106 posts tagged “family”

sometimes i wish i had that magical, twitchy nose like that samantha from bewitched. ah - when t.v. shows were a league of their own. in a good way.

and as much as i wished i had powers to make my closet, or any space in my house, either big or small, become instantly organized and clean in matter of a milli-second, the reality is, of course, that i can't do that. and even if i could, would i really be using my powers just to clean closets?

anyway, this is something i have been wanting to do since september but something always came up. and as we had no plans today, i decided to go for it.

two hours later, i am left with just my cd case and one half of a shelf piled of magazines to go through. and i just can't do anymore. two hours in a closet is enough! i will do that half a shelf and cds another day.

most importantly, i organized all the christmas presents that i bought. yes, that's right. you heard me.

not only do i organize my christmas shopping lists into spreadsheets where there is one spreadsheet for each - my familly, doug's family, doug and chaeli and misc. gift... not only do i create another spreadsheet to correlate with the other four, but this one being by store, either online or off, so i don't end up running all over town, hitting stores more then once... but at some point, i organize my gifts so that all the gifts going to thunderbay are in one or two large shopping bags, and i do the same for presents for chaeli, doug and my own side of the familly.

there is a chaotic period where i shop and just pile everything in the corner of my walk-in closet, still in their bags/boxes.

it was driving me crazy. now, they are all organized. all i need to do is pull them out in the order that they need to be wrapped - doug's family being the front in line.

yup.

i'm psychotic.

there are a lot of parties, celebrations and events being piled into our already booked weekends from now until the end of the year.

doug and i have one weekend this month where nothing is scheduled. nothing - for the whole weekend. and just that one weekend alone. chaeli will be staying at my parents' place.

and you know i'll want to head out somewhere nice for dinner. probably with friends, actually, so we can have an adult night. where, i don't know. somewhere new and interesting.

i love this season. i do. i (knock on wood) just hope that we all stay healthy enough to enjoy all these fun things we have planned. a run-down of events we've got schedule:

- ada and hoa's duo birthday party
- cathy's daughter's birthday party
- SCAW charity concert followed by dinner ath roger mooking's kultura
- stuart mclean's reading/music concert after dinner on baldwin street
- disney on ice followed by a visit to city hall and dinner
- visit from MIL for an extended weekend
- visit to a christmas tree farm

and then, of course, christmas and new year's. and ta-dah! hello 2010!

it' not halloween yet and i've finished my christmas shopping. how crazy is that?

i think ensue asked if i'm finishing it earlier and earlier each year. well, i don't think so. :)

but this year, is a bit different. my MIL is coming first weekend in December which means that she will be exchanging the christmas loot when she's here. i needed to get it all done in time to wrap before she comes. and no, i haven't started on the wrapping. SOME needs to be left until after halloween.

 

 

so we're here in niagara falls for a couple of nights.

at the moment, we're hanging out at our hotel, just resting up after touring around to some wineries.

we'll be heading out in about half an hour to walk clifton hill and maybe decide on where we want to eat.

i admit that i was disappointed that i couldn't take part in nuit blanche this year. while chinese moon festival and my uncle's birthday were celebrated at my aunt and uncles home on the same nute as nuit blanche, that wasn't the reason why i couldn't go. after all, the dinner party ended around 10pm which would have allowed us to go until around 1am (since it's an all night event). but doug had to do the practical part of his course this weekend and had to be up fairly early. a part of me wondered if i should have gone on my own but no. i had to take care of chaeli on my own the next day. and man - it is not easy doing that when all you want to do is sleep!

next year. it's something i hope to do for sure.

anyway, despite the disppointment, it was a wonderful weekend. chaeli stayed at my parents' place on friday night so the anal nerd in me spent friday night cleaning the house and reorganizing chaeli's summer to fall/winter wardrobe. just as i suspected, the pile of 'too small' clothes was three times bigger then the pile of clothes that fits her. but most of them were mix-matches of tops and bottoms that didn't all go well together. geez - that kid sprout up big time this year.

i also went through her huge pile of books on her night stand, which was so huge that half of it was on the floor underneath the little table. her usual bookshelf, which is very small and a part of her closet) was jammed pack. i had to put some of the bigger books on the very top shelf. i'm going to have to invest in a kid's book shelf to put her books away in. while i have no issues deciding on toys to give away, ones that she's outgrown, i have a pretty huge issue with getting rid of books. i do have a small pile of maybe 8 books i'm prepared to donate to her school, but that's about it. she's got so much more that i didn't even make 1/8th of a dent.

