Last Friday was Ethan's 29th birthday. When it comes to bdays Ethan and I have differing opinions based on our upbringing and Korean vs. American culture. Growing up, birthdays were always really special in my family. We always made a big fuss for the bday person and let them choose what they wanted to do and where they wanted to eat within reason. Ethan's family did things a little more simply so he never wants me to make a big deal.  (Also, in Korea the bday person treats their friends/family for dinner.) However, this year I really wanted to do something nice for him since the year before we were pretty strapped financially and didn't do much.

Ethan had mentioned several weeks before his bday that he had been craving some good steak and wanted to go to a classical concert. So I made reservations at Porterhouse in the Time Warner building and then got tickets to see the NY Philharmonic. (By the way, if your 35 and younger you can get great seats for $29/ticket through their MyPhil program.)

It was our first visit to Porterhouse. We got the cowboy rib steak and the prime NY strip. The meat was cooked perfectly medium and super tender.

We also got their special Mr. Pete's creamed spinach w/bacon. Ummm...bacon

I made reservations through opentable.com and left a note that it was the hubs' bday dinner. I didn't expect them to read the note but they must have b/c our strawberry-butterscotch pie came out with a candle.
The steak was really good but we both admitted that Peter Lugar's is still our favorite steakhouse in the City. You might recall our awesome meal there last year for James' 30th bday dinner.

Here we are at Avery Fisher Hall, sneaking in a quick pic before the concert started. This was our first time seeing the NY Philharmonic. The night's performance featured the pianist Lang Lang playing a piano concerto that the composer Tan Dun wrote specially for him. The second half of the concert was Stravinsky's Firebird.  We both really enjoyed the concert and can't wait for the next 2 concerts included in our MyPhil package.

Lang Lang about to start the concerto. He was amazing to watch! I was mesmerized the entire performance. I almost wanted to learn piano again, but then I snapped back into reality and remembered how much I hated piano lessons growing up. keke

heheh. I love this picture!
We celebrated Ethan's bday again with our small group two days later. I made a pound cake with the cupcake baking pan I got for V-day. 

I hope all your wishes come true!!

Last month, I attended my first baby shower, the shower of my dear friend Julia, who is expecting a girl in 3 weeks! If you click each individual picture you can see the captions.

                                   
The shower was super fun and I'm greatly looking forward to meeting Baby Lee!

Thanks to Joanne, Christine and Bo for the pictures!

I'm sick again. bleh! I caught my third cold this winter. I went from no cold for 6 yrs to 3 in one season. It really sucks to be sick but the honest to goodness truth is that it's all my fault. Lack of sleep and exposing myself to sick people have brought these colds on. If I denied myself the pleasure of hanging out with ppl until wee hours of the morning I would probably have only caught one cold this season (the germs in my office were too strong to prevent from getting sick the first time around). Oh wells...I love my friends too much and hanging out with them is so rare so I am paying for it now with a slight fever and super duper congestion that feels like someone is hugging my head and won't let go.

Being sick so often the past two months has also taken a toll on my ability to cook. I seriously forgot how to cook. I feel like I blew out the recipes and food knowledge in my head with all the nasty stuff in my nose. keke sorry, not such a pretty picture But really, I am totally blank. What did I make last year? What do we need this week? Why did I buy that sweet potato two weeks ago? Complete blank...eeessshh....

So I started to look at my xanga and slowly somethings started to come back to me. I also discovered I had uploaded some pics several weeks ago and meant to blog about a favorite recipe but didn't have time and kept them private.  So for my sake and also because some people have asked, I post the super easy recipe below.

