The heat wave here has been on for the entire week. It's tough getting to sleep at night with this muggy and hot weather. Everyone's been talking about it. It's also gonna be a busy weekend as we are doing some furniture moving.

At the beginning of the week, we finally got the deck cover built by contractors. They did a pretty good job. It's finally nice to have a shade while sitting outside in the backyard. I took some before and after pics.

My husband and I have been trying a few new restaurants lately and this time we went to Banana Leaf Restaurant. It's a Malaysian Restaurant. We've heard good reviews so we thought we'd try it out. Food and service was great, but the menu was a bit pricey.

I had this type of food before so I knew what I was ordering. Here's what we ordered: Singapore Laksa (rice vermicelli noodle in coconut soup), pineapple fried rice, hot & sour soup, papaya soup, and a fresh coconut. The only dish that wasn't spicey was the pineapple fried rice. It wasn't as spicey as I thought it would be. I still had to gulp down a full glass of water though.

We went to "House of Tofu Soup" Korean food the other day for lunch. We've been there before, but it was a while ago. They're located in Burnaby (border of Coquitlam) near Lougheed Mall (North Road & Lougheed Hwy). They have really good food and I wanted to try it again. We used to go there for dinner and this is the first time we ate there for lunch.

The restaurant menu consists of tofu soup, bibimbab, bulgogi BBQ stuff, Korean seafood pancake, and other stuff. I ordered the pork tofu soup and the hubby ordered the mushroom tofu soup for $9.99 each. You also get to choose spicy, medium, mild, or white. Mild was still a bit spicy for me so next time I'll just order white and add the kimchi in it. And our little Brandon is still taking his baby food.


It was pretty filling as it was a large portion and came with the rice in the stone bowl and side dishes. Side dishes includes seaweed, potatoes (mashed) with sweet flavor, marinated radish, and of course the kimchi. Raw eggs are provided to drop into the boiling hot soup as soon as it arrives at your table.



I would recommend this place to anyone. After lunch, you can go across the street to the Hannam Reum Korean supermarket to buy groceries.

This is my first attempt with the UV Gel nails I did myself at home. It's nothing too fancy since I just started learning about UV Gel products. There are a lot of information and tutorials on YouTube. Here I added some rhinestones with the pink UV gel coating.





To start, I had to buy the UV gel as well as the UV Lamp to cure it. I got everything on eBay for a great price ($27US), including some nail art stickers. The UV gel set I got comes in white, pink, and clear. The pink is translucent so it seems more like it's clear. The UV gel curing lamp I got is just a cheap 9Watt. I received the package and saw such poor English written on the side of the box and laughed. Hey, it's from China! Cheapy stuff, but it works.

July 11th was my birthday. I couldn't believe that time flew by so quickly. I didn't really do much except spend some quality time with the family (hubby and baby Brandon) mostly. Also went out for dinner with a few friends at Bao Chao Vietnamese restaurant. It's funny that I had dinner there for my birthday last year too. Deja vu?

You're wondering if I got any good presents/gifts for my birthday. Not really actually. I did order some stuff for myself online a week ago. I bought some UV Gel for my nails and thought I'd try to do some fancy Japanese nail art. I also pre-ordered an art book that will be shipped soon. I can't wait. More info about it at my Art Blog: http://jennieyuen-art.blogspot.com

I ordered the Dic-A-Pac Underwater camera cover last week and it finally arrived in the mail. I haven't tried using my camera with it yet, but I've tested it and seemed to work pretty well. I didn't want to spend $200 for the actual underwater hardcase, so this one works just well. I picked up mines from eBay for about $28US with shipping included.

The "Dic-A-Pac" waterproof camera case comes in different models accommodating different sizes for any digital camera. Here are the features:

- Guaranteed underwater performance for up to 16ft (5m) depth
- Super clear PVC lens frame
- Transparent and flexible case for convenient camera control.
- Possible to use with lens with and without zoom function
- Reliable closing system with waterproof zipper and Roll & Velcro
- JIS waterproof test 8 grades (the highest grade): Product protected against submersion.
- Size: 9.5 w x 14.5 H cm
- Weight: 40g
- This product fits for length 90mm and circumference under 170mm
- please follow the instructions carefully to protect your camera

I could have had a chance to use it when I took baby Brandon swimming for the first time, but didn't take out the camera and the cover with me. Next time I'll share my reviews.