A new addition to the family!

Today I got to meet my cousins’ daughter, AMANDA!!!

I’ve been super busy for the past few days, so here’s a sum of the days in pictures…

Chili for lunch…

A pizza/baguette topped with pineapple, tomato, bell pepper, and onion from DeliFrance.

A wonderful dinner at uncle Chris’s!!!  Here’s his amazing blue cheese, tomato, red onion, mushroom salad…

Freshly cooked shrimp.

Chicken and potatoes, roasted to perfection with tons of herbs and garlic…

Homemade Reese’s peanut butter chip cookies!

Then I had a cappuccino from this baby, called the PrimaDonna!  It was so excellent, that I had 2…

Fully loaded on caffeine, we (me, Ezra, Chris, Steph, her husband Drew, and our friend Peter) went out to a bar called Ice, where we danced for hours…

The next morning (Saturday), I was feeling great since I didn’t drink any alcohol the night before, so I dragged Ezra to the gym with me around 10:30 for some cardio!

I did about 50 minutes of the same type of interval training I did on Monday on the treadmill, then hit the shower.  We stopped by Starbucks for some post-workout fuel and coffee.

Then we met our real estate agent, Vicki, to go see one more apartment.  At this point, our standards weren’t very high, considering all the weird places we’ve seen so far, however we were pleasantly surprised!  It’s a wonderful place located in New World Garden, on the first floor with a garden/patio area outside for grilling/gardening!

We were totally sold, so hopefully on Monday we’ll have a one-year contract with this place, and I can finally start decorating the place how I want

Saturday night was filled with the same yummy spread, here’s uncle Chris prepping the food!

Here’s my plate of food..

And a post-dinner photo opp…

Today, Ezra and I woke up around 9 to get ready to  go to Guangzhou to meet the new Moxon family member!  Actually, I woke up at 9, Ezra wasn’t ready to get out of bed until 9:45, and we left the house around 10, just to be sure we had enough time to get there around 12:30.

Here we are picking up some presents for baby Amanda!

It was pretty rainy today…

Check out this awesome bus with two levels of sleeping compartments!  I guess it’s not the Sheraton or anything, but these things are SUPER cheap if you need to travel long distances overnight…

I didn’t expect the ride to go so smoothly!  Normally, you add between 30-60 minutes to a destination outside of town, because people in China are driving “challenged”…but we arrived early, so we just walked around town for a bit, and hung out in the lobby of the Westin.

Then, we saw mom (cousin Beth) and dad (cousin Mike) with baby Amanda!!

In case you were wondering where Mike was, he was taking pictures with the family cam!

We went to this Italian place called Oggi for lunch, where they had lots of yummy pizza and other food (which I took pictures of…) but I felt that these photos were MUCH more important than food

Here’s mom and dad feeding baby Amanda!

It was so funny to watch them feed her, every time Mike pulled the spoon out of Amanda’s mouth to fill it with more food, she would start doing this…

Here’s Amanda jumping around

Can you believe she’s only 8 months old?!?  She’s about 25 lbs, which is in the 89% of her age!!!  She’s already a Moxon, going above and beyond the norm

After lunch, Beth took Amanda upstairs for a nap, and Ezra and I got a chance to talk more with Mike!  It was SO great to be able to catch up with Mike and Beth, in China of all places!  I can’t wait to go and visit them in Tokyo…

Ezra and I ate Brazilian food with Steph and Drew for dinner (and yes, I also took pictures…) but I’ve decided to leave you with this picture of Amanda and her mom and dad!!!

Priceless.

a LONG day of pampering…

Breakfast as usual for this girl:

Followed by a 4-hour extravaganza at WAL-MART.  We (Janet and I) started by first getting our nails done.

After that we went shopping!  I bought two new purses, which you may be seeing sometime soon…

I was TOTALLY starving, since I didn’t get back until 5pm!  That means I didn’t eat since breakfast, which is also NOT cool

I immediately grabbed a raisin bun and stuffed it with some PB, and munched on a bite of a brownie (all of which was eaten too fast to be pictured), then I made myself a bread, PB and banana sammy.

