In California, sledding is an event. Last weekend we went to Pinecrest, on the way to Yosemite, to go sledding. We spent Friday night at my brother-in-law’s place in Tracy, about 45 minutes a way, and then in the morning we all piled into his SUV and drove 2+ hours. We brought Sammie and his 2 older girls. The night before we had to make a Target run to buy some snow boots – back in Ohio, people just had that sort of stuff. It was kind of expected.

Anyway, we played in the snow for a few hours on this big slope with a couple dozen other families (it was crowded, in typical California fashion), and we all had a pretty good time. The weather was nice too – a balmy 45 degrees. Sammie was pretty freaked out when we went sledding, but she loved throwing snowballs. Apparently kids nowadays don’t make snowballs the old fashioned way, they use snowball makers. I wish they had those 20 years ago. Aside from nearly knocking myself out trying to take a small jump on the sled, I had a blast.

All in all, it was fun but somewhat of an ordeal. Not that I’m complaining – I don’t like playing in the snow enough to have to live with it.

It’s amazing how much things can change and how little they actually do. Duckie looked..the same, although he was a sporting a Caesar-style haircut instead of the buzz. Stephen and Karen — still not married. Eva — still married and her bio-diesel car does smell like french fries. John, well I never met him before so it was all new . But it would have been nice to spend a little more time together. We spent most of the time catching up and not as much just hanging out as I would have liked.

Later on I met up with Trang and the kids and Quoc at their house and we headed out for dinner in downtown Bellevue. Surprisingly (to me, anyway), Bellevue is a city in it’s own right. It looked more urban and bigger than Cincinnati, which is a bit of a shock for a city that many people probably never heard of.

But it was great seeing everyone; the kids seem to have assimilated just fine into their new schools, Trang spent most of the time trying to convince me how Huong and I should move up to the area. It’s definitely a nice place, but I don’t do well with foul weather — that’s one of the reasons I wanted to move to California in the first place (before I met Huong, of course). Maybe one of these days…

And for lunch yesterday we dropped by Oinkster. Started by a well-known local Filipino chef, “slow fast food” is the tagline and it’s the best barbecue I’ve had since spending the summer in Mississippi.

If you’re in the LA area, check ‘em both out.

Friday was also Huong’s birthday (the big “three-oh”). The day itself was pretty low key — I got her a card and we went out to dinner with her sister at the Vegetarian House restaurant (aka “Master’s”). As a gift I got her 2 passes to go indoor skydiving, but the place hasn’t opened yet and the passes I ordered got delayed in the mail. For some reason saying “Hey, I got you this really cool present but you can’t see it yet” doesn’t quite seem so impressive.

Yesterday, Huong went to her cousin Mai’s house getting a makeover for fun. They were having some sort of photo shoot in preparation for getting their own online business off the ground so they had some friends who where makeup artists and photographers there. We’ll see if I can get her to write about her experience with that.

And today is the real gift that Huong got for herself: she’s going to a day spa in Santana Row with Emily, her cousin Tri’s wife. She’s given up on trying to get me to attend those things with her