Happy Chinese New Year! Wishing a very warm and respectful welcome to the Year of the Dragon!

And as a newly found Trommer tradition, we had a few good friends over for an evening of hot pot goodness! In case you don’t remember from my post last year, hot pot is a lovely concoction of boiling broth in to which you dip all sorts of delicious goodies. In western terms, I suppose you could say it’s like fondue with a broth base instead of cheese or chocolate. Though please keep in mind that hot pot is more then 1000 years old and the earliest known recipe for fondue is from 1699 AD. Yes, some form of Chinese superiority complex is still alive and well in this Chao.

With the help of some friends, I think we may have finally worked out some of our previous hot pot kinks. But here are the five basic steps of hot pot…

1. Start with a big pot of boiling stock. I use diluted low sodium chicken broth in no particular water to broth ratio. I just fill the pot until it looks full, which means I have now started measuring things like my mother...Love you Ma!

2. Get yourself a nice bowl of veggie items. We like napa cabbage, spinach, baby corn, mushrooms of any kind, and all varieties of tofu. But you can also add okra, tomatoes, carrots...really whatever your heart desires!

3. Now for a big plate of meat and fish goodies! We always do a thinly sliced slab of good beef or steak. But just as necessary are fish, squid, and pork balls. Oh and don't forget tempura of every shape and size!

4. One of the most important components of hot pot? The sauce! Each person gets to mix their own blend of sauces together. This unique sauce is then used as a dip for all those delectable bite sized morsels. Normally, we set out soy sauce, black vinegar, hot sauce, Chinese BBQ sauce, scallions, and garlic. My favorite dipping sauces are in the picture above: fermented chili bean curd (way tastier than its name), soy sauce with citrus, deep roasted sesame dressing, and all mixed with a touch of black vinegar. Yum!!

5. The most important component of hot pot? A group of very hungry friends ready to share in a delicious meal and a wonderful evening.

See how easy and how much fun hot pot can be? Try it out for yourself, or come share with us the next time you’re in town! I promise you tasty food and a memorable time! But then again, I guess I always promise that! Wishing you a prosperous and lucky New Year!

This year for my birthday, we decided to head for the slopes. One of the down sides to having a birthday in the winter is that there’s not too much one can do outdoors. (Of course, it’s been freakishly beautiful weather in Texas this year. But that’s extremely variable, it’s usually still pretty chilly!) In any case, we took a few friends and met a few other friends in Copper Mountain, Colorado for a weekend of fun.

The view from our patio of the sun rising over the mountains. Pretty and rather astonishing that we were up this early!

Together with our six friends, we rented a beautiful little condo in the Copper Mountain Ski Resort. It held 8-10 people, was just steps away from the ski lift, and was in the center of the East Village which was close to restaurants and the resort bus line. A perfect weekend spot for our group.

Our fun little Copper Mountain condo.

After my two previous adventures with skiing, I have determined that I am NOT a skier. I flail, shriek, and am a little too unpredictable (even to myself) for the safety of other skiers. Don’t worry about me though, I still had plenty to do! There were many books that needed to be read in the comfort of a nice warm lodge!

The Copper Mountain safety patrol taught us that it's always best to ski with a buddy. A rule that this trio started out following...but they eventually went their own ways.

Dave and Meg fresh off the slopes

Plus, the resort had ice skating, snow-shoeing, dog sledding, snow tubing, and cross-country skiing…etc. I didn’t have a chance (or the energy) to get through all the non-skiing activities, but I still had a lot of fun! Guess that means we’re going back next year?

Carrie and I on the outdoor ice skating pond. Not having a nice wall around the rink was a little disconcerting, but we had fun nevertheless.

The highlight of the day, snow tubing!! We had so much fun tubing in Keystone the last time we went skiing that we absolutely had to do it again!

So, there you have it! Another birthday, another year. I can’t believe next year is the big thirty already. But I guess that’s something to think about at a later time…

Us getting excited for birthday snow tubing! Yes getting excited = being silly.

Please feel free to check out the rest of our photos in our gallery.

It’s been a fantastic birthday weekend thus far. However, since I’m still living it, I’m going to wait until we get home to blog about the birthday travels and fun. For now, I’d like to leave you with a little challenge that I’ve set up for myself. I got the idea from one of my favorite blogs, Joy the Baker.

Since I turned twenty nine today, I made a list of thirty items that I’m going to work towards fulfilling before my thirtieth birthday. I won’t lie, it’s pretty extensive. Some activities are pretty easy (see #28 and 29) and some will take some serious dedication to complete.

