Saturday night there was a team dinner for Mazda at Fiamma, an Itailian restaurant at MGM. 

I had the sea bass and D tried to carbo-load with the pasta trio.

Afterward, we were also given tickets to ride the High Roller, which is a sort of mega-ferris wheel overlooking the Strip.  Each pod holds up to 40 people, and some of the pods have a bartender!  This is definitely one of those things that I would not shell out big bucks for, but since it was free, why not? 

The High Roller is part of a new area surrounding the LINQ hotel.  I really liked this shopping/restaurant district.  There are no cars, which makes navigation a lot easier than the Strip.  We were not really able to explore very much, though, since it was already past our bedtime. 

Since this was D’s second time running the Las Vegas Rock ‘n Roll series, we had a better idea of where to go.  We parked at the Las Vegas Westgate hotel (formerly Las Vegas Hilton) and walked to the convention center.

D received VIP check-in treatment. 

We were greeted with a gigantic bowl of pasta.

There was good foot traffic at the Mazda booth.

They gave out branded plastic cups with popcorn inside.

Not that much popcorn, as you can see.  They did provide different flavor shakers, however.

The expo felt much more crowded than last year.  This yogurt was worth waiting in line for, though!

I thought I checked in online into Bally’s, but it did not exactly work.  However, we were able to by-pass the regular check-in line by claiming that we did check in online.  The room was nothing spectacular, but it was fine for our purposes.  I really liked the location (it is connected to the Paris Hotel).

After taking a business trip to Las Vegas, Fort Lauderdale, and St. Louis, D returned home on Friday.  The next morning, D and I took off again for Las Vegas so that he could run the Rock ‘n Roll 1/2 marathon, sponsored by Mazda.  Our first stop was Bachi Burger, which is located just outside of Las Vegas, in Henderson.  We arrived before the opening time of 11:00, but by the time it opened, there was a small crowd waiting to get in.  

The décor is hip/trendy, especially considering its location in a rather blah strip mall.

When they brought out the knife for our hamburger, we could tell they meant business. 

This was the Kiki’s burger, described as follows:

Angus Beef  Sautéed Shiitake, Enoki &
Eryngii Mushrooms  Caramelized Bacon
Sweet Onion Marmalade  Gruyere Cheese
Garlic Chili Aioli

Oh my!  This was so good.  Definitely one of my top burgers, if not the top, in my book.

We also shared a bowl of Spicy Miso Ramen.  This one was not for those averse to strong flavors.  It was definitely spicy, which we liked.  However, the chashu pork was mostly fat, which was not enjoyable to me.

We also ordered fries, which turned out to be unnecessary.  They were fine (served with pineapple ketchup), but D ended up not being very hungry, for some reason.  I realized that enjoying my food with another person is half of the fun of eating!  Nevertheless, I hope I will be able to eat here again.  (They opened one in L.A., and one is coming to Pasadena.  Orange County may not be far behind?)

On Nov. 2, both k and n ran and finished the 5k Dino Dash.  This race is a major fundraiser for the Tustin Unified School District.  k ran with D and L ran with n.  This was the first 5k  race that any of us had run.  (Of course, D is used to running much longer distances).  D trained with the kids a few times before, but they had never run that long before.  D set a goal for n finishing in one hour and k finishing in 45 minutes.  However, both k and n crushed their goals.  k ran it in 38:42.1 (12:27/mi pace) and n ran it in 42:21.6 (13:38/mi pace).  At the very end, I even had a hard time keeping up with n!  My legs were so sore the next day, but the kids didn’t even feel it!  They are excited to run again next year and try to better their times.  Maybe they will take after D and become runners.

On our way home from the Long Beach Harbor tour, we decided to stop in Garden Grove, near by my childhood home, to a newish restaurant called Kerostena Mediterranean Grill.  Yes, we had a BOGO coupon from the Entertainment Book.    The kids are never excited when we tell them tat we are going to eat Mediterranean food.  However, once they taste it, they inevitably like it!  This was no exception.

The restaurant is not too large.  It was actually really crowded because there was a family birthday party that took up most of the tables.  It was funny to watch the grandpa hand out twenty dollar bills to all of his grandkids.  I don’t think this was an ideal place to have a large party, but the food was good and reasonably priced, so I guess I can understand why they chose this place. 

