great weekend, great fun, great fiber!

Secret Pal!!!
How did you know? How did you know that I have been looking at Wally (my spinning wheel) and craving spinning again? I even finished spinning some fiber that had been on my wheel for quite a while!

So when your most recent package came in the mail, I was ECSTATIC! What gorgeous GORGEOUS fiber! And the colors are so wonderful! Thank you!!



Also, it was a perfect way to get me excited for the fiber fair this past weekend!

Lambtown, Dixon USA



This weekend ervy and I headed out to Dixon to go to the lambtown festival. Of course, I mainly went to see all the wonderful sheep breeds and purchase some wonderful wool! But they also had sheep dog trials, mutton bustin', classes, shearing competitions, and of course lamb to eat!

We got to the fair early, around 9am ish. I of course dashed over to the fiber fair part. There were bags and bags and bags of fleeces waiting to be judged on their quality.


I had fun looking in some of the bags to drool over some beautiful raw fleece.

Of course, I have to admit, I really REALLY enjoyed seeing the fleece on the animals.


So cute!!

the little black one is named Cinco de Mayo. I bought hand carders (and was taught how to use them) by his owner. She was selling him (although reluctantly) because she has over 50 sheep and she told me it is costing her $11/day to feed them all!


evan and sheep


some really awesome Jacob's Sheep. They're so pretty!


more sheepyness!


there was even a PURPLE sheep! (LOL, ok, they actually dyed the ewe's fleece with a mixture of food coloring and citric acid after washing her). Then they sheared her so they could spin colored wool right there at the fair for the sheep 2 shawl competition. Here she is being sheared (I was amazed at how calm she was during shearing):



There were other animals there too! Like goats:


and funny sheared alpaca



some angora bunnies with large blocks of ice to fight the impending heat!

Mutton Bustin' was horribly amusing. I had no idea what it was before Saturday. I tried to take a picture, but I had a really bad seat so my camera wasn't able to get a good one. Basically, they stuck little kids (as young as 4 years old) on a sheep to see how long they could hold on as it ran into a pen bucking. The sheep didn't seem to like it to much (duh!), and neither did some of the kids who started crying as soon as they were stuck on the dusty animal.

Sheep herding was interesting too, although I kept hoping someone would enter a pig (like in Babe). The dogs and their owners showed how they could round up four sheep, separate two out from the group and move them around a ring and into an enclosure. I felt bad for the sheepies, but I was impressed how well the doggies seemed to be able to control their movements.

Not everyone sold lamb to eat at the fair, we saw this stand there as well:


I did end up buying a beautiful fleece from a Merino X sheep named "Alice" from Merry Meadows Farm. Alice's fleece is beautiful. The owners keep their sheep covered so the fleece stays very clean. I didn't see any vm, and it smelled fairly nice an clean. It has amazing crimp, and it was only $8 a lb ($28.80 for the whole fleece). It is so wonderfully soft, I'm quite excited to play with it! I'm glad I found them, because now that I know how wonderful their fleece is, I can order from them in the future!


The rest of our time was spent in Vacaville at the outlets which was also way too much fun!

Sunday we went to visit my family to celebrate my birthday. This is the first time I won't see my family on my real birthday, so my parents made a HUGE meal in their new kitchen. My mom even made me a gorgeous fruit tart from scratch!

aha!

it's a really crappy picture (and it's with my 4 mega pixel camera, so I have no excuse but poor lighting), but LOOK! I've finished my cleaves! It's late and I looked horrible too, so I cropped my head out :)





It took 4+ balls of wool-ease chunky (color pumpkin) on US size 10.5 dpns

It's quite a heavy bulky fabric, obviously too warm for right now, but maybe if I go into the city at night or for the winter/fall :)

so darn busy

man, why does work have to be so busy it keeps me from BLOGGING! pooh.

on the plus side, it looks like I will be a coauthor on two papers for which I've been doing a lot of recent work on (WHOOPEE!). There's been a lot of talk about recommendations, and grad school applications with my boss which has been good (and quite encouraging), but has stressed me out extensively!

knitting
I've been so busy this week and evenings, that I haven't been able to knit either. So my cleaves is still ALMOST done. I have about 4 more inches to knit of the cowl part.



food
This past Monday was ervy and my 3 year anniversary (of dating). We celebrated by getting evan ourselves a smoker to make very tasty meats. Ervy has been wanting one for quite a while now, so I decided it would be more fun to put the money we would have spent on a really nice dinner out toward buying the new toy. So while I finished reading Harry Potter last Sunday, ervy spent the day smoking 3 racks of ribs and a huge pork butt. This is the smoked pork butt. We then had the task of sitting and pulling it into pulled pork strips.



