Holidazed

It all happened so fast, now we're back to our regular programming. Meaning, just the 3 of us in our apartment. We had families dropped by and stayed with us for the Holidays and it was well spent with great food and conversations in between. It's nice to know that we Filipinos still bring our families' traditions wherever we go. Specially this time of the year, we choose to be with our family, stay up until midnight to greet the new year (or Christmas day), serve tikoy or any sticky rice food, etc. Coming here and being far from my family, everything still felt the same, although everything was different.

December 24th dinner was arroz caldo. Look at that red pot. It's such a beauty! I got burnt though on my right ring finger while I was mixing the rice. It was boiling like crazy, thus, I had a few (two) burns on the said finger. It's all good though.

Christmas day, we had paella negra, lengua, liempo, squid and kikiam, we even had qwek-qwek! (no photos of it, I dunno why), and callos. We had egg pie and the much loved banoffee pie for dessert (again no photos of the pie!)

Our ninong and ninang from our wedding, tita Malou and tito Billy (and Gel) drove all the way from Canada (which is around 3-4 hour drive) to give us siopao see mama Cynthia and the rest of the family. We served lunch in our apartment (yes, our small space was invaded but it's all gooood), had Jollibee chicken joy, Seafood city's chicharon bulaklak, lechon kawali, lumpiang gulay, Red Ribbon's mango cake, etc spread across 2 tables. Later that night, we had the star of the celebration. Oklahoma steak!

 So it was a food-filled weekend/New Year celebration. The most surprising part was when we headed to Lynnwood to check out the Alderwood mall and it snowed! Just a few flakes and it can't be seen in the pics below but gah was it amazing or what? Of course Martin was not pleased at all but I don't care.

 We are I am currently packing for our weekend stay in Oregon at kuya Andrew's new home. We'll be there to help him unpack and tidy his things. Cheers to a new year, and I hope this year will be as amazing as the last's.