Shopping in the US

What a long day of shopping! Rhoda, my BFF and I decided to do our "Boxing Day" Shopping in the States even though it had snowed the night before and both of our moms wouldn't let us take one of their cars, we were heading out there anyways! Besides, it wasn't really snowing when we left and we were praying that it would be clear when we got back. Since, I had missed out on Boxing Day yesterday which I heard was super busy and I cannot shop in all the madness, we decided to head down to the states to do some "boxing day" shopping. Wait, ! I did have an early Boxing Day shopping at Aritzia, picked up a pair of Rock and Republics for $175 (normally $235+) cos they started their Boxing Day sale earlier in the week. I still needed to find a pair of denim for my runners and flats cos both my 7s and RRs are 34" inseam which are perfect for my heels not so good with my flats. Our goal was to find a pair of inexpensive designer jeans at Nordstrom Rack in Bellevue! First stop of course was the Seattle Premium Outlet in Tulalip cos Rhoda had to hit a few stores in there, she ended up buying a really beautiful Michael Kors winter coat at a great price plus she's been wanting this jacket for a while and it finally dropped to an affordable price. I didn't find anything in the outlet but that's ok cos I was very focused on what I wanted and needed. We decided to head out after an hour cos we still had a long drive ahead of us. We drove for an hour and decided we should now think about lunch, every time we head to the States, we always lunch at Jack in the Box. We started to head towards {a city where the rich people live, can't remember the name}'s downtown but could not locate the Jack in the Box, after 30 minutes of driving in circles, we decided to find the next thing closest place where they serve food and it was Denny's. Boy was that a mistake! Our tummies did not feel good for the rest of the day! After lunch, we headed our way to the first destination which is the mall that we had gone to last time which has Sephora, Forever 21 and Wet Seal. I picked up a cute knit sweater with a hoodie for $10 USD and Too Faced Lash Injection mascara which I have heard can do wonders for Asian eye lashes! After shopping at the mall, we were on our way to Nordstrom Rack in Bellevue. Gosh was it ever super busy!! We headed towards the designer denim rack and I was a bit disappointed to see such a small collection of the smaller sizes. I quickly scanned through it and grabbed an armful of jeans in a few sizes to try on. Right after the jeans, I headed over to the shoe collection. Wow, there were so many designer shoes!! At such low prices!! Marc Jacobs for $120!! But I was focused cos I only brought $150 USD and that is all I'm spending! Luckily I didn't find any shoes that really stood out or maybe I wasn't really looking for anything in particular. I went through the rest of the store and picked up a couple of tops to try on as well. Once inside the changing room, I didn't like the tops but really loved the jeans! I really liked the William Rast pair but they were priced at $80 (normally priced at $240!) and were def. too long which meant I would have to wear them with my heels, the Rich and Skinny pair were perfect but in the wrong size, I needed one size up (which I tried looking for but all of them were gone!!!) and finally ended up buying a really nice pair of Vigoss Studio jeans for $40 USD!! Just within my budget! I really like them too, back pockets are set a bit lower than the usual and very dark denim which is what I love! Feeling a little bit bad about leaving Kay at home, I picked up a really cute Vans purse for her which only cost $10USD! Rhoda ended up with a couple of pairs of shoes but in the end decided against them (not in love with them) but she did find a pair of work shoes for Nel. After the Rack, we headed next door to the DSW and another great place for shoe lovers or not (I have a terrible addiction to shoes), Rhoda picked up a beautiful pair of heels by Michael Kors (her fave. designer) and I picked up a cute pair of brown shoes with pom poms for only $25 USD and a pair of leopard red trimmed slippers for $5!! After our shopping, it was def. time to head back and we thought we were doing great time until we realized we were now stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic! Traffic wasn't too bad all the way but we kept getting stuck in it when there was an exit to another suburban neighborhood. As we were getting close to the border, we had the strangest weather, at some points, it was snowing pretty hard and other parts, it was just rain or clear. Very strange. Finally when we were 5km from the border, we were stuck in the traffic to get into Canada, we had to wait an hour before reaching it and lucky for us, the customs officer decided to wave us through even though we spent over the tax free amount! It was a great day and lots of great shopping finds!

