LIBERTY WALK.

Today I had the day off and decided to take a walk around Koreatown. There is still many streets and shops that I am not familiar with and it seems like every time I go for a run I end up discovering either beautiful homes, or cool little shops. It felt good to just walk around the city without anything stopping me, without any time restrictions. I just walked, music blasting from my earphones, and enjoyed the fast pace city life.

THNX.

This post is dedicated to Victor and mainly a thank you post to his family. I am so thankful and appreciative of the relationship that I've built with them. They are so caring and have always made me feel welcomed. It is always a great time when we all get together, and I hope it continues to be this way. I can honestly call them my second family. I am so so so thankful for them, and I am so lucky to have Victor and them in my life.

Victor: Thank you for always being there for me and listening to everything I have to say. Thank you for making me feel safe and comforting me whenever I go through tough times. Thank you for always being yourself and inspiring me to be the best that I can be.

Valerie: Thank you for laughing at my lame jokes, and making me feel comfortable whenever I am around you. You are always so sweet!

Leti/Victor: Thank you so very much for taking the time to really know me, and being there for me no matter what it is I needed. You are amazing parents, and I admire you two.  I have such great memories alongside both of you and can't wait to make many more in the future.

There is nothing else to say but THANK YOU.

CIAO CALI.

Friday night Victor and I attended a bittersweet celebration at a neighborhood German themed bar called The Red Lion Tavern. The occasion? Our good friend moving to Chicago. I worked with Stephanie at Radio Disney for more than a year, and she has been such a great friend to us both. I have a TON of fun memories with her, from meeting her at the station and gifting her a Mickey Mouse lollipop, going to see Selena Gomez live, celebrating my 21st birthday (AND doing a blowjob shot!), annual Christmas tacky sweater parties, to taking a trip to Disneyland with her, another good friend (Brittany), and Victor. Even though we didn't work together all the time, and both our schedules were super crazy, we became really close. She is such a great caring person, and I know fabulous things lie ahead for her. After months of not seeing each other I was excited to see her that night, but at the same time was a bit sad to say goodbye. 

I'm not a big drinker nor do I go to bars, but this bar was really cool. The breathalyzer got my attention as soon as we walked in. I especially loved the theme, everything was so cute and even the girl bartenders wear cute festive dresses.

From the outside the bar didn't look too big but it is two floors with multiple lounges, and an upstairs outdoor patio. 

Here is a picture of the "Disney family", as Stephanie said, Victor is "part of the family".

Such a classic Stephanie photo!

 The original 3 amigos: Brittany|Me|Steph (caption taken directly from Steph's facebook).

Victor, Stephanie, and I.

This night was so much fun, we got to catch up and wish Stephanie the best in the windy  city. I had made her a card but unfortunately forgot to give it to her so I'm planning on mailing it to her. We will be the bestest pen pals ever! I wish Stephanie the best in everything she sets out to do in Chicago, Cali will miss her Disney princess in Chuck Taylors! I will miss her laughter and squeals of excitement! Now Victor and I will have to plan a visit to Chicago very soon, and of course finalize our NY trip with her for next year!

It all started with a lollipop.

DOS.

This past Wednesday Victor and I reached our 2 years anniversary! That is so crazy. I can still remember meeting him back in October of 2010, having lunch at Johnny Rockets in Melrose, and slowly learning much more about each other. I thought about what to get him since the start of the year, and finally decided to gift him a watch. He has 2 watches that he uses, and the gold one that he's had for a while is in a not so good condition. I remembered him talking to me about wanting a GUESS watch, so naturally I was going to get him a watch from GUESS.

 The watch I bought him.

I always try and give gifts with a personal touch, either a card I personally made or a note I wrote, but for this I decided to make my own wrapping paper. I used an old shopping bag, and summed up our 2 years by way of doodles!  Take a look at it below:

We decided to open the gifts at midnight, and I was so excited to give him my gift. I will admit though, in typical Jose fashion, I knocked out by 10pm and once Victor woke me up at 12:00 am I was dazed and too tired to even grab my gift! I took a nap and minutes later I had the energy to get up and exchange gifts! I'm such a grandpa, and felt terrible for being a sleepy mess! Anyway, Victor loved my wrapping paper, and loved the watch even more! Here he is looking at my doodles, and finally trying on the watch:

When it came time for me to open my gift he directed me towards our green table. I had no idea what was waiting for me. I walked towards the table and was so happy to see a blue fishy! I have been bugging Victor telling him how much I wanted a fish and he got me one! All my life I've had pets, since I was a child, I had dogs, cats, birds, turtles, baby chicks, so naturally I wanted something small for our apartment. I wanted something to look after, something to take care of. 

I kept thinking of names, I thought of naming him Rupert, or Hershull, but ended up with something small: Fishy. This honestly was the best gift, I love my new pet, and can't wait for many more anniversaries to come! (now to plan next years gift/idea...)

I'm off to prepare dinner for the boy I love. 

LITTLE SPONTANEOUS DATE.

Friday was a fun spontaneous day for Victor and I. We both were off work by 4pm (that is rare) so we decided to make the best of it! We started off by going to eat at our fave place with the best salad bar, Sizzler, and later drove down to Little Tokyo.

 

 

The view from my car.

 

Once we arrived to Little Tokyo the first thing we did was go to this HUGE Japanese book store, I wouldn't compare it to Barnes and Noble because it's 10X better. There's Japanese magazines, even VOGUE Homme Japan, cute postcards, stickers, notebooks, and Victors favorite: stationary/crafting books. He was like a kid in a candy store, amazed at all the stationary crafting books they had, it was so fun to see his reaction.We spent a long time in that store and would have spent some more if they hadn't closed so early.

 

A super cute card that Victor and I loved, wish I was able to gift that to someone. 

Little Tokyo.

Inside a market, felt like I was out of the country.

 

 Victor admiring some street art.

This Friday was a great one. From the minute I picked up Victor from work I felt excited, I felt nervous and like it was one of the first dates we were going on. It almost felt like we had just started going out and I loved it. I explained this a bit to him but couldn't find the perfect words so I'm hoping this helps him understand how I felt. I think what made this day so great was that it wasn't planned. I always plan ahead and live my life cautiously, constantly thinking about what my next move will be so deciding to just head to Little Tokyo out of the blue made me feel relieved. I love that we just decided to go down to Little Tokyo last minute and ended up having a great time. We even stumbled upon some public karaoke and I had the courage to want to sing a duet with Victor but unfortunately the Karaoke DJ had just round up his last 3 singers. We said we would come again soon. I've been thinking about last night all day, and hope to have many more little spontaneous dates. We walked through Little Tokyo holding hands, talking and even though it was a cold night everything felt perfect. I can't wait for Wednesday to come around because we will be reaching our 2 YEARS TOGETHER. Of course I will make a blog post about it! Now I have to finish something up for that day ;) but here's a song that I am currently obsessing over:

 

Taylor Swift - "Begin Again"