Our yearly Christmas party and gift exchange.

Once again, Christmas came around and we planned a last minute Christmas party with the white elephant gift exchange.

The turn-out was great, and everyone brought something to share (food)..:)

The ones with the younger kids (Claire and Tyler) had to leave early as the timing was right into their sleeping time..... I guess next year, our parties will have to revolve around our little one as well.:D

The white elephant gift exchange was fun as usual.... the gifts were of course interesting... i think Gordon and i scored with our trader joe's gift card and a coach wallet..heehhhee...:D the rest of the gifts were nice as well....note to self, next time I need to say "gag gifts not allowed"

:)

I hope everyone had loads of fun. Our house is a little small for so many people.... hopefully the weather would be nicer next year and everyone can hang out outside.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Long Silence?

no.. baby is not here yet..

but, my mom is in town... and my sis and bro in-law are in town as well!!

:)

My mom arrived on Nov 28..... followed by my uncle Kam Yoon and aunty Sue who arrived from UK from Dec 1-7.....then, my mom's fren, Sarah arrived from Dec 17-20 and my sis and Soon Jin arrived today! This is why I have been sooooo quiet..;)

In between all these arrivals, I had multiple baby showers.... one from my frens, one from Gordon's cousins and one more from work.... so, yes, I have been busy going thru the gifts...*happiness* and writing some thank you cards.......

How time flies.

Baby is still incubating.... I need him to stay in there until at least January 1.....so, I shall NOT over-exert myself. I am still feeling healthy and things are the same, but everyone keeps telling me I look like I am ready to pop! I am NOT ready to pop... I don't even feel the "nesting" period yet..... grrrr.... and the house is still a mess..

So, I need to blog about all the gifts i got... and also the food I have been eating and also, the places I have been going....

until I update again, have a merry christmas!

Four Day Weekends are the BEST!

Happy Thanksgiving! We just completed a four day weekend, since it was Thanksgiving.

We started Thursday with dinner at Charles and Nancy's house. It was a nice Thanksgiving dinner... no turkey but there was ham with pineapple.

I made some carrot cake for Gordon's bday and brought it along as our contribution.

As you all know, the day after Thanksgiving is the Black Friday sales.... as usual, we were tempted to go out, so we woke up around 3.30am and headed out with Henry (Gordon's brother).

We dropped off Henry at Circuit City around 3.50am and headed to Mervyns. Mervyns was giving out 10 dollar gift cards for the first 250 people, so we both got one each. There was also a deal if you spend 50 bucks, you get a 10 bucks gift card....... we bought some toys, electric blanket (for my mom) and headed out...this was quick since we knew what we wanted and we were one of the first in line to pay..:)

After that I dropped Gordon off to join Henry (the line was wrapped around the building! maybe 500 people????!?!?) I headed off to Kohls to see the deals... but, the line to pay at Kohls was way too long and I did not feel like queueing so I headed over to Babies R Us around 5am.

The deal at Babies R Us was the Babies R Us Diapers.... normal price, 22.50... on sale for 10 bucks a box.... everyone was rushing for this one,so I decided to join the madness.:) I bought around 7 boxes of diapers (i may have bought more, but I knew Gordon's car could not fit more).........

By now, Gordon realized that he was not going to get any deals from Circuit City and headed over to Office Depot to see the deals... he was able to get in and bought 2 logitech camera for 5 bucks each (mail in rebate).... Henry continued to stand in line.... he was not able to get in the store till 6am (store opened at 5am but there was crowd control and they let small groups of people in the store at a time). By the time Henry got in, most deals were gone and line to pay was way too long...

I headed over to Target which opened at 6am and was able to pick up a V-Rocker Game chair for Gordon (his bday present)..:D Picture of Gordon enjoying his chair while playing Resident Evil 4.

This was the end of our shopping experience. It was fun...... my co-worker told me that her husband stood in line at 7pm the day before at Circuit City in Dublin and was able to score a 400 bucks laptop. Since he had to pay as well, he did not get out of Circuit City until 9am the next day..... urm.... 10 hours to get a 300 dollar discount..... mmmmmm

:)

We continued the fun weekend by having dinner with Mei, Jennie and Henry at Town Hall Restaurant in San Francisco. There has been a lot of talk about this restaurant about the good food, so we decided to try it.

