still working on this…..

monday 6.15
we returned back to the hotel and got our rooms…the new room was a bit bigger…yay!

later that day we met up for hot pot with pat’s grandma and half uncle.  i didn’t get to eat that much b/c meghan was super fussy and tired when we got there so i just took her back to the hotel room and gave her a shower and put her to bed…i think i actually ended up falling asleep and pat brought me back some food…. yummy…

tuesday 6.16
we headed over to central to meet up with dithmar and went over admiralty to drop off some tuxes….we had lunch at yoshinoya and hung out a little bit before headed back to central and going to the peak. there was a little bit of a line, but wasn’t too bad…

pat & meghan in front of the peak tram fountain…meghan looking out the window…going up.

pretty view… more views… looking out the window…

we decided not to pay extra for the view b/c it was a bit ridiculous b/c you could already see enough before…pat and i had realized that the new building wasn’t there when we were there back in 2004… but decided to go eat at cafe deco where we had eaten almost 5 years before…it was an afternoon snack…

pat got his beer… i had this yummy virgin cold drink with mango and strawberry…meghan happy with her chicken nuggets… pat and i shared this steak sandwich, that for some reason was on the appetizer list… meghan and a yummy fruit plate.

having fun with meghan at cafe deco…. an old peak tram turned office… the other side of hong kong island…the new building they put up (so people could spend more money on stuff)

time for a family photo op… this is literally right before it started pouring… where we thought it’d be a good idea to head back

 
waiting for the peak tram to come back up… control room… just waiting to head back down.

going down on the peak tram

 
cameo at lan kwai fong…meghan knocked out at dinner after a 14 HOUR DAY WITH NO NAP! pat’s dad’s hs friends and his mom

wednesday 6.17
we headed over to pat’s grandma’s house and hung out for a little bit before we had lunch out in central…. meghan had fun walking in ging ging’s shoes and pat had a nice nap…

we went to lan kwai fong and met up with dithmar and jonathan and had lunch at california… i got a burger… and we got a pizza so meghan could eat something and hopefully keep her busy…but she ended up in our laps…. it only lasted for a little bit… after lunch we headed up to where dithmar was staying and meghan ended up taking a nap.

food

meghan about to pass out… view down below of lan kwai fong… and some random person burning something

 

thursday 6.18
OCEAN PARK DAY!
we chose this day since we were getting booked up and we still hadn’t been to ocean park at all during our stay.  we took the mtr to causeway bay and then got in line for the buses to ocean park… it was meghan’s first bus ride and we managed to sit in the seats on the upper levels right in front… pat was saying people were probably scared of getting into an accident so that’s why the seats were available…

back entrance to ocean park…we tried to stay away from crowds

according to pat… the second longest set of escalators…the first being the ones going up to the mid-levels… meghan going up, up, up on the escalator.

first stop, a look at the view…and checking out sea lions that i’m assuming we’d probably see in the sf bay….haha

 
we made meghan do this…got her a fan so she could cool off b/c it was HOT!!!

we checked out the atoll reef… this exhibit was really cool you start up top…and go down deeper in the water… it was pretty cool… a lot of neat fishies to see…and rays…and sharks… etc…

 

 
 

friday 6.19

saturday 6.20

sunday 6.21

WARNING… LOTS of PICTURES in this entry
saturday 6.13
we checked out of the hotel…we’d only be gone for 2 nights… so we packed a suitcase and left the rest of our stuff at the concierge…took a taxi and bought our tix for ferry and went through immigration….it was meghan’s first ferry ride…unfortunately we didn’t eat lunch so she became a little fussy towards the end… luckily we had some raisins… but that didn’t last very long…  we were all sitting in the middle, but we saw some people move to window seats after the boat launched… so i snagged a window seat so meghan could check out where we were going…

meghan watching ging ging fill out immigration forms…meghan looking out the window… and meghan and mommy

we arrived and then headed out… but first we had to go through immigration… and that took awhile… there were some pretty long lines… and it was kinda hard to keep meghan entertained…again… thank GOD for the raisins… after that, we were pointing out everything we could find and asking her what color things where and whatnot… can i tell you it was a relief when we finally went through… it seems like we ended up with the immigration agents that take the longest…. oh well whatever..