doug came home just near the end of my organizing and cleaning. we decided to head out for a late dinner at a local vietnamese restaurant. i had the lemongrass, grilled chicken, rice, shredded pork and fried egg. doug has his usuall vermecelli with an assortment of goodies in it - vietnamese spring roll, beef roll and shrimp paste on sugar cane. we shared a cold spring roll appetizer and some spicy, fried squid appetizer. what i love about vietnamese food is that it's so affordable. with all that we ordered, it only came to $35 after tips and tax.

saturday morning, i headed off to another power-pump class, making it the first time i've done three in a week. it was at 9:30am which helped getting my butt out of bed early. as usual, the class was great, though this instructor probably would not be considered my favourite one of those i've tried. she wasn't bad but her program was a bit too repetitive. not enough was mixed up which made it easier, i felt. i compensated by adding more weights to my routine.

afterwards, i headed up too shop for chaeli's fall/winter wardrobe. while i was at the mall, i also bought some stocking stuffer items for christmas. i was able to get everything done before 1pm which was nice - i had a few hours to relax and unwind before going over to my aunt's place.

dinner was great, as usual. my doctor and his wife joined the party as well and we had such a great night laughing and chatting away. the food was fabulous though i wasn't able to really dive into it as my appetite has shrunken. it was good, though. at one point, i was able to stop and remind myself that i was satisfied. that any more eating would have just been out of habit and pleasure. but that i would suffer later by being overly-stuffed. so rather having more steak or pasta, i opted to having a couple more of the grilled portebello mushrooms (which were just amazing, anyway, but light).

• when i went to university for the first time, mom started to give me (as a side gift) a care package for christmas. this would basically cover the 2nd part of my school year in terms of supplies - shampoo, soap, tooth paste, etc. of course, after i moved home, this all stopped. but now that i'm living in my own home with my own family, she still continues to do this. it was a bit strange at first - after all, i'm now taking care of my own family and can afford to buy my own toothpaste. but still, there's something sweet about it. i've come to look forward to my care package. it's not what's inside it that matters - but the symbolic representation it offers from a mother that still looks after her daughter. as we get closer to christmas, i remind doug that we don't have to stock up too much on things that i know we'll be getting from mom soon enough.

 

• i'm looking forward to fall this year. and i'm hoping that fall will stay a little while before winter hits. it's such a shame that my favourite season of the year is so short. but i do love fall. i love it's smell, the breeze and it's colours. it's also full of fun activities - hiking, apple-picking, farmer's market (during harvest time), thanksgiving and halloween. there's just so much to look forward to but unfortunately, not enough weekends to do them all.

 

• we're having thanksgiving at my parents' place this year. usually, my aunt and uncle always hosts both thanksgiving and christmas but we've decided that thanksgiving should be at my parents' place. they just bought a deep turkey fryer. i'm excited about that alone! mmm... deep fried turkey. for those who've tried this, you'll agree that it's not at all greasy. the skin is crisp and there's no grease clinging on the outer skin part only, but because it fries up so quickly, it seals the meaty area from getting greasy inside and locking in the juices.

 

• there is so much to do in the next couple of months, including a live reading-performance from one of my favourite canadian author, stuart mclean. ada got us tickets and i'm psyched to go - especially as her and i have been talking about it for the past two years.

 

• christmas seems far away but really, it is just around the corner. i've started christmas shopping. in fact, i'm nearly done all my stocking stuffers (except for doug's) and need to focus on just the main gifts. the only person i've finished the main gift shopping is for chaeli. and that's only because when it comes to toys, especially popular ones, there's too much of a risk for it being sold out before christmas. plus, i bought her collector item toys from transformers, revenge of the fallen. some of them are already sold out. anyway, as usual, i plan to finish my shopping by early november so i have time to mail it to my in-laws. i have a great list this year and am excited to see how my ideas are received.