Then it was gym time!  I started by lifting chest, back, shoulders, then I finished with some tricep dips.  I was pretty tired after.  Then, I started running on the treadmill, until my left quad started tweeking out, so I hopped off and walked over to the spin room to do my own workout for about 40 minutes.

When I was finished, I went to the yoga room to stretch, and that’s where i met this American named Lianna!  She’s from Georgia and has been teaching in Dongguan since August.

We exchanged phone numbers and I hit the showers, before meeting Ezra to go get dinner!

We meet Stephanie and her husband Drew at the AMAZING Korean place we went to about 3 weeks ago…

We left feeling thoroughly stuffed!  I’m currently still in a food coma

MIA (from civilization) for the day

BOO to colds.  BOO.  I woke this morning feeling SUPER stuffy, so I was glad that I didn’t have anything planned for today.  I started off my morning with a breakfast of champions: kashi go lean, banana, and skim milk!  Did I mention I was eating this around 8:30am since I couldn’t sleep in?  Also BOO.

I decided to embrace the cold and be completely lazy all day.  I watched season one of Six Feet Under all morning, until I made myself breakfast-inspired lunch around 12.

Egg whites with lox, topped with the leftover green onion and blue cheese topping I had, along with a slice of bread (plus ketchup).

It was pretty good, if I do say so myself.  After lunch, I spent a good chunk of time researching venues/catering/djs/photographers for my sister’s wedding, then it was back to Six Feet Under.  This show is weirdly awesome, if that makes any sense at all.  It’s basically about a family owned funeral home, and all the drama that comes with it.

Then, around 3, Janet invited me to go to the market to pick up a few last things for her family.  I told myself to stop sulking about my cold and go out for a bit.

We stopped by this stand that had TONS of nuts and dried fruit!

I gave in and bought some dried kiwi, walnuts roasted in coconut milk, and a HUGE bag of macadamia nuts.  For a 5 pound bad of macadamia nuts (still in their shell), I paid: $12!  Seriously…if it’s so cheap simply because I need to crack the nuts myself, then i’m TOTALLY ok with that

We came home around 5, and I had plans to go to the gym, but since I was struggling to breath through my nose, I decided perhaps a day off would be beneficial.  So, I made myself another breakfast dinner.  This time I scrambled my egg whites with the lox, and topped with a little ketchup/bbq sauce mix. I heated 2 little pork filled buns as a side.  I don’t enjoy all the dough, so I just ate the yummy bbq pork that’s inside.

This was my attempt at a more intimate table setting…

Around 7, I was craving dessert, but I went with the healthier option since I didn’t go to the gym…

-sliced apple
-a piece of dried kiwi
-5 almonds

Then I watched Valentino – The Last Emperor.  I love fashion

Around 8:30, Ez came home from the gym, so I joined him while he ate his own breakfast-inspired dinner of eggs and smoked salmon (can you tell we’re trying to get rid of lox?)

Then, we watched Fantastic Mr. Fox.  I have to say, it was a pretty weird movie…but Ezra really enjoyed it!

Now it’s Thursday morning, and i’m feeling a bit better, but we’ll see about a gym date tonight…

A day with my running shoes…

Happy Tuesday!  I did a TON of walking today…

First, I had my new favorite breakfast, along with some morning blogging.

Later in the morning, I headed to the gym for an afternoon 6 miler. I did a slow pace of about a 10-minute mile, which felt really nice after doing an intense interval session on Monday!

After the gym, around 3, I had a post-run Nature Valley snack.

Then I decided I wanted to walk around town and get some Starbucks before meeting our real estate agent Vicki for some more apartment viewings at 3:30.  I was running a little late after leaving the gym, so I was speed-walking all over town to get to the agency on time.

We saw a couple of apartments, one of which was totally AMAZING, but a little above what we want to pay.  See?

It was really beautiful, but I don’t think we’ll be putting an offer on it.  Maybe after I get a job, and we still don’t have an apartment…I finally got home around 5, and boy was I tired.  I must have walked about 5 miles this afternoon!

I ate a Morningstar sausage pattie with ketchup to hold me over until dinner.