After the pulling, ervy mixed it up with some bbq saucey flavoring he worked up, and we had DELICIOUS BBQ pulled pork sandwiches for a wonderful anniversary dinner!


On a more alcoholic note, ervy's new Esquire came, and both he and I were quite interested in what the magazine described as the original type of daiquiri. It takes some nice white rum (they recommend 10 Cane White rum as the best), half a lime and a little sugar shaken up with ice and you have a wonderful drink that completely shadows the overly sugary blended drinks that bear its name at restaurants and bars. Yum! Believe me, they're wonderful for taking the edge off when you get home from work. Mmmm...

random
My brother and family have been invited to the Dr. Phil show. My uncle Terril wrote an article on how teenagers use technology and it was featured on the front page of the LA Times. So the producers of the Dr. Phil show saw it, and now would like to do a show on it. None of my family has really watched the show. So my family is going to watch a few shows, and find out more from the producers about what the angle of the story is before they make any decisions.

I think it would be funny to see my brother on Dr. Phil.

Hufflepuff House

Hufflepuff House: "One of the four houses of Hogworts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The founder was Helga Hufflepuff, colors are yellow and black, the house animal is the badger and the house ghost is the Fat Friar."


Even though yesterday's talk of the nation segment annoyed me (the one that had listeners call in and be 'sorted' into a harry potter house... THAT's not NEWS!! I don't expect fluff from NPR!), I'm still so so excited about the new book coming out!

I may make this wonderful harry potter bookscarf, but since I've decided I would be in hufflepuff, I would make mine yellow and black :)

Did people hear Jon Stewart pronounce Muggles incorrectly? He pronounced it more like "Mugg - lies." like "snuggly." You should have seen being being a dork yelling at the screen, "No, No! It's "MUGGLES!!" along with a few of his audience members. eh, I still LOVE the Daily Show!!!

Nikko likes the ceiling...ALOT

It's become quite apparent that we need to get Nikko a very tall cat tree. One where he can almost be at the ceiling. I'm sure asha might enjoy it as well, but Nikko NEEDS it. He's always jumping on counters and high areas no matter what we do to try to deter him. He wanders around the house doing sad meowing and long sighs staring at high places he cannot reach. If we pick him up and bring him up high toward the ceiling or whatever he's staring at, he gets much much happier. But then my arms start to hurt after a while, and I have to put him down, and he gets sad again.

Secret Pal yayness!!!!!!!
I cannot at all explain how very very excited I was to open the new package from my Secret Pal this week!
Right on top when I opened the box were these two wonderfully soft skeins of Knit Picks Shimmer yarn in a beautiful fall colorscheme!

I immediately ran to my old IK from last fall, and checked... Indeed! These will be PERFECT for the flower basket shawl I've been wanting to do! I wanted to cast on right then... but I'm still working through Cleaves (it's been going slower since it got warmer here. Keeping heavy sweater arms on your lap while you're warm isn't fun, although I'm almost done with the 2nd arm, and will be moving on to the cowl soon). but when I finish Cleaves, I'm casting on for my FBS!!!

And look at this cool little device:

It's a pretty beaded ROW counter. I had no idea they made these! I think it's such a wonderful idea. It's used like an abacus, and a plain pink bead stands for one row, and a striped bead stands for 5 rows. NEATO!

also look at this way too cute stationary:

lol! sheep butt! such a cute set of cards! I only wish I'd thought of such a cute card idea!!

Let me say my dear SP5 you made my evening. I had fun jumping around showing ervy the wonderful things you sent!! Thank you so much!

MIT Weblog Survey

ooh i love me some new patterns!

My new Interweave Knits was waiting for me in the mail when I came back from Missouri. Just yesterday, I got a chance to flip through its pages, and besides noticing that the IK model was used in many of the yarn advertisements this issue, I also noticed how much I actually liked many of these patterns (big difference from the last issue of IK). When I get home I'll explain which ones I liked, for now, I will speak about a few of the patterns I like in the new knitty.com issue.

the first man sweater, hardcore, is ok. I'm not a fan of that style, but I think it's alright for some people. I do like that it has a hood. The graphic is kind of cute though.

the rest of the sweaters afterward through drunken argyle, either don't excite me, or just make me go "ick."

