Hello, My name is Olivia Abar
So I took the plunge and tried going to the Social Security office Friday at lunch. I got there at around noon and stayed until one. I guess one hour isn't too bad... I wrote some of my thank you's while waiting. They called my number pretty early (around 12:30pm so I got excited, thinking it would be quick. But that was just for the check-in window where they see what you're doing and ask if you have all the right documentation. So I waited another half hour until they called my name. But I finally changed my name. Next up - the DMV, passport office, and change all my credit cards and bank accounts.

Waiting waiting waiting...
A day of waiting... for our washer and dryer between 11 and 2 (and it's already 1 so I bet they'll get here around 2), and waiting for our mattress between 3 and 5. So we'll be home all day... but we've been productive - painting our gym and writing more thank you's. This is definitely teaching patience.

Tivo!
I finally bought a TiVo box (with the money I won on those dime slots at Cache Creek!) Can't wait to get it in the mail next week.... I've been taping all these shows, and Alan says I watch too much TV, so now I can just tivo them and watch them when Alan isn't home ;) Now the dilemma is whether to pay monthly or buy the lifetime service.... not really a dilemma though, since the lifetime service costs as much as 2 years of monthly service, and I'm sure I'll be using it for more than two years! I bought the box that holds 80 hours, so I won't miss any of my shows anymore!

Snoozed!
For some reason, I didn't hear the alarm this morning, and I guess neither did Alan... or he did and just turned it off. I woke up in a middle of a bad dream, looked over at the clock, and saw that it was already 8:07am! Usually I snooze until 8am anyway, but today I jumped right out of bed to get ready for work!

Name change
I haven't had time to go to the Social Security office to get my name changed, especially since they're only open from M-F 9am-4:30pm. I guess I just have to go one day during lunch or something... I hope there aren't long lines though. I already made an appointment at the DMV for the third Saturday in March (they're only open on the 3rd Saturdays of each month), so I better get to the SS office before then.

Excited to do laundry
Alan and I had a big shopping weekend this weekend. We finally bought our washer and dryer with Kitchie's wedding gift money! (Thanks K!) After shopping around for two days, we decided on the Whirlpool Duet series... I'm excited to try out the front load washer! :) We even painted our laundry room before they get delivered this Saturday!

Finally ... a good night's sleep!
Alan and I have noticed recently that we aren't getting good sleep these days... Alan wakes up every morning with back pain and my neck is starting to hurt too. So we shopped around and finally bought a new mattress ... one of those memory foam ones. We tried out the ones in the store and they were really comfy! It's getting delivered Saturday too.... I guess we're staying home all day, but maybe then we can finally finish painting the other rooms!

Day off
Had the day off yesterday but unfortunately Alan worked. So I went to Daly City to hang out with my mom and little cousin. It's her 10th birthday today, so we took her to Todai for lunch (since she eats a lot and wanted Japanese food) and then we took her to a movie at Century 20. She and I saw Son of the Mask and my mom saw Wedding Date. Lots of kids at the movie I saw... it was ok - lots of special effects.

Thank You's
Finally got together everything I need to finish the thank you letters, so if you're waiting for one... don't worry, it's on its way!

Senior Year!
I just found out online that Felicity Season 4 comes out on March 8, 2005!! Yay, can't wait! I already put all 6 discs in my DVD queue at blockbuster.com. hehehe

Trips to plan

• San Diego in May for Heidi's Pilipino Cultural Celebration
• Hawaii in May for Kitchie's Graduation
• Chicago in May to visit Johanna and Eileen during the long weekend (tentative)
• San Diego in June for the Mud Run

I love travelling! :)

Long weekend
What are your plans? I think we're going to work on the house, hang out with baby Aaron, finally buy our washer and dryer, and shop! Oh! And finally get a wireless router and wireless cards so we don't have to keep going up and down the stairs if we want to go online :)

Have a good loooong weekend!

In a New York State of Mind
Been thinking about New York recently... probably cuz super6rlee told me she's going in March and asked for some suggestions... Anyway, I miss NY! I miss the fast-paced life, the subways, watching Broadway shows whenever I want, meeting celebrities, and all the local places I used to go. Don't know when I'll be back there again, but hopefully soon.

