The host with the most!

Ron hosted his first dinner party today. He finally invited his Ryerson friends to see his condo. He's lived there for over a year now, and he's just getting around to inviting some friends over! (even though I've already invited most of mine over! haha)


The cool thing this group has been doing is for each of their 30th birthday, they would all get together to create a scrapbook for the birthday celebrant. Each person designs and dedicates a spread (each with their most memorable moment of that person), along with a few other group pages, and then they all put it together and present the scrapbook to the birthday girl/guy! (kind of like what some of you ladies did for me one year)

They celebrated the youngest and last 30th birthday of the group today since they were all together, and to Ron's surprise, they had also presented him with a housewarming gift: a Cuisinart Grill! (the exact same one as yours, Saads!) I can't wait until Ron actually starts cooking with it... yes, COOKING!!! :P

Earth Hour!

Ron and I decided to take part in the Earth Hour.

I heard about it all over the radio and the news that it was hard not to take part in it. When you think about it, we really should do it more often!

I made dinner for the both of us, and then when 8pm came around, we had our dinner under candlelight, which I thought was quite romantic! :)

Happy Anniversary!

Today is my parents' 38th wedding anniversary! That's a photo of them before the marriage, the 4 kids, and the 5 grandkids! My parents' marriage is actually an inspiration to me. After 38 years, I'm happy to report that they're still happy and inlove... and every now and then, I still catch them holding hands when they think no one's looking (it's so cute!).

For their anniversary, they wanted to go to St. Lawrence Market for breakfast. I woke up at 6am, picked up my oldest sister Sarah, and then we all headed to the market for an anniversary breakfast. (yes, just the 'good' kids went.... my 2 other siblings couldn't make it).

My mom was craving the peameal bacon sandwich, so we went and had that... along with various other delicious pastries. I've actually never been to the St. Lawrence Market this early before, but it looks like it was still pretty busy at that hour! After all the morning shopping, I came home and took a nap!

Happy Anniversary!

Raptor RON!

Ron plays basketball every Monday night with a group of guys at a school gym. Today, however, was a nice change for the boyz. They all met up at noon, to play basketball at the Air Canada Centre! AND, I was invited to be see them play... or as a fan! :)


For 2 hours, they got to experience what it's like to be a Raptor! Once we got there, the boys went into the locker room to change (I wasn't allowed in there, unfortunately), and then they all came out to play. It was great! I have never had courtside seats before... or ever! (hence the photo proof that I was actually on the court!)

They played in 3-minute intervals, with the buzzer going off after each round to give the next round of players a turn. They also each received a ticket to the Raptor game for April 11th (against the New Jersey Nets). I, unfortunately, didn't get one! Ah well, it was great to see all of the guys so happy to be there! I myself wished I could have played!! (next time......sigh)

Happy Easter!

Di and I headed to Saads place for dinner tonight and for our annual Easter egg hunt! Her house is bigger now, so there was definitely more ground to cover this time. It was like Di and I were back in grade 2 again (especially since she kept calling me 'Brace Face')...except this time, Di was following ME! hahah. :P

Thanks for bringing back our youth Saads!

Dinner & A Movie!

I met up with Quel tonight. It was my first social outing with the braces. Quel was excited to see them, and as a good friend, told me they weren't so bad. But there was a moment when we were walking outside, and I laughed hard, and she got a little freaked out when she saw the metal in my mouth! She forgot I had them, so it shocked her! Geez!! I guess that's to be expected...

We went to watch The Other Boleyn Girl (starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and Eric Bana). I liked it, actually... but maybe because there were no expectations going into the theatre.

After the movie, we had dinner at a Korean restaurant. I ordered the Chap Chae with a grilled salmon! Chap chae is one of my favourites that Di's mom makes. (and yes Di, your mom's is better!)

UGLY SALLY!

Who's uglier?!?!

I dunno, it's pretty close... don't cha' think? Maybe the show's based on MY life! I did work in magazines, after all.... Betty... Sally... I should get royalties! :P

Yes, I finally got my braces today (the top part anyway)! Apparently, I can't eat any more hard foods, sticky foods, or anything high in sugar. So, the following are no longer gonna be part of my diet:
• nuts, peanut brittle, hard pizza crust, corn on the cob, ribs, chips, tacos, popcorn, pretzels, bagels, raw carrots, bubble gum, caramel candy, beef jerky, lollipops (and this is just to mention a few!)

AND, check out all the tools I have to use just to brush my teeth (after each meal by the way).

Can someone please remind me why I decided to do this again?!?!
:P

Home sweet home...