We decided to order a bunch of appetizers to share and one main meal.

Here is what we ordered:

1. Bottle of white wine
2. Tuna tartare
3. Roasted Baby Beets and Shaved Fennel

4. Barbecued Shrimp (our favourite)

5. Braised Short Ribs

6. Sauteed Scallops

7. Seared Hamachi

8. Roasted Veal Meatballs

9. Sweet Onion Sausage Fondue

Dessert was:

1. Pear Upside Down Cake

2. Butterscotch and Chocolate Pot the Creme

3. Creole Tiramisu

It was quite a meal... not sure we would go back though....:P

We continued the night by playing mahjong with Mei and Gordon's dad. Of course, I lost money.... seriously, with mahjong, it is all about luck..... for the first round, my seat was so bad and my cards came out horrid. Gordon's dad ended up on my seat the second round and did not win once..... anyways... Mei was the winner! We played till 2 am..

:)

Saturday was Gordon's bday and it was mostly about eating..:) For lunch, we had dimsum and dinner we tried out the Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot in San Mateo. The wait was an hour since the place is new. No pictures for this one..

Sunday.... Lily decided to have a small get-together before she leaves for New Zealand... surprisingly nearly everyone turned up. I got a chance to have some durian... yummy..:) The guys ended up in front of the Wii and the gals ended up having a nice chit chat about life.

Pictures above of Baby Alexis and Baby Kaylyn.... aren't they SO cute?

:D

Can we have more four day weekends?

Birthday.. and Malaysian Restaurant

We spent Saturday down in the South Bay.

Brunch was with Eeling, Eric, Chung, Lily, Jaden and Alissa at HK Saigon Restaurant.. we had dim sum..:)

After that we headed over to Lily's house, where the guys played some Wii.

In celebration of the November birthdays, Ee Ling bought a cake for both Gordon and Eric.. It was a really nice cheesecake from Sheng Kee.

The guys were really funny as they were standing about 3 feet from each other, even though they had to share the cake and blow the candles out together..:p I was telling ee ling if it was the girls, we would have been right next to each other..;)

Ee Ling and I also spent some time at Trudy's looking at wedding dresses.... we think this is her last trip to a bridal shop... since she only has two on her list..:D But... we will see.

Dinner was the highlight of the day..:) Lily mentioned a malaysian restaurant in San Mateo called Langkawi Malaysian Restaurant, and since we were meeting up with Gordon's fren, Jeanifer and her bf, Bao, we decided to head over there. Ee Ling and Eric joined us as well..:)

We started the meal by two appetizers; roti canai and rojak. The rojak was excellent. They did not water down the sauce like other restaurants do...Gordon also ordered the cendol before the meal....he is really learning to eat like a malaysian.......

For the main meal, we had char kuew teow, assam laksa, taro's nest, beef rendang, and assam okra. Gordon liked the beef rendang the most as the meat was tender. I liked the assam laksa. We think Gordon's frens liked the meal..:)

As we headed home, Gordon said he wanted to go back to try the curry laksa...:) I am glad malaysian food has a great impact on Gordon..:D:D

Carnelian Room Dinner

We received a surprise email from Anastasia on Friday morning asking if we wanted to do dinner at the Carnelian Room in San Francisco.

Her fren's husband, Bob was organizing a surprise party for his wife, Sun who was celebrating her 50th birthday...:) Bob found out that two people were unable to attend and two seats were available.... and Anastasia asked us if we wanted to go...

Since I have never been to the Carnelian Room, we decided to go out on this spontaneous dinner outing..:)

We got there around 7pm and the dinner was in nice room with 4 tables; seating about 32 people. There was an open bar and a dance floor!! The guest of honor arrived about 7.30pm and was she surprised..Her husband was so sweet to invite all her good frens.

While we said our hellos to the birthday gal, there were hor devours served. They included crab cakes, lamb on a bone, curry pastries and others...

Dinner started with a appetizer; scallops with scrimps and orange... the scallops were excellent..

The main meal was steak with potatoes and vegetables... as you can see from the picture, it was a huge piece of meat.. yummy!

And of course, dessert was the best... it was strawberries, blueberries, black berries all mixed in with vanilla ice cream. And to top it up, there was still chocolate cake!!

