Valentine 14.02.2011

Valentine day happened to be Monday this year; not much time to prepare things. Luckily I've bought gifts for hubby couple of days earlier.

I got home at 3 PM after my first clinical section. Immediately I headed on to the Internet to find out different ways to make a romantic dinner at home, I decided to go with traditional meal of steak, salad and garlic breads. Then another bus trip out to the market to get those items. I also bought one bottle of Coke in lieu of wine (I don't like alcohol).

8:30 PM: finally got home (bus was late !). Hubby would be home in less than an hour; I had to be super fast. My sister helped me to prepare the salad; I marinated the steak and baked the garlic breads.

9:20 PM: I stood inside the house and looked out of the door to wait for hubby to come home. As soon as I saw his car, I turned off all the house lights (downstairs only). Hubby drove the car into the garage, then opened the side door. I almost stopped breathing to hear his foot steps. And suddenly I screamed to surprise Hubby (of course I had a camera on at the time, but I couldn't get any nice picture due to the lack of light).

Hubby was truly surprised. Hehehe ~. Then he quickly saw the gifts I bought for him, and he opened the bag right away and try them out. :D

I've got some gifts from Hubby also. ;)

Overall, we had a great dinner with home-made steak, mixed salad, and garlic breads. At least Hubby was surprised (steak wasn't expected for dinner :)

P.S: On Sunday, a day before Valentine, we had a small dinner with Parents-in-law and sister. We've got two pair "Gloves for lovers" as gifts for Parents-in-law, one pair of gloves for sister also.

Tet, Tet, Tet.......den roi!!! HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR_Year of Cat!!! CHUC MUNG NAM MOI !!!

I was waiting for this day and eventually it came. The Lunar New Year is very important for us, Vietnamese, because it has a lot of meaning and brings different things and carries many hopes and wishes from us.

This Lunar New Year is important for me as well, because this is the first time hubby and I can celebrate new year with hubby's parents (my parents-in-law). Hubby was so happy to go to parents' place for dinner. But, before going there, he had a very hard work to finish.....Can you guess? The last day of year of Tiger, Ottawa citizens have a snow storm and right after got home, hubby had to shave a lot of snow in front of the garage and the house door. Poor you, Hubby !!!  I was busy to prepare and cook for Tet in order to worship the ancestor at midnight.

After 3 hours, I finished cooking and cleaning the house as well (but I just cleaned the main floor, the second floor is still messy ;)

We went to Parents' place to have a dinner together. Mom cooked a lot of food and we all were so full. We also gave out lucky money to little nephew and parents. I have written some funny wishes on the red pocket to make Parents laugh and happy. Hehehe :D

We went home at 10PM to prepare food and worship the ancestor before heading to the pagoda. The following pictures are what I cooked and prepare for Tet. :D

 

Worshipping the ancestor on the last day of year of Tiger to invite the ancestor come home for the New Year_Year of Cat (Cung giao thua dem 30)

 Vietnamese ham_Northern style (Gio thu)

Lotus jam (Mut sen) represents having many babies, and coconut jam (Mut dua) represents sweet love

Fruits: Custard apples, Coconut, Papaya, and Mango imply that we hope to have enough money (Cau vua du xai)

Running chicken (Ga biet chay) and Sticky Rice Cake (Banh chung)
(although the chicken is skinny, his toes are not opened, which meant we will save a lot of money, no money going out)

Pork stew_Southern style (Thit kho) and Red beans sweet soup (Che dau do) which represents many uncountable luckiness.

Pomelo (Buoi) implies a wish that the home will have everything it needs the coming year.

Money flowers (Hoa dong tien) means wishing more and more money

 We left home at 11:30PM in order to be at temple at midnight. There were so many people at the temple, and everyone looked fresh and happy. We've got some lucky tangerines from which a wish is attached. Although hubby, I and sister got different number on the paper, all the wishes are very good.

Before going home, we didn't forget to bring some lucky fruits given by the monks and also bought some lucky fishes made of jello to worship the Buddha on the first day of the year.

Fishes ( Ca chep) are believed to make wishes come true !!!!!