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Finally, the day has come and gone (thank goodness!)!! The stress and overdraft in my bank account leading up to this day was insane but worth every bit of it!! Christmas arrived with a white bang, yes a white Christmas! Vancouver got snow on Christmas day which is unheard of since we haven't seen snow in many many years.

The day started off with me driving out to Richmond to pick up my brother in my grandma's car cos my car and the tires cannot handle the snow. Gosh, I forget how far my brother lives! His car is out of commission and therefore, I had to go and get him. Before heading home, we decided to hit the local Starbucks for a coffee to go boy, was that a mistake! It took forever to order and get my Americano! I guess everyone was getting a bit edgy cos nothing is opened on Christmas day except Starbucks and 7-11!

Once we got home, I helped mom prep for dinner, we were having a very Asian dinner, sirloin steaks wrapped in bacon, steamed King Crab with butter dipping sauce, veggies and dip (mine of course), buttered corn, ceasar salad (didn't have that cos I don't like Caesars, that's why I brought up the veggies and dip), and of course, butter seasoned roasted baby white potatoes (my grams' specialty). Gosh, there was so much food and leftovers! We were totally stuffed! Kay was getting a bit anxious cos the new rule is no Christmas presents until after dinner! She didn't even get to open one this morning cos she opened all her gifts from Rhoda et all last night! After dinner and clearing the dishes, we decided to rest a bit and have coffee with dessert, mom made a chocolate kahlua and vodka cake with a rum glaze (that was my idea). Delish!

Finally, after all that waiting, Kay was able to open gifts around 9pm! What a sight! All those gifts under the tree were really for her!! She got so spoiled!! Every year my mom gets really creative in trying to trick my brother when opening his gifts and this year, she got him good. She put a bottle of Coke in a big box with lots of tissue and when he went through every tissue, that was all. Boy was he ever disappointed although he tried to hide it but of course, taped to the bottom of the box was a lucky red envelope! Christmas with the family is always very entertaining! Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Christmas (Eve) Dinner

Tonight, Kay and I headed over to Rhoda's house for Christmas dinner. This is our very first Christmas dinner together since we've been reconnected. Rhoda made a delish meal, all home cooked and she started early in the afternoon! We most def. appreciated everything she made, it was super yummy! It was also nice to see Jess and Mom since they've just got back from Hong Kong. It was a great night with lots of yummy food and great company. We decided to open our presents since this will be the only time we will see each other until after Xmas and since Kay and I, well mostly I, started a new tradition of opening Xmas presents after Xmas dinner on Xmas day, I thought it would be nice for Kay to open a couple of presents tonight. Kay got some great gifts from Rhoda and Jess! I can't believe Nel and Rhoda bought me something cos she was not suppose to!! They had already gotten us an early Xmas gift! Ari!! It was a great night and we really appreciate having such good people in our lives! Wish you were here HonHon!

Brunch at Crave

Today, Jas and I woke up early (on a freaking Sunday!!) to have brunch with Vince and Meryl at Crave on Main street. Apparently, they have a really great brunch and I agree, brunch was delish! But boy was it super busy today!! Lucky for us that Jas and I headed out early to get ourselves a table cos Vince said he was going to be there early, no reservations for brunch - first come first serve basis but me knowing Vince a little too well knew he wouldn't be there early if on time (which he wasn't by the way) and we got a table for us, 10 minutes after they arrived! The restaurant is really contemporary and I wish I could have taken more photos but my camera died before I got the chance. I, of course had pancakes but the next time I'm there, I'm def. gonna try the eggs benedict cos that's what Vince had and it looked delish! What a treat when Vince and Meryl took care of the bill as a Xmas present for Jas and I. Those two are super sweet and it was so nice to finally catch up with them! It's been too long!

Midnite Shopping!

