Christmas on the East Coast. 2010 edition

We spent Christmas on the East Coast for 2010.

We were originally supposed to stay for 4 days but we ended up staying an extra 3 days due to a blizzard. (damn you winter! why must the holiday season also be the winter season?).
The pro was, I got to see Washington DC with the extra days we had.
The cons were, I had to take extra days off work (more than I can afford!), I lost a client for my pet business (more about that later), not enough fresh food in the fridge at home for the guinea pigs, and had to pay extra $$$ at the LAX long term parking lot

Curse you winter!!!
In my ideal world, I would live in Hawaii forever, where it's summer 365 days a year. mmmm
=)

Now on with the photos!
We started our trip in New York, spent the middle of our trip in New Jersey, then drove down to Washington DC to end our trip there.

NEW YORK:

View over New York and Central Park

We are so cute

Empire state building?

Us cousins at Rockefeller Tree

NEW JERSEY

The start of the blizzard

The end of the blizzard

WASHINGTON DC

Capitol Building

Jeff getting stopped by the DC police. 
"It wasn't me, I swear!"

 

White House

 

Thomas Jefferson

Lincoln Memorial

 

Lincoln

 

FDR's dog at the FDR Memorial

FDR's memorial fountain was frozen over

National Monument

Happy Holidays 2010!

Holiday Decorations!

This is my very first Christmas where I have a Christmas tree and decorated the house with Christmas lights!
We don't have too many decorations, but I still think that our house has the best decorations on the entire block!
I will definitely scour the stores right after Christmas for clearance sales to stock up on more decorations for next year.

View of the front of our house!
Blue icicle lights, lights on the tree trunks, and a reindeer!

Side view of the house.
We are very happy with how it looks


Close-up view of our eating reindeer.
Her head moves up and down.


We bought a real Christmas tree!
It's called a "noble fir" tree


This is how the tree looks with the lights off!
Ooh. Fancy.


aaaand.. this is how it looks with the lights on.
See Marbles watching on the lower-left? :)

Guinea pig mani/pedi

After an unfortunate incident the last time we cut the guinea pig's nails (which involved some blood loss. poor marbles.) we decided to let the professionals do it!

Orange County Cavy Haven offers guinea pig mani/pedis at $3 per piggy (what a deal!).
We all piled in the car (jeff, me, marbles and ruby) and headed down to the OC to give our girls a spa day.
And by "piled in the car", I mean:

• Setting up the pet carrier with plenty of soft fabric to ensure maximum piggy comfort
• Get Marbles and Ruby out of their house by chasing them in circles and cornering them. They can haul @$$ when they really want to...
• Put the pigs in the pet carrier and place into car
  
• Make a guinea-pig-snack-bag for the road, consisting of romaine and carrots
• Packing a guinea pig water bottle with their snack bag
  

Guinea pigs are travel size

The entire car ride down to the OC was filled with guinea pig squeaks and squawks -- courtesy of Ruby.

Marble was lucky contestant #1.

She put up quite a fight. Boy, was my face red.


Ruby was more cooperative


Marbles (in the carrier) watching Ruby get tortured

The entire process was very fun.

November = Baking

Ever since the weather started getting colder due to the fall season, I have been baking up a storm in my kitchen.
Not only does the colder, darker evenings makes me crave warm goodies from the oven, but using the oven also helps warm up the house a teensy bit (temporary solution until we get our central heating fixed). On top of all that, Thanksgiving is a week away, so its a good time to clear the cobwebs on my baking skills!

This is what I've been up to the last two weeks...

Pumpkin Pie

Candied Pumpkin Seeds


Chocolate Cake a la Mode


Oven Baked Potato and Yam Fries

Lemon Bars


Beer can roasted chicken


French Onion Soup

I think we are well on our way to packing away warm blubber for the winter months

Halloween! Jack-o-lanterns galore

Happy Halloween everyone!
What were we up to for Halloween this year?

Carved Jack-o-Lantern:
Jeff's drunken hillbilly on the left
Jen's Dracula on the right



Made Jack-o-Lantern Bell Peppers for Dinner:
BEFORE


AFTER


Jeff is eating Mini-Jack's brains!! AHH!


Mini-Jack-2 has been scalped


Knotts Scary Farm:
a view of the roller coasters at night

Hey. Who's that new kid?

Hey. Who's that new kid?

Three Rumps

Marbles: "I choose Bachelor #1"

Ruby: "Hey. That new kid is copying me"

------
Jen took these brilliant photographs. A big thanks to her very cooperative models.
See the entire set here:

The New Pig In Town

The cute animals of Hawaii

In addition to the cute animals of the sea we've already seen in my Hawaii blog posts (sea turtles, giant sand crabs, manta rays, fish), let's not forget about the animals of the land!

We saw....

Red headed birds....

Yellow birds, blending into yellow grass...
(talk about camouflage!)

Adorable green lizards

We saw these bug-eyed fellers everywhere, including the inside of our condo....

As well as ON JEFF!!!

Do you see the baby lizard? He's on Jeff's shoulder

(poor jeff.. look at that expression... priceless)