Di and I had packed our bags last night, so that we would be ready to go in the afternoon. But not before going out for some last minute shopping! We headed out to The Diner for brunch, and we all had such huge meals (gotta love those American portions).

After brunch, we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and then to the Home Goods store (equivalent to Home Sense), and then to the Stamford mall. They had a sit on the Easter bunny photo booth going on in the mall... I thought that was hilarious! We packed our last minute purchases, and then it was off to the airport.

Ron picked me up, and then Gerwyn picked Di up. Ron and I went out to eat before meeting his friend Donna and her friends at the bowling alley for her birthday. I was too tired to bowl, so we just watched for a bit and then headed on home sweet home! :)

Shop til' you drop...

Woodbury Common.

Sooky's friend Sheila came by and picked us all up to head on out to the outlet shopping stores! These ladies can SHOP!

It was an exhausting day of shopping, and once we got home, we all literally propped on the couch, and stayed on that couch for the rest of the evening.... we ate leftovers and watched Gone Baby Gone movie.

The Big Apple!

Di and I headed on out to the big city today! We knew today would be a packed day with all the things we wanted to do and see in Manhattan. What we weren't prepared for was the weather... the cold wind that hit us was brutal!

After arriving at Grand Central Station, we took the subway down to Battery Park to do our one touristy thing: the Statue of Liberty. When we got there, however, there was a huge line to get tickets, and then another 2 hour wait to actually get to the island. With it being so cold, we decided it wasn't a good idea. The only reason I really wanted to go to the statue, was because I wanted to see the view of the city from the island.

But after walking around, we arrived at the Staten Island Ferry terminal... which was free! We got a ride on the ferry, and I saw my view of the city afterall. Di thought since we were already on Staten Island, we should at least walk around. There wasn't much to see though. We were going to go to the museum, but it was closed to the public for another 2 hours. We decided to head back to the city.

We walked to the financial district, and went into the Century 21 (it's like a huge 5 or 6-story Winners, basically). We could have easily spent a whole day in there shopping! But time was of the essence, and we came out with only a few items.

Next was to head uptown to Times Square to get our tickets to a broadway show that evening. Our first choice was Mary Poppins but unfortunatey, no tickets were available. We went through a whole list of shows, but because we were closer to the end of the line, the choices were very limited. We ended up getting tickets to a play called November, starring: Nathan Lane (from The Producers, and The Birdcage), Laurie Metcalf (the sister in Roseanne), Dylan Baker, Ethan Phillips and Michael Nichols.

Next was to head back downtown to the Soho district. A coworker of mine had raved about this cupcake store, and told me they were fantastic... so I was determined to try them too! After walking around for what seemed like forever, we found the small bakery called Sugar Sweet Sunshine. We ordered half a dozen various cupcakes, and then we had to head back uptown to meet Di's sister!

Sooky took us to Ruby Foo's for dinner. It was deeelicious! Sushi, pad thai, lettuce wraps, and of course Cosmopolitans!! And then it was off to our show.... the actors were great in each of their roles, however, the story itself wasn't the most exciting for me.

By the time the show ended, we were exhausted from our day in the city. Luckily, Sooky had driven into the city so we all got into her Beemer and headed home... and had cupcakes! They were absolutely delicious!! Di and I both agreed... definitely worth the trip and frustration it took to find the shop! I would even say, better than Magnolia (that's right, I said it).

Di's been TARGETed!

So it turns out Di's sister didn't have internet afterall (who doesn't have internet?!?) :P. But here goes:

We arrived in Newark at approximately 10am. We picked up our rental car: a red Kia Spectra, and drove to Stamford, where Di’s sister lives. Di made us lunch: Mondoo, before we headed out for some shopping!!!

We went out to Target, which was Di’s first time there (a Target virgin)! Can you believe she’s never been?? After 2-1/2 hours and lots of shopping, we finally left the 2-story Target store. Di was quite impressed with the experience…she’s officially a fan of the store! After that, we headed out to the WWE head office (in honour of Ron), but unfortunately, was rejected from entering the building. I believe the exact words were “We’re not open to the public”… how rude!

We then headed out to the grocery store, to make dinner before Di’s sister came home. OK, so we had our own little WND here in Stamford! OUR menu:

Babka bread (I like saying that ‘Babka’)
Roasted chicken, with stuffing, and gravy
Green beans
Mashed sweet potatoes
and a bottle of champagne!

It’s been a nice first day here in New York. Can’t wait for tomorrow!!

And we're off!

We just got back from WND (yes, on a Tuesday) - Norm style.

