Lunch with the Lin Family

The day after Christmas Mandy, Tam, Phil and I went to Princeton for lunch with the extended Lin family - my cousins William, Susan, John and Peter, along with their husbands/wives and kids. That whole family of cousins was in Princeton for the entire Christmas week, and the kids had put together their own version of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas", complete with costumes and props. It sounded so cute! I wish we had been there to see it. Here's a picture of baby Jennifer with Max the dog ears.

Here's Jared. Isn't he the cutest! He's only 2, but he can already name more dinosaurs than I can.

It was pretty informal. Everyone just sat and talked, and ate of course. Here's Mandy, Joy and Jonathan enjoying some wine while Joseph tries to find someone to play with. Note the 3 bottles of wine on the table. That's not even half of what they ended up going through that afternoon. I'm not much of a wine drinker myself, but Mandy is - she definitely gets it from the Lin side of the family ^__~
My cousin Peter made roast duck for lunch. This side of the family is also the side that is really into cooking. I guess food and wine kind of go together.

Then we had Mandy's famous cranberry orange pound cake for dessert.

Now that we're back in Jersey it means we can attend more family gatherings. And that means lots of yummy food! Stay tuned for more Christmas/New Year holiday celebration pictures.

Christmas!

Finally, it's Christmas time! First we spent Christmas morning at my mom's house. Just my mom, my sister and my brother-in-law. No tree this year, but still plenty of presents to open. Here's Phil trying to keep all the presents for himself.
I got a really nice handmade picture frame from my sister with pictures of us when we were younger. There's one picture where I think she's trying to drop a pickle on my head...

Here's Phil showing off his Heman and Sheera holiday movie and Pokemon ornament. Don't ask...
Next it was off to Phil's parents' house in Queens for the rest of the afternoon and Christmas dinner. Phil's family from his dad side all come over so it was a full house. Here's the tree that Phil and Winnie put up the week before, complete with lights and tons of presents stuffed underneath.

Phil's mom spent most of the day in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Here she is with Phil's cousin, Lucia, who just arrived with tons of dessert (including homemade ice cream).

While food is being prepared there are people in the basement watching a basketball game on TV.
While others stayed upstairs to rock out to some PS3 Rock Band.

Then after the basketball game ended there was a Wii setup going on in the basement. The Wii Fit was an especially big hit. Particularly the hula hoop. One of Phil's aunts even busted out a real hula hoop and started showing her moves in the kitchen.

Then it was time for dessert. There was homemade strawberry cheesecake and a store bought Christmas cheesecake from some bakery in NY called Fay.

And we can't forget the homemade ice cream! Lucia had made banana ice crea, blueberry and strawberry. She actually put balsamic vinegar in the strawberry ice cream! But you couldn't taste it all. It was really good.

After all the food was gone and the cousins started winding down from all the game playing it was time to open presents!

The highlight of the evening was Kevin in his Japanese t-shirt, complete with "used panty vending machin" picture, and a can of spotted dick...I'm not sure if he's actually going to eat it, but I think the present was more for the humor value.

Hope everyone had as fun a Christmas as we did! ^__~

Christmas Eve Dinner

The holidays can be a little tricky when you have a significant other and need to start figuring out how to split your time between families. Luckily, my family normally does a big dinner on Christmas Eve and then gift exchanging Christmas morning, and Phil's family celebrates (dinner and presents) Christmas Day. So, we started the celebrations at my mom's house tonight. Here's Phil, Tam, Mandy and mom at the dinner table getting ready to eat.
My sister and her husband whipped up some fancy macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, shrimp cocktail, and flank steak stuffed with ham, mozzarella and mushrooms. Yum.
With guest appearance by mom's special sweet meatball recipe. Very yummy, and you'd never guess what the secret ingredient is... Happy Holidays everyone!

