Finally! Trip is officially booked. My mom was right (what’s new), the prices when down.
We went back and forth with the dates a squillion times. Scheduling a vacation for six adults is not an easy task. Even with all the compromises, we’re still not traveling altogether. Blah.
So here’s our itinerary!
Nov 22nd: Depart!
Nov 23-27: Thailand
Nov 27: Fly to Hanoi
Dec 1st: Fly to Saigon
Dec 10th: Fly back home – we have a 12 hour layover in Seoul, Korea – so we get to go on a day tour! My dad’s been to South Korea a bunch for business and he likes it there a lot so I'm excited we'll be able to squeeze this in.
I’m bummed that we aren’t stopping in Hong Kong or Tokyo like I originally wanted, but
When the travel agent gave me the quotes for those cities, I almost fell out of my chair,
It was almost three times more! Thailand will be fab.
Our next trip to Asia will be Tokyo, Beijing and Hong Kong.
Now that everything’s booked, I’m super excited! I’m going to meet my paternal
grandma. For the first time, ever. She’s the only grandparent I have left. Should be lots
of fun.
The hubs and I are in the market for a new lens. We have time to decide. According to Susan Miller, I shouldn't be mkaing any big ticket purchases until October. hehe
I
do. A couple
of weekends ago, Fanny Pack took me to check out some condos. I can’t express how grateful I am that she’s
our realtor. This whole house hunting
thing is confusing and stressful as it is and I’m so happy she’s helping
us. I completely trust her in a way that
I wouldn’t with some random realtor. Anyhoo,
I’m in love! I love love love the condo
that she showed us. It is new
construction and they’re still on their second phase. After two years. Yeesh!
I love
it so much. The hubs was in
Peru the first time I went to see it,
so he has yet to see it. Since we’re
heading up north for visit the In Laws this weekend, he won’t be able to check
it out for another two weeks.
Boo! It has
everything I want, open floor plan with lots of light. The kitchen a good size and functional, it’s
a little bit smaller than I wanted, but it opens up to the great
room. The
master bath is to.die.for.
One of
my favorite things about the condo is the optional 3rd
bedroom/loft. If we were to buy, I would
keep it as a loft. We’re not planning to
have kids soon and I figure when we do, it shouldn’t be too hard to close up the
loft back into a bedroom.
Kit Kat
and I when to check it out with and we ended up hanging out in the great room
for almost an hour just talking. See,
it’s already homey! What I
love most is that I don’t have to compromise too much. We’ve probably seen about 20+ homes and
there’s always something I don’t like or am really bothered by. I love everything about it. I even have vivid
dreams about it, which is totally weird, because I hardly ever remember my
dreams.
I even
have dreams about babies and the house which is TOTALLY not me. Ever since I saw the place, I’ve been
catching a little baby fever.
WEIRD. Not me at all. Here’s
the floor plan:
The first 12 Chapters of Midnight Sun have been leaked!!!! Eee! I almost had a heart attack when I saw it. Just started reading it and I love it!!! yeah, yeah, BD sucked donkey balls, but I still love the characters. Eeks!!!!! There goes my studying for the night, its 176 pages long!
**Update: the link is in reef's comment yaya!!!!
Which side of your family do you resemble more?
My mom. Everyone says that I'm a dead ringer for my mom when she was my age. Except she was way prettier than me, or so my relatives like to tell me. I think my favorite line was "Oh! You look so much like your mom, but not! Are you sad you're not as pretty as she was?" Awesome. Gotta love the brutal honesty.
Here are some photos for comparison, from the Big Day, of course.
Taking the night off from studying for final #2. I can't wait to be curled up on the couch sipping a big fat iced strawberry green tea and flipping through this:
Just when I was about to fire off an email to the hubs about not calling me from Peru, I get this delivered to the office:
It's like he knew or something. It also came with jar of chocolate fudge. He knows me too well. :)
Bad: Harry Potter Half Blood Prince's release date was moved! To July 2009, ugh.
Good: They moved up the release of Twilight to 11/21.
Must plan our Asia trip around this. Yes, I am aware I'm a nerd.
The hubs and I checked out another condo on Sunday. It was cute. Four years old, gated community. Decent location, but situated right next to the freeway.
The kitchen/living area felt cramped and I wasn’t crazy about the floor plan.
