Blue Man Group

Phil and I had a ticketmaster gift card left over from the wedding, so I ordered us tickets to see the Blue Man Group. I had heard a lot of good things, but never had a chance to go see them. Before the show we headed to Congee Village for lunch with just the 2 of us. We ordered some beef chow fun noodles, scallion pancake and fried dumplings.



We weren't allowed to take pictures at Blue Man Group, and I didn't get a chance to take any after the show, but I thought it was really good. Surprisingly Phil still fell asleep - I thought for sure this was a show he'd stay awake for, but I guess his sleeping is not just for musicals and plays.

After the show we stopped by a rice pudding place called Rice to Riches that our friend, Steve, recommended to us. It looks very fancy and hip from the outside.

We ordered the mango rice pudding with strawberry topping. I thought it was delicious, but Phil seemed to like the strawberry topping better than the rice pudding. Maybe he would have liked it better if we ordered a chocolate rice pudding...next time...

Time to chow down! ^__^

Afterwards we headed back to Phil's parents' house for dinner. Phil's mom made lobster for his birthday. She also cooked some veggies and there was some roast pork and chicken she picked up from Chinatown.

Surprise Party for Phil

Phil's birthday is on Wednesday, so I planned a little surprise party for him. Phil's not really big on surprises, but I like giving surprises. Luckily for him, once the baby comes I doubt I'll have the time or energy to plan anymore surprise parties for a while, so this was my last surprise attempt. We met up with his coworkers at Famous Dave's, one of Phil's favorites. Only a couple of his coworkers could make it for dinner, but everyone still had a good time. Here we are with Anand and Joanna.



As a treat we ordered their rootbeer float. It's so huge they have to give you the rootbeer separately - definitely a 2 person job (or I guess in this case 2.5 if you count the baby). I haven't had a lot of rootbeer floats, but this is one of the best I've had so far.

Phil ordered ribs and brisket.

I wasn't really sure what I was in the mood to eat so I ordered their appetizer sampler - ribs, fried chicken tenders (which is just a fancy way to say chicken fingers), buffalo wings, onion strings and catfish fingers (which I had no intention of eating, but it comes as part of the package). Even pregnant I barely made a dent.

After dinner everyone headed back to our place to hang out and eat cake. Mohamed and his wife, Maroa, met us there to help celebrate. It is Maroa's birthday on Sunday, so we had a little joint cake celebration. I ordered an ice cream cake from Häagen-Dazs - their classic ribbon cake with the Pirouline cookies. Although the highlight for everyone appeared to be the animal shaped paper plates we had. What can I say, we're still kids at heart.

While we waited for the cake to defrost a little for easier cutting we started in on some present opening. Phil got a couple new video games, one for the PS3 and one for the Wii, a stack of blank DVDs and a gift card to Red Lobster. He was thoroughly amused by the card - a cartoon hamster whose entire face is smeared with chocolate cake. His coworkers know him so well. ^__^

Maroa also had gifts to open - DVDs for Avatar and the last season of Friends, along with a gift card.

What a happy looking group!

When Mohamed and Maroa came they brought us an orchid as a housewarming/welcome baby gift. Isn't it pretty! Hopefully we can keep it alive.

Surprise - It's a Boy!

So, I haven't really mentioned it here (though I think most of our friends and family already know), but Phil and I are expecting our first little one! We just had our 2nd trimester screening and we found out it's a Boy!!!! So, to accompany the news I figured it was time to post some pictures.


The baby seems to be just chilling out - feet up, not a care in the world.

This is the shot where they determined the sex of the baby. I love that they added the little pointer in the picture - hello! Who says you have to be out of the womb before parents can share embarrasing photos of you?
They even took some 4D shots. The baby didn't look as much like an alien in this one. Look at his cute little arm covering his face. Tired or camera shy?


Click here to check out more photos!

Malaysian in the City

We headed back into the city on Saturday. It had been 2 whole weekends since we had lunch with Phil's family. I think that may have been the longest we've gone in a while. It seemed like a while since we'd had Malaysian food, so we decided on the Overseas Taste restaurant - family favorite. While waiting for our food Lucia and Winnie were bombarding Kevin with the "single ladies" dance...although it kind of looks like Lucia got distracted and tried to eat his finger instead...