If I can't be there...
Then at least we'll have an H&M here too! Coming soon - Fall 2005! Can't wait!

Rent
I also got an email from Angie about being an extra for the filming of the movie version of Rent in San Francisco!! I looked it up here and found out that my favorite musical actor Adam Pascal will be reprising his original role as Roger! YAY! Maybe if I can get to be an extra, I can meet him and ask him to sing something from Aida for me :) hehehe

Great family weekend!
Had a great weekend, full of family events. Friday night was Mike's birthday dinner at Macaroni Grill at Hillsdale. Great place and great food! Even daddy Mike got a little drunk towards the end of the night. Seemed like all the people there were either married, engaged, or just had a baby. I guess it's about that time in our lives.

Saturday my family and Alan went up to Cache Creek for Kitchie's Valentine birthday! We stayed Saturday night, it was a pretty nice hotel room ... reminded me of the Heavenly beds at the Westin. Also a nice big tub in the bathroom and robes in the closet.

But the most exciting part of the weekend was that I finally played slots and won! I didn't just win pocket change though...I won $486! And at dime slots! I was so excited... the counter just kept on going and going, and as people started to crowd around me, I realized that I won a lot. I didn't really know until I finally read the machine and calculated how much. I was down to 10 coins ($1!), and it had to count all the way up to 4870, so I was sitting there for quite a while... :)

Valentine's Day with the hubby
We went to TGIFriday's for Valentine's Day, and it's good I called ahead to ask how long was the wait. I didn't know you could call in and put your name down, did you? So I did that, and Alan met me there straight from work. I got there and I was 2nd next in line! Alan had the yummy Jack Tower and I had the 3-course meal deal with Mozarella Sticks, Jack BBQ Chicken, and the Vanilla Bean Cheesecake... mmmm.

Alan surprised me with this HUGE valentine's balloon bouquet and a dozen roses, and a cute card that reminds us of us. :) Thanks bubba!

Food while waiting in line?
I've seen this twice this weekend, at Macaroni Grill and at TGIF, but while you're waiting in line, a waiter has a plate of sample appetizers and passes them out to you. I've never seen this until recently. I guess it keeps people from leaving to find another restaurant with a shorter line.

Happy Valentine's Birthday Kitchie!!
Happy 30th Birthday to my favorite older sister!! :) Have a great day!

And to you others, Happy Valentine's Day!

"It'll hurt if I swallow."
Remember that commercial with the little kid who says this. That's how I feel. I have a sore throat, and I have no idea where it came from. Just started feeling it last night and it got worse overnight. I've been taking Tylenol Cold Daytime, gargling with warm water and salt, and taking throat lozenges. I couldn't even eat anything solid today. I hate being sick.

On a lighter note...
I've been married for one month exactly today!

All girls night out .... plus Alan?
Saturday night, one of our friend's husband planned a surprise dinner for her in the city. It was really nice at Bizou in SOMA with a menu with choices and everything! Alan dropped me off and went to Borders to wait to pick me up, since we were going to another birthday thing later that night at a club. One of the girls didn't come, so my friend called Alan to come over! So it was just us girls... and Alan! He became our photographer of the night, so it worked out!

Can't boogie down like I used to
We went to 26 Mix for another friend's birthday and we stayed until about 1am. The music was pretty good, dancing was great, but the next morning I was so sore! I think it's because of all the 'freak trains' that we did (a SCU must-have at every party). It was fun, but I guess my body's just getting older.

Superbowl Sunday
We went over to Dale & Lisa's for Superbowl Sunday... ate a lot of junk food (but good junk food!) and played in the square pool - you know, where you have a 10x10 grid and each square represents the last digit of the score of each team. They were $1 squares, so Alan and I bought 20. The breakdown of prizes was $20 for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarters and $40 for the final score! Alan and I won the 2nd quarter, so we broke even! Having the pool definitely made the game more exciting for me!

Favorite commercial?
What was your's? Mine was the one where the boyfriend is cooking dinner, but the cat steps on the pot handle and spills the red sauce. The girlfriend walks in seeing the guy holding the cat by the neck, the knife, and the red stuff on the floor.... haha. Don't quite remember which company the commercial was for though...

