Dinner with the Millsers

Alan wasn't able to attend my birthday party as he was out of town for business. So we are continuing my birthday celebrations one more day and enjoyed dinner with the Millsers. I thought we'd try Hacienda Colorado for dinner. Their margaritas are rumored to be quite strong and the food rather good too. After sampling both, I have to admit the rumors are true.

While waiting for our meal to arrive, I opened presents. To my surprise our friends had bought us two tickets to this weekends UT vs Colorado football game! I'd been trying to get tickets to the game, but was happy to enjoy it from the couch at home.

I have to admit my excitement over the football tickets trumped Jason Mraz tickets! :( But it is because the last time I attended a UT game was while I was a student in Austin.

This year has been one of the best birthdays!

Our Private Celebration

Since we'd had the party on Saturday, Damith and I enjoyed our own private birthday celebration today. As we planned dinner at 7pm, we thought we'd walk around the 29th Street mall to pass the time. Trying on various Ann Taylor outfits, I worked up an appetite and was happy when we arrived at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse for dinner. As we were seated, Damith handed me a white envelope and said I couldn't open it until we'd finished dinner. At first I just kept staring at the envelope and Damith, but thought if it's that important for him to ask me to wait, I'll wait. I am glad I did because inside were two tickets to Jason Mraz!

A bit of background as to my excitement is that Jason was with Damith and I on our first date! Plus, we've never been able to get tickets if he played in Austin or Denver until now. I had even heard the concert being advertised on the radio one morning while driving into work and called Damith. Unknown to me, Damith already knew of the concert and had bought the tickets! On the phone, he didn't sound that excited but I just thought it was because he had ridden the bus into work and didn't really hear me. Thankfully for him, my day was busy and I forgot about the concert until I opened the white envelope.

After dinner, we returned home and opened presents with Akki. What a great present - a huge sale at Ann Taylor!

Bri's Birthday Party

We decided to host our first party in the house this evening - my 31st birthday party. While unpacking Akki's stuff, I saw she had Twister and thus my theme was 'Poker and Twister Night' - two of my favorite games! Also, I didn't want anyone to really cook, so the menu was a sampling of my comfort foods - KFC chicken, mashed potatoes, and Siew Gin's pork green chile sauce.

After we'd all had a bite to eat, it was game time! First up, poker. Darshan states he's never played so we thought we'd do a few practice rounds. The winnings were pretty even amoung us all. But once the real game was on, Uyen's husband Jim cleaned us all out! Good thing it was a $10 buy in!

With the power of "it's my party", I talked almost everyone into playing Twister. At first the game was played by the rules - one person spins the wheel while the rest position themselves on the Twister mat. Tony thought it would be more entertaining to 'make up' the spins based on how we were already positioned on the mat. I have to admit this was actual fun and Addy and I kicked Twister butt!

The funniest part of Twister was watching the guys play! You'd think since they are all athletic they'd be a bit more flexible, but they were falling all over the mat! Everyone thought we should play a more 'relaxed' game so next up - Pictionary. It was hilarious! I think this may be my new favorite game with this group of friends! Addy kept writing out clue words as they were guessed so our team easily stole a few points whenever she drew.

The only thing missing is my cake! We all had such a great time that we forgot about the cake! That's okay, we can eat it on my 'real' birthday this Monday. Thanks everyone - I had a blast!

Hindi Movie at Darshan's

Darshan invited us to his house tonight for dinner, enticing us with home-made Indian food. Out of all of us, I think Akki was the one looking forward to it the most as Indian food is one of her favorites; she even skipped lunch today! When we arrive, we were greeted with Pizza Hut boxes on the kitchen table. We all expressed our disappointment while eating the pizza. He redeemed himself a bit by getting the super hot chicken wings and showing a hindi movie.

Rohit's Birthday

Rohit has been traveling for work and thus we were happy that he decided to come home for his birthday weekend. Unfortunately, he has an early morning flight tomorrow (his actual birthday) so we celebrated early! The plan was to meet at Sushi Zanmai in Boulder at 8pm. But of course all invited (but two) were on either Mexican, Indian, or Sri Lankan time and we showed up about an hour later. Once we were settled, we enjoyed appetizers and platters of sushi. At 10pm, the karoke began! Siew Gin and Addy represented our table and they were great as usual. The guys agreed that if we found a song, they would sing it no matter the song. We took so long in picking the right song that time ran out and we weren't able to hear them belt out Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive'! Maybe next time.

