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December 29, 2005
Pictures of Dessert
Yummmmyyy!! Dinner was deliciousss! Minako made the Japanese chicken rice bowl. It was seriously the BEST!!! I couldn't get enough! I made the Asian dressing from my new pampered chef salad dressing maker (One of the christmas presents from Seymen!) which was so good that Minako has put in an order with Seymen to contact his pampered chef representative, to buy one for her ;-) And lastly...the CREME BRULE!! It was AWESOME!!! It tasted sooooooooooo good and we had so much fun with the torch!!! Here's some pictures:
Beth and Minako showing off the dessert and blow torch :-)
The Creme Brule Dessert!
Minako eating her first bite of dessert.
Posted by beth at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
Creme Brule
I'm making Creme Brule tonight for dessert!!! with my new creme brule making set that Chrissy gave me for Christmas! :-) Minako is coming over and she's going to cook the chicken rice bowl (similar to gyudon but with chicken instead of beef) YUMMMMYYY!!!
So, I'm so excited for my last day off of the year tomorrow :-) I am going to scrapbook ALL DAY LONG!! I started last night and got the cover picture and the 1st page done. (It took me 4 hours!!) Anyway, it's going to be sooooo cute. I hope Seymen's parents like it. I have the best work station set up right now too :-) Originally I was going to sit at the kitchen table, but I realized that since I have the fun bed table that we bought at chase pitkins I can slide it over my bed and work from there with the TV on, my computer (and NEW monitor!!!) at my fingertips, my electric heater to stay warm, and ALLLLLL my scrapbooking materials and tools spread out on my bed. The only tough part is finding a place to sleep. I feel like I may find little pieces of scrap paper in my bed for a while ;-)
Let's see what else...I'm feel like this week has taken forever to end. I've only been at work for two days, but it seems to be taking forever. I think that sometimes, short weeks feel even longer than regular weeks! Weird huh?
Well anyway...that's all I have for now. I'm just waiting for one last thing and then I can finish up my work and GOOOOOOOOO HOMEEEEEEEEEe until NEXT YEAR! Wahoooooo!!!
Posted by beth at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)
December 28, 2005
New Pictures!!
Hi all!!! Just posted pictures of Christmas in NYC!! Check 'em out!
Posted by beth at 06:31 PM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2005
Merry Christmas!!
Hi!!! Merry Christmas!!! I hope you had a great holiday!! I did. I'm totallu exhausted. NYC was a blast...and a whirlwind. But we had a great time. We even had time to walk around and go shopping. We all went down to ground zero as a family (which was very sad...but I'm glad we went. It is so crazy!) and then walked to Chinatown where we split up and did the "kid" thing for a while. (Basically shopping and walking around Chinatown until we had to meet up for the Sex and the City Tour.) We had some great food! Lots of drinks and headed back to the airport. The Lion King was EXCELLENT!! We all Highly recommend it. It was awesome, and the costumes we're amazing. I cried twice. :-)
Anyway, I'm completely beat after days of celebrating with my family. It's the first night since Wednesday night that I've slept in my bed. You can't imagine how excited I am to sleep.
Anyway...I'm off for now. Nightly night!
Posted by beth at 02:14 AM | Comments (0)
December 22, 2005
NYC!!!
We're leaving for NYC in 4 hours!! Yeay! A weekend in NYC with no subways ;-) We are still not sure how our transportation is going to work, but I'm confident that we'll find a way from the airport to the hotel. From there...well, we've packed our walking shoes ;-)
Anyway, I'm dying to go on vacation. I have 1/2 a day today until Tuesday of next week off!! I can't wait!! I've had the worst couple of weeks. So I am really going to ENJOY some relaxing time. I have two brand new books that I'm dying to read...and of course we're celebrating Lucy's first Christmas!!
So, I just realized that I'm so tired and my brain is completely mush...nothing that I'm typing is coming out coherently...so I am going to just say: Merry Christmas!! Happy Channakah! I hope you all have a great holiday!
Posted by beth at 08:13 AM | Comments (1)
December 18, 2005
Our Christmas Tree
Hi!! Well, the weekend has come and gone already! Time is flying by that my weekends feel shorter and shorter. But the good news is...this weekend is a REALLY LONGGG weekend!!! Yeayyy Christmas!!
