Monthly Archives: December 2010

Day 21 – December 30, 2010

Today, my dad started uber early! When you’re in Toronto, it’s better to be there way early so you don’t miss your flight!

Pearson Terminal 1 at 5:30am

It was very foggy when I got to the gate

The fog lifted just in time for the sunrise. Soon after I took this photo, it got cloudy again...

Back in Austin! Yay!! Too bad one of my bags didn't make it back with me...

It was beautiful when I got back… I was very excited 😀

This is so much better 😀

I’m glad to be home and the cats were not exactly excited to see me… Dusty stayed on the bed and didn’t even come out. Eddie warmed up to me after a few minutes. Since I didn’t get my bag, I waited for it to be delivered and missed AG’s birthday party 😦 Big party tomorrow.. can’t wait!

xoxo,
C


Day 20 – December 29, 2010

Just in case you were wondering, there are still lines outside of Lululemon in the Greater Toronto Area.

3 days after Boxing day and the lines are still there.. (Lululemon @ Square One)

Today, after going shopping for some cute rings with my parents (and not getting anything), we decided to get lunch at the Mississauga Chinese Centre.

Mississauga Chinese Centre - entrance

Mississauga Chinese Centre - fountain - yes it is always grey

We had Chinese (Hong Kong style) – fried rice and sweet & sour pork and sushi! I keep forgetting to take photos of the food.. nonetheless, it was delicious!! We had sushi leftover.

My mom in her parka walking back to the car

This is the last day… and I have packing and work to do. Yay!!

xoxo,
C


Day 19 – December 28, 2010

Today, I worked for a while and then my parents, sister, and I went for lunch to celebrate my mom’s birthday which is the first week in January. We usually have a dinner just before I leave but my sister is working nights starting tonight so we opted for lunch today. The place we ended up at was Moxie’s! We always take photos but I guess I didn’t take photos of my parents with my camera even though I thought I did; I must’ve taken them with my mom’s camera.

Sisters in Black Part Deux (this time with white and grey!)

My dad's Caesar, my Mango Margarita, D's Raspberry something Margarita and I forgot what kind of margarita my mom had

I forgot to take photos of the food… it was all really good! After lunch, D went on her way and we stopped at Future Shop (similar to Best Buy) to get my dad an external hard drive so he can copy his stuff onto that and delete it from my mom’s iMac.

Future Shop.. yes, it's a Canadian company.. well it was, then it was bought by Best Buy

It was snowing a tiny bit when we left Moxie’s but I couldn’t really take a photo because the flurries were so fine, so after we came out of Future Shop, I took a photo.

Only way you could really see the snow flakes

Buh-bye Moxie's! {Yes the weather has been crappy!}

After we got home, I took a nap with Buster, and then I helped my mom with the iPhone.. I loaded music on it, installed a few apps, and taught her how to use it.  It is now working well with the Canadian SIM card and she was very happy 😀

I’m gonna go give the neighbour’s cat some food so he will leave. He’s been hanging around on the window sill for almost an hour and I figured it’d go away if I didn’t feed it, but it didn’t.

xoxo,
C


Day 18 – December 27, 2010

Ah.. back to work today after a long weekend. Not fun! After I was done with work for the day, D & I got in the car! She and I don’t get to go on road trips much anymore, and I gotta be corny for a second.. but it really filled my heart to be on the road with her. We went to Niagara Falls to hit the Fallsview Casino.

I took a couple of obligatory tourist photos upon arrival

This fountain always seems different to me.. or maybe I don't pay enough attention to it...

The foyer was decorated for Christmas

We went in, had dinner at the buffet (the seafood salad was awesome!), and then we hit the machines. Man.. it was super busy! It was worse than a regular Saturday night. We didn’t do so well 😦 I lost $40. We went to check out the tables, but they were all a little steep.. more so than usual, but I guess since they were so busy and people were paying it, they could jack up the price.

On our way out, we realized we hadn’t taken a picture so we scanned the crowds and picked a couple to ask to take the photo for me. I forgot that the flash was off and they seemed to be in a rush so I just let it go…

Sisters in Black

See you again, casino! Hopefully you'll be nicer next time!

Once we got home, we played my sister’s Wii… it was very frustrating.. we had a hard time working together.  I think I will go and play a bit now that she’s in bed…

xoxo,
C


Day 17 – December 26, 2010

This morning, I woke up to my sister tapping me on the  forehead. Last night, she said if we were to go Boxing day shopping, we’d have to get up early. When I opened my eyes, she asked me if I wanted to go shopping and after I thought about it, I decided to go for it. My dad, mom, sister, and I got dressed and went down to Sherway Mall to check out the sales around 9:30; the mall had opened at 8am.

