Good afternoon!
I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing weekend. One of my favorite things to do is spending time with family. During my childhood, my uncle was always taking all of us out for fun. What I mean by “us” is our group which includes me, my twin sister Mary, our brother Anthony, and our cousins, Lena, Amy, and Long. It was always the six of us with our dear uncle, Loi. Things changed dramatically for us in the past 5 or more years. Last night was one event that brought us all together again.
Now, we all live in St. Louis, but Long and his family moved to Illinois a few years ago. Every now and then, he would drive back to visit us. I guess you could say we all became a little distant, but when chances come we hang out like we used to.
Back to the point! Yesterday, Mary and I went to work and didn’t plan on doing anything special afterward. Long called me and asked if we were still barbecuing (I was really happy to hear from him because it’s been a long time). I asked surprisingly, “We’re doing it today?!” Long said, “Yeah, that’s what Uncle was telling me.” Man, I was pretty excited! I told Mary as well, so we were anxious to finish with work as soon as we could. Unfortunately, we were a little busy so instead of getting off right at 4:30pm, we had to stay until about 6:00pm because we still had customers. Then we headed home to pick up our baby brother, Avin, to come with us (he’s our half-brother from mom and her boyfriend). Mom was cooking some things for us to bring over so we waited until she was done.
We finally arrived to Uncle’s house before 7:00pm! Long waited as patiently as he could. Ha ha. He also brought his girlfriend, Briana, her daughter Journey, and his friend Sebastian. Yes, Briana is only 17 and Journey is about 4 months old, but they’re both really sweet. 
Also, Uncle’s girlfriend’s sisters were there: Selena, Tracey, and their cousin, Nga. Nice group, eh? And of course, Uncle was busy barbecuing. It was awesome.
After all was done, we sat in the living room and ate. Uncle made three different types of barbecue, spaghetti, and bought a container of mustard potato salad. It was so delicious! Even before then, we all ate my mom’s homemade Vietnamese “crepes”. I honestly don’t know what we would name it in English, but that’s that.
As most of us were done eating except Uncle, my boyfriend Michael also came. After Uncle was done eating, we went downstairs for karaoke! And talk about great singing but also hilarious moments. We sang all night until about midnight! Then we all took some food home because Uncle said he can’t finish it all.
I know that was a looooong blog, but just wanted to express my family memories. Hopefully we’re going to do something again today!
Have an awesome day, everyone.
Tagged as:
Barbecue,
family,
Friends,
Get togethers,
Karaoke,
Weekends,
work
Welcome back from our “Spring” Break! I know it started off more like a winter break, but it did get warmer.
I hope everyone is doing well, now that we have to get back to our school mode. I can actually say that my break was pretty good. Of course, I worked the whole week but got to hang out with my siblings on the first Monday, then hung out with my sister and two friends yesterday.
My two friends were Kim Dang and Nga Tran, and they’re both international (Vietnamese) students at Fontbonne. Mary (my sister) and I are St. Louis residents so we hung out with Kim and Nga to show them around. We were planning for a tour of downtown St. Louis, but time didn’t work out. Anyways, our first trip was to Bubble Tea, a little Asian cafe in the Delmar Loop. It’s one of our favorite places. We ordered their popular boba drinks and ate some food, too. Yummy!
Afterwards, we just took a tour down the loop. We wanted to check out Craft Alliance but they’re closed on Mondays. Ha ha. So we stopped by Star Clipper, a comic book store. The main area we looked at was the Japanese manga section. We’re so Asian for that! And because we’re big fans of manga and anime. I found the new editions of Sailor Moon and decided to buy the first two volumes. Mary and I actually used to own the old versions of Sailor Moon, but we threw them away because they were torn (what a waste!). However, I’m going to start collecting them again, slowly. I also found the Bone series! Not the scary drama series, but the ones with the cartoon guys who are going on adventures and such. I’m planning to collect those as well! So excited!
Mary chose a Soul Eater manga book’s first volume. When we were about to check out, we saw little phone links at the front desk. They have Hello Kitty, the Chinese Lucky Kittens, a cow head, etc. They were so cute! We all looked at them and wanted to buy them, too. Mary and I asked Kim and Nga which ones they like, so we bought those for them. A meaningful friendship has begun! 
After that, we continued to tour. Soon, we reached the end of the loop so we turned back to head to the mall! At the first light, we crossed to the other side (the motivation was because of the sun). As we walked, Kim and I noticed a store that also sells art work. As you may already guessed, we went in! Wow, what a beautiful store of work. So many pretty things made by local artists. I thought we were only going to look around, but Mary and I bought something: she bought a necklace for herself, and I bought presents for my friends’ birthdays that are coming up. If you’re wondering, the store is called Componere (with a ^ above the o). We’re definitely coming back.
Finally, we’re back to the car! Then headed off to the Galleria Mall. We visited a few stores, like Hot Topic, Love Couture, Wet Seal, and Victoria’s Secret. Mary and Nga actually bought some things at Wet Seal. Their prices are very affordable. I’m still waiting patiently before buying anything else (need to save up!).
We continued to stroll then stopped by the American Cookies spot and Mary bought red velvet brownies for us. We ate and chatted then headed back out. Mary and I dropped Nga and Kim off at Fontbonne, then headed home.
It was such a fun day before going back to school. Again, I hope you all had a great break! Don’t forget to register for classes this week! ^_^
Tagged as:
Delmar Loop,
Friends,
Register for classes,
Spring Break,
The Galleria Mall,
The Loop,
Touring St. Louis
As my title says, I have officially gotten rid of my wisdom teeth. All FOUR of them! Crazy, right? I’m sure those who had their wisdom teeth removed would know how I feel.
It’s so funny because my jaw is completely numb. I can still talk, but of course, I sound like I’m mumbling. Ha ha. I’m just relieved because those teeth were bothering me so much, especially the bottom ones. The two upper teeth weren’t any trouble though. Anyways, just thought I’d share this with you all.
Have a great day!
Tagged as:
Personal updates,
Wisdom Teeth
