Leaving for Vegas...but before I just want to say an EARLY...

HAPPY NEW YEARS!! YAAY 2003!!

;) *muah*

Come on babe, why don't we paint the town... and all that jazz...

:) OH MY GOODNESS!! I just watched CHICAGO tonight and it was totally AWESOME!! :) Totally totally loved it. TOTALLY! I saw the show a couple years back and to see how they adapted it to the screen was pretty amazing. Suprisingly enough, EVERYONE can sing in it!! :) Yeah.. I was on the verge of singing along, but I was good and I kept my mouth shut. Anyways, go watch it... take me with you... :)

Pop. Six. Squish. Uhuh. Ciscero. Lipschitz.

okok. I'll stop. :)

Hmmmm... what to blog about.. hmmm. Well, yesterday, went to Club Alondra to celebrate Mikie's birthday. :) Ahhhhh, memories of the Arena and Metro came flying to me the moment I walked through that door. Since it was an 18+ club, I was feeling incredibly OLD... not to mention incredibly tall since there was a majority of short asains there. But it was still fun just getting that groove on and hanging out with Mikie, Lan, Joe, Steph, Joanne, Janelle and her cousins, and company. :) Amazingly enough, ran into people there who weren't part of the Mikie group... including old school formal date Richard AND *believe it or not* my favorite karate-boarding bartender himself JP. (WOAH.) Anyways, left kinda early cause it had been a long day *couatthemallgh* and Carlene and I were just really tired. Argh... getting old....

Got my hair cut... :( I think its too short... I went in thinking *OH! I'm going to take off an inch, trim the ends and fix the layers!* but no... the stylist had a different idea and chopped off 3 INCHES!! 3 INCHES!! That's... a lot! On the bright side.. it looks heathy and well... I'm not bald or anything. And at least it grows back... :) Ok.. I'll survive.

Tomorrow (er... today) theres a family wedding... or I think theres a wedding. Theres a reception for sure... but ceremony? Not sure. This wedding has been "off" and "on" several times this past week so no one is really sure what they should write on the cards. "Congratulations... you didn't?" "Share the blender!?" Anyways, it should be interesting... also this is like my first wedding in a while that I haven't had to work at so that should be a nice chage... if there is a wedding... hmmm... oh wells. :)

I hope everyone got what they asked for from Santa... :)

Hmmmm.. today spent the day here at home and then went over to my Dad's for dinner with the rest of the Concepcion clan. :) *Good times* and even more good food... Nanang was out of the home, so it was as always really great to see her, as well as just spending quality time with the cousins. :) When you ask my baby niece Alicia what kind of noise a lion makes... she'll go "roar". SHE'S SO CUTE!! She also loved her brand new Care Bear... ;) My Cousin had bought her a "Chicken Dance Elmo" and I think my Tita Lagring was even more excited to dance with it than Alicia was...

Darnit, the Lakers lost. :(

Anyways, on a brighter and happier note... a 23 minute late HAPPY BIRTHDAY to MIKIE!! I'll see YOU tonight.. ;) Cause you know... when I hear music it makes me dance...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Things are good here... Its been an interesting couple of days with so much going on... Last night, got to see *snow* which almost made me cry because it was so pretty... and then afterwards went over to Janelles for a Christmas party where Luc (I'm sooooo sorry about being pissy on the phone. I was NOT in a good mood at that moment.) and Mark discovered that they were weird buddy buddy soul mates because I SWEAR TO HADES, they have the same characteristics and mannerisms. *too weird* Anyways, played a tame game of White Elephant and "oh but of course" Cranium, where the soul mates and Kenny won even though we technically didn't finish the game... (Ryan Skophammer.. where are you when we need you!) Anyways, pretty much kicked back with everyone afterwards which was pretty terriffic since it had been a while or just felt like eons since I've been able to just hang out with Luc, Salamanca, and the rest of the folks.

Christmas is very laidback this year. I didn't know what my plans were for Christmas eve until 2pm today when I called my dad and was told that the Concepcion Family Festivities were going to be held on Christmas DAY this year. Oh wells... So tonight it was Mom, Carlene, and myself... which was absolutely perfect...

*@11pm*
Nicole: Mom! Open your gift now... when we get back from Church, it'll be 1am and you'll be tired....
Carlene: Yeah, open it now so that at Church, you can thank God for your wonderful daughters.

Got home from Midnight Mass a while ago. It was great even if we had gotten there 30 minutes before mass and it was ALREADY crowded (luckily we got seats). After Communion, they turned off all the lights and the whole congregation sang "Silent Night" (Although the projection where the lyrics was on was interrupted when the Norton Anti-Virus in the computer went off and projected it on the screen) . I got goosebumps because at that very moment, I could feel the spirit of the holiday... it was really something. :)

Anyways, HAPPY HOLIDAYS (again) and a great big *MUAH* to everyone! Go watch 24 hours of A CHRISTMAS STORY on TNT. :) Love ya!

