Santa Clause is coming to town...

The kids were at the local library, with the Santa Clause.  

It was the first time for Meimei to realize the existence of Santa Clause, so she was a little overwhelmed. 

Gege was a little nervous too.   When I was wandering why he was so, he asked me secretly, "Is he the real Santa Clause?" Lol.

It's great to still believe the real Santa Clause. :-)

Parenting | Reflection on a schoolwork article

This article (or sentences) is among Eric's school work that was taken home yesterday in the green folder:-

"I am like my mom because we both read.  I am different from my dad because he is good at chess, but I am not."

This article made me pause and ponder. Eric and I usually do a lot of reading together, but I'm still pleasantly surprised to see him put it in writing in this way.  

Hubby loves playing chess.  He has always been spending most of his leisure time on playing chess since very young.  Because Eric is a school boy now, we always hope Eric also likes to play chess as a hobby.  Sometimes Eric and daddy play chess together, and most of the time Eric loses.

From this article, I sense that Eric likes to play chess, but he is kinda lack of confidence compared to daddy's skill.  On reflection, I realize that nobody likes to be pushed to play chess.  What we as parents do is to respect Eric's feeling.  Also I'll remind hubby to encourage him more, nobody likes to lose all the time.  After all, interest is the best teacher.

Treasure Island Beach

Last Saturday, we went to Treasure Island beach at Laguna beach.  The scene is very breathtaking, like picture postcard.  Water is blue and crystal clear. The beach isn't so crowed, even on Saturday.  The most fun part is we flied a kite.  The first ever kite that the kids have ever flied. They loved it so much.

Simple life | love within a bigger perspective

The kids and I sat at the table for dinner while hubby was busily preparing the drinks for us.

He poured the juice into four glasses, took two of them, walked towards the table, and he put the fist glass in front of me.  The second was for Eric, and the third and fourth for Daisy and himself.

He did all these in a natural and smooth way, and always in the sames sequence, although I only noticed it recently.  Sometimes the kids shouted loudly for drink upon hubby walking toward the table, but he still pass the first drink in front of me.

This is one of the smallest details of our daily life.  From it, I appreciate hubby's care and thought for our family.  He puts me on higher priority, he shows respect on me, and he is using all these little details to set examples for our kids.  Being unconsciously influenced, the kids will learn to respect parents, and later on, they'll also show respect to their life partners.

Upon introspection, I seldom pay attention to such details.  In fact, whenever I pass drinks at meal, I pass to the kids first.  The kids weigh too much on my mind and I always put kids on the highest priority, sometimes I even neglect my husband's feelings without knowing.  Hubby loves the kids too, but he loves within a bigger perspective and with a bigger heart, which I shall learn from him.

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The kids were at a local Jamba Juice store.  

Eric and daddy were practicing chess on cellphone.

Daisy was excitedly pointing a picture on the wall and shouted, "they are swimming." (The pictures shows kids playing in water.)

I am joining Jodi's 52 project.

Simple life | Chew slowly

(This photo was from internet)

My husband likes to eat all kinds of nuts.  When he eats, he chews slowly.  He explains that nuts are too hard to digest.   It is essential to chew slowly and smash it evenly before swollow.  This way helps stomach  absorb the nutrition. 

I totally agree with him.  However, with a quick temper, I'm always  in a state of rushing for time and hardly have enough patience to eat slowly.  Usually i can easily beat my husband at 3:1, which means i can finish 3 peanuts while he barely swallow the first one.

On the recent trip to Las Vegas, we ate peanuts as snacks on the road.  This time my husband was driving and i had no excuse of rushing, so i follow suit my husband's way and chew the peanuts slowly.  To my pleasant surprise, i had a whole new experience of this chewing practice, besides what my husband has explained above regarding the benefit of nutrition absorption.

Put a peanut in the mouth, gently touch it with your tough and taste its rich flavor, crunch it with your teeth and hear the crouchy sound, use you tough to feel the whole peanut turning into small pieces and then into fine particles; swallow it slowly and make sure all the particles going down in the right direction. 

With this practice, i was focusing on the moment of present and totally be mindful of the eating process. The process calmed me down and empty my noisy brain.  A peaceful mind rested in my body.  I felt relaxing while automatically pulling myself together. It's a new wonderful experience.

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Eric and Daisy were enjoying ball spinning on fingers with the help of the clown at the Circus Circus.

I am joining Jodi's 52 project.