I DO love Cargo. The little pants are adorable, and the model is a cutie as well!

Tychus is interesting as a hat....I may make one of these and see how I like it.

Cigar amuses me, but as ervy doesn't smoke, I probably won't be knitting these.

Satchel looks like it could be fun (in the larger style), but honestly, I think I might just prefer to sew something like that

Yay secret pal!!

When I got home from Missouri, and our held mail was finally delivered, I found a wonderful surprise from my Secret Pal! My SP had Paradise Fibers send me some wonderful sheepy notecards and envelopes! How cute! I definitely love all things sheepy currently :) Plus, these will come in handy when sending out RAOKs and other things to knitterly friends. THANK YOU SP!!



trip story
There was only once this trip that I noticed anyone staring at me (I had expected more stares, given that Cape Girardeau doesn't exactly have a large population of Asian individuals, and evvy had said he wasn't even sure his cousins had ever seen an Asian individual beyond a Chinese restaurant).

Anyway, I was down at breakfast at the Drury Inn/Lodge thing, and this small child (maybe 5 or 6 years old) stood next to my table staring at me.

I looked up, and he was staring at me. I looked away and continued talking to Mrs. M.

I glanced back, and the child was still staring at me. So I smiled at him, and looked away continuing my conversation.

I look back, and he's still staring at me. So I wave, and look away again.

I look back, he's still staring at me. So, being silly me, I stuck my tongue out at him (I'm just a child at heart, I didn't mean it offensively). OMG. He started screaming at the top of his lungs, "STOP THAT! STOP IT!!!" Then he ran to his parents to tell them about the mean lady who stuck her tongue out at him. I apologized. And as he left with his family, he stuck his tongue out at me (which I found entirely amusing). Mrs. M said, "Oh what a little imp!" and stuck her tongue out back at him as well (which was also entirely too amusing).

That's my story, now ya know. Just an amusing thing for me to refer back to and reread and laugh about :)

reader responses
THANK YOU Nathania, for helping translate those swedish board things I bought at the flea market!!

And to answer Hollis' question, unfortunately there was no knitting in Cape Girardeau. I did bring knitting, but most of my time was spent at Grandma's house, and as she and the cousins seem to be chain smokers, I didn't want anything I brought back to get as smokey as I did during my stay.

my condolences

37 killed as Blast rock London top to bottom- The Times of India

*sigh*

after listening to kqed online for 4 hrs, getting majorly depressed, sniffly, and very prone to sighing loudly, I've switched to listening to the new Coldplay cd my brother loaded into my iTunes.

Still, my thoughts and prayers go out to those in London affected by this tragedy.

My Missouri weekend

I'm back (about 15 bug bites later) from my visit to Missouri to visit with ervy's cousins, grandma, and uncle. We flew into St. Louis around midnight on Thursday and then drove 2 hours to Cape Girardeau.


evvie and me in front of one of the murals in cape by the mississippi

We had reservations at the Drury hotel (according to evvie's grandma, "those Drury boys did well. They tiled our bathroom too"), located right across from the Walmart supercenter. We crashed there until morning and then drove over to Grandma's house (evvie's grandma, but i'll refer to her as just grandma from here on). I met Grandma, Uncle Barry, his girlfriend Marty, Cousin Russell, Russell's girlfriend Christy, Cousin Lucas, pitbull puppy Jada, and large black lab puppy Cole.



Amusing things of note from this family trip:
1) Grandma's favorite and only swear word she'll say is "shit poop"
2) Uncle Barry has major beef with Sears over a rebates
3) Uncle Barry will always get angered over people shopping anywhere except Walmart and Sam's Club. (like when we wanted to go to Petco to get the puppies some toys that would last longer than 30 minutes, we got an earful of 'WHY ARE YA GOING THERE?' questions, statements)
4) Basements can be frightening
5) people seem to like to turn the tv on when they get up in the morning, and leave it on all day, even if they leave the house. I find this to be very odd as well as a waste of electricity.
6) people in cape girardeau don't donate much other than clothes to goodwill. My trip there to see what people give up left me empty handed.
7) the other side of the mississippi river, Illinois, has an old speakeasy (the Purple Crackle) but besides that, seems to just be miles and miles of farmland
8) there really aren't any coffee shops. There was a Starbucks in the Barnes and Noble, but the grocery store clerks looked at me pretty blankly when I asked about local coffee spots
9) there's so much porch sittin'
10) there are a bijillion religious/political billboards around Missouri

I went shootin' in Missouri. We went out to Uncle Barry's house in the country (near Jackson, MO) off some dirt road. Unlce Barry lives in a double wide (pre fab house) to which he has added a large family room and an above ground pool. I immediately noticed mosquitoes landing on me, although Uncle Barry loudly disputed that I had indeed seen a mosquito. I sprayed myself with OFF! as Uncle Barry and Marty told me what I really had to worry about was all the ticks they have right now. Eeeks!