So, friday night I had dinner @ my dad's with my little niece :-)) And then met Seymen, Maki, and Nate at Shiki for dessert. Afterwards, we went out on the town for a drink at Mex, and then another at Matthew's street. We didn't last too long though. I was pretty tired so we came home and I zonked out for the night. Saturday was the day of preparation. I cleaned the apartment, and then Seymen and I went out and bought our Christmas tree. It's soooo beautiful. We had alot of fun picking it out :-) I made Seymen hold up every tree until we found the perfect one :-) We were both so excited to get it up! Maki and Minako came over to help decorate and in return I cooked us a holiday dinner. We had a roast, onion potatoes, and broccoli. We had a million different desserts too! Maki and Minako brought the tastiest Fruit tart pie. Seymen bought Godiva truffels from the mall, and we had candied chestnuts that Seymen's parents sent. And of course candy canes from the tree :-) (Here's pictures)
Today was a lazier day. I worked and then had family night while Seymen stayed home working and wrapping the "secret" presents that I wasn't allowed to see :-)
So hopefully (but doubtfully) this week will be short and fast. Thursday I'm supposed to have the day off so we can fly off to NYC for Christmas with my dad. We're doing a Sex and City tour and seeing the Lion King. I even got Chrissy to agree to eat lunch at a Turkish restuarant! We'll see if we have time!
Anyway, I can't wait for Christmas!! I had a little chat with my boss and she gave me two days off of work in between Christmas and New Years because I've been working so much overtime. Hopefully, I won't pay dearly for that time...but I intend to take it so I can spend more time with my family.
So! All the CHristmas shopping is done, the presents are wrapped under our tree! It looks so festive!! Seymen bought a special light dimmer for our tree. It looks like an ornament, but when you touch it, it dims three levels. The only sad thing is, we are going to miss Maki this year because she's going to Japan. But I'm looking forward to her call on New Years :-) And she's so excited to see her little niece too :-)
Posted by beth at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2005
Washington D.C.
Seymen and I had a WONDERFUL time in D.C.!!! Everything worked out perfectly! Even with the delays due to snow on the East Coast on Friday. Our plane was delayed for an hour and a half, but since we were checking from home, it worked out perfectly. We arrived in Baltimore and got our rental car. We ended up "haggling" the guy @ Hertz and got an upgraded car with the "Never Lost" Navigational system (GPS). Well, thinking we were all high tech...we started out on our 37 mile drive from BWI to our hotel. Since we were late, we ended up cancelling our dinner plans with Uncle Don, and half way there re-routed ourselves to Levantes, a Turkish restuarant on 19th Street. That would be 19th St. NE...NOT NW, or SE, or SW or whatever...Well Debbie our GPS (Which we named due to the long amount of time we spent listening to her voice) sent us to what we can only describe as the Ghetto of D.C. That was the first address that I (Yes, personal accountability) typed in. That was clearly not the right place, since it was a dead end, so we tried another location...again what I typed in. That took us a few blocks over, across some big main street, and to another dead end in a different Ghetto. :-) Throughly confused and fustrated with Debbie and the Typer ;-) (and starving to death because it was 10:15 at this point) Seymen took over the typing and found the restuarant in the Yellow Pages of Debbie. FINALLY!!! We made it to Dupont Circle, where we managed to sit (around the block from the Restuarant) for 10 minutes. We made it just in the nick of time though! The restuarant closed at 11:00PM and we get there at 10:35. We had the most delicious Turkish meal (for it being in the U.S. and all) of Lentil Corba (Pronounced: Chorba, Means Soup in Turkish). Seymen was in heaven!!! And Cigars (Felio dough with feta cheese and some other stuff), Pide (kind of like a spicy pizza with Beef), and Lamb Siskabob. (Pronouced: Shiskabob) It was delicious :-)
The next morning, Seymen and I ventured out into the city. We found our way to the subway (with a little trouble since there was no "I" street where the subway stop was supposed to be, come to find out, it was 1 block over), and 20 minutes later we were seated in a very nice, CLEAN metro car! (Which ironically was made by Alstom, a company Seymen worked for during co-op!) We went to the White House (Dissapointed to find out you can't go in unless you make reservations 6 months ahead through your congressman), saw the National Christmas Tree, the Washington Monument, and the WWII memorial. (If you can't tell from the pics. we spent a lot of time on the National Mall.) Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel so we could leave for the Eastern Shore.