Some of you might remember this entry I did a while ago with pictures from a pizza I made with Suseok oppa. Well you can make any kind of pizza you want with anything you have in the fridge. I usually do a pizza with spaghetti sauce, sweet onions, turkey bacon or sausage, mushrooms, green peppers and pizza cheese (mix of various shredded cheeses). I've also used pinnaple, broccoli, spinach, olives, chicken, squash, tomatoes and lots of other random ingredients. The only thing you definitely need to have is the dough. I like to use a generic frozen pizza dough like, House of Pasta's All Natural Pizza Dough, because it's cheap- usually 2 dough balls for $2. I have used the premade pizza crusts in the past but expect to pay double for only 1 premade crust. You could also make the dough if you're adventurous and have the time but I think the frozen stuff tastes just as good as the homemade dough.

Step1: Preheat oven to 450F. Roll out defrosted dough ball unto a clean, floured surface. I don't have a rolling pin so I get a lil creative and wrap plastic wrap around a wine bottle. Try and roll out the dough ball to fill a 14" pizza pan.

Step 2: Top with pizza sauce, toppings of your choice and cheese. I also like to sprinkle Italian seasonings and garlic salt.




  

Step 3:  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until pizza crust is golden.

Step 4: Enjoy with family or friends!

I will definitely be making pizza this week. I hope oppa doesn't get sick of it. kekek

I think the overwhelming theme this month is girls rule! j/k well not totally but really it's all about the ladies in my life this month. I always thought my closest friends were guys but now that I've gotten married my friendships with other girls has really strengthened and become something I really cherish. I used to think myself a guy's girl (and I am one special guy's girl hehe ) but I think the older I get the more girly I become and the more I look forward to being with my lovely ladies.

Last week Eunhee, Karen unni, Sue unni and Marie came into town. With everyone living all over the place this was a rare and total treat! We got together for dinner at Carbone, a hole-in-the-wall Italian place, around the corner from my office that my coworker Stephen recommended. I'm not the biggest fan of Italian but I have to say this place was really delicious, affordable and the service was excellent. I will definitely be back! Here we are feasting and hamming it for the camera...

This is what 4 girls squashed into the back seat of a VW Golf looks like keke
 

After dinner we headed over to Cafe Lalo (of You Got Mail fame) for some dessert and a special surprise for Karen unni, who celebrated a birthday last Wednesday.

 Suseok oppa met us up and joined in on the female fun. We were all telling stories and cracking each other up. We were laughing so hard I think I cried like 3 times! I think the other patrons got a lil annoyed with all our fun. One guy came up to us on his way out and said "whoa there, you guys have to work tomorrow. Take it easy." I think he thought we were drinking. Maybe it was all the sugar from the desserts we ordered? kekek

Oh man...the fun times you have when you get together with old friends!

More good times coming up...stay tuned.

February was a short, delightful month filled with lots of fun events. It started out with Janet's bday dinner/party and ended with a visit from my cousin Seung Hyun oppa. Here's all the stuff that happened in between...

Marie's house warming in PA. She invited us over and fed us until we couldn't eat anymore and then treated us to Starbucks and board games!
  Suseok oppa thought this boom box looked like a dual underwater sea scooter.

On the way to Starbucks I noticed an interesting plate on the car in front of us.
   
The game Apples to Apples is pretty fun. We also busted out the oldskool Uno.

The following day Han and Ellen from our small group invited the whole group to Staten Island for TLC.

Ellen and Han in the very front. Their generosity and hospitality were greatly appreciated!

Later that week we got some snow. I've seen snow fall many times but the wonder of a snow fall never ceases to amuse me! I have yet to build a snow man or have a real snow ball fight. Hopefully, soon!

My Valentine's Day surprise for Suseok oppa.                                
 

His V-Day surprise for me. I saw this many months ago and told him I thought it was super cool. He remembered and surprised me with it!! Guys remember, girls love it when you remember what they say and surprise them with things later on. I was soooo touched oppa remembered. It made me a super happy girl! I can't wait til Lent is over to make a cake with this!

The following Sunday we celebrated Yoon Kyung and Han's bday with a gorgeous cake Cathy made.

