Saturday, June 25, 2011

Dim Sum & Taiwanese Shaved Ice

Calvin woke up with the craziest bed head in the morning. And he was wearing his cute batman outfit that his Auntie Mandy got for him. I think he has worn an outfit for almost every superhero already.



This weekend we went into Flushing, NY to have dim sum with Phil's godmother. Its been a while since she last saw Calvin. Calvin is starting to outgrow his stranger anxiety and he's not afraid of grandpa anymore! That made grandpa very happy.



Calvin with grandma and Phil's godmother.


Father and son, in matching colors too, which was not planned. I dressed Calvin before I even saw what Phil was wearing. When I used to see that with other parents and kids I used to think "how do you end up wearing the same colors and not plan it", but I guess now I know!

Somehow whenever we got out Calvin always ends up on daddy's shoulders. I think Phil uses it as a distraction when Calvin starts getting fussy because he enjoys it so much.

And no surprise, here he is again on daddy's shoulders in the park at the Hester Street fair.


While we were at the Hester Street fair we saw a little puppy (I think it was a pug?). I thought for suer Calvin would be scared since he's usually scared of everything...


But, surprisingly, he was super excited and kept trying to pet the puppy.

Even though we had so much food at dim sum, Phil still ordered food. He stopped at the pulled pork stand for a pulled pork sandwich.



I thought it was good, although Phil swears it was bigger and cost less last year...


Lucia stopped by the La Newyorkina for another one of their tasty popsicles.




There was a new stand that wasn't there last year selling Taiwanese shaved ice. I was so excited. Its been so long since I've been back to Taiwan and I miss their food so much. I started talking to one of the ladies that worked at the stand, but it turns out their actually Cantonese and not Taiwanese. They were inspired by the Taiwanese shaved ice. I guess that explains some of the weird toppings - corn flakes and fruity pebbles...



Even though I was bummed that they weren't actually Taiwanese, the shaved ice was pretty good. I got it with the jelly, strawberries and mango ice cream, and they covered it with condensed milk.
Lucia made a cheesecake brownie for Phil for Father's Day. I never would have thought to put brownies and cheesecake together, but it was very tasty!



On our way back to the car before heading home we stopped by a smoothie place near Lucia's apartment. Apparently this place has been there for a while, but we just never noticed it. Not that we hadn't eaten enough between dim sum and the Hester Street fair, but it's hard to turn down a fresh fruit smoothie. And this place actually used mostly fresh ingredients. We tried the mango and lychee smoothie. I think we forgot to stir it because in the beginning it tasted like all lychee and the bottom was all mango, but it was still good anyway and way cheaper than most smoothie places. Sorry Calvin, no smoothie for you...


Saturday, June 18, 2011

Bridgewater BBQ - 3 Musketeers together again

Since we had been away on vacation it had been a while since we saw the family, so we got together for another BBQ at Mandy and Tam's place. Michael, Thanh and Van came too. They have their hands full with all 3 babies - Calvin, Maddy and Van. They did say they wanted more kids, so this is good practice for them!


We put all of the babies in baby jail so that we could have some time to eat.

Calvin and Maddy somehow got out and made a break for it. Crawl faster babies!


Tam grilled up some fish, steak and hot dogs on the grill. That plus the roasted potatoes, cajun rice, and macaroni salad was plenty of food to keep everyone full.


Michael and Thanh even brought some cannolis and little cakes for dessert from a little bakery shoppe in our town called Buttery Bakery. I've had a birthday cake from them before. The desserts were decent, especially considering they were from a small town bakery.


Saturday, June 4, 2011

Key West Day 4 - Jet Skiing

On our last full day in Key West we headed out to a post-wedding brunch. Before we left Calvin said his goodbye to cousin Lydia. He was all shiny from the sun block we had applied.


I forgot the name of the place that we went to for brunch, but the food was pretty good. I ordered french toast with Godiva white chocolate (yum!).




Phil ordered a scrambled egg with some kind of steak.




The decor was very interesting...I managed to catch a shot of Kevin under the insane asylum sign. ^__^ Surprisingly enough he didn't actually know what was behind him when I took this shot, and yet his expression seems so appropriate...


