ijk

Christmas with the Kaneyukis!

irenejk — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:50:33 +0000

I got to spend Christmas and New Years with these cute boys! Elias and Ephraim.

Elias is cute when he eats. This is the day we found out Michelle is HAVING ANOTHER BOY!! That will make 3 for the Kaneyukis.

These guys like Karate-Dancing.

On Christmas Eve, we somehow ended up at this bar-ish restaurant in Alexandria. Good wings.

Sometimes it scares me how much children like Christmas.

The day after Christmas, we found out my brother and his wife had their little baby. Too bad they’re all the way in Fort Collins, CO. He is such a cutie though. This was the first or second day I think. His name is Ezekiel Jason Kim.

Elias was so excited about his new little cousin, he built him a house. …to be honest… I built that house. Oops…

I had so much fun with this guy. It’s fun to watch babies grow up into talking, thinking children. This little one is so kind it melts my heart a little bit.

We visited the temple.

We went to the botanical gardens where they had a special display and all the national monuments, parts of the Smithsonian, and other buildings were constructed into miniature form with STICKS AND LEAVES!!! It was amazing.

This guy is from Mt. Vernon. The annual Christmas camel!

irenejk — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:48:35 +0000

This may be procrastination…

irenejk — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:41:46 +0000

But obviously I’m okay with that. Lately I’m swamped with books about the Haitian Revolution because that is a huge chunk of my thesis. When I finish this thing I will put it on the internet and make you all read it. I am so excited to be done with school sometime. The plan is to defend my thesis in February, and graduate in APRIL. APRIL is so soon. I will be a Master. A Master of French Studies. Be confused and impressed.

Here are some pictures of stuff that has happened from many many months of not blogging.

Roomies trip to LA in August. I had forgotten how great LA is. The beaches! The FOOD! It was so great.

This is by the opera downtown.

Went to the Street Art Exhibit.

I decided that street art is better in the streets.

Meagan took me horseback riding! It was so fun and so pretty with the fall leaves. This is the day I found out I was extremely allergic to horses.

Did the DirtyDash with some fun friends.

Before and after.

And one I stole from the Flo-Foto website.

Remember when it was summertime and hot and you could ride your bike places? I miss that.

Dress-up season. Target, Arrested Development party, and a true Modern Family (I’m Lily… get it?)

I cross-stitched a cat! Only took me a year!

We went to Jackson with Ellie and Jon.

It was so beautiful!

Brandon and I went to LA again for his nephew’s baby blessing. LOVE LA!!

Brandon showed me the Venice Canals. Beautiful and quiet along these canals! Go here.

Shortly after this trip, WE GOT ENGAGED! Yay! Wedding is March 23/24th.

I started making coasters out of bathroom tiles. Here is my first batch.

Cool.

Brandon got a straight edge shave at a barber shop.

First time shaving in a year and a half!

And… I think that catches us up. Separate post for DC. I’m really gonna do it, and not cram it in six months later.

Help me write my thesis. And teach my classes. And drive to/from Provo every day starting January 4th. 2012, I’m mad at how you start.

The Majestic : Alexandria, VA

irenejk — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 04:39:17 +0000

Ok so I just went to the Majestic which according to Yelp and family members is a great great dining experience. Good food, good location, good atmosphere. Most of those things were true, but… the more I think about my dinner there the more I am so confused and weirded out by it. So Michelle (sister) and I get there and the hostess just looks at us, we tell her a table for two, and mumbles something, not because she’s mad, just because she talks really quietly and doesn’t want to make eye contact. Then, at least 4 groups of people leave over the course of the next 30 minutes, and we are still waiting to be seated. I’m almost wondering if the hostess has forgotten about us, even though we’ve been standing right in front of her for the length of a normal television sitcom. I mean, you don’t just forget it’s on, right? But she would go do stuff like she had purpose, walk away from her stand thingy and go towards a table but she would come back like she didn’t know why she ever strayed from her diagram of tables in the first place. I was convinced that she forgot about us because there were 4 empty, clean tables with no one occupying them, so I asked her how long the wait was. She said, oh… I just have to set this table over here. Michelle hushed me before a slightly snide comment (…I would have said it in a very nice tone).

So we sat down, and since we had had that half hour to stew over the menu, we knew what we wanted. Michelle ordered the sea bass and I wanted the pork chop. LITERALLY FIFTY MINUTES LATER, our food FINALLY CAME. This extra time to wonder about where our food allowed us to wonder about everyone working in this restaurant, including the guy standing in the back with a blazer just WATCHING everything. Was he the owner? Did he do this every night? What a terribly boring job. He just stood there. And looked at stuff. The whole time. So when I excitedly cut open my pork chop I was a little surprised to find it TOTALLY RAW on the inside. Completely totally raw. Pork… has to be cooked all the way, right??? Michelle seemed to agree. So I called the waiter over, I told him it wasn’t cooked at all on the inside, HE SAID NOTHING. ZERO WORDS. Took my plate, and looked kinda pissed. I didn’t know if he was mad at me, or mad at the chef because of some crazy mistake she keeps making.

Then that guy with the blazer (!) came up to me and, at this point, I had decided it was the chef’s fault, and that the powerful man with the blazer was going to offer my plate for free. So when he came over to tell me that the meat was SUPPOSED to be like that, and “you know how chef’s are…” and “pork, nowadays, can be eaten medium, medium-rare.” WELL WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME THAT BEFORE?? WHY DID YOUR WAITER WALK AWAY WITH MY FOOD WITHOUT TELLING ME THAT’S WHAT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE??? Basically, everyone in that restaurant HATED me, and showed it to me by later giving me a very tough, dry chop of pork.

