So I've been in California for the past week; it's been quite a delightful stay--full of family, friends, and food. 
Some of the most important f-words (also, please note alliteration). Here's a rundown of what I've done of thoughts/what I've done:
Saturday-
Arrived in CA and us kids were picked up by Mitch to stop by a party at his apt. We stopped by In-n-out, which was quite tasty. Anyhow, it was a sweater party
) (I don't think I actually have a colorful/unusually festive sweater though). At one point, his roomies and friends invited us to join them in playing Cranium. However, only my little brother ended up joining, which me and my sister were surprised about since from what he's shown in the past we would've thought he would be too shy or cling to us/refuse to join without one of us sitting by his side. And he fared pretty well socializing/interacting with people he didn't know. That made me really happy--I think me and my sister's absences have given him more space to grow up (less meddling
) and also forced him to be slightly more assertive/less awkward without us as a crutch.
We used to worry a lot about him being socially awkward (coming from me, that's sad, since I'm somewhat awkward too -_-), but I'm not as worried now
. I tried a Smirnoff Ice, which reminded me of lemonade. I was also surprised that my brother didn't harass me for drinking that either, because he used to always make fun of my sister when alcohol was around. But that might also be because alcohol seems to make my sister hyper. And so far, it doesn't do anything to me, other than diuretic (TMI, lol) and glowing properties. Haha, when we got back my parents smelled the beer in my sister's breath but didn't catch me
..not that they really care much either. They just laughed at her for it and sort of wagged their fingers.
Sort of out of order here, but on the drive back my sister and brother passed out in the car, and I talked about music with my cousin for a while.
There's a lot of music that I'm going to explore now.
Anywho, at my grandma's house where she had ridiculous amounts of food awaiting us. Then sleep. My staying up late the days before the trip helped me adjust a lot faster to Cali time. (:
Sunday-
Went for a walk in a nearby park with my family and gramps. The weather was amazing, and I was excited about how large the squirrels were (Cecelia--I wanted to send you a picture, but I forgot my phone!). I was also excited about how the leaves here were actually fall colors, unlike in Florida where leaves pretty much go straight from green to brown. I miss out on the lovely red and golds each year :[...always tied up by school. (Seriously, we should petition for a fall break for USF; that way we can get a small break and also maybe get to see some real autumn!).
After lunch, we drove out to USC so I could visit my friend Gracie. After reaching campus, we met up in the parking lot of Superior and Dollar Dollar (haha, Dolla dolla). My family went up stairs just to talk for a while with Gracie and Tina (her sister), and her friend Michael before leaving. After preparing dinner, we decided to make Chocolate Souffle, but Tina fell asleep and missed out on all the baking. The souffle was not extremely difficult, but a hassle to make since there were so many steps. However, it turned out quite tasty (not hard to make chocolate containing foods tasty..). We then watched the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and then went to sleep.
Monday-
I went for a bike ride around campus with Gracie--there were so many fountains, and the buildings all looked really nice! We then left USC with her friend Roland to eat dim sum at New Capital (Rosemead)...the food was delicious and really cheap for dim sum (we feasted until we had to practically roll out of the restaurant, and it amounted to $10 per person...this is how I felt (how I feel after I gorge too much, always visualize myself this way):
We then went to Hawaii (Asian grocery store across the street) and bought a ton of meat for the camping trip we decided to have. They had amazing boba outside--they even used fresh mangoes in my drink--and it was so cheap compared to the boba prices I have to pay in Tampa ($1.25 versus $4.00!)...
Returned to gramps place and finally saw my cousins Austin & Angela! I think we went shopping that night...I feel like every time I see them we do a lot of shopping and watch a lot of TV; but it's fun (:.
I was a little upset that night since I failed to accomplish one of my missions I had set out to do, but it's all good now . I'll just postpone it. I guess I was ticked off at my own planning fail and also because I'm one of those people who likes to always do what I say I will do, since I think being reliable is so important.
Tuesday-
Spent the morning packing for the camping trip; can't remember much after that until the actual camp trip. Oh, and we ate ridiculous amounts of dim sum, my favorite being either shrimp dumplings or shrimp cheong fun. We ordered five orders (so 15 of them) of the latter, but my cousins also love them too.
Camping trip -- Seating arrangement:
Gracie's car--Michelle, Austin, Michael J;
Roland's car--Michael F, Angela, Tina, me!
(It's amazing how fast they drove...no further comments in case mom reads this >_>.)
We slept a lot of the way there...by the time we arrived at Joshua Tree NP, it was completely dark and we had no phone reception to tell the 'rents that we arrived. The wind was ridiculous, it was biting cold, and it wasn't easy setting up a tent with only flashlights and car headlights. The wind was killing our fire though. It took us forever to get the fire going, and when we gave up on it, it flared up and started to burn. Life works that way...we don't always find what we're looking for if we look too hard...got to step back sometimes. Before the fire came to life, a few girls went to search for help from other campers for maybe ignition fluid or something; one guy gave them a bunch of wood chips to try using (smaller than our giant logs --> easier to start?). Apparently he said other people stopped by but he didn't really help them since they were a bunch of guys .