The menu for tonight:

appetizer: Deviled Eggs
main course: Roast Beef with asparagus and potato salad
dessert: Blueberry cheesecake
and lots of wine! ;)

It was a delicious dinner! And it was nice because it was the first time we were all 'coupled' off together as a group: Mel&Norm, D&G, Ev&Stu, and me&Ron! :)

Thanks Norm for such a fantastic meal! The roast beef was soft enough even for me to eat! No photos, unfortunately, as I had packed my camera and couldn't remember where I put it!

Di and I will be heading out in the morning to New York baby! Di's packing as I type this, since our cab is picking us up at 6:30am Wednesday morning! (that's the earliest I've been up in a looong time).

I'm bringing my Macbook (I couldn't part with it), so hopefully, you can expect some blogs while we're there.

And so we're off to the big apple!

Self Defense - part 2

It's all in the wrist... and elbow, actually. That's what I learned in my 2nd class. Today, our instructor taught us that there is a difference between physical strength and balance strength.

He showed us how to get out of a bunch of different arm holds from anyone, including those that are stronger than us in order to be able to escape and run from a situation like that. It was very interesting, not to mention a bit painful.

We all partnered up and had to practice various holds, and how to get out of those holds MANY times! As a result, my wrist is killing me as I type this. But it was well worth it! Our instructor would go around and make sure each of us had learned the technique properly, and there was an incident when he came by in which I actually hurt him! ooops!

I'll teach you ladies next time I see ya'! :)

A London bloke and his new mates!

Ev's fiancé, Stuart is in town this week, so we all met up at Terroni's for dinner to spend a lovely evening together. I can listen to that guy talk all night with that accent! I hope Stuart's enjoying the company of his new Toronto mates (even the 'crackberrys')!

Fantasy characters...

I wasn't feeling well today after work, so I stayed home with my Macbook. My old coworker had sent me an internet site while msn'ing with him, and I got to creating some fantasy characters.

Meet Ron Bautista (the wrestler), and Sally Croft in Tomb Raider (she has an awesome body in this movie). hahaah. Don't you worry, you're NEXT! :P

The website is: http://faceinhole.com/home.asp

HAVE FUN!

Waffles & Crêpes!

It's no WND, but it's sure a great substitute! YUM!! :)

My favourite Robert Munsch books...

As a kid, I loved the book The Paper Bag Princess.

As an adult, I fell inlove with Love You Forever (it actually made me cry the first time I read it; it was to my nephew, and I almost couldn't finish reading it to him because I started tearing up)

For all you parents out there, you can actually download all of Robert Munsch's books as an audio mp3 file for free! They're all recordings of Robert Munsch himself reading it. And Di, there are Korean versions (of the book, not the recordings). Sorry, no Tagalog versions - I checked.

Here's the site: http://www.robertmunsch.com/booklist.cfm

© sTan

As I was surfing through the web, I found a program for my Mac that lets you add watermarks to a picture. I've always wondered how people did it (yes, that's the geek in me), and I didn't realize it was an actual program! So I found one... tried it.. and it works well, is easy to use plus it's free!

With all the images being passed around and taken from internet sites (I'm guilty of doing it myself), I wanted to identify mine, as MINE! :P

Ya' never know out there in the internet world! Let me introduce you to my watermark: © sTan (bottom right corner). Here's my first crack at 'watermarking'. All these photos were taken from my cell phone:

Generations at the gym...

I had a date with my 10-year old nephew today to teach him how to play squash! I thought that maybe he had changed his mind about going (you know how kids can be) but sure enough, when I called him, he was still excited to go.

I had told my dad that I would be taking Matthew to the gym, and he had mentioned that he'd never been to a gym before so I invited him to come along, and we ALL ended up going!

We got a squash court, so I started teaching my nephew how to hit the ball while my dad looked around. By the end of the lesson, I had them both playing against each other... well, not an actual game, but at least they could both return the other's hits! Baby steps right? :)


Since I didn't end up getting a full workout with the squash lesson (no offense to my dad & nephew), I decided to meet up with J.J. at the YMCA downtown gym. We hadn't played against each other since over 3 years ago! It was a great workout! I was dripping in sweat by the end of it, and J.J. may have broken a sweat too! :P

After playing 13 games (5 of which I won btw), and we were getting ready to leave, J.J. realized that he was missing his winter coat which contained his wallet and his keys! He was freaking out! We searched everywhere... but nothing. I dropped him off at home (with no coat during the winter storm) feeling so bad! I felt partially responsible for it somehow.

