Memorial Day Weekend

The weeks just seem to fly by and the weekends go even faster. Most of the time it was a blur and if it weren't for all the pictures I take and receipts in my wallet, I probably would forget most of what happened. We started our weekend early on Friday.

We played music at home and went into the city to run some errands. What those errands were, I don't remember exactly, but I do remember buying some 120mm film for one of my cameras - Ivan's request. Oh, and we also bought Home Movies Season 4! I found a Tower Records credit receipt from 2001 and they let me use it, so that's always a good thing.

We saw another bike protest and NYC cops were purposely blocking the bike path. I saw one giving a ticket to someone without a helmet, but I didn't understand why they'd block the bike paths in several places though. A lot of the bicyclists were yelling, "Stop blocking the bicycle path!" and then they all started chanting something but I couldn't make out what it was.

We eventually ended up at Gonzalez y Gonzalez, where we shared a pitcher of pink Sangria and some appetizers. We sat at the bar afterwards to watch the end of the Mets game and walked back home. Before we hit the Path we stopped by a Wine store and got a German Rielsing, which I've recently gotten hooked on.

On Saturday I met my parents at Churrascaria Plataforma by Time Square in the later afternoon. It was a place that I trudged across Manhattan during the Transit Strike last December to get both our parents Rodizio gift certificates for Christmas. My parents never used them so I figured I'd use this opportunity to get them out of the old neighborhood and try something new (finally!). My dad, being the meat-eater that he is, tried practically everything! =) The bread on the table tasted like a Pan de Yuca and it was so warm! We had a pitcher of Sangria, and I would definitly go there just to hang out at the bar with some Sangria and some dessert.

For dessert, I had a flourless chocolate cake. It was in the shape of a pyramid and it was delicious! The coffee was great and that's always a major plus! When we left they had put some sushi out, so I think the buffet area changes during the course of the day. The sushi did look really good, but I was so stuffed at that point.

Saturday my hunny told me to reserve the whole day for him. =) We went to Time Sq. and walked through the Time Sq. festival. We got some elephant ears and coffee and walked by some Spiderman filming that was going on. Then we went to Rockefellar to see the Top of the Rock! He surprised me with tickets he bought ahead of time! The views from up there were amazing! I brought my medium format camera and took some pictures with that. Ivan took a bunch of pictures of me taking pictures, which explained why he was lurking behind me a bunch of times...hehehe... We also bought the pictures that the people were taking at various places. As soon as they would take the picture, they'd give us this ticket and the picture would already be sent to the place downstairs where they were printing them out. That was a pretty cool thing.

Then we walked up to Central Park and did the Walking Tour of Central Park and ended up by the American Museum of Natural History, where he had purchased a package for us to see a few films! A surprise again! We are both fans of documentaries, and national geographic, etc. so it was something we both enjoyed. One of them was about Cosmic Collisions and how the earth formed. Some of the timelines they mentioned seemed new to me, I wonder if they were results of more recent space research. They said it took the moon about a week to form. Hmmm. The other movie we saw was at the IMAX and it was about the Galapagos island. That one was pretty awesome too.

Then we went back home to rest up a little before going out to dinner. We went to Knickerbocker Bar and Grill. If you've been in the village, you've probably seen it..it's on the same block as BBQ but on the other corner. If ever there existed a place that made steak to melt in your mouth, this was it. (the DSA said I said that 8 times this week, but I'll say it every time...). We both had the braised short-ribs and...oh my goodness...SO GOOD! Since it was a celebratory day, I tried the Churros. We also had a bottle of wine that was EXCELLENT!! Hopefully, our walking burned some of that off though.

When we got back to Hoboken, Adam met up with us near the Path. (Thanks Adam!) And he brought me another bottle of wine, Riesling. We didn't end up drinking it, but probably later on this week. I think at that point we had already drank so much.

Monday we kept it low key. We did some cleaning and went to get some fake food and groceries. We bought a watermelon and I made a bunch of watermelon balls. Then Ivan filled it with flovored vodka and rum and we put back all the watermelons inside and let it sit in the fridge to soak. I don't know where that idea came from, but I think Ivan got it from his little sister (ironically, who's underage!! hahaha...go figure!).