I mean, maybe my expectations are too high, but a SORRY would have been nice. Y’know? Or the waiter TALKING TO ME about the problem. (I feel like I’m talking like the waiter and I are in some sort of relationship and we’re really not… nor is this a weird metaphor for some other real life problem… I really was just mad about the waiter’s lack of communication skills.) Anyway, I tried talking about it later with him and he had a hard time understanding my concern and it didn’t help a bit, so I just smiled and chewed on my pork.

In the end, Michelle’s sea bass was PHENOMENAL. And I bet, if I had eaten the pork the way the chef had originally cooked it, I would have enjoyed it more. And while there were other places that we could have eaten, I kind of enjoyed this weird experience because Michelle and I ended up laughing a lot and dissecting the evening to try and figure everyone out. Because… it was weird… amirite?

Travels.

irenejk — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:49:28 +0000

Brandon and I went to LA this weekend, and here is what I discovered: I am no longer a human on airplanes. I’m not sure when this started, or why exactly this happens, but I turn into a zombie on airplanes. For a reason unbeknownst to me, migraines take over and render me completely non-functional. This is new, because I remember thriving on plane trips, writing novels and sparking up conversation with strangers. It was a joy.

Now, while Brandon is just having a grand ol’ time ordering ginger ales and reading southern Gothic literature, I’m sitting next to him slowly rocking myself and trying to keep my eyes in their sockets.

I’ve illustrated my state in the following image:

This is right after take-off. I usually fall into a weird coma-like state where I am still thinking of possible things that I can do once I feel normal. That “normal” feeling never really comes and by the end of the plane ride, I am like this:

I no longer have control of any part of my body, my hair is matted in weird patterns and I can’t even think about how mad I am at the people behind me that are loud-talking about every scene in Horrible Bosses. (True story.)

I’m really confused as to how I traveled to and from France a couple times in a year and survived my zombie state. I’m hoping this is just a phase.

San Francisco

irenejk — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:17:18 +0000

San Francisco. My first real time.

No way to usher in the grand occasion than to witness the Pride Parade.

Look at those walls!

Probably my favorite thing. Giants game with Brandon and Casey.

Lobster sandwiches melted our faces off. (Thank you, Amy.)

China town.

Walked across the bridge!

Check out that hair! Holy wind!

Lombard with Ashlee.

Boat to Alcatraz. Rainy.

YES I BOUGHT A PONCHO.

My bestie from high school happened to be in San Francisco when we were there

so we got to hang out with her and another HS friend. Williamsville East! Go Flames!

Ashlee and Amy were great to let us sleep on their couches. THANK YOU!

One view from Coit Tower. Two filters.

This is from June.

irenejk — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 23:45:49 +0000

This all seems so irrelevant because it was in June, so I’ll try to pick lots of pretty pictures to distract you from how untimely it is.

Jeff and Aurora got married!

Glad to see other friends came. We made quite a day of it.

I was mostly interested in having Cindy make me laugh and getting some good shots of her.

In between the reception we all went and saw Super 8 and got pedis! (it was my first time and so tickley!)

With the bride and groom right before we left for San Francisco. That post will come sometime as well.

Grapes

irenejk — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:55:47 +0000

I’m still trying to blog about San Francisco from three months ago, but I’m letting that go for a minute to talk about grapes. I remember when we were little my brother once put all the Concord grape fleshies in a pile so he could eat them all at once without being bothered to spit the skin and seeds out every time. I still thought this was a good idea last week, so Charlotte and I tried to separate the thousands of grapes that are growing in our backyard with our bare hands and after awhile it just made our skin really itchy and we wanted to cut them off but mostly just stop touching those grapes.

So the next day I found out making grape juice actually requires tools. Nothing that unheard of, just a potato masher. I smashed and mashed for hours and then boiled and simmered.

Then I used cheesecloth to strain it all yet I felt so cheated by the whole thing because you would think with cheesecloth and all its holes it wouldn’t take HOURS but it took HOURS. So when I tried to hurry up the process I got excited and my cheesecloth COLLAPSED into the very liquid I had just spent hours straining. It’s ok, all I had to do was do the whole thing over again and get out all the stains from dark purple grape juice. NBD.

But all day of smashing turned into FOUR CUPS OF GRAPE JUICE! Ummm seriously? So in order to feel better about the unrewarding result, I doubled the volume with sugar, added some pectin, and made grape jelly.

Let me just say – I LOVE cooking. I think it’s fun and even relaxing and I love eating what I cook and I don’t even mind the clean up afterward. MAKING JELLY IS NOT COOKING. I was sweating throughout the whole process and you have to time everything and I didn’t know what a “hard boil” was and the pot I used was too small so I had half an inch of grape jelly goop underneath my stove because apparently a “hard boil” means boiling two feet above normal boiling and I was on the phone with so many moms and the jars wouldn’t seal and then I found out you’re not supposed to touch the lids and EVERYTHING WAS HAPPENING ALL AT ONCE. I wanted to die. And I thought it was all over, but I was tormented for the next 24 hours wondering whether or not that liquid would set. At least with cooking you can taste it along the way, and you add a little salt and everything is better. I couldn’t even carry on conversations because I would just bring everything back to my jelly. So after I cut myself off from social interactions and watched my jars all night, the next day I was finally able to bask in the glory of homemade grape jelly.

It set. And it’s delicious. (There were more jars, but I’ve already given some away!)

Sorry there are so many words here. It’s been awhile since I made anyone read.

———

For the grape juice I used these instructions.

For the jelly I just used step 2 of this, and cut the sugar by about one-third.

Oh hey

irenejk — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:14:17 +0000

Happy birthday.

Get ready for some tears.

irenejk — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:43:37 +0000

Coach Taylor!!! Don’t leave!!!