OMG, I could not believe how busy Metrotown and Walmart were! It was madness!! Guess all those last minute shoppers were doing their last minute shopping! Kay and I headed over to Metrotown to pick up a few more gifts and then over to Walmart cos they were open 24 hours until Xmas eve! We just had to go and check it out, it was crazy how long the line ups were!! We waited in line for almost 35 minutes!! But now I can say, I've done the 24 hour Walmart!

Cute Ari!

Olive Garden

Tonight, Rhoda and I had dinner plans with Travis, Grace and family. We headed over to La la land (Langley), a party of town that is very far far away when you are from Vancity, for dinner at the Olive Garden. I had no idea there was an Olive Garden in the lower mainland. What a great dinner deal they have, every entree comes with unlimited amount of soup or salad and bread sticks! I ate too many bread sticks with soup and couldn't even finish half of my pasta! Lots of leftovers to take home which means I don't have to worry about the next lunch or dinner!

It was so nice to see Travis, Lisa, Grace and the babies. Rhoda and them were meeting up to exchange gifts and Travis and Grace felt bad that there was nothing for me but I reassured them I was only there to see the kids and I didn't pick anything up for any of them either. I had given them both a Christmas card with a lucky red envelope for the babies. The food was pretty yummy and as always the company was great. They are really really genuinely nice people and so good to be around with. I can't wait until Lisa is due, she's expecting another little boy and they've picked out the name already! Can't wait! I am def. not ready to have any more babies of my own but so happy and excited about Lisa's newbie!

Xmas Lunch

Today we had our division's Xmas lunch at the Renaissance Hotel in the Coal Harbour Bar which is a rotating rooftop restaurant. The view was spectacular but I didn't feel so good sitting or standing at our table. I could feel the restaurant moving and even though it wasn't moving that fast, my tummy and head def. knew it was moving. I had to leave the restaurant a few times to be on solid and still ground. But the buffet was very yummy (what I could swallow down) and I didn't let a little queasiness stop my tummy from sampling the dessert table! All you can eat dessert, mmmmm......A nice treat (besides the dessert table) was an award that was given to one of our draft person who has been with the company for 35 years! Wow, what an achievement or is it??? Kidding! Good Job Scottie!

Happy Birthday Rhoda!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RHODA!

What a great house party, intimate and cozy! Many of Rhoda's good good friends showed up and a few didn't but it was still a great night without those party poopers! No I'm joking, I'm pretty sure Lisa was not up to visiting cos she's so pregnant! It was nice to see everyone and everyone brought something yummy. I was suppose to bake the cake and feel so bad that I didn't but I did make a homemade dip with a veggie platter. But there was soooo much food left!! It was such a fun night and I think Rhoda had a great time! I was the last to leave cos I'm the BFF and I helped her clean up after the party. Great night, must do these more often. More photos of flickr.

PS. The black Xmas tree with the purple decorations look so awesome! Great job in decorating it! Head over to my flickr account to see it!

Busy Afternoon

I have been sick for the past week and it really hit me hard on Wednesday and Thursday (out of commission for two whole days!) but today, feeling a bit better but decided to not take the chance of getting really sick so I decided to take two (or four) cold / flu pills that my mom bought from the USA. These pills are super strong and mask your sickness for up to 4 hours!! It's not even legal in Canada and I am waiting for the side effects to kick in. I was suppose to bake a birthday cake for Rhoda but didn't have enough time since I was running around all afternoon with my mom. I ended up picking a really pretty cake at Michele's but not the one I wanted, I wanted a fresh mango cake but it's not in season, so I settled for a fresh fruit cake, we'll see how that taste. After all the running around with my mom, I finally went home to prepare my dip for the veggie platter and wait for Kay to come home. She's got a babysitting job tonight but both she and Erin are running a tad bit late. Can't wait to hit the party, it's going to be super fun!

