Hubert, I dedicate this post to you. (Boxing Day 2012)

I don't know why, but I could hardly sleep the night before Boxing Day... I ran on half an hour of sleep for shopping... My day started at 7ish when the boys got off work. Hubert had to shower so Lance and I went up to the gym to wait for a bit. When he was done we met up at the breakfast room for some complimentary continental breakfast included in everyone's stay at the Germain. The danishes and croissants were super yums! I should have taken pictures of it but they were really flakey and buttery, just the way I like my pastries! The strawberry jam in the danish wasn't too tart or too sweet, it was just perfect.

Rocking some hotel slippers.

It took us about 10 minutes to get to Chinook mall, the biggest mall in Calgary, and I begged Hubert to park underground since it was super cold that day... I believe it was -26 degrees Celsius? Yeah, insane! It took us 30 minutes to get a parking spot... We finally spotted this lady walking to her parking spot which happened to be in the aisle over and we stalked her to her car..it's the only way to get a spot on this kind of day! Hubert used his awesome valet skills and reversed incredibly fast and followed her right to her spot. Yippee! That's right, Hubert, your 5 months of valet prepared you for this moment!

Anyway, it's 10:30 am and I'm just ecstatic to get my Boxing Day shopping on! I was only excited because I haven't shopped on Boxing Day in a few years. I forgot how packed the malls got, but I was actually kind of used to it, having just gotten back from Singapore. 

Lance and I were Hubert's personal shoppers for the day. Hubert forgot his normal shoes and was wearing his dressy work shoes that clashed with his jeans and hoodie. He decided he was on a mission to get a new pair of everyday casual shoes. What a hooligan. 

I was able to buy loads of things I've wanted for a while. From Forever 21, I got a pair of navy sequins shorts, a studded clutch and a mint green circle skirt. 4 candles and 3 lotions from Bath & Body Works. And lastly from Victoria's Secret's Pink, 3 yoga pants, 2 sweat pants, a hoodie (I really like gaming in lounge wear where no one can see me, hehehe) and a loaaaad of undies. Yay! Poor Hubert waited outside for an hour for me while I was in that store and Victoria's Secret. Sorry!

But don't worry! I was a good friend, Lance and I managed to dress Hubert up in a few stores. He's trying to change up his style for a more business casual look. That's right, ladies! He's changing it up. He got a couple of cardigans and a few dress shirts. What?! I'm so proud of him. He finished his degree, changed jobs, changed look! He's on a roll. Can't stop this kid! Now all he needs is a new lady friend. 2012 was big for him. Especially since he also got his appendix removed and had kidney stones a week after. What bad luck! But happy that you're all better now. :D That day, I got to see his appendix scar... Ewww!!! Definitely not something I want!

It was about 3 something when we left the mall and our mission failed terribly because Hubert couldn't find any shoes. I felt so bad for the guys, since they both worked overnight again that night so we had to rush back to the hotel, where the three of us just climbed into bed and passed out! Yup, be jealous of our friendship.

The next day, started early for me again. I waited for Lance to get off work, we grabbed some breakfast and then went shopping at The Core; a mall downtown that was just newly renovated. It's a decent mall, but the layout is all funky.  Sigh, breakfast was a real disaster that day. The waitress was such a b... I hate it when people ruin the start of my day. The other waitresses were just as useless, standing around and gossiping. Such a toxic environment, I didn't even bother having breakfast the next day because of this one particular waitress... Charcut should really look into hiring new breakfast people.

Oh well. Lance and I walked over to The Core which took about 5 minutes to walk to from the hotel. We checked out a few stores, but to be honest we were only there for H&M... I managed to grab a men's jacket for 30 bucks, scoreeee! Plus it was super warm, so I didn't care that it was a men's jacket. To be honest, when it's colder than -15 out, I don't really care whether I'm fashionable on the outside, just as long as I am warm! So far, I really love this jacket, I haven't had to wear the multiple layers of sweaters that I normally wear with my other jackets and the wine color is just beautiful! 

