A 2nd mea culpa...

Sorry for the lack of posting.... I was doing so well all through October, but then things got busy and kept me away from the laptop...

- Halloween (of which I do have pictures and am ready to blog about)
- Road trip to see the So You Think You Can Dance tour (which was awesome and I have the blurry pictures to prove it!)
- FI's brother and nephew visiting
- Election Day
- Road trip for my grandma's 90th birthday

While I'm busy writing up posts, I'll leave you with a funny conversation (paraphrased) I had with FI's nephew, who is a super-smart, super-confident, self-assured, arts-enthusiastic, 4-year-old.

Me: Did you like The Little Mermaid? (His grandparents, FI's parents, had taken him to the city to see the matinee.)
Nephew: Yes!
Me: Was it cool to see the fish and the water?
Nephew: Yes!
Me: What did you like best?
Nephew: Ariel!
Me: That's cool!
Nephew: I want to be Ariel for Halloween!

:)

Would you rather?

So on our way back from the Meet the Parents weekend in NoVA (way back in June), we got stuck in major traffic on I-95. To pass the time, we decided to play games. We had the most fun with "would you rather..." and hearing everyone's choices and their reasoning behind them. THe funniest was FI's mom who couldn't choose, so we asked her would you rather "have one only choice or many choices?" She still couldn't decide! :)

Anyways, here were some of our "Would you rather..." questions.

- live in the ocean or in space?

(Ocean, so I could still talk and be heard)

- be deaf or blind?

(deaf, so I could read)

- lose an arm or leg?
(leg, so I could still type and write)

- clean roadkill off the streets or be a gravedigger?

(gravedigger, because I'm not touching dead animals)

- be a CEO or a president?

(president, so I can control everything!)

- be green or covered in fur?
(green, cause I'd rather be Elphaba than the Cowardly Lion)

- have only one choice or too many choices?
(too many, so at least I got to make a decision)

What would you choose?

Sorry for the lack of posting...

Whew! It's been a crazy summer for FI and me. We've been traveling or going to weddings or moving all of my stuff into FI's apartment. His place is bigger and we save over $2K each month in rent, electricity, and cable. Hello wedding fund!

Anyways... the last couple of months have been action packed. Here's the run-down of our summer.

5/24 - FI's cousin's wedding (He was Best Man)
5/31 - moving
6/7 - my best friend's wedding (I was MOH)
6/14 - moving
6/21 - meet the Parents (His family and I went down to NoVA to meet my family)
6/28 - moving (we moved a bookshelf, a desk, a tv, and a side table down to my aunt's in NJ)
7/5 - road trip (We head up to Rochester to celebrate FI's uncle and aunt's 50 wedding anniversary)
7/12 - beach (As a treat to ourselves for finishing moving, we take a day trip to Fire Island.)
7/19 - Japan (my cousin's wedding)
7/26 - Taiwan (my cousin's Chinese banquet)
8/2 - Fire Island (Again! We go for FI sister's surprise birthday party. She was definitely surprised, since it was raining all day.)
8/9 - wedding (We head to NoVA for another wedding)
8/16 - wedding (We head to Long Island for yet another wedding)
8/23 - I head to Boston for the Running of the Brides
8/30 - Rohobeth Beach (last weekend of the summer)

We thought we'd be able to relax in the fall and not travel so much and hang out in the city. But it looks like our September and October are getting packed too.

Travel plans....

Our big trip this summer is a short tour of Asia. My cousin is getting married and his fiancee is Japanese, so they are having receptions in both Japan and Taipei.

FI has never been to Asia and we all haven't been to Japan, so this should be an exciting trip!

We will be traveling to both Japan and Taiwan over a 12-day period. The wedding in Japan is in Kyoto, so we'll be there and we also will stop over in Tokyo. Then we'll head to Taipei.

Mom actually wanted to also go to Osaka and Malaysia as well! I managed to talk her out of that otherwise we'd be flying/training every 2 days and basically have only 1 full day in each city.

Our itenary will be:

- 7/18 - leave US for Japan
- 7/19 - arrive in Tokyo, head to Kyoto
- 7/20 - wedding in Kyoto
-7/21, 22 - sightsee in Kyoto
-7/22 - travel to Tokyo
-7/23, 24 - sightsee in Tokyo
- 7/25 - fly to Taiwan
- 7/26 - wedding in Taipei
-7/27,28,29 - sightsee in Taipei
-7/30 - leave for US

We have a hotel in Kyoto and will stay with family in Taipei. However we still need to figure out where we're staying in Tokyo.

I've been assigned the trip coordinator for Japan since I didn't want to go on a guided tour and Mom isn't good with this whole internet research thing and Stephen is too busy to help out. Thank goodness FI has stepped in and offered to help plan. He's already found the nature-related sightseeing places he wants to go to near Tokyo so that's 1 day planned already.

For Taipei, I'm already thinking of the fun things and places I want to show FI. I actually totally want to get cheesy glamour-shot style engagement photos done! It's much less expensive and they have so many options and great packages. So that will be 1 day covered.

For the other 2 days, I'm thinking....
- get yummy egg pancakes for 30NT (about $1US)
- get hair washed for 90NT
- go to Shi Lin Night Market
- go to Gu Gong National Museum
- wander around Xi Men Ding
- go to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial
- take the supremely clean and awesome subway system
- check out one of the giant department stores (which is basically a multi-story mall all contained under 1 storefront)
- wander around and eat random food

That should be enough to get us through Taipei...