We saw this mannequin at The Bay [a department store]

Me: "I think she forgot to wear a bra" D: "No, I think she did it on purpose *whispers*I hear she's a slut"

One of the first stores we went into was Lululemon.. but prior to going in, we had to line up.

We've lined up for Lululemon before and this was a pretty short, fast-moving line

While in line, they were doing trivia questions and they asked who the founder of Lululemon was.. and I only  knew his first name [Chip] so I said “Chip something” and since no on else knew it, I got a free headband 😀 Once inside, I saw they didn’t have many things that appealed to me. I bought a running skirt and my sister bought a top.

We shopped around some more but I didn’t find anything else. My dad was the only one who bought anything else on sale. After the mall, we dropped off the parents at home so D & I could pick up her Wii since she wanted us to pass Super Mario Bros Wii on her system and then we realized we needed a couple more colours for decorating cookies for A’s family’s dinner, so we went to Michaels. On the way home, we stopped at Tim Hortons so my sister could get some coffee and I saw they’re garbage cans — they include recycling for paper and other recyclables!

Canadians love to recycle!

Once we got home, we prepped a few cookies…

Yup.. they're meant to look like Tiffany's boxes.. what girl doesn't love to get those?!?

After I decorated the cookies, D had to go get ready to go over to A’s relatives for dinner. I decorated some more, then it was WII TIME!!!

*Whomp whomp* the Wii wants to retire 😦

I got this error yesterday too but it started working again .. today, it still didn’t want to read the discs so I played some Virtual Console games. I should have put it in my carry-on but there was no room.

While D was gone, Buster got really sad..

Yup.. he was moping around when D left...

We’re thinking it’s because she moved out and she hasn’t been home as much as she has this weekend since then. He previously had abandonment issues and I’m actually not joking: my cousin shipped him to me, I brought him here, and Cookie the cat left him (well she was put  down, but he didn’t know this) . He used to act up a lot when he was younger until he realized he was here to stay. A hasn’t been here and he’s upset with him too… So I went and grabbed him and hugged him and made him sit with us, and he was looking a little better

Sitting between my mom and me

The “Sex and the City” movie was on and I started watching it, and my sister came in about a third of the way and she enjoyed it.

Tomorrow, D and I are going to Niagara Falls and the casino after work.. I’m hoping to win some money to get a new Wii.. wish me luck!!

xoxo,
C


Day 16 – December 25, 2010

Today, after waking up 😉 we decided to cut out the cookies. We started off with the snowflakes, and my sister, who is a little more impatient than I am, decided she was sick of snowflakes and wanted to do all the tiny cookie cutters!

A few snowflakes, some reindeer, and little cookies

After we baked them, we had to get ready for dinner and had to make more tamales. My sister helped for a bit, then she felt tired so she went to nap for a few hours. After the tamales, I had to finish the cookies for D’s boyfriend A. Oh and did you know I’m a heart surgeon??

It’s true!!

A got both pairs of mitten cookies… last year’s Olympic mitten model (bigger) and this year’s model, except I flipped the colours and I didn’t add Canada to them.. but hey, at least they can’t sue me for copyright infringement!!

Cookies for A!

Shortly thereafter, A arrived and we sat down for Christmas dinner

Awww D + A

The family (minus B of course)

As I mentioned to you before, we play Wii after dinner and during the Christmas break. Tonight was no exception except this time, it was A instead of my brother. We were taking turns playing “New Adventure Island” which is one of the Virtual Console games… we actually continued it from last year!!

Such well-behaved kids.. we were taking turns {and yes, my sister is sporting a snuggie!}

The highlight of the evening was after we spent about an hour trying to pass 6-3, I finally did it… and then A & I had our turns on 6-4; we passed the remote to my sister and she goes “oh yay! you guys passed the castle!” and we saw that she’d reset it to 1-1. Oyyyy.

A left around 10pm and shortly thereafter, my brother called from my aunt’s house. We talked to him for a bit. It was quite loud in the background… my aunt’s family was there.

B on speakerphone.. that snuggie sure came in handy!

And while this was going on, Buster decided he was going to take a nap on my Macbook.. I didn’t let him do that so he chose the next best thing.. right next to my macbook. Our cats are Macs for life!!

So warm and toasty!

I hope you had a good Christmas… we might go Boxing day shopping tomorrow morning so I better hit the sack.. after 3 more attempts at passing 3-4 of Adventure Island!

xoxo,
C


Day 15 – December 24, 2010

Today, I spent a lot of the day lounging around. D was not feeling well so she slept most of the day.. Buster came to visit her 🙂

Bubs visiting the sicky

While D and my mom went back to the walk-in clinic so she could get her sick note, I took a nap. Soon after I laid down, I heard footsteps.. it was Bubs who came to take a nap with me. Long after I got up, he was still being a lazy bum.

