Cleveland Day 3 - New Year's Eve

On New Year's Eve we started out the day at a burger place called Burger Nuts. It's almost exactly like the Five Guys , although they have a sign on the door that specifically says they are not affiliated. But everything is so similar, from the free toppings and the free peanuts to the red and white checkered decor. Steve and Rebecca recommended this place so we headed there for lunch. Everyone looks so excited for the free peanuts.


Even if you are eating in they still throw everything into a paper bag. When you order fries the put it in a styrofoam cup for you but really they just dump a whole bunch of fries in your bag. I ordered a single patty with their special Burger Nuts sauce. It was pretty good.

After lunch we headed back to Steve and Rebecca's place...and of course we found Phil passed out on the couch for his customary post-meal nap.

In the evening we headed to the Westlake area to hang out with May, Anthony and Su-Kyi. Every time we visit Anthony always has new toys to play with. This time we found his newly built server. It's huge! It's almost as tall as Rebecca when she kneels next to it. Rebecca has her best serious face in this picture.

May and Anthony have all kinds of fun things. You can probably find anything you need in that house. Rebecca and I were poking around and decided to pose with some Asian fans we found.

Not too long after we arrived May finally came home with Su-Kyi. Su-Kyi must have just woken up - she looks so sleepy and out of it.

While the boys entertained Su-Kyi, Rebecca and May were busy in the kitchen preparing for dinner. We had some of May's yummy cooking - egg and ham, and beef with veggies. And we ordered some Pizza Hut pizza on the side - Hawaiin style, yum! ^__^

Phil was trying to play "my chair" with Su-Kyi again, but I think she got bored and left him in her pink princess chair. He looks like a cross between being stuck, trying to act tough even though he's setting a pink mini-chair, and being constipated...you decide...

Anthony had just bought Rock Band, so we formed our band - Ant Farm - and started our tour. Anthony and Rebecca are rocking out on the guitars.

Even Su-Kyi wanted to join the band. She brought her own little red ukulele. It matches her red pajamas so perfectly.

After Su-Kyi was tucked into bed all of us celebrated the count down to the new year with our sparkling cider. Yay 2010!!

And the first thing that Phil did in 2010? You guessed it - nap time! Not a bad way to start off the new year I guess. ^__~

Cleveland Day 2

On our second day in Cleveland we began our search for a new or new used Rock Band guitar for the Wii. We stopped by almost half a dozen places with no luck. But our trek out into the cold wasn't a complete loss - Phil did get the Steak 'n Shake milk shake he had been craving since there are no Steak 'n Shakes near us in NJ. Cold milk shake in below 20 degree weather - mmmm....



And when we got back to Rebecca and Steve's place...Phil passed out again!

While Phil napped Rebecca got ready for dinner. Rebecca always makes really good dishes. This time she put together some chicken pad thai. Here she is cooking up a storm.

Doesn't it look good? She even cut lime slices for everyone. ^__^

Our friend Anthony joined us for dinner too.

Cleveland Day 1

Phil and I took some time off after the holidays, and decided to take a trip to Cleveland...by car...It's about an 8 hour drive (around 7 hours and 20 minutes without stops, but let's face it we can't make it that long without at least 1 stop). The weather in Cleveland was supposed to be a little snowy, but the conditions didn't sound too bad, so we continued with the trip as planned.

The first half of the drive was mostly this - blue skies and lots of mountains.


But as soon as we crossed the border from Pennsylvania into Ohio we were hit with this...(almost hard to believe the change in scenery was so drastic within just a couple hours)

Finally we arrived at Cleveland in one piece - just in time for dinner! We spent the week at Rebecca and Steve's, our friends from Ohio Diary.

We brought Rebecca and Steve Beatles Rock Band for Christmas. Steve was really psyched.

But then we found out that their only Rock Band guitar was broken!! So, armed with a laptop, the internet and 2 screw drivers, Rebecca and I tried to take it apart and fix it while the guys continued to play games. We did manage to figure out what was broken (one of the plastic pieces that was part of the strum bar was cracked, and the plastic wasn't touching the contact pads), but didn't really fix it in the end. We put some super glue in there, but that didn't seem to help...Oh well, we tried...

Phil passed out on their couch. After the long drive into Cleveland I think all the excitement and the game playing finally did him in. This was only the first of the many times that Phil passed out during our stay in Cleveland.

That means lots of opportunities to take funny pictures with him while he's asleep! ^__~

Bridgewater Brunch with the Cousins

Christmas weekend I headed back over to Mandy's place in Bridgewater to hang out with our cousin from NY, Peter, and his family. We prepared a nice brunch of fruit, dumplings, edamame, bagels, poppovers and rice porridge.


Peter and Jen brought their 3 girls - Phoebe, Sarah and Leah. They seem to be playing a game of squish Sarah.

Group photo with the girls, Mandy, mom and Jen.

