On Celebration

This morning, I woke up and decided to go to the local grocery to buy some ingredients for cupcakes. I bought frostings, candy sprinkles and chocoloate chip morsels. I never thought of this thing until this morning. I just suddenly had the urge to make happy birthday cupcakes for Horacio. I was getting excited as I was preparing the cupcakes, making sure I don't miss out a letter. Since Horacio was coming from his parents' house and left at later time than I ecpected, It was kind of stressful. I was trying to put them all together before Horacio comes at the same time hoping that we would have enough time for him to blow out the candles. With God's grace, he arrived just on time and safely. Preparing the cupcakes was fun. I felt like a child trying to put something together, I have never done such thing before, although I contemplated on doing it a couple of times. Horacio loved the cupcakes and was surprised - that's all that matters.

After the cupcake candle blowing, we headed out for our four o'clock dance lesson at Fred Astaire - Dance Chelsea. We have been wanting to take ballroom danicing after watching a couple episodes of "Dancing With The Stars", and I thought it would be a great birthdya present for him. So I got us a half an hour (much needed) private lessons (since we have no experience in ballroom dacing) and an hour of group lesson. Today, we just had the private lesson and we learned the basic steps of Rhumba and Salsa. At first I thought the instructor was going to give up on us, especially on me. A couple of minutes into it, we were both learning the steps and picking it up and learning the under arm twirl. It was really fun, especially dancing with the person you love.

After the dance lessons, we headed to Zerza for dinner. The other thing that we both enjoy the most is our "adventureness" with food. We went there not really knowing what to have, and left satisfied. The food was absolutely sumptuous. For drinks, we had Mimosa, the place is supposedly known for it, but I didn't really think it was too great. Then, we started off with hummus and zalouka (i think that's how it was spelled), and spicy prawns with cuscous. The hummus was okay, but the zalouka was much better. It's made up of roasted eggplants and stuff, it's so yummy. The spicy prawns, although not spicy at all, but it was great as well. As our entree, Horacio had the Lamb Tagine Tfaya and I had the Mrouzia Beef Ribs. The lamb was great, it has the sweet taste that just makes you want another bite. The beef was also to die for. The meat (both the lamb and beef) was so tender that it seems to kind of melt in your mouth and it just bursts of flavor. For dessert, yes we had room for dessert, we had flourless souffle. I am sorry if I just sound so redundant, but there seems to be no other words, it was just oh my goodness. Horacio and I went home really satisfied and with hopes of going back to that restaurant soon.

I am just thankful to God for providing us and for keeping an eye on us. There are so many things that I thought I would never do or enjoy, but being with Horacio just made me see more things and enjoy more of life. As for someone who is afraid of the dance floor, he really got me into dancing, enough said. :)

Here Comes The Bride

Yesterday we had a little "Bridal Shower" here at work during lunch. She's getting married this September 9th in New Jersey. The married ones gave the bride-to-be some piece of advise. Some of them was right out funny ("Tell your husband that everything is gonna be alright, as long as you agree with me"), to weird ("What is mine is mine, what is yours is ours. The chores should be divided."), to a very nice ones ("Go on dates, don't forget to spend time with each other." "Stay happy and enjoy each other." "Compromise and communicate.") Of course, the mention of having kids wasn't forgotten.

To the bride to be, congratulations and best wishes. :)

To Be or Not To Be

It's weird how we tend to become someone who we hate. They said that most people turn out to be just like their parents, that the fruit doesn't grow far away from the branch (or something like that). Just like Sawyer from Lost, he became the guy that he hated the most, the guy that killed his mother and father.

During my high school days, our teacher would let us pass a blank piece of paper with our names on it around the room. We would all then write one positive aspect of that person and a negative aspect, anonymously. When we received our papers back, we realized that for most part, what we wrote in our classmates paper, we saw on our own paper. For some, we questioned why they wrote what they wrote (we knew each other's handwriting).

Parents have great impact to their child/children's life. No doubt about it. Especially when a child either looks up tp his/her parent(s) or longs for acceptance. A parent may generalize something or may twist the fact about a person's race/culture and just observe the group of people the child would hang out with. I, personally, was asked before if I would go out with any guy that is out of my culture. I replied, no. I always thought that I would end up with a Filipino or Chinese. I just never thought it would happen. I guess that's why there is a saying such as "Never say never".

Family Dinner

Last night, the family and I went to dine at Carmine's. It was a good meal, didn't overeat (like we usually do). The weather was perfect, the atmosphere during dinner was good and the food, once again, didn't fail our appetites. We even had room left for tiramisu and strawberry shortcake. It was really yummy!

Afterwards, we went to Toys 'R Us and fooled around like 6 year olds. My brother went home with a Mr. Potato Head-Vader. As soon as we got home, we played with it. As much as to my mom's surprise, Mr. Potato Head doesn't do anything but change appearance. Yep, my mom's a trip. :)

(Pictures taken with my brother's phone)

Lost in Lost

Most of my weekend was spent inside my brother's bedroom. In addtion to the power outage in our area, it was raining and gloomy most part of the weekend, so beach is out of the question. So we had to conserve energy. On Saturday, we went to Old Navy for few hours just to take advantage of the (additional) 20% stuff a bag sale. After that we stayed at home and watched Nanny McPhee.. it was really great. I know it's for kids and all but, one can't deny the childish heart that I have. It was really nice though, even my brother and Horacio shared this opinion over the movie. "As long as you need me but don't want me, I'll stay, if you don't need me but want me, I will have to go." :)

After Nanny McPhee, we couldn't think of doing anything else, the junk food supply were running low. Horacio and I finally decided to start our quest for Lost. We ordered chinese food and the quest began. At first, I thought Lost would be so boring and would be just like any other shows. I was so wrong, thankfully! Unfortunately, Horacio had to leave early Saturday night due to dog responsibilities his brother left him with.


Sunday, woke up late and attended church at noon. Made a quick stop at the local grocery and came out with four bags of chips and a jar of ranch dip and some turkey meat for sandwiches. I called Horacio and requested to pass by Dunkin Donuts on his way to my place for a dozen of donuts. Around 2:30 pm, after a quick lunch of rice, beans, spam and tuna in oil, our Lost marathon had once again begun. We just kept watching episode after episode and barely looked at the time. Our only stretch break was when I made my brother and Horacio some sandwiches for dinner.

Lost is really great, if you haven't seen a single episode... I highly recommend that you run to the neares video store and rent the whole first season, turn off your phone, put a do not disturb on your door and gather some munchies and drink around you and watch. The story does not only evolve around the characters, the island has mysteries in it that you just go "Huh?!? But!? Hurry! Next episode please!" We were so thankful for no commercial breaks!

With more episodes left unseen, we had to end the marathon, for Horacio had to leave (doggie duties) and I got work the following day. All in all, the weekend was great eventhough there were people who just love to contribute stress in our lives. It was the first weekend that we all just stayed home and merely did nothing, and it was great. :)

Junior's at Time Square

Once again the familia Ong went out eating. I think eating became the one thing that could easily bring everyone together. It really does not matter what we eat or where we go to eat. It could be as simple as home cooked meal or anything to steaks, as long as we eat together.

This time we went to Junior's at Time Square. Their steakburgers were so good yet so gigantic (ok, I exagerated a tad), but their cheesecake were absolutley sumptious.

A Second Attempt

This is my second attempt to blog what goes through my head. There are days that the thoughts in me head just seems to be in a chaos, and writing it down brings them to silence. So just a bit of warning, most of my posts could be just pure babbling and may seem to have no point at all.

Thank you for passing by and I hope to hear an input from you.