The Past 10 Days

The past two weeks have been super eventful!! To just recall everything I did and saw would take an entire blog and would probably be very wordy and not seem as eventful as it really was.

First: I stole my little sister from Sacramento and brought her down to Burbank for 10 whole days! While I was at work she did her school studies, but once the clock struck 5, I zoomed down home (Pasadena to Burbank is a downhill slope freeway--- great on gas mileage). After the mad dash down 134 and a quick dinner, Ella and I were out and about. Not knowing too much about the area myself I ended up taking her around town to places I knew, enjoyed, and knew would be safe :). So, better than words, for now I would rather post some pictures :).

Monday- First thing's first... Downtown Burbank, who doesn't take their guests to their city's downtown? 

Tuesday- We went to one of my favorite cities here in Los Angeles... Montrose. It is so nice and calm. The city has a small town feel to it, nestled in the hills. One day, hopefully by next February, Vlad and I can nestle ourselves there :).

Wednesday: Bible study at College of the Canyons... 

Thursday: Finally! Vlad was able to take a break from his studies and we could go somewhere all together. We decided on City Walk... which is at Universal Studios.

Friday: I crashed... not in any horrible kind of way. I was just very super uper duper tired. Sort of like this:

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I wanted to keep going but I couldn't after an entire week of going to work, coming home to make dinner, changing, and heading out to explore.... really wore me out... so instead it was nap time (Vlad advised--- I was obedient wife). Then it was time to make an extra bed, space, and tidy up for Yanna and Andrey!! They came that evening to stay with us through Wednesday.

Saturday: Now this day was JAM packed. First we headed out to Hollywood and Highland Center:

Ella has a star:

So does Yanna!- close enough. Andrey found a cool one too...

And this is the closest I got:

Unless you bring your fancy camera.... this picture opportunity hot spot is not very hot. Because it's either you or the sign.

Then we drove a few miles and ended up in Beverly Hills:

Andrey doing what he usually does :)

Then... when Vlad was done with his studies, we came home to some dinner and continued our evening with Vlad included.... OF COURSE we took our new guests to downtown Burbank! But first we went on to show them off our little hopefully future community in the hills: if you guessed we went to Montrose you are correct.

Andrey actually has a normal smile... but something about Montrose.... all the pictures there he has that face...

When we went to downtown Burbank I suggested The Coffee Bean- I've retired Starbucks and now choose this place to get my treat drink & will sway Vlad in that direction too (only if he wants- I think he does) (personal favorite is the caramel latte) mmhmm.
Looks like it was enjoyed:

Sunday: Went to the 8:30 a.m. service at Grace Community Church. Then we planned on possibly going to Santa Monica... but the weather ended up steering us otherwise.

We had lunch at one of our favorite places Zankou Chicken:

...and it continued to POUR--- not exaggerating on the pouring.. so we had one of these kinds of days... laid around, ate, drank, played Draw Something, watched a movie/cartoon...

Monday (again): Andrey, Yanna, and Ella enjoyed their time at Universal Studios. So that night we stayed in, had dinner, tea time, and just had a lets sit, talk, and reflect kind of time.

Tuesday: Yanna and Andrey went to tour some optometry schools (for Yanna). Lord willing, she will be able to continue on to the graduate program and become a doctor with super flexible hours...

Later that evening, we went on to explore the tapioca tea place in our part of town (there are many) but we chose the closest one. Boba Loca- it was pretty good but not as good as the Old Teahouse place in Davis. mmmhm.
So here we sat, sipped the drinks, chewed on the tapioca, and played Mancala:

Wednesday: Yanna and Andrey went to the filming of the Tonight Show... about 6 minutes from the apartment... they sat "SMACK DACK" in the middle.... and if you watch that show 3/28/12 you will see them... so yup within 6 days those two were already broadcasted on public television high "fiving" Jay Leno and all.

And that is it... that final evening we hugged and kissed farewell for now, they headed out to back to Sacramento.

Now you see what happens here in nice sunny Southern California when we have visitors... It's time to look for more places to explore (there are very super many of them down here) as we hope to enjoy some more time with the company of our friends and family.

Crock Pot BBQ Chicken

 A while ago I pinned a recipe on pinterest; and wow has that recipe been re-pinned, liked, and commented on over and over. All those are pretty positive responses in the world of the internet, so it really motivated me to give this recipe a try.

We like BBQ, we like chicken, and I like the Crock Pot (It cooks while I do anything else).

 
It's pretty cool how you can mix some things together, put them in a Crock Pot, and whip out something delicious.

vinegar+brown sugar+garlic powder+red pepper flakes+BBQ sauce+ chicken= 

delicious Crock Pot BBQ Chicken.

Confession: I haven't really fallen in love with the Crock Pot just yet. It's convenient, indeed.... but the food, it comes out as Crock Pot food. Loving it or not, sometimes it's nice to have a Crock Pot meal and here is one I made and probably will make again in the future:

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This recipe is from this blog, but I tweaked replaced the red pepper flakes with red pepper powder (because that's what I had).

Ingredients I used:

4 pieces boneless skinless chicken breasts
3/4 bottle BBQ sauce
a little less than 1/4 c vinegar
a few dashes of red pepper powder
a little less than 1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp. garlic powder

A little less than: means I eye balled it to just about :). The recipe called for an entire bottle of BBQ sauce but because I was only using 4 chicken breasts, I deemed that less than the entire bottle would be enough.

1) Mix the BBQ sauce, vinegar, red pepper powder, brown sugar, and garlic powder.
2) Place the chicken in the Crock Pot
3)Pour sauce over it
4)Cook on low for 4-6 hours [I know that's a pretty big gap--- mine was done within 4]

We had it with mashed potatoes and some Caesar salad. nom nom nom.