Haser Happenings: Happy New Year!!!

Todd has been on crunch time with his current work project for the last few months. Ok. He always seems to be on crunch time for some project or another... So, when he has a break between projects in the form of a week, we try and take advantage of it. We hadn't been back to the states in over 6 months, and needed to take care of some stuff with our cars that are in storage, and our personal stuff in storage. That, well, and I was missing my other first love ... TARGET!!!!

Sadly. We couldn't bring the children with on this adventure... Luckily for us, they are SUPER, Amazing, Awesome and way better than we could ever deserve teens. Seriously, they really are! Well... and they are adorable too. BONUS!

We were gone for 8 days.

2+ of which were travel days...

Direct flights were crazy expensive this time of year, so we did the stop-over thing in Taipei. One of these days we will have to ACTUALLY stop in Taipei. Looks like a neat place.

Before we left, we needed to take care of a couple things.

First, wash the Dragon!

Figuratively, of course. Just a little soak in the tub.

I do believe she has outgrown her tub.

Squidlings wanted to say, "HI!"...

We had to have one last Hui Lau Shan date, yummy!

So weird to have your kids drop you at the airport.

Todd and I freaked when we saw this at the airport.

Yes. Furbies have made a re-appearance! ahhh

Finally, on the plane!

with a beautiful view.

After we landed in LA, we were exhausted, but not too exhausted to go and get food!

YAY! FOOD that doesn't have MSG.

I was probably too excited.

I believe the after the first day there Todd was getting a little concerned,

as he told me that was the most he had ever seen me eat...

Yah. I made myself a little sick, at first...

Wow. Did I miss those California skies.

The sky is NOT the same from one place to another, I tell ya!

When we arrived, we had apparently brought the grey skies with us.

Which was a little worrisome, as we needed to go through storage stuff and deal with cars...

One of our first stops...

TARGET!!!

I think we went to Target so many times in that few days that Todd may never want to ever return to the US for fear of having to shop at Target again... Sorry Todd.

But really. Just look at this one AISLE!

Enough said.

Cloudy or not, we had to visit our old favorite beach in San Clemente.

Even if we were freezing, but we did get some amazing Pedro's breakfast burritos to warm us up...

Duff's Loved it.

After we left the rain greeted us...

Oh, Pigeons... Little do you know how good you have it....

You are not a delicacy, just a mere flying rodent...

and a spoiled Southern California BEACH bird!

Don't mind how out of order these pics may be...

We were able to attend one of our favorite old congregations,

and Krystin's friend was giving a talk! Cute!

We were able to see one of our favorite Returned Missionaries too!

Duffy is cute, right?! Yes. He is. Love this bear.

We had dinner with some truly awesome friends!

They re-introduced us to what Sushi is SUPPOSED TO TASTE LIKE!

I may never be able to eat Sushi in HK again...

(I doubt I won't eat it again, really, but I will always KNOW what I am missing! aahhh)....

We miss Virinder and Heide already!
Maybe they will come and visit, so they too can have a greater appreciation for how great their sushi is!

Check out how cool Heide is.

Ok. Not ONLY has she been playing the violin for over 30 years (I know how is that possible when she doesn't even look 30?), but she also spent 4 years of her life MAKING this violin.

It was truly beautiful, and we even were able to hear her play it a little.

Sounded just as sweet as it appeared.

Such talent!

Things I don't miss about California....

This PLACE, and the LINES!!!

DMV - I STILL DISLIKE YOU!!!

We took care of mailing some things.

This is sideways, I need to fix that later.

Krystin did this drawing for a great soldier friend of ours.

I love it.

We tried to go to storage the first couple of days.

TOO WET! Even when the rain stopped for a time.

The sun finally decided to grace us with it's presence, and we decided to brave storage.

Brave. Really brave, it was SOO NOT FUN!

The children had a few items they wished for us to look for...

Which meant we had to go through everything and open a bazillion boxes,

and still couldn't find all the items before giving up! aaahhhh...

The worst part, everything you take out you have to put back.