At the beginning of that morning, Hubert gave Lance some money to buy him a pair of shoes. He told us he was judging his friendship based on the pair of shoes Lance and I got him, whether it'd be nice and his style. It actually took us a while to find the perfect shoes which happened to be at Spring. To be honest,  I didn't even want to go to that store and when we got there Lance was looking at the guys shoes while I was looking at bags... Typical me! We were about to leave the store when I saw a pair that stood out to me and showed it to Lance. He agreed that that was a good pair of shoes for Hubert and we bought it. Shows to know how much I know my best friend... Well better than Lance anyways. ;) 

 

We grabbed some Jugo Juice before heading back to the hotel while playing 20 questions. At night, I was fortunate to have Lance take me to Murrietas for our annual Christmas dinner. We usually celebrate this before Christmas but Lance was too busy this year with work that it was done after. We had The beef tartare to start which I love! Yup, I love raw beef, I could eat lots of this, or beef tataki... Lance, my sister and I have done it... No shame. For our entrees, I always go for the lamb, while Lance had the chicken this time. And for dessert? Creme brûlée, of course! Mmmm. Such a great dinner, to end my mini staycation.

A bit overcooked (not the rack of lamb), but honestly, I love lamb. I almost always get this when I come to Murrieta's.

Lance said the chicken would probably be too salty for me and was he right! Really strong seasoning, and cooked perfectly; but he liked it. He said the corn pappardelle was very good too. Really flavorful and contrasted the chicken.

When we checked out the next morning, Lance, Hubert and I went for breakfast at Diner Deluxe because I was really in the mood for a typical breakfast instead of just the hotel's breakfast. I love it there. The interior has such a retro feel and the service is always great. I got the blackcurrant spritzer and the double bacon eggs benny with the breakfast poutine. 

Thank you, Lance for all my great Christmas presents this year. You really go above and beyond, and I really am grateful for everything. I truly am so blessed to have you in my life. You inspire me to continue having my dream of a pastry shop one day and even through just blogging. Let's have a wonderful 2013 together, with many more great memories. I have faith this year will be a great one.

Christmas 2012

I meant to post this up a few days ago but my strep throat got the best of me... So here we go!

Christmas wasn't as eventful as I would have like it to be this year but I can't complain with everything that happened (grandmother's funeral in SG, hectic schedule of exams after) towards the end of the year. 

I will probably write a post about this another day.

Christmas decorations at CrossIron Mills.

Polar bear decoration at 
Chinook Mall

I love the lead up to Christmas because everyone is in a holiday mood. The malls are filled with loads of crazy shoppers looking for last minute gifts, Christmas songs playing everywhere you go, the beautiful, sparkly decorations, the Christmas baking, the list goes on and on. But when Christmas Eve and Day arrive, I hate it because it feels like my favorite holiday is all over and perhaps I built it up too much. Does anyone else feel this way? 

My family always goes for midnight mass on Christmas Eve. My little sister and I take foreverrrrrrrr to get ready because we like to make ourselves fancy. This year we started getting ready at 6:30 pm but we didn't finish till 9:30 pm... Hahaha, oops! To be fair, I had to do my make up, then her make up, curl my hair, curl her hair and style it. And when I was done I only had time to have a small little snack of goat cheese and crackers. We normally have dinner after mass... I know, crazy late for dinner, right? 

