★☆ Cousin Doug's Wedding and Birthday Thoughts☆★

[Currently listening to "Your Love is My Drug" by Ke$ha - she's kinda my current music obsession at the moment :) ]

Good morning again everyone :)

I know, I did say that I was going to update last night, but I got an excuse ^-^;; Some of you guys may or may not know about this already, but I do go either to the pool or the gym after work on most days during my week. I love to stay physically active and looking forward going to the gym or the pool after a good shift at work is very motivating. But for something more exciting, I've been doing something in addition to my routine!

In the last week, Rich - one of my good guy buddies who's one of the cooks where I work - is teaching me boxing! He did professional boxing for quite some time, and I learned this when I was working out one night; he came in with a few guys who I see sometimes at work and they put on their gear and started knocking each other out, lol! I thought it looked pretty interesting and asked Rich about it. Soon enough, I started learning how to make the proper fighting stance, jabbing, perfecting my hook, and I'm now learning how to slip (making my body go down to dodge a punch). It's so aggressive, but it's so much fun too! I got a couple of my co-workers Dice and Jas to join too - the more the merrier, right?? :D

...but I think I pushed my limit last night, and sucker-punched myself right out x_X It was so much fun, so I guess it was worth it :)

So now that I probably bored you with my gym story, why don't we get on with some of the pics from my cousin's wedding? :)

Saturday, July 10th, 2010 in the city of Philadelphia was one of the most exciting days for me and my family. My elder cousin, Douglas, married his very cute and lovely wife Christina :) It was a very lovely wedding - Caribbean music played as the bridesmaids and groomsmen made their way to the altar, a song sung by Celine Dion played as the bride's march, a wonderful and motivating pastor led the way, and all followed with a fun wedding reception :) I've been waiting a couple of months to meet this wonderful Christina, and I finally got to meet her on this day - she's so pretty and fun, I'm so happy that Douglas found a wonderful woman like her and I'm praying for a loving, happy life together <3>

Here's me with my mom, dad and handsome brothers Jerome and Jonathan :)

My cousin JR with lil Elijah, the ring bearer - this little guy is so funny: when he approached the altar, he handed the rings over to Douglas and tried to run away, lol!

The cousins! We're from my dad's side of the family. From L to R: Bridget, Kimberly, Richard, my brother Jerome, JR, me, other brother Jonathan, and Ryan. :)

Doug and Christina cutting the cake - it's so gorgeous, I loved the colors!

My cousin Rich dancing with his really cute girlfriend Kristen :)

Just a few pictures for now to show you guys - I've yet to upload the pictures on my Facebook, so I will post a link on my Twitter and in a later edit tonight :) It was my very first time at a wedding, especially at a family wedding, and I will never ever forget it :)

Time for me to get ready for work, guys... I wish I can write to you a little bit more, but look out for an update later on tonight and you guys can always follow me on Twitter too :)

Before I go though, just wanted to say that I just placed in an order for something I wanted to get myself as an early birthday present: DSKJewelry's Strawberry Lemonade necklace :) Isn't it gorgeous? I absolutely love the colors - their warm colors are just so sweet, summery and... I guess you can also say, yummy :)

Speaking of which, DSKJewelry's Model Contest ends this coming Sunday, August 15th - cast your votes now if you haven't! :) You can vote at: dskmodel.tumblr.com (best viewed either in Mozilla or Safari because it's being weird in Internet Explorer).

Have a wonderful day everyone, and I'll check back with you all later on tonight -- promise!! xoxo

Much love,
Reiko

Edit!!
The pictures are now uploaded on my Facebook - visit here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019471&id=65300438&l=955e740e50

Enjoy the pictures! :D

★☆ Early Morning Chat with Reiko ☆★

[Currently listening to Best of KAT-TUN - yes, I'm a JE fan too! :D ]

Good morning everyone :) It's now 5:11am, and I've been up for nearly half an hour. I'm not entirely sure why I got up at this time, but I'm feeling wide awake writing to you all, lol! It certainly has been a while.

Since I'm up, I wanted to share with you guys my weekend - it did have it's ups and downs, but I learned a lot in just 2 days...