You order at the counter and the food is brought to the table.  We ordered a chicken shawerma plate and a gyro plate. 

The chicken was remarkably tender.  It was a little lacking in flavor, but if you spread a little of the pungent garlicky white sauce (similar to Zankou chicken), it adds all the flavor you need.

The gyro meat was n’s favorite.  When you add the hummus and pickled vegetables, there are a lot of different flavors that play well together. 

We really enjoyed this authentic, family-run restaurant.  I can see why it has such high reviews on Yelp!

Thankfully, the rain started to come down on Halloween night after we were all safe and sound at home.  The next day there was a beautiful rainbow over our community.

We went on a Long Beach Harbor boat tour that morning.  It was free, but you have to be ready to the minute on the day they release tickets, since they go in a few minutes!

We a grabbed a seat inside the cabin right away.  We knew from experiencing the whale-watching tour that it would be freezing on the deck.

We departed from the dock right behind Parker’s Lighthouse restaurant.

We passed the Queen Mary.  Look at those ominous clouds.

You are free to bring food on board.  There were even free drinks!  Coffee for D, hot chocolate for the kids, and Sprite for me.  (I thought I might get seasick, but I did not).

The tour was narrated by a very knowledgeable tour guide.  He started out above board, but ended up inside due to a sudden downpour (along with everyone else on the boat).  At the end, he asked some trivia questions.  D won a Long Beach Harbor beach towel!

It is amazing to think about how much container ships can hold and transport!

This ship launches satellites into space!

Returning to shore.

I would highly recommend this interesting tour.  We went on the last one of the year, but I believe they will start again next year.  Thanks to my sister for letting us know about this unique family outing. 

Halloween now seems like ages ago, but I don’t want to forget about it.  k and n had the day off of school, so their Halloween festivities took place the day before.  On Halloween itself, my parents took the kids to the Irvine Park pumpkin patch, for which I won tickets.  In the afternoon, I took the kids to The District, and they trick-or-treated at the various stores that had an orange sticker in the window.  For dinner, we went to a pizza party at our community pool, sponsored by our generous neighborhood realtor.  After that, we trick-or-treated throughout our neighborhood, which I think is the perfect size for trick-or-treating.

k and her besties during the school parade.

Walking to the pizza party.

Since we were all out trick-or-treating, we left a basket of candy on our porch.  There was still a good amount left when we returned—glad to have honest neighbors.

One of our neighbors goes all out with the inflatables.  Love the Snoopy/Charlie Brown pirate ship!

Dividing the loot!

Lately, I have been noticing n’s creativity really flourishing.  When I give him a new craft material, he comes up with an idea and executes it.  Sure, this often means little bits of paper all over the floor, and empty tape dispensers.  I just have to remind myself to “get over it” and appreciate the mess that creativity often breeds.

n found some kraft paper, so he made an In N Out combo consisting of a hamburger, fries and a drink.

A couple of weeks ago, D ran another half marathon sponsored by Mazda.  This time it was in Los Angeles.  We all accompanied him the day before so he could pick up his bib, t-shirt, etc. 

The Expo was at the Convention Center, where they were charging $15 for parking.  However, we found a $5 lot that required a bit of walking.

We walked past Staples Center.

Afterward we drove to Little Tokyo.  I had grand plans to participate in the Hello Kitty Hungry Hunt, in order to obtain some cute HK-food related pins.  However, the first place that I visited said they were not giving the pins out until noon, so I gave up.  We did pick up some food to go at Marukai, though.

My sister told me about a night hike led by rangers from the OC Parks system being held at Peters Canyon, so we signed up.  There were refreshments (cookies and hot chocolate), and a short presentation of various animals that can be found at Peters Canyon.  The hike started a little late because we had to wait for everyone to use the restroom (a necessity after all that hot chocolate), and there were only two working stalls. 

We also told some friends from our small group and met them there.

There were two options—a longer hike and a shorter hike.  We opted for the shorter hike since we had to go somewhere afterward.  We were on the hunt for pack rats and tarantulas, but no such luck.  We did, however, come across these creatures:

Pretty freaky, huh?

No, they were not alive, but they were “real”.  Haha.