Nets vs. Rockets

One of Phil's cousins, Ray, came up from Houston to visit for the holidays. He bought a bunch of tickets to the Nets vs. Rockets game on Monday night. The game was at the Meadowlands. We made a few half-hearted attempts to get on the jumbo-tron, but no luck.
You could see the game pretty well, although I didn't really follow everthing that was going on during the game. Lots of penalty shots, and a lot of cheering for Yao and Yi, the only 2 Chinese guys on the court. There were definitely a lot more Asian people at the game then there probably are for most other games.

There was a mix amongst Phil's family members over which team to cheer for. Phil chose the Nets, but I think it was more out of obligation, since they are our home team. His cousins Kevin and Ray though had their game faces on and were quite obviously rooting for the Rockets.

And there were some of his family members that didn't seem too committed to either team, but were just excited to be there. (to see Yao Ming of course)
Then there was Phil's favorite part of the whole game - half time. The Nets girls came out and did a dance routine. Phil had to borrow Ray's binoculars for that one...What can I say...boys will be boys...

Harold's Deli

Because of the holidays things have been a little less hectic at work for Phil, so one of his coworkers invited us out to dinner last week to a place called Harold's Deli. We were told beforehand that this place is known for their huge sandwiches - supposedly the largest in Jersey. For anyone that knows Phil this was an eating dare waiting to happen.

We went to their website beforehand (http://www.haroldsfamousdeli.com/) to get an idea of what we were getting ourselves into, but nothing could have prepared us...
When we arrived at the deli and started looking at the menu the majority of their sandwiches were around $45, but then you notice that it says feeds at least 4 to 5 people. Now, I'm thinking what kind of sandwich feeds 4 to 5 people...and when the sandwich came I had my answer. It was probably about 4 or 5 pounds of pastrami and corned beef, and keep in mind this picture only shows half of the sandwich. The other half is on another plate identical to this one.

Definitely too much meat for any single person. Although that's not going to stop Phil from trying... ^__^

There's not much bread to the sandwich, but they have a "pickle bar" where you can get all kinds of pickles and bread to accompany your enormous sandwich.

They also have non-sandwich type options on the mneu as well. Like the giant hot dog...

And the knish...although I've never had a knish before, so I'm not really sure if this is an abnormal size for a knish...

And it's not just the regular meals that are huge, but the desserts too. They had an entire fridge full of giant chocolate cakes, and I believe the dessert on the bottom shelf is a giant cannoli. Mmmm...chocolate...
We ordered a single slice of chocolate fudge cake. It was enough to completely stuff the 4 of us (not that we weren't already full from the meal) and have leftovers for at least 2 or 3 people.

Overall the food was OK. If nothing else it's one of those things you should try at least once. Even if it's purely for the shock value.

Baby Su-Kyi

While Phil and I were in Cleveland we stayed with our friends May and Anthony, which was good news for Phil because that meant a whole weekend with his favorite baby - Su-Kyi! She just turned 1 a couple months ago and is officially walking. The last time we saw her she was very much into the electronics - cell phones, TV remotes. And she has now made her way to video games. Here she is playing with her dad's PS3 remote control. Her dad has almost every gaming system ever made, so luckily for her she'll never be bored growing up.
Su-Kyi was a little wary of us when we first arrived, but she warmed up to us pretty quickly. She even let us carry her around so May and Anthony could get some things done. How people manage with more than 1 kid running around is a mystery...

Here she is with Phil trying to read my book. Somehow I think Twilight is a little much for a 1 year old, but with kids these days you never know.

My cousins always joke about how grown ups turn into little kids whenever there's a baby in the house. That was definitely the case here. Check out this video and you'll see what I mean. Apparently this is how Phil will be teaching our kids to play. Who needs toys when you have a box...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBTpGrOT3vw

Holiday Party

Sorry we're a little behind on the posts, but here are some pictures from our trip to Cleveland last weekend. My company flew both of us back for my company holiday party. They rented out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the event. Here's Phil outside just as we arrived.