There are a lot of things going on at work that it's gotten me so busy in recent weeks - if you're new to reading my blog, I'm a bartender in a retirement home - it will seem bizarre to you, I know, but as I've said time and time again, I love my job! :) I've been working full-time hours now and I'm enjoying that, but at the same time it's physically exhausting. (Imagine running around serving food where you have to wear long sleeves with little air conditioning for about 8 hours - ooh, yeah, that's me! >_< ) I like to have a break every now and then, and to my surprise I was given a weekend - Saturday and Sunday - off! It's a very rare opportunity for me, so I figured it's time I took it to fully enjoy it :)

[Saturday]
I met with @SleeplessFish, aka Taylor , my beloved boyfriend (of 2 years now) after he got off work. We did have a rocky start over something that was small and stupid, but we eventually came around and had a good time. He showed me around the church where he works - it certainly is a beautiful place, and it's big too! :) I just wished I had taken some pictures to show you guys, but I guess I will have to do that the next time I visit there :) We headed over to my best friend, Nicki's, house for a party :) Our college friend, Jeincy, is moving to Washington state soon to work there for a year, so we had a party to celebrate her new job! It was an absolutely fun fun night - I got to see a lot of cool people whom I haven't seen in so long!

This is Jeincy! I met her in her freshman year in college, my sophomore year. She's one of the sweetest girls ever!

This is me with @babyroach, aka Nicki, my best friend of 17 years next month - I met her while we were in religion classes and altar serving at our old parish, and we went to the same middle school, high school, and even college! I'm convinced God brought us together for a reason - I'm so thankful to have her in my life!

...oh, right, I haven't posted a picture of Tay and me together yet, right? :D As proof that we were at the party together, lol!

It was too bad that I had to leave the party early, but I stuck around for Jeincy's cake cutting :) It was such a cute and delicious cake!

I had to take a picture of this before I left, but it's one of the yummiest things I've ever tried: it's a can of whipped cream... with alcohol in it. I kid you not - it's flavored with amaretto, and is 36 proof/18% alcohol! I'll have to get me one of these if I ever have a party or something. Have any of you guys ever tried this or seen this before? It was my very first time seeing this on this night and it was so yummy :) I'm curious to see if it comes in other flavors!

[Sunday]

I never thought I'd have a day where I could sleep in and just be lazy for a morning until yesterday - I had gotten up a couple of times to get onto the computer to see what was going on in the world, but shortly after that, I decided to have what I call a "power nap" - I wanted to really re-charge my batteries and I didn't get up again until around 1pm! It was a wonderful feeling :)

I didn't take many pictures yesterday, but I met with Tay again after he got off work at the church in the afternoon. In case you guys were wondering about his job, for right now he's a weekend sexton at his parish until the original sexton, currently stuck in Japan, comes back. ^-^; We had a huge dinner at The Silver Diner - we split a peppermint milkshake; I had a small Ceasar salad and had the Shrimp Scampi with gluten-free penne pasta, which was actually pretty yummy! Tay had a small summer salad with his Grilled Wasabi Salmon Sliders - his was very yummy too :D We topped it off with a slice of the Chocolate Cream Pie :) We were so full, but it was very well deserved meal!

Don't ask me why, but yes, I'm a very silly person when I'm eating out :p

We finished off the day with watching "The Other Guys" - it's one of the funniest movies I've seen this summer, especially with Will Farrell in it :) If you guys haven't seen it yet, I recommend it if you really like really ridiculously funny movies :) I still want to see Charlie St. Cloud and Salt too, and even Step-Up 3D since it just came out in theaters :)

Overall I had such a good weekend! I'm fully relaxed and recharged. I will have to go into a full day at work later on today, but I'll be ready for it when I get in :)

If there were a couple of things that I learned this weekend, it'd be these:

1. Looking back at my pictures from this past weekend made me realize that I should appreciate and embrace each moment more and more, like they were the last moments of my life. I may not see these people or do these activities very often, but I need to enjoy them to the fullest. After all, you only live life once, and you need to cherish and embrace each moment with all your heart.

2. In addition to that, remember I mentioned that Tay and I had a rough start when we first saw each other on Saturday? We love each other very much, but our love is not perfect - we fight, sometimes, mostly over the smallest and ridiculous things. It's normal in any relationship, and in most cases, good because each of us gets to see a side of each other that we may not know about each other; we have our differences, but these can be worked out somehow. Tay and I have our differences too, but we work them out together. I guess that's why he and I have gotten so close, and I'm thankful for that.

So a little message from me if you are lucky to be in a loving relationship or even if you're still waiting for that special person: Love him or her with your mind, heart, and soul. If this is the one that you want, don't let him or her slip away - embrace him or her with all your might.

Immature love says, "I love you because I need you."
Mature love says, "I need you because I love you."

I'm not sure where I learned this from, but I do know that is is true. :)

All right, time to get ready for the day...

...and I just realized that I didn't put up my pics from my cousin's wedding as I promised... I do promise, though, that I will do that tonight :)

Lastly, a pic that I took yesterday that I hope will make you smile too - featuring DSK Jewelry's Rocker Pink Necklace and Heart Love bracelet :) Makes me feel so pretty in pink xoxo

Have a beautiful day everyone :) See you tonight!

With love,
Reiko xoxo