6 posts tagged “parties”

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!

i believe that vegas-style for us encompasses going to bed around 4am everyday.

not something i'm use to but - VEGAS BABY!!!

as planned we did go to mgm for their buffet (best quality for buffet i've ever had) and we did go to see KA.

we didn't however, go to caesar's pure nightclub. in turned out it wasn't open last night. and any of the top rated clubs required a strict dresscode - not everyone had the appropriate attire.

so... with a bit of decision-making, we ended up going to venetian's V and to be quite honest, i'm glad we did. the club was small yet intimate. the atmoshere was great. but how we got in, was even better.

it all started with arvie and i trying to decode the directory map (these vegas hotels are huge!) the security guard came over (obviously due to the look of utter confusion as both arvie and i were pointing at different directions) to help us out. AND he told us to look for some guy name 'joe' and tell him that 'matt' sent us. and that 'joe' would take good care of us.

alright.

well, turns out joe took very good care of us. he waved our cover charge and gave us 2-for-1 drink coupons.

not a bad way to start off the night.

then tai, using his ultra, charming ways, talked to joe into providing us a bit of more excitement for the night.

the next thing i knew, we were being whisked away in a limo to another club where the cover charges were waved again (though no 2-for-1 drink coupons but you know, greed was never our colour anyway). [edit: learned afterwards that the first round of drinks were free]

what a night!

granted, we were dead by the time we got back to the hotel yet for whatever reason, we had enough energy to try and go to one more club.

this time, the guy wouldn't let us in for free.

i guess at that point, we got cocky and forgot we lost the 'joe' connection.

thanks vegas joe. you did us good last night!

• it was by far the best two year old birthday party i have ever been to. cathy's little boy, seemed like he was having fun too. i hope so, since it was all for him. though, i have to admit, the party was also very much for the adults. i think i realized this as i made my way to my 2nd bottle of beer (which is a lot for me considering how little i can drink in one sitting these days - especially as i hardly drink beer anymore). anyway, i had been waiting for this party all week. i had especially been waiting just to be in a social atmosphere with good friends and wonderful conversation. i laughed quite a bit last night which was a great release, considering all the tension and stress i have been feeling for the last couple of weeks.

• as usual, one type of conversation came up last night and it's the same conversation we usually end up having, though it's always disguised through various different ways and topics... but the underlying meaning always persists. and that's simply as to realize how old we really all are. this time, it was in reference to U2 and doug's partner whom he worked with last week - she's only 19 years of age. the radio was pumping out the tunes of U2's single from their joshua tree album, 'with or without you.' it dawned on doug that his partner wasn't even born when this album made it's debut. we sat there and basically counted back the years as to how old we were... and realized, with no real surprise but still horrifically, that we were talking about more then 20 years ago. of course, there's a tiny bit of depression that goes along with this reality, but i have to admit, mostly, i am simply just proud that we've come as far as we have in life. it's a true testiment of not just our own accomplishments, but of our friendships.

• 

  U2 by U2
  while i'll probably always be a fan of amazon, i still enjoy going into chapters just so i can hold the books in my hand and physically leaf through the pages in order to make a decision of whether or not i actually like the book i am looking at. i always go to the bargain section - the area with all the non-fiction books. keeping in line with last night's U2 topic, i bought the "U2 by U2" book for our small coffee table book collection. it's a beautifully crafted book with great photography of the band throughout their entire career (up to their achtung baby tour). the photo on the right is the paperback version. i got the hardback instead - for only $17.99.

• i also started to shop for my SIL's birthday present, as well as some bargain books for babies/toddlers for my niece's upcoming first birthday. for my SIL, i bought her this beautiful italian herb kit in which you start by planting the seeds in this nice planter it comes with and leaving it at the window sill before transferring it outside when the weather becomes nice enough (which is a tad later then the warmer weather we get here, since they live in t-bay). i also picked up these really cute cat and dog, mini-note pads (<- the link is to ecojet's pdf catalogue) for her.

• we went grocery shopping and well, what the hey... i picked up some of those instant chocolate chip cookie batter. we're about to make some right now. yup.

the saga of "the parents who don't rsvp to a kid's birthday party" continues...

well, no one replied back. so i sent out two invites to the parents whom i had an idea would be better at rsvp-ing, even though they weren't classmates of chaeli's first choices. luckily, i had the two parents' email addresses because they had invited chaeli before to their kid's party and you know, gmail saves like... everything.

they both replied back right away. amazing. not more then 24 hours from when i emailed them. i really didn't think they would reply back until later this week (especially as i was emailing them on a weekend) but just had a gutt-feeling that they would reply back compared to the non-replyers (just from the little interactions i've had with these parents in general).

i'm not sending any more invites out, though. i could, really. but to be honest, i'm not in the mood to do it.

chaeli will be happy with those coming and we've explained it to her about who's now coming and who's not. while there was some disappointment, she didn't dwell on it and was still excited about the party overall.

so lets hope that those that never replied will not just show up on the day of.

some tidbits left out from our past holiday hussle-bussle...

• a birthday cake that doug and chaeli baked for me - chaeli did the decorating:

• new year's eve party at my aunt's and uncle's, since my mother's lunar calender birthday also fell on nye. it was generally a very quiet night. the only non-family members with us was my doctor and his wife - he's pretty close to family, though. we ate a lot and then went down to watch the ball drop in time square, nyc. i also tested out his macro lens on my camera:

• this past weekend, we also celebrated my friends' 3 year old's birthday. good times... especially since the kids did craft and played in the gym at the community centre they rented out, while us adults sat back with some coffee and snacks, talking and laughing for a good portion of the party.

• our good friends from connecticut came into town to visit with family. a bunch of us met up with them for a late lunch at O&B. i had their spiced squash soup and their broccoli, leek and goat cheese quiche with a side, green salad. yum. at the end of the meal, chaeli and brayden played while the adults squeezed in the last bit of catching up. good times!

that's about it. all in all, it was a great week and a half.

i only got some reading done but definitely squeezed in as many movies as i could.