Pretty Plumage

    So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the Arboretum has a surplus of peacocks. I find them oddly fascinating, and they make excellent photo subjects since they aren't terribly skittish or quick, so I made it a point to return just for a feathery photo shoot.
    Less than twenty feet through the front entrance and I came across a group of peacock hens lounging about, and not too far away were several colorful males. I have suspicions that they were doing some sort of mating dance, since they were parading about with their feathers out, turning circles, and walking backwards. Either way, it provided some good opportunities for photographing, and I got a lot of great shots (I'm only going to include the best 5-10).

Peacock Smooch

    While photographing these bird brains, a much smaller flock of feathery friends made an appearance in the flowering plants and succulents around me. At times, they flew so fast and so close that I only felt them pass.. but I was lucky enough to catch a few of them unawares.
(I tried to identify some of them - feel free to correct me if you spot a mistake)

 Allen's Hummingbird

Allen's Hummingbird

Black-Chinned Hummingbird

Rufous Hummingbird

Hummy Tongue!

Today's photo-hunting was such a great success! I will definitely be returning there again. 

Foodie "Haven"

   

   After our trip to the Arboretum, J suggested that we should check out this Gastropub in Pasadena that he'd heard about: Haven. We were definitely hungry, and J knew that I wanted to still be able to watch the World Series, so a Gastropub equipped with big screen TVs and a decent beer and wine list sounded like a great idea. 

    When we arrived, they happily seated us at a table near the TV, and I was excited to see that the game had just started. We spent a decent while pouring over their beer and wine lists. They have a drink menu, but they also have the beer and wine lists featured above the bar on inverted screens that they are able to automatically update accordingly - so simple, but so genius. The interior is kept dark, with all dark wood floors and tables, and stone walls, but the overall vibe is still inviting. They had a beautiful chandelier (don't know why I always seem to notice these) hanging above the dining area, and a glass wall behind which you can see where they do their brewing (a must for breweries). 

    The service was fantastic - our waiter was super friendly and attentive and was ready with suggestions when needed (which is something I always look for in a restaurant), and kindly let us linger and watch the game. 

    Not being much of a beer fan, I ended up getting a wine flight, which featured three different white wine varieties that I had yet to try, as well as a white wine blend that wound up being my favorite. 

    J ordered a beer flight, making sure to sample the in-house brews.

Our waiter brought around the menus and informed us that they had, in fact, just changed their menu. Not having eaten here before, we weren't too concerned, and the options were all mouth-wateringly enticing. J ordered the Lamb shank - braided in red wine served on wild mushroom polenta with shaved parmesan and jus. 

The meat quite literally fell off the bone.

I ordered the Pork Chop - served over a barley apple risotto (which was amazing) with a cranberry gastrique and herb salad. 

Pork Chop - I only wish there had been more sauce!

    The food was delicious, as was the wine (and beer), and we both agreed that we would be coming back, perhaps for lunch when they apparently have a mini shop set up called Burger Haven.

http://havengastropub.com/

Also, on a side note, the Giants won the World Series!!! This weekend was awesome :)

Arboretum Adventure - One of Many

    So, one of my favorite things that J and I have acquired this year, is our Descanso Garden Membership Cards.

looks like this!

    In the basic sense, it's a year-long membership to the Descanso Gardens, which are just a stone's throw from our apartment and very pretty as well. But, what it really means, is that we have membership to the Descanso Gardens PLUS free admission to about a hundred other gardens around the US. We now have free access to the San Francisco Botanical Garden and the Conservatory of Flowers (which I will be dragging J to at some future time. We also have access to a bunch of local gardens, including the Los Angeles Arboretum. http://www.arboretum.org/

    So, what shall we do this weekend? Movies are expensive, as are theme parks and most museums, etc.. but the gardens are now FREE. So, this weekend we decided to finish our exploration of the Arboretum. We had visited for the first time about a month ago, but since the park is pretty large and full of interesting things to explore, there was a whole side we hadn't seen yet. Of course, you don't have to walk too far before you walk into the path of some of the Arboretums permanent residents: the peacocks.