After Sushi Zanmai, Addy led us to a surprise location - a bar with a mechanical bull. We all thought we'd watch Addy or maybe even birthday boy ride, but they chickened out. Siew Gin said she would have if she wasn't in a dress. We soon got bored of watching strangers ride the bull and left. Maybe some day we'll call Siew Gin's bluff or ride it ourselves.


Happy Anniversary Alan & Siew Gin!

Bunny!!!

This evening Akki let us know that while she was working on the computer downstairs, Cleo kept herself entertained with her new friend! Knowing Akki was downstairs with Cleo, I knew it wasn't a bug she had eaten or even worse, a snake!

Sadly, a bunny had fallen into our basement window well and couldn't hop out. Every time the bunny tried jumping, Cleo would pat the window or pounce, scaring the bunny even more.

After securing the two cats in the bedroom, Damith opened the window and rescued 'bunny'. He was so tiny; he fit in Damith's palm! We placed him in a cardboard box and gave him some water, carrots, and lettuce. Needless to say he wasn't hungry. Within an hour, he jumped out of the box and hopped straight to the back door! We opened it and out he went, under the house for safety. That was of course until I walked out to make sure that he didn't fall back into the window well again. This scared him even more and he disappeared to the front yard through a crack in the gate.

Gardening

Growing up mom made us pull weeds from our lawn and it was the most boring chore ever! However, pulling weeds from my own lawn was surprisingly fun.

The lawn had been maintained while the house was on the market. But we soon realized how quickly the lawn grew after we'd moved in. Each weekend we'd notice our neighbors working on their lawns and our continued to grow wild.

Each weekend up to now was full of 'other' things go do - wedding stuff, outings, etc. Finally, we decided we had to work on the lawn this weekend. Our lawn was starting to embarrass us. Thankfully the prior owners had left a 'cool electric' lawn mower. While Damith mowed the front lawn, I worked on pulling the weeds that were taking over the small plant area near the front of the house. After that, I moved to the back yard to work on the weeds. Thankfully, it had rained the past few days so the weeds were easy to pull out.

Turning a house into a home

We've been in the house for a few weeks now and we still can't believe we are home owners! I am sure it will hit us as things need to be replaced. We've unpacked the essentials (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and of course the electronics - TV, amp, X-box). Now we're sorting through the other boxes, determining what is worth keeping and where to put everything.

I've already rearranged the kitchen (creating more confusion for Akki). Thanks to Dad and Starr, our guest room is furnished with Grandma Elaine's bedroom set. We're happy to note that Indy was our first 'guest' and the bed is very comfortable!

We have many wall hangings, but we've realized that we are a bit more hesitant to make holes in the walls. Once all is unpacked and our walls aren't so bare, we'll post interior pictures of the house! Our house is slowly becoming a home.

Bye Bye Apartment

Today we did one final walk through of the apartment before turning in the keys. This was our first official apartment together.

One thing I will miss is the awesome view of the mountains. Of course when I try to take a picture of them one last time, the day is gloomy, cool and cloudy.

Cleaning up the Apartment

We are handing in the keys to our apartment tomorrow (September 8th). Over the last couple of days we have slowly been taking the last few items home. Today we will do one final push to finish up. We each got different tasks. I got to clean the bathrooms (yay) and vacuum. Sabrina cleaned the walls and windows etc. Akki cleaned the kitchen. It took a while but we were quite impressed by our results. Excepts for the holes in the wall from pictures and such, the place looks great. Now we get to see how much of our deposit we get back.

As a reward for our hard days labor, we all went out to see 'The Dark Knight'. Akki really liked the movie and all around us could tell by her squirming in her seat and grab my arm during the scary bits. Darshan joined us for the movie and Thai food at Tuk Tuk's afterward.

Hanging out with Indy

Today is Labor day so we had the day off.

This morning Indy and I spent some time playing Soul Calibur II. As usual there was a lot of trash talking before we even picked up the controllers. Lucky for me things came back a little faster so I managed to eke out a victory before Indy got all his skills back. It was payback for the last time where he beat the crap out of me. Damn you Kilik and your superior reach. For those interested I play with Xianghua, she has mad sword skills.

After that Indy and I went off to Lowe's to pick up some stuff for the house. I need to familiarize myself with hardware stores, now that I have to fix stuff.

Marie and Mike joined us for lunch at Pho. Btw, according to Marie we are Lafetians now. After that we came back home and hung out for a bit before we had to take Indy to the Airport.