Little update:

The apartment management just finished installing our new windows. Rejoice! Double pane windows! Now the noises from Commonwealth Ave are just small murmurs and it doesn't get as hot in the apartment.

But as much joy as I thought I'd have with this new addition, I'm totally not digging the small wood particles left by the install. Don't get me wrong, Paul and his helper were awesome on cleaning up as much as they could. All the big chunks and most of the dirt was swept up, but there's still the miniature splinters left everywhere. They feel like little razor blades when they're against your skin! Mary and I have spent hours trying to clean every surface in the apartment, but I guess I have to clean everything yet again. I think that until we do another complete clean up, I'm going to be walking around, randomly wincing in pain for the next couple of days. People on the street are going to think I'm nuts...

A little something from California...

A little surprise from California came today in the mail. 'Lette Macarons!! Thanks Leanne for sending such a sweet present. They are so yummy and colorful!! ^_^


Also, we forgot to post these presents from Jae and Karen from awhile ago. We were still settling in at that point. Thank you for the housewarming gifts! We use the Clocky as a timer for cooking now! <3

I am SO ready for the fall season!

Look at what I got from Amazon today! So who's with me to visit the TD Garden???

Mid-week update!

Yesterday, I decided I should look less like a bum and get a haircut. So I shaved my man beard I've been growing for a couple of days, made an appointment with the hair stylist located right next to our apartment and prayed to God that he wouldn't totally screw up my hair. As a precaution, I printed out one of my favorite pictures of Mary and me on the day I proposed to her. That way, he could see how I normally get my hair cut.

So I arrive promptly for my appointment (I think it'd be pretty sad if I was late considering it's literally 20 steps away from the apartment) and start by showing him the picture. He said that's fine and we go chatting away about random things. Apparently, we find out that both of us were stuck in Hawaii during the 9/11 incident. He reminded me how some hotels were kicking out guests cuz their reservations were over to make room for the new guests and I told him how a cop kicked me off the beach and told me to go back to my room. Sad times, but crazy how I found some other traveler that was stuck in Hawaii at the same time I was. Anyway, 15 minutes later, he said he was done. I looked in the mirror and deemed it alright. I definitely miss my stylist CC but at least it wasn't a catastrophe.

Later in the day, Mary and I decided to go return some AF clothing I ordered online that didn't fit me. Last week, I found some khakis on the website in the clearance section but they only had 33x30 sizing left and decided to see if they fit. They fit just fine... if I wanted to wear capris. So off we went to AF! I checked around the store to see if they had the same khakis in my sizing, but they were sold out of my model and only had full priced new stuff. At the register, the manager tells me he has to manually enter my returns cuz they weren't even in the system anymore and that means he can't enter it under the clearance price of $19.99 per khakis. He then hands me a gift card that was worth $150! I told him that wasn't what I paid and he said there's nothing he can do because full price is the only way the system is allowing him to accept the returns. I tried to be fair since I didn't want to rip off AF, but if there's nothing I can do then I guess I got PAID yesterday! Is this considered my first paycheck in Boston? Do I have to file taxes and say my employer was Abercrombie and Fitch? Haha, I kid I kid.

So fast forward to today. I got a care package from my good friend, Ken Hong!

Inside is an extended 8 cell battery for my Lenovo X61!

Now I should be able to have 5 hours of run time instead of 2! Thanks Ken!

I swear, I'm one of the luckiest people in the world to have friends as good as I do. Thanks again you guys!

Cooking Fiasco

Since we've moved here, I've been trying to cook more. Not only to cut cost here and there, but to eat a little healthier. Also, I don't want Brian and I to grow so plump that you guys would hardly recognize us when we come back to visit!!

Anyways... so today, I had time to cook even though I had tons of case studies to read and tons of accounting crap to study. I decided to saute garlicky broccoli and broil BBQ chicken breasts for the first time since we can't bbq here. It went all down hill from here. I sprayed the pan with nonstick stuff, hoping to make it easier for Brian to wash dishes. The stupid stuff was burning and smoking up the apartment like crazy, causing the evil fire alarm to go off not just once, but multiple times!! It was so bad that our eyes were getting super watery.