Sun's husband was so nice to organize this whole event. He even had a slide show to show all his travelling memories with her. He is also a very good dancer and it was nice to see him and Sun dancing the smooth dances on the dance floor..:)

Such a fun night. Anastasia, thanks for inviting us..:)

Eat, eat, eat...

Much of last weekend was spent eating.....

We started of Saturday checking out wedding dresses with Ee Ling at the San Francisco Jewerly Center. This one was quick, as the shopkeeper had many appointments ahead of us and she rushed us through the dresses.... ee ling now has too many choices for dresses!!!Yikes... and she is suppose to make her decision real soon.....

For lunch, Gordon and I decided to eat on our own.... we are trying to do more stuff on our own the next few weeks before we have visitors and baby come...:) We were trying to decide between Burma Superstar Restaurant and Osha Thai... but as we were driving, we saw Koh Samui and the Monkey, and since we always wanted to try the food there, we stopped at Koh Samui..:)

The restaurant was very quiet for a Saturday afternoon... maybe it was because they only serve the dinner menu on weekends..... we ended up ordering two main dishes; Crushed sesame scallops and Pumpkin curry chicken. The food was decent.... think would have been more fun with a bigger crowd so we can try other foods..:)

After our little lunch date, we headed over to Chinatown so that I could cut my hair.... it was raining in SF, but the little rain did not stop us from doing stuff...nothing like the big rain in Malaysia that includes thunderstorms!

Dinner was at Gordon's mom's house.... we wanted some home cook food... so his mom made us tofu, veges, and his dad bought us a huge fish that cost 30 bucks.... i guess that's a good deal since we would have to pay like 60 bucks if we went out to a restaurant for fish..:D

Since we had no other plans, we decided to spend the rest of the night playing mah-jong....:) yeah, we played till 1am...*yawn*..... Henry played as well... but he claim he was learning and did not want to pay up.............. anyways, it was fun.... made the brains work a little..

Sunday was mostly lazing around... Lunch was at Burger Meister in Daly City. This is the first time we tried the burgers here....burgers were huge, so Gordon and I shared and his parents shared one too... we tried the The Meister Burger aka the Everything Burger with Avocado, Bacon, Mushroom, Onions and your choice of Cheese... i loved the curly garlic roasted fries... yum!

In the afternoon, we took a walk on Ocean Beach to see the impact of the oil spill - I am sure everyone heard about the cargo ship that hit the Bay Bridge and caused 50,000 gallons of oil to spill into the water. I can't believe how much oil can spill out... the poor birds and sea animals! Worst of all, they may cancel the crab season for this year..... no fresh crabs!! arghh..... Here is a picture of the cleaning crew on the beach..... they had to scoop the oil that was washed to shore.... very manual labor.

Here is myself and Gordon getting our pictures with the ocean..:)

The weekend ended with dinner with Gordon's cousins and family at Gordon's mom's house.... we ordered some sushi to go, some duck, some siew yook, some sweet and sour pork and his mom made pigs stomach soup, noodles, lor-mai-fan and veges... It was nice to just hang out and play with Gordon's cousin's kids before we headed home to Castro Valley...:D

Nail spa and tea..:)

The minute I found out Gordon was heading to HK, I made plans to hang out with some gal frens..:) An email went out, and we decided to pamper ourselves and eat some good food..

Our first stop today was to a nail spa; Lavende Nail Spa in Santana Row. Six gals met at the location.... Ee Ling, Lily, Helen, Sook Yee, Linda and myself..five gals pampered themselves with manicures and Linda got herself a pedicure.... It was nice to just sit there and get good treatment on our hands while we chit chat and catch up.

As with all manicure/pedicure places, the seats were mostly apart. Linda, Lily and I sat near each other, Helen and Ee Ling sat next to each other, and Sook Yee was way on the other side. It would have been nice to be al put in one room so that we could all talk to each other.....