The girls got to open some belated Christmas gifts. Look how cute Leah is with her new cute chickadee shirt.

Christmas Night

After spending the morning in Bridgewater we made the trek into Queens to Phil's parent's house. The tree was up and completely decked out.


Phil's family always opens presents first before the rest of the aunts, uncles and cousins arrive. Phil's dad was excited about the new TV we got him for the kitchen - he jumped right into getting it setup.


Phil got a t-shirt from one of his favorite movies - Rocky. It's a little big...but hopefully we can exchange for a smaller size.


His sister, Winnie, got me cute little USB hand warmers that you can plug into the laptop so you can keep your hands warm while you're typing. Looks like something the Japanese came up with - cute and functional. Definitely useful in the cold winter months.


Once all the relatives started arriving everybody got started on dinner - lots of roast pork, Chinese style chicken, and squid, yum!


Lea and Winnie enjoying the dinner spread.


After all the "kids" got their fill of food we all headed upstairs to rock out on some Beatles Rock Band. Eventually the adults came up to join us and sing along to the Beatles.


Winnie, Lydia and April snuggled on the couch under the Barbie sleeping bag.


Before opening presents it was time to head back downstairs for some dessert. Lucia, Lydia and Lea brought a lot of desserts. First there was the lime pudding pie.


the chocolate mousse pie, which was less pie and more just mousse (but still tasty)


and the homemade cheesecake (pretending to be store-bought cheesecake)


Add on top of that the pumpkin crunch I brought and you have a whole lot of desserts....


With all of our bellies full it was time to open presents. Most of the adults stayed downstairs to eat and chat. Phil's uncle looks on from the sidelines trying not to get pulled into the chaos.


After all the families finished arriving and adding their presents to the tree it was completely stuffed with presents.


Just check out the stack of presents for Phil's parents!


Phil got right down to work with his new workout mats. Maybe not the best idea after all that food and dessert, but we know how much Phil likes to workout.

The best gifts of the night were the kissing dogs salt & pepper shakers. There was a set of kissing pugs with matching argyle sweaters, and a set of dachshund looking dogs with Santa hats.

We played around a lot with salt & pepper shakers - hanging them from the air, testing out inter-species mixing...They definitely provided a lot of laughs.

Lucia and Aunt Ruby excited about their presents.

Kevin, Lydia and April being silly.

So sad that the Christmas season is over (-__-)
Phil already can't wait for them to start playing Christmas music on the radio again next year.

Christmas Morning

After a night over at Mandy's we woke up to make some breakfast before opening presents. Mandy makes these bacon and cheese popovers that are pretty tasty. She didn't have enough muffin pans to make a big batch, so she had asked me to bring over one of my muffin pans. So, the two smoodgy and deflated looking ones on the left are from her muffin pan, and the nice fluffy and plump looking ones on the right are from my muffin pan...I definitely think her muffin pans are defective somehow...I think we need to invest in getting her some new ones.

Tam had been anxious to open presents all night. We stuffed his stocking with lots of L'Oreal product goodness. Check out the snazzy L'Oreal golfing hat!

Mandy and Tam had taken a trip to Turkey recently and they brought me back a pair of handmade booties - at least that's the only way to describe them. I even got a picture of the Turkish woman who knitted them. Maybe I can wear them around the house in the cold winters when Phil refuses to turn on the heat.

There was also lots of Turkish candy and chocolate.

and I do mean lots...

One of the coolest presents was Mandy's watch. It's solar powered, so you never have to worry about changing out the batteries. But it's not a dinky plastic looking watch like you might expect. I'm not really sure what happens when you wear the watch to sleep or sit in the dark...

But of course the coolest present was the new Samsung camera Phil and I got. It's the new model with the full touch screen interface and mini-screen on the front of the camera. Our old camera is over 5 years old, so it was about time for a new one. That just means nicer quality pictures for the blog - yay! ^__~

And apparently this year was the year of the cameras, because my mom got a camera too. This is the Cool Pix Nikon camera that you see all those commercials for with Ashton Kutcher.

Phil's prized gift of the morning was his new Christmas ornament - it's the head of Optimus Prime from Transformers, and it speaks when you push his "ear"and his eyes light up. Look at how excited he is.

Then there was a new snow globe to add to Phil's collection. Oddly enough all 3 of the Christmas snow globes he has now plays the same song - "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". I'm beginning to wonder if all Christmas snow globes play that song or if it's just a coincidence....hmmm...

By far the biggest present this year was mom's. You can tell how excited she is. Just like a kid on Christmas should be ^__^

Such a big present could only be one thing...the new Bullet Express. Mom is a sucker for infomercials, but she really did need a new blender. Hopefully this works out as well as the Magic Bullet did.

Everybody smile for the new camera! I guess pictures on the blog are too small to see any difference in quality, but the quality is nicer - I swear!