Adam came upstairs and he made some Guacamole and brought some chips and crackers. The Guac he made was really good and we broiled some salmon and ate it with Salad. Then, on to the watermelon!

It was all really good and we had so much left over...we were glad we only bought half a melon b/c we almost bough a whole watermelon. So, then we put a lot of watermelon into the blender with some popsicles and made some drinks and watched Home Movies.

softball

So, I am on the Softball Team at work. Last year a co-worker/friend of mine got me to join. I warned him that I wasn't that good, but he said that it was more for fun. So, I, not being one to turn down fun of most sorts, joined the team. I'm #12.

I didn't want to be a bad player so I did my best to learn to learn fast, play right, catch and throw better, etc... I got a hand-me-down glove from Ivan, which at one point ended up with his sisters. I have to explain this everytime I leave the glove lying around and hear someone say, "Ilona loves Ricky Martin??"

The people on my team are SO NICE too. The coach is great and there is another team member who I call my personal coach (PC). Unfortunately he gets to help out the most girly girl of them all - me, who can't throw if my life depended on it. He did get a bunch of players into the Major Leagues, including some current Yankee players, so I figured if anyone could teach me, it would be him.

After the first game, we beat another team from our company and I had, surprisingly, the 2nd best batting average of the team at 0.667! I kept telling people that it's all downhill from here, but the team was supportive.

Former Team Member : You go Sandra!

After our 3rd game, I was still 2 for 3 and still had a 0.667 batting average. I still don't think I'm really that good though. I'd be happier when I'm at the point where I can catch and throw aggresively - i.e. when the heat is on, baby.

Opposing Team Member: Oh please. I remember you hit a couple balls down the third base line that we perfectly placed. I think you sit there and smile like you have no clue then bam. There is a nice hit ball for a single. =)

Well, I don't like to sit there and smile like I have not clue exactly... After last week, we went into an extra inning and finally beat a team that beat us once before. I was a sub runner but I got home in time to end the inning at 12-11. Whew!

Current Team Member: where are the stats? I want to see how much further behind Sandra I fell...

Anyway, last game I didn't do as great, so my numbers may come down a bit. But I did get a few RBIs in! =) Afterwards we went to a bar nearby to meet up with several other teams that had games that day. Below is my PC, our team coach, and me and a co-worker (who's on the other team! *Grrr*).

NY Culinary Festival

Thursday after the softball game, I came home to U2 and U3 plotting to get pizza and ice cream. As I got settled they entered their journey into the wilderness. Our Director of Suspicious Activity (DSA) was able to secure some evidence of SA in Hoboken. Video awaits. I heated up the oven to warm up the pizza and we just hung out and talked.

Friday - passed out early! Woke up at midnight STARVING! So we headed out to Malibu to have some food and stayed up late watching Conan do some pole dancing. He is SO funny.

Saturday, went into Queens and got caught in traffic on my way back (mental note: summer street fairs in the city = bad bad traffic) so I decided to hang out in NY until it was time to meet up with my friend and his gf who was in from California. It was a really nice day and we went to the New York Culinary Festival. We were actually suppose to see a movie that night but they ended up seeing it the day before, which worked out perfectly because we found out about this and all wanted to go. Lloyd, being a vegetarian, even found some chocolate vegan cake and there was a whole table of vegetarian cuisine.

His girlfriend tried the chips and guacamole. My favorite was the Chocolate Souffle. They were raffling off an Easy Bake Oven - I'm not sure if that's how they made all the souffle cakes, but oh man, I don't think I want to know. My hunny and I split everything we got so that we wouldn't fill up to fast and could try more things. We also tried some of the wine and had some Chicken Quesadillas. All of which were wonderful.

There was fruit sculpting too. They had very detailed sculptings on Cantalopes and watermelon. If you are able to zoom in on those pictures, you'd get a better idea of how much work went into it. Lloyd's gf's favorite was a tea made by Avalon tea bar by Union Square. She had some drink called Genius and I think I'm going to head down there one day to try it out at the store.

At 11pm the Spin Doctors were suppose to play, but we weren't ambitious enough to stay that long nor to come back to see them. We did however catch Nashville Attitude practicing or doing sound check. They were pretty good.