After the pampering, we headed over to Lisa's Tea Treasures, also in Santana Row. Helen was not able to stay for food with us as baby Kaylyn was crying and would not take the bottle... so she headed home....I think if I have a girls day out after baby is born, I will ask Gordon to hang out near the restaurant and I will feed when needed..:P that way, I can still join my frens when the feeding is done....:D:D

The tea place was nice.... we all ordered individual orders; I got the "My Lady's Respite" menu with came with lots of sandwiches, a scone, some tarts, and a choc cream puff... I sat next to Ee ling, who ordered "The Summer Regatta"... we kinda shared the food, so she could try some of mine and I tried some of hers..... it was a good size high tea and of course we had lots of girl talk.... :)

After eating, we walked around Santana Row; bought some fruits from the farmer's market, checked out some shops, checked out Hotel Valencia....

We also dropped Sook Yee home and was able to check out her new place.. They bought a house in Santa Clara and just moved in two weeks ago.... I liked the place... huge yard, nice kitchen, cool design..:)

Little Sheep Mongolia Hot Pot

I forgot to blog about this one...

While Gordon was away, Anastasia invited me a dinner organised by Annie at Little Sheep Mongolia Hot Pot.

Yes, the name kinda sounds weird... but this is a hot pot place in Union City. They also have another restaurant in San Mateo that just opened.

As usual, this is another great recommendation from Anastasia. The minute you walk into the restaurant, you smell the herbal soup.. and it smells SO GOOD! The soup in served in a pot and is divided in two parts; the spicy soup and the not spicy soup; in the soup was lots of garlic, red dates and other herbs.

Ordering is done by marking what you want on a paper (this is not a buffet)............ we had around 13 people in the group..... and as the paper went around, people kept adding check marks to the orders...... we totally over ordered.. there were like 15 plates of meats of all kinds.. including beef, lamb, pork, pigs blood, tendon, tripe.. many plates of seafood including squid and fish, lots of vegetables including taro...fishballs, beefballs. shrimp balls...... there was SO much food.....but it was fun to keep eating and trying different stuff in the spicy and non-spicy soup.

I really enjoyed the meal.. but of course, I over-ate..:)

Will definitely have to go back during this winter... the soup was sooooo good...:)

Picture taken from phone camera..(Gordon took my camera to Asia with him)..........

Guess who flew over to Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia)...

well.. not me!!!

My darling husband headed over to HK about a week ago.. and will be back on Monday...

His mom decided she wanted to make a trip to HK and asked Gordon if he can follow since he has time off....:)

Since he was already in Asia, he also flew to Singapore and met up with my sister and Soon Jin. They made their way to Malaysia to attend Adeline and Philip's wedding and also to eat and see family..

Today, he is back in HK chilling with his mom and uncle..

What a fun vacation..... without his wife....:S

I can't wait for him to get back on Monday............................................

The joys of being Pregnant...

For those reading my blog... you are probably wondering why I do not blog about my pregnancy...

the truth is...the pregnancy is going so well that I don't have much to blog about..:)

I did not get hit with any morning sickness or cravings.... that is kind of the first question most people ask me when they found out I was pregnant.....

I am now in my 30th week... and everything is still going fine. I do have the occassional backache, indigestion, tiredness.... but mostly, I have been moving around easily and been actually less moody... (Gordon is loving this... and thinks I should get pregnant more).

I also forget that I am pregnant at times and try and squeeze thru shopping aisles and hitting my tummy. I also hit my tummy on the bathroom doors when I forget that my tummy is now bigger and it gets in the way...:)

My initial thought about pregnancy was that I get to eat more and eat anything I want. I guess I was wrong.... since I feel bad eating junk food and chocolates cos I do not want my baby to get all the bad nutritions.... I also don't feel like eating at times as there seems to be little space in my stomach to hold in food... so, lately it's been smaller meals...........

As the next two months progresses, it would be interesting to see how things go..... when I initially looked at pregnancy clothes and clothes that were hand-me-downs, I was like "i will never wear these because they look too big.." Now I realized that I will be wearing them because my tummy is bigger and I can fit into the clothes... it's funny how much I can be in denial..>:D

The few questions I hear nowadays are :

1. When are you due?
2. Is it a boy or girl?
3. Do you have a name yet?

:)

All in all, it has a been a great experience and I am loving it..:D:D

Anastasia's Surprise Birthday

On Saturday, we attended Anastasia's surprise bday party in San Francisco. Her darling husband, Percy and fren, Kelly planned this one for her like weeks in advance.

