LA {Crawfish Boil}

Gerald headed to Breckenridge for a bachelor's party and I took advantage of him flying out of LA to hang out with some of my friends there. In deciding what to do in LA for the weekend, we ended up doing what we always do when we are together: Eat and Drink! That is the best way to catch up with friends, right. I had the idea of going to the beach and visiting the LACMA, but we all got lazy! 

Gerald and I drove in Thursday night and didn't waste at time. We went out for a drink with Leah, my host for the weekend. She just moved into an apartment within walking distance to downtown Culver City so we headed to a nearby craft beer bar. I so miss being able to walk to bars and restaurants. I think I enjoy conversations while walking the most {scotland walking was the best with my girls, you know who you are}! We went to Public School, which had yummy craft beer and good food! Everything was presented as if you were in a public school:)

I woke up at 5 am, Friday morning to drop off Mr. Pena at LAX. Leah conveniently lives 10 minutes from the airport, which was super nice! I didn't have to deal with traffic, yay! I hate LA traffic. This sure does beat driving into LAX the morning of a flight! Gerald was stressing me out the last time we flew out of there. Anyhow, Leah and I started our weekend with some local brew, coffee that is, at the Conservatory. I do love me a good coffee shop, especially when the coffee is nice and strong! The line was out the door for a good hour or so.  Sony entertainment Studios are across the street and I guess everyone needs their coffee fix on a Friday morning. 

We then had an amazing lunch at Sugar Fish! I heart sushi! Halibut, albacore and scallop nigiri. This was just a few of our dishes from the Nozawa Trust me special. If you are in LA, definitely check out. Nozawa Bar or one of the Sugar Fish location. It was divine! We went to the one in Marina del Rey.

I continued my Friday with some shopping at the nearby mall; how I miss a good shopping mall. I scored some good deals at Bloomingdales and Madewell =) I never go to the mall in Bakersfield so this was a treat for me. The mall here sucks! After a good day of shopping, what better way to unwind than with some wine and mussels. We went to dinner at another local eatery called, Meet in Paris. While dining, I almost felt a bit like I was in Paris, dining alfresco in the beautiful weather. It was suppose to be a girls dinner but Miss Dylan and her daddy decided to join us too =)

We continued on with our girls night at a local bar called, The Garage, and participated in some karaoke. Well, more like watching people karaoke while we shared lots of laughs and dancing!

The highlight of the weekend came on Saturday when 40 lbs of goodness arrived at our door, live crawfish from Louisiana! My friends always ship crawfish in from The Louisiana Crawfish company every year and I made sure they were going to do one when I was in town. We spent Saturday morning cleaning and cooking the mudbugs and then had a feast. It's been a while since I've had crawfish and it sure did hit the spot! Thanks friends for satisfying my craving, now I want more! I think we shall try and do one in Bakersfield soon=P We even made gumbo for dinner that evening, sure did remind me of  being in the south.

Too bad the Longhorns got knocked out of the basketball tournament that day. Dylan and I were still smiling anyways.

As if we didn't do enough eating the past two days, on Sunday, Leah and I drove out to Monterrey Park to get some dim sum at NBC seafood. My cousin introduced me to this place over Thanksgiving weekend and I've been thinking about it ever since. Their dumplings are so fresh and the custard and pineapple buns are to die for. We grew up eating dim sum so whenever I go long periods of time without it, it makes me a bit homesick. My parents still go weekly in Houston. At this point, I was so well fed that all I wanted to do was relax and that's how we ended the weekend. Gerald arrived at 7 pm and we drove straight back to Bakersfield afterwards. It was my first time actually driving and it wasn't bad. I'm happy that we live in Bakersfield, but even more happier that we have fun neighboring cities within a two hour drive. 

We'll, see you in 3 weeks LA! We are flying out of LAX again when we go to ATX for wedding in a few weeks time.  Plane tickets are about half the price out of LAX as opposed to BFL so it only makes sense for us to do this. Plus, we usually get to squeeze in good eats and time with friends. 

Bako Life {5 months}

Sorry for the lack of posts; not sure where all my time is going, but it seems to be flying by like the speed of light! 

We've been doing a lots of shopping for the house, trying out new Bako restaurants and meeting more new friends. Overall, life is good. 

I met a group of girls at a BBQ, hosted by one of Gerald's coworker and his wife and since then, I've been hanging out with them once a week. We've gotten together for a Monday lunch and a couple of Wednesday girls night. I think we are hoping to make this a regular thing:) Everyone has a kid but me, which is different than the girls in Aberdeen, but I've enjoyed learning about the mommy aspects of life. We are now talking about what babies are eating instead of what wine we should be drinking. I guess it's time for me to actually start paying attention to these things if we want to start a family soon...hehe. l'm also hoping to get them playing mahjongg soon so we will see!