Dinner was some homemade chili!  I started off by browning about 1 1/2 pounds of minced beef in some olive oil.  Then, I added 2 cans of tomatos and one can of tomato paste.

Then I added 3 cans of kidney beans, one each of pinto and black beans, and the other can of tomato paste.

Here’s a pic of all the cans I used!

I used lots of yummy spices too…

Around 6:30, Ezra came home!  Here’s my attempt at a romantic dinner with limited supplies…

Since we didn’t have any sour cream, I improvised and used the last little chunk of blue cheese, and crumbled that together with some green onions.

Here’s a close up of my little bowl of chili with a slice of bread!

I ate light, since we had a basketball game at 8:30.  We got there around 8, and played until about 10pm!  I’m not really one for tooting my own horn, but I was on FIRE tonight!  At one point, I scored about 12 points in a row before the other team scored.  Woot-woot!  I was SUPER sweaty and hungry afterwards, so we came home, showered, and ate a post-workout snack of apples and almonds.

Now i’m still laying in bed this beautiful Wednesday morning because my nose is all stuffy, which means I MUST be getting a cold.  Grr…going to sleep all afternoon and hopefully kick this cold in the you-know-what!

TUNA!

Yesterday I didn’t fall asleep until 3 am!  To make things more interesting, I was only able to sleep in until about 9, boo…so I started myself off with a yummy breakfast of Kashi Go Lean cereal with a chopped up banana and skim milk!

I paired that with a can of Nescafe coffee

Then it was off to get a few things done around the house: laundry, sweeping the floor, hanging up clothes (because we like to just throw them over a chair instead of hanging them   ).  I also was able to blog and talk to the parentals and my sister!  It was a very productive morning.

Since I was in love with my breakfast, I had it for lunch!  Then I left for the gym around 2.  I love going to the gym between 12-4 because it’s so quiet!  All the machines are free, and i’m not bumping into anyone while trying to lift weights.

Today’s workout:

Flat bench press (12kg.): 3 X 12
Flat bench flies (8kg.): 3 X 12
Seated row-pronated grip (25kg.): 3 X 12
Seated row-neutral grip (25kg.): 3 X 12
Tricep dips (using 40kg. counterweight): 3 X 15
Single arm bicep curls (6.26kg.): 3 X 10

Then I headed over to the treadmill for this crazy workout (it’s all going to be in kilometers/hour because that’s how the treadmills are set up over here!):

00:00-02:00: 9.4
02:00-04:00: 11.0
04:00-05:00: 12.5
05:00-07:00: 9.4
07:00-09:00: 11.0
09:00-10:00: 12.5
10:00-12:00: 9.4
12:00-14:00: 11.0
14:00-15:00: 12.5
15:00-17:00: 9.4
17:00-19:00: 11.0
19:00-20:00: 12.5
20:00-22:00: 9.4
22:00-24:00: 11.0
24:00-25:00: 12.5
25:00-27:00: 9.4
27:00-29:00: 11.0
29:00-30:00: 12.5
30:00-32:00: 9.4
32:00-34:00: 11.0
34:00-35:00: 12.5
35:00-37:00: 9.4
37:00-39:00: 11.0
39:00-40:00: 12.5
40:00-45:00: 5.5 (walking)
Total distance: 7.5 Kilometers

I was literally pouring with so much sweat, that everyone who passed by my machine paused to look at my screen and see how fast I was running! It was one of those workouts where even though you’re exhausted, you feel GREAT afterwards.  After a shower, I stopped by the fruit and vegetable market to grab a few things for dinner.  I had about an hour to prep the food before leaving to meet Ezra at the real estate office to talk about our favorite apartment with it’s owner!

The meeting went pretty well, however we couldn’t sign the contract there, because Ezra needed to talk it over with the company first.  So we agreed to meet tomorrow at the same time (6:30pm).

After our meeting, we came home for dinner!  Since I already did the prep work, all we had to do was fry the tuna!

Here’s the salad…

lettuce
tomato
red onion
red pepper
green pepper
mushrooms

P.S. I didn’t know that the red peppers were spicy!  I bought those same ones before with Janet, and there was no spice at all…however the ones I bought were a little spicy.  Not jalepeno spicy, but also not bell pepper mild…

Here’s the Tuna!

