life's more fun together
In early January, my friend Valeria, her fiance Walid, Ray and I went to see Russell Peters at Radio City Hall. Russell Peters is one of the funniest comedians. This tour was called the “Green Card Tour.” We all had a great time and I was in tears by the end of the show. He was definitely worth watching.
Our little princess, Pok’e, a female shih tzu we adopted from the Boston animal shelter about 6.5 years ago, turned 7 in January! Although we, unfortunately, did not do anything special for her this year (sorry, Pok’e, we promise to make it up to you), she is such a big part of our little family. She has been sleeping on our bed from day 1 and really livens up our household. She loves her squeaky toys and treats. She loves to lounge around and nap but also loves to play fetch whenever we can. She has quite a spunky attitude and character and we just love her for it.
She has this cute little crooked smile….
“Ahh… life is tough”
Surrounded by her favorite toys. We took her to boarding one day a couple of years ago in Atlanta, and she came home with the froggy that makes noises. We had no idea who that belonged to, but it was obvious it soon became one of her favorite toys. As for the monkey in the back, it had a shirt at one point. After the first day, Pok’e ripped it off with her crazy fangs…
I took her to the store with me recently and the sales people introduced the squeaky slipper to her. Right away, she grabbed it with her mouth and salivated all over it. Trust me, I didn’t want to spend $18 on a dog squeaky toy, but how embarrassing is it if your dog drools all over it and you decide to just put it back on the shelf and say no thank you? So… $18 less in my pocket later… I decided, it’s a one-time deal and she will never step foot into Juicy Couture ever again. At least, not without being in a carrier and have salespeople tempt her into these overpriced toys…
It’s funny how this dog doesn’t even try to distinguish herself from a human being… look at the way she sleeps. When Ray and I leave the bed, the bed suddenly belongs to her.
This Christmas holiday, Ray’s parents and brother, Eugene, visited us in NYC. They arrived a couple of days before Christmas and it was a wonderful time together. We walked around the city, hung out at Rockefeller Center, saw the big Christmas tree, and the everything was very festive. Many buildings in the Midtown area, especially on 5th Avenue, were well-decorated and it was just a delight to be here this time of the year.
On Christmas morning, we opened presents. In the past years spending with the Pengs, Eugene would normally be the designated person to facilitate the gift-opening process; he would hand the gifts to each of us to open and we took turns. This year, we decided to do things a little differently. Ray and I have a little basketball hoop in our apartment and all of us took turns shooting the basket. We could only open one of presents each time we get a basket in. It was a lot of fun and we got some great laughs. The gift-opening process took a big longer than previous years… 😉
Below… Ray opening one of his gifts…
Of course, our dogs were never ever left out of a Christmas. They always had their own gifts! 🙂 We learned our lesson from past years to never leave dog treats wrapped up under the tree because Pok’e and Cappy have very keen noses and they could sniff through the gifts and knew which ones were treats. Last year, they opened their gift days before Christmas arrived when Ray and I left our apartment and came back an hour later to find both of them eating the treats. This year, we hid the treats wrapped and kept it in the closet until Christmas morning. It’s always a lot of fun to watch them unwrap their gift…. below, they wait patiently for their gift. They just knew it was for them.
They went through the wrap pretty quickly and had a blast eating their treats…
One of my friends, Lisa, gave our soon-to-be daughter a gift a few weeks prior. This is our baby’s first gift from a friend… a very cute monster stuff animal.
After a wonderful fun morning, we all relaxed and just hung out for the rest of the day. That night, after dinner, we walked around Times Square.
Ray’s family went back to Boston for a couple of days before coming back to celebrate New Year’s with us. On New Year’s Eve, we had a couple of people over also. My sister Audrey, my friend Valeria and her boyfriend, Walid, came over to see the ball drop at Times Square outside of our apartment. Times Square was packed with people by the late afternoon and streets were getting closed off for the celebration by 6 p.m. We were fortunate that we didn’t have to wait outside for hours before midnight to watch the ball drop. We hung out at the apartment and had some food and drinks and went out to the sidewalk 15 minutes before midnight for the big hoorah!
It’s amazing how people come from all over the world to see the ball
drop every year and what they would do to get up as close to the ball as
possible. There was a crowd in Times Square by 3 pm that day! That
means standing around for 9 hours in the rain and cold before
midnight!!!
There is a terrace on the 4th floor of our building and we just hung out there for a while to see the craze and frenzy that was going on downstairs. We could see snipers across the street on top of the Hershey’s store… security was definitely very tight. This crowd was downstairs of our apartment by 6 pm… the bathroom situation must’ve been tough. They had to stay in this blocked off area until midnight. We did see some people being escorted in and out of the area by cops… probably to and from the bathroom. It was also cold and drizzly outside so we felt really bad for the crowd.
New Year’s Eve also happens to be Ray’s mom’s birthday. We had a cake for Mr. Peng and it was so nice to be able to celebrate her birthday with her.
We all went downstairs to the outside of the building 15 minutes before midnight for the ball drop. The elevators in the building were jammed with people and it felt like forever before we got downstairs… Whew!
When midnight stroke, the ball dropped and people were throwing things everywhere and just celebrated and welcomed 2010!!! There was so much energy in the air and everyone was just so happy and … drunk! 🙂 It was definitely a night to remember. Ray and I have never been in Times Square for New Year’s before and this was such a fun and memorable experience. Who knows where we will be for New Year’s 2011…
Ray and I have yet to take our honeymoon. But we decided that we’ll at least take a babymoon! We wanted to do a little traveling before our little one arrives. Although it’s still months and months away, it feels like time in closing up on us for the next… 18 years, at least! 🙂 Kidding.