Then we walked around NY by Rockefeller, where there was some Rock Art Exhibit. There were some peculiar art films and other art forms to see.

Probably one of the highlights was this one man dancing with some girl who were working at a radio station. I have great video of that, which I will add later (so check back for it!). Afterwards, we went back into the hood to meet up with Elvia for some more fun.

We hypothesized crashing Sobray's friend's BBQ (he only wanted to be in the blog! You could at least say something!) but instead ended up going to the new Charrito's again. It's just that good my friends.

We sat outside but when the temperature dropped they happily moved us inside where it was toasty warm. I think that all of us are going though summer happy thoughts, since we weren't dressed appropriately for the sudden yet predicted drop in temperature. I love the pitchers they use over there; they're so colorful!

Sunday = shopping! I think I have been meaning to go shopping the whole year. When I went shopping during the holiday season, I didn't really see anything that caught my eye, but at this point I was running out of some necessities. I didn't really get everything I needed to get, but boy did I spend a lot. I didn't even mean to spend that much, it just happened and when I would see things I loved, I didn't even hesitate because I can get pretty picky with this stuff.

Anyway, I still need to get new sneakers. Mine are probably 3 years old and have no soles. Cleats so that I don't mess up my new sneakers and so that I don't go slipping on bases like I did last Thursday where I was clearly safe but slid right off 3rd base because it was raining and there are no more treads on my sneakers, which are kinda gross at this point. Hmm...and new black shoes because my shoes are probably at least 4 years old. I also need new casual shoes because mine are probably 5 years old. Geez, I need to take better care of myself.

So anyway, I ended up buying some things I wanted to wear on my vacation and a bunch of stuff for work; so watch out for the new spring lineup! So then Elvia and I went to the Seaport and ate at Uno's. There was a concert going on outside...a Merengue band and there were SO MANY PEOPLE drinking, dancing, and enjoying the day. We had some drinkie drinks and had some time to rest our feet.

We had some killer flat-bread pizza that was so good, we ended up taking 2 more pies home to U2 and U3 who waited in my car in Hoboken to pick up the goods. Eventually it got so cold we went inside to finish out drinks, pay the bill, and wait for the other pizzas. What a pizza week it was! It was such a nice day, I think all the raining had left the sky really blue and the clouds so fluffy white.

Rock the Vote

In case you're not registered to vote, you can do so by clicking the link below.

It's time we start changing things around here. Who needs a Senate that wastes their time deciding that English is our National Laguage? OR perhaps they are trying to rule out a large chunk of the voting population by eventually only having to print ballots in English?

Me thinks that would give an unfair advantage to a certain political party. The world is ruled by politicians with conflicting insterests.

To make a difference, click the link below:
http://action.rockthevote.org/ctt.asp?u=900387&l=7973

Popsicle Riddle

Question: What did the mountain climber name his son?

**Florida**

Sorry, it's been a crazy week and when I came back I had to hit the ground running.

So, to recap, it looks like I left the East Coast in time to miss another rainy weekend last week. Florida greeted us with blue cloudless skies and bright green palm trees and colorful flowers. I so needed a vacation.

Coincidentally, the hotel we were at wasn't too far from the hotel we stayed a a couple years ago when we came for my cousin's wedding.

On our first day we got a rental car and drove to the Welcome Center and then to Rangatsu, a Japanese Restaurant that a friend of mine claimed was the best Japanese place she's ever eaten at. I had to take her word on it since she's been to a lot of Asian countries. We tried to go there for lunch but they only had dinner hours so we made our way to the hotel instead.

We parked the car and walked a few blocks to International Drive, where there were a lot of sites and attractions to see and it was SO nice to feel the warm sun on our skins. The totem poles was a golf course we passed by on our walk as well as Wonderworks.

We tried to hold out for the Sushi place but we caved in! We were SO hungry! We ended up going to a place called Tu Tu Tango, a tapas restaurant, and got a pitcher of...guess what! You know it! The food was pretty okay and it helped us continue our walk.