1. 30 days being a vegetarian
2. Cut 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) of hair for Locks of Love
3. Work towards a 30 inch waist. (doctors say that women who have a 30 inch or smaller waistline have a decreased chance of heart disease, cancer, and respiratory problems)
4. Tip $30 over a normal 20% tip for a fantastic waiter/waitress.
5. Exercise with the dog enough that she gets back down to her healthy 30 lbs. (An overweight dog is generally not the dog’s fault, it is the fault of the owners. Sorry Jabberwocky!)
6. Send 30 handwritten letters (non-birthday, non-thank you) just because.
7. Clean out the closet and donate 30 items.
8. Volunteer for 30 hours.
9. Research and donate to 30 worthwhile charities.
10. Read 30 new books.
11. Try 30 new restaurants.
12. Drink 30 different wines.
13. Make 30 handmade crafts.
14. Try 30 new types of food.
15. Cook 30 new recipes.
16. Buy myself 30 different types of fresh flowers.
17. Give away 30 (small) gifts to my favorite people just to make them smile.
18. Watch 30 new (to me) movies.
19. Compliment 30 strangers (and mean it)
20. Take a 30 year old out for lunch. Plan a party for 30 year old. (a much more fun goal in my opinion)
21. Learn 30 new vocab words and try to retain them.
22. Take a picture everyday for 30 days.
23. Make 30 desserts to give away to friends, family, neighbors, and perhaps random passers by.
24. Work on being able to do 30 real push-ups. (not just the girly knee push-ups)
25. Blog for 30 days in a row. (Sorry, I skipped NaBloPoMo this year!)
26. Plan 30 unique date nights. (Netflix + pizza on the couch does not count!)
27. Take Petunia the Pedal Bike out for 30 rides. (Yes, I named my bicycle Petunia. Awesome.)
28. Hug the dog 30 times.
29. Cuddle with the cat 30 times.
30. List 30 things that I’ve learned in my almost 30 years.

There you have it, what do you think? Do you have faith in me that I can get through my list? I tried to keep a good balance of things to better myself and things to brighten the days of others. I’ll try to keep y’all up to date as to my progress throughout the next 365 days (or do I have 366 because of leap year?). I appreciate any and all help that can be sent my way. I’m most worried about finding volunteer hours…so if you have any suggestions please let me know! Stay tuned for birthday weekend details! ^-^

Wishing you a very Happy New Year! May 2012 be filled with twice as much good luck, fond memories, exciting adventures, and fortunes beyond your wildest dreams. (Hey, I’m Chinese. Wishing for a million dollars in the new year is just par for the course!)

We actually had a very low key New Year’s Eve this year. The last few months have been so crazy that a mild goodbye to 2011 seemed appropriate. After all, I strongly believe somewhere in the universe that completely hectic and supremely lazy have to balance, right? Anyhow, we just had a few good friends over to the house for some food, a few drinks, and the big countdown.

Andy and Jeromy spending another New Year's Eve together!

Baby Olivia listening intently to Uncle Adam's wise advice. My favorite tidbit? The lecture about beer, better known as bubbly adult water.

Happy New Year!!

Please feel free to browse the rest of our photos if you’d like. Nothing terribly exciting, but a good time was still had!

Merry Belated Christmas to everyone. True to form, we had a busy holiday season again this year. In my defense, I wasn’t able to post any pictures because I managed to max out the space on our handy little laptop. Thankfully, we backed up all the previous photos to an external hard drive and the lappy top is ready to go for another couple of years!

On with the Christmas 2011 summary!

1. The annual Trommer Christmas party (and I was running around like a crazy person and only remembered to take a couple of photos. Sigh. I seem to have gotten worse and worse at photo taking AND blogging. Not a good trend!)

And we discovered that babies are hard to photograph, particularly when there's more than one! But what beautifully cute baby girls they are!!

I did manage to get a cute photo of me and Carrie in front of the Christmas tree. Mostly because she was the last person left at the end of the night...but it's a cute photo nevertheless!

2. Celebrating the holidays with work friends

My new co-workers in the Texas Oncology Research Department. After an awkward Christmas party at one of our doctor's houses in Southlake, we all headed for a fun little dinner at Armends.

3. Christmas Eve’s Eve with Cathy in Austin was spent enjoying delicious gourmet hot dogs at Frank’s, wandering around downtown Austin looking at all the twinkle lights, and ended with us watching our traditional Muppet’s Christmas Carol!

Introducing our hot dog dinner! On the bottom is Andy's Notorious PIG, in the middle is my Texalina, and on the top is Cathy's Veggie Dog. Yum yum!! Please ignore the healthy spinach salad I also ordered, don't know what I was thinking.

It's the Capital Christmas tree, or as I like to call it, Rick Perry's Christmas tree. I kicked it.

Puppy and Kitten cousins enjoying Christmas Eve together.

4. Christmas Eve and Day with the Trommers and Johnsons

Spending Christmas Day at the Johnsons, it's a tradition!