The surprise party was held at Pres A Vi, a restaurant in the marina area. The location of the restaurant is hidden, but it has great views of the Palace of Fine Arts. As always, we have never heard of the restaurant, but Percy knew the place and when Percy and Anastasia recommend a place, it is always good..:)

Since Anastasia is super popular, she had a total of like 27 guest for her surprise party.... so we had a huge room and her frens brought balloons, hats, table toppers, horns and lots of noisemakers. It was fun...:) Anastasia was also a good sport and wore silly head pieces and a badge that says "kiss the bday girl".
The food was good as well. Percy went ahead and pre-ordered and the food was served tapas style. About 4-5 people shared each dish, but we definately ended up with a lot of food and leftovers as well.

On the menu was, Duck buns, Hamachi, papaya salad, tomato risotto, ratatouille, hanger steak and chocolate raspberry cake.... what a meal!

Click here to view more photos from the party. We had a blast! We also met up with some people we have not seen in a couple of years/months...:) Happy Birthday Anastasia!!

Pregnancy food..........

Here is my favourite pregnancy food..:)

Cornflakes with cranberries, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, flax seeds and milk........

This is what I eat if I wake up in the middle of the night and feel hungry..:)

The other food I like is peanut butter jelly sandwich...

I don't think these are food I crave.. they are just foods that are available when I am hungry.... I would prefer to eat nasi lemak, roti canai, curry laksa, assam laksa, rojak, fried mee hoon, curry puff, twisties, fried kuew teow.... etc...:)

When Gordon's parents visit us or when we visit them, i hear a bunch of "no this and no that".... here are foods I cannot eat....

Chilli sauce, lamb, prawns, durians, lychee, too many bananas, cold water, tea, etc etc..

Pregnancy is fun..:)

October weekend

We started Saturday attending one of our many pregnancy classes. This one was about how to breastfeed the baby......a 2 hour class. Next week, we will attend the lamaze class... that one is a friday night and 8 hours on Saturday... hope it is interesting....

After the class, we met up with Timmy, Sirintorn and baby Tyler for lunch. We tried a new Thai place in Ulferts center; Thai Basil Express. The food was good. We ordered the Phad Thai, the panang curry, Green bean chicken and Rad-na pork noodles... don't recommend the noodles, but the two dishes were good.

It was fun to hang out with Baby Tyler... he is growing fast and can now walk and say a few words... he is 15 months old:)

For dinner, we bought a fish from Ranch 99 (the new one in Dublin) and made some fish soup at home.

Sunday was quiet.... our fren Gideon passed away after he went in for a 10 hour surgery due to a burst blood vessel in his heart. The doctors said he lost too much blood.... it was sudden. Life is weird.......

Scott's Bday and meeting Kok Keat's gf..:)

Over the weekend, we headed over to Scott's third bday in San Ramon... this kid is super friendly; as soon as we entered the door, his parents were in the kitchen and he came over and gave us a hug... it was cute...he was very well behaved throughout the day... he also preferred to play with adults then kids his own age.... (i think it was because the adults did not snatch toys from him) hehehe... I forgot to take pictures....

in the evening, we headed to SF chinatown to meet up with Bee (Kok Keat's gf) and two of her other frens. This is the first time Gordon and I met with her... It was nice to see show KK was dating..:D Of course, she was sweet and socialble..:)

We decided to have dinner at a hole in the wall; Sam Woo restuarant on Washington and Grant St. This was my first time here and we had a super experience. The staff at this restaurant is totally rude and that it is funny...:D Bee and gang walked up to the third floor and the waitress at the top yelled in Chinese "no more space upstairs; go downstairs; don't come upstairs"; however, the second floor was close (there was a chain at the entrance) so we headed downstairs and the staff downstairs totally ignored us. Finally we asked, and they said they will open the floor for us..

At the table, the waitress we got looked mad and when Bee wanted to substitute her noodles with a different kind, the waitresss gave her the look... it was too funny... I don't think i can capture the moment.....:P After that, we wanted to keep one menu so that henry can order, and the waitress said in chinese "i don't have enough menus" and she took it all back..:)

All in all, it was memorable... I think Bee and gang got a real taste of chinatown..:)

We ended the night with mocha and tiramisu in North Beach.