"What? Isn't it still nap time?!?"

Today, I also tried persimmon! I liked it; it was rather sweet, but I wasn’t a fan of the skin

But it LOOKS like a tomato.. do I really wanna try this?

D was feeling better later on and had some sort of cream of potato soup… no actual cream, mostly pureed potato

Potato soup?

I decided to start baking the cookies without my sister since she still wasn’t well enough to do anything…

"Oreo" cookie dough

but she was well enough to say “ooooh that really does smell like Oreos!!”

I only baked the regular sugar cookies since we had to go to D's to pick up her stuff

Oh and by the way, somebody touched my butt today!! I was standing by the dining table cutting out cookies and I felt someone touch my butt! I thought it was my sister because my mom was next to me and  she’d been on the couch. I turned around and it was BUSTER!! He wanted cookie dough. As it turns out, he also likes sweets, bread, icing, etc. I gave him a tiny bit and he then left me alone. What a cat! Normally he digs his claws into your bum when he wants something like a few mins ago..  I was standing by the TV watching the ending of “Family Man” and he dug his claws in twice because he wanted to go outside! I made him go upstairs so that he’d quit asking to be let out. I’m glad my cats aren’t as strong as he is!!

Yesterday, I was freezing while wearing my sneakers and my mom asked me why I hadn’t put on my boots and I said “because it’s not snowing!” and she said “how could you forget already? Boots aren’t only for snowing.. they’re to keep your feet warm!” So today, I learned my lesson and wore my boots out!

Not just for snow

Tomorrow, we’re going to have our Christmas dinner and maybe go see a movie. We shall see.

Merry Christmas, baby!!

xoxo,
C


Day 14 – December 23, 2010

Baby.. get ready for a picture post!

Today, I was working from home and my mom asked me to go get her some beans from the Asian market across the street. After I showered, I went to get the beans and thought that maybe they’d have Vietnamese sandwiches (the stores prior to that one always had them delivered from the Chinese Center down the street). I was excited and cold as I walked to the store. I could see my breath, and my ears got red really quickly, so I put my hood on. It wasn’t even a 5 minute walk… “it must be below freezing!!” I thought.

The door of the store said they had fresh sandwiches at the deli. Yay!! I needed some baking supplies along with the pinto beans, so I went to grab a basket… the basket was oddly shaped. Turns out there were wheels and a handle!

Basket-cart

I grabbed a couple of bags of beans and put them in my basket-cart, and then went to the “baking supplies” aisle and looked at the price of the flour. I wasn’t going to pay over $5 for a bag of All-Purpose flour!! I made my way over to the deli section, and looked around for the Vietnamese sandwiches only to find that there were none. I asked the lady at the deli counter and she said that they just had regular sandwiches *sad face* However, the produce looked really nice. I don’t like the fact that they used so much plastic, but it looked fresher and in better condition that way…

Purdy Produce

Buster was being a brat because I was working on the table near the window. He wanted to go in and out as he pleased. I just heard him complain just now because it’s too late to let him out!

Another Brat Cat

Once my mom got home, we played CityVille for a bit then we headed out. Her car said that the temperature was 1*C (34F) and I was like “that’s it?!? I was freezing earlier!” and she teased me.

Me wearing gloves, my mom driving without them {"it's not cold!"} and the temperature on the dashboard reads 0*C / 32F

On the way there, I was commenting on how cloudy & dark the skies were.

Ewwww no blue skies and all grey clouds!!

"Over there! There's a tiny bit of blue sky!" "WHERE???"

"Behind us, it looks better!!" Then she pulled a U-turn and said "that's as good as it's going to get!"

[She pulled a U-y because she realized she wanted to go to another store than the one we had previously been headed to] We finally made it to the store. We got out of the car and were making our way to the entrance of the store when my mom goes “WAIT WAIT!!” She had forgotten her shopping bags!

"Good Canadians bring the store shopping bags"

Now we were free to go in! I forgot how much French is around us..

All I wanted was some unsalted butter 😦

Once we got all the stuff, we headed home and my mom started on the tamales.. she seasoned the fillings, made the dough and started to spread dough on the corn husks.

Step 4 of like 7? Take note of our tiny little tree... My mom said she didn't feel like putting up a big tree

Once we were done w/the tamales, I helped my dad with his phone (he was having trouble accessing hotmail from it), found him a Christmas present, and tried to figure out how to unlock the iPhone.. My sister decided she would let my mom have it. While I was researching, the phone rang and my mom was all like “IT’S [my sister]!!” and I was like “okay….” but she hadn’t even picked up yet. I figured it was call display. Nope.. mother’s intuition. She knew something was wrong.. D was apparently throwing up while on the phone w/my mom so we rushed over to her place because she’d been sick for a couple of hours. My mom was worried that it was some virus going around at the hospital and D didn’t want to go to the walk-in clinic because she thought it was nothing. We stayed with her for a bit, then she wanted to just be covered with more blankets as she was freezing (but no fever).

Sicky wearing a hoodie and her snuggie and some over her legs pillows. After this, we put the duvet on her

This is her Xmas tree in her room

D's mini tree. Had to make sure the pic showed it with the lights on

So once we thought she was ok, we came home. We hung out for a bit and as I started writing this, D called. She said her roommate had taken her to a walk-in clinic. They went to Shopppers Drug Mart and she was coming home [she got home and is currently sleeping]. She has the stomach flu. I’m not going near her.. I really don’t want that.. especially since my insurance doesn’t cover anything outside the US.

I’m off tomorrow.. not sure what we’re going to do just yet… maybe make some tamales for ourselves (the others were for the pot luck at my dad’s work) or maybe we’ll wait until Saturday to make them when D feels better.

Merry Christmas Eve day!!

xoxo,
C


Day 13 – December 22, 2010

Day 12 and Day 13 really blended together as there was no sleep between the 2. I continued to pack, get things ready for the pet sitter, and cleaned up, etc.
As you may recall, my brother brought a ton of cheese and tortillas from Mexico. Well.. it was time to pack those rocks around 3am. Someone took advantage of fact that the freezer was open..

20101222-freezer

Got any sugar in here?!?

Time went by super fast and before I knew it, it was 4:30. EE picked me up then and off we went to the airport. The security line was no fun thanks to a Chatty Cathy complaining too much about the situation… lucky for me, she was on the same plane, 2 rows behind me. I had never been so glad and thankful for in-flight entertainment. Love my ear buds! I started watching “Going the Distance” but I passed out before take-off. We got to Houston about 20 mins late and and some people were afraid to miss their connecting flight (including Chatty Cathy who continued to complain about the situation). I still had 3.5 hours until my flight departed so I took my time. I went straight to the terminal so that I could just hang out and not worry about having to be there on time. While I surfed the internet, I saw some firetrucks and EMS trucks come to where we were at, but I missed any of the action as I saw them leaving.

They were too quiet as they walked through the terminal

After securing all my belongings, I took another hour long nap at the terminal. Shortly after I woke up, the plane arrived to take us to Canadialand!

I ♥ Air Canada

During the flight, I watched “The Social Network” and it was very good; you should watch it! I also watched another show {Cupcake Girls} and before I knew it, we were getting ready to land. Everything went smoothly until I got into the customs area… The line was so long.. I think there were about 50 people per row and I couldn’t even count how many rows they were, but I think there were at least 600-700 people in line. When I first got there, it wasn’t moving much.. luckily after 10 minutes, it moved really quickly and I was out of there after an hour. Because we’d been in customs so long, our baggage was no longer on the conveyor belts and we had to search for it. The baggage area is HUGE! A couple from my flight asked me if I had seen my luggage and I told them that I was looking for one of my suitcases which was a bright pink and I’d let them know when I found it. It didn’t take me too long 🙂 Then there was another line to get out of the baggage area. After a couple of minutes, my mom picked me up (she’d been waiting at a nearby coffee place for me since she had gotten to the airport shortly after I got off the plane) and home we went!

After putting things away and giving her all the gifts and items I had brought, we had dinner. My dad was working late and my mom called him to inquire when he’d be home. He informed her he’d be home in an hour. My sister was due to arrive maybe a half hour after him. My mom insisted I take a nap and get up when my dad & sis were home. I told her it wasn’t a good idea, but I went to nap anyway.

I vaguely remember my sister coming into my room to give me a hug and the next thing I knew, it was 12:30am. I talked to you for a bit before going back to sleep around 3ish…

xoxo,
C


Day 12 – December 21, 2010

Today, I sent a package to you.. hopefully it will arrive soon!

SURPRISE!

Next, I prepped some cookies for the some of the crew..

Leftover cookies

… and met up with them at Trudy’s for Happy Hour. T suggested we wear flip flops so I did!

EE knows the drill… “PICTURES FOR [YOU]!!”

20101221-eecr

Mexican Martinis!

Extended creeper!

Group love

Family Photo!

I started packing but someone got in the way…

20101221-dusty

My new bed!

And now I gotta finish as I watch Scooby-Doo!

I hope I don’t freeze much up north! I’ll talk to you from there!

xoxo,
C