We (Seymen, Debbie and I) drove to Uncle Jim and Aunt Margy's with no problems...well relatively no problems...if you don't count when we couldn't find their house which was 3 house away! We spent the rest of the afternoon with them until they had to run out to a holiday party. Seymen and I stayed at the house watching "Decorating the White House 2005" HGTV Special that they had recommended. We learned all about the decorations and saw the different rooms in the White House on TV. Shortly after, Uncle Jim and Aunt Margy's nephew (technically my cousin?) arrived with his wife Elenor. I don't think that I have ever met Sam, or if I did was very little. But they were so friendly. THey had just come back from a party at the White House!!! So we compared notes, and shared what we learned on the HGTV special with them, while they shared their "real life" experience! It was really a nice night, talking and eating a delicious dinner.
Seymen and I headed back to the City later that night. In the morning, Uncle Don drove in and met us at our hotel, and took us on a walking tour of D.C. We went back to the national mall and saw the Vietnam memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korean Memorial, (WWII again, and Washington Monument again), and then hit up two museums...the Smithsonian American History museum and the Air and Space museum. Seymen loved them both. It was hard to keep track of him and Uncle Don. They were both all over the place :-) The Air and Space museum was the last of our stops. By that time I was beat from walking all over in the cold...so I suggested that we leave a little early and have a beer to "warm up" :-) Uncle Don took us to this Ole "E" something grill, that I can't remember the name, but mentioned that it was one of Bill's favorite places. We sat there re-cooping for the walk to the Metro for a little while, and then headed back to the Hotel so we could pick up our car and Debbie and go back to the airport.
So, that's our trip! Blow by Blow! Check out the pics that go with the Story. We were both exhausted last night, (hence the late posting of the pics) and today my legs were so sore from walking all over D.C. that I could barely walk. I feel so old!!
Posted by beth at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2005
Dinner Pictures
Hi!! Here's pictures from Dinner @ Alex and Cathy's house last night. Wednesday nights Jena and Alex always watch Lost. This week AnG decided to invite herself over, and since my class was moved to Tuesday, I invited myself over as well! It turned out to be a good thing, so I could re-establish my friendship with Alex since he didn't like me earlier in the evening when I made him stay at work later until we finished posting ;-) He always tells me that I'm lucky it's me that is on the project because anyone else he'd be mean to. :-) hehehe. He says that I am delicate and he tries to be nice to me so I don't cry ;-) hehehehee :-) Anyway, he's so funny when I have to ask him for emergancy help...I'll call him on the phone and say: "Hiiiiiiii Alexxxxx...can you do me this huge thing...it's due about five minutes AGO!!" and my nice friend Alex will say: "...grumble grumble #%!$$!@^#%$&...groan...groan...groan...OK Beth my dear. Whatever you need...grumble groan @&$^#$!!**&@#@!" Then he'll hang up the phone :-)
So anyway, that was really fun last night...Today, the good news is, I've been ordered to take the day off tomorrow by Jonathan. So :-))) I get the ENTIRE day to myself...Well except for a little bit when I have to call into a meeting...but other than that...the day is MINE!! I think I'm going to sleep in until 11!!! And then I'm going to go to JoAnn's to buy some stuff to finish this project I"m working on for Seymen. And they have CHristmas wrapping paper on Sale, so I'm going to get some of that and start wrapping presents...And maybe a Christmas tree skirt for our tree. We let my mom borrow our good one from last year, but we don't think she's giving it back, so Seymen went and bought us a new one. Next weekend, Maki and Richard are going to come over and help us decorate the tree!! Yeayyy!!! I'm so excited! I love Christmas. I need to get a new wreath hanger for the door.
And then!!! Seymen and I are flying to Washington D.C. for the weekend!!! I'm so excited! I can't wait to go. My uncle just called and he's going to meet us after we land and eat with us...Then SUnday he said that he'd come out with us too! It's going to be so fun! I can't wait. Anyway, I have to go show Seymen the presents that I bought after work today. I showed them to Maki and she thinks I may have gone a little overboard on Lulu :-)
Posted by beth at 09:59 PM | Comments (1)
December 07, 2005
Vacation Cancelled.
