Category Archives: Videos

My Merry Christmas

My Christmas was certainly merry, and I hope everyone else’s was too. This is my little Christmas tree. I hadn’t put the homemade ornaments on it yet, but I forgot to get a photo with them and the gifts. Whoops.

This is at my aunt’s house on Christmas Eve. We do our main celebrating and gift exchange on Christmas Eve, while Christmas day is more relaxed. This photo was just my generation of the family. That’s my cousin Haley on the left, my cousin Mitch under his gifts, and my brother on the right.

Here’s another of Mitchell. He’s pretty awesome.

Now I’m standing with my grandma, my aunt, and my mom. My grandpa is on the right.

Here’s one of me and Pete. He’s trying to hold up a photo on his phone he took of my grandma’s butt.

What happened to grandma’s shoe? Weird.

Here’s a couple gifts from gem! She gave me a Bluetooth speaker, a set of bear sheets (I can’t wait to get into bed tonight), and a ukulele! Amazing! I brought my ukulele with me today when I went to my parents’ for Christmas day to practice. I’m trying to play Martian Girl by the Aquabats. Yes, gifts from me are missing from this post. I’ll talk about them some other time!

Lindy Christmas was a lot of fun

Last Friday was Lindy Christmas at Atomnic Ballroom, and it was a lot of fun. I met Carrie, Edward, and gem before dancing for dinner. After we finished, we all headed to Atomic where we met Jessica for a 6-count Lindy Hop class. Once the class ended, the Lindy Christmas dance started featuring the LA Swing Barons. Edward and Carrie didn’t stay too long, but Jessica stayed with us.

At 9:30 we headed to the other room for a free tango lesson and practica. I’m glad Jessica tried both! She seemed to have a good time; hopefully she did.

Santa even showed up for some dancing apparently! I didn’t see him at the dance, but I saw him in photos later. It was a good time!

Happy birthday, Michael

Happy 30th birthday, Michael! He had a fun birthday party this weekend, but he might have had a few too many shark shots (4-ish oz shots). He did give a pretty sweet birthday speech though.

Also, we had some romantic alone time on Michael’s bed.

Christmas musical and party

This weekend I met an alpaca. I’ll get back to that.

The Compass Kids of Compass Bible Church performed The Loaned Manger this weekend, and gem’s nephew, Micah, was one of those kids. We saw the first performance, and it was a lot of fun. Some of the kids were super talented! We even got to sing some Christmas songs before and after the show.

Here’s one of the songs.

There was a petting zoo outside, so after the musical, we got to hang out with some animals. This camel was pretty cool, but he really wanted my coffee.

gem met the tortoise and the hare! I guess the hare won the race, because the tortoise didn’t really move.

I might be blurry, and he might be derpy, but I still like this photo.

Here’s gem with the alpaca too!

This weekend was also my friend Demian’s annual Christmas party! I had a blast, and I ate a ton. Rice Krispy Treats are good, but have you ever had Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries treats? Wow. Also – pickleback shots! They’re a shot of whiskey chased with a shot of pickle juice. Pretty delicious actually.

The party was also a good time to sing The Twelve Days of Christmas. Pete made these signs about twenty years ago, one for each day of the song. Singing was a family tradition. Everyone sings the song until it comes to a day and then the person with the sign sings his or her part. For example, we’d all sing “on the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,” and then I’d sing alone, “ten lords a-leaping.” Unfortunately, less people are coming to our family Christmases, so we don’t get to do it. It went over really well at the party though!

gem even accompanied the singing on her ukulele. It was so cool! It was a great party, and it was also cool to catch up with friends whom I hadn’t seen in a while.

Blacklight Run and Ooey Gooey Berry Pie

This weekend I went to a Blacklight Run with gem and Anela! It was totally fun; we got covered in paint, glow powder, glow sticks, and good vibes! This is what we looked like at the end of the night.

We jogged a bit, but mostly we walked and talked while enjoying the party. Periodically there were stations where staff members would throw more glow powder on participants. Of course, you can also grab handfuls of the powder and throw it yourself!

I got fairly covered.

At the end of the run was a big, glowing party with a DJ and tons of glow powder and glow sticks!

It was fun!

This guy was pretty sweet.

Anela looks like a neon flower child. I love this.

I think you have a little something on your face.

Watch out, gem!

I have no idea who these two women are. Nope.

Despite not being super close the party, the cars still got covered in glow powder.

These were taken the next day in the light.

When we were done with the Blacklight Run afterparty, we headed to my place to watch a movie and eat. I dropped gem off at her place to shower and then picked up tacos from Del Taco. The guy at the drive through said something like “what the…?” when we pulled up. We were still pretty glowy. We took the tacos back to my house, and once we all showered and gem was with us again, we popped a pizza in the oven too. gem brought two homemade ice creams, a cookie from New York, and a tasty new kind mashed potato creation. Anela’s bar results came out this weekend, so I had baked her a pie – either to eat in celebration or in which to drown her sorrows. Luckily it was the former, because she passed on her first try!

She said she preferred “ooey gooey berry” pies, so that’s what I tried to bake.

Here’s Anela with her celebratory pie. It turned out delicious, and everyone enjoyed it. Hooray! Congratulations, Anela!

It was an awesome night with full bellies and happy memories. Thanks to gem and Anela for making it so epic!

Henley’s second birthday party

This weekend was Henley’s second birthday party! He’s getting so big!