WHooooo... good weekend. :)

Friday night, went over to Tina and Mae's for our little SL/CSUF/FRIENDS&FAMILY party. I swear... pratically every furniture in their apartment says "PROPERTY OF CSUF" on it. (They bought it.. really. ;)) Anways, we did our usual "kris kringle" were pretty much everyone with the exception of Joey "Holy Cow.. that's a dick!" knew who had who and later watched "Can't Hardly Wait." ("Yo.. I gots to have sex tonight.") Afterwards, went over to Beth's to drop off her Christmas gift and the dolly for her big move... :)

Saturday.. woke up bright and early to get ready for my mom's Barkada Christmas party. :) Every year, a different family hosts the party... and so my mom wanted to make sure EVERYTHING was perfect since it was the first time that we were having a big "family" function in the house. In fact, she went into Christmas nazi mode (TIMES 2!). It was pretty frightening. But everything was great and the party was a lot of fun (Oh my goodness.. so much food. We got leftovers... call if you want some!). I swear, every year the parents gather up all the kids and force us to take a picture in a stairway... I'm sure it was pretty adorable with 13 kids under the age of 10 all happy and smiling, snug as a bug in a rug on those stairs... but now all the "kids" are either in their teens or 20's and to cramp us on there that way just isn't cute anymore. I was definitely feeling the "old" that night because the youngest kid, Cheryl, is going to enter St. Lucy's next year... and I remember when she used to be a BABY!! (Actually, since I'm the 3rd oldest of all the kids, I remember when a lot of them were babies! I remember vividly when Benji was 5 years old, he was trying to jump rope with the big kids and he was holding potato chips, but he fell down. All of us stopped because we were CERTAIN that he would start crying.. but he didn't, and instead reached for a broken potato chip on the ground and put it in his mouth. HE'S A SOPHOMORE IN HIGH SCOOL NOW!! Oh weirdness... Moving on...) Rather then having all the kids sit in a room and watch TV while waiting for the gift exchange... this year, Tito Jerry had us gambling and yelling obnoxiously with the adults at the dinning room table and taking shots with them as well. ;) *WHOOOHOOO!!! GOOD TIMES!!* Also we played some "pusoy dos" but unfortunantly, I didn't have any proper playing cards other than my GARFIELD ones were instead of the hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds... my cards had Garfield, Odie, Nermal (the "cute" gray cat) and Arlene (the pink cat) which made playing rather difficult. ("Who has the 3 of Odie!?!") This year, no one won any XBOXs... but Kris Kringles were still a lot of fun. Actually, the main highlight now of the parties is watching the adults play White Elephant. You wouldn't think it, but they can be so ruthless... but its pretty hilarious to watch your mom fight for a cordless phone or your aunts and uncles scheming to take a cuppuchino maker from each other...

Incredibly stupid moment of the day: I was putting on my brand new pair of TOE SOCKS when to my suprise I discovered I had only 4 toes!! But then I realized I had 2 of my toes in one of the sockie thingies... *duh*

:) HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY!! I'm done.. well, for the time being. Finals week wasn't so bad for me considering that it was mostly papers I had to write and just one test... stressful nonetheless. But on Wednesday, I was finished, relieved, and oh so very happy.

Has anyone heard of the song "CHRISTMAS SHOES"? Oh my goodness, I heard the song today at work and its one of those songs that completely captures you if you listen to the lyrics... There I was folding chiffon, when I first felt goosebumps all over my body and then next thing I knew, I was crying. If you haven't heard it, you should download it... its about a man who's in line at a store when theres a boy in front of him who's buying shoes for his mom... but he doesn't have enough so he tells the cashier that he need the shoes because it will make his mom happy because shes sick and she might be seeing Jesus that night. OH MY GOODNESS... just thinking about it makes me tear up.. so the narrator sings about the little boy... AND THEN you hear children singing the chorus AND THEN its one little boy singing it... Its soooooo sad... The song just tugs at your heart strings... Another radio station started playing it a while afterwards, but I had to run to the radio and change it... I just couldn't take it again.

Anyways, its raining again. Earlier today, it was sunny and I was thinking to myself "Gosh! I love days after it rains because everything seems so much brighter and crisper," and really, it was. The sun was shinning and the hill along the 71 was this gorgeous bright green that made me think of the wallpaper in Windows XP. But now the rain is pitter-pattering away... and I'm currently listening to PM Dawn's "I'd Die Without You." How perfect is that!?! Hopefully it will stop before Christmas... and the holiday was be clear and beautiful.