red white blue

Today I hung out with my friend, Marquis, who I haven’t seen in a very, very long time, and who I’ve known for a very, very long time (we met in 7th grade which was damn near 12-13 years ago). We drove a few towns over to Manteca to eat at Red Robbins since the one in Stockton shut down a few years ago. Plus there’s really not a whole lot to do in Stockton. We have two malls, both are only one-story and they are right across the street from each other. Isn’t that sad? We eventually ended up going to one of them though. o___0

I saw that the Bass Pro Shop was right across the street from Red Robbins and I was like, “OH MY GOD, CAN WE GO?” That store is like Disneyland for those with a great love for fishing, camping, and hunting. I love none of the former, though I’m interested in going camping again one day, but I went to the one in Rancho Cucamonga last year and I was pretty amused. Did you know you can sit in the boats they have inside? And yes, that store is big enough to hold multiple boats. The store also sells clothes, shoes, jewelry, toys, and it even has an archery range, a couple of shooting arcades, and a fudge shoppe and delicious licorice… and now I’m wondering why I left empty handed.

While there, I noticed that parts of my outfit kind of fit in with the store — my plaid shirt and compass necklace. I would never go explore the outdoors in ballet flats. x__x

The entrance to the store is decorated with antlers and two taxidermy Bambis, which I think looks cool, but at the same time I’m like, “Holy sh!t, Bambi and his friends died for this!” I know deer are overpopulated and have ticks and carry Lyme disease and whatever, but it’s still sad. And the store is basically a menagerie of stuffed animals, so if you can’t handle that kind of stuff, you probably shouldn’t check out the store.

Random Nina fact: Deers rank among my top 5 favorite animals.

Puppies
Ponies
Deer
Pandas
Penguins <– #5 is sometimes switched between tigers and otters

Anywho, I found a couple of interesting BBQ sauces at the Bass Pro Shop too:

Why didn’t I buy them???

So, this store was basically the highlight of mine and Marquis’ reunion. Afterwards we headed the mall in Stockton so he could return some shoes, and he had to wait for me while I looked around Forever 21. Haha! We thought about going to watch a movie, but nothing interesting is out right now, so we went to Toys ‘R Us (my suggestion, naturally) and TJ Maxx (also my suggestion). I found a cute bone-shaped houndstooth printed doggy poo bag dispenser for $4! If I’m going to start picking up dog crap, I might as well do it in style.

So yeah… that was my day! 🙂

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outfit details

dress/shirt: H&M
glasses: Heritage 1981
shoes: Blowfish Malibu
necklace: True Birds
ring: Target
purse: Kate Spade

My grandpa, who I call Papang (it means Daddy in Tagalog), turned 94 on June 29! Yesterday we had a big ‘ol celebration for him with tons of family. That side of my family is pretty damn huge, and even though not everyone was able to make it this year, there were still a lot of people! So basically, I haven’t had much time to rest after my Disneyland trip. I even spent 2 nights at the hotel we had the party in. And the day of the party, I spent a lot of time running errands with my sister, our cousin Amanda, and their boyfriends. Needless to say, I am über EXHAUSTED.

Ever since Papang turned 90, we’ve been having these grand parties for him and they also act as our family reunion. I think my favorite one was when he turned 92 in Las Vegas. Oh, the stories I could tell… but won’t do so on this blog. 😉

This year we did it in Stockton again so Papang wouldn’t have to travel far, but this time at the Residence Inn. We’ve done it at Mallard’s (which is now closed) and the Scottish Rite Temple (which was just terrible) — out of the 3 times we’ve done it in Stockton, I think this was best location we’ve had it at. It was nice and roomy, we had the courtyard to ourselves, everyone stayed at the hotel so we were able to hang out before and after the party. Good times all around!

Here’s a picture of Papang with all the grandchildren –5 of them are missing though. He has 8 children, 18 grandchildren, 19 great grandchildren (with another one on the way!), and 1 great great grandchild. So… like I said before, my family is HUGE.

I’m just glad that I’m fortunate enough to have a strong, healthy, generous father-figure like him in my life and also be able to say that he had a helping hand in raising me as I’ve lived with him since I was a newborn (sans my 2 years away in the bay area).

I’d also like to note, at 94, Papang still goes bowling twice a week and his average score is 175. Yeeeeaaaah!!!

I love you, Papang! 😀

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outfit details: