Last one to fall....engaged!

First of all. I have also become a victim of' from scratch baking"...granted, I have managed to stay in the sweet end of things.I think i might try to do bread this weekend...we shall see.... it's actually very exciting stuff... when you don't burn the ginger snaps!!!

Anyways, on to the awesomeness of this past weekend. So, as you all know already Tom and I got engaged! yey!!!!!!!! It amazes me how people think you automatically have a date already...We've been engaged 4 days!!!
Anyways , he did it perfectly, it was really beautiful and awesome. Very in the spur of the moment (so I thought).

We saw the liverpool game in the morning, then we walked around the beach and decided to pack a bag and head to a park. We visited a couple of parks and the strawberry shake place(we took Kim and Michael here, before tom suprised me with a Bday party). Finally, Tom just said, why don't we just drive south. So we did. It was a beautiful day, we stopped at a French infusion restaurant and just had a drink and watched the sunset. Then kept driving south, we looked for a B&b in key west, but ended up staying at the Westin(they allow doggies), we walked down to the southernmost point of the U.S., Tom was super quiet, so i was like :"whats wrong" hahahah, and then the question was asked with A FRUIT LOOP!!!!!!!! he remembered!!!!!!!!!! Dante had the real ring in his collar!!! It was absolutely awesome, i started crying hahaha...I can be a total girl sometimes!
So, then we spent an awesome weekend just walking and talking to friends and family! it was such a beautiful adn memorable weekend! My parents are in Hawaii celebrating their 30th anniv. so I hope one day, we can be celebrating the same! Anyways, lots to plan, lots to think about. We willl obviously keep you all posted when we decide dates and venue. We are msot likely having it here in Florida, either Miami or the Keys. Super excited!!! Tom And I can't wait!!! Loads to tell you.
alrighty better go. love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas Party

This past Saturday I hosted a Christmas party for some of my sorority sisters. As many of you know I get kind of carried away when I plan anything. That's mainly because how often do I get to host anything? Almost never. So whenever I do I have to go all out. I had a blue, white and silver snowflake themed party - complete with blue Martha Stewart tissue puffs hung from the ceiling, chocolate cake with blue peppermint icing, chocolate espresso snowcap cookies, and an egg custard holiday pie (all made from scratch I might add). The Martha Stewart tissue puffs are my absolute favorite thing. I had always wanted to use them. As I expected, I stayed up until 3am on friday prepping for it, but that was because I didn't start prepping until 9:40pm. It definitely got me in the mood for more baking and has turned me into a snob about it...no box mixes for me. If its not from scratch, its no fun. :-) I didn't take many photos unfortunately and its a pain in the butt to upload photos since I can't load them directly onto my macbook. I will upload a photo or two later.

Online Shopping Addiction

Another shipment came in today. An awesome Parisian restaurant guide, Pudlo Paris. Apparently it's what the Parisians use, and this is the first edition to be translated into English. And some gifts for the Christmas party I'm hosting for my sorority on Saturday. Lately I have been a buying something online at least once a week. I'm a little addicted. My favorite websites for online shopping....etsy and Amazon. Etsy is this absolutely amazing website with handmade goods from vendors all over the world. I was buying the cutest baby stuff there for a while, literally weekly. So many people I know are having babies or have babies, I couldn't help it. It got to a point that Michael opened a box and said, "are you trying to tell me something?" Well, I wasn't. I just love baby stuff.
Pictured below is a blanket I bought for Pebbles. She is sleeping on it right now. It's a baby blanket. They sell more than baby stuff - stationary, jewelry, housewares, hats. (I'm obsessed with hats right now, but I'll save that obsession for my next blog entry.

Then there is Amazon. The fact that I can buy a book for $1 is awesome. In the past three weeks, at least five books have come in...guidebooks to Paris and London and this is embarrassing to admit....the Twilight series. I know, I know...cheesy vampire romance book. I, as a rule, do not read romance novels. Ever since reading a Nicholas Sparks book in high school that made me want to gag, I said never again. But then Twilight came out. And suddenly everywhere I turned someone was talking about it. The secretaries at my office, the people in the elevator, the parents at my friend's daughter's birthday party. It was ridiculous the fanaticism. So I saw the movie...it sucked. I couldn't stop laughing it was so bad. But since everyone kept telling me the books were great I thought I needed to give it a chance. So I read Twilight on the plane to New Orleans and I found myself unable to put it down. I think there is some sort of subliminal messaging in the text. Although the writing is subpar and the characters totally unbelieveable, I couldn't help it. It's like a cheesy romantic Korean soap opera, so bad that its good. Anyway, I'm reading the rest of the series so I can be a well informed critic. The rest of the books come in next Tuesday.

