Doan Chung-Hernandez

Been trying to see more of my friend Brandy lately. There’s really no reason for us to not hang out more. I love her to pieces and we don’t even live that far away. Today we went to Green Belt, pretty cool because you know what, it’s on my Austin Bucket List. I’m sure Ray and I have hiked small parts of green belt in the past but it’s 8 miles long and there’s so many cool parts that we haven’t seen. Today I’m definitely at one of the cooler parts that’s cool enough for Green Belt to be check off my Austin Bucket List.

This is her son Jacob. He looks like a little turtle poking his head out of the water.

This is probably as close as I’m going to get to having a beach.

There’s even a rope swing here.

I’m kinda lame but I didn’t want to do it, but here’s a video of Brandi going balls to the walls.

You see it’s just that yeah, this place is great but Brandi made the mistake of taking me “treasure hunting” before we came and basically it’s all I thought about the whole time. So it wasn’t long until we left Green Belt to do more “treasure hunting.” Jacob wanted to go home, but I bribed him with ice-cream to come with us. Check out my new treasure I found today, this antique chair. Can you believe someone just threw this away.

I swear, this treasure hunting thing is my favorite new hobby.

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Now does this look like a face that is living it up on his birthday? Nope, this is a face that is “dealing” with another birthday. I mean really we’re here more for me than him. I’m the cupcake whore.

So it’s Ray’s 29th birthday and of course I had something up my sleeve, he’s the love of my life. I’m planning on throwing my baby a surprise birthday dinner and seriously, who wouldn’t love to have a surprise party on their birthday? While surfing the net day in and out for the prime place to host it I stumbled onto Tillman’s Roadhouse. The banquet room fit just over 20 heads, right around the same amount of people I had planned on inviting, surly it was a sign . . . or not because when I called to make the reservations the gentleman on the other line kindly stated that they were closed on Mondays. Arrrgh! Really? Well I didn’t want to waste such an awesome find so I made Reservations for Valentines Day and in desperate despair I resorted to the Blue Fish Sushi, Ray’s favorite sushi restaurant up in Dallas.

Now I don’t know if any of you have ever planned a surprise birthday, but boy are they stressful. I had planned for us to start the day off slow, maybe have breakfast with his dad, then to the Dallas Museum of Arts, kill a few good hours there, grab some coffee and then head out to dinner. Sounds brilliant right? Wrong. First we grab some food with his dad, because as far as Ray knows this is going to be the only time he gets with his pops on his birthday but for some reason his dad tells him that he’s also available for dinner too. Why? I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t under the concept of a “surprise party.” So now I have to factor in meeting his dad for dinner. I know it’s not a big deal but when you have so much to think about and you want things to be perfect, it is. So later we arrive at the museum only to find that it’s closed. Arrrgh? Seriously what the fuck is the point of Presidents Day anyway? So now we have a good 3 hours to kill and that’s exactly how we ended up at this cupcake shop.

Pretty cute, wish I could remember the name of the place.

Looks good right? Damn straight.

But does Ray really want to be here, on his birthday? What do you think? Does it look like he does. I mean he could barely squeeze out a smile for this photo.

Now throughout the day I had to watch my baby text his friends to hang out or go grab a few drinks later tonight only get shut down, on his birthday. Ouch! Of course I knew this would happen which is why I informed everyone to say they were busy (I guess dad didn’t get the memo). But watching his day go from bad to worse was heart breaking. Seriously, 7:00 can’t get here sooner. Since we had 3 hours to kill, after the cupcake shop we headed to Mocking Bird Station and shopped, or at least I did, at Urban Outfitters. Again, Ray just moped around, like a kid following his mom. Trust me I wanted to go too but where to? Arrgh again. After shopping we grabbed some coffee at Starbucks. Thank you Starbucks for being open on Presidents Day. Now this last hour is when I started to get antsy. Ray wants to get there early and grab some drinks at the bar while I’m getting texts from Kuya Ben saying so far only 6 people have arrived out of the 18 that were suppose to be there. Arrgh! While driving past the Blue Fish I was so fearful that he would see someone familiar walking up to the restaurant so I shouted, “oh, look at those houses, lets go check out the neighborhood.” And he snaps back, “I don’t want to go look at houses right now,” from frustration of doing a bunch of shit that he didn’t really want to do all day. I suggest he drops me off because I’m “cold” while he goes out in search of parking but he decides to valet instead. Awesome. When the car stops I hop out and run into what I thought was the Blue Fish but it was another restaurant right next to it.  When I realize I’m at the wrong place I rush back outside only to find my husband staring back at me like I’m a moron. So I rush into the Blue Fish and say to the host, “reservations for Dohh and Ray,” which was signal to let her know that I’m with the guest of honor but that stupid bitch goes, “the rest of the party is over there.” Arrgh, really? I wanted to rip her head off and thrash it as hard as I could right up against the wall. Anyhow, as soon as Ray heard that he put two and two together and it hit him, but luckily, just as it did, everyone stood up and shouted, “SURPRISE!”

Yeah, it was a stressful day but the look on his face made it all worth it.

And almost everyone showed up. Awesome.

Kuya Ben and Bernh.

Our favorite couple, Steven Ray and Nycole.

Brandy and Monique.

This was pops first time having sushi and he loved it.

Kris drove up all the way from Austin.

Raul and his beautiful wife, Cynthia.

Kimmy and Jacob show. It’s always so nice to see these guys.

Amet and Anthony are the shiz-nit.

Of course Kuya Ben had to show off his new camera, canon G11. Jerk.

Oh, and those amazing spring rolls Ray had boasted about, overrated.

Hope it comes true snuggle bear. I love you.

I would totally come back just for this. It was orgasmic.

After dinner I was really hoping for all of us to go out and grab a few drinks. I mean we are on Greenville, but it was Monday. So Brandy, Monique, Jeremy, who showed towards the end of dinner, Ray and I went without them.

How my husband finds new ways to multitask with the iPhone always amazes me.

Love ya babe. Happy birthday. Hope it was a good one.

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We got the call in the morning, Grandpa past away in his sleep last night. I’ve never known neither of my grandpas so Ray’s grandpa was the closest one I had to the real thing. I want to say it was unexpected but only because we expected grandma to go before him. I mean, not too long before they finally decided to put her in an old folks home because her condition had been so taxing on everyone. It was a hard decision but it had to be done. Grandpa past away not too long after she left the house and poor grandma is much too sick to understand so no one told her.

We started the morning off with breakfast with uncle Ray and later paid grandma a visit at the assisted living home she’s staying at. Since she’s been living here she’s shown lots of improvement. She’s a lot less hostel which is awesome because hostel grandmas are no fun.

Think she might have even remembered Ray Daniel, even if it was only for a brief second.

After grandmas visit everyone gathered back at aunt Dora’s.

The next day we met up with our good buddy Steven Ray and his girl Nycole. It’s always so nice to see them.

Check out the sweet tux Nemo got for the funeral.

The day before the funeral Uncle Ray had to be rushed to the hospital.

November 21, 2009 we buried grandpa. It was a really nice funeral. Poor Uncle Ray was still in the emergency room.

After the funeral we all gathered back at Aunt Dora’s. It’s not often we see everyone under the same roof so it was really nice. I think that’s the best part about funerals. Grandpa and grandma would be proud.

I don’t know how we all managed to fit but we did.

Ray and I had to head back home later that night but before we did we wanted to meet up with some of the cousins for a few drinks. Only Nick and Brandi could make it.

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