It was at Tortilla Jo’s in Downtown Disney. I was very full by the end! It was great catching up with Alex, Darnell, Gracie, Jon, Daniel, and Mike. Mike even gave me lots of useful vacation information!

Henley seemed to like his cupcake from Hapa Cupcakes. He has a much better understanding of desserts than he did last year.

Grandpa got him a matching shirt.

Dad seemed to like opening gifts as much as Henley did.

I bought Henley this Disney train with mat, and he seemed to have a lot of fun with it. Watching him made my heart melt.

Here’s a short video of the day. If I have a child have as awesome as Henley, I’ll be a lucky man.

Wakeboarding on 9/12/15

In September, gem, Anela, and I went wakeboarding with my parents and brother. I was a bit slow posting photos from it, but I wanted to make sure to get these online.

The ukulele survived the trip unharmed!

Here’s my mom with Anela and gem.

Pete looks pretty happy with his boat here! This might be our last wakeboarding trip, because he wants to get rid of the boat. Maybe he won’t manage to sell it, and we’ll get to go out again. It’s already November, and it’s best to sell it when it’s still the best season to go out on the boat. I don’t mean to root against him selling it or anything…

gem took a few photos of Anela at the back of the boat while Pete worked on the engine.

Shes pretty much looking right at Pete here, so I’m sure he said something hilarious – typical Pete.

Here’s our rescue team! First there was the Rescue Anela, but then Rescue gem joined her!

We were all in varying states of injury, so there was actually much less wakeboarding than usual, and slower wakeboarding at that.

Here’s some evidence that there was indeed some wakeboarding at least. – Anela wakeboarding.

And here’s me wakeboarding. I tried touching the water a few times. Less than graceful, but so what? I don’t think it’s in the video, but they wanted me to switch hands turn around while wakeboarding. It didn’t go so well, but I still had a great time wakeboarding that day!

After we finished wakeboarding, we headed to Michael’s (after a brief detour to a pet store). I like this photo quite a bit. We ended the evening with both Eiswelt Gelato and Yogurtland and then some Super Mario Maker. It might have taken me a month and a half to post about it, but it was a fantastic day.

Wakeboarding at Puddingstone

I went wakeboarding with my family this weekend at Puddingstone in San Dimas. I’ve wakeboarded twice before this, but it was my cousins’ and brother’s first time. It’s a ton of fun, but I can definitely admit that I’m sore the next day. That video was my longest go. Thanks to my cousin Haley for recording!

Here’s Mitch. He was definitely getting much better near the end, but I stopped recording when my phone got close to dying.

Here’s Haley, who actually stood up briefly on her first attempt. She was pretty amazing.

Lastly, this is my brother, James. He’s been on the boat previously, but this was his first time wakeboarding. I’m glad he tried it!

Birthdays, Long Beach Sand Sculpture Festival, and games

This weekend was fun for a couple reasons. First, there was a party for Duncan and Matt’s birthdays. We had dinner, socialized, and played some games.

This is probably the only photo worth sharing. Yep, that’s a s’more with a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and giant marshmallow.

This weekend was also the Long Beach Sand Sculpture Music & Art Festival. It was so much fun! I probably would have had the same amount of fun even if the festival wasn’t there and we just went to the beach haha.

We had a tasty meal of Korean BBQ burritos from Seoulmate in the park before heading down to the beach. I used one of those giant, human-sized hamster balls and slammed into people. I don’t have any photos yet because they weren’t on my phone. It was fun, but it was hot. So hot. I also jammed my thumb back while inside, and it was aching all day (and more). It’s getting better though! When I got out, I was feeling dizzy from the heat and dehydration. We got some water and then went into the ocean to cool off.

There were lots of cool dogs to watch as well as the sand sculptures themselves of course. I brought my DSLR out for the first time, and Luke helped me a ton. It was a hand-me-down, and I didn’t have the manual nor did I know much about it. I might not have the skill, but at least Luke explained what most things mean. I feel much better about using it now!

We also visited a skateboard stand. Anela and gem got skateboarding lessons! They didn’t care about the guys.

Oh, and I played with hula-hoops! It was super fun actually!

I also got to playtest Joe’s new super hero board game. It’s pretty amazing. He’s really talented in a lot of different, creative ways. I’d share photos, but I wouldn’t want to leak an unreleased game. 🙂

Pan-frying Pizza Rolls with Totino’s x MBMBaM

My favorite podcast, My Brother, My Brother, and Me, recently had a entire episode sponsored by Totino’s. That’s hilarious all by itself, but the episode was pretty great. One fan wrote to the show discussing how he prefers to pan-fry his Pizza Rolls.

“A few years ago I brought home Pizza Rolls to discover my roommate had broken the toaster oven. At the time, we didn’t have a microwave, and I didn’t want to wait for the oven to preheat. My solution was to grab a frying pan and some extra virgin olive oil and fry my Totino’s Pizza Rolls! They came out great, and now that’s the only way I prepare my Pizza Rolls. I cannot think of another podcast more suited for this anecdote.”

I’d be crazy not to try it, right? Last Friday was Pizza Day as The Aquabats would say, so it was the perfect day to try it out. Thanks to gem and Anela for helping make the video and eat delicious Pizza Rolls with me!

And the results? gem and I both preferred pan-fried Pizza Rolls. I thought they were awesome! We were in agreement that baked were next and microwaved were the worst (but still totally worth eating). Anela preferred baked over pan-fried but agreed that they were both better than microwaved. Well, two out of three isn’t bad. Thank you, Totino’s, McElroy brothers, and mystery writer to the show!