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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.