After church we went to a birthday party for a three year old boy. The theme was Beyblade and Pokemon, two things of which I have very little knowledge.

Happy birthday!

The boy’s dad is a foodie, so he picked up deep dish pizza from Tony’s Little Italy in Placentia. I’ve wanted to try this place for a while, but never found myself in the Placentia-area. The pizza did indeed live up to the hype, and was extremely filling. My favorite was chicken-artichoke-garlic? I should have taken pictures, but by the time I remembered, n had crawled into my lap for a nap. After eating, I felt like a nap too!

After two years of living here, it is still weird to me that there is a horse trail just across the way from us. There is a sign that says that bicyclists and runners must yield to horses. By my parents’ house, they even have buttons for the cross-walk up high, so people can use them while riding horseback.

Hot dogs and cookie pops!

Sunday afternoon we took a short walk to the coastline. This was n’s first trip to Pebble Beach. k had no memory of it since she was less than two years old the last time we went.

For dinner we ate at Vito’s Italian Restaurant in nearby Pacific Grove. It is a low key place where you don’t have to hunt down parking like in Carmel. The place is family-run and we saw Vito himself. We enjoyed our pasta dishes, and finished the tiramisu in record time.

Sleepy time!

After showering and bathing at D’s parents’ house, we headed over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was Labor Day weekend, so it was pretty packed.

We had been once before with k, before n was born. I enjoyed watching k and n watching the animals.

So colorful!

In the middle of our visit we stamped our hand and went out to lunch at the Fish Hopper, which was recommended by our pastor. It felt kind of weird to eat seafood after looking at all the fish at the aquarium, but it was delicious. D had seabass and I had prawns stuffed with crab over pasta.


k and n really enjoyed the flaky sourdough rolls (and shared our entrees). The restaurant is within walking distance of the aquarium and has an excellent view of the bay. When we arrived at 11:45, seating was available, but by the time we left it was packed.

Welcome to the family, My Melody (k’s fave) and Keroppi! Who’s next? Paul Frank?

I love the weather we’ve been having lately. Warm, but not too hot. Saturday was the perfect day to go to the beach. We went to Huntington Beach (state side, of course!)

However, playing in the sand is not much fun when you have a cut on your finger with a bandaid. (The cut was from earlier in the day due to an unfortunate incident with scissors).

Last week, D was in Baja helping build a home with other team members from our church. As you can see, the kids were happy to have him back home.

While he was gone, I managed to clean/organize our room/bathroom. Now onto the next challenge: our closet.

On Saturday we went to Bolsa Chica State Beach. We have now visited all of the state beaches in Orange County where you can use your state park pass.

It sure was windy. Too windy to even set up our umbrella. This is a self-portrait I took of n and myself while D took k to the restroom.

Afterward we went to a dive-y Chinese placed called “Big Chopsticks” in Huntington. Guys, don’t take a date there, but the food was pretty good, and the portions were big. It seemed like the vast majority of their business is delivery. Be careful of their delivery drivers in the parking lot, though…kind of crazy.

During Yogurtland’s cross-promotion with Tokidoki, I mentioned that I thought Hello Kitty needed to be next. Fast-forward a couple of years, and my wish came true!

According to the schedule, Hello Kitty and Chococat are the spoons available right now, with My Melody (k’s favorite!) and Keroppi available August 11.

The cups are too cute.

Spoon close-up.

What can I say, the marketing geniuses got me! I didn’t even have a coupon. Unheard of…ha-ha. It was still reasonable, though, 5 something for all four of us. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately as the case may be), they didn’t have any merchandise available at the one we went to. I wanted to check out the keychains.