Another game night!

Hello everyone!

Yes, yes, we have game nights all the time (like here and here), and yes, I am blogging yet another one.  haha  If you haven't tried game nights with a couple of your closest friends (and add the four legged friends too if you are so inclined) you are totally missing out!  so grab a couple of your favorite games, people, and animals, food and block off a couple of hours to hang out.  It's as easy as that!

For our game night, we picked our favorite double date couple, a couple of poochies, multiple games, and some pizza, and we were set!

Here is David with pup #1, Pucci.  We were dogsitting her for the weekend, and she is such a delight! we can't wait to get a pup of our own!

pup #2, our favorite/the most regular four legged addition, Houdini, nicknamed 'jammies'

and Amulet getting really into the game with the help of pup #3, Odi!

And some deliciously greasy pizza!  mmmmhmm.  We usually try to eat healthy, but a little bit of grease once in awhile never hurts, and this was just so good!  

We started off with a quick little game called For Sale, which was so quick I didn't really get a chance to snap many photos other than this one of Odi and David  haha

Then we moved onto our favorite game of the night!  

Have you heard of Dixit? It's kind of like Pictionary and Apples to Apples got together and had a baby.. and it is so much fun!!

and the illustrations on the cards are really wonderful too.

So the gist of the game is that you pick a card and a saying that goes along with it, and the others choose a card from their hand that they think matches what you said.  Then, you lay it all down on the table and the other players try to guess which one was yours.  The tricky part is that you don't want to be too vague that no one guesses it (because then you don't get any points) but you also don't want to be too obvious because then everyone will guess yours and again, you won't get any points.  It's quite tricky to walk the line between the two, and the scientists in the group (the boys) had the hardest time coming up with a not too obvious description of the card  haha.  

Pictures below shows our last round, and we're dying because David, the obvious-king of the night put, down his last card, and without him even having to say anything, we all correctly guessed which one was his!    XD

The last game we played was Munchkin, and while it was fun, I think we were a bit too tired to be playing the game.. It has a pretty steep learning curve at first, but it would be fun to play it again =)

super focused David  =p

Overall, it was such a fun night with wonderful company (both the 2 legged and the 4 legged kind), and we can't wait to do it again soon!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!
Thanks for stopping by!
--Janny

Valentine's Night In!

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day!
Unlike last year, we actually got to celebrate it on the actual day!
I did end up having to be at school until 7, but we celebrated afterwards with a homemade dinner and a spa night!  For our dinner, we decided to do an Italian themed dinner with some bruschetta and spaghetti, all made from scratch.  We tend to have a bit of difficulty going out to eat if it's something that we can easily make at home, and since we were craving Italian cuisine, we knew making it ourselves would be much more fun and romantic for two kitchen nerds like us  ;)

so a couple of days before, we prepared the bread for the bruschetta!

mmmmm  jalapeno cheddar bread made from scratch and baked in our dutch oven!!  recipe here.

and in the process of being turned into the most amazing bruschetta!

and TADA!!!!

 It tasted soo amazing.  and I love how it looks all colorful and happy as well  =D

and we made the spaghetti sauce from scratch as well!

nothing too terribly exciting; just adding different ingredients and simmering for a whole day...  but it tasted incredible!  much better than any restaurant spaghetti sauces we've tried  ;)

and dinner is served!!

and then, of course, we had to have dessert.  so we made some cookies!  some aged chocolate chip cookies (I'll elaborate later in another post  haha!)   and it tasted amazing!  we are total fans of aging cookies.  mm hmm.

and we made a heart shaped one too because if you can't be cheesy like that on Valentine's Day, then when can you, eh?  but as you can see,,, it didn't turn out quite as we expected  haha

Before we started the movie, we decided to open our gifts, and!!!!!  this was in the bag David got me!!!  A new spiffy camera!!!   he knows me so well  =D  all of my blog photos have been being taken with the iphone 5, and while it has been ok, it is definitely not the best.  I've been meaning to invest in a better camera for awhile now, and he got it for me!  Such a thoughtful guy, and I am so blessed to have him in my life  =)

I got him a robe because he's always wearing a parka in his apartment when it gets a bit chilly (warm? yes.  comfy? no.), and also because we wanted to do a spa night, and you can't do a spa night without a fluffy robe!

so here he is modeling the robe and showing how he feels about putting green substance on his face  haha

and the transformation!!

yes, it may look weird, but it feels sooo nice when you wash it all off!

