Gimme A Break

My nephew’s getting married early next year. We just received the invitation card last week but are still undecided if we should all travel to Australia for the wedding.

Of course, it’s going to cost a fortune for our family of five. Dh and I have been to visit them before years ago but the kids have never been to that part of the country.

SIL and family live way out in the country. I remember taking a ten hour drive from the city/airport where we landed and the scenery was nothing but brown shrub the whole time. Duh!

I haven’t checked out the weather there either at that time of year. Who knows it may be cold and wet and we may need to buy some UGG Australia boots and outer wear as well.

I guess we still have time to check things out and make a decision as to whether to go or not. We’d love to go but by the looks of the economy, we’re probably best staying home. We’ll see.

• something unusual to boot
• brown
• the annual pilgrimage
• shopping and eating
• a-choo…

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My kids grew up on Disney. I mean, we’ve been to Disneyland, gone to watch Disney on Ice, well, we love everything Disney. In fact, only last night, we were just talking about who our favorite Disney characters are:

1. Princess Jasmine (Aladdin)
2. Aladdin (Aladdin)
3. Mr Smee (Peter Pan)
4. Ariel (The Little Mermaid)
5. Lucky, the dalmatian who’s always hungry (101 Dalmatians)
6. Snow White (Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs)
7. Happy (Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs)
8. Belle (Beauty and the Beast)
9. Mushu, the little dragon with Eddie Murphy’s big voice (Mulan)
10. Simba (The Lion King)
11. Timon (The Lion King)
12. Pumbaa (The Lion King)
13. Nemo (Finding Nemo)
14. Baloo (The Jungle Book)
15. Shere Khan (The Jungle Book)

Now I’d like to see if you share our favorites. Why don’t you go ahead and leave a comment naming the 5 Disney characters you love best, and let’s see .

And you know what? All of my characters, and yours too, are in ScreenLife Game’s Disney Bingo DVD. It adds a new twist to a good old game of Bingo and I guarantee it’s a game everyone in the whole family will enjoy.

Wait till my kids hear about this! They’ll be hounding me to go buy it from Amazon.com or Drugstore.com.

• nothing but fun in orlando
• one-stop shop for Disney attractions
• shoo, sun!
• harry potter and the deathly hallows
• crazy ’bout lions

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With wedding season just around the corner, I have many friends who are running around like crazy trying to get their weddings organized. It can be quite an involved and stressful stretch for those who are working fulltime jobs as well.

Well, unless they know of a good place online to source for stuff. One of my friends told me they just might have to do that since both she and her groom are very busy with projects at work and don’t have time to be physically scurrying around to get things organized.

So far, they’ve already found some unique wedding favors at The Knot Wedding Shop and they’re thrilled to bits. They’re definitely going to go back there over the weekend to look around and hopefully find some other supplies they need.

• of wedding bells and favors
• closed again?
• wedding daze
• need ideas for easy lunches
• the site for weddings

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The daughter of one of my cousins will be getting married in a few months and I wish they’d ask me to help organize it. I know, I know, sounds like I’m asking for trouble, right?

I’m busy enough as it is. Who needs more running around, more deadlines? But you know planning a wedding is so much fun! Or at least, I wouldn’t mind planning their honeymoon vacation.

I know of a great place in Mexico called the Riviera Maya where they can be kings and queens for the length of their stay. The palm trees swaying, the ukeleles playing, it’ll be paradise.

• sea breeze, palm trees and no money?
• don’t ask me if I’ve been to Mexico
• and I will brag
• the tale of three Aussie cities
• not going anywhere?

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I hardly go into any baby shops to browse any more now that my kids are teens, and I do kinda miss that. Now I only go in when I need to buy a baby present and even then, that’s not very often as my friends’ kids are pretty much all grown up too.

So it’s rather refreshing when I do step into a baby shop and see all of those new-fangled stuff that didn’t even exist when my kids were babies. I mean, the pacifiers are so cartoony and colorful I’d be itching to sink my gums into them too (if I were a baby, that is ).

But frankly, parents in this day and age don’t have to lug their entire brood to the mall to shop for stuff any more. They can go online to places like Lilaguide and get everything they need including meet other parents too.

• three kids and completely clueless
• diaper-changing robot?
• parenting just got easier
• our corner of the Sony store
• savings on Super Bowl tickets

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Just when we thought we were done with wedding dinners for a while, we got invited to the wedding of the daughter of DH’s childhood friend. Yes, the wedding is tomorrow and we got verbally invited on Tuesday, that’s 4 days ago!

I hate to say this but it doesn’t sound like a very sincere invitation to me. But DH doesn’t have to know what I think. He’ll just say I have an over-active imagination. Duh!

But never mind that. I almost didn’t make it to the gym this morning. With all the sumptuous wedding dinners I’ve been attending lately, I either have to exercise like crazy or resort to generic Phentermine. I’m not kidding.

I jumped on the scale this morning and I was almost afraid to look. But guess what! I haven’t gained a single ounce, hahaha. No guilty looks from me. In fact, I can’t wait till tomorrow’s dinner!!

• energized
• weddings
• just the honeymoon please
• missed
• an exceptionally great wedding dinner

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I hear the price of getting married just went up. Blame it on the escalating price of gas which is causing everything else to follow suit. I can’t imagine starting married life in debt, can you?

I think pretty soon, couples are going to be looking at alternatives to hosting that grand wedding dinner that their parents expect them, or as is customary in our society.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to forget the costly dinners and opt for destination weddings instead? After all, marriage is between two people so the focus should be on them spending time together at some exotic honeymoon resort in Mexico perhaps.

• don’t ask me if I’ve been to Mexico
• and I will brag
• tropical honeymoon paradise
• McWedding
• not an ounce

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No, we didn’t do anything about Father’s Day this year except for having a nice little American breakfast at home. The kids wished DH a Happy Father’s Day and that’s it. I think they’re a little biased. He doesn’t get any presents on Father’s Day while I get presents on Mother’s Day.

Like I said, it’s all getting too commercialized as is evident from the long lines we saw at restaurants today at the mall. It’s like a fish market and it definitely didn’t look or feel like anyone was feeling the pinch of recent gas hikes. Or maybe they’re spending Mom’s money to buy Dad lunch, eh ?

Well, I guess like my kids, I’ll wish all fathers a Happy Father’s Day.

• too commercialized
• where’s the real lunch?
• like we owned the place
• tomyam noodles
• now Mom wants to be Dad

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We were at the temple this morning for Wesak Day. It was crowded but traffic wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. In fact, I found a parking spot under a tree out front.

The kids and I lit some oil lamps, prayed and made our customary donations. There was even a donation box for the Sichuan Relief Fund to help the victims of the deadly earthquakes in China.

The temple is usually quiet and has a calming effect on me. But yesterday’s Wesak Day celebrations had an air of festivity and celebration, and that left me with a sense of excitement and happiness.

• our annual donation
• herbivorous days
• another herbivorous day ahead
• a holy morning
• Blogathon 2007: Do good with a click

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Will you be celebrating Mother’s Day? It being on a Sunday, I’ll probably let the kids buy me a Sausage McMuffin if they tell me they want to celebrate. But only because I don’t want to be a wet blanket.

While it’s nice to have a day set aside just to recognize and celebrate mothers for everything they do, I believe we should teach our kids to appreciate their mothers every day of the year.

• a single stalk of tulip
• too commercialized
• Happy Thanksgiving
• joining in the rush
• Happy Father’s Day

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