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Babymoon in Montreal December 2009

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!!!

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Thanksgiving November 2009

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.

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Dating Anniversary November 2009

Ray and I officially started dating back in November 1999 and have a tradition that we go to Friendly’s every year for our dating anniversary.  However, with the constant moving over the past several years to the West Coast and then to the Southeast, we couldn’t go to Friendly’s and had to improvise a little.  Fortunately, this year, we are in NYC, and was able to once again, go to our special place.  Yes, Friendly’s is not exactly a fine dining sort of place :), but it has sentimental value to us and we love it.  The closest one to us was in New Jersey, about 30 minutes away, so we rented a car and off we went.

This year, our anniversary has another special meaning for us.  It’s our first anniversary that we are celebrating with 2.5 of us (Ray, me and our future little one).  Unfortunately, with my morning sickness, the meal wasn’t as appetizing as it could’ve been. Nonetheless, we had a wonderful time and reminisced about the past 10 years of being together and had some great laughs.  We still couldn’t believe how time just flew by. Although it’s been 10 years, we are still having lots of fun together and aren’t tired of each other yet.  That has got to be a good thing, right? 🙂

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Halloween October 2009

As much as we wanted to celebrate Halloween and have a crazy night in town in NYC this year, we reluctantly had to pass up on this opportunity because I just found out earlier that month that I was pregnant.  I was told that I had to be extremely careful in the first trimester due to the high risk of miscarriages.  Translation:  Do not go anywhere with large crowds (just one of the many precautions).  Nonetheless, Ray and I didn’t want our precious dogs to lose out on their chance to dress up (like they wanted to… NOT). We couldn’t resist going to the costume store in search of their perfect outfits. We finally decided to go with a classic theme… Star Wars! It’s popular every year and never gets old.  Of course, we still had to find the character that best fits each dog.

For Cappy, he has an old, wise look.  So, without much thought, he naturally would be a suitable Yoda!  For Pok’e, nothing would suit her better than Princess Leia.

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Ray’s birthday October 2009

For Ray’s birthday, we did a two-part celebration. The weekend before his birthday, I bought tickets to take him to see Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring at the Radio City Music Hall.  It was an amazing experience where a live orchestra  actually plays in sync with the movie along with live background singing. Lord of the Rings’ The Fellowship of the Ring is his favorite of the trilogy.

For his birthday meal, I decided to cook dinner for him.  I made clam chowder, beef, mashed potatoes and quiche.  They are some my huney’s favorite foods.  Earlier that day, I went to a bakery called Veniero’s on the lower east side that was known for its strawberry shortcake.  Ray is not much of a sweets fan, but he liked strawberry shortcake because it is usually fluffy and not overly sweet.  This cake was made of real cream and it had just right amount of sweetness.  It tasted really fresh and it just melted in your mouth.  We really enjoyed a nice evening at home! Happy Birthday Raymond Peng!!!