This month was spent hanging out with a lot of people!
Near the beginning of the month, I went to watch the Shang-Chi premiere with some friends on Friday night. We went to Studio Movie Grills, so we could eat dinner there as well. It was the first time I've been to a movie theater in over a year! Can't believe it's been so long lol.
Anyway, I loved the movie! It was great! I loved the characters and the Chinese representation involved with everything!
The next morning, we went Asian grocery shopping for our mom before heading down to visit the parents. We actually stayed until Monday night because scheduled new cleaners to come that day. Remember the whole terrible cleaners fiasco I mentioned last month? Yeah, we hired new ones, and they were a lot better. They were a lot more responsive and had better customer service. However, cleaning took a long time, so we requested to have at least three cleaners present going forward.
The next Friday night, some of Kyle's friends came over to have dinner and watch a German rock concert DVD that he was gifted a while ago. Apparently, they went to one of Rammstein's live concerts in the US before and were big fans for years. It was my first time hearing a German rock concert, and it wasn't bad! It actually reminded me when Ebony and I went to Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen previously and listened to live Danish rappers and rockers one Friday night lol.
The next morning, I had previously agreed to help out Archana and Lee Ann with packing goody bags at work. It was also Lee Ann's birthday, so we stopped by Kroger first to buy flowers and a card for her to surprise her.
These goody bags were for our Open Day event, which were supposed to occur the next week. However, because of rising Covid cases, our office decided to post-pone our coming back to the office date for another couple of months, so now they planned to mail out all of the goody bags and needed help with that. That's how I spent my morning packaging boxes that the goody bags would be mailed in lol.
Look at my organized box jungle!
I had already made plans to make homemade pizza and cookies at Alec's house a few weeks ago, so I skipped Lee Ann's birthday lunch to grab lunch and go grocery shopping with Alec lol. Since preparing the dough took time, we decided to have the pizza and cookies for dinner and spent most of the afternoon preparing everything.
I also found out that I had a light sprain on my left hand near the end of the night. I think it was because of packaging so many boxes with a stiff tape roller! Anyway, most of the backing at the end became Alec's responsibility because of this lol.
But look at our results! Alec also made some focaccia bread with cherry tomatoes and basil toppings. Super aesthetic!
Then, we watched Loki while eating everything and had too many questions the whole time lol.
So Kyle's older bro, Clay, got married a few months ago in Seattle. His wife is actually Shelle's friend, who's family had beef with our family for the past couple of years (long story). They wanted to throw an engagement party (even though they're already married, still don't know why they called it that) in Georgia to celebrate since both of their families are in GA and didn't make it to their actual wedding.
Our family was invited (we think it's only because we're technically in-laws now), but mom couldn't go because of her surgery and obviously dad wasn't going to go if mom wasn't. Shelle had to go celebrate her best friend's bachelorette weekend, which meant that only Kyle and I could go. I didn't want to go because I didn't feel comfortable meeting Chris's family or Kyle's mom and step-dad, so I needed an excuse to avoid going that following Saturday.
Luckily, Archana was free all weekend and didn't mind me hanging out on Saturday with her. Then, Kyle found out that Chris and Clay wanted to spend the whole weekend at our house instead of just Saturday night instead staying at their mom's house. Now, I needed to avoid them for the whole weekend! Luckily, Archana was fine with that lmao. She loves company.
Because I had already taken Friday off, I went over to her place after I took an afternoon nap and went grocery shopping across the street from her apartment to get snacks. We watched the new animated Witcher movie while she did yoga. Since she decided to get her yoga instructor license, she had to do an hour of yoga everyday leading up to her training session where it would increase, and she'd need to do two hours of yoga everyday. So everyday, we'd watch a movie while she did yoga in the living room lol.
Alec called me earlier in the week to catch up. He wanted to hangout around Atlanta that weekend, but I already had plans with Archana, so I invited him to eat hot pot on Saturday night. We originally planned to go to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens first since he hadn't been there before, but right as we got to the entrance to find parking, we found out it was closed for a private event. I guess someone got married lol.
Instead, we drove around and found a new bubble tea place to get drinks before going to a small park nearby called Win Park. It was really pretty and in the middle of a residential neighborhood in the middle or Atlanta.
Since we still weren't hungry yet, we went to some Asian grocery stores since Archana wanted to go. We bought some snacks like new Kit-Kat flavors that we wanted to try. Archana also got a small jar of citron tea since I said that it was one of my favorite teas to drink when it gets cold. She got hooked on it immediately lol.
Then, we finally went to I Luv Hot Pot for Archana's first hot pot experience. We spent a long time there, and I definitely ate too much! I think it's because I'm used to going with my family, so it's easier to split all of the plates and not fill up too much on one thing.
Afterwards, we went back to Archana's place to talk on the balcony and try out all of the new snacks and teas we bought. The new mango flavored Kit-Kat was highly disappointing. It tasted too artificial :(
The next day, Archana's college friend, Thien, was coming over to spend the night. She was in town for a while and wanted to catch up with Archana with all of her family problems, and I was just there for the ride lol. Poor girl has to deal with such uncaring and (honestly) toxic family. Luckily, it seems that her mom's on her side at least. I never knew the youngest could have so much struggles in a family, especially in a Viet household.
Lol, when Thien called and told Archana that her mom was going to drop her off, we panicked for no reason and started cleaning the apartment hardcore! Then, when we saw her mom coming towards our building, we rushed downstairs to help her carry her stuff and have a good impression on her mom lmao. We couldn't stop laughing at ourselves because we didn't know why we were panicking so much!
We also went for a walk in the trail near Archana's apartments near dusk. We stayed out too long, so it was completely dark by the time we walked back. It looked like there was a man a few meters ahead of us in the little light we could see, but I think it was just the shadows. Regardless, Archana became scared, and our leisurely walk turned fast-paced real quick lmao. Anyway, we made it out alive.The next day was Monday. Because we all worked remotely, we all took turns taking calls either in the bedroom or balcony lol. It wasn't a very productive day, especially because Shelle was in town in the afternoon and came to visit. We hungout and talked about our weekend experiences until Thien's mom came to pick her up. Then, we went to out for ramen for dinner.
Because Shelle kept on asking Archana when was the next time she planned on coming over since it's been such a long time, she decided to quickly pack after dinner and spend the rest of the week at our house lol. She had to come back on Friday night to dogsit one of her neighbor's dog, so she didn't need to pack much either.
Venom also premiered that Friday, so we booked tickets at Studio Movie Grill for 6PM, so we could finish watching the movie in time for Archana to get back to dogsit. But then we found out that her neighbor changed her plans on Friday and didn't need Archana's help after all, so we rushed for nothing.
So yeah, September was a very busy month hanging out with a lot of people! I was definitely peopled out after Archana left lol.
