Hans : Not just a party boy!

It's quite common for our group to "adopt" single men in our little clique based on their good qualities(e.g. Steffen for his reliability and cleaning ability, Darshan for his indian cooking ability). After this Saturday's accidental discovery, Hans is now quite the popular bargaining chip!!! Read more for details..

It happened after the Cupcake Tour and another cry off from the Contos. Alan and I who were going on our 2nd hot date for the weekend found out that our reservations had been cancelled. Obviously disappointed, I tried to make alternate plans and when Hans mentioned doing our own fondue, i was excited to finally use my almost brand new 7 yr old fondue set.

So, after a few changes of menu and a couple of hours later, we reconvened at my house and the cooking of the feast started. Hans single-handedly orchestrated the whole operation while Sabrina and I acted as obedient minions did everything from cutting up onions to deveining shrimp with the shell on to chopping up cilantro to grating cheese. Therefore, it was to no one's surprise, 1.5 hours later, we were presented with a feast way better than any restaurant could serve!

We had, ok, let me think:
Potato au Gratin(awesome), mushroom(different), goat cheese balls(yummy), mussels(mmmm), shrimp(great), brussle sprouts(fantastic), steaks(3 flavors) and not forgetting a cheese fondue(my idea, hehe).



The feast!


Alan congratulating me for my excellent skills of picking out friends who can cook!


Hans, forever the charmer

So, at the end of the night, our image of Hans changed from a cool party goer to an excellent contributor to the group!!! Ladies.. any interest?

Cup Cake Tour

After the Childrens Museum, i decided to tag along with Hans to go on a Cup Cake Tour with his fellow yelpers who are serious foodies! They are NUTS!

Basically we visited 3 different cup cake shops in the Denver area though i think the word "area" is quite a stretch!

Anyways, we can't say we were completely totally incredibly "wow"ed by the whole experience though the Twinkies and Coconut cupcake flavor at the Big Fat Cupcake did make an impression.

Here are some pictures i took during the tour.


Good cupcakes at Cake Crumbs


Interesting selections at Big Fat Cup Cake


Purr-ty cup cakes the the Mulberries. But good looks not indicative of good taste!!


Hans pondering if his teeth is worth rotting for the cup cakes

Death by cup cake.. don't ask!

Fun at Childrens Museum

Since Alan was home, we thought we'd be good parents and do something for Tinks for once. So, we made plans with the Contos to go check out the Denver Children's Museum(they are members, so we get in for free!!)

So, we spent a couple hours letting Tyler and Mateo run around the Museum checking out different parts of the museum like going down slides and learning how to fish


Tyler and I learning how to fish.

Then Veronica suggested that we go to the Vet Room and try to inspire our kids to be vets or something. They had cute little vet costumes and fake stethescopes that were really cool. But all our hopes were dashed when we turned around and saw what they were more interested in


Tyler, check out my mop..


Mateo, my broom is wayyyy cooler than yours.. i could fly on mine!!

So much for mother's dreams!

Date Night is back (one week only)

Earlier in the week, we had made plans with the Contos to go check out a few restaurants for Restaurant Week, but they cried off at the last minute due to illness. But that didn't stop us from wanting to spend some Tyler-less quality time together.

So, with a last minute arrangements with a new babysitter and booking at Mateo's Restaurant, our date night was ON! I even dressed up. Woo hoo..!

Mateo's was a packed little establishment and was a little posh like, which bodes well for fancy food. But country bumpkins will always be country bumpkins. Here is what Alan ordered! Only Alan will order grilled ham and cheese at a 5 star restaurant!



Croque Monsieur really is fancy name for grilled ham and cheese!

While i was still laughing at Alan's ham and cheese sandwich, the waiter served my "what i thought was posh" Lobster Gratin which turned out to be Mac and Cheese with slivers of lobster in it.


I still argue : Best Mac and Cheese i've ever had!!!

We both did better at our dinner orders and had a lovely time catching up and being old married couples who made fun of each other to no end.


Our first date in like forever!

Anyways, it was a nice little date and i'm still waiting for my birthday and valentine's day treat *hint hint*.. :)

Mommy's midlife crisis?

Hello, i think my Mommy is having a midlife crisis. Not only did she chop off her hair to make her feel young, she's been playing with my toys!!!

Mommy and me zooming around the house in my little scooter!

I don't know how to tell her that my toys may not take weight!!!!!

Tyler xx

Denver Carnaval

Our cool Brazilian friend Hans told us about a little Carnaval celebration in Denver. All he had to mention was Feijoada and i was sold.

So, on Sunday, after a relaxing morning, Alan tagged along with his cool party-party family to go check out the event.


Alan and his cool new improved young wife!

Alas, the Carnaval didn't really live up to our expectation although the Feijoada was good and the music was lively!

Yay! Our family is whole again!