went out of the ferry terminal to the wynn free shuttle bus… got in… then we had to wait a little bit and then a million other people piled in… definitely not people who would be staying at the wynn, but most likely locals… later i looked out and saw a HUGE line… and looked like these people were waiting for the free shuttles… whatever room any of the shuttles had i’m assuming they took…

drove down their “strip” and headed into the lobby. pat was checking in, while my mil and i were trying to keep meghan happy and occupied by showing her the floral carpet… thank god it was interesting…

wynn lobby window looking out onto the pool…meghan checking out the cool colors on the rug

got to our room and it was nice to have something HUGE…the other hotel we had 2 twin beds… and thank god for 2 queen sized beds… it was nice to sleep and not have to worry about falling off… haha… we were actually able to give meghan a nice bath, which she always enjoyed….

bathroom….shower…. bath…

nice comfy beds… tv… HUGE window with remote control curtain closer… meghan had fun with that…

we hadn’t eaten lunch at all and we were all pretty much starving so we went down to the cafe for food……. i decided to get a burger b/c who knew how long we’d have to wait till dinner or whatever…we got meghan a fruit plate and she was actually well behaved, considering she never likes to sit in a high chair for more than a few minutes…

  
where we ate… my much more yummier and bigger burger than that other place… meghan trying some mango, sitting nicely

we happened to see the groom’s dad walk by… and then i saw steve wynn… pat caught him as he was just passing by… later we went back up and gave meghan a bath and huge tub… read her some books and put her to sleep… although we thought she was just going to take a nap… she ended up sleeping for AWHILE….

meghan looking out from where the elevators were…the casino lisboa, the OG casino in macau…meghan checking out the mgm from our window

since meghan was sleeping, pat and i decided to wander around the casino.. didn’t make it far out of the wynn b/c it was hot and nothing really interesting… so we went back, took a shower and literally fell asleep till the the next day… or at least i did…

the wynn…the wynn with fountain and music (just like bellagio, but not as spectacular)… a view of the other side, cotai peninsula where the venetian is

sunday 6.14

we woke up fairly early in the morning since we had all pretty much went to sleep early… and we were starving so we had a early breakfast….got meghan the berry mix… which she absolutely LOVED… we ate at the same place b/c it was literally right out the elevator and we didn’t have to guess on what was on the menu…

ham & eggs and hashbrowns… meghan happy with her berries…pat’s eggs benedict with hashbrowns..

the cook even came out and asked us how everything was going and in the end they gave us our very own wynn macau umbrella… which definitely came in handy later that morning…

i had wanted to take a tour of the older buildings of macau, especially the ruin of st. paul since it was one of those things you take a picture of when you’re in macau, and didn’t want to miss it…since we most likely won’t make it there for AWHILE… so pat found a walking tour we could take from our old lonely planet hong kong/macau book…
mini tour
we hadn’t gone very far when i saw this…

you typically see playgrounds for kids… but it was exercise machines for adults… it’s kinda hard to see, but it was quite a sight for us… anyway.. moving on… we ended up going in the wrong direction and had to take out the map… and check everything out… i hate not knowing where we’re going so i grabbed the book and we found out where we should be.. .by then it was getting a bit toasty b/c we had been walking around a bit and it was not early morning anymore…

now that we were on track i had more time to take a few more pictures… and i took A LOT of just the sidewalk… b/c it’s not everyday you have pretty mosaic tiled sidewalks!

the street..we’re almost there… the post office (at least i think that’s what it was)… the plaza de senado

the plaza de senado…fountain… surrounded by lotus…. here’s one i got that had bloomed.. it’s their national flower

ging ging’s turn to carry meghan on her back… not sure if we went up this way… maybe not…

stop number two from our little walking tour…

st. dominic’s church…more mosaic tile designs on the ground… pretty water fountain..