Me and Mom Trommer on Christmas Day 2011. Loving the tartan wrap I brought back from Scotland! So warm and comfy!

And though we had to leave Attila behind during all the festivities, she seems to be happy that we’re home! Then again we’re all happy to be home. But please feel free to look through some of our other Christmas 2011 pictures by clicking here.

If Andy leaves any article of clothing around the house, Attila will immediately find it and sleep on it.

Okay, I seem to be getting worse at the blogging thing. I keep telling myself that I should really post something. But I’ve discovered that the longer I go without blogging, the less I feel like doing anything about it. But here I am, motivated to tell you about my Thanksgiving this year. This year, Thanksgiving ended up being a fantastic mini-vacation to my parents’ new home in Irvine, CA. We had a splendid time! The weather, as everyone already knows, really is pretty close to perfect. The food options are endless and who can argue with a pre-Thanksgiving dinner walk on the beach?

There you have it, Laguna Beach. It's a mere 30 minute drive from my parents' house. Beautiful!

Because my parents have a fairly small townhouse that would never fit all of our CA relatives, we opted to go out for Thanksgiving dinner this year. Mommy and Daddy Chao have been raving about Caspian’s Persian Restaurant by their house. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to give it a try! Don’t get me wrong, I do love a delicious Thanksgiving turkey. But I really believe that the most important part of the holidays is getting to spend some quality time with family. So, as long as we’re together, the fact that we get to enjoy delicious souvlaki, hummus, and kabobs galore was just an added bonus. A wonderfully yummy bonus.

Happy Thanksgiving 2011! This is us stuffing our faces full of lovely Persian food and waiting for the belly dancing performance to start.

After dinner we went back to my Aunt Jackie's house for desserts and coffee. And what would Thanksgiving be without a little karaoke?

The next day, we went on a little road trip to Carlsbad (a small town between Irvine and San Diego). Why Carlsbad?

1. The beautiful South Carlsbad State Beach

The Chaos day at the beach! The water was freezing, but I much prefer it to the luke warm bath water of the Gulf. And yes, I refused to wear a bucket hat.

And as a seasoned gardener (Ha!), I would like to remind all you fellow gardeners out there that fall is the season to plant Andy's. Make sure to cover them in a nice sandy soil at least 8 inches in the ground. Leave them till next spring, making sure to water with a nice dark beer once a day.

2. Carlsbad Outlet Mall, which thankfully was much too crowded for us to park, let alone shop. I suppose that’s what we get for trying to shop the day after Thanksgiving

3. Pizza Port Carlsbad, where they sell their very own American Beer Festival winning beer on draft.

Yum. That's all I have to say.

In the evening, we all went out for some Chinese food at a Muslim Chinese owned restaurant. The Muslim part doesn’t really mean much for the cuisine, except for the fact that there’s no pork. The food was so tasty that who would notice the lack of pork anyhow??

We sure to love to stuff our faces with tasty food, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I even got to spend some time with my friend and college roommate Ruth! They live outside of LA too and I’m thankful we were able to get together for some catching up and a tasty lunch.

Ruth, me, and her baby boy Kaiden enjoying some sunshine at the Fashion Island shopping mall.

There you have it, a quick peek into our whirlwind trip to California this Thanksgiving. I may have left out some bits about hiking, a rattlesnake, and mountain lions. But that’s another story for another time. In the mean time, feel free to browse through some more photos!

Last weekend, we made the long trek to Kansas to attend the wedding of our dear friends Katie and CC. It was a beautiful ceremony and a fantastic reception. We wish the entire Hayden-White Family all the happiness in the world!

Katie and CC with their handsome ushers.

Introducing Katie and CC Hayden-White!!

Andy and me at the sixth and last wedding of 2011. It's been a crazy kind of year and we wouldn't have missed any of it!

We love our trips to Kansas, but there was simply too much to do in such a short amount of time!

Of course, we had to visit Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Bob. A trip to KS is never complete without seeing my Grandma Peggy!

And we had to see our newly KS transplanted friends, the Garnatzes! It's too bad it had to be so early in the morning! Can you tell that it's not even light outside yet?? I'm so not a morning person...

With our only free lunch, we gathered all of our best KC friends together for a delicious meal at Stroud's. One of my earliest memories if of Stroud's cinnamon buns!

And our last stop before heading back to Texas was a lovely visit with Aunt Susan. We had a great time chatting and sipping coffee!

In the end, we’re exhausted but thrilled that we were able to make it to Kansas for the big weekend. But now, it’s time to plan for the holidays. All the decorations, gifts, cards, food and parties are coming sooner then I can possibly fathom! I’m doing my best to stay ahead of all the holiday mayhem! Can you believe the end of the year is almost upon us? (To see more pictures from our whirlwind weekend in KS, please click here)