We used the last bit of salad dressing that I made to pour over the finished tuna for extra flavor.

Here’s the recipe I made up:
1/4 C. olive oil
4 TBS. soy sauce
3 TBS. red wine vinegar
2 TBS. crushed garlic
pinch of salt and pepper

I had this amount, times 2.5.  It was a great Asian-inspired salad dressing, and one I will be making many more times

For dessert, we shared one of the Sunkist oranges I bought at the market!

The schedule for today:

blog (check!)
laundry
gym
meet Vicki to see more apartments (in case this one we like doesn’t work out)
meet owner of our favorite apartment to make changes to contract
basketball at 8!

We’ll have to see about basketball tonight.  After going to the gym and walking around this afternoon, basketball might be the last thing I want to do.  Perhaps i’ll better serve as a cheerleader

And the search goes on…

Happy Sunday evening!  This past weekend was so CRAZY, I forgot all about blogging!  So back to Saturday…

After having such an eventful Friday night, we didn’t get up until about 1!  Well, actually I woke up around 11 to blog about Friday night and catch up on some emails, but I didn’t wake Ezra until 1…then we made eachother breakfast.  He wanted bagels with cream cheese (woo-hoo for an easy meal), and he made me some scrambled egg whites with sausage and toast!

We shared a glass of mango, apple, guava, banana juice.  YUM.

After digesting for a bit, we headed out for meet a real estate agent to look for more houses.  We’ve seen some that we liked, but we wanted to keep looking around, in case some new apartments became available.  As we were walking to get a taxi, I looked up and saw this!

BLUE SKY!  Doesn’t that look like a photo in Florida?   See, China isn’t so dirty afterall!!  The weather was really nice, sunny and warm all day, however when you’re having to walk all over China to see apartments, too warm isn’t that comfortable

We found one apartment that was really nice, it’s in an area called New World Garden, on the 7th floor with a view of the lake!  Super pretty, but we’ll have to see what else shows up…

For dinner we met up with Stan and Ling (the couple we met for drink with on Friday!) at their apartment in New World.  We ate hot pot for dinner!  It was AMAZING.  They put the broth into a rice cooker and when it was boiling we added vegetables, meats, fish, etc.  SO yummy.  I forgot my camera, so I took pictures on Ezra’s iPhone, which isn’t here right now to upload pictures.  I’ll post some tomorrow!

We came home around 11, and passed out from our food comas!

Sunday was more apartment viewing, but we started off the morning right: Maple Leaf Grill for breakfast!
We ordered our food, and read the morning paper: the Austrailian Open finals were today!  We didn’t get a chance to watch them, but we found a recap of the finals match on youtube later.

Then part 1 of Ezra’s breakfast combo arrived…

Followed by Part II

Then my breakfast!  Mushroom, bacon, tomato and onion omelette with a hashbrown and toast (I left the hashbrown and a piece of toast)

Then it was off to the meet the real estate agent to look at more apartments.  We found 2 AMAZING places, but we’ll see what happens.  We made an offer for our first choice and the owner replied with a counter-offer (did I mention you can bargain for ANYTHING in China?) so we’ll see what happens.  I have pictures but I don’t want to jinx myself!  I’ll definitely show pictures once we get a place, then you all can make suggestions for decorating

In the later afternoon, Ezra and I had an appointment for a 90-minute couples massage at a place called SOKI Spa.  It was AMAZING!  (Mom and Steff, I am SO taking you guys there when you come!)

After our massages, we both were too relaxed to do anything productive, so we came back home and rested for a bit before heading out to meet our friend Art for dinner at his place.  On the menu?  Spaghetti!  He is Italian afterall….

He made his own spaghetti sauce!  The verdict: dark, rich, thick, AMAZING!

I had one serving of noodles, with about 2 1/2 servings of sauce!  Half of that was for bread dipping, naturally…

That was paired with a cup of coffee/Bailey’s, a combo i’ve never tried.  Not one of my favorites…Although the blueberry muffin (freshly made) was perfect!

I didn’t fall asleep last night until about 3am!  I was creating a budget spreadsheet for our apartment.  Yes, I am a nerd

Hope every had a wonderful Sunday, and have a great week!!