We weren’t able to fly anywhere due to again, the much complained about morning sickness. Plus, we wanted to take our dogs with us. Ray didn’t have a lot of vacation so we can’t go too far. We finally decided on going to Montreal, Canada, the first weekend in December. We figure it’s within driving distance (around 6 hours), can bring the dogs with us, and Montreal would be very different than visiting any other city in the U.S. It felt like we were could’ve been in France. Old Montreal was especially beautiful. The brick-paved narrow streets and homey shops were well-preserved. When we visited the Notre Dame Cathedral, a glamorous wedding was about to take place.
We stayed at the Omni Hotel, a short walking distance to all the shops and restaurants. The weather was really cold so we didn’t manage to walk too far, just around the downtown area and to the Old Montreal district. Fortunately, there were many great restaurants nearby and Ray and I, in our opinions, managed to go to two of the best ones… the hotel concierge recommended a French restaurant called Europea and another one known for its bouillabaise, Cafe Ferrera. We were lucky to have gotten reservations for both within 2 short days.
Do you know what those were above? Lollipops. Yeap, lollipops. But not the conventional ones that you would expect. They were goat cheese lollipops. What????? I had to pass on it and Ray happily took one for the team and ate both and loved them. The ambiance of Europea was very romantic and the food (aside from the strange lollipop and lobster truffle), was absolutely delicious. The wait staff kept bringing over “complements from the chef” and what was expected to be a 3-course meal turned out to be more of a 9-course meal. The dessert was one of the best. We tried macarones for the first time (no, not macaroons as I first thought) and we fell in love. Now, whenever we see them in New York, we had to try them. The ones we had at Europea were orange-flavored. Yummmmm…
At Cafe Ferrera, we had one of the most delicious bouillabaise ever! Although this was a portuguese restaurant and the bouillabaise was slightly improvised with added sausage to its broth, I have to say I’ve never had a better bouillabaise than this. The seafood was fresh and the shrimps and scallops were huge! The broth was so flavorful and savoring. Ray and I sat pretty close to the open kitchen and I just wanted to walk up there and take another one that was prepared for someone else. Ray also got a saffron seafood dish served over rice and that was amazing too.
Despite the fine dining in Montreal, we don’t want to forget the wonderful breakfast(s)… yeap, twice, at the Eggspectation. We haven’t had such scrumptious and filling breakfasts in a long time….
Ray loved his eggs benedict.
All in all, our babymoon in Montreal was a lot of fun. We were fortunate the hotel was nearby and we were able to take a lot of breaks in between the sightseeing and walking. I was near the end of my first trimester and the fatigue and morning sickness started to subside slightly so we were able to enjoy this trip a little more than we initially expected. This was definitely a memorable trip!!!
We have much to be thankful for this year. A lot has happened, starting off with Ray’s work bringing us to New York City, to the experiences we’ve had living here so far, to taking a couple of wonderful vacation trips and then finding out we are expecting our first baby together. We are so excited that we are going to be parents! At first, it was a little scary to know that we will soon be responsible for the health and well-being of another human being, but at the same time, knowing that it will be a great experience to raise a baby together.
Unfortunately, with the downside of being pregnant, meaning horrible morning sickness, we decided to have a very low-key Thanksgiving this year. Initially, we wanted to invite some friends over and take advantage of the location we are in to watch the Macy’s parade earlier that day and have a huge home-cooked meal later that afternoon and into the evening. But with the sickness constantly looming over me day and night (whoever created the term morning sickness was either oblivious or trying to understate the situation), we couldn’t risk hosting a big party this year. We decided to have a small family gathering at the last minute with those who lived in the city. That was all we could handle.
However earlier that morning, Ray and I still had to fulfill our volunteering obligation. I had signed us up for a volunteering opportunity to serve meals for the elderly and homeless many months prior. Of course, I had no idea I would be pregnant then and be dealing with morning sickness. It was just going to be several hours, so we sucked it up and was so glad that we did. We helped serve meals at a church near Columbus Circle, not far from our place. This is something I hope we can continue to do, to show our appreciation for what we have and to give back and help out those who need it. However, due to the Thanksgiving parade, it took us quite some time to the church.
The annual Macy’s Thanksgiving parade is usually held along our street, on Broadway, and would’ve passed our apartment. We technically could’ve watch it from our window or patio. However, this year, due to the city’s plan to increase green and pedestrian-friendly areas, parts of Broadway were converted to hang out spots and there were permanent structures in place that prevented the parade from commencing through this area. Therefore, the parade was rerouted this year to the street on the other side of our building. Before Ray and I headed out to the volunteer event, we managed to watch several floats, bands, and balloons pass by from one of our windows. My cousin was also kind enough to offer to come by earlier to watch our turkey in the oven while we were gone.
Ronald McDonald was one of my favorite! Pretty cool pose. I had to take a picture of the pink castle so I can show my niece Meagan at some point. She is very much into princesses and the Disney collection.
Ray has been the designated turkey carver since 2005, when we moved out to California. He has gotten pretty good with all the practice! Dinner was very delicious and we all overate, but I’m sure that was to be expected on every Thanksgiving.