Alan finally got home from his 3 week business trip and Tyler was thrilled to bits to see his Dada!! (OK, so was I!!!)


I still can't believe you're home, Dada!!


Our little family picture!!

Warning : blog not in order

The blog below should go into the month of Jan. But it's placed here for now so that people will read it!

It's no where near complete but it's a start. You'll notice that there are no picture of our sight seeing in Sri Lanka, but it's coming!

Just concentrate on how pretty I am!! ha!

Sri Lanka Trip

Our trip to Sri Lanka was made under the pretense of attending Damith and Sabrina's wedding. It was a good vacation of 2 weeks, although Tyler did fall sick for a week and lost a bunch of weight. *sigh*

I've been putting off writing this blog because it is going to be huge and I'm not sure how I'm going to write it. So, I'm going for a super summary version. Our friend Tony wrote a beautiful article about it, so I'm going to steal his if possible. And I'll post more pictures on some other more friendly picture uploading format!

The first week in Sri Lanka, we spent a few relaxing days at out beautiful hotel - Mt Lavinia Hotel. Tyler had his first experience of the beach and we had a chance to recover from our long 36 hr journey.

Tyler trying out the sea water..

First family beach vacation..

The wedding was an enchanting evening filled with interesting ceremonies and beautiful saris. I had the chance to play dress up with Sabrina which was super fun! And because I'm very vain, I'm posting lots of pics of us in our beautiful saris.

Getting ready at the salon

Ready, pose...

Alan and I

Tyler gets a go to take pictures with mommy! He was pretty intrigued by what i was dressed in.

All the girls in all our glamour

Picture with the bride and groom.

And because Damith's parents put so much effort into the whole thing, I'll post a few pictures on the blog. The house was decorated so beautifully and everything ran like clockwork and food was fantastic. They sure know how to do things right.

Our welcoming dancers

Angelic voices singing a song that Damith's mom composed.

Some lighting ceremony

Cutting of the rice cake

Beautifully decorated seats for the bride and groom

And of course the beautiful spread of food...

After the wedding we took a 4-day road trip to visit a few famous sites in Sri Lanka like the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage where we got to ride elephants, Dambulla Cave Temple, Sigiriya, ancient city of Anuradhapura and some highlands with tea plantations. It was an eye opening experience to find out so much more about Sri Lanka. It truly is a beautiful country. So much history and interesting sites. If they are trying to keep tourist out, the lack of publicity about all these tourist attractions and bad roads/horrible traffic are definitely working!!

All in all, it was a nice little road trip except that Tyler was doing a food strike and was sick and cried a lot. Poor baby!! By the time we got back to Colombo, I decided that I would stay with him and not go on to India as planned. Damith and his parents were kind to let us stay at their cozy home.

While Alan and Evelyn went off to visit India, Tyler and I spent the next few days relaxing and having a good time swimming in the pool and playing with the neighbour kids who LOVED him! It was quite funny to see them fawn over him while he played hard to get.

After a few days of relaxing, Tyler was almost back to normal and Alan persuaded us to join him and I arranged for Tyler and I to fly out to New Delhi and continued to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal is one site not to be missed. I never thought a building could take my breath away and it did! Holy cow that guy loved his dead wife! We had a good time visiting other sites in Agra and spent too much money on souvenirs.

Family picture at the Taj Mahal

Beautiful Taj Mahal..

Goofing around the grounds of Taj Mahal

The next day we flew back to Colombo and spent the rest of the days in Colombo shopping for even more souvenirs while Alan and Tyler chilled out by the pool.

On our way home, we stopped for the night in Singapore and met up with my parents and my aunt Shirley. We had a nice little Reunion Dinner. After dinner, Alan showed Damith and Sabrina out on a mini Singapore tour while I went home to spend some quality time with mom, dad and Aunt Shirley.

President's Day play date with Mateo

Today was President's Day and so Tyler's day care was closed. I gave "working from home" a try and decided it was not much use pretending I can actually do any work. I even had to call Steffen in for 45 mins to watch Tyler while i was on a conference call.

So, with that, I decided to just spend the day with him and Veronica suggested we went to a nearby Childrens Museum. So, this is what we ended up doing:


Pretended to be a train conductor


Shared lunch with Mateo



Rode a mechanical car together... is there a non-mechanical car??


Took a bath together..

Dressed up like elves..

Played with Mateo's toys..

Dressed up in funky glasses..

So, i think he had a good time, and I did too!

Did i tell you i love my new coach purse?

So, just in case you didn't know, my friends got me a coach certificate for my birthday. Thank you thank you thank you!

On Saturday, Steffen and I(and Tyler) went the the outlet mall in Loveland for some shopping. And after about 1/2 hr of trying out different purses, just as I was leaving, i finally found THE ONE! I even got a match wallet!