Mojitos, Gin and Tonics and Long islands, oh my…

Yesterday afternoon I spent almost an hour studying Chinese!  I can now speak random phrases like: the girl is swimming, the boy is eating, the men are cooking, etc.

Since I had a late breakfast, I had a light afternoon meal to hold me over for a bit.  Ham, swiss and mustard sammie and a mini pb and j sandwich!

I paired that with a few of these tasty clementines!

We had plans to play some badminton outside the house (without a net, just using cracks in the road), but the rain put a halt on that so we decided to go to WAL-MART instead.  I bought a few new DVDs, as well as some random food for the house.

When we got home, it was about 4, so I loaded up on a banana with extra crunchy PB and headed to the gym!

It was pretty busy when I went to the gym, so I only did a few exercises:

Chest flies (10 kg.) with the cable machine: 3 X 12

Chopping low-to-high (7.5 kg.): 3 X 12

Tricep extension (7.5 kg.): 3 X 12

Bicep curl single arm (5 kg.): 3 X 12

Then it was onward to the treadmill!  Again, I set it to Marathon mode and went to town   15 K!  It took me about 1 hr. 40 minutes, including my walking breaks.

After a shower, I dolled myself up and waited in the gym for Ezra to finish showering (he came straight from work, and only did about a 30 minute workout).

We (me, Ezra, Janet and our friends Chris and Bart) went to a middle eastern inspired place for dinner.  They served everything LAMB!  IT was so good…

Lamb skewers

Way too many bottles of beer (I only had 1 full glass)

Lamb over bread (I want to say crispy focaccia?)

Vegetable mix: It tasted almost like mini celery stalks!

A salad with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, yellow peppers, and a really tasty asian vinegarette!

Another vegetable dish, maybe bak choy?  I should really learn the names of these veggies…

DEEP FRIED DUMPLINGS.  Need I say more?  I will say that I only had about half of one, it was WAY too oily…

Tofu!!

REALLY tender lamb baked with a super thin crust of dough on the outside…

After dinner, we decided to get some gelato at this place called Ilcasa Gelato.  We choose 3 scoops: cookie, coffee, and blaeberry.  That’s right, blaeberry.  We couldn’t decide if they meant blackberry or raspberry, but it was by far our favorite flavor.

Also, I tried to get a picture of the gelato, but SOMEONE couldn’t wait 2 more seconds before devouring the entire cup, so this picture is as good as it got

We met with a friend of Ezra’s in Houjie for about an hour or so, before heading back to Dongguan.  We weren’t quite ready to call it a night, so we made a stop at the Pullman Hotel for drinks.  I started with a Mojito and Ezra had a Gin and tonic.

I actually didn’t enjoy my drink very much, so Ezra drank it.  I decided on a long island iced tea…ok, two…and I forgot to take a picture of them!

One of Ezra’s friends Stanley and his fiance Ling met us for more cocktails!  After another round, Ezra created a drink and had the bartender make it for me: freshly squeezed apple juice and vokda!  Very tasty…

Hopefully today’s plans include more productivity…like getting me a new phone and finding some new frames for my glasses!

On the run! I mean walk…

Today’s post will be slightly shorter, as I spent the entire afternoon searching for apartments!!

Yesterday, I spent a good 3 hours trying to post my blog, while doing laundry and trying to clean the room.  As you may have guessed, I got to everything except cleaning

Lunch was boring, but yummy:  4 egg whites, 1 Morningstar sausage pattie with ketchup and some pickles that I randomly found in the fridge.

We saw about 6 apartments yesterday, and walked all over this area called New World Garden.  Then we went to another area to view an apartment near the gym, but that one was REALLY shady…it was on the 26th floor, and I thought a stiff breeze would blow the building over!  Well not really, but I didn’t enjoy that apartment at all

We grabbed a Starbucks after we finished all the viewings and talked about the apartments.  We both agree that the second apartment we saw was pretty awesome.  130 square meters, 3 bed, 2 bath, and a plus: the master bedroom has an awesome walk-in closet and a bathtub!  The kitchen’s not too shabby either…if we decide to take it, i’ll DEFINITELY be posting pictures, both before and after since the wall paper is HIDEOUS.

