Happy Birthday Hercules!

Today we celebrated Hercules's 1st birthday. He's not officially 1 until tomorrow but you know how it goes. We had an outdoor brunch. In attendance were Sonya, Jeremy, Jen, Johnny, Ly, Loki, and Bella. While the dogs dined on spiced apple cakes from the Four Paw Bakery we had fresh fruit, deviled eggs, spinach quiche, uglies, and mimosas. Thanks to our brand new convection oven we were able to make the brunch come true! Everything was PERFECT. The sun came out just at the right time, the table setting was beautiful, the lanterns were strung up perfectly (thanks, Ray!), the dogs were somewhat well behaved (until they heard a noise!), and the company was entertaining. Jen and Bella left around 1 while the rest stayed behind and played some DDR. Cassandra joined us later on when Sonya, Jeremy, and Loki headed out. We had some pearl tea and vietnamese sandwiches. Yum! It was a very fun and exhausting day. Herc got a dental bone, stuffed squeeky toy, homemade dog treat mix, and dog wash mitts.

Girl's Night Out with the Lim Ladies

I went on my very first Girl's Night Out with Ray's female cousins. I have always heard about these outings but it wasn't until recently when I was invited to join the Lim family discussion forum that I was able to partake in it.

Even though a majority of the invited are either actual Lim relatives or ones married to a Lim relative there are a few that are connected one way or another with a Lim. Those present were Lorraine, Joanne, Arlene, Cheryl, Vangie, and Liz. We met up in SF at Thanh Long for some roasted crab, garlic noodles, lychee martinis, and an array of desserts. Although it was a P.F. Chang look-alike (as in fake asian food) I found the crab and noodles quite tasty. Of course it wasn't so tasty when I found out everyone owed $85 EACH! I almost had a heartattack! It was fun though. We were there for almost 3 hours.

We then headed to Beach Chalet to have more drinks and garlic fries. I had a mojito there. It was pretty tasty but a bit too much mint leaves. I felt a bit jiped (is that how you spell it) with the actual drink since the leaves and ice took up a lot of the glass. I got home at midnight. All in all it was a fun night and I was glad and honored to now be a part of that!

Continual issues

Don't be mad at me when you know things can be remedied by certain actions, but instead you choose the action that results in negative results. What makes it worse is that you KNOW that the wrong actions result in negative results and yet you still choose to do it that way and then get mad at me when I react negatively. That is YOUR fault and only yours.

Weekend revelations/observations

1. Dog training is tough and tedious
2. Lingerie/fashion shows don't have any place in a nightclub
3. Type A/Alpha personalities SUCK ASS

One Tree Hill never ceases to make me get teary eyed! *sigh*......

Arizona highlights and observations:

- miniature golf with Ray's parents is fun
- filipino women can be quite entertaining
- $3 million dollar homes aren't THAT fab
- Sonic burgers SUCK ASS but their Sonic blasts are pretty good (lot better than McFlurry's)
- BlueBelle ice cream is good but not as good as Johnny hyped it up to be
- dry heat ain't that bad
- cacti and succelent plants are cool looking
- red rocks are pretty
- Phoenix is not a bad place to visit

Friday, April 14th:
Relaxed in the morning. Had lunch at Malee's with Sanjeev and Ratchina, Cindy's friends that Ray befriended at the wedding. Really cool couple. The restaurant is a thai restaurant with decent food. very spicy dishes!

Thursday, April 13th:
In the morning we took Ray's mom to the doctor. To kill some time we went to the nearby mall. They had a pet store there solely selling puppies. They were soooo cute! I felt so sad that they had to stay in those little rooms. The only exercise they probably get is when someone requested to see the dog or if they are put in this stone pit (it was probably used for fish before). We got to hold a Yorkie. So cute! Afterwards I went to Macy's and bought my very first expensive purse. It's a Dooney and Bourke purse. Very cute! Got it on sell so it's all good.

After his mom was done at the doctor's we headed to Canyon Lake where we took a boat ride around the lake. Really relaxing! We then went to a ghost town, walked around, and had some ice cream and sasparilla. We then headed over to Grampa Glen and Grandma Frances for dinner. They had two cute toy poodles. Super hyper. I swear they were on crack!

Wednesday, April 12th:
90 degrees and climbing. We went to the Desert Botanical Garden. It was very cool being able to finally see the cactus up close. They're pretty amazing. We hung out their for the morning, took a little tour, bought a few things at the gift shop, and left around 1. We had lunch at Pacific Buffet. Pretty decent for a buffet. They had a sushi bar (with an actual guy making the sushi), mongolian BBQ, the usual asian-type food, and a dessert bar. The cool thing about the dessert bar is the fact that not only did it have the typical cakes and cookies but they also had tubs of ice cream to scoop it instead of those froz. yogurt dispensers.

After lunch we went to play mini golf. It was a lot of fun. I would have to say the most fun I had the whole trip. His parents are hilarious. When my ball rolled back to me Ray was going to give me a freebie but his dad was like, "No! That's one!" So after that every time his dad's ball rolled back we would all yell, "That's one!!"

