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