We then went to play mini golf at one of the places we walked by: Pirates Cove. The course had some pretty neat obstacles: rocks, hills, marsh, holes, water. It has been a very long time since I have played, but I did pretty well! It was a lot of fun and I was SO happy to be out! It was a perfect day. =)


Afterwards we went back to the hotel and payed a visit to the pool. We went in it for a bit but got skeeved out! There was an egg in the pool and it wasn't hard boiled if you know what I mean! Eww!

So we just sat outside on the chairs talking and reading books and newpapers. 2 ducks came by and decided to take dip as well. Perhaps they were looking for a lost egg? *Shiver* After relaxing a bit we went back out to international drive. By the way, my pedometer counted 30,924 steps or 11.22 miles we walked! International drive was a decent walk away. We went to a place called "Howl at the Moon" where they had a dueling piano show. It was awesome! There was a full band and even a keytar! They let you request songs and they had all these people coming up in stage. It was a lotof fun to watch and cheer on. Afterwards we were hungry for dinner so we stopped by a steakhouse next door, by then we had quite a few drinks and the camera caught what happened to the rest of my Mango drinky-drink. =) I don't even remember what those egg-roll looking things were. Ivan claims they were mozzerella sticks but I barely recall.



Saturday we went to some timeshare event and Universal Studio. We didn't expect to spend that much time in the former, but who knew we'd end up with property in Missouri? Universal was kinda crowded, hot, and over-rated. It's really not that much different than great adventure, except it has different "themes, which means it's painted different colors. Don't be fooled. But who knows, perhaps if it wasn't so crowded it would have been more fun.

Then we went to a Colombian restaurant named Lenos y Carbon to meet my cousin, her husband, my aunt, and Ivan's parents for dinner. The food there was really good and it was a really good time! It was nice to see and catch up with my cousins and my aunt and Ivan's parents, I just wish I had more time to spend with them. It was out Happy Mother's Day dinner for them too! There was lots of plantains, chorizos, and sangria, which was way better than the one we had the other day.
Afterwards, we followed Ivan's parents to there house, which was over an hour away. It was dark by the time we reached there house.


The following day Ivan's dad took us around there development to the Community house, which had its own swimming pool, a gym, a library with computers, an auditorium with a stage, a pool tables, and a library of movies to borrow for free! We also stopped by the golf center (below with the palm trees and flowers), which had a lot of golf carts and a nice golf store. By the end of the tour I wanted to move in! It was like being in college without the homework! They also had all kinda of activities going on - walking clubs, pilates, tap dancing, couples golf tournaments -- basically, loads of fun. The country club also was planning all these shows, including a musical tribute to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass! I NEED to see that. By the way, every day I realize how old fashioned I really am. Anyway, they only thing they were missing was a yearbook club. In the tone of Maebe: Hire me!

Their neighbor came over and brought 2 bottles of wine and we had a BBQ. There were all kinds of steaks available - mmm. Below you can see the wine and flowers sent to the Mrs. from her daughters. The neighbor which was an older woman, was apparently a golf pro and won 2nd place in a tournament, which had monetary benefits, in the community a few times. Ivan's mom said she's not into golf, but the neighbor responded,

OH! Once you start playing, you'll be addicted - IT'S LIKE CRACK COCAINE!

That was the last thing we were all expecting her to say and we were laughing histerically. SO funny!

After we ate, Ivan's dad jumped in the pool and we soon followed. As you can see, out heads got more sun than the rest of our bodies and we looked like Oomps Loompas as we get caught doing our synchronized swimming routine!

Their pool had a whole meshed fence around and on top of it - I think all the pools in the community were required to have those enclosures around them. I think it's to prevent alligators, but it's also good for keeping bugs out of the back as well as twigs and things out of the pool.

It was a much-needed relaxing day and in the evening we watched Bringing Down the House. It was actually kinda funny and everyone was laughing. The next day we drove back to the airport and arrived early enought to catch an earlier flight back home. My parents met us at the airport and took us to luch at Natives, a Colombian restaurant in Queens. I had a steak with arepa con queso. MMMMM. Apparently there was a fire in there and it was closed for a few months, but now it looks like they're expanding. This is the same restaurant I had my college graduation party at, complete with Mariachi and open bar. Afterwards people were asking me if we had ties to influential families, if you know what I mean.