happy holidays

happy holidays everyone! sorry it got super busy with everything going on ... let's see ....
Thursday, 22nd, Bible Study Gift Exchange ...
like Dana said the highlight of the night was:
Aaron's version of women's dress socks ...
Toots ended up with thigh highs! with lace trim! nice

Friday, 23rd, I picked up my sister and Gabe from LAX
Coming in for the holidays you ask?
No, she went on vacation to Orlando and they came back 2 days before Christmas
I then got treated to 7 courses of beef for dinner ... that's some good stuff

Saturday, Christmas Eve
I have a yearly tradition of making six-layer jello and it takes all day long
so i bought my ingredients and the lasagna ingredients and got to cooking
it took me from 11 AM - 6 PM to do that jello - i'm telling you all day
then Joey picked me up at 10:30 so we could go to Midnight Mass with his family
afterwards we went to Denny's ... he wants to make that a tradition

Sunday, Christmas Day
I sleep some and then I go to Mass with my family. We take pictures, even at Church.
Everyone came over super early this year and we ate, played some poker - we seem to do a lot of that - watched the Laker game, raced with the skateboards outside, ate and ate and ate some more and then we took some family photos. All good fun.
Check out my parka on my pictures. I think it's too big. but it's really cute.

Monday, the 26th
Frances and Steph's bdays. We missed the gingerbread making party on Friday because of the airport so I wanted to make an effort to go see them. So I drove out to Roscoe's in Pasdena for lunch. yummmmm ... chicken and waffles.
Then I hung out with the nephews and watched Madagascar

Tuesday, the 27th
Although the girls' birthdays were on the 26th, I didn't get them their presents until the 27th. I won't see them all until Friday for our Kris Kringle anyway so that's ok.

Wednesday, the 28th
Mina and Danny are here from Vegas so we met up at Bubba Gump in Long Beach. The shrimpin' dippin' broth is really yum! but it leaves you with a strong taste in ur mouth. definitely good and add some blueberry lemonade. we then went to the mai tai bar and got some drinks while we tried to play kings. the classic moment of the night was this guy trying to hit on mina.
guy: "happy holidays"
us: "happy holidays"
guy: "so who'd you come here with?"
mina: "my friends (pointing to our booth) and my husband (pointing to Danny at the table)
hahahahaha he was so embarrassed

and there's today. I get to rest, study and blog. we have our Kris Kringle tomorrow and then we have New Year's Eve! Then only 10 more days til we say aloha!

left out

so two of my friends and i share the same godfather. one of the girls also happens to be joey's ex-girlfriend. we have happened to work around this so i thought. anyway, i called joan, the one that i still talk to, and asked her what she was getting our godfather for christmas. she didn't call me back for 2 days. so i called her again. she then proceeded to leave me a message stating that she and jenn (joey's ex) had gotten him tickets to cirque de soleil. so i called her back. usually when we get him presents like that, all three of us are the ones that give it to him so he can spend time with all three of us. apparently this time, i wasn't included. so i called her back and i say "thanks for the invite" she knew immediately what i was talking about. she was like "i'm sorry." she said that jenn had purchased the tickets. i asked if jenn had asked her about it before she had purchased the tickets. she said yes. i asked her if she had thought that maybe this would have been a good opportunity for us to all get together with our godfather. and she again said yes. she said she had mentioned it to jenn, but jenn was adamant about just getting 3 tickets. i said to look at the whole picture. our godfather is going to think that i didn't want to join them for their group gift and it's going to be weird. joan realized as she was apologizing profusely. then she proceeded to say that jenn and i should just get over the whole thing. i said that i did nothing wrong here (besides going out with her ex - but she broke up with him because she was already going out with another guy, but that's a whole other story that you all already know). she said you haven't invited her to anything. i disagreed. i invited her to my past two birthdays but she didn't show. she didn't have any other response. but then she did say that they - joey and jenn - should get over it. i agreed. she said that joey should be thanking jenn because if she didn't break up with him, he would never have gotten with me. anyway, after the conversation with me, joan called jenn and told her this. jenn said she felt bad too (i was like, really though? if she felt that bad, she would have recognized it before purchasing the tickets). anyway, we're going to try harder for his bday.