Louis Vuitton

I made a trip to the Louis Vuitton store at Hotel Vancouver cos HonHon is going to buy me a new agenda! I love having an excuse to go into this store even though I don't really need an excuse but having one makes it all the better! He is taking my Medium Monogram Agenda which means he's going to buy me a new one and I've decided on the Small Agenda in the Vernis line (cos it's my fave. line!) in the Pomme D'Amour cos I love this red, it's one of the best reds LV has come out with. So excited, I'm going to get it next month! Yeah :)

Busy Busy Weekend!

Gosh another weekend of shopping! Household shopping that is. We were all over the place today. After lunch, I headed over to Rhoda's to help her finish the last bit of cleaning at her house, we've been cleaning out her house for the last couple of weeks cos she's having her b'day at her place, it's going to be a potluck party. After a bit of cleaning, we decided to take a break and head out to shop. First stop was IKEA to pick up some stuff, I ended up picking a few items up, over to Superstore to pick up some more household items and I ended up with an under the bed storage plastic case (great for storing shoes!). We then decided to head over to Metrotown to do a bit more shopping, we wanted to check out Home Outfitters for a shoe rack but the shoe rack wasn't as nice as it looked in the ad and it was a bit costly. We decided to try Zellers for shoe storage and I found a couple of shoe racks on sale for 50% off! What a deal!! I also picked up some Rubbermaid storage cubes for Kay's room to store all her crap! After shopping, we met up with Kay cos she was already at Metro with her friends. She had a babysitting job so we drove her home to pick up her stuff and headed over to McD's to pick up some dinner for her. After dropping her off at the sitter's, we decided to come back to my place and put together my shoe racks, wow, they actually fit quite a bit of shoes! It doesn't seem like I have THAT MANY PAIRS of shoes after putting them on the shoe rack and putting the "summer/spring" shoes in the plastic storage case. After that, we decided it was time for dinner so we headed back to Burnaby to try this new Thai place on Kingsway (new to me cos I've never been) and it was pretty authentic and yummy! Must bring HonHon there to try since we'll be spending a bit of time in Burnaby while he's visiting Vancouver. After dinner, we headed back to Rhoda's to finish cleaning her room and boy, does she ever have a ton of clothes!! I can't believe how much she can cram in that small bedroom closet of hers! Well her place is now ready for her house party next Saturday, I can't wait to see her black Xmas tree with all the ornaments!

Shoe Shopping

Me bad.... me very very bad..... I picked up 5 pairs of shoes in the last two days. I could not help it, I know I am very bad. I have been looking for snow boots since the snowstorm last weekend and I thought I found a couple of pairs at Aldo but instore and online are very different. The ones online had a faux fur trim but not fully lined with faux fur and the soles on the bottom of the shoes did not have a good grip for the winter which meant these were really "fashion snow / winter" boots. After no success at Aldo during my lunch break, Rhoda sent me a text to tell me the Aldo Outlet store was having buy one, get one free! That's better than Payless BOGO! (Buy One, Get One half price) We decided to head over there after work to take a look and see if I could find anything, I didn't find any boots but I did find two pairs of really cute shoes for $50! Buy one, get one FREE, that's $25 each! After Aldo Outlet, we headed over to Shoe Warehouse on Granville cos we noticed a huge sign on the front window saying 2 pairs of boots for $90 and that's a great price esp. since the both of us were looking for snow boots! Well, the sale did not apply to the snow boots only to "fashion" pleather high boots :( But Rhoda and I found a great pair of boots for the snow and faux fur lining for $90 a pair. We both got a pair, she got them in brown and I got them in black, they even have cute little pom poms :) After Shoe Warehouse, we headed over to Holt Renfrew to look at Fidelity jeans cos there was a Fidelity Sample Sale we were going to and I wanted to check out the jeans and see how the fit is but we didn't end up there, we ended up at the designer sale!! Designer shoe sale!! But I couldn't find any Stuart's in my size :( but I did find a pair of funky Pumas in my size and at a really good price, $50!! We did try to find the Fidelity jeans but we couldn't find any :( We decided to call that a night as I went home with 4 pairs of shoes! Then today, I ended up checking out B2 on Robson cos they are also having a designer shoe sale! My boots were on sale!! I went in to see them and try them on again but found a pair of Stuarts that I was looking at the other day in my size!! Soooo pretty!! I have a huge shoe problem, I loved them so much, I had to have them! Five pairs in two days.... but I didn't buy ANYTHING at the Fidelity sale cos I didn't like the way the jeans fit on me so I saved $100 from there!