So we’re still searching. I try to keep updated on the market news, but to be honest, it’s all very overwhelming.
This is the biggest purchase, we’ll make, like evah, so we best take our time, right? I think I’ve read pretty much every article on MSN Money about buying a home.
We’re already doing one of the options featured in the “7 Creative ways to buy your first house.”
The parental plan
Saving enough for a down payment usually requires some kind of a sacrifice, so don't rule out living with family.
Case in point: Saddled with hefty school loans and about $25,000 in credit card debt at the end of their medical residencies, Sonya Cottone, 37, and her husband decided to move in with his parents for a year to pay off their plastic and save for a down payment. "People thought we were crazy," she says. "But it worked out really well."
Pros: Can you say super savings? Within 15 months, the Cottones had paid off their credit cards and saved enough to put $50,000 down on a four-bedroom colonial in Long Island. "And we're all still speaking to each other," she jokes.
Cons: Mixing family and finances can be a stress cocktail. To diffuse tension, Cottone says, discuss money and expectations up front (everything from paying rent to doing chores). And though your savings will make you feel flush, "don't see it as extra," Cottone says. Stick to your savings strategy or you'll be living with Mom and Dad for years.
The two spuds in this article are doctors and they’re 10 years older than us, so I don’t feel that bad. J
A lot of these articles suggest first time home buyer programs. Unfortunately, the hubs and I don’t qualify for any of them. Fortunately, we do qualify for the Rachee’s Parents Home Buying Program.
We paid off all of our cc debt (hallelujah!!). Now, it’s just the car payment and a small student loan. We’re able to save a hefty percentage of our income every month.
I hope we find something we like soon, during this decade would be nice.
Today is our 1 year wedding anniversary! That last year went by so fast. I seriously love him more today than the day we got married. It was a battle though. The first 6 months of marriage was so hard. I must have thought to myself about a dozen times, "What did I get myself into? I can't get out of this....how is this going to work?" This was after being together for 10 years. It was very challenging, to say the least, adjusting to living with each other. But, one day, like the flip of a switch, it all changed. We started getting in the groove of being married and everything just fell into place. We have been having a great time together ever since and I am so happy and in loooove!
Today, while I was at work, Hubby ran a few errands and got a few things done around the house. He called me at 4 pm and told me he scheduled a massage for me. He walked me to the place, was going to go to the grocery store and cook spaghetti with meatballs for dinner. He even whipped out one of my cookbooks. As we were walking to my appointment he confessed he felt really overwhelmed about cooking dinner. He didn't want to risk messing up so he took me to Bossa Nova instead. While waiting for him to arrive I had a celebrity sighting. Channing Tatum & Jenna Dewan from Step Up 1 came in right behind me. She's beautiful and petite, but he's not as cute in person.
The lady that did my massage was a tiny, little, skinny thing, but she was so freakishly strong. They seriously use their entire body to massage you. She was hovering over me using her arms and elbows to get my knots. She later sat on me and pulled me back to stretch out my back. The Thai massage is definitely not a touchy-feely relaxation massage. If you can't take the pain then you wouldn't like this at all. I can tolerate a lot of pain, but there were times when I couldn't handle it.
I feel totally stretched out and loose now. I think I'm going to go back at least once a month. She worked out a lot of the tension in my upper back and neck. I'm feeling good.....
My husband is so sweet! Happy anniversary to us!
Did I decide to go back to school? Dude, this class is kicking my a**. I could just coast and pass, but unfortunately, my competitive/OCD side is rearing it's ugly head and I'll don't doubt I'll be pulling all nighters to finish my final project this week. Just six more classes and I'll be done with this program.
I don't know why my OCD-ness is limited to work + school + hobbies and doesn't extend to mundane stuff like laundry and cleaning. Maybe because I don't get the same satisfaction.
Also, I've been having major anxiety and I don't know why! I know it's bad because it's manifesting itself physically. My neck and shoulders are always tense (the effects of the massage only lasted a few hours) and my tongue is numb. Weird. I know.
It may be because the hubs is leaving for Peru this weekend. Sounds cheesy, but we've hardly ever been apart in the six years we've been together. I think the longest was August 2006 when I went to Italy for a couple of weeks. Other than that, it's just been weekends and even those are far and few between. Maybe this is a good thing. Absence makes the heart grow fonder?
Ugh, maybe it's just anxiety from school.
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