Sneeze machine, i am.

First of all, Kim, I am so terribly sorry for your loss. I am just so happy she was able to see you get married. I am sure that meant a lot to her and your mother.
It must have been extremely hard to be in New Orleans without her, we all know how much she meant to your family. Please tell your parents and siblings that Tom and I and all of us, send them much much love and that they are in our thoughts and prayers. Please let us know if there is anything that we can do during the holidays!

Tom and I have been fighting a terrible Philly cold since we got back last monday. I had to leave work early yesterday and Tom hasn't been to work twice already...it's pretty sickly bad sickness... i call him the phlem man and im the sneeze machine...I'm glad y'all aren't around us!! he he

Well, my parents left for Hawaii today, it is their 30th wedding anniversary on sunday and they are celebrating it by running the Honolulu marathon and crossing holding hands ( so cheesy gay is what i said, until Tom hit me under the table, and i retracted my words ;-) .
Anyways, i am pretty swampt these days, haven't really felt the holidays, but plan on putting up the tree this weekend and we are also attempting to fish early in the morning...since next weekend, we are going canoing and camping in the everglades, and one of the rules is that we can only eat what we catch!!! ha! ill post pics of philly later!!!

love you all!!! Miss you dearly and kinda miss Oklahoma around these times...

New Orleans

Last Tuesday morning I received a call from my mom at work informing me my grandmother had passed away. She was just a few weeks shy of her 81st birthday. She wasn't ill, she was just weakened by her recent surgery. Three weeks ago her house was being renovated and in her anxiousness she was walking in and out of the rooms more than usual. She tripped on a basket on the floor and broke her hip. Although she recovered from the surgery quickly, her heart wasn't able to take it and soon after surgery she went on a ventilator and was moved to a nursing home because she needed 24 hour supervision. She hated the nursing home and she hated the breathing tubes. She pulled them out every chance she got. My grandmother was a very stubborn woman. She seemed to be getting better, so when her heart gave out in the early morning hours last Tuesday it was a surprise to all of us. So on Wednesday morning we all flew to New Orleans - my parents, Peter, Michelle, my aunt and uncle, and Michael. I have been to New Orleans almost every year since I was little, but this was the first trip to New Orleans where we flew. It was weird because none of us had ever seen the New Orleans airport before.

This was also the first time that I had to wear a white head scarf. White signifies death in Vietnamese culture, and usually family members dress in white robes with white head scarves, but less traditional families wear all black and simply tie the white sheet around their head. We wore black, some wore a combination of white and black, but everyone wore a head scarf. We dressed like this our entire stay in New Orleans. Four days of continuous visits to the funeral home to visit her and pray followed by more prayers at the church and then mass. Each night we congregated at my grandmother's old house and ate. While our days were spent crying, in the evenings at my grandmother's house there was only laughter, reminiscing, and lots of beer. Because of my age I was stuck serving the 40 some odd people - setting up tables, passing out food, cleaning up. My mom, her sisters and my aunts all cooked or prepped in the kitchen and all the men and elders sat at the tables being waited on. My little cousins played video games in another room waiting until it was there turn to be called into the room to eat. It was noisy and hectic and the only thing missing was my grandmother.

Back to Work

Hi y'all,

So, I'm back to work, and Susan is going to daycare. I call it school though. Somehow that makes me feel better. She is doing great there, loves her teacher, Joann, and this is really comforting for me.

I'm not "back in the swing of things" becuase I think they are being easy on me at work. Maybe this next week will be less mercyful.

Anyway, all is well here and we miss you all. I hope to hear from you all soon our or blog.

Take care and best wishes,

Bon

Baby's First Race - Emi's too

Hi y'all!

Brian and I drove to Dallas this year for Thanksgiving. We took Susan and Emi to their very first race, the Dallas Turkey Trot to raise money for the YMCA. The race proceeds went to CASA and other YMCA programs.

Emi was a true champ! She wanted to run the whole way, but we mostly jogged at a walking pace as there were something like 34K people to maneuver through.

Susan was also a true champ! She slept through the whole thing.