Hanging out » Hip to be Mom

The weekend that began Thursday

May 282011

Okay, so we’re smack in the middle of a long weekend which officially started at noon on Thursday for us. Raine is into her first week of summer school and she has sneakily planned her schedule so she has no classes on Friday. Pure genius! Skye too is starting her 2-week school break. Clearly music to my ears!

The thing about city living is that there really isn’t much to do, not in our city anyways, except to hang out at the mall or drive out in search of food. I’m a pretty uninspired food chaser. I love good food but if I have to chase it down, nah!

Summer school is on for Raine so no vacation for us. Which is good too because we’re saving our pennies, not to buy�gold chains but for our next trip to Cali to see Steev. I’m guessing we might be up for another round of Disneyland.

So staycation it is. I guess there’s no escaping paradise!

Luckily we have a few things to celebrate this weekend. Raine scored a 4.0 in her first semester in college. Remember I told you how she would suddenly jump up an hour before class and declare she’d forgotten she had a test or a midterm that day. Yes, that would be my girl !

We’re also celebrating the fact that Raine and I have dropped a whole jeans size (and then some) from working out and eating healthier. We’re having to wear belts to hold up our jeans and that’s something to get excited about.

What are your plans for this Memorial Day weekend?

Playing catch up

Posted by Clairity 5 Responses »

Apr 162011

Looking at me, you’ll never guess I’m a couch potato. Well, most times, I’m not. I just depends where I’m at. But believe me, there is a couch potato, albeit a little one, inside.

Our TV is undoubtedly the laziest on this side of the planet. It just sits there and does nothing. We gave up on it a long, long time ago simply because there’s nothing to watch, or rather nothing that appeals to us. When my kids were little, they watched some Saturday morning cartoons. But once they outgrew the cartoons, they too gave up on TV.

But when we’re in Hiptown, California, we’re couch potatoes. Totally! So many good shows, so little time!

Right now, we’re hooked on Chuck. Sometimes you just want to watch something light, nothing that requires your brains or heart to work too hard after a hectic week. The plots are simple yet each one is exciting in its own way, and so funny too I’m sure our neighbors can hear us laughing.

I really like Chuck and Sarah as a couple but Ellie and Captain Awesome, now that’s an awesome couple. Really cute!

Anyone else a fan of Chuck‘s?

The 3 P’s

Posted by Clairity 9 Responses »

Mar 242011

My kids are quite a deprived lot… when it comes to zoos. I think we can count on one hand the number of times my 3 kids have been to the zoo in total.

Steev was 1 year old when we first visited our zoo on the invitation of our friends whose daughter is the same age as Steev. I’m not particularly fond of zoos, even less so the ones that are poorly maintained. But I feel they’re a necessary educational experience for the kids and we found other zoos to visit.

Steev was just learning to walk when we visited the Sydney Zoo in Australia. A few years later, we took Steev and Raine to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. The girls were around age 10 when they visited the Singapore Zoo with their cousins. And that’s pretty much it! The only times my kids have ever been to the zoo .

This New Year’s, we were at the San Diego Zoo on a cold but sunny January day. Yeah, I� know, my kids are teens now but there are still certain animals they really enjoy seeing.

Penguins! That big guy on the left is so fat and round he practically rolls around all day . Don’t they look like they’re wearing a nurse uniform?

Polar bears. So chubby and cute they almost look like stuffed toys from afar.

Giant panda. I don’t think we’ve seen too many of these but they were a crowd favorite at the San Diego Zoo. Everyone was waiting for this guy to get up and walk around but he just sat glued to the tree enjoying his bamboo stem.

A Supernatural week

Posted by Clairity 4 Responses »

Mar 212011

Dang these cold, rainy mornings, how I love ‘em! But it’s Monday and I wish I didn’t have to drag myself out of bed. Dang Sam and Dean too, we’ve been doing late movie nights this whole past week trying to catch up with an entire season of Supernatural.

If you are, you’ll simply have to agree that Sam and Dean are super-addictive, I tell ya, and not just from the global warming point of view . As soon as we’re done watching one episode, my girls will go, let’s watch the next one, and the next, and the next, and that’s how we ended up going to bed way past 1 am practically every night this past week.

So who out there is a Supernatural fan, raise your hand!

Case of the errant camera cap

Posted by Clairity 4 Responses »

Mar 112011

So it seems we’re losing stuff again. First, it was Steev’s iPhone in Monterey, now our camera cap! It was at Coffee Bean (after our lunch at Chili’s) that Raine fished out her camera for the second time to find it sans cap. Duh!

When we couldn’t find it under our table, we imagined it might’ve rolled off under other tables. Ever tried peering.. um, discreetly, in a mesh of legs under the darkness of Coffee Bean’s modern coffee tables for a perfectly camouflaged camera cap? Well, it was embarrassing and yup, a little like a scene right out of a comedy.

Nope, not there!

So we trudged all the way back to Chili’s thinking we might’ve left it there. There was a young couple in the booth where we sat earlier and I had to pounce on them and break up their whispers of sweet nothings to peer into the dark corners of the booth.

Nope, not there either!

So I asked one of the servers if they might’ve seen it while clearing our table. In response, he sent an entire crew over, armed with a giant torchlight and one of the staff proceeded to get on the floor to scour the area under the booth.

The young couple was trapped in their seats, lamely shifting their legs about to avoid the wrath of that giant torchlight. And there I was, apologizing profusely to them for invading their privacy for the second time in 2 minutes!!

Still the search turned up nothing, nada, zilch!!

So we trooped back down to Coffee Bean where Skye was waiting for us. Resolved to never seeing our camera cap again, we decided to snap a couple more pictures before heading home. As Skye was moving closer to Raine, something went… clack!

Ack, the welcome sound of our errant camera cap dropping from Skye’s shorts onto the floor! No way! It sure wasn’t there when we were scampering around under the tables earlier. How could that be?

A love letter, a man (who is really a woman) and a date with a hunk

Posted by Clairity 3 Responses »

Mar 072011

Don’t ask me what I did this weekend. It went so fast I didn’t have a chance to see where it went. Not that we did very much, mind you. Just lunch and a grocery run on Saturday afternoon and a couple of late movie nights. Very late by our standards! 1:00am, to be exact, two nights in a row!

Here are the 3 movies me and my girls watched.

1. Letters to Juliet which I really like for its schoolgirlishly romantic plot. If I’d written a book in my teens (wish I had!), this is exactly the kind of story line I would’ve come up with. It’s about a writer wannabe who inadvertently finds herself helping a lady find the love of her life after 50 years.

2. Win A Date With Tad Hamilton which is about a small town girl who wins a dinner date with a big movie star. Well, if I ever won a date with Paul Walker, I’d be a lot more light-headed than her . Chances are pretty slim but still a girl can dream, can’t she?

3. She’s the Man which is a really fun movie about a girl who pretends to be a guy to get into an all-boys soccer team. Hilarious! It reminded me of the time when my family was moving to the big city, I almost ended up in an all-boys’ high school so yeah, I can so see how it could’ve turned into one big laugh.

By now, you’re probably seeing a trend here. All 3 movies are charming in their own way. I loved them all, went to bed with a big smile on my face and slept right through my alarm.

Okay, now let me explain why my alarm clock was going off on the weekend. My phone is set to go off at 6:00am on weekdays, and 7:30am on weekends… no particular reason except that I hate getting to the grocery store late and not finding a parking spot.

I really should learn to relax and kick back . But how? More movies? Any good romantic comedies you’d care to recommend?