August Birthdays

When you have a family as big as mine, most of the time, you don't get single birthday parties. More than likely there is another person in family who has a birthday in the same month as yours. August is the lucky month for Saif, Ebaad and Ghanva. We decided to celebrate everyones birthday (Saif's 4th and Ghanva's 17th birthday) on Ebaad's 1st birthday. 

We did a little face painting, a few games and attempted with an outdoor movie night but the adults did not like the movie selection, The Guardian. We ended the night with fireworks that Bushra had saved from 4th of July. 

Princess Mahnoor 

Birthday boy

Saif Wayne--get it, Bruce Wayne, batman, Saif Wayne--never mind

The Three Musketeers: Mahnoor, Raghib & Saif

Miami Trip (Day #5)

This is sad but this post is for August 14th, our last day in Miami (I'm only like 3 weeks late--no biggie).

This day started like the others, with amazing breakfast-- I went all out (the smoked Salmon was so good). Then Sadiah and I decided to go shopping for souvenirs. Our first attempt was a total bust and it sucked because we went out of our way to go there and it was the most shadiest place ever. We decided we would go back to the Flea Market we had gone earlier to get some more cute rings. 

Salmon + eggs + cheese + potatoes

 We went back to hotel, grabbed our stuff and went to the Opa Locka Hialeah Flea Market. We had initially thought we would go to the flea market, get our stuff and then go to Hollywood Beach, but we were mistaken. After we were done shopping, we barely had enough time (although at that time we thought we had plenty) to get some food before it was time to go to the airport. 

Opa Locka Hialeah Flea Market 

Beautiful rings--I got greedy and decided to keep the first one for myself

We returned our rental and began walking towards our terminal. With our luck, the rental place was at the polar opposite of where our terminal was (the airport was "u" shaped, so we had to go all the way around). We printed our board passed and stood in the long line for security. We had food with us and wasn't sure if we could take it so we quickly ate one steak and cheese and decided to risk taking the gyro on board (we were allowed to take food onto the plane). Finally after passing security there were maybe 2/3 minutes left for boarding so we ran, literally ran, to our terminal. The terminal was empty and the person there told us if we had been another minute late, we would have missed the flight. This is the view we almost missed.

Sadiah decided to sleep during our flight to Pennsylvania, while I enjoyed the window seat.

Good-bye Miami 

Over the Atlantic

We landed in Philadelphia and took a short coffee break before our beautiful sunset flight to D.C. (we were early to this one). 

Philadelphia Airport

Joke on a Box + Date Night

Yesterday I had lunch with one my favoritestest (yes, thats a word) person from GMU, Michelle. But before I get to that, I would like to discuss how aggressive my new dentist is. 

I went to the dentist for a regular clean up and man oh man, was that an experience. Other than finding out I have a new cavity, thats number 4, I learned how strong teeth are. The dentist was using her tools so aggressively I thought she was going to pull my teeth out. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she is a wonderful dentist and knows her stuff but geesh, as Sadiah said it, she must have fought with her husband before my appointment because she was pissed. 

So yesterday I decided to break in my new shoes I bought online (I saw them on some online fashion blog and wouldn't resist). I got the Ecuador Sandal from Nisolo and I love them (don't hate Sadiah). On their website, they recommend you get a size smaller than your actual size because the shoes are made out of stretchable leather--I usually wear a size 7 but I got a 6.5 instead. When I wear the shoes, they feel very snug but the company swears that they will stretch so I am sucking up through the pain (the things you do for fashion), hoping that one day they will be the perfect fit.

How cute? They'll go with everything!

This looks a bit blurry for some reason

In addition to loving the shoes, I also love the company. When I was ordering the shoes online, under the "special instructions" box I told them to send me a joke (I saw someone doing this online and thought it would be fun to see if people actually did this) and guess what--they actually did! I think I'm going to start doing this for everything I order online. 

How clever!