I was so hungry I almost forgot to take pictures of the food...so I guess this haphazard shot where you can only really see the bird's nest will have to do. But the bird's nest was crispy and filled with mango and chicken goodness, and oh so delicious ^__^

Easter with Ohio Friends

Over Easter weekend Phil and I went into the city to meet up with some friends from Ohio that came over to visit some relatives. It was a beautiful day, but for some reason it was very foggy driving past Staten Island - you can't even see the top of the Verrazano bridge. But luckily it cleared up once we got into Queens.



First stop was the Ocean Jewel Seafood restaurant (famous siting of the engagement proposal) for dim sum. Phil got to see his favorite person in the whole world - Su-Kyi. Look how excited he is.

Our friends, May and Anthony, came with May's cousin and family, so Su-Kyi had someone to play with while we ate and tried to keep her entertained.

Afterwards we went across the street to the Flushing mall. Su-Kyi was very friendly this time, not shy like she usually is. She had her little stuffed dog with her too.

Phil couldn't stop holding Su-Kyi every chance he got. And she's still holding onto that dog for dear life.

After walking around the Flushing area in Queens we met back up with May, Anthony and crew at a park in Little Neck where they were having an Easter egg hunt. The place was packed with kids and their families, and they had tons of other activities - pictures with people dressed in bunny suits, carinval food, egg racing games... Anthony's chilling out at the back of the egg hunt line with Su-Kyi. The line was insanely long.

While Phil and May were still waiting patiently in line Phil got a chance to hold Su-Kyi again. Check her out rocking the pink shades. She's just too cool. ^__^

Before we got to the front of the line May and I snuck out to get some pictures taken with the Easter bunny. I don't think Su-Kyi likes the Easter bunny very much. She held it in pretty well though - she didn't start to cry until after we got the picture and Mr. Bunny was long gone.

Finally Su-Kyi was able to get her ticket for the egg hunt and got in the final line with all the other kids. She's all ready with her Easter basket and balloon.

They had scattered Easter eggs filled with little prizes across 2 large fields in the park and separated the big kids from the little kids. You could see all the little kids running with their tiny legs trying to grab all the eggs they could. And finally Su-Kyi came back with her loot. Over a dozen eggs - not bad for someone with such tiny fingers!

And of course you can't go somewhere with carnival food and not get something to eat - extremely overpriced as it is...So we stopped by a stand to buy some kettle corn and MozzArepas (a deep fried concoction with melty cheese inside - I think we had this once before during the fireworks in Red Bank). Everyone else was still stuffed from dim sum, but Phil and I found a home for the food. ^__^

MetamorphISIS Event @ Imperia

Phil's company had a formal dinner event at a place called Imperia in Somerset. We got there a little early so we took some pictures in the nice garden area they had outside by the parking lot.




The dinner was in one of the dining areas downstairs that opened up in the back to a nice little patio. Once more people arrived we headed outside to take some pictures before it got dark. Say Hi to all of Phil's coworkers!






This was our table with some of the people Phil works more closely with on the project.

In the beginning of the night they gave out some awards during dinner. Phil received a little surprise gift.

So did our friend Joanna.

After dinner a company that was hired to run the music and entertainment for the evening started the games. The main focus was Jeopardy and they had several rounds where they would have different people from each table go up to try and compete for points. That's our team representing in the middle...let's just say we didn't do too well that round...

As you can see Phil was very excited about the Jeopardy.

It wasn't just Jeopardy though, the people they hired for the event also threw in some random games in between - games that would have rivaled the games at our wedding. I think Phil wishes we could have actually incorporated some of these into our wedding games. The first one was a weird ball and stick game where 2 people had to a hold a stick (with a little "U" shape at each end) between them with their stomachs and try to wrab a ball tied to a string around the stick without using their hands. It looks a lot harder to do than it sounds, but it's also mighty funny to watch. 2 of Phil's coworkers from our table ended up winning this round - shake those hips!

Another game they did was to have some of the girls tie a contraption around their wastes that had 3 "baskets" with a ball tied to a string dangling at the bottom. The objective was to use your hips to swing the ball around and up to land into one of the 3 baskets. I don't remember who won this game, but when making a fool of yourself in front of coworkers aren't we all winners really?... ^__~

They also did a hoola hoop contest, but between 2 guys and a girl I'm not at all surprised that the girl won - no contest!

The best game though was the dance-off. And the winner was? Phil! It's his favorite song too - YMCA! Check it out! ^__^

Here's a group shot in the foyer of the venue at the end of the night.

(Jesse, Mohamed, Joanna, me and Phil)

At the end of the night everyone got to take back a bag of random company product. The bag was jam-packed with tons of makeup - seems such a waste that I don't even know how to use half of it...