Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was a bit untraditional.


Here are some photos:

Yes, we got to spend Thanksgiving with Snoopy! We went to Knott's Berry Farm and had dinner at their hotel. It was delicious and there was a TON of food!!!

I have started decorating for Christmas (and am probably done already). I bought a 2 food fake Christmas tree and some small ornaments. That's about the extent of our decorations, as that is about all that will fit in our house! :) Oh well, at least it's a little festive!

Our First Winter Storm

Well, we here in LA experienced our first winter storm...in September! It was complete with pouring rain, lightning, and thunder. Of course, the first roll of thunder completely freaked me - the wimpy Californian - out. Being in California, and it being September, I wasn't really expecting it, but when the window right next to my head started shaking and banging, it startled me, to say the least. :) Anyway, we survived and enjoyed the change in weather. Our plants are enjoying it, too. According to the LA times, this was our first rain in 150 days. It's about time! Here's a picture from the LA times. It was taken in Ventura.

On another note, I was at the grocery store yesterday and was stunned when I pulled into the parking lot. I don't know if it's just because we live in LA or if this is becoming the new trend, but commercialism has gone another step too far. The lines for the parking spaces are now being sold as advertisements. Yes, that's right. When I pulled in to my parking spot, there were ads on the lines on either side of me...and on every line in the parking lot. What is this world coming to? This picture is also from the LA Times and is actually the parking lot I was at yesterday.

Fire Up the Grill!

A couple of weeks ago (actually the day James was in the accident), we came home to find an anonymous someone from church left a grill on our porch. So today, we decided to give it a try! We made hamburgers, and since it was Kimiko's first time making hamburgers from scratch and James' first time BBQing, it was quite an experiment. It turned out ok, although we have learned a few tips for next time! :) Anyway, we had fun, and here are a few pictures as proof that we actually did this!

For Robbie

No, I did not photoshop the eyes.

Here's a bug you can feed your snake:

Here's the bug drowning in soap. I guess your snake probably doesn't want it anymore. Oops! :P

For Keanna

Keanna, here are the pictures of the bunnies we've had in our yard. You should come visit the bunny!

Here's the first one that was in our yard, which we haven't seen for a couple of months:

And here's the bunny that is here now:

Just another day at work.... sort of

Here's a picture from the front page of the LA Times:

This isn't my (James') office, but mine was just as busy. It's a good thing my manager was there today, or it would have been just me assisting 70+ clients with their accounts. Thankfully corporate sent 2 people to help customers sign-in and manage traffic. Oh...what a fun 12-hour day at work. I can't wait for Monday!

An Addition to Our Family

So, we have a new addition to our family.
Yes, we finally bought a new car to replace our 1987 Volvo, which has over 315,000 miles on it. James and I are excited, too, because now this means that we can actually venture out of Santa Clarita in the summer when it's hot out! Yay for air conditioning! For those of you who don't know, both of our older cars don't have AC, so these Southern California summers are brutal!

Ok, so I said earlier that I would post some pictures from the baseball game, so here they are:

Oh yes...nosebleed section!

I don't know these guys.

So the latest news from Santa Clarita is that we had another earthquake yesterday. It was only a 3.5, but, since I was on the 6th floor of our office, it felt much larger.

Oh, and this is what my dad has been teaching my little niece:

Baseball Games, Earthquakes, and Bomb Threats

Yes, this week has been an eventful one, to say the least. So, here's the scoop:

The week started out as any normal week would. Monday morning we got up earlier than we wanted and went to work. Still normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. Tuesday, we drove down to Anaheim for a baseball game. Now, this isn't our normal routine, but we knew this one was coming. Boston was in town and it was, at times, hard to tell whether we were in Boston or Anaheim. Where we were sitting seemed to have more Boston fans than Angels fans. Unfortunately, Boston played sloppy and lost. So, it wasn't as eventful as it could have been, but it was still fun. I would post pictures, but my camera battery is dead, so hopefully I'll be able to add them at a later date.

Wednesday, just a normal day. We went to bed Wednesday night...everything's normal. So we thought....

At about 1:00 am Thursday morning, I was awaken by the feeling of the bed and the whole house shaking. Yes, it was an earthquake and while it was small, it was an earthquake nonetheless. It was only about a 4.5, but it's still the largest one we've had in a long time. http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=5553684

Thursday goes on a normal and Friday starts out like any other Friday. I (Kimiko) went to work and was working for a couple hours, when all of the sudden, I heard a large crowd and looked up to see everyone heading towards the stairs. It was then that my supervisor came over to us and told us we needed to evacuate "right now." So, we grabbed our things and headed for the jam-packed stairs. Once outside, we waited, they moved us one place, then moved us back, then moved us somewhere else. In other words, we had no idea where we were supposed to be. Finally, after waiting for about an hour in the hot sun, they told us we could go across the street to a shopping center for an hour. We ended up having to be out of the building for about 2 hours while they made sure our building had no bombs. Yes, it's an exciting time working for a big corporation. This is the 2nd time I've had to evacuate since I've been there these past 9 months. Anyway, it ended up that we were safe and there was nothing to worry about. http://www.dailynews.com/santaclarita/ci_6593028

So now it's Friday night and we'll see what's in store for the rest of the week!

Turning our house into a home...

Our latest endeavor is to clear some of the clutter and make our almost 400-square-foot duplex a little more comfy, roomy, and inviting. We've just been living with all our extra things stacked in boxes in the living room and bedroom, but we've decided it's time to clear it all out. I decided to document the whole process with pictures so that those of you who have never seen our place can see it and so that those of you who have seen it can see what we're doing to improve.





We hung a shelf under our bedroom window so that we can set our box fan on it, instead of on a pile of boxes we had sitting there. We also got more shelves for in the kitchen. Up until now, I've only been able to keep some of my dishes in the kitchen and the rest have been sitting in the living room--not very attractive. So now I'm hoping to move all dishes into the kitchen (well, at the least all except for the ones in storage). In the bathroom, we hung up a real shower curtain--it's not just that shower curtain liner anymore! Needless to say, we have lots of fun at Ikea that day!
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Now, on anther note, I made a yummy, cheap and quick recipe the other day, so I thought I'd share the recipe:

Basil and Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce
1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp flour
1 cup unsalted chicken broth
1 Tbsp finely chopped basil (or 1 tsp dried basil)
1 Tbsp sun-dried tomato paste*

In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Whisk in the flour and cook until it turns a light tan, about 2 minutes. Add chicken broth and increase heat to medium, stirring until thick, about 5 minutes. Stir in basil and tomato paste. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 minutes.

Coat cooked noodles with sauce and enjoy!

**I have neither heard of, nor seen sun-dried tomato paste, so I just used regular tomato paste and added some sun-dried tomatoes to the sauce.

Just one more community website...

So, we decided we might as well get into this whole blogging phenomenon. I mean, all of our friends are doing it, so why not? Since we don't get to talk to all of you very often, we figured this would be a good way to keep everyone up-to-date on what's going on with the James and Kimiko Parker family.