The mini-vacation lasted about 1 hour. Then I was called back into work. Ohhh well...It felt too weird to have free time anyway :-) So, I'm back at work...waiting for out stuff to post...It's ALMOST time that I can go home...again ;-)
Posted by beth at 05:51 PM | Comments (0)
Mini-Vacation from Work!!
Everything is out for review for both projects!!! So I just took off the rest of the afternoon...ALL TO MYSELF!! I don't know what to do! I'm so excited. I called Seymen because I was so excited to have some FREE TIME DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS!!! And he was really confused. :-) Anyway, I'm so excited. First night in a while that I will have NOOOO WORK TO DO!!! I can watch LAW AND ORDER ANDDDDDDDDD LIFETIME!!! It's gonna be a great afternoon/night :-) (Sad isn't that my life revolves around being able to watch TV)
AND, I actually have time to post!! I'm so excited! I've missed posting. There's so many things that I would have liked to have posted but just didn't have the time...so here I am :-) Sooooo happy!!!
So last night I taught English to my student. She's amazing. She memorizes everything! I'm so proud of her. We have these flash cards that we are making and studying in prepration for her citizenship test. We are BOTH learning about American history! It's crazy! I'm not sure I would even pass the test if I were required to take it! But she's learning so fast :-) Anyway, this is the first time since I took the new position at work that we've been able to have 2 lessons in one week. Lately it's been only one day a week because every wednesday at 5:15PM I'd realize that I couldn't leave work, or something would blow up...but FINALLY that didn't happen last night. Two nights a week makes such a huge difference for her.
Anyway, other than that...Seymen and I are going to D.C. this weekend!!! Yiipppeee!! VACATION WEEKEND! Then my neice is coming shortly after! So many exciting things are coming up. I love the holidays :-) I can't wait to give presents. I'm having a hard time keeping them a secret. I already spilled on Christmas idea to Seymen, so now I have to find something new. I did buy one little item earlier this week...but it's sooooooooooo good, and he's gonna loveeeeeeee it that I really need to not spill this one. :-)
(Oh yeah, and just an update on the previous two entries. 1. I didn't get to watch either lifetime movie because I ended up working all night. 2. I didn't win the pizza. I guess 10 edits and the total came in at 21. --Thank god not 57 like Downer Diamond guessed, but not 10. Dave and Emilios both won and they get to share the pizza :-)
Posted by beth at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2005
See, it's not all JUST WORK!
In our team meeting this morning for one of my projects. We have a running poll to see how many alpha-critical edits we are going to receive today by 5PM . The winner gets a free Pizza :-) Everyone was being soo optimistic until Jonathan guessed: 57 edits!!!! We're referring to him has "Downer-Diamond" for that ;-)
Posted by beth at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2005
Christmas Movies
My favorite time of year for TV is Christmas. They always have the lovey-dovey Christmas movies on lifetime for about a month straight. I'm thinking that I might leave work, (on time!!! for the first time in weeks!) go shopping for a baby shower gift (due tomorrow!! Ekkk!! procrastinator!!), get gas, and then sit at home watching Christmas movies on lifetime. We went grocery shopping yesterday so there's TONS of food at home that I can cook!!!
Here's the agenda for the night: 7:00PM to 9:00PM - On the 2nd day of Christmas - A security guard's life is transformed after nabbing a young woman and her niece for pickpocketing.
From 9:00 to 11:00PM - Recipe for a Perfect Christmas - A fledgling food critic agrees to visit a struggling restaurant if its chef will date her meddling mother.
Now the dilemma...I was planning on going home early/on time and then working again later tonight...but with these exciting Lifetime movies, I can see myself not catching up on work...Or sitting in my chair with my computer all set up, but watching TV instead...Aghhhh...what to do...what to do...
Posted by beth at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2005
Messages from Below
I think my butt and my back are sending me subliminal messages. They are saying to me: "No more!! Get out of your chair!!! Don't sit on me ANYMORE PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". I can hear them talking to me right now. OK...off to bed.
Posted by beth at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)