Then, we watched the movie Before Sunset to wrap off the night.  We really enjoyed Before Sunrise (the first of that trilogy) but we weren't as enamored with the second installment... we'll have to see how we like Before Midnight!  have you guys watched this series?  Did you enjoy it?

Anyway, we had a wonderful Valentine's Day, and we hope you all had a wonderful day as well!

 Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend!
--Janny

The Jazz Age

Hello everyone!

Friday night, we had a chance to go back in time and enjoy the roaring 20's, the Jazz Age!!!  A little time travel action, lots of Swing dancing, a live jazz band, Gatsby inspired outfits and makeup...  not bad of a lineup for a Friday night!

We donned our best 20's inspired dresses and head bands, did our best to copy 20's makeup (thanks Youtube tutorials!), got together with our 3-piece-suit-wearing men, and headed off to dance the night away! 

Well, after taking some photos of course  ;)

some selfies with my guy while waiting for Amulet to find her perfect shade of red lips..

oh, and look at these photos I found of our great grandparents waaaaay back in the 20's!  we look just like them, no?  =p  haha

please excuse the blurry quality of these photos...  Iphone camera doesn't do so well with time travelling I've found...   but the Jazz Band from Shepherd School of Music!!  they were definitely phenomenal even back then, mmmhhmmm.

some awesome lindy-ing and swing dancing!

It was a lot of fun, but the venue itself was a bit small for how many people showed up, so after a couple of hours, we said goodbye to the roaring 20's and came back to the present.  

All that time travelling left all of us famished, so we hit up the only place that we could think of that would be open at 1 in the morning; 59 Diner. I had never been there before, but I think diners have this quaint charm about them, so I had no objections.  =)

We ordered some milkshakes (which were awesome, btw!  I think Chris finished his in less than a minute!  haha), a healthy platter of hamburger, some chicken-fried steak, and I tried my very first chicken and waffles!  I know, I know,, I thought it was a weird mix at first too, but it's a southern thing, and I was feeling very adventurous  ;)    and you know what?  it was actually really good!  the sweetness of the waffles and the syrup mixes quite well with the saltiness of the chicken, and the honey mustard added just the right amount of zing to the mix.   A very satisfying 1 A.M breakfast indeed!

It was such a fun night, and a wonderful start to the weekend!
I hope you are all enjoying the weekend as well, and thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

Birthday Surprise for Mr. Lin!

Hello everyone,

Today is Mr. Lin's birthday!!!  Last year, we planned a pretty elaborate surprise for him (elaborate because there were more people in the studio and required more coordinating), and I think we about gave him a heart attack!  We didn't get to do the whole shebang of decorating the door and inside of his studio this time around (but there are still some decorations left over from last year that he keeps around year around haha), but we did get most of our studio together and surprise him when he got to school  =)  

He was definitely surprised, hopefully pleasantly so, and this is what we had waiting for him!

It was a baseball themed 'party' this year because he's always talking about baseball during our lessons, so we assumed he really enjoys it  ;)  haha  we had a baseball card, a baseball cupcake, a pencil sharpener that says 'Mr. Lin's' written on it, and a jar of pencils that has 'Stolen from Cho Liang Lin' engraved on them.  

It was really fun to get the whole studio together to surprise him on his birthday, and though he says he's not going to schedule lessons on his birthday from now on, we think he enjoyed it  ;)

Happy Birthday Mr. Lin!  

Thank you so much for always pushing us to be our best, and expecting us to do what we at first think to be impossible.  It's been tough at times trying to live up to his expectations, and also trying learn to have the same kind of expectations for myself, but I really feel like I've grown a lot during these two-ish years  =)

If you see him today, please wish him the happiest of birthdays!