Okay, enough about shoes, now about Michelle. Michelle is one of my closest friends from GMU (undergrad). She was a psych major and I was a psych major so we had some classes together. I will never ever forget this but for one of our exams,we had to memorize the stages of grief and Michelle came up with DABDA: D for denial, A for anger, B for bargaining, D for depression and A for acceptance--best mnemonic ever--to this day, I think about this every time someone talks about the stages of grief. 

We decided to meet at P.F. Chang at Potomac Town Center. I think this may be the fanciest place we have in Woodbridge. I like P.F. but its not my favorite--the food is decent. I got the Coconut Curry Veggies and we both split a Great Wall of China (I miss the small "shot" desserts they had). I think we were at the restaurant for about 3 hours (I may have missed a make-up class) but you never get bored with good company and topics like being adults and getting married (AHEM, MIKE--just kidding (not really)).

Happy Hump Day

Celebrating Wednesday with pumpkin pie + graham cracker from Nathan's Dairy Bar in Manassas (this place is amazing)

Ball game

I must post these pictures tonight or otherwise Bushra might just commit an assault and battery on me. Today we went to the Nationals game against the New York Mets. The kids schools start Tuesday and Bushra wanted to take them out before the studying started again. Although I'm not a big sport follower, I do enjoy going to a baseball game. My first one was in 2008--my awesome neighbors (Amy & Brian) took me. The best part about the experience was as we were leaving the stadium, a foul ball came towards our direction and Brian actually caught it (or attempted to). After a struggle with some other people who wanted to claim the ball, Brian finally got control of it and gave it to me! First ball game and I got a foul ball. I'm not bragging but come on, that's a pretty good story. Here are my quick phone shots to prove my story. 

Anyways, today my sister dropped the kids off at my work and I drove them to DC. Even with navigation, I got lost for about 29 minutes (that's right, 29 minutes). I hate driving in DC and on top of that, I'm horrible with directions. Horrible. Finally got to Bushra's work and like always Bushra didn't show up 20 minutes later. We drove to the park and found an incredibly close, too good to be true, parking near the stadium. After paying for the parking on the phone we finally read the sign that said "no parking during events" (oh and the cars parked nearby were all cop cars). I really wanted to move the car but Bushra convinced me to leave it there (mainly because she said she would pay any parking ticket I would get and was a parking ticket "expert").

We then walked to our seats and enjoyed the Presidents Race and the game (excuse the quality of the pictures, these were taken from my phone)

The Nats were so close to winning but lost 3-2 or is it 2-3 (my knowledge of baseball comes from playing the Wii). After the game, they had a great firework show sponsored by American University (it lasted much longer and was much better than I expected--definitely worth the wait).

After the fireworks, I rushed out to make sure my car was still there and hadn't been towed (I took a quick shoe shot during the walk back--I love these shoes!)

As I got closer to the car, I didn't see any of the police cars parked near my car but before I could have my panic attack, I saw my beautiful blue civic parked right where I left it. When I got closer to the car, I realized I had not only not gotten towed (that made sense, I think) but I never got a parking ticket! Alhamdulillah. As if that wasn't a great way to end a Friday, we had Taco Bell on the way home. A happy end to a happy day :)

Miami Trip (Day #4)

This is for August 13th.

Sadiah and I decided that this would be the day to walk to the shops near the hotel. We were both craving sushi so we had lunch at a sushi place. They charged by the plates and at the end, we had about 8 empty plates. 

No clue what this was, but it was amazing 

Street art 

A moon picture (they never come out good, do they?)

By the time we were done shopping, Bushra was back from work and we decided to go to South Beach. Like always, we got there a bit late, but the beach was not crowded at all and we got to see the beautiful sunset. 

Yay palm trees

Beautiful streaks in the sky 

Slow shutter fun 

After the beach, we decided to go to Little Havana. As we were driving back, I pulled over on the highway to capture the skyline and failed miserably; actually it's not that bad (the streaking lights would be the cars driving by). We went to Versailles Bakery, where we had Cuban Espresso and this papaya guava filled pastry. 

Cuban espresso 

A Cuban pasty with Papaya Guava 

View from the 12th floor