We were going to go out to dinner, but then decided to just buy some ingredients and make our own meal.  That was, until we walked past Maple Valley Grill (best breakfast EVER).  I mean, it was right next door to the deli!  I had a salad with chicken, corn, cucumbers, tomato, onion and lettuce, and Ezra had an omelette with hash browns and toast.  We were about half way through our meal when our roommates Joe and Janet walked in!  Small world…so they joined us.

And yes, I am lame for not taking pictures.  Perhaps this picture I took of my breakfast will make up for my other non-existant pictures…

Again, lame for eating the same meal as I did yesterday…however, this time it was bread with jam in stead of pickles, and I had a glass of iced coffee too!

Now it’s off to study some Chinese (I didn’t get to it yesterday), badminton at 2, the gym around 4:30 or 5, then dinner in Houjie, and possibly bowling after?  We’ll have to see…happy Thursday to you U.S.A.ers!

Shoe Street

Can you believe it?  There’s an area in Houjie called “Shoe Street” where they basically sell TONS of designer shoes (both real and fake) for ridiculously cheap prices….

I went with some wonderful women: Bev, Janine, Connie, Jackie, and Janet.  We all piled into Janine’s van, and it was like going on a school field trip!

I was able to find 2 pairs of shoes!  Granted they were exactly the same style just different colors, but everyone needs a great pair of brown and black heels.  Plus, these were Oscar De La Renta!

There’s a funny story behind these shoes.  One of the women, Bev, who joined us in Houjie saw these shoes and wanted a pair of the grey ones.  Since I had originally only wanted the grey pair, we tried to bargain and get a lower price for the two pairs together.  The women who was selling them, wanted 160 yuan each, but finally agreed to budge a little, and give them to us for 300 yuan together (150 yuan each, or about $22).  We weren’t sure about the price (even though they were super cheap), and decided to hold off on the purchase and see if we found anything better (since this was only the third store we visited).

After about an hour and a half of no successful shoe buys, we decided to go back and buy the pairs of shoes.  When we returned to the store, there was no one inside!  After about 3 minutes of calling for the women owner, a man showed up (whom we later found out was her husband) and sold them to us.  Our friend Janet (who speaks Chinese) was talking with the man for about 2 minutes before we realized that she had been trying to get him to lower the price!  How low did she get it?  Two pairs for 200 yuan (100 yuan each, or $14!)  We said yes, yes, yes and were actually running around the store looking for a bag to put the shoes in, before the wife came back…Janet actually stayed behind to look at other shoes, and found out that the man who sold us the shoes was the owner’s husband, and she was VERY angry that he had sold them for so cheap!!

Since the price for all the pairs of shoes in that store was now 100 yuan each (for us*), I told Janet to buy me the same pair in brown!

*once an owner lowers the price of a pair of shoes, that same price applies for all shoes of that style.  That’s why the owner was so mad when her husband sold them for so little!

The only downside to the shoes was that the sizes aren’t neccesarily correct.  For example, i’m a size 8.5 and I bought these heels in a size 8.  Sometimes the shoes run big, and sometimes small (otherwise Steff, I would have bought you like 10 pairs!!)

Lunch was at an Italian place called Maccheroni.  We started off with some bread with tomatoes and olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Then it was salads!  The 6 of us shared two salads, one was a fruit salad over lettuce, and the other was a salad with mushrooms, onions, cucumbers and tomatoes.

Then it was the entrees.  2 pasta dishes: Spaghetti Bolognese and Seafood Linguine.

I didn’t try the spaghetti and I only had a piece of shrimp and a piece of squid from the seafood linguine.  However I did help myself to the pizza that we ordered:  1 with garlic and tomato sauce, and the other with pepperoni and a little bit of cheese.

The dough of the pizzas weren’t that great, so I only ate 1 of the garlic, and 2 of the pepperoni: crustless.  Overall, a really tasty lunch!