Here's where it gets super stressful, my dad's rushing us out the door at 10:10 pm because he thought mass was at 11 pm... He's yelling at us as it is always a hassle to get all of us out the door. Woops. The whole way to church he was angry and yelling at us for taking so long,  saying how we're always like this every year, there'll be no parking, we're not going to have seats, we should just skip mass this year to teach you guys a lesson for next year, etc, etc, then he forgot to take an exit... Oh man, was he ever so mad because we kinda got lost...  We lost 10 minutes due to our detour and he wouldn't stop scolding us until my mother yelled at him to stop because him scolding us wasn't going to change anything. My mom's so level-headed, hehe. Honestly the whole ride there I was thinking that this year was the first time our whole family has made it out the door so early and by the time we did get to church, we would have an hour to kill... But I just kept my mouth shut because I didn't want him yelling at me. So we arrive at 11 pm and my dad's like oh, see, now there's no parking... I'm thinking what... there's so much parking in the parking lot just behind us. So he goes to park in the parking lot and before we got out of the car, I start bursting out in laughter and told him, "by the way... this is the earliest we've ever been to mass." My mother and I couldn't stop laughing. 

I love Christmas mass, there's always such a sense of peacefulness and love after... Plus a grumbling tummy. After mass, we dropped Lance off at work (suckerrrrr), and had some dinner at a restaurant in Chinatown. Finally, we headed home for gifts and I ended up staying up to bake some cookies for the Christmas party the next day.

Christmas Day is another crazy day at the Sim residence. My parents are both working on cooking multiple dishes for the party... Well my dad's the one cooking, while my mom is the one helping him find all the cooking things he needs: pots, pans, sauces, spices, etc. They tend to yell at each other when it's close to the guests coming over, it's actually kind of hilarious watching and hearing them every year. Haha, I'm cruel. Noms. Christmas Day dinner is one of the meals I look forward to every year. 

Turkey, Ham, 2 Lamb Shanks

Salmon, Chili Shrimps, Apple-cran spinach salad

After the dinner was done, one of my super duper best friend came to pick Lance and I up because they both had to work at a boutique hotel down town (Hotel Le Germain). I'm such an awesome friend too because I brought him some food and hung out with them. I was very fortunate as Lance had booked me a Luxury room for a few nights. 

Now this part is going to be my little review on the hotel and what the room has to offer. I flipping love this room; it's the only room I stay at when I'm at the hotel. It's so HUGE... Seriously, you could do kart wheels and flips all around the room. It had a very comfortable king size bed with a goose feathered duvet. I loveee their pillows too. It's so big... I wanted to take them home with me. 

The view in the room is pretty nice too, you can see The Bow, Stephen Avenue, the Hyatt, and the Marriott. The hotel offers complimentary Wi-Fi and an Ethernet cable in your room to hook up to your laptop if you wanted a faster internet speed. 

I loved the walk-in closet because I have yet to have stay at any other hotel with a closet quite like that. I appreciate their closet because you could easily hide your luggage away if you had guests come over. There's a safe, an umbrella, a tiny ironing board and an iron in there, all available for use. If you wanted a bigger ironing board, I believe you could request for one. 

Here's the closet, it's so spacious; the picture doesn't do justice to it.

My favorite part of the room was the bathroom... Its layout was opened up to the room, while the toilet was closed off in its own separate room. There's two sinks, a huge soaker tub and a separate shower. They offer loaaads of towels, two bathrobes, and Molten Brown toiletries. Love, love, love the Molten Brown shampoo, it makes my hair smell so good. Ahhhhhhh, the soaker tub is a-maaazing! I wished I used it more. It's so convenient filling up the tub as they had a spout in the ceiling that dropped water down to fill the tub up faster than the shower head on the side doing it. Trust me, it fills up way faster than drawing a bath at home. I used their package of stress relieve bath salts and I put some bath soap in the tub to make it super foamy. When it was ready, I got into it and had my iPad wrapped in a bag so I could read Harry Potter and just relax! The shower had a huge rainfall shower head which I kinda want. Seriously, I could live in this room and be happy forever. The temperature of the room was very easy to adjust as each room has its own thermostat. 

Christmas was different this year, but still the warm, loving holiday I love. By the time Lance and Hubert were done their shift, it was the morning of the 26th. And we all know what that means...

Boxing Day shopping!

But I'll save that for another day!
So tell me, how do you celebrate Christmas?