I tried it out today and it's perfect. It's small and cute and hip! (hmm.. just like me ha!). The greatest thing is it's hands-free and even my brick of a phone fits in it!

Check it out!


Cool or what?

Valentine's Day party

Happy Valentine's Day !!

As Alan is away, and our group consists of a bunch of Valentine's Day misfits, i thought it'd be fun if we did a group Valentine's Day. And also Darshan had promised us that he'd cook us some yummy dosas. So, two birds with one stone sorta deal.

So, a very last minute e-vite went out on Friday and by Friday night, i had 6 people attending, so i thought pptthh.. so much for trying. But by Saturday morning, we had 13 people and at the height of the party, we had we had 20 people + 1 dog that night! However, only 1/2 showed up in red as requested.

Co-host Darshan and my two step-in babysitters!

Those who showed up in red!

Darshan's yummy dosa turned out to be outstanding and everybody were having seconds and thirds. He also made some lamb meatballs and curry chicken and chutney. All fantastic!

Our own dosa maker

We spent most of the night making fun of people's accent and inability to pronounce "r"s and "l"s. Eiko, my Japanese neighbour being there made it even funnier. After most of the party light weights had left, we started our midnight movie - The Slumdog Millionaire which was very good. My favorite part - the kid jumping in for the autograph! After that ended, the hardy ones decided to start movie no. 2 which was when i bid everybody goodnight. Hey, I'm the single mom!!!

Only 1/2 the guests..

In the morning, i woke up and found a few more stragglers in the house and we had some breakfast before calling our "dosa maker" back for a repeat performance. We decided that lunch would be good and most of the hardy party-ers made it back for dosa that day. It was THAT good.

So, all in all, since i had guests till about 5 pm on Sunday, i'm happy to announce that i've hosted a 24-hr party(more like 23 hrs, but close enough!) and filled with awesome food and good times!

Thanks to Darshan for such a treat!

Babysitting Mateo

On Valentine's Day, Veronica and Adam's babysitters fell through and requested that i babysit Mateo for a few hours. Since they had helped me out a few times, i was more than eager to return the favor.

Turned out babysitting Mateo was a walk in the park, especially when i didn't do very much of it! hahaha.. That was because when he was dropped off, it was nearly at the start of my Valentine's Day party and I was running around getting stuff ready and taking a shower. Damith took over the duties like a pro and had both boys behaving as good as gold.

Putting Mateo to sleep couldn't be any easier so i have to admit, maybe there is something to having a child with very strict schedules!

Damith the pro-babysitter!

Thanks!!!

My 33rd *gasp* Birthday!

I can't believe i'm 33! It sounds SO OLD!!

Anyways, last week was a crazy week of hectic work and single-mom-hood. So, by the time, Friday rolled by, I was really looking forward to doing nothing. So, I didn't do much planning for my birthday. In fact, on Saturday, i even forgot that it was THE day and got ready for work. What a dork, i know!

After feeding Tyler(always a joy!!), as I was cleaning up, i heard the doorbell go and was nicely surprised by Damith, Addy and Sabrina. They even brought coffee! This is what i call service! I had marching orders to get changed and get into the car. No questions! Didn't stop me from asking though.. hehehehe.. The best part was, Tyler didn't even get to come. Damith was babysitting! Now, that's a treat!!!

I was then treated to a relaxing pedi and mani session where i decided to be a little radical and went for bright blue nail polish!! Why not?! I was quite pleased with it! Addy went with some fiery red and Sabrina went for subtle purple(boring!). We looked like the american flag with a tinge of purple!


Pics of our nails!

After that, we went for a spot of lunch at Le Peep, which was very satisfying before we headed home to relief Damith. We found them cuddling on the Love Sack. So cute!


Tyler and baby whisperer Damith..

The rest of the day, I spent feeding and playing with Tyler. We even made it out to the park!


Tyler checking out the other kids at the park

Soon it was time to get ready for my big "surprise" party(i found out about it). The babysitter(Tyler's daycare teacher) came by and after a short briefing, i was out the door. We went to celebrate at a Chinese Restaurant where Addy works. There were about 15 of us and as always the usual banters and goofing about kept me well entertained.

Group picture


My lovely cake

I was even presented a nice cake with endless candles(they must think i'm much older) and some very lovely gifts like a Coach gift certificate and even matching bowls!!

And to satisfy my other love in life, they then took me to La Rumba for some salsa action. Salsa dancing that is! They had a live band and i danced the night away. At some point of the night, the group decided that we should all do Tequila shots. I even thought i could do 2!! All I have to say is, dancing drunk takes up lots of compute power!!!



Our first shot..


And our second..


At La Rumba

We left after La Rumba closed and headed off to my house so that my babysitter could be relieved. I don't remember much after that, so if you want the whole story, you should ask those who were awake.. :)

Anyways, i just wanted to thanks all my friends for making my birthday such a fun one!! Here are some pictures!

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