Sunday, December 19, 2010

Christmas will be over in one week - OR - Let's just call this a memorable night....

Today is December 19th 2010 and I have no idea where this year went. But it will be over in twelve days. Let's see what this year brought. I took an entire ELEVEN days off work, during which Aaron took me to the Bahamas to make up for his absence on New Year's last year, I went to Germany/Turkey, and got stuck in NYC on my way there and I took my sister to NYC this past weekend. Oh, and I took my birthday off because I believe nobody should have to go to work on their birthday. So I decided to take an entire two full weeks off next year and go to Germany - maybe stress free for a change. This year also brought a lot of sad things. Aaron lost a lot of friends who will always be remembered and taken home way too early but I believe there was a different plan for them and their job here was done. There was a lot of babies born, just to name two - Malik and Zachary. Malik is my soon-to-be-aunt's little one, who is adorable and Zachary is one my close friend's baby and he is a little bundle of joy as well. It was both mom's first-borns and they have had to make some big adjustments. But it is all worth it.
Yesterday we had our Company's Christmas Party and I was the designated driver. Well, I really volunteered, since I do not drink. I suggested Dillon and his girlfriend could ride with us, so we did not have to all go, plus that meant they could drink as well. So that's what we did. Party was supposed to start at 7pm, so they came over at 6.30pm. Introduced them to the doggies and we left. Well, there was an accident on 635 so it took us about an hour and 20 minutes to get onto 635 and my car started smoking. Great. Perfect day for that. I started freaking out. Awesome. Turned on the heat to take some heat off the engine and it stopped smoking. We still decided to pull over to the next gas station to check the water. The gas station we thought was coming up was closed down so we pulled over to the walgreens next to it. Dillon called his uncle to make sure what was wrong really was wrong and we got some liquid to put in the EMPTY tank. Cool. Car was fine after that and I was not freaking out anymore either. We finally got to the Christmas party at 8.45pm, hmph. Just a reminder. We left the house a little after 6.30pm and it was in Addison at "300". We say hi to everyone and grabbed some food, which was really good. Then we started bowling, that was fun. I actually won a $50 gift card, yeay. I guess overall it was a memorable night.....

Sunday, December 12, 2010

In Neeeeew Yoooooork..... Are way too many people around Christmas time - and Jasmin and I were right in the middle of it this weekend!!!

I could finally embrace my Jasmin this past Friday (December 3rd). Her plane arrived late - but better late than never. We were at home around 7p and she settled down. We went grocery shopping and then she went to bed. Our Saturday plans included a trip to IKEA in Frisco, a baby visit and going out with my co-workers. We did not do the latter. Jasmin was knocked out on he couch around 10.30p and Dillon (our organizer LOL) was sick. Oh well, we decided to turn my kitchen into Santa's bake shop that weekend and so it smelled deliciously like Christmas Sunday night. Monday and Tuesday Jasmin came to the gym with me so my co-workers could meet her and she could work out. On Monday I am gonna work her out - for free of course LOL.
Anyway, on Thursday we went to New York City. I went to work from 5am till 7am and we went to the airport. Thanks to Delta our plane left DFW about 90 minutes late so we did not make it to the hotel till like 6pm or so. We checked in and went right to explore the city - straight to H&M. And we were starving. Thank goodness I had rebooked our hotel Wednesday night to one right on 7th and 53rd street so we didn't have to take the subway in and out the city. We went to sleep kind of early b
ut we had to be well-rested for Friday because shopping is hard work and that was the program after breakfast at Lindy's. So Friday morning after we had a delicious breakfast we went straight to niketown. We both got a pair of awesome shoes. Jasmin is so in love with hers, I think she will always remember this trip because of those shoes, haha. They were the last pair in her size too and they were never sold in Europe, so lucky her. Honestly, we could have bought a whole bunch more there and the staff was really awesome but we decided to just stick to the shoes. After that we went to lululemon. Jasmin really enjoyed that store and one of the ladies that worked there on Friday asked us where we were from. I told her that Jasmin was from Europe and she said my accent sounded European with some southern accent mixed in there - I guess she got that right. We had an awesome experience there as well - very friendly staff. We had to take a break after that and grabbed some coffee at starbucks. We talked to our parents on our way back towards H&M and there we got some things for me. I was so excited to be in there, Jasmin only got some accessories and judged my choices in the dressing room. The cashier there was very slow. I'm sorry, but back in the day as I worked for H&M my supervisor would have had a talk with me, especially since the line got longer and longer. We dropped our steals off at the hotel and recharged the phone, since that was our guide and about to die, and rested for about 30 minutes. Then we headed to Katz's deli on east Houston street - all the way across he city, 50 blocks away from our hotel and we walked it. Unfortunately, as we got there we didn't find anything we liked so we headed back to Times Square to find something to eat. Jasmin was Miss Grumpy-Pants by then because she was starving. But after I fed her she was my happy Jasmin again and we got souvenirs for her friends. We were beat after all the marching back and forth and watched a movie at he hotel - in bed. Saturday morning we went to a different breakfast place around he corner. We just beat the breakfast rush and were seated right away. After breakfast we chilled at the hotel for a little bit and then walked to our age-appropriate culture attraction - The Museum of Sex. We learned a lot there and saw some very disturbing things. For example - did you know that it is normal in the animal kingdom to have sex partners of the same sex? I thought that was very odd, because back in the day I learned that dolphins and chimpanzees are the only other creatures besides humans who have sex for reasons other than reproduction, aka pleasure. Apparently that was wrong. We refueled with some coffee and went back to the hotel to relax a little in the lounge and change. Around 4pm we went on our way to JFK. The concierge told me that the train we are supposed to take was not going that day because there was something wrong with the doors. Too bad because that train departed RIGHT infront of the hotel. Long story short: we had to fight ourselves through ridonculous masses of people on Times Square to get to another train station where another train departed. We asked to make sure we were right and that guy only told me half of the directions and asked for weed instead. Yea, about that...... OMG. There were some weird creatures on that train to say the least. LoL. One lady kept on flashing the passengers (top and bottom!) and some soccer kids smelled up the whole cabin thingy. The weed guy was on that train as well and he kept on moving around in such a weird way that we were more than happy as he got off. We made it to JFK eventually, checked in real quick and went through security. I got us something to eat because we had to board soon and Jasmin and I were happy to be at the airport and to have something to eat.
It was an awesome sister-weekend, but we will never go to NYC again when it is Christmas time - unless we feel like we need a mass snuggle session while being pushed through the crowds.