Ushering Out 2011 With A Meet Up & Welcoming In 2012 With New Year Food

Sorry that I've been so inactive with blogging these past few weeks. Working and dealing with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season left me feeling quite exhausted this year.  I do have quite a few catch up posts planned and hopefully can get it all organized and done soon.

The end of 2011 was a good one because I got to meet up with 2 bloggers at the same time. Liz aka Jamilla Camel of Makeup for Professional Asian Women and Tracie aka Wuzzy of Wuzzy Angel are the two bloggers that I got to meet. Coincidently, Tracie lives in Hawaii and quite nearby to me and we haven't ever met before this. We decided to meet at Ala Moana Shopping Center just outside of Nordstrom and then head over to Assagio Italian Restaurant for lunch.

Liz also brought along her husband who Liz described as a very tall English man. This conjured up all kinds of stereotypical images in my mind of English men. One stereotype is that they are loud and rowdy. The other being the perfect English gentleman. Her husband is indeed very tall and is a soft-spoken, genteel and perfect English gentleman. It was an honor for me to have been able to meet him too.

Liz, I have "met" via video webchat before and so it was great to actually see her in person. It is amazing how different people can look in person even though you've seen them through web chat. I have to say that Liz is even more beautiful in person, if that is even possible. She has the greatest personality too and is so easy to get along with. Unfortunately, she wasn't feeling very well so she couldn't enjoy eating a nice meal.

Traci is also a beautiful and easy going person. I've discovered that we have a few things in common besides our love for makeup. Traci, I think that we'll need to get together again and just fangirl over the Johnny idols.

We totally failed in remembering to take meet up pictures! We were having so much fun talking and eating that by the time I remembered that we needed to take pictures, the food was gone except for Traci's salad. This is the only picture that I took of Liz and Traci:

No blogger meet up is complete without goodies. From the lovely Liz, I received this bag:

And in the bag was wonderful goodies!

A packet of Victorian cutouts, a couple of eyeshadow palettes, a mask or two AND a Hello Kitty x Liberty Lipgloss Set! I already opened up and used the Victorian cutouts and that will be in an upcoming post. Thank you LIz!

From Traci, I received a wallet-sized zippered pouch which has a mirror inside and there was a bunch of sample packets that I can't wait to try. Also included was a nail polish and Bare Minerals powder.

It was actually all wrapped up in a package as well but I forgot to take a picture of it before I opened it up. Thank you Traci!

Thank you ladies! It was a wonderful way to end 2011.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I've been quite exhausted and I actually fell asleep on New Year's Eve as soon as I got home from work. I got up a few times and posted a couple of tweets but went back to sleep until I finally got up at around 11:30 p.m. It was just in time to wish my family a Happy New Year at midnight. I then showered and went back to sleep. New Year's Day, I was still feeling tired and like I had a hangover so it was mainly spent just lying around and watching television.

I finally cooked my New Year's meal for dinner tonight. It isn't the new year until we eat soba and the traditional ozoni (mochi soup).

Soba:

Ozoni:

Teriyaki Furikake Salmon:

I couldn't find my sakura-shaped cutter so I had to use this other cutter for the carrots in the soup. I don't like cooked carrots so after I took the picture, the carrots went back into the pot.

To eveyone, Happy New Year and I hope that 2012 will be a good year for all.

*Kat*