Our trip to Las Vegas

We had a short trip to Las Vegas last week, from Tuesday to Friday.  Since these days were all weekdays, there were not many people around the places of interest which saved us a lot of waiting time and made our trip a very pleasant one.  We did some homework before we set off, so our schedule was pretty full everyday and we felt very fulfilling.

Day 1

... It took us four and a half hours to arrive; 

... Checked in our hotel Riviera;

... Went to  Hotels Wynn and Encore after settled down.

Day 2

... Ethel M chocolate tour.  We saw how chocolates were made; Each one of us tasted a piece of yummy chocolate sample; and we strolled in the cactus garden under the scorching sun.

...  We watched Fall of Atlantis show at Caesars hotel.

... In the afternoon we swam in the pool at our hotel. Eric and Daisy loved the swimming pool.

Day 3

... We each bought a day-pass ticket and spent the whole day at Adventuredom at Circus Circus.  We all had great fun, especially Eric.

Our weekend

Beautiful 17 miles drive.  The photo was taken on our trip in last Nov.

Our weekend is full of...

Excitement at preparing for our short trip to Las Vegas.  Planning, shopping, and a lot of laughters were all related.

Happiness at playing with kids at the Church.  I served at the Church nursery room on the Lord's day.

Contentment at seeing smooth water flow through our kitchen sinks after a half-day laborious hard work at repairing the pipe blockage.  All credit went to Hubby. He has successfully transformed into a handy man, all by self-learning.

Pleasant evening chat between daddy and son.  These two are good buddies with similar interests.  Topics include game playing strategies and mathematics concepts. I feel relieved that Hubby got a good little listener to his mathematics, physics, and chemistry knowledge.

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Eric: Learning origami from Youtube. Paper planes and boomerang are his favorite.

Daisy: We were visiting a local book store. Daisy is currently craving for book readings.

I am joining Jodi's 52 project.

Easy Recipe | Apple pie

While brainstorming what's for breakfast, I stumbled upon this apple pie recipe.  This recipe is as easy as 1-2-3. With freshly picked apples from backyard and a leftover pie crust, within an hour, the delicious apple pie was served on table.  Hubby gave very high appraisal to it and ate several scoopful.  I only wish the kids can like the pie more.

{I feel grateful for having apples freshly picked from our own backyard.}

Simple fun: flying boomerang

Eric was flying a paper boomerang at a nearby park in above pictures. He learned to make this wonderful boomerang from Youtube, step by step by himself, and only at some complicated point, he needed a little help from me.

Throw, watch the boomerang twisting and turning in the air, expect it to fly back, and do the best to catch it when it does fly back...These acts bring Eric hearty laughter. He can spend hours repeating these acts with pure joy.

He's currently into origami -- all kinds of paper airplanes and paper boomerang. And his paper airplanes can fly far away, more than 20 feet.

It is amazing how easy and cheap the fun is -- all the material a kid need is a piece of paper (Eric always grab recycled paper to fold his works.) .

Botanic garden

This Friday Eric's summer school organized a family short trip to a nearby Arboretum.  I have heard before that this botanical garden is beautiful but we have never been there. Taking this opportunity, the whole family went together. We all had great fun there. The scenery is absolutely pleasing with lakes and small waterfalls; various trees and shrubs; ducks,turtles, and even tadpoles. Although the weather is very hot, in the 80's, the garden has plenty of shades of trees and keep us cool.

What a pleasant surprise to find these little waterfalls inside an arboretum. These waterfalls are tiny and tricklets compared to splendid ones. However, they surely give you a peaceful feeling of idyllic settings.

...Ducks,turtles, and even tadpoles. Duck is Daisy's most favorite animal at the moment.  Eric was very excited to see turtles and tadpoles, and he made sure that I took a photo for the turtles.

The place we live is called Orange County.  Orange trees are seen everywhere, almost from every backyard, and it is of course no exceptional to be found in this beautiful botanic garden.

The teacher told kids that bamboo new shoots grow straightly and vertically into a culm without any branching out until its mature height is reached. In Chinese culture, bamboo symbolizes integrity and uprightness. That's why people use bamboo to describe gentleman.

Eric and his friend was climbing up a man-made hill.  This hill has a tunnel underneath.  Did you peek the little hat on the left?  That's Daisy exploring the tunnel.

The school arranged several activities for the summer school kids.  They played high with great interest and excitement.  While standing aside observing, Daisy admired the bigger kids very much. We then gave her a hola-hoop.  She took it and practiced in real earnest.