Camera face

We discovered last week during Thanksgiving break that Lydia loves waving at pretty much anybody and always makes this one silly face when taking a picture. Even when you pretend you have a camera in your hands, she'll start making this face. I don't know if I should try and teach her to "unsquint" or just let her keep it up; after all, at least she's somewhat smiling. *shrug* BTW, you'll probably recognize this face if you've been keeping up with my blog.
Last night Lydia watched her first full length movie, Ant Bully, and in HD! We rarely get animated movies from Netflix, so this was a treat for her. Lydia started off watching the movie sitting next to me on the couch, but got restless after about 30 minutes (which is about how long her usual Sesame Beginnings DVDs last). So I put her on my lap and she sat there quietly, watching the movie. Towards the end, she started whimpering a bit because, I think, she started getting scared. When she went to bed, she also started crying when she typically doesn't, so maybe bugs are still too scary for this toddler.

Cars

Whoo-hoo, yeah for Helio! He's just to dang cute with those dimples for America not to choose him. Oh, and it probably helps that Julianne is his partner; they should really hook up if they haven't already. Were those kisses for real during the foxtrot or is it just because he's Portuguese and they maybe kiss a lot?

Today I went to my insurance claims adjuster and afterwards, dropped off the car at the shop. The loaner cars available were a Chrysler minivan or a Hyundai Elantra. Trung and I chose to go with the minivan to see how it felt to drive one if we decided to purchase one later and because the Elantra is pretty small. Too bad the minivan has over 94,000 miles on it and smells like urine, but it's the experience that matters. :P

Boy or Girl?

I had my doctor's appointment today and got my "20" week sonogram. This isn't the gender revealing picture, but just for kicks, what do YOU think we're having?

Stay tune on Christmas Day for the results!

Results

I went to four mechanic shops today to get an estimate on the car; we're looking at $2500-$3500 worth of damage. Since it was more than we had expected (isn't it always though?), we decided to file a claim with our insurance company because who knows what else needs to be repaired. Now we've just got to wait for the claims adjuster to take a look at the car so that we can take it to the shop. The sooner the better though because the hood is currently being strapped down by rope.

Some good news...we sold the HD plasma TV for a $350 profit. Now all we've got to do is find a really good deal on the TV that we want, sell our old TV and we're set!

After watching Dancing with the Stars tonight, my prediction is that Helio and Julianne will win. Everyone did quite poorly, especially Marie, considering that it was the finals. Anyhow, it will be nice to see all the celebrity dancers again tomorrow night.

Woes back at home

We were only about 20 miles away from home on our trip back from Houston when we got into a little fender bender. Basically, the car in front of us had someone cut in front of it, but we couldn't brake fast enough and ended up skidding right into the car. The whole accident seemed like it was in slow motion; all we could do was wait for the hit. Of course, it didn't help that the weather was horrible on Saturday and it had been raining almost all day. *sigh* Well, at least we had our new plasma HD TV to look forward to, right? Not really. Trung and Henry went to go pick it up later that afternoon and it ended up looking a bit small for our entertainment system. The TV was awesome, but we thought that we needed a bigger one. We had gone through a lot of trouble buying and returning items to get a really great deal on the TV, so rather than return it, we decided to post it on Craigslist and maybe make a little profit to put towards a bigger one.

Friends

Friday we had a great time meeting up with some of my old classmates. We met with Sid and Rami at Starbucks after eating lunch at my parents' house with a couple of Mike's friends. Trung and I shared a Caramel Apple Spice, which was pretty good.Then after Lydia's afternoon nap, I had some yummy desserts at Sarah's house. She had wanted to meet at Starbucks as well, but her flight was delayed for three hours due to mechanical problems.
When Lydia and I got home from Sarah's house (Mike dragged Trung to Sears to buy more stuff), we had dinner at Thomas' house. Unfortunately, Chi had to work that night, so it was just Thomas and Daniel this time around. Great job on the Christmas decorations, Chi. I don't think we'll be doing Christmas stuff at our house this year since we'll be gone for half of the month anyways.

We elfed ourselves

We ELFED ourselves! Check it out.

Catching up

Today after a snooze of a nap, we headed to the mall so I could make some returns. Then we hopped over to Le Peep to meet Tiff and Christian to have some breakfast for lunch. The food was very good, especially since we've been having Chinese styled breakfasts these last few days. My has little Christian grown into a handsome boy AND he's got little freckles like his mommy now! Too cute!

Finale and Finals

I forgot to watch the season finale of The Bachelor last night, so I caught up on abc.com; I almost wish that I hadn't. I cannot believe Brad did not choose either girls! I'll definitely have to watch "After the Rose" to see what he has to say for himself. I also read up on the web just now that Jennie got kicked off of "Dancing with the Stars". I kind of saw it coming since everyone seems to love Marie, and Mel and Helio are "neck and neck". I am now okay with either Mel and Helio winning (though I still prefer Helio); I just don't want Marie to win.

Tonight Mike, Trung and I had dinner at Bluefin, a trendy Japanese restaurant near Dairy Ashford off of Westheimer. I "enjoyed" watching Mike and Trung eat sushi and sashimi while I munched on tempura, unagi, and a spider roll. Afterwards, we watched "Beowulf" at Memorial City Cinemark, which is quite a nice facility. The movie was entertaining and unique with its animated effects. Overall, Trung had a great time and it was nice taking a break from Lydia for an evening!

Much ado about nothing

Here's a family picture that someone took of us at my parents' reception.

We didn't do much today...ate breakfast at Panera Bread, ate leftovers for lunch at my parents' house, and had hot pot with the family for dinner. Trung looked up the items he wanted to purchase on Black Friday, but mostly we just sat around and flipped through advertisements. This will be our only real "down" day since we will hopefully be meeting up with friends and hanging out with family the rest of the week.