THE hill
and i call it THE hill because that was a pretty brutal climb…. we started off at the bottom with the portuguese embassy…

starting at the bottom of the hill (meghan wanted OUT of the carrier)… making our way up (meghan wanted to walk)…looking up the rest of the way, OY! this part is just past the car and a little around the bend… and more hill… and we FINALLY see the fort! at last!

here’s the almost view from the top… we still had to get into the fort….

fort monte
we finally made it… made a quick potty break… and had to go up MORE stairs… that’s when my quads started cramping up a little… grrr… but it was okay once i started walking again… by then we were ALL drenched in sweat and not sure meghan was in a good mood but we managed…

the entrance, from where we came from…looking back out… just a little more of going up… view of the casino lisboa from fort monte

 
the protection around the fort… a little sliver, looking out

managed to distract meghan with these flowers for a little bit… and looking out onto the other side of macau… it started raining and meghan wanted to hold the umbrella… kinda hard to take it way from a little kid who looks like this…

after a mini break of taking out the umbrella, we headed down the stairs towards the ruins of st. paul…

the ruins of st. paul’s…at last!

view as we’re walking down from fort monte…side view… vertical front view…horizontal front view

lotus near the front of the ruins

behind the ruins… looking out onto the people from the middle window of the ruins…a small temple just behind the ruins.. the last few pictures we took

and after all that walking and being hot, along with meghan not being so hot we decided it was time for some food and A/C… unfortunately, mcdonald’s had only breakfast so we went into a small noodle shop and chowed down on this… for a mid-morning snack… after that we were all happier… and could walk the rest of the way, back to the hotel.

  

after that walk we ALL needed a nice shower and i forgot if we took a nap… i think i did for sure… and then we woke up for some lunch… pat’s dad had a friend who was in macau so they took us to this place…

the ali curry house….pork chop curry & portuguese fried rice… african chicken

we tried a WHOLE bunch of food… but the above were some of the more authentic macau dishes… EVERYTHING was soooooooo yummy… and we managed to keep meghan entertained… she did pretty well…

group picture

we couldn’t find a taxi back so we took a bus… and walked the rest of the way… here’s a picture of some bicycle rickshaws that people can take tours on…

 

got back and we gave meghan a bath put her in her pjs, read her a book and put her to sleep… then pat and i took showers and had to get ready for the wedding… and yes… this is STILL the SAME day!  i brought my hair straightener… got the adapter, plugged it in, and proceeded to straighten my hair before realizing it started smoking…after one go, i quickly turned it off… and it wasn’t working!  the humidity didn’t help… it makes my hair frizzy… so tried everything and it wasn’t working…and so luckily i had some hair product, enough to kinda make my hair manageable… and finally we were off to the wedding!  it was nice dressing up and being able to go out   here’s our right before wedding picture…

THE WEDDING
we went down and luckily found the signs to the wedding and it was super close to our elevators…went up the escalator and began to mingle….had some yummy hors d’oeuvres… figured out what table we’d be sitting at… and soon we were being filed in for the ceremony… they provided the men with yarmulkas…so pat got his and we sat down…

the groom… the chuppa, soooo pretty….side view of steve wynn

the place was decorated so beautifully… the chuppa was so pretty too… they had lights on each corner that had little rainbows…i took a close-up picture of it…then the ceremony began….

groom being walked in by parents…the bride

the bride walking around the groom seven times…more ceremony

flowers at the ceremony…reception time…favors…on each of the tables… and the centerpiece!

pat in his yarmulka and in the background another picture of wynn

 
the menu of food for the night…

the actual food… YUM!

only just a PART of the dessert buffet… i wish i had gotten to try more!

in between all the food there was A LOT of dancing… men and women separated… there was no way i was going to do the group dancing in heels… although it looked like a lot of fun!  so i took pictures of the men side b/c there were a lot of acrobatics involved!  or at least a lot of tossing the groom up in the air!

groom and bride… the men dancing…the groom up high… the women dancing

i decided to take more pictures of the decorations b/c it was so pretty… well they had a chocolate fountain that was part of the dessert buffet… and then these flowers all along the different hallways that people had to walk through….and a different view of each table’s centerpiece and decorations…

 
cake cutting time!

the sad thing was we never really got to eat the cake… as for entertainment they had a band playing songs… they were okay… nothing really to get up and make you want to dance… although the older crowd was digging it… they managed to get coco lee to come up and sing like one or two songs with the band… but i think she was trying a bit too hard to get the crowd into it… after a little bit we found out about another room with better music, which also became the after party room…

  
it was more drinks (none for me, of course)…WAY better music and a nice comfy couch to sit on!

we had so much fun…pat and i didn’t go back to the room till 2am!  and i survived most of the night in my heels…only taking them off for a few seconds at the after party and then for sure taking them off as soon as we got off the elevator for our floor!