i forgot

did you like the kings / ducks shootout on friday? that was so good! it must have been awesome to watch it in person! hehehe

screw your neighbor

now i know how dana felt - sorry day! i went to joey's family's christmas party and i got number 2 out of 21 and boy did i get screwed. i first got this singing dog that had pocket A's in its had. that was in my hands for no more than 2 seconds when #3 stole it from me. I then chose this piggy bank. I had that til about #8 and then the same aunt that stole the dog, stole the piggy from me. so i choose again and then i get this bailey's type kahlua set. i have that for about 2 people then grandpa takes it from me. i go yet again and get a brick - i was like a brick? on the bottom of the bag was a starbucks gift card. so i am content. not so fast you say! the same aunt that stole the dog and the pig, then proceeds to steal my starbucks card! the reason why she stole my starbucks is because joey (who was #19) stole the nuts from another aunt. the other aunt stole the see's candy from the aunt who then proceeded to steal the starbuck's from me. the gifts can be stolen twice. anyway, joey whispers to steal the nuts from him and then he would steal the starbucks back from the other aunt so we would both get our originals. so i stole the nuts and he stole the starbucks and we ended up winners! now i understand how you can use a teammate in this game! anyway, it was all geat fun - at least i didn't get the camel! that's a whole other post!

Stupid Kings

Joey took me to the Kings v. Capitals game. There were so many freakin penalties - at one point there were 3 Kings with penalties and they had to wait until the other guy was done with his penalty before the other guy got to go in the box. It was ridiculous! And we were the home team. I was hoping to watch my first shoot out but stupid kings decide not to play any defensive and the capitals scored with 1:03 left! Then, within that whole time left, the Kings never got off a shot! They passed and passed and passed! You would have thunk that they would have had a sense of urgency about things. Guess not. whatever.

weird graduation dream

so graduation is this afternoon. i woke up this morning in a huff because of my dream. i had a dream that during rehearsal (which is at 12) one of my favorite instructors told us that photographs and flashes were too disturbing during the ceremony and that we would not be allowed pictures! NOT BE ALLOWED PICTURES and ME do not mix! She had taken all of the batteries out of the digital cameras and the film out of the 35 mm cameras and left us with the cameras! Luckily for me, I always carry an extra battery in my purse! Anyway, needless to say, that was only a dream and I will be taking pictures today! Happy Sunday everyone!

airports and balikbayan boxes

i went to take my dad to the airport today. he's leaving for the philippines and he's only going for a week! my cousin is getting married and has 36 ninangs and ninongs! 36! that's feeding an entire army! anyway, my dad is one of them and my dad is the one that put my cousin through school so he's going, even though that means he's going to miss my graduation, but that's ok, he ironed my gown and left me money for graduation dinner =)
anyway, the airport was nuts! it's so funny. every other airline all you see is luggage. but PAL of course, has 10 million balikbayan boxes! it's crazy! my dad only had one and a luggage. he already sent 4 boxes ahead of time so that he wouldn't have to lug them around this time. and it takes like 10 people to drop off 2 people at the airport. talk about culture. it's funny though. i enjoy being a part of this crazy culture.

tests are done

yay! i just took my last graded test of nursing school. we take 3 more standardized tests on Thursday and if we don't pass in the 60th percentile then we have to re-take them by Monday. Mind you, we graduate on Sunday. Tell me how pointless that is.

What I learned over lunch today: if you ever go get pho, and it says "noodle with special tendon," don't get it. The "special tendon" is the penis. Don't say you were never warned.

it's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTmas

thanks to all of you who came to the Days CHRISTmas party! I had lots of fun and my mom had fun winning money against the guys - and Dana. Anyways, got to go study! Merry Christmas.