I'm not a big fan of guns. I actually find them quite scary, which is why I wanted to shoot at least once. I used one of the lighter weight guns and shot off 9 bullets (there was a dud in the clip).


I didn't do too shabby. I hit the target each time, just not always on the black part. Looky! I got through the heart once! This is the only target I ever plan on shootin', just wanted to do it once.


Here's evvy loading a gun and cousin Luke in his shooting attire.

Happy Birthday Paulie!

Happy Birthday Paulie!


sorry for the craptastic photo :( I can't wait to go to the cheesecake factory tonight to celebrate! YUM!

Relay for Life
last Saturday I went to the Los Altos Relay for Life to "Knit A Round." Hollis of Full Thread Ahead, organized a knitting team, and we knitted chemo caps and raised money for the relay! What fun! I got to meet Dina, Hollis, and Maglia!



the Los Altos High School Track was quite nice, one of those rubbery squishy numbers that is better for your feet and ankles. All around the track were these Luminarias that were to be lit in the evening for a cancer patient. During the daylight though, they just looked like plain paper bags.



Reader Question
Also Abigail asked where I got the pattern for the Irish Hiking Wrist Warmers. I was negligent in my linkage. The wonderful Delia of Wine and Needles created the pattern which is available here.

fo's fo me and others

after sitting a very long time on my needles untouched, I finally picked up my sock to be and finished it off. It is my first sock, and I think I would like to make its mate after I finish off a couple more of my WIPs.

It's made of some self stripey soft TLC on size 7 circs from the Weekend Knitting pattern on striped jazz socks. I think I'd like to get better at the kitchener stitch as the end of the toe and heel looked a little funky.



I'm also heading off to a baby dinner thing tomorrow, so I've made a quick umbilical cord hat from some bernat cotton tots. So cute! I posed it with my new book, Knitting on the Edge, which I have been coveting for quite awhile, but I only bought it recently when my friend Lourdes brought me a 40% off coupon for my local Michael's!


Speaking of Michael's, I couldn't help but pick up a few beads to make this pretty choker for my mom's bday (in september, I'm just preparing early).


I also finished off Roxy's bday gift of orange irish hiking arm warmers done in that wonderful Anni Blatt yarn I bought in Texas.


If you're ever in SF on the weekend, I highly recommend looking up the Blue Jay Cafe. Their brunch is FANTASTIC and quite reasonable. Evvie ordered a pulled pork sandwich which was delish! And I got some sort of yummy andoiulle sausage scramble. The place is a small popular neighborhood spot that serves up some yummy southern type cuisine!

very staccato blog post i realize, but my brain is fried currently...

USATODAY.com - Picture perfect cell phone

USATODAY.com - Picture perfect cell phone

okay happy dance. quick post (i have a long post upcoming eventually!), but I've been on cloud 9 since I got my new sony ericsson s710a phone yesterday. I LOVE it. ok, there are some things that bug me, but really, this phone makes me so happy it feels sinful (how can I derive so much joy from such a material possession? I guess I'm freakin' shallow like that)

anyway, JOY!

yarn haul and an amazing RAOK!

I'm so touched by the kindness of people that I've met online in the knitting blog world. I've even enjoyed meeting up with several of you to knit. When I see knitters getting together to do amazing things (like all the fund raising yarn harlot did for doctors without borders, and the relay for life knitting team that Hollis has organized) it makes me feel a little better about the world and renews my faith in people again. (on a totally random note, the movie Enron made me feel like all people might be untrustworthy and left me with a bad taste in my mouth and tears in my eyes).

Yesterday I got home and in the mail was one of the most wonderful RAOKs I've ever received! Caitlyn sent me FOUR VINTAGE KNITTING MAGAZINES!!!! GAH! I'm so happy! I LOVE vintage knitting mags! And she had a wonderful note along with it! I'm so touched that she gave me such a thoughtful gift! I've already flipped through the 2 spinnerin mags, and I think a lot of the fishermen sweaters are so CUTE (and the sweater dresses amuse me and delight me to no end)! I'm saving the vogue knitting ones to flip through once I've finished my work tonight!