Grilled a bunch of meat and "hobo feast" minus potatoes (zuchini/squash). The meat was amazing...:). We then invited over the guy who helped out with our fire. He was a USC student too, but he was at their med school, I think he said a first year (but he said he's in his 30s and was a PA before). We made s'mores, and it started to SNOW! !! ! (It's exciting for Floridians..). We also played some games before he left, and then just hung out by the fire. It was freezing. And once we were out of wood we decided to all pile in one tent instead of two tents, so we'd maybe have a little more body heat. We managed to fit nine in a five person tent. Success! It was freezing all night and most of us didn't sleep well. It was pretty lame. One of the things I had been looking forward to was the clear desert sky and the brilliant stars I was expecting to see. However, the sky was shrouded with clouds that sprinkled snow on us. No stars...until I kept waking up at strange hours and could see the stars through the tent window/screen. Then I wasn't excited to see stars because it meant hours before light, which meant I needed to lay still longer without disturbing others...it was hard to fall asleep every time I awoke.
Wednesday-
Finally around 630 several of us got up and decided to try catching the sunrise...it was a fail.
One funny moment--A&A left the tent to use the bathroom; right when
they were coming back I had decided that I wanted to get a picture of
the campsite at dawn but was too lazy to get out into the cold, so I
just stuck my arm through bottom of the tent door. Right when they got
back they saw my arm pop out...I guess it's just one of those things
where you have to be there to think it was funny. Or it probably just
looked funny.
Tina, Austin, Michael J, and I went in town to get hot breakfasts, but by the time we got back everyone else had already feasted on ramen...(it was about 20 miles to get to town from our campsite). What we found was a delicious and cute bakery with such tasty treats...the teacakes were amazing and so was the bread (fresh out of the oven! n_n!). We also grabbed some eggs and bacon, and 8 subs for us to split after hiking. We returned to find the site abandoned and the rest of our group on top of a rock far away (waving at us). We feasted inside of the tent and they joined us a while later. We then packed up, and drove about looking for rocks to climb all over. It was quite pleasant!
I was pointing out this cool plant that had a triangular shape, and accidentally got stabbed by it...it didn't hurt that much, but it bled a bit. Now I'm trying to find it online but I'm sort of failing at it. -_- I don't think I've had such a Google searching fail. "Triangle shaped desert plant", "flora Joshua Tree NP", "triangle desert succulent"???, I can't quite figure what category it falls under, but I think desert succulent is right, as opposed to shrub/tree...-_- And I think I didn't take a picture since I was distracted by my finger/figured I probably took a picture of one when I saw them last year.
We finished off our subs and then started driving back towards LA; but we stopped by Cabazon outlet mall...which was ridiculous. I'm not a super big shopper as in I wouldn't put it under my "hobbies", but I guess sales make things significantly more exciting. I stopped by Puma where everything was 50%; I bought a pair of green Chucks for $20 (Haha, at the Converse store I heard a store woman say "Do you smell fire? *sniff sniff*". It was probably just my clothing from the camp fire
), and stuff for the gramps Christmas present to split with my cousins and siblings.
Then we drove back to Palm Springs (sort of out of order?) to drop off Michael at his parents' vacation house (ridiculous, lol...the pool looked amazing, and the stars there were brilliant; oh and did I mention his extra house was huge?). We got back really late, and ate a feast together at my gramps house before the rest of the gang went back to USC area. :]
Thursday-
Up early; family drove out to Crystal Cove State Park to hike with my second cousin's husband. She was supposed to come too, but since they moved the time of the family barbeque, she decided to skip hiking to work on preparations. It was gorgeous, but my head was hurting ><! I feel like my head frequently hurts when I'm climbing mountains/have altitude changes. How pathetic of me. We also swung by the beach afterwards. It was lovely...we wanted to stop by tidal pools, but the BBQ awaited us, so we had to pass on it.
The BBQ was interesting. We ran around doing little errands or making kebabs (eww, raw meat juices went everywhere x_x). The food was tasty though. And we also had a big fire there. :] Random people joined us just to dip marshmallows in the fire; but I felt awkward for them since there were probably about 60 of us and 7 of them. I felt awkward around most of my second cousins because most of them know each other a lot better than they know us, and they also seem quieter and shyer than us Fangs (they're the Hu/Hur/Chius..). I kind of felt bad for not talking all the much to them, but I felt a little like they felt the same. It wasn't until we did White Elephant gift exchanging that we really interacted; and then we played Cranium with Kevin's newly won gift --> much more interactions (a lot of 'stealing' occurred. It was really cute when my grandpa stole the Apples to Apples game from someone, just because he knew it'd be immediately stolen and he could open another gift ).