    One of these days, I'm going to grab my camera and just spend the whole day photographing these guys. They are very odd birds, and not at all skittish around people. The photos above were taken without zoom, so I was able to get very close.. so close that J was sure that one of them was bound to peck at me.
    Un-pecked and on a mission, we strolled off towards the unexplored portion of the park. We came across a lake surrounded by trees trellising numerous grape vines.

    We sat for a spell in a flower garden, watching butterflies flit to and from, and bumblebees collecting their share of nectar.

    We sat and watched a waterfall, enjoying the sounds as well as the cool air surrounding the pool.

    We climbed above the falls and found a small water garden as well as a field of small plumeria trees. J, knowing how much I love their flowers, stole the camera to take a picture of me.

And he wouldn't give it back...

    Our path back to the gates took us through a rose garden, surrounded by fragrant citrus trees of every variety. The gardens close before the sun goes down, so with the shadows growing, we knew it was about time to leave. But we will definitely be returning again soon, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the garden change and grow next spring. 

Pre-Halloween Halloween Party

Halloween!
    So, last Friday was pretty much Halloween for J and I.
    We were invited to go to a party with friends, who, I must say, are awesome at costumes. So, of course,  for the past two weeks were spent running about looking for costumes/costume ideas. Ideally, I would love for J and I to do a couple costume (some ideas we've had include Buttercup & Wesley from Princess Bride and Mary Poppins and Bert), but we just didn't have enough time or resources to make it work this time around, so we fell back on some costume staples from the past. J, being a chemical engineer, has a lab coat and access to goggles, so he donned those and went as a mad scientist (and with the addition of last minute make-up, he had just exploded something!). I ended up wearing a black dress along with the corset I made last year, and with the addition of a belt, crossbow, and some items purchased at the dollar store, I passed myself off as a vampire hunter.
    I had also been invited by a super-good friend to go to the Halloween party at Nickelodeon, so I rushed to get ready and hurried over. Every year, Nick invites friends and family (lots of kids!) to come to the studio to eat goodies, craft pumpkins, and trick or treat in the show-themed mazes.

photo credits go to Pooneh :)

I have awesomely cool friends!

Amazing Mazes!

    After filling our tummies with grilled cheese sandwiches, cheeseburger sliders, and funnel cake, and after traveling through each maze at least once, it was time for me to go pick up J and head off to our more grown-up party ;)

   We were a bit late, but we settled right it with a few seasonal drinks (I brought my fireball whiskey, which was a hit) and some delicious home-made goodies. I also brought my camera so I could take a few photos of costume awesomeness.

Steph as Korra from "Avatar"

Jackie as Mabel from "Gravity Falls"

    After our initial catching-up and chatting, those of us who remained broke out a game of Telestrations. For those of you who have never heard of this before, it is essentially a combination of telephone and pictionary. You should definitely try it out. It is seriously the type of game that can be played with some paper and pens if you're resourceful enough, but the actual game comes with pre-set words and phrases that (I think) make the game a bit simpler. 

    Basically, each person is given a card with a word or phrase on it. Your job is to DRAW whatever word or phrase you're stuck with. How you do this is completely up to you, and there are definitely a wide variety of strategies that I've seen used. Once you've drawn your word/phrase, you pass your drawing to the person next to you. Then, that person must interpret your drawing and write a word or phrase on the next page before passing to the next person who must draw THAT word or phrase, etc etc..  After your board has gone all the way around (as has everyone else's) you get to witness the evolution of your word. Just as in Telephone, sometimes the word/phrase remains intact. Sometimes, however, your word changes in ways that are almost too ridiculous to imagine. Therefore, I have some examples to share from our game!

    After many a round of drinks and Telestrations, it was suddenly 2:30am and time to go home. We said our farewells and wandered home to get some much-needed sleep.
    It was an awesome night :)