We also told our kids we would drop off little things to their friends, from them...

It was good to see their cute faces!

Even the pets were a welcome sight!

I think I have mentioned this before, part of my soul is re-energized by the brilliance that is found in the setting sun's good night kiss....

As we were leaving storage one evening, the sun began to set.

Honestly, I started to panic....

I NEEDED a CA sunset!!

What I didn't know is that it would be the only sunset I would see while we were out there....

Todd knows I am bit over the top about my sunset love,

and quickly pulled the car over in a parking lot, to make sure the mountains didn't steal the view from me...

Good man!

Yes. I am so goofy, that I wanted a picture with the beautiful sky.

The pics don't do how magnificent it was justice...

It recharged my soul...

Look, my Todd got a sunset pic too!

Look at the colors reflecting on the water on the ground. Amazing.

Ok. TOO many pics of the sunset...??? NO. That isn't even possible.

In fact, as we drove it even became more amazing,

and maybe I had Todd pull over JUST ONE MORE TIME!

Really though, there is NO cotton candy (that I have discovered yet) in the Hong Kong skies.

Don't worry, Hong Kong has Pink Dolphins and they are pretty amazing too!

Wow, do I miss authentic Mexican food...

New Year's resolution - Learn how to make it, maybe...

We spent Weds driving to my Mom's place.

It was fun to drive through our old childhood stopping grounds.

It is pretty drive too.

Even though, when we got of the freeway we were confronted with this sad site.

Someone's new year wasn't starting off very well...

One other thing we were on a mission for out there were some pet dishes. I know, you would think they would have pet dishes out here in H.K., but they aren't the same...

So, we had fun seeing the cute critters.

This is a stubbed tail Bearded dragon!

Of course, we had to go to T.O. Meatlocker.

Seriously, the BEST smoked/BBQ'd meat place ever,

and that is saying something as I am not a big meat eater.

How can you argue with all those celebrities on the wall?

My Mom and her pup Ginger met us there for lunch, before heading over to her house!

We had a few more errands first too... Too much to do....

Love the area that my Mom lives in.

Just rolling hills as far as you can see. So pretty.

Todd surprised me with BOOTS that I fell in love with in Germany, that they didn't have in stock when we were there. He actually had tried to order them for me TWICE to Hong Kong, but Hong KONG refused their delivery!!! Why?!!!?!??!?! I don't know... I had given up hope on them...

He was sneaky and had them shipped to my Mom's!

I was so excited! I love them!

He even got me cute socks to go with, awe...

My Mom gave Duff some lovin', and so did Ginger!

Ginger gave us some lovin' too!

View from my Mom's front door.

Later in the evening we were able to have dinner with the Mushet's (and my MOM!).

It was a great night!

We moved just 4 days before the long anticipated CARS ride at Disneyland opened....

Todd was VERY sad, so we needed to remedy that!

Even if everyone else on the planet decided to join us!

Luckily, there were perks like-

Hot chocolate

Yummy treats

BREAD BOWL SOUP!!!

The line for CARS was 3 hours long all day...

We actually ended up leaving, cause we still had some stuff to take care of during daylight, and came back that evening. The line had gone down to just 2.5 hours...

We NEVER wait in long lines....

We always have passes, so it isn't usually necessary.

This time, we waited....

I mean really, look at Duffy.

He had his Car's outfit on!

The ride was actually totally worth it and super fun!!!

Duff even posed with a Cars cast member!

and we got our DISNEY Churro!

Nothing better! (except Japan Disney's chocolate churros)

We even got a cute little Valentine's Duff to take home for my collection.

Oh, and Duffy got some awesome PJs!

Before we were to head back to HK, we decided to do laundry at the hotel...

It was like PURE HEAVEN!!!

LOOK at these beauties. THEY were SO big that I could wash all of our clothes for a week in two loads! TWO LOADS! The entire wash dry time for both loads total was just over 2 hours! OMG!

At home in HK, that would have taken me nonstop washing for days....

(Or a trip to the Laundry lady, which is the more likely)