It's getting hot in here.....
Last night we brought Alan's grandmother and cousin to the airport to go back to the Philippines after 6 weeks! (I wish I could take a 6 week vacation!) Anyway, good thing their 4 huge balikbayan boxes were within the 70lb limit, but Vince's carry-on luggage was over by like 10 pounds! Like last time we brought his other cousin, he had to step aside, take things out.... and wear some of his clothes!! I think he put on like 2 more shirts and stuffed all his pockets with different stuff (even his jacket pocket in the back, which made him look like a hunchback :) He started singing the Nelly song and we all started laughing. We watched him go security for about 5 minutes, since he had to empty out all his pockets and then put them back in.

Funny how they both stayed calm during that whole ordeal. I think if it was me... I'd be all stressed out!

Surprise!
I don't think I blogged about this yet, but I threw Alan a surprise birthday party with his SCU friends at our house the Friday before we left for our honeymoon. Since his birthday passed while we were in Vegas, I thought he wouldn't suspect it. But unfortunately, he said he saw the evite name when he went on my computer - and since it said 'SSSSHHH' & 'Alan', he became a little suspicious. But we had fun anyway, eating, playing poker and ping pong, karaoke, and just hanging out.

Already thinking about our next trip
I'm already looking forward to going back to Hawaii for Kitchie's graduation in May!! Can't wait to go back :)

What to give up?
Lent starts next Wednesday already! I'm thinking about what to give up this year....

TGIF!
Even though I went to sleep earlier last night (11pm, instead of past midnight), I'm still tired!! Maybe I'm still on Hawaii time. But TGIF! I'm glad it's almost the weekend :)

Honeymoon pics!
Check out some of our honeymoon pics on ofoto here!

Six more weeks of winter!
According to Punxsutawney Phil, King of the Groundhogs, there will be six more weeks of winter since he saw his shadow... It's ok... I like winter anyway. But today's actually pretty nice.

Cleaning up the house
We finally signed up for recycling service, so I broke down a lot of the cardboard boxes that our wedding presents came in... there's still a lot of stuff to put away though, but at least we're starting to clear out the garage. We still have boxes full of those packing peanuts that we should take to a recycling center that takes those. Last time we went to the UPS store in Westlake to drop them off.

This weekend
Looking forward to this weekend... have some birthday parties to go to, Superbowl Sunday at Dale & Lisa's, finally getting cable installed, and just hanging out with the husband at home.

Wash & Dry
Last night, both Alan and I went back to our parents' homes to do laundry after our long honeymoon trip... so we both got home at around 11pm or so, then went to sleep... we definitely need to start looking for our own set, especially since Kitchie is contributing a lot towards them! But we just haven't gotten around to doing research. Maybe we'll go look around this weekend.

Honeymoon tidbits
I'll try to periodically post random lists of things that happened on the trip:
- Alan would get a bloody nose every day for about 5 days straight right around dinnertime when he would walk into the bathroom... weird!
- Alan taking pictures of everything with his favorite wedding present, but especially palm trees
- While shopping in Kauai, we saw a lizard jumping from purse to purse in a store .. kinda freaked me out at first
- We took the shuttle to the Walmart in Kona to buy rechargable batteries and other stuff
- The waiters at Tanaka of Tokyo singing "Happy Honeymoon!" to us after dinner (thanks Kitch for telling them!)
- Sunset on the beach of the Ko Olina Resort on Oahu
- Funny how a lot of my memories are where and what we ate :) I love food!

Pics of the honeymoon soon to come on ofoto. I just need to add captions :)

Body for Life
Kitchie and Jerry are making a lifestyle change. I think Alan and I are thinking about it too... but how hard would that be to give up white rice!! And snacks during the day... especially candy and chips and soda!! I guess you know where I stand on this :)

Professional Photos
Our photographer put some of the professional photos online. Click here to see them. There's only about 100 there, but we're expecting many many more. These are just a preview, but they look great!

Great weather!
I think we brought back with us the great weather from Hawaii. Granted it's not 70-80 but it's close enough :)