After brunch a big group of us went Jet Skiing. Phil and I had gone once before during our honeymoon in Bali, but the water this time was much choppier. Out of everyone we were the only ones to get thrown off the jet ski. I blame it on Phil's back seat driving...


We stopped on a sand bar and took a picture with the whole group.


The trip went by so fast. It seemed like we just got there and it was time to go home. That's the end of Cousins' Reunion 2011. Until 2012!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Key West Day 3 - Wedding

In the early evening we headed over to the hotel where the wedding was being held. We got to take some nice family pictures outside.





The ceremony was held outside overlooking the water. Here's the bride, Lea, being walked down the "aisle" by mom and dad.


It was a feat to try and keep Calvin quiet during the ceremony. He was feeling especially chatty and mischievous for some reason.


It was such a lovely ceremony. It was small and simple, and I thought the pastor led the ceremony really well. And just check out that view!



After the short ceremony everybody gathered inside the hotel for the reception.



Shortly after the bride, groom and family were introduced we proceeded to perform our little surprise tribute dance to Lea and Wally. We took a bunch of dances from the Wii game "Just Dance" and Phil's cousin, Ray, did some of his DJ magic and spliced the songs together.



Group photo of all the cousins. (Lucia, Phil, me, Lea, Wally, Kevin, Ray, Alex, Lydia, Winnie and Calvin)
After our little dance Calvin was able to grab one of the glowsticks and he refused to let go. I think I see a party animal in the making!


He was inspired by our little dance and had a little dance off with his self-proclaimed archnemesis, Kevin. He was fine up until he slid between Kevin's legs. I guess Kevin won the battle this time...Calvin demands a rematch as soon as he can walk!


He didn't stay upset too long though. Being the ladies man that he is he made time for a little dance with one of the baby girls at the wedding. My little boy is growing up so fast!



Lea and Wally cutting the wedding cake. They look so happy!



Phil wanted to see which was bigger, the cake or Calvin. I don't think Calvin cared for it much though...
To make up for it Phil took him dancing to cheer him up.

But, no matter how much Calvin tried to steal the spotlight, I think everyone at the wedding would agree that one of the highlights on the dance floor was Kevin's Michael Jackson tribute...


It was an awesome wedding, and it seemed like the bride and groom were able to enjoy themselves too! ^__^

Key West Day 3 - Pre-Wedding

On the morning of the big day Phil went with a large group of his family to go snorkeling, to make up for the trip they missed the day before. I stayed back at the house with Calvin and had brunch with Lea, Lydia, Lucia and some of the relatives from their side of the family.


They cooked up a storm with scrambled eggs, strawberry shortcake, turkey bacon, french toast, pineapple and sausage and watermelon.



Even though Calvin usually doesn't like strangers, there's always a couple random people that he seems to take a liking to. One of the sisters' cousins, Eugene, was one of those lucky few. Calvin was having a blast making Eugene walk him around the house. I can tell you it gets tiring on the back and the knees!


Before everyone got back from the snorkeling trip I took a dip in the pool with Calvin. I even managed to get him kicking and splashing a little bit.





After everyone returned from the snorkeling trip, we went with a couple of Phil's cousins and his sister to the Schooner Wharf Bar for a quick late lunch before we had to get ready for the wedding.

Calvin was very grumpy, until we finally got him to go down for a nap.



Tian Hung, Alex, Winnie and Kevin at the bar waiting for our food.





Phil ordered some soup and a small salad. The soup was a conch soup. Phil doesn't remember ever having conch before so he wanted to try it. But the soup was SUPER salty. We had to add some of our water to it to make it drinkable. We definitely did not have a good track record with soup on this trip...





I ordered a mahi sandwich, which was pretty good.

And we got some conch fritters (fried balls of conch).


After lunch Phil and I went for a quick walk near the boardwalk type area and stopped by the "Key Lime Shoppe" where some of the cousins had picked up chocolate dipped key lime pie slices the day before. That's right, chocolate dipped key lime pie! We wanted to save our stomachs for the wedding so we passed on the key lime pie and bought some cookies to bring home instead.


The shop had a nice little garden sitting area in the back that had a cute little fountain with coy fish.