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"

GROWTH.

So I've been out of my parents house maybe for 3 weeks or so, and I'm still not used to living out on my own (well not really on my own), it feels so weird to not have a curfew, or have to ask for permission, or be asked to do favors. It might be that I am still in shock, but living on my own actually feels to me like a vacation. That's the only way I can describe it. I feel like it's too good to be true, like I am away on vacation or I am spending the night with Victor for a couple days and will have to head home to my parents soon, BUT that's not the case. So far it has been really great, all my friends ask me how it feels to be living with my boyfriend and it's been like a dream. Of course it was hard leaving my family, and I admit to crying a lot the first few days (even now I sometimes get a bit homesick), but I feel liberated, most importantly I feel independent. Simple things like going grocery shopping feels SO GOOD because I'm shopping for OUR apartment.

I WONDER WHY I DIDN'T DO THIS SOONER.

HOME.

It's 12:40am and I am blogging from our new BED!!! This is so exciting because our apartment is FINALLY coming along as we pictured it. These past few weeks have been crazy, getting everything ready, buying groceries, working hectic schedules and on our free time trying to enjoy our apartment and our time together. Below I will share a few photos from the last few weeks and past few days:

Our first outing together, the day after moving in at a friend's kids Toy Story themed B-day party.

Victor decorated our windows with some 4th of July lights that he purchased a while ago. He's been obsessing over classic American lifestyle so these lights represent him very well and serve as great night lights.

Victor has been cooking a lot and that is yet another thing he is very good at! Since he has been the chef I felt like surprising him one day with a romantic dinner as soon as he got home from work. We didn't have a dining table yet, so I had to work with what we had. He was very impressed with my Monterrey Jack Chicken dinner that I prepared (heck I was even impressed!).

Downtown LA has just opened up a new Target and we decided to check it out this past Friday. We actually spent all day driving through the city and finding hidden gems not too far from our apartment.

 Just outside Target on 7th + Figueroa.

That Friday we also took a trip to Highland Park, a city about 15 minutes from Old Town Pasadena with a lot of latin influences. We found the first ever Forever 21 store and even a movie theater that has $3 movies on Tuesdays and Wednesdays! We are planning to go very soon! There were great little shops around, a super cool bar, and BEAUTIFUL homes that I (along with Victor) fell in love with! Like always we had a photo-shoot and I'm sure Victor will soon make a blogpost about it here.

We ended our Friday night by heading to IKEA in Burbank, purchasing a dining room table and stopping for donuts at Krispy Kreme! I can't wait to post photos of our apartment but it isn't quite finished yet, almost!

I leave you all with a song that I currently have replaying in my head:

follow me on Instagram/Twitter for daily updates: @J_Hdez // @Victor_Go

23//60

This past week was Mr. Potato Head's 60th Anniversary (as was our 23 month-a-versary). We celebrated by attending the Mr. Potato Head gallery anniversary party at Portfolio 360 that our friend Onch had invited us to.

A couple weeks ago I had bought Victor this Hello Kitty fish eye camera, and felt that this date/occasion would be perfect to surprise him with it!

I loved the colors, and loved how much it looks like a little kids camera, but takes badass photos.

even the box was adorable.

I just LOVE gift wrapping!

the big reveal! he wasn't expecting a gift!

Gaga Potato Minaj 

tattoos that Victor made for us at work! and Onch playing peek a boo!

playing with his new camera!

photobooth fun!

Mr. Potato Head cake!

We had a great time celebrating both our anniversary and Mr. Potato Heads 60th anniversary. There were some great pieces and some pretty sweet t-shirts that I personally really liked. Thank you to Onch for always being so sweet and inviting us! 

*APARTMENT UPDATE*  We recently moved into our apartment and are currently decorating it. Blog post to come soon! 

SONGS ABOUT VICTOR.

A couple songs that make me think of Victor:

"unusual you" - Britney Spears

"heaven on earth" - Britney Spears

"whats my name" - Rihanna feat. Drake (makes me think of driving down Melrose with him)

"die in your arms" - Justin Bieber

"i run to you" - Lady Antebellum

"eh eh (nothing else i can say)" - Lady Gaga

Couldn't find a good audio version of  "we own the night" Selena Gomez and The Scene,but that is another song that reminds me of Victor.

"ours" - Taylor Swift

"enchanted" - Taylor Swift (my fave!)

"untouchable" - Taylor Swift

AND OF COURSE:

There's a ton more songs but these are some of my favorites and the ones that mean the most to me!

IKEA

A quick update on a fun trip Victor and I took to IKEA in Burbank, CA to look for essentials that we need once we get our apartment!  YES we officially have an apartment, just waiting for the move in date which is supposed to be any day after 6th of October! Right around the corner!

 The IKEA in Burbank is our favorite because of the yummy and great priced food that is in the cafe!

$22.77, not bad at all!

view of the cafe dining area.

I love going to IKEA because of the different kinds of model rooms they have on display. They pretty much have a room for every kind of person. It was fun picking out things that we both liked and seeing which things we didn't agree on. A new thing that IKEA has done recently and that Victor pointed out to me was that they are now incorporating much more DIY furniture/decor ideas. I love DIY projects and we both have been looking up great DIY ideas for our studio apartment. We have so much to buy and are anxious to start decorating but are still waiting on a confirmation of the move in date!

• will keep you posted! •