--Janny

Life Lately,,,

Hello everyone!

I'm back!! and hopefully I will get to blog more than once a month now that my doctoral auditions are finally over!!  yup yup.  everything is now out of my hands, and all I have to do is wait...  and wait some more..  haha  not sure which part of this process is worse, really; the auditioning or the waiting.

As you can imagine, I spent most of my breathing moments in a practice room during this time, but I did manage to leave it once in a blue moon and capture some of these...

Like this one, on an incredibly beautiful day in Houston.  a welcome change from the Polar Vortex, eh?

and this one, on an impromptu ice cream date with the boy on another beautiful day before the winter storm hit Houston...  Choco taco!  haven't had one of these since,,, high school?  haha

Walking around Rice....

chillin on a bench while people/squirrel watching..

Little did we know that only a couple of days later, we would have ice, rain, snow, etc...  and that I would be in Austin, panicking about my cancelled audition...  which was not so bad in the end because I got to catch up with Grace, have In n Out, and enjoy having some time in Austin before coming back to Houston.

And would you believe it, one day later, it was nice enough for an ice cream date...

This yo-yo-ing of weather has really gotten my wardrobe confused  haha  I put my winter coat away, go around in my sandals one day, and the next day I have to take out my winter coat and put on my Uggs..  

We are projected to have another winter storm tomorrow (even though today is incredibly beautiful!) so we may have yet another snow day!  yay no school!  =D

I hope you are all either bundled up or enjoying this beautiful weather (probably both, if where you live is anything like Houston) and have a wonderful week!

--Janny

New Jersey, NYC, and Boston with the larks!!

Hello everyone!!

I ended up taking an unplanned break from blogging because I didn't end up bringing my computer with me on my audition spree...  and I have to admit, it was tough at first (I spend so much time on my computer!!) but actually, it wasn't so bad once a couple days passed.  haha  Anyway, the past two weeks have been a blur of practicing, rehearsing, auditioning, spending time with the larks and the amazing friends we have in Boston!

The beginning of our trip started with some time spent in New Jersey (Timmay's stomping grounds)! We arrived in the middle of the Polar Vortex, so we ended up spending most of our time indoors cooking up a storm (as we always do.  like look at that roasted chicken!  haha) and cramming hardcore for our upcoming audition!  

Also, we met one of the most generous people ever: Cathie.  She is such an incredibly sweet lady who heard us play a couple of years ago and when she found out that we were back, she insisted on taking us out for a meal and giving us a tour of her charming home.  oh, and giving us cake!  haha  It was such a warm-fuzzies kind of an afternoon, and we are just so blessed. and so grateful for her  =)

Then, we stomped around NYC for a couple of hours before heading up to Boston!

Can I just say, I absolutely LOVE Boston. I have loved the city from the first visit when I was about 16, and every visit, I fall deeper and deeper in love with the place. It was Abers' first time in Boston, and she fell in love with the city as well!  I knew she would!  haha

We were only there for about 1.5 days, but we got in a coaching with Bayla Keyes (who is just amazing and we are absolutely in love with her) and also our audition!

and we also got in a photo with Beethoven  ;)  haha

THEN!!  party time!  haha  so many of our friends came out to Charile's Kitchen in Harvard Square, and we had such a fun time!  

These awesome photos were taken by one of my friends, Bryan Tyler, who is a wonderful violist! Tim and I met and played with him at Foulger a couple years back, and it's been so great keeping in touch with him!  Check him out here!

With Bryan himself! =)

^^ oh, that burger?  Double jalapenos burger.  so good.  but your lips will burn.  you have been warned!  haha

Bryan's candid shot of me  haha

Boston...  Love the city, love the people...  basically head over heels in love with the place, and I'm going to live there some day  =)

So yeah, that's what's been happening in my life for the past 2 weeks!  I hope you have all had a wonderful month so far, and thanks for stopping by!
--Janny