Friday-Christmas
Got to sleep in. I'm not really sure what else>_>
Side note/later edit (12/31)--I knew I
should have started working on this sooner; memory is sort of failing
me, so I can't remember what we did on some of these days?...this is why last year and the years before it had been a resolution to keep better records of my days. But come to think about it, it isn't necessary to remember everything that occurs. Our brains aren't built to remember everything. Things might be a lot more painful that way...
Ate at Taipan or something like that--it was delicious! We had xiaolongbaos (yummmm--though the ones at Din Tai Fung in Taiwan are a zillion times tastier; but not bad--can't complain), and a lot of my other favorite Chinese dishes.
Ate at Boston Cafe. Food was
interesting 
except mine (pineapple shrimp fried rice!
and almond milk something with boba).
Went with Mitch to go pick up something; met his cousin briefly. He also gave me a bunch of awesome music
..yay! I'm really stoked about it, thought it will probably take me a while to go through all of it.
My brother is incredibly excited too. But for some reason he is still bugging me to buy more music.
Saturday-(Christina's Wedding Banquet)
I think went shopping with Michelle and Angela until Er Buo Buo arrived--he flew in from Taiwan just to attend Christina's banquet!...He left Sunday night--translation--he spent more time in transit than he did in the US. He also brought taiyangbings! !!
(Suncakes).
I'm not a very good Asian in that I'm not super super open-minded to eating foods. At the banquet they had all this fancy food that I don't eat/don't want to try (i.e. sea cucumber or pigeons). I feel kind of bad since it cost a lot to have a seat in the banquet; but I guess I helped out by taking pictures for the event, and of course my presence?
Discovered that I don't like whiskey. Lol at Asian drinking games (dice)...my aunt is hilarious. "I'm drunk...I'm not drunk!...drink drink drink!"...
Sunday-(watched Avatar with Er Buo Buo Gramps, Angela + parents, Dad, & Michelle; the movie was cute, but as my brother said, predictable).
Went to Trader Joes'--got scratched by my grandma because I wanted to pay for my own yogurt
Ate at Souplantations --> hilarious...there were 13 of us eating; we used 6 buy-one-get-one-free coupons (but had to buy 2 drinks per pair, so that sort of breaks it even).
Monday-Transit to Las Vegas
Left Gramps' house an hour later than expected and headed for Vegas. We kept wanting to stop places to eat, but we kept accidentally bypassing the exits; finally we decided to just bite the bullet and head just eat once we arrived in Vegas. When we arrived at the hotel, I saw Mom grinning and running towards me--except she was excited to see my brother, not me (weird since she was had left for Vegas before the rest of us with Michael since he was there for a tourney...she was excited to see him since he just finished his match).
Went shopping a little. It was boring; even stores that I thought would have a lot of interesting stuff like Urban Outfitters failed to interest me. O_o Bad timing, or maybe shopping fatigue?
$30 buffet; Lago @ Caesar's palace. I pretty much only ate meat, which in retrospect makes me feel a little guilty. I was trying to quantify how much money's worth of food I ate, but I'm pretty sure it didn't get anywhere near $30.
Watched fountains of Bellagio with Mitch and again with Austin and Mitch. Then returned and exchanged photos with Mitch. Michelle and Austin went out and went gambling for their first time :].
Tuesday-Las Vegas
Woke up to say bye to A&A and Gramps
Passed out for a while; walked to Gandhi, and Indian buffet, and brought the food back. It was delicious...
Passed out after lunch. Watched Chuck; not sure what else. Bed time; was kind of a waste of a day.
Wednesday-Las Vegas & Red Rock Canyon
Before going to RRC, we stopped to grab food for when we got hungry. Mom started rambling to me about how the fast food chain Wendy's was named after a girl whose name was actually Melinda. I hope that is not what I was named after? (J/k!) But seriously, they never actually told me where my name came from.
The weather at RRC was the same as it was last year! Sunny on one side and really cloudy on the other. We hiked approximately 5 miles. It was tiring; I got a little grouchy for a while, but then after walking alone for a while I was better again.
--Shopping at Outlet mall; so boring...bought a ton Harry & David pears (oh yum!) and Moose Munch. Unfortunately the pears were not ripe; so we had to carry all five pounds of them back to Florida. So heavy x_x!
--Ate hot pot and other yummy food!
Thursday-Transit Home
Ate dinner at Cracker Barrel's...oh, chicken dumplings, my love! Just kidding!
I have such awesome friends. I remember this time last year I was sort of in a slightly anti-social slump so I was actually really unhappy here. I also spent all my time studying. This year, I spend time studying, I spend time with my friends, and I spend time being involved in activities. My life is a lot more enriched, and I am a lot happier now at USF. I've found some really good friends...sometimes I'm surprised about how close I feel to them despite the short amount of time I've known them. 