A half an hour after dropping him off, J.J. called with good news! Apparently, he had left the coat in the changeroom and someone took it home with them when he couldn't find us at the gym so that he could return it to J.J. later. WHEW! So all is good again. It's nice to know that in a city where you constantly hear about murders, robberies, and gang violence... there's still some GOOD out there! :)

Cute dishes!

Di and I headed over to Saads' place after work tonight. She made us dinner:

Grilled Tilapia, and pineapple with salsa
Sweet potato fries
Crescent rolls
Apple crumble for dessert

She served the dessert on the cutest dishes! Maybe it's just my love for bags/purses... but I had to blog about them!! :) Thanks Saads for such a delicious (and Sally-friendly) dinner, and a lovely night!

Braces update...

I just got back from another visit with the orthodontist. Apparently, the palatal expander (shown in diagram to your right-and no, that's not my mouth) that I currently have in my mouth and have been winding up 2x daily... I was only supposed to wind up to a total of 14 times! Funny how they didn't mention that...

Anyway, because I've wound it up more times than I should have, I now have to wind it up the other way... to get back some of that space I made. Arrgh!

And THEN, the braces are going on! This Thursday to be exact.... eeek!

I get the pleasure of having the top braces on, in addition to the palatal expander for the next 6-8 months! (again, another thing they didn't mention to me in the beginning).

Basketball & Swiss Chalet...

Di and I met up with J.J. tonight to play some b-ball at her condo.

I haven't seen J.J. (who's my former dragonboat captain) since I first moved back a year ago. He had text messaged me out of the blue about playing squash, and we got to emailing each other, and finally to meeting up tonight and playing basketball with Di. Years ago, we met up on a weekly basis (with Randy, me, Di and J.J.) for some 2-on-2 basketball. It was tons of fun, and a great workout!

Tonight, we decided to try and get back to that same workout. Unfortunately, there were a couple other guys on the court, so J.J. ended up creating this game for us to get our heart rate going! What's the game you ask?

Basically, you have 2 minutes to get as many baskets in as you can. No help with getting the ball. You have to grab the ball after shooting and get back to the line to shoot again with the 2-minute time limit that you have. Sounds simple, yet it was so hard! Surprisingly, Di came out the big winner of this game, managing to get a total of 10 baskets in. Shocked?? I KNOW!! We played this game a few times, and by the end, J.J. came close and matched Di's 10 baskets. I, on the other hand, got a high score of 7! What the!?!?

Anywayze, you know what they say... beginner's luck. We'll see what happens in the next game!

After that workout, we all went back to Di's place and had Swiss Chalet! Mmmmm.... and J.J., the gentleman that he is, washed all the dishes after. He's single ladies... any takers?? ;)

Melanie-style Terroni!

Mel's theme tonight for WND was Terroni, one of our favourite Italian restaurants. She made some of our favourite dishes, and lemme tell ya'... she had us at the appetizer! We were ALL impressed!

menu:

appetizer: mushroom salad
main course: pizza, and pasta
dessert: Filipino-style crème brûlée (aka lechi-flan)

Who needs to go to Terroni when you can just get it in the comfort of Mel & Norm's home?? :)

Happy Birthday Jaylene!

Just wanted to wish my oldest niece a very Happy Birthday! She turned 8 today and to celebrate, we all went to Woodie Woodchuck's with all her friends. It was fun! It's like a Chuckie Cheese, except it's called Woodie Woodchuck's. :P

Ron came out too, which was nice. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun... I didn't even really see them since they were all running around playing games! But the kids weren't the only ones. I managed to beat my cousin, my sister, my brother, and Ron in Dance Revolution! Who knew!?!? I was working up a sweat by the end of it... literally (my hair was wet from all the sweat! ewwww!). hehe. Good times! Happy Birthday Jay-Jay!

NYC, here we come!

So Di and I just booked our flight to the big apple! We'll be there for the Easter long weekend: March 19-22nd. Yay! It's not that long, but it'll be nice to get away, even for a little while. We're actually staying in Stamford, Connecticut with Di's sister, but I'm sure we'll make it to the big city a couple of times while we're there.

Now I just need to book mine and Ron's vacation in April...

Self Defense...

I signed up for a Women's Self-Defense course through my friend Nicole, who was organizing it. I figured, it couldn't hurt.

I had my first class today, and it was very interesting. The instructor taught us about the 7 major joints in our body, and showed us exercises to strengthen each joint. He also showed us the proper stance, and a 3-movement routine which he made us do quite a few times to get it right! It was good because he had an assistant that would go around and correct us all in posture, and in technique. I really enjoyed it!

Funny...

...yet could possibly be true one day!!! :)