Trippin': Arlington - The Sweet Spot

4508 Matlock Rd, Suite 110
Arlington, TX 76018

While Queenie and Gau kept discussing what we could do, sister Questina kept throwing out food ideas that she would immediately follow up with but it's not as good as in Houston. Haha. I think they felt bad that there was nothing fun we could do but I was constantly assuring them that all big poppa and I wanted was to spend time with them and that was all that mattered. As a super hostess myself, I absolutely understood what they were feeling though. In the end, we chose to go to The Sweet Spot to try their version of shaved ice with fruit. I'm not sure what I was expecting but let's just say that having the shaved ice there made me go sprinting towards Juice Box once I got back to Houston. I think it had even been over year since I last went to Juice Box. Along with shaved ice, The Sweet Spot also has gelato and frozen yogurt. The frozen yogurt wasn't to my liking. They had many flavors but the texture was soft and had a fast melting point. For the shaved ice, you choose one scoop of gelato from one of their complicated flavors. I like simple when it comes to gelato and they had nothing of the sort. I ended up choosing something called Mama Mia, which the guy behind the counter said was a best seller. The base of the ice-cream flavor would be closest to the sweet cream flavor. Speaking of sweet cream, I would love some of sweet cream from Hank's Ice-Cream right now. YUM! The shaved ice wasn't as shaved and fluffy as I would have liked it. I took one look at the ice shaving machine that they had and new right away that I would turn my nose up at it. But I wanted one anyways. I had to encourage the ice-cream guy to keep on adding that condensed milk. Haha. But yeah. Houston's better. I feel a major sweet tooth attack coming on. Thank goodness that I live in Houston and have access to so much good food. But I guess I can also thank all that good food for my jelly belly. Ugh.

Persona Grata: Kylie

This whole aging process is starting to give me migraines. Couples all around me are getting married and having babies. AGGHHH! Time. Moving. Too. Fast. While having dinner at our friends place over the weekend, big poppa and I were telling them how we feel that we have more baby friends than we do adult friends. While in Dallas, we stayed one night with big poppa's old roommate. They just had a baby girl, Kylie, who was already about three months old when we visited. And I must say, she's prolly the most vocal of the babies that we know. She has her good moments but when she's fussing, oh man, it's ear splitting decibels. I think the mom was kinda relieved to have me there that day to help entertain Kylie while she got some stuff taken care of. I felt so bad though cos poor little Kylie has severe eczema so her skin is red, irritated, dry, peeling and prolly very itchy. I'm sure that discomfort was the reason for a lot of her crying. It kinda freaks me out cos everyone knows that I'm a super itchy person with bad skin. I get heat rashes all the time, food allergies that result in hives and my skin is sensitive to a lot of cleansing products so I'll break out if I'm not careful with what I'm using to wash my face and body. I hope that I don't pass that on to my kid in the future. I must say that one positive quality that I do have when it comes to crying babies is patience and the ability to accept them being fussy and not freak out. I wish I had that patience with Tino, my dog. He whines alllll the darn time and it drives me nuts! Early this morning when big poppa and I were still both dead asleep, he starts whining SUPER LOUDLY. I knew he had to go outside but man, seriously, SHUT-UP! I kept yelling at him to stop and to go to sleep. I frackin' let him out at 12:30am and here he goes again. No more mangoes for you! Haha. Yeah. I don't think I'm ready for babies. Man. Tangent much? Anyways. Meet Kylie.

Event: OCA Banana Republic Breakfast

This year, the National OCA Convention was held in Houston. Since my friend EmMa's sister is the president of the Houston Chapter, I decided to try to participate in at least one event. What is OCA? Well, it's pretty much like the NAACP but for Chinese/Asians. Here's their mission statement straight from their website:

To fulfill its mission, OCA has established the following goals:
- to advocate for social justice, equal opportunity and fair treatment;
- to promote civic participation, education, and leadership;
- to advance coalitions and community building; and
- to foster cultural heritage.

The convention takes place over a span of four days. During those days, people from all over the country have the opportunity to attend educational lectures, independent movie screenings, network and there are also fun events such as the breakfast at Banana Republic. Some of the activities/events are free but there are a few that you have to pay for, such as the breakfast. I didn't mind paying knowing that the money would go to support this organization even though the breakfast was really just a table with fruits and pastries. And there was coffee. That's all I really care about anyways. The Banana Republic at the Galleria opened up for us at 8:00am Sunday morning. Big poppa was not happy about the early call time. Coincidently, my sister and her 'sisters' were volunteering for the event. There was an informal fashion show with some members modeling BR professional attire and a raffle. I didn't win anything.

Trippin': Arlington - Pinkberry

4000 Bagpiper Way 130
Arlington, TX 76018

Pinkberry. The originator of the deliciously addicting frozen yogurt. OK. Red Mango technically came first but Pinkberry made it the popular concept that it is today. Following the trend of being last at everything, there are already three Pinkberry locations in Dallas and even one location in Arlington. Seriously? Even Arlington came before us? I digress. When big poppa and I went to visit our friends Gau and Queenie, they treated us as if we were visitors from another country. Asking us if we wanted to go to Pinkberry and Six Flags. Okkkaaayyy. It's not like we've never been to a Six Flags theme park before. But I'm game for some Pinkberry! Honestly though, I think Berripop is better. I'm not sure if it's just me but the one on Richmond behind Edwards seems to be better than all the other locations that have been popping up. I really don't think it's the same! Yeah. It's prolly just me.

Big poppa and I shared a small mango and original swirl topped with mangos. Queenie had a small original topped with strawberries, blueberries and cheesecake which she polished off in its entirety. Signs of a pregnant woman.