If I get off my butt to the scanner, I see more vintage patterns of the day (photos) in the future of this blog! Thank you so much Caitlyn!

Texas Yarn Store Review
In asking for Chicago yarn store recommendations, I realized I didn't get a chance to review the two yarn stores I visited in Houston, Texas. Ervy and his brother were kind enough to driver around to Meyerland and elsewhere to visit two stores in one day!

The first yarn store I visited was Nancy's Knits in Meyerland. It had moved a couple streets away from it's stated location on the website, but the marquis sign told us which street it was. The new place (they'd been there for a month) was in a large shopping center with a super market and near some hunan restaurant. Unfortunately, it had no sign yet, so it was difficult to spot.

The store itself was stocked to the brim with yarn. It had a lot of yarn in too little space if you ask me. There were towering cubes filled with yarn separated by small 2 foot aisles that were a little claustrophobic. I was excited to see that much wonderful yarn, but I was highly dismayed to find that nothing had a price label on it. I find it irritating to have to ask each time I pick up a skein how much it costs. So of course I didn't, and I ended up spending way too much money.

I bought 3 bright orange balls of Anni Blatt yarn (okay, up until yesterday, I thought it was AMY Blatt, the two n's sort of melded together in my mind. Then another knit friend corrected me yesterday. oops!), 2 balls of a yummy merino PaintBox yarn, and some other yarn that is on its way to my SP5. I was also searching for some non metal short circulars to bring on the plane with me. The store itself didn't have any short enough. The saleswoman did offer to lend me hers and I could mail it from California (again, knitters are such wonderful people!), but I knew I was heading to another yarn store, so I thanked her and went on my way.



The second yarn store we visited was Yarns 2 Ewe

I liked this yarn store better as it was brightly lit, had more space to move around, and had prices on everything (and a nice sale area at the back). The staff was fairly friendly, and the told me about a spinning shop I can visit next time called The Upstairs room. I ended up buying the summer and spring issues of spin-off, 3 sale skeins of Classic Elite Paisley wool yarn, and 3 clover tools that help you tie fun asian knots for buttons and closures!

chicago has good hot dogs, right?

So there is a possibility that I will be going to Chicago for 5-7 weeks this summer with work. This is both exciting (it's an amazing opportunity for me) and daunting (I hear it's really really hot over there, and I'd be working LOTS, the work may be really demanding and stressful, and there will be no ervy).

I won't know for a bit if I'm going or not, since my professor is offering the opportunity to graduate students first. So, we'll see :)

Anyone know any good yarn shops in Chicago?

cousins' graduation

*ahem! cough, cough *



yes, so... I went through all of my cousins' graduations and receptions and lunch/dinner without anyone noticing (including myself) my fashion mishap. Only as the family gathering was dispersing did my cousin Christine ask, "Um, Lori, did you know that you're wearing two different shoes?"

ack! I was deciding between the two shoes yesterday morning, and I really thought I had put both the flower ones on before I left. oops. Both shoes were similar in height so I didn't notice any problems walking, and they are similar enough in color that no one noticed it right off the bat.

This is a short blog burst today. My brother showed me his new cell phone yesterday, and I had fun playing around with it. He's actually going to return it and get a better one (with a 2megapixel camera), but I like his. My dad has already agreed to getting me one for my birthday! yay! more photo taking capability for the bloggy blog! the pic of my shoes above and the following two are from his cell phone (i shrank them in photoshop)

big headed asha


and sleepy nikko

Saving Face

Saving Face was probably the best movie I've seen in long time. It's amazing that you can forget how good a movie can really be until you see one that really resonates with you. Really this movie was funny, emotional, and mentally stimulating.

I know this is often said about other Chinese American movies (think JLC), but they really captured the Chinese American (adult generation) community well, and many scenes were amusing in their familiarity and obvious silliness (at least from the point of view of this 3rd gen gal).

Y'all should go see this movie! The only part I found hard to swallow was the ending, but, heck, it's hollywood. I liked the rest of the movie enough anyways.