The week of craziness

Tuesday, April 11th:
I spent the morning grading animal reports and doing wedding stuff while Ray golfed the morning away. When he returned we took a dip in his parent's pool. It was a bit chilly but fun. Ray's determined to get me over my fear of swimming.

In the evening we headed over to his parent's friend's place. Technically it's not their place because they're live-in housekeepers to this $3 million dollar home so we got to be all swanky for a night. We hung out, went to Borders for a bit, and felt like little kids tagging along with their parents!

Red rocks and trout grilling

Monday, April 10th:

It was an early morning with a late start. Got up at 8 but we didn't head out 'til 10:30. We headed to Sedona, which is about 2 hours north of Phoenix. Sedona is like a mini Grand Canyon in terms of the rocks, er, not the actual canyon itself. There were a ton of cacti along the highway. They were fun to look at. Sedona is a little town with big rocks. We drove up to this chapel where it had a beautiful view of the rocks and Sedona. It was pretty cool looking at the red rocks, especially if you've never seen it before! We checked out the chapel gift shop, took some pictures, and headed into downtown Sedona. We stopped at Three Dog Bakery where we got Big Boi a bone and bandanna. We're hoping Ray's mom will embroider it with his name!

Around 3 we headed to the Trout Farm for lunch. For a fee we get to use their nets and poles to "fish" for the trout in their man-made lake. They give us some fish food goop to put on the hooks and we just drop it into the water and cross our fingers. We all took turns trying to fish. I caught two and Ray's dad caught one. It took everyone so many tries that after the 3rd one was caught we were done. They cleaned the fish for us and we bought some picnic supplies that came with seasonings and we used one of the available grills to cook up the fish. It was soooo good! I'm not into fishing and I'm still not into fishing but this was a great quick version of fishing for those who don't want to stand around for hours hoping for a bite!

We headed back to Phoenix at 5:00, had dinner around 7:30, played some ping pong at 8:00, and relaxed the rest of the night.

Cactus, cactus, and more cactus

Sunday, April 9th:

The only cactus I've ever seen (aside from the media) are the little ones that you might give as a housewarming gift. So it was pretty cool to see these green prickly plants tower over me. We arrived at Phoenix, Arizona a little bit before noon. Ray's parents picked us up and we went straight to lunch. It was 81 degrees when we arrived. It seriously felt like summer! We got to this Chinese restaurant where a lot of his parent's friends and some relatives were there. We were having a late bday lunch for his mom (her bday was last Sat.) Dim sum there is pretty decent. There were actually a lot of asians there.
We got to his parent's house around 3:30. It's a really nice house. They actually designed it themselves. I've only seen the inside of the house but it's really nice. I'm staying in Liz's room. Her room leads out to this balcony that overlooks Phoenix. It's a really nice view. Everyone that was at lunch came over to hang out and play mah jong (is that how you spell it?) I was so tired! I started falling asleep on Ray in the living room so his mom took us into the guest room where I slept on the twin and Ray slept on the futon. I was out until 9p.m.!! We woke up a little after 9, ate some fresh lumpia, empanadas, and ham, took a walk around the neighborhood (because the weather is that nice at 10 p.m.!), and now Ray's watching the UFC championship while I'm blogging. Tomorrow we're going to Sedona to look at the pretty rocks. I'm very excited to them and to get a little closer to a cactus and give it a hug!

Hello from Arizona!

Saturday, April 8th:
Rob and Cindy's big day

Ray left for Treasure Island around 1:00 since he was one of the groomsmen. Lea Ann and Julian gave me a ride up there so I could just ride home with Ray afterwards. The ceremony and reception were at Treasure Island. The ceremony was in this cute little chapel that you only see in movies. Cindy looked so beautiful and Rob started crying when he watched her come up the aisle. It was so cute! The ceremony was short and simple that included the lighting of a unity candle and the pouring of sand into a single bottle.
The reception was next door. The color scheme was very springlike: orange, green, pink. It looked really good. The DJ was very involved. He had a lot of games, it was quite entertaining. It was a nice intimate reception. We snacked on mozarella, seared tuna, crab cakes, chick. and beef satay, and stuffed artichokes. We dined on this delicious chilean sea bass and filet mignon. We danced the night away, which was until 10:00 p.m.! Watching one of Ray's best friends getting married made me think about our wedding even more. Imagining what it will be like walking down that aisle seeing Ray in his tux. It made me want to cry because I am SO excited. I can't wait until it's me walking down that aisle.

It's a boy!

Our baby boy has come home. He weighed in at 14 lbs and 5 oz. and very short! We've named him Hercules Big Boi Lim. There's been a lot of trial and error but he's adjusting to his new home and it feels like we're finalizing the crate training. He's getting used to sleeping in his crate at night and we're starting to get into a routine of feeding and walking him. Unfortunately we're going to have to leave him for a week when we go to Arizona. It's very stressful but we don't have any choice. He's so adorable and he's our baby!