Finally, the chicken appeared to be done, so I cut into it. OH MY!! It was perfectly cooked and juicy... yay!! I went to plate the food, being all excited to have Brian eat my cooking. Due to our ridiculously small counter top space, my plate of food fell over and broke into a million pieces. The first thing I thought was "Oh nooo... my foodddd!!!" I didn't even realize my left foot was cut until Brian ran over. Brian, being the caring fiance he is <3, grabbed me some sandals, so I wouldn't get hurt even more. He even cleaned up all the mess and washed all the dishes. Then he made some ramen for himself (haha not so healthy), so I could eat the healthier stuff. I was nice enough to share my goodies... bahaha!! In the end, I wish we had gotten takeout. =*(

A nice and relaxing weekend

Friday afternoon ended fairly nicely for Mary. Firstly, she got a good grade on her midterm during the week, she thinks she did well on her Economics final, and it was going to be a free weekend for her as far as studies went. Time to celebrate!

Firstly, we did the most exciting thing we could think of. We headed over to Costco. Whoopee!! All joking aside, we really do like going to Costco. The hardest part is to keep the invoice low every time we go there. They always have something cool or yummy to get! At night, we ended watching The Mechanic that I got from my Netflix queue. I think I can safely tell people that you're not missing much if you haven't seen that yawn-inducing action flick yet. Everything was totally predictable and it wasn't very entertaining or even funny. We ended the night watching a couple episodes of Blue Exorcist, a new anime I've been watching. It made Mary cry. ^_^

Saturday morning started with Mary waking me up and asking "Can we watch more anime?" We watched the rest of the episodes available and... she cried again! Afterward, we did a little bit more relaxing before meeting up with our friends, Mary and Jason. They asked us the day before if we wanted to go down to Foxborough for dinner since Jason needed to stop by Bass Pro to exchange his fishing pole. I've never been there so I was very curious as to what the store was like. WOW! This place is cool! They go all out on decorating the place to look very outdoors like. Here are some pics:

A stuffed moose, overlooking the top of a waterfall.

Vast side of the waterfall and the pond with live trout in!

I saw this stuffed black bear and it made me miss Baloo!

Not sure if Mary was contemplating playing at their indoor shooting range.

I forgot to mention, Bass Pro is in a plaza connected to Gillette stadium. Hopefully, the NFL lockout gets settled soon cuz Jason's sister has season tickets to the Patriots. Would love to be able to go to a live game!

Afterward, we brought Mary and Jason to eat at Red Robins for the first time and it was favorable opinion of the place! Then we headed over to the movie theaters to watch "Horrible Bosses" at the Showcase. Let me tell you, AMC's got nothing on these Showcase theaters. You walk in and they have multiple options for food besides the usual hot dog and popcorn served at every other theater. Over there, they had full on restaurants, lounges and bars along with a separate stage for live concerts... inside the theater! Oh, and the seats were very comfy as well. All in all, it was a good movie experience even though we sat in the front row of a fully packed showing. Oh yeah, the movie was very funny as well. ;)

So that brings us to today. Mary decided to read up on her new class books (nerd) while I have a recorded BBC (yay, no commercials!) showing of F1 qualifying at Silverstone playing on TV. Later on, we're meeting up with Mary's classmates for dinner so I guess I have to dress to make a good first impression. All in all, it sounds like it's going to be a good ending to this very nice and relaxing weekend.

Fourth of July Weekend

Finally some free time to update the blog. Just took my final for Managerial Economics today. I hope I did okay!! Being back in a classroom after such a long period felt so weird. Sometimes I felt so dumb because I didn't know what in the world the professor was talking about while other people seemed to understand it perfectly well =(. At least it's over now!!

Fourth of July weekend was a blast!! We had our first guests over, Joanne & Daniel. Thank you so much for coming out from Chicago and showing us around Boston! We had so much fun learning all the ways to get around Boston, eating at all the yummy restaurants, and watching the fireworks with you guys. It was definitely one of the most memorable July 4th weekend. Thanks again!! <3

Here are a couple pictures, courtesy of Joanne. The rest are on facebook.

To: Steve and Debbie

So I just got this in the mail...

It's from our wonderful friends in Irvine! Guess they've been reading the blog, huh? Haha.

Thank you guys for the good laughs and seriously, thanks a bunch for all that money! The toll roads, parking meters and washing machines here are so ruthless. Always taking up all our quarters so thank you for the awesome gift! <333

July 4th Weekend!

We haven't updated our blog in a couple of days because life has started to settle down. With Mary starting her MBA classes and me doing practically nothing but watching Sportscenter, we've been quite busy! While the weather's been on the rise and I've been miserably staying alone at home in this humidity, this past weekend was wonderful.

I apologize as this will be a short entry since I still have to think of witty sentences to accompany the pictures we took. But I'll try to get that done in the next day or two! We just did so much with our first guests over the weekend that I'm still trying to sort through the memories as I type this...

Until the next entry!