Chinese New Year, Cupcakes, and Pets

This past Saturday, my Uncle Charley invited us over to his house in Beaverton (a suburb of Portland) for Chinese New Year. Talk about a celebration! I think he had over 25 people there. I got to see Uncle John and Auntie Eileen as well (who live in Camas, WA...which is only ~15 min. outside of Portland). It was great to be able to spend this holiday with family, even if they aren't technically blood relatives. My Uncle Charley and Auntie Eileen are my Uncle Bill's brother and sister. This celebration really taught me the true meaning of family because they were just so welcoming of us. And the food was amazing! Uncle Charley smokes his own meat and salmon and makes his own jerky - it was phenomenal! Below is a picture of Matt, Kristina, and me prior to digging in!


On Sundays, my new cupcake spot in town (Cupcake Jones) has the best specialty cupcake I have ever had! It's a chocolate chip cookie cupcake - chocolate chip cupcake, a little cookie on top, some vanilla bean buttercream, and a cookie dough center. They change their flavors everyday, so there's a lot of variety. But Sundays are definitely my day! It's a good replacement for the Ron Bennington cupcake (chocolate cupcake with peanut butter ganache and and peanut butter filling) at my favorite cupcake joint in Chicago, Molly's Cupcakes.

And these last 2 pics...Brad wanted me to put them on here. I have come to the conclusion that pets like to sleep on me. The one below is Zoe (Matt and Kristina's dog) getting comfortable and posing for the camera and the next picture is of our cat Jasmine enjoying her "chair".