The following weekend we partied again for YK  fob-style at a place straight out of Korea called Shik Gaek. When I stepped inside I felt like I was transported to a hof across the street from Ajou Univ. After Shik Gaek we did 2cha at a noraebang. For reals fob-style no??

    

On our date night we spotted a cool ad near Herald Square. This month's date night theme was "cheap date." I took oppa to McDonalds and a $1 movie. I love an occasional cheap date night!

I love how the colors of the top of the Empire State Bldg are always different each night. On date night it was blue and green.

One night Chans blew into town by way of Guatemala via Korea. Several members of the Northeast Chapter of CCF Alumni Association gathered to dine with our Guatemalan sister.

!Te quiero Chanmi! I love the fun colors and fanny pack action! Chans we missed you so much, you're the sunshine in our crew.

My cousin stayed with us for two weeks in Feb to tour grad schools in the area. We had a lot of fun catching up on 5 years and also meeting each other's significant others.  Meet Seung Hyun oppa and his lovely gf Naun.

So February is over and winter is slowly coming to an end. Last year it was fun to experience 4 seasons and I didn't mind the long winter. However, I'm over it, I want the spring to hurry up and get here. Now I understand the concept of "snowbirds." I would like to be a snowbird too!! Soooo jealous of them.

Ok, peekcha update over! Thanks for checking it out!

I was listening to Qbox at work today and the song Kiss Kiss by Chris Brown came on, which totally reminded me  of the Bow Wow/Chris Brown Holiday Tour concert in Madison Square Garden I went to right before Christmas.  I know most of you that know me well are probably thinking, 'Huh? Bow Wow and Chris Brown?' keke   I got tickets thru work and got to partake in urban teeny bopper madness with Suseok oppa.

Here I am on the way into MSG. I had to stop and take a picture with a fellow Gator.

The opening acts were the Shop Boyz ,you know that song  "Party  Like a RockStar," (not to be confused with Pet Shop Boys as I keep on referring to them) Soulja Boy and Sean Kingston. The last time I went to a concert like this was back in the summer of 2000 with Jami and Chellene when we went to see Nsync in Tampa. 

Suseok oppa and I had a great time and I actually knew most of the songs Bow Wow and Chris Brown performed (much to my relief hehe). While I'm not the biggest Bow or CB fan, I have to admit they are very talented and know how to work the audience. When Bow Wow winked into the camera the entire arena went  crazy and man can Chris Brown dance! Between the bass and screaming girls, my ears were jacked up for a few days but it was worth it, especially when LL Cool J came out and did a surprise performance with Bow Wow! I was freaking out, reverting back to my 9th grade self, when my friends and I were all about LL. Fabolous, Omarion and a digital version of Rihanna also made appearances at the concert.
 
Here are a few pics I took at the concert:

At MSG for the first time with Suseok oppa.

Bow Wow "flew" down into the concert in a plane.

Bow Wow making his way down the stage.

Fabolous came out and did part of the song "Make Me Better"

After the concert I was humming their music for days and thought both of them were pretty cute. keke  I have to admit I think I still am a teenybopper at heart.

Ooooh I forgot to add in the last entry that we got together with our old small group Juwannago last month. =)

We had dinner at Red Robin, which for the folks back home is a family-style burger restaurant. Then we went to this cute place called Victoria's Cafe in Teaneck for dessert. It was so good to get together again with the first group of people that welcomed us to Joy Christian Fellowship. God blessed us so much through this group and it was great to see how they're being blessed as well. Great things are happening- two of them are having a baby, two more got engaged (then soon after another member got engaged)...obtaining of new jobs, passing of big tests...so much has happened since last year. I'm looking forward to all that comes and how God will continue to use us and bless us all.

So this is super long overdue but whatever, when do I ever update on time?