Dai and Lily's Bday

Two weekends ago, we celebrated Dai and Lily's bday..:) It was a good excuse for us to get together, hang out and eat.

Our food consisted of fatty chinese stuff....

1. fried chicken from Gourmet Kitchen in SF Chinatown - on Stockton St (between Jackson and Washington),

2. fried noodles,

3. egg tarts from Golden Gate bakery on Grant St

4. sesame ball from Do Ho on Pacific St

5. Strawberries from farmers market in Emeryville

6. Cake from Sheng Kee Bakery

7. Mooncakes from Golden Gate Bakery and Eastern bakery..:)

Thank you Ee ling for helping out with the food..:)

I have to list the streets as well, as there were people asking me where some of the food came from and I did not know the name of the restaurant since Gordon was buying the food.... now I can refer to my blog if I ever forget.:D:D..

We had loads of fun..it was especially nice to see the babies; baby alissa, baby alexis and baby kaylyn.. pics below will show how much they have all grown.

My husband and the pomegranate...

Gordon has been taking some effort to try out different stuff when he goes shopping at Oakland Chinatown. He usually walks over to Chinatown after work and buys some vegetables, fruits, fish etc.

Today he came home with two pomegranate fruits and a 1 pound fish that cost 12 bucks (don't ask me why he bought a 12 bucks fish; but I think he wanted me to eat good fish for the baby..:D)

Anyways, when we were done with dinner, I started washing the dishes (i usually don't wash the dishes, but today, I felt like helping.. hehehee) So, while I was washing dishes, Gordon said he would try the pomegranate and see what it taste like. So far, we only had pomegranate juice and we know that the juice is expensive.

Gordon starts with a knive and cuts the fruit in half. He looks at it and then starts throwing the seeds in the sink. When he did that I was like "what are you doing?!?!?!" and he thought I was asking because I did not like him to put stuff in the sink, so, he moved towards the trash can... and I was like "what are you doing?!?!?!... you are throwing away the good stuff"....

He looked at me and was surprised!!!! My dear husband thought the pomegranate was like a honeydew or papaya, where you cut the fruit in half and scrap away the seeds.... it was SOOO funnnny....:)

He tried a few pomegranate seeds, crunched on the seeds and did not believe me, so he turned on the laptop and checked online to see if what I said was true....of course, he found the right way to open a pomegranate and how to eat the fruit (he was suppose to spit the seeds out.....)

This was also my first time eating fresh pomegranate. I kinda like it but maybe Gordon will never buy it again....:P

.....just imagine if I was not in the kitchen and Gordon was opening the pomegranate.... he would have thrown away every single seed and realize there is nothing left of the fruit.........

Baseball game and dinner...

Gordon's cousin, Eugene invited us to watch a baseball game on Sunday. It was at the Pac Bell park with the Giants playing against the Dodgers.

Baseball games are always fun... not so much the game itself, but just the hanging out, walking around the stadium (this is one of the nicest stadium witha very nice view). Eugene and Ivy insisted with take a lot of pictures before our baby comes, so we stopped a lot just to snap pictures....

The highlights of the game was thatthe Giants won...:) and of course, I got my garlic fries... yum yum yum.

After the game, we headed over to Thirsty Bear. This is a tapas place. Gordon got the idea that tapas dishes were small dishes and he ordered the following:

Organic figs salad, spanish meatballs, ceviche (mixed seafood),fried calamari

Braised short rib, grilled hanger steak skewers, pork tenderloin and sofrito rice

He had to try everything.....:P Good thing everyone was hungry enough to finish the food.

We had chocolate oozing cake and pineapple ginger grahm cake..... we were super full when we were done.

As always, it was fun hanging out with Eugene and Ivy..:)

San Ramon House Warming

Simon and Lu Fun bought a home in San Ramon and invited all of us for a house-warming.

The weather was super hot, but they bought a cover to block out the sun.:)

Of course the highlights were Lu Fun's cooking. She made Sarawak Laksa, Satay with peanut sauce, curry chicken and indian rice. Everything was SOOO good and Gordon and I over-ate.....

Picture below : Everyone going for the FOOD!

Happy Gordon..:)

We had to leave early as Gordon's Grandma was celebrating her birthday. Gordon's mom did the cooking, so dinner was at their house.