14 hours in New York

We flew to New York to renew my passport on December 5th. It was my first time to New York but not for Robert. But the flight was delayed due to foggy weather so the plane headed to Boston, MA Airport. 

We arrived at 12 pm in New York. There are many ways to go to M'sian Embassy from John F Kennedy Airport. By bus, by taxi or subway. Since we were not familiar where the embassy was, we chose to go there by round trip bus. The bus stopped at Grand Central Station. It is in the midtown Manhattan of New York City. It such a busy place with people, a lot of restaurants, tall buildings and traffics!.

Grand Central station- picture by zoeholmes2011

We walked from the Grand Central to embassy. It just took about 15 minutes. Besides that we went to see World trade centre memorial (9-11 attacks) after renewing my passport. Unfortunately I didn't take so many pictures on that day. Seriously I want to walk around New York city but I got hurt on my feet and I can't walk too much. The pain was really distracting me and we headed back to grand central station to have some snacks.We were in the city about 5 hours and spent rest of the day at the airport. Maybe next time New York.

Happy Holidays !!

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Yard sale

We had yard sale on Saturday last week (Dec 3rd). It was one day yard sale and thankfully everything done smoothly. I couldn't believe a lot of people came over and interested to buy our stuff. It was my first time to have a yard sale and absolutely I enjoyed talking to customers, deal with the price, selling stuff and excited to put bunch of dollar bills in my pocket. We advertised on the newspaper, internet and also made 5 signboards on the day before yard sale. 

The night before yard sale, Robert put price tag on every stuff and I painted the letters for the sign boards. I slept late and Robert didn't sleep whole night!

We actually opened yard sale at 8 am till 5 pm but unexpectedly people came before 8 o'clock. I was so busy handle customers and can't take picture people coming. We sold tools, surfboards, electronic/electrical stuff, TV, men clothing and other stuff.

Few people still came over after 5 pm looking for stuff to buy. What an amazing day!

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Colder December

The weather turned colder in December. I hate it but I need to stay cute and warm. Robert loves buying me different kind of socks and slippers. Some of my favourite are

Blue seals and orange fish socks

 

 This Eeyore slippers really warm me up

Happy December and have a wonderful weekend !!

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Movies Time

I think I watched a lot of movies this month. I could say most of the nights at dinner time, we sat on the couch with foods and enjoying the good movies.  Some of the movies are

 Thor

Super 8. It is science fiction movie.

Rise of the planet of the Apes. I love this movie.

X-Men First Class

Friends with Benefit. It is chick flick movie.

Hang Over II.  It was filmed in Bangkok.

Cowboys Vs Alien

Harry Porter and the Deathly Hallow Part II. This is the final movie of Harry Porter series.

I bet you have seen all those movies, haven't you?

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Thanksgiving Day 2011

We spent our Thanksgiving Day at parent's house today. We were so blessed that we had such wonderful family gathering and having special dinner. Turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberries sauce and pumpkin pie were part of holiday tradition meals. Thanks Martha (my mom in law). Those were lovely meals!! I brought some food which I cooked at home for them

Three boys (From left: Dad, Robert, Turner) were having conversation

Big Robert and little Robert

Robert's mom is keeping bunch of pets in the house. She loves cats and dogs. So I met her new cat today. Mr Whiskers

Meronica

Delilah, she is an old dog,

Other new dog, I forgot her name. She is really nice.

Those foods that I talked about before. They were bread pudding and devil eggs for our feast at parent's house.

It was first attempt I made raisin bread pudding.

Very Happy Thanksgiving Day !!!!

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Foggy Tuesday

This morning was incredibly foggy. It's just so rare happen here.

It looked so gray and I felt mysterious for a while.

Mother Nature knows why....

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Riding Cub Cadet

When your house is surrounding with land and covered with grass, a powerful lawn mower is necessary to maintain and take care the landscaping of the yards. Generally grass grows taller quickly during summer than fall/winter. Robert always mowing the lawn at least twice a month in the summer and sometimes I helped him when he is busy with something else. Actually I just did it 2-3 times this year and it was really good experience.

Honestly I've learned something fun. I can't imagine that cutting the grass is so easy with this kind of lawn mower. It is like a mini car which has steering, gas pedal and break pedal and it's built to mow the lawn. The cub cadet is a heavy duty lawn tractor with powerful grade engines. There are many kinds of lawn mower in the market nowadays and it depends how large area you'll be working on.

Side view of lawn tractor

Absolutely it is so easy to operate this lawn toy, turn the engine on

Push up the full speed (rabbit symbol). The rabbit and the turtle symbols are so cute definitely.

Then press the gas to move

And lastly pull the button to get the blades operating and cutting the grass. 

 I put the operating steps here so that I won't forget it in the future.

You will feel good when you see nice and clean landscape.

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Fall Foliage and Fashion

Leaves obviously start changing colors during November eventhough the weather still inconsistent with warm and cold alternately. We had colder days in early week of November but I felt like summer for today and the past few days with 70+ degree F. Soon I believe the temperature will goes down again. 

I never miss opportunity to wear boots during cold days. The pictures were taken in early week of Nov.

Feeling cozy and staying warm are important thing for low temperature,59-65 degree F (15-18 deg C).

"Windy Wednesday"

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Chocolate Fudge

Today is 11.11.11, Veteran's day which is US federal holiday and colder weather started back on. What a particular day! Also I made chocolate fudge for the first time.

The ingredients are:

 

Or you could find a kit that contain all those ingredients in one box at the store. That is super-duper easy.

Preparation:
1) Mix butter + sugar + milk in heavy duty saucepan. Turn medium heat and stirring constantly until boiling. Stir them for 4-5 minutes.
2) Slow heat, pour semi sweet choc and marshmallow. Stir them until the marshmallows are melted.

You can read the recipe here

3) Pour the mixture in the tray

Refrigerate for 2 hours. Then you cut it into cube size. Make sure that you wet your knife with warm water before cutting it.

This is it. Store them in the container.

Perfect for holiday or party!! Have fun trying...

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Weekend walk at Pier

We drove to Bogue Inlet Pier just to take a walk with Babe last weekend. People never stop going there for fishing, sightseeing, relaxing on the pier but generally it is the famous place for fishing. You will see people standing or sitting with fishing pole and cooler box along the pier. 

Gray, chilly and so windy on that day!

We found dead jelly fish on the beach. Babe was so excited!

We walked under the pier and the water looked green

This the best moment of picture I've captured so far. I love to see the waves breaking on the beach

We left after 20 minutes walking.

That 20 minutes walking in the cold weather was enough got me stuffy, runny nose and light headed.

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