monday 6.15
woke up late… although i think we probably could have slept a lot longer, meghan was awake so we had to wake up… got up and had breakfast at are usual spot and saw most of the wedding party-goers going into breakfast as we were just about finishing up… packed up our stuff and took a taxi to the cotai peninsula to check out the venetian… if you look at this picture you’d think we’re in vegas, esp if i didn’t tell you we were actually in macau…

us at the venetian

inside lobby of the venetian… look familiar?

pat’s food and beer… their HUGE changing/family room… the casino…we never got to go since we were with meghan

the rock shaped mall.. looking out onto the sands while waiting for the ferry to come… it’s here..good bye macau… time to go back to hong kong!

we’re back from our 2 week trip to hong kong… YAY! we survived!  traveling with a toddler and being pregnant can be challenging… i’m just glad pat was there to help carry her AND her stuff when i got tired!  phew!  anyway.. i guess i’ll start of with the beginning half of our trip…

pat picked up his mom and we still hadn’t finished packing the suitcases b/c i was finishing up some laundry and trying to figure out how much stuff pat wanted to bring… and fit everything in the suitcase and wrap the wedding gift all at the same time… luckily our flight was leaving at 130AM so i had some time… finished packing and we were out the door by 10PM…we didn’t put meghan to sleep in hopes of having her just fall asleep on the plane… but she was so hyper and she absolutely HATES being constrained… but after a little screaming (basically after take off) she fell asleep and slept for awhile… which was nice for us… i even had time to watch movies (gran torino and last chance harvey)!  we had a few other moments but we managed to keep her occupied… we also lucked out in the seating… pat made it so we’d sit together and his mom would sit in the aisle and we just hoped no one would sit in the middle part so we could have meghan sit in the other seat…both ways we definitely lucked out!  okay enough about the plane…

so before going to hong kong, pat’s mom was telling him we should get the surgical masks b/c their family was all paranoid about the “north american” flu… they even didn’t want to see us till the following week we were there… we never realized how paranoid people were about the swine flu until we got there… when we arrived at the airport we went through and you could see the heat sensor thing and they stopped us and “booped” meghan with the temperature gun… pat and i just looked at each other…like okay… they even gave us an information sheet regarding the swine flu…

monday 6.7

pat & meghan after we landed with our plane in the background… walking along the moving walkway, on our way to immigration

we arrived in hong kong at 630ish AM and a hotel van picked us up… .. i know we got congee but i’m not sure if it was before or after we checked in…. oh well… we were lucky to have early check in b/c i don’t know what the heck we’d do… esp if we’re a little tired… after we got settled and after i’m not sure if we took a nap or not… but we went out to find some more FOOD!  pat spotted the yosh when we were driving in so we just went there to eat.

someone’s SUPER happy about getting yosh!  my order… pat & the yosh sign

afterward we walked around a bit and i think pat wanted to go to kowloon park… so meghan could have a little fun… they had a huge swimming area… and aviary, which we checked out and the playground… meghan REALLY didn’t want to leave when we had to go…..she just kept wanting to go on the slide… OVER AND OVER again… but then again, who wouldn’t!

checking out the aviary

meghan at the kowloon park playground… going on the slide… wheeeeeeeee!

i think we went back to the hotel and gave meghan a shower, put her in her pjs and she passed out… and maybe we did too…however she woke up in the middle of the night and we ended up getting mcd’s since it was across the street and 24 hours!

the day that we had arrived, that night there was an acid attack in mong kok… some crazy person had spilled acid from above a building onto people… apparently this was the third attack… first time in december, then in may…and now june… we kinda stayed away from the area…

tuesday 6.9
the next day we headed out to sham shui po to get pat his new hong kong id card…and after went to the market to buy some fruit, cereal and whole milk for meghan…

waiting for ging ging to get ready… meghan’s first subway ride… copying daddy

got back to the hotel and took a taxi to a pizza hut… since i knew meghan would eat pizza… although it was definitely not a pizza hut we’re used to in america!

eating at the FANCIEST pizza hut i’ve ever been to!