We found a couple of new eats...

Chef choice noodles

Hi Sushi

Trader Joe's frozen Indian food! {to fulfill my Indian fix!}

Sweet surrender {best cupcakes in town}

Muertos {local bar with some good eats}

I went on a job "interview" to discuss possible opportunities with an IT company that works for Chevron. It went well but there are no positions available right now. One of the managers of the company was given my name from an old Chevron colleague so he gave me a call to see what I was interested in. Guess that's a start to this getting back to work thing. I miss working but also enjoy my time right now so just letting it be and seeing what happens;)

The contractors are back at the house right now and we are hoping to have a completed house soon! Now for the fun part, decorating :)

Anyhow, that's about it for the Bako Life. Here are some random pictures for you to enjoy! Due to the new iOS update, I can no longer import my iPhone photos onto my computer so I'm blogging via blogger now. I hope to resolve that soon, because it's quite annoying!

CVX girls! Bowling night and fish and chips! {supposedly the bowling alley has the best fish and chips in town, but it's no where near The Bay fish and chips!} Can you guess who has the real bump? 

Bako on a clear day {usually can't see the mountains}

Mardi Gras fun with a few Junior League friends

In love with cactus right now!

Okie dokes, time for bed! 

Tie One On for Tots

My spring 2014 Junior League provisional class is putting on an event to make tie fleece blankets to donate to a local charity in a few weeks. 

{sorry, only way I could insert the flyer}

I had some free time on my hand and decided to practice a little before the actual event so made one for Miss Kylie:)

I just YouTube'd tie fleece blanket and followed these simple instructions....

I used 1 yd of fabric each and cut the corners 3x5, with 1 inch fringe. It was super easy and took me about 45 minutes. 

TA-Da!! I'm so proud of myself. This is a perfect size for a baby, maybe toddler. If you want a bigger one, just google what size fabric you need. Making this makes me want to start sewing properly now! I think I shall take some classes:)

Now go make yourself a tie blanket!

Bullhead House Remodel {The Jack & Jill}

So the other two guest bedrooms share a bathroom and shower, which is great, however, for some reason, there is only one sink. After living with Gerald for the past 8 years or so, I've learned that having two separate sinks in a shared bathroom is key! One of the major things that we did with this bathroom was installed a second sink =) It looks so much better and I'm sure our guest will appreciate it!

I wanted to make this bathroom similar to the other with some slight differences.  For the floors we replaced the linoleum with a 12x24 charcoal black tile, painted the walls Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter, replaced Moen fixtures with Kohler ones for the same reason, replace the maple cabinets with dark brown cabinets similar to the other, used the same subway tile for the shower/tub and carrara marble counter tops for the vanity. We removed the glass shower door and decided to just use a shower curtain instead. There was a big bulky cabinet above the toilet that we had removed and so glad we did because it just opens the space up so much! Again, we ran into the same issues as the last bathroom {they were worked on simultaneously} but we overcame all the headaches and now have another great bathroom to treat our guest with!

Again, if you want to know more about the details, just let me know! In the meantime, here are more pictures of the before and after! 

Before 

After - kind of hard to take good picture b/c of the lighting but you get the idea. 

We are taking a wee break from the remodeling for the next couple of weeks,  but hope to start on the master bathroom by the end of the month. I can't wait for everything to be completed! It's been a fun process but I'll be happy to really get to organizing and making this house a home for us =)

Bullhead House Remodel {The Guest Bathroom}

I'm so excited about this post because that just means we are one step closer to having a completed house! We did quite a few things to the guest bath and ran into some issues along the way, but it's finally up and running! I think it took them a good 2 1/2 weeks to do everything for the 2 guest bathrooms. I'll write about the Jack & Jill later.

This guest bath is located in the hallway on the left wing of the house and can be accessed by a door in the hallway or one of the guest bedrooms. We wanted this to be a place where guest can feel at home, yet also feel like that were at a nice hotel! We splurged a little for 2x2 marble hexagon on the floors and I'm so glad we did. It just makes the room and looks so pretty I don't even want to walk on it. ha. 

We decided to paint the walls Benjamin Moore's Storm Gray, put subway tiles in the shower/tub  {headache}, replace the existing Moen fixtures with Kohler fixtures because they just had nicer styles that we liked {a bit of a headache}, replace the maple color cabinets with darker brown cabinet {semi- headache}, and to tie everything together, get carrara marble countertops for the vanity {another headache}. If you want to know details, just ask because there are a lot! Anyhow, after all the headaches, everything turned out great! There are some things I probably would have changed if it wasn't already too late, but at the end of the day, I'm happy. Lots of lessons learned but I won't bore you with them! Here are the pictures =)

Before

After

Now all we need are guests to use it =P