Shopping in a Snowstorm

Nothing stops us from shopping! Not even a snowstorm! Rhoda and I had plans to hit the Family and Friends Warehouse Sale at Torre Tagus in Richmond. I wasn't even sure that it was open but yep it was and gosh, there were a lot more shoppers than I had expected who would trek out in 10 cm of snow to shop at the warehouse sale. There were a ton of great stuff and gosh, I couldn't believe how great the prices were, although I was trying to stay within a budget, I had to put a few things back :( But when we got to the cash register, everything was 50% off the white tags so everything was even CHEAPER!! I quickly went back to grab the two items I put back :) I picked up a really cool laundry hamper for Kay and I, some candles, a really nice wine bottle holder, a couple of Xmas gifts. It was great, all under $50!! Nel and Rhoda ended up picking up a really cool black Xmas tree for $65 which is a great price cos these usually go for $300+! After the shopping, Nel headed home and we headed over to Canadian Tire (to find a shovel for Rhoda and a ice defroster spray for my mom) and Aberdeen Mall to Daiso. I love Daiso! So many great things for $2.00!! I was looking for plastic file folders with clips for my important and bulky documents and some regular flat clear plastic folders for other documents. I wasn't sure how many I should pick up but don't have enough and def. need to get some more. After Daiso, we headed back through the snowstorm to have dinner at my mom's. Mom had a ton of questions for Rhoda about her chinese movies and dvd burning which I could not be any help of. It was a great night and so cool to go shopping in the snow!

Snowed In!!!

First day of December and the first day of SNOW!! Amazing and what a beautiful sight!

Today, I was suppose to have lunch with Jas and we were going to do a bit of shopping downtown but the weather was super cold and it was snowing!!! Jas and I decided to call lunch another time, maybe some time during the work week as we both didn't really want to head out in the snow. I also had to cancel my evening plans which was a birthday/housewarming party in Mission. But I didn't want to take the chance of driving out there and getting caught in the snow storm. Earlier on the news, there was a snowfall warning and I decided to take the warning seriously. Besides, my little VW bug would def. not make it to Mission and back through 5 or 10 cm of snow!!

Since I canceled my plans, my mom decided she wanted to go out in the snow and that we should take my grandma's car cos grandma's car/tires can handle the snow to run a few errands. The snow was not coming down too hard in the beginning so I figured it would be ok to drive out there and the main roads aren't so bad cos the salt trucks and snow pushers were already out on the roads. My gosh, were we ever wrong!! The snow kept coming and it was so FREEZING cold out there!! Already, I had on a couple of layers (including a cashmere sweater) and a big down filled jacket with a hood and scarf but my rain boots did not work in the snow. My feet were freezing and my jeans were def. not warm enough, I should have worn some long johns or tights under my jeans!!! I def. am investing in a pair of snow boots cos I think everyone should have some esp. living with weather like this!! It was predicted that we were going to get snow for the weekend and I actually went on Robson to look at some but didn't buy any cos I didn't think it would actually snow and if it did, not like this! Plus the practical ones are ugly and the fashionable ones, hmmm... not sure if I actually want to spend that much money on a pair of snow boots. We quickly ran our errands so we could get home as soon as possible. After our errands, mom was upstairs making dinner for us and Kay decided to take Ari out in the snow. Gosh, did Ari ever enjoy the snow! He is so cute, he was jumping and chasing Kay and eating the snow!! It was great to finally come in and have some hot chocolate though :) After playing in the snow, Ari needed to take his bath and he was not too happy about that. But now he is so soft and clean! Great day in the snow!