In the later afternoon, I went to the gym.  I did about 45 minutes of resistance training: pull-ups (with a counterweight), push-ups, cable rows, chopping low-high and high-low.  About 3 sets of 12 for each exercises.  Then I got pumped up to run on the treadmill.  I discovered a WONDERFUL feature on the treadmills in the gym.  Marathon Mode.  This mode allows you to run for as long as you want, without a time/distance limit!  It was beautiful.  I ran 12.5K, which is about 7.75 miles.  I felt pretty sluggish for the first few miles, but after about mile 4, I felt like I could run forever…

After a shower, I got picked up by the driver to go get Ezra from work, and then dinner with friend’s in Houjie (Houjie is about 30 minutes away from where we live in Dongguan).  I wore my new Oscar de la Renta heels!

Since we arrived a little early, we stopped in the Q Hotel lounge for drinks.

I had a coffee and he had a beer…

We met about 12 other people for dinner at the Q Hotel, where they have a really good restaurant called Teppanyaki Yakiniku.  In the Chinese tradition, there was a LOT of drinking involved, however I was able to limit myself to about 1 1/2 glasses of red wine.  Here’s the spread!

Drinks were unlimited, so I had about 3 freshly blended orange juices!  They also had a TON of other blended fruits to choose from, and you could even combine fruits if you wanted…

Around 9pm, after dinner was finished, Ezra and I left to head back home, since he had an early meeting this morning around 7:30.  When we were about to get into the car, our friend Larry ran outside with my camera, since I forgot it in the restaurant!  He snapped a quick photo of us before we left for good…

Clearly not the most attractive facial expression on my part…

I’m off to make myself brunch, then it’s Mandarin class time (on Rosetta Stone), and then we’re looking at more apartments this afternoon.  Happy Thursday…

Best boyfriend. Ever.

Yesterday totally flew by! I woke up around 8 to finally post my last blog after a week of delay, and then it was badminton at 10am! I have never played before, but I have to say, it was tons of fun!! Almost like mini-tennis…

I got home around 11:30, then showered up and had lunch with Ez! Normally he just eats at the office, since he’s about 20 minutes away, but today he brought Subway sandwiches for us!  I had a yummy Subway Melt…

I spent most of the afternoon trying to finish uploading pictures for my blog which took FOREVER!  We share the wireless internet with his friend who lives upstairs, and they have an ethernet chord plugged into their computer, which immediately makes their connection faster, AND they like to leave windows running on their computer all day, grr….Needless to say, I wasn’t finished with my post until 4pm!  After that, it was time to load Rosetta Stone!  I was able to get a hold of the Rosetta Stone – Mandarin, levels 1-3!  We’ll have to see how well that helps me, otherwise i’m going to have to enroll into private classes….

Reviews of Rosetta Stone, anyone?

I made a quick ravioli + vegetable dinner since we had plans to play some pick-up basketball at 8.  I started frying the vegetables around 6, but didn’t boil the ravioli until 6:20 because I didn’t want it to overcook.  I pulled it off the stove and drained it around 6:25, assuming Ezra would be home by 6:30, but when 6:40 rolled around, I started to get a little annoyed with myself for cooking it too early!!  I called Ez to see when he would arrive, and he said in almost 10 more minutes!  I figured the pasta would end up cold or mushy…

But I was wrong, it was awesome!

And guess what Ezra had when he showed up?  FLOWERS!  He was later than usual because he had stopped to pick some up on his way home!  I have such a wonderful boyfriend…

Basketball was pretty fun last night, however we had only 8 people so we had to play just half court and not full court.  I was actually feeling a little sluggish, so I sat out the last quarter and cheered everyone on!  After we came home, I had us go upstairs, finish The Lovely Bones and do some core exercises.  SUCH a depressing movie!  It had really great acting, but the plot was such a downer…

After a shower, we both were craving a snack, so each of us made something to share with the other.  Ezra prepared a slice of German bread with a little butter and cheese…

I cut up an apple.

We wrapped up the evening with an episode of Hustle.  Hustle is a British tv series about London-based scam artists who “relieve” greedy marks of their cash.  IT ROCKS.

Now it’s 9:15am Wednesday morning, and i’m off to Houjie to go shopping for shoes!  Maybe some purses and bags too…