 

• christmas activities are also really high on my list which is part of the reason why i like to get the shopping done early and out of the way. this year, i'm wondering if i want to do the nutcracker ballet again. i didn't think i would want to do it every year but i feel like it again. it is such a great treat to experience. and of course, especially as this will be ada and hoa's last year in toronto, before moving out west, i do hope to go the the 'sleeping children around the world' charity concert. it's held eary december and kick-starts our christmas holiday season.

i know it's been a few days since we've returned from our disney world trip.

but i am still thinking about it. a lot. i don't know why... this is probably the first time i've felt this way about a vacation since my amazing adventures in thailand back in 2001 (i backpacked through two cities there with my very best friends - ada, hoa, tai and arvie). even years after that trip, i still think about it with complete fondness. it wasn't just where i was and what i experienced, but it was the perfect group to experience it with.

perhaps that is why i feel similar to our recent disney trip. it has been the best, successful family trip i've had with doug and chaeli. we've been on vacation together before but this is, hands down, the most memorable and most fun we've experienced together!

i know some people can not stand disney - it's a large corporation which is so commercialized, so geared towards branding, marketing and basically, making a large profit. i know the reality behind the perkey mickey ears logo. and while i do prefer a vacation that centres around natural, scenic views and a choice to explore off the beaten path, disney world is different. they really do make a family vacation magical and i wouldn't have known how magical if we hadn't stayed at one of their resorts (which is a first for me - in the past, my parents and i have always stayed outside of disney world which now i have learned, isn't all that much cheaper now that disney opened up four value-resorts).

here are my favourte photos from our trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shyeyes/sets/72157622234727185/

i'd like to say that we ended of our journey with perfection. unfortunately, poor chaeli has come down with a fever. it didn't develop until we got back to our resort room today. but i knew she was coming down with something (while doug kept on saying that she was just tired - when will dads learn? mommy-psychic powers should never be challenged).

of course, i'm worried that she will have an unpleasant time tomorrow on the way home, as our flight doesn't leave until 6pm. we will try to keep her as comfortable as possible, of course. poor kid. but at the same time, it's good that she didn't get sick at the beginning of the week. she was, at least, able to enjoy disney.

there were some magical moments for her at disney.

the first was her chance to meet five of disney princesses during our character-dining breakfast. she met belle, sleeping beauty, ariel, snow white and cinderella.

then later in the day, while we were visiting 'the living seas' pavilion, one of the employees had just finished lecturing during the afternoon feeding of the fish. she offered to stick around for further questions. before i knew it, chaeli had already run up to her with a good amount of questions. the lady was so impressed with chaeli's enthusiasm that the three of us got offered a special, behind-the-scenes tour. she lead us up a winding stairway where we found ourselves at the very top of the massive aquarium. it was spectacular! and a special privilege. usually, you have to pay for a tour to be in that area. plus, it was a private tour for just the three of us. upon exiting, one of the dolphins swam by just in time to bid us farewell.

we took off first thing thursday morning in search for mickey. what we didn't anticipate was to find both mickey AND minnie. chaeli was beside herself as this was the first time seeing minnie up close and personal.

and as if meeting both mickey and minnie were not enough (as well as the princesses), she got to see them all come out in a spectacular performance infront of the castle. the 'dream along with mickey' is still a family favourite. i always get a tug in my heart during this show but even more so, i love watching chaeli's facial expressions. :)

lastly but not least, we were waiting to line-up for the musical, 'beauty and the best' today, inside hollywood studios, when a disney attendee started to chat chaeli up. she then gave chaeli and us a vip pass which gave us 3rd row and centre seating. at the end of the show, chaeli was lead to the front of the stage where she was presented with a special rose by belle and the beast (turned back to a prince). this rose is only given out five times a day and can not be purchased anywhere else in disney. she was also given a certificate for honourary princesses.

you can imagine how special chaeli was feeling at that moment. :) here is the video capture:

we planned ahead to take a break mid-week. for those who have been to disney world, you'll know how tiring the days can be. espeically more then two days in a row. breaking it to three days in a row and two days in a row makes it easier.

so for today, we stayed at our disney resort hitting the gift shop, the arcade (where we collected over 350 tickets to exchange for a prize - to do after dinner), and two pools - one shaped like a bowling pin in the 50's section and one shaped like a flower in the 60's section. we're now back in our room, showering and getting ready for dinner.

it's definitely a needed break but i'm looking forward to going back to magic kingdom again tomorrow. this past monday, we didn't have time to find mickey or minnie so we'll try to over the next two days.