archived 2008 pictures and creating new page for 2009. 

Just got back from a pretty long vacation to Taiwan and Bali.  Nice to get away and not have to think about anything except what I should have for my next meal.  It's nice to be waited on and to have things taken care of for you.  Wish I could live like that all the time, but then I guess that wouldn't be a vacation, just the norm then.  =)