LA

since it's been really hard for me to get back in the groove at work, i'll post my recap of my LA trip. one word of advice, never ever ever leave for LA wed before thanksgiving at 4pm. there is MEGA traffic, we moved 2 miles in 30 minutes on 152E, so we decided to turn back and give it a go early next morning. so we drove to Valley Fair, shopped a little, ate dinner. it was around 9pm, i guess julian preferred getting to LA late wed night rather than thurs morning, so we decided to drive to LA then! the traffic on 152E wasn't so bad, but there was an accident! 3 cars involved in a head-on collision or something, luckily they were only blocking one lane and not both lanes, so at least we were moving. we got to LA around 3am, not too bad i guess. i was sooo tired though.

the next day we were having thanksgiving lunch/dinner, so we had to wake up semi-earlyish to help prepare food. his parents got a 23lb turkey!! for 7 people!! needless to say they had SOOOO much leftover hah.

on friday, i wasn't planning on doing any after thanksgiving shopping, but julian's mom wanted to go, and since she didn't have a car, she asked us to take her. at least she wasn't crazy and asked us to get up really early, we woke up at a normal time, went to fry's, old navy, the mall, and best buy. didn't really buy that much, i do not really enjoy shopping that much when it's crazy crowded.

on sat, we went to casino morongo (it's some new indian casino right next to cabazon -- my fav outlet of all time! ) julian and i weren't actually too keen on going cause last year we went to cabazon on fri after thanksgiving to go shopping and it was WAYYY too crowded plus it's 2 hours east of LA, but i guess it was like a "family event" his mom had planned so we went. his parents like to gamble for fun, but they only play slots. we gambled at the casino for about 2 hours, all the kids won (me, julian, julian's bro) playing bj, julian's dad broke even, and julian's mom lost heh. then, since we had driven so far, we went shopping at the outlets. it was still crazy crowded and still hard to find a parking space, but luckily we found one. we probably would have left if we didn't find one. i didn't really find too much, but i felt so rushed cause we only had two hours to go shopping and cabazon is sooo huge. i only bought a sweatshirt there =) afterwards, there was sooo much traffic leaving the outlet, it was unbelieveable. and there was sooo much traffic on the way home. it took us 3 hours! then we met up with some of julian's friends for dinner (brazilian churasscia -- i'm too lazy to look up how to spell it) but it's basically a meat buffet. they just keep on bringing a bunch of different kinds of grilled meat and slice it onto your plate. it was alright, i was stuffed, the cheese bread was good (for those that remember it when we had it before a musical...) and afterwards we went to see alexander. it SUCKED. it was such a horrible movie. usually i never think movies suck, but this one was pretty bad. plus it was soooo loooooonggggg

sun we went out to lunch at houston's (the restaurant i wanted to go to for my bday! ) it was pretty good...and then went home, hung out til about 6:30. then it was time to drive home. stopped by diddy riese, volcano tea, and coffee bean on our way out =P the drive home wasn't too bad, got home around 1am.

now here i am back again at work! some people are already starting their christmas vacation next week cause they have to use up all their vacation days...i'm so jealous!