Holiday weekend

Although it was supposed to be a big shopping weekend, I never set foot in a store once this weekend! I celebrated Thanksgiving at Joey's grandma's and then my Lola's. The pix are on my site so you can see. We went from turkey and stuffing to crabs and datu puti - yummy! Friday was Viernes Gigante. My old roomie, Robert, had a birthday shindig at his place and we kinda just hung out all night long. Saturday we went out to The Rail in Fullerton. I wasn't expecting to party but as always the girls out shot the guys and had a grand ole time. I haven't had time to post the pictures yet. Sunday I started cleaning and decorating for the Days Christmas party that you guys are all coming to, right? PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEE!
ok, that's my plea. hope to see you all there - all 5 of you who read this anyway!

I am thankful

I know I should be thankful every day but I believe today is a day that I should stop and think about how wonderfully blessed I am. I am thankful:
- for the gift of life and love
- for the wonderful family that I can share this with
- for the truly beautiful friends that I have
- for the love that I did not know I could experience from a man of few words
- for the ability to learn
- for the ability to cry and experience the world
- for the ability to experience Him in all of these things.
For this and for you, I am thannkful.

table talk

so me and a few classmates were sitting around the lunch table chatting before one of our standardized tests. boy, the depth of conversations over salad and pizza! we found out that one of our classmates is going through a divorce at age 42 (with 2 kids) , another one has been divorced and re-married to the same guy 2x and now married a different guy by the age of 30, and another one had eloped and then gotten married to the same guy again. see what love does to people?

SpaceBalls

So joey brings up the movie spaceballs saying how one of our friends, Rob, has never seen it. I said, "I've never seen it either" Joey, surprised is like "really? why not?" I said "I always wanted to rent it in college, but Ray would never let me - he'd always veto it - so I never got to watch it." Joey has it on DVD so he said he would let me borrow it.

So we go to dinner with everyone on Sunday because J Mo's here from Hawaii. We're chit-chatting over dinner and I tell Rob, "I've never seen SpaceBalls either" All of our other friends are like, "Really, why not?" So I tell them the same answer I told Joey and they say, "huh, weird"

So dinner goes on and everyone arrives, including Ray. So Grish asks Ray, "Hey, how come you never let Kay watch SpaceBalls?" Ray says "I don't know, 'cause it's dumb." Then you hear all these whispers start "Oh no, that's not cool" and "That's what I thought too" Two separate people saying things like this and I'm thinking what the heck? It's been 4 years since Ray and I broke up and you would think by now it would be ok to acknowledge that we were once together but no, apparently it still is a taboo subject! I don't get it. I talked to Joey about it and he said it didn't bother him when I told him the reason that I had never seen it. I asked him if it bothered him that I had mentioned things of the past and he said no. He knows where my love lays. I don't get it, I really don't. oh well.

Tamales and Trojans

So saturday was annual tamale day at Joey's mom's house. Even though Joey's Mexican on his dad's side, his mom, the white side, is the maker of the tamales. Every year I get all excited at Christmas time because Joey would always bring over tamales and this year I got to help! I was so excited. Joey said that because it was my first year, I had to start at the bottom of the todem pole, as a corn husker. So what job did I get when we got to the house? I was the corn husker. But things have vastly improved since times of old. I just had to sift, separate and soak the husks then rinse, wring and bring them over to the spreader table. These things seriously take all day long!
But I moved up to spreader quite fast! I got to spread the maza (already mixed with sweet corn) but that's where my experience left me. The cheese and chili were left to the more experienced ones. At the end of the day I think we made 9 dozen and they were yummy! Next up, beef!

After that, we watched the SC game against Fresno State. I love USC football! Go Trojans! The game was nuts and then with 2 margaitas, it was even more nuts! Don't forget, Bruins vs. Trojans on December 3 - the same day as the Christmas party! I promise I'll be a good hostess still - I'll make Joey set it on his DVR. That was my Saturday ... til next time!

so this is how we do it huh?

after much cajoling and much random thought, i have decided that i, too, would start a blog. i don't know how this will all look and what i can add to it so here goes. i guess i can build from here. anyway, i just wanted to say hello and to let you know that i was convinced that i would like another means to tell my story to the world - but i figure only you four will read this. anyway, now i can comment on dana's page. that's all i was really looking forward too. hehehe. so here i am. enjoy