I'm even going to recommend to my parents that they see this movie, although I know there may be some scenes that make them uncomfortable (really just 1 or 2 short scenes).

spinning
I started spinning again 2 nights ago while watching TV. I spun up almost all of the superwash merino my wonderful SP4 sent me! The most fun discovery of the night was that I can finally do the long draw! (or at least I can do it with this roving). It is uber fun, and I definitely think i'd like to sping this way more often in the future. Anywho, I spun it up into singles and spun up some wonderful bright red wool singles to ply it with. The resulting yarn is very bright and pretty and reminds me alot of of some of the bright plies of snapcrafty yarns. Pictures to come later when I dig out my camera.

so this isn't an entirely pictureless post, here's nikko when he first investigated the cubby of the dvd rack that ervy built:


the cats have been wigging me out. Nikko jumps onto the stove and counters when we're not looking. I've caught him on the stove, and he gets a good squirting, but he doesn't really seem to care afterwards, since he'll jump right back on again. This mainly means that 1) we have to be uber careful when we're cooking (no leaving unattended stockpots heating on the stove 2) no waiting to clear up leftovers out of the pans on the stove or nikko will do it for us (I've caught him doing this) 3) I need to keep anything fragile or dangerous off the countertops. Meaning I can't leave wine glasses that need washing next to the sink or nikko may topple them over, and no leaving sharp objects on the counters. This morning I found a pair of scissors on the bathroom floor that Nikko (I guess it COULD have been asha, but nikko is the one who mainly jumps on the counters) had dragged off of the kitchen counters. He's such a trouble maker!!!

movie week

This week is movie week. On Monday evening, my friends and I went out to catch the latest Star Wars Movie. I personally think it was a waste of money. Very cheesy. Ervy sent me this cute comic about it that amused me.

Tuesday night we watched Finding Neverland with Paulie. I lurve me some Johnny Depp. I enjoyed the movie, and it reminded me a bit of Big Fish in some of the more imaginative parts.

Last night ervy and I finally saw Hairspray (yay John Waters). I still think I like Polyester best, but Hairspray was fun/interesting. I didn't know anything about it besides the fact that it was by said director and ricki lake is in it. It was a fun throwback to times of old when people would actually watch tv just to see people learn actual dances. I did think the beatniks were an odd/amusing touch.


Tonight: Saving Face. I have heard good things about this movie from some of the Asian American online communities I'm on. It's by local director (San Jose) Alice Wu.

i'm alive and well

sorry to have left everyone hanging. I was quite quite ill when last I blogged, but then even after the doctor's appointments, I still had to run into work to try to tie up some loose ends, and then pack like a mad woman before I trucked off to Houston to see ervy's brother graduate.

Here's Sean, the happy high school graduate:


I got to meet scads of evan's family. I learned all about the past year of one of his uncle's medical history (stuff neither evan nor sean had any clue about) as told by his aunt while ironing sean's shirt for graduation. I had the wonderful chance to be caught off guard by evan's mom's birthday. Apparently it was the sunday of graduation May 29 (again, evan and sean were clueless that it was their mother's birthday). There I was stuck without a gifty, so evan and I raced out before graduation (like 30 minutes before) and picked up season 3 and 4 of West Wing for her.

Graduation itself was quite interesting. It was threatening to rain the entire time, and as they were calling out the graduates names for them to get their diplomas, it started to thunder and lightning directly over head so that half the audience ran away while the ceremony continued.

This is the puzzle that saved me during my trip to Houston. It's 2000 pieces, and provided wonderful focus for me during times of M familial stress and bustle.


food tour
Most of my time in Houston after focusing on the graduation weekend, was spent seeking out tasty food places. I made sure to hit my favorites like Goode Company Barbecue (the ribs and sausage are quite yummy, and the smoked duck is AMAZING. And don't forget the jalepeno bread) and House of Pies (for that wonderful pie 24 hours of the day!). I also went to Pappadeux and had some tasty creole food (my first time having dirty rice and shrimp creole), and I ate the most fantastic sweet potato pecan pie *YUM*! Evan's mom made red beans and rice for me (a dish fairly foreign to me, but yummy all the same). I had some of the tastiest pizza Houston has to offer from Star Pizza (their salads are so yummy, I think I had the "chelsea"). We had some mediocre vietnamese food at Mai's (I think it was mediocre because the dishes ordered weren't really vietnamese (but instead a poor rendition of chinese food), there were two tofu dishes that basically tasted the same and were unextraordinary). The last meal we had there was sought out in the Bellaire area of Houston. We went to Santong Snacks for some of the yummiest dumplings I've had in a long time (sean refused to try the pig ear appetizer we got). Here's a photo (not mine) of some of the yummy dumplings at Santong Snacks for your drooling pleasure. The dumplings we ate were not fried.


devil's many disguises
Wow. this Walmart (seen near the Meyerland side of Houston) looks like a Whole Foods... weird creepy image change, no?