small pizzas…they had more pasta on the menu than pizza…. but it comes with a set of soup and garlic bread…

i think we ended up taking a nap afterward and then woke up for dinner… we kinda walked around aimlessly and finally just picked a place to eat… mainly noodles and veggies so meghan could chow down on the veggies… and then we headed back to the hotel…all the week meghan would be waking up around 1AM and sometimes hungry… so pat would go get her mcdonald’s… sometimes.. luckily we had the fruit too so that was an option…

looking for food out in kowloon

wednesday 6.10
after months or maybe longer of trying to convince pat he needed a suit… he finally went to get one!  luckily mil said he needed one too… so that’s when it happened… and on top of that we had another dinner to go to for his friend who was getting married… it was an out-of-towners shabbat dinner at the jewish community center… and yes there is a jewish community center in hong kong…so that morning we went into a suit shop and helped him pick out a suit… they said it’d be ready the next day for tailoring his measurements…

next we walked to canton road to look for this maternity store i had looked up online, but before i could make it there i made a detour to h&m…and spent most of my time there b/c they had a whole maternity section!  WOOHOO! i went a bit nuts… but i haven’t seen maternity clothes at h&m before! plus there’s no tax… so i ended up buying a dress for the dinner, some tops, shorts, and two pairs of pants for meghan… and this wasn’t my only h&m stop… i never made it to the maternity store i had originally wanted to go to… i probably would have spent the same amount of money for just one or two things versus all the stuff i ended up getting at h&m

we stopped for lunch at the silvercord mall food court that had a gamut of asian food… i ended up getting yakisoba and okonomiyaki (japanese fried noodles and pancake)… we took the taxi back to the hotel… after walking so much….

that night we had scheduled a dinner with pat’s family friends’ family… we met them out in central on hong kong island.  we had had lunch with them the last time in hong kong minus all the significant others… since we had last seen them 3 of them got married and one of them had a kid!  how time flies… the ironic thing was the two twins ended up marrying husbands who’s names were gabriel… i guess it’s one of those twin things… ms. meghan was a bit tired and didn’t want to stay put in her seat, so i ended up holding her most of the dinner… luckily pat’s mom was putting food on my plate so i could feed myself when i got the chance…

i thought we were all going to take a group picture… but oh well… and the name of the restaurant was i THINK peking restaurant… but it was right near a subway exit H in central… that was convenient!

thursday 6.11
after breakfast i think we took a nap… but we had to wake up b/c we were having dim sum with their family friend… didn’t work out very well b/c we had to wake meghan up…. so i ended up leaving a little early b/c meghan was fussy… luckily the dim sum place was right across the street… i put meghan back to sleep… and then pat’s mom and pat came back… so his mom stayed and watched meghan, while we picked up pat’s suit, then had to walk a little ways to go get him a nice dress shirt and belt… then headed back…

since she was still sleeping… we thought it’d be a good idea for us to head out to central early… his friend who was getting married was having a small get-together with some of the out-of-towners for drinks… not that i’d drink or anything… but nice to see people… so we went out… and ended up dropping off the gift at his office and found out that his friend was a bit under the weather so they cancelled the drinks… but pat and i figured it’d be a nice to just hang out without meghan…
belly pix at lan kwai fong…
so we walked up to hollywood road that has all the antique stores… and we went to a more notable one that i had heard of… it was nice to talk to the owner… she’s like old school and knew a lot… they had such beautiful things but not like i can carry some of the stuff i wanted to back easily… and a lot of the stuff was expensive, but what do you expect with the quality of the things they carried…. anyway… that was fun….but then we got hungry…..

we continued walking around and made it to soho…found this place…prices seemed reasonable and when we went up… took one look at the full menu… and we were like… hmmmmmm…. this looks familiar… it’s almost exactly like the counter menu… but they have 1/4 lb or 1/2 lb options of beef…. that was my burger and half and half… which was meh… and pat’s burger in a bowl… with like NO lettuce… i suggest NOT eating there… unless you want a snack…there weren’t too many people in there but then again it was early in the night… but it was interesting seeing all the people walking back up through the mid-levels escalators…

mini excavator… pat for scale…

afterward we headed to the ifc building and new mall so we could check out his friend’s registry… we had already got them something but wanted to give them a little more… that mall was seriously HUGE… it felt like we were walking for awhile… but then again we had been… took some pretty pictures of the ifc building and the view from outside….