The company has a little over 800 employees. Including spouses and minus any employees that decided not to attend there were about 1200 people in attendance. It was kind of packed when we arrived. This is everyone in the bottom floor squeezing their way to the coat check.

They had a band called the Spazmatics for entertainment.

It was nice to be able to see all my old coworkers again. Although it was a little hard to find people with everyone spread out between the 3+ floors of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Here I am with my friend Jaime who I did manage to find.

In the spirit of our company's usual events there were tons of games and activities throughout the venue. Including a room with 4 separate rock band setups, a couple DDR stations, a music video recording room where you could record yourself in a music video, and photo stations to commemorate the evening. Not to mention access to the entire Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum.

Here I am with Phil in our holiday photo.

Here are Phil and Rebecca getting ready to rock out at Rock Band.

And me and Phil rocking out...

Phil and Rebecca doing some DDR.

Phil, Rebecca, Steve and I also attempted to make a music video to Amy Winehouse's Rehab. But fortunately you won't need to be subjected to that...it probably didn't help that none of us knew any of the words...

Overall one of the best holiday parties so far (in my opinion). I think this photo of Phil, Anthony and Steve pretty much says it all...

The First Snow

We had our first snow this weekend! Look, isn't it pretty ^__^
It pretty much melted by the afternoon, but still snow none-the-less.

Here's to all the Clevelanders out there. Hope you're surviving the winter so far!

Stitches

I had to get stitches for the first time this week. But no worries, it wasn't because of an accident or injury. I had the mole on my forehead removed, and they had to stitch me up when they were done. I'd had that mole ever since I was little and I never really had plans to get it removed, but the last dermatologist I went to said it was getting a little red and was concerned that it might be cancerous. As weird as the thought was to get it removed and as worried as I was (about the stitches and any potential pain...) it seemed worth it if the mole did turn out to be cancerous...

Luckily the only painful part was when they injected me with a local anesthetic. It was like getting shot with novacaine by the dentist...only it was in my head...After that I didn't really feel very much of anything. And I couldn't really see what they were doing, but there was definitely blood involved. So maybe it's better that I couldn't see anything...

When they were done they covered the stitches with a giant bandage that I had to leave on for the rest of the day. I stopped by the store afterwards and there was a little girl in line in front of me that kept trying to get her mom to ask me what the bandage was for. Not that I blame her - the thing covered my entire forehead!
The next morning I was allowed to take the giant bandage off and replace it with a bandaid. That's when I got my first look at the stitches...It kind of looks like a giant bug. Ick...

I'm not quite sure how they plan on removing the stitches...but I guess I'll find out next week...
Wish me luck!

Birthday in NYC

The Saturday after Thanksgiving happened to be my birthday. Phil and I spent most of the day in NYC with his family. Our first stop was to meet with another potential DJ for the wedding. Yet another Leo...must be a popular name for Chinese DJs...

Then it was off to dim sum with Phil's family at a place called Chatham Square Restaurant in Chinatown. Here are Phil's parents checking out the menu outside the restaurant.Phil's family is hilarious. Here's his Aunt making her first attempts at the "West Side" symbol. I think she was thoroughly confused about the whole thing. But doesn't she look so gangsta? ^__^

And promptly after that Phil's mom started trying to show everyone the "Ginger" symbol...Who knew that ginger had a symbol...

After dim sum, which I don't think we ended up finishing until 3pm, Phil and I walked around Chinatown with his parents doing some grocery shopping. Then it was back to Jersey for some dinner with my family. We ended up going to a Champps attached to the nearby mall.

Here we are at the restaurant (Mandy, Tam, Mom, and me).Me and Phil.

I didn't take pictures of all the food since Champps is mostly your typical American restaurant type food, but there were a couple things that had good presentation. Like my mom's salad with I think that's strips of salmon. I'm not much of a fish person, but it looks like it would be tasty if you're into the whole fish thing.

And my walnut crusted chicken with deep fried onion straws. Yum! So unhealthy and yet so good...