So for the holidays we stayed up north and didn't visit the parents, because we were down there in early December to see Peter's play. Our friend Sue graciously invited us to her place for Christmas dinner, and man, I'm soooo glad we went! There was sooo much food. Sue made two types of fondue and her mom made enough food for an army. I think we ate non stop for 4 or 5 hours.

Soo Yeon watching Sue unni make brie fondue sooo yummy!

Can you tell by Suseok oppa's face how much food there was? keke

Then on Dec 30th our good friend Kevin came down to visit us. I met Kevin in Korea when I studied abroad at Ajou Univ. Actually, Suseok oppa met him first and became great friends with Kev. Then Kevin introduced me to Suseok oppa. =) We've all managed to keep in touch frequently despite the distance. Kevin lived in Korea for quite awhile and then moved back to Canada in 2005. Since then we've wanted him to visit us. We're so happy he finally was able to come and help us ring in 2008.

We took Kev all over the city during his 3 day visit. We've actually gotten pretty good at giving tours of the city because in the past year and half we've lived up here we've had over 60 visitors to our place. =O We've actually started to lose count but I think we've had more nights in our apt with guests than without. Isn't that nuts?!

Here's some of my favorite pics from Kev's visit.  


   

We did a lot of good eating during Kev's visit. We took him to all our favorite places, including Pam's Real Thai in Hell's Kitchen and New Malaysia Restaurant in Chinatown. Kevin brought us several bags of my favorite ketchup chips (I could seriously eat these all day) and also let me help him pick out some new clothes (I love helping guys shop).  It was so good to see him and spend some quality time with him. Hopefully we'll be able to visit him in Canada one day.

After Kevin left, we had two busy weeks of work and church related events and then DLau came and stayed with us for 3 weeks while she job and apt hunted. While her stay was unexpected it was nice to see her. I hadn't seen her since the summer of 2005. During DLau's stay we did a ton of cooking and baking at home. It was kind of like college except for the living with my hubby part. hehe I think having another girl in the house for so long really brought out the nesting instincts. I haven't cooked, baked and did so much crafting since my wedding.

I don't have pictures of everything we made but here are a few things we did.  Man DLau's cookies and banana nut bread are really good. Ask her for the recipes!
     

If the city you live in has a restaurant week, you should definitely try and go to one of the restaurants. It's a great way to try an expensive place you wouldn't normally get to enjoy. This year we were determined to try at least one restaurant during restaurant week and were able to make a reservation at Craft for lunch. Most ppl know the chef/owner of Craft, Tom Colicchio, as  the head judge on the show the Top Chef.  We don't really watch the show but heard a lot of good things about Craft and wanted to see for ourselves.

Boy, we weren't disappointed. The food and the restaurant decor had this great earthy style and flavor. Everything was delicious and I was completely surprised by how delicious brussel sprouts are!  We thought the portions weren't going to be filling but we were stuffed by the end of the meal and the price was awesome (3 courses for $24/person). We can't wait for the next NYC Restaurant Week!

At the end of the month we celebrated my friend Janet's 30th bday. Jason asked me to help decorate their apt for 2cha. So I got the chance to bust out my set of scalloping scissors that I bought 3 years ago and never opened. keke Suseok oppa was a super trooper!  He's so incredibly handy and creative. Whenever I start a project he always ends up doing so much of the work.  He helped me hangup decorations (we made her a large photo collage with pictures of her throughout the yrs) and also arrange 6 dozen roses. In fact, his arrangement looked so much better than mine (no pics, so I can save face keke).
   

January was super jam packed with stuff and this month is no different. I'll be back with a February update soon!

Oh my goodness! This is hilarious! I discovered this user from a coworker's site.

EDIT

We're going to be on today and tomorrow from 5-6 p.m.

Hey guys! Today, Thursday and Friday my coworker Natalia and I are going to be chatting with users over on the xanga team page from 2-4 and 5-6p.m. If you have time come over to say hi and chat with us. You can also ask us any xanga-related questions you have.

Hope to see some of you!