  

a little while after we found a place for dessert… mmmmmmmmm… mine was the mango sago… pat got some green tea ice cream on ice with some jelly thing… i forgot what it was…

then i suggested we take the ferry back across… it’s slow but it’s pretty especially at night… although my camera was being retarded so i got a lot of blurry pictures….so these are the best i could get… before we got on the ferry and maybe once nice one looking back out onto hong kong island… and us…

friday 6.12

we had dim sum plans with pat’s “grandma”/great aunt who essentially raised his mom… it was her first time meeting meghan so that was nice…. hung out there a little bit and headed back

that night we were invited to our very first shabbat dinner at the jewish community center…i knew we were going to be walking and there was no way i was going to be walking around in my heels through the subway and through central… no way… so while pat was with meghan… i think she was sleeping… i went with my mil and i told her i wanted to just get cheap shoes, but comfortable… she asked one of the doorman about where we could get shoes nearby… and seriously right across the street around the corner we found a place, it was going out of business…unfortunate for them, but lucky for us… i got a pair of flats for $69HK which i guess would equate to almost $9US… i ended up coming back with 3 pairs of shoes and his mom bought 2 pairs…    and we weren’t any more than an hour b/c it was right near our hotel… talk about a deal!

got ready and headed out in my new outfit…  luckily we looked up where it was and in realtion to the mid-level escalators… by the time we made it the jewish community center i was HOT… and pat must have been hotter b/c he was wearing his suit!  we picked up some wine… but didn’t realize we should have bought KOSHER wine… oops… so they were super strict about security… checking ids, looking through purses, and saying we couldn’t take any pictures… and they even took the wine… we picked it up later… but that was interesting…

we finally made it INTO the community center and it was nice to see some familiar faces… i wish i could have taken pictures of the decorations the groom’s sister did to the room and the food… but sorry… couldn’t use my camera..   it was definitely an interesting experience… and glad we could have a nice time with old and new people…

headed back and packed up our bags for macau…. next blog… stay tuned… i’m trying to be about updating… esp this trip! it was AWESOME!

since a lot of you have been dreaming and remembering them… i thought you guys should check out this website…

hyperdictionary.com

you can type in anything that was in your dream and scroll down to the dream dictionary portion and it has a meaning… sometimes there’s nothing really, but other times it’s quite insightful… enjoy! 

sweet dreams!  i should actually be going to sleep! the olympics are way too addicting!  DUDE…. did you guys see the men’s 4x100M freestyle?!?!?! that was AWESOME!

 usually this entry would be about camping, but alas this weekend was already saved for a friend’s wedding… which worked out because it was raining/snowing where we’d probably be!  that is IF we went…

we drove up to santa rosa to pat’s friends’ new house and met their new dog, bella…she’s a very sweet dog, i think she’s still getting used to her new owners but otherwise pretty mellow and definitely interested in babies…we had a few hours to kill before heading to the wedding, so we had lunch with pat’s friends and we walked around their neighborhood…and they took us to the bread factory that just happened to be closing right when we got there… i ended up picking out a bag of 6 sour dough rolls… which turned out to be 90 cents!!! it might have been a day old… but who cares! the other bread they had gotten that we had partially eaten for lunch seemed pretty fresh to me!
pat and meghan with one of many snoopy’s around santa rosa
time flew pretty quickly and we had to head out to the wedding… pat’s friends graciously offered to babysit which really helped out a lot! drove out to sonoma and found the place fairly easily… after getting out of the car… you could see a beautiful view…and you could see why they picked out this place…found mason….and then next he introduces me to this clean shaven guy…IT’S THE GROOM!!! i totally didn’t recognize him, for you see… he used to have this bushy beard… and now it was GONE! 

we were a bit worried because it had been raining on and off throughout the day from when we drove up to the santa rosa, hung out and drove out to their wedding…as well as the everyone else!  so they had chairs set up in both areas and up until the time jaqueline, the bride, was ready they really had no idea what they were going to do!  poor greg, the groom, was trying very hard to make everyone happy along with trying to figure out what was going on… luckily he had called everyone to tell them to dress warm since it was going to be a bit chilly, which it was….jacqueline was running a bit late and finally came decision time and they went with outside…for part of the ceremony it was raining, but luckily not for long, and it was easily ignored because the ceremony could not have been more perfect…. the bride’s brother was an awesome officiant and it was a beautiful wedding…. in the end maybe 5 of the older women complained about being in the cold but they did it!  the hard part was over and soon was the time for the food! 

