新年快乐！Happy Year of the Snake!

My boyfriend drove me back just to spend a Chinese New Year weekend with my family.  On New Year’s Eve, we celebrated it with my mom’s friends by having them come over for dinner.  My mom cooked up a storm!  I haven’t had such good food in such a long time (considering that my sister and I are poor college students and can’t afford good food.  Oh, and we are not good pro enough to cook up anything that extravagant.) xD

I don’t really know what most of this are in English considering I hardly know what they are in Chinese.  I know the main dishes are fish, mushrooms, duck, and veggies.  Though I’m sure I mentioned this before, the reason why we always have fish for New Years is to welcome it with a spirit of “bountifulness”.  The phrase “年年有余（鱼）” is really a play on words - a pun-.  We want every year to have leftovers, which is a resemblance of our financial state.  To always have more than enough means good fortune.  I know there are tons of other idioms, but I lack in that aspect. xD 

I wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year!  May you all live in prosperity and good health!

Happy New Year!  The sound of the numbers “2013” sound so strange and foreign, to me at least.  It’s hard to speculate on just how 2012 played out for me.  There’s always the good and the bad.  But this year, I really need to make the best out of what I have left. :)

As you all might have realized by now, I am quite laconic when it comes to writing, as I usually leave my photos to do the talking (or perhaps it’s just an excuse of my laziness hehee).  Below is what I had for lunch today ^^

Must I note that this was absolutely delicious?  Albeit I must say that mozzarella cheese would have been a better alternative to Parmesan cheese. :p

Below was my dinner:

Ahh lamb chop, how I missed you so~

Mango pudding!  I missed you, too!  :D

Starting this year with a positive mindset and ebullient mood!!  Happy New year, everyone! ^^

This year’s end came with such alacrity, it almost makes me wonder where all the time went.  What have I accomplished this year?  What haven’t I achieved?  What are my resolutions?  With another year going by, I begin to realize that I’ve been too easy on myself lately.  I need to stop letting things hamper myself and try harder to better myself.

Perhaps, my #1 New Year’s resolution on my list is to NOT back out of my goals.

With that said, here is my New Year’s Eve dinner :)  I sure hope something interesting happens soon.  As much as I love taking pictures of food, these recent posts have been lacking a bit of excitement xD

I hope one year, I will finally be able to experience the magical countdown and fireworks firsthand to welcome the new year. :)

Another year, another Christmas.  Seems like just yesterday when my siblings and I were just kids, talking about Santa and the presents he would bring us.  We would stay up late and try to catch him in his act, but sleep always got the best of us.  Now, we don’t even try to wait for Santa.  We understand that he knows “when we are sleeping and knows when we’re awake” O_O

It really IS a Christmas miracle today!  SNOW!  Though not a lot, it was still enough to make this day a white winter wonderland!

My sibling’s and my stockings have been filled with lots of candies and treats!  I’d like to think of Christmas as another Halloween.. or another let’s-get-fat-day. xD

Presents under/by the tree. :)

Some Christmas decorations to really get us into the Christmas spirit!

So, normally, we would all open presents together as a family first.  But this time, because of a specific person who refused to get her butt out of bed, we decided to have lunch first.  Mmm.. spaghetti and meatballs!

Strawberry smoothie!  My mom received a Ninja smoothie maker, and she has been so eager to make some!  Even my dad kept on begging her to make more!

It was time to open presents!  We exchanged gifts, along with smiles, hugs, and laughter.  (I didn’t take pictures of the unwrapping process)  But look at how happy my parents are xD!

At night, we had a “romantic” candlelight dinner :)

Coffee dessert yum!

A Christmas day well spent, don’t you think? :)  It wasn’t much of a celebration, but just being with family and those you love truly made this a special day.  May the Christmas spirit live on for years to come~

I will be ending this post with a short film I hastily put together:

Happy Holidays, everyone!

The more, the merrier, right? :) After a very filling lunch with my friends, my family continued our tradition by celebrating Christmas Eve with a grand dinner, albeit we never conduct ourselves with proper decorum.  xD 

Cheers!

I’m just going to keep this post short and simple.  (I’m starting to feel a food coma coming) xD

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Today is the first day of winter.. and yesterday, my mom decided to celebrate it early by having hotpot!  With the blizzard/snow, it’s starting to look a lot like Christmas.. :)

I’m ready for you, Winter. 

Today, we celebrated my sister’s boyfriend’s early birthday with a special dinner made by my sister!  She is seriously such a good cook.  *O*  Her food is like 5 star quality, while mine are like the quality of ramen.  LOL

She cooked a full chicken (something that I’ve never attempted), and I can’t help but laugh at how its position looks like it’s suntanning without a head xD

While the chicken was roasting, she cooked garlic bread, using croissants, for appetizers.

Chicken is done!  It smelled and looked so good!  So tender and juicy! ^^

The appetizers!  She topped the croissants/garlic bread using mozzarella cheese and salmon with a sprinkle of green onion.

Setting everything on the table now.

Used my fake color-changing candle to make it a bit romantic xD 

How the table looked like!  We waited for Chris and other friends to come over.  Boy, was he surprised!  No, just kidding.  He kind of suspected something was going on. :p

Him carving the chicken.

And now for some couple pictures!

After dinner, we played Taboo!  What I love about this game is that you always have so much fun and laughter!  We laughed in every round, and this game is just really great for livening up the atmosphere!

Later, we shared a cake from Coldstone.

His expression = priceless xD

Blowing out the “candle”

Mmm red velvet ice cream cake!

Hope he had a great one! :D

I know I am one day late on this, but Happy belated Mid-Autumn Festival!  And for those of you who knows about this Chinese holiday, you know that you MUST have some mooncakes to complement your dinner to make it complete. ;)  

I was so upset when I couldn’t find any mooncakes around here on campus.  I was really craving some, and I was so sure that I was going to get any.  BUT my friend surprised me by giving me a WHOLE box of mooncakes. *O*  I was literally crying tears of joy when he gave it to me.  #grateful

The moment I got home, I opened the lotus paste mooncake and started nom-ing it. *u* SO HAPPY!  SO YUMMY!

Mooncakes, anyone? ;)

Surprised my family by showing up on their doorsteps in the morning to stay home for the weekend.  The funny thing was that my mom called me in the morning and asked if we want them to come down to our college to pick us up for the Labor’s Day weekend.  Little did they know that we were already back. x)

Here is what we had during these couple of days.

SUSHI!  Initially, we didn’t plan on having any, except my sister really wanted some.  My parents went out early the next morning just to get us a whole plate of it!!

Along with some prawns..

And for dinner, steak! :3 Yum yum!

Stayed for only 2 days 1 night, and I was so unwilling to come back to my apartment.  I guess I just want to be pampered at home rather than having me take care of myself.  Even as a college student, I feel like I’m still a kid at heart.  The next time I go back is probably going to be Thanksgiving.  :( I really really really can’t wait to go back.