ceremony area…groom and bride…mason helping out holding the chuppah

Mazel Tov!

 we had some time to kill before food, while they were taking pictures so i was having fun just taking random pictures so here’s a few

rocking chair on the deck…champagne & grape juice…blessing stones we held durint their ceremony

 while taking this picture…this great idea came to mind… and pat read it…when i told him to take my picture…and we had a lot of fun with it

 

finally we got to eat…after the set up, but the wait was sure worth it b/c the food was AMAZING!  they made sure of it!

centerpiece…apetizer…i made pat get up to take a picture of the sunset

salad…beef…pretty candle holder and our name rocks 

veggies…the most amazingly yummy wedding cake (three different kinds! but the best was the apricot chocolate something-er other)…and the yummiest grape juice i’ve ever had!

the next day took a nice walk around the lake in a park…then headed out to sacramento, taking the long way through sonoma, napa and past lake berryesa…had a nice dinner with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin and my parents and sister…got to kinda meet their new cat who hid in the closet and weighs almost as much as meghan!

and monday went to the cemetary to bring meghan and pay respects to my grandpa and great grandparents… the end of a nice weekend….

BUZZ is sleeping on my cat pillow…the one he loved so much when he did sleep with us….and he’d manage to overtake somehow… anyway…the unfortunate truth is here and we will be putting him to sleep tomorrow…errr today…he has not been eating and we’d have to do the same thing we did to him before… which he didn’t like very much….luckily he is not as bad of a state when we had first taken him in….

i first encountered buzz on a trip to sacramento…. i think my aunt was trying to get us to adopt him….while in their driveway, he walked up to us and i knelt down to pet him… he was super friendly and less than a second later he was in my lap, purring….and then about an hour later in the car (my mom, sister and i convinced my dad) and on the drive back to the bay area meowing all the way… during which my sister and i tried to come up with names…we didn’t like “miss mud,” that my aunt had come up with…after thinking for awhile i had seen a bus ad that muffins on it.. so we called buzz, “muffin” the rest of the drive….until we took him to the vet and found out he was a boy…i guess ‘toy story’ must have come out b/c “buzz” sounded great…and to do day still think it’s the coolest name..

more memories to follow…

  

p.s. i have chicken pox… hopefully will be better in a few more days…

we came back from a long trip…to find a even more skinny buzz… he wasn’t eating much of anything and he literally looks like skin and bones…he looked WAY worse… my parents are in korea so we decided to take him to the vet…only thing is i didn’t know what vet my dad took him too… the only one i remember taking him to was the one when he was a kitten and a few years old… i called them and apparently they hadn’t seen him since ’99!!!  but i know my dad took him somewhere b/c he talked about how much buzz hated the vet… anyway… i went there along with my aunt who came with me for moral support… we found out he weighed only 5 lbs 12 oz!!! he used to weigh at least 13-14 lbs!  he took some of his blood to see what might be wrong… so we waited…

today the vet called me to tell me the results and our options…buzz has chronic renal failure… his kidneys are not doing so well… so he suggested diaresis to give him fluids…or the other option to put him to sleep… i’m hoping we can try the diaresis and see how things go…but i’m waiting for a call so that we can go ahead with his treatment

right now i’m enjoying his company curled up with me purring….

my sister and i always thought it’d be cool if we hooked up a video camera to our cat and find out what he does all day… well apparently someone thought of the same thing… but not video camera…hooked up a camera that takes pictures every 15 seconds…

check it out here

holy moly!  from like early this morning… and still now there’s  high winds and rain… fallen trees, accidents, power outages… they closed one of the bridges going both ways b/c of the high winds… it actually knocked down a dump truck and a pepsi truck…flooding…on tv their cameras have gone out so they had to use their camera on the van! said 67 mph winds at sfo and 90-100 mph in higher elevations! blizzardy conditions in tahoe…our house is leaking…i should take a video…

ummmm… so i’ll try to make it a point to update my xanga a little more frequently…. i may start by filling in what happened the latter half of last year…. which means it won’t be easy… but i’ll try and make it a point to catch everyone up!