This web site is made possible by the advertisement on these banners.
This journal is about raising identical twins.One Hundred and Sixteenth Month
Previous entriesNote: This page may contain Chinese text in Unicode encoding. Some web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer 5) can display the text without any user intervention if the fonts are available. Some web browsers (e.g. Netscape) will display the Chinese text only if you switch Character Set under the View menu to Big5 traditional Chinese.
Tuesday, Mar 6, 2007 (9y+7m)
The twins are nine year and seven month old today.Daddy needed to leave the house early to take the car in for maintenance. Daddy took the twins to school. The twins asked daddy to drop them off by the school office instead the usual spot closest to their classroom. The twins said that they have not gone the other way ever since the police found a dead body near the playground. They would rather walk farther around the office.
Ashley came to our house in the afternoon. The kids did their homework together. Ashley had dinner with us before her mom picked her up.
Jasmine lost one of her teeth while chewing gum. That saved mommy her effort to pull it out.
Wednesday, Mar 7, 2007 (9y+7m+1d)
The twins went to school as usual. Jasmine came home with a fever. She said she was very tired and wanted to take a nap. Mommy let her sleep without doing homework nor practicing piano.In the afternoon, Jasmine W's mom dropped her off at our house. Jasmine W. played the Wii with Joanne. She created a Mii for herself and turned on the favorite status despite Joanne telling her we reserved the 10 favorite Miis for family members only. Joanne took off the favorite status after Jasmine left. Our Jasmine stayed in bed while Jasmine W. was here. She skipped dinner and slept till the next morning. Daddy worked late and Joanne stayed awake in bed until daddy gave her a good night kiss. Jasmine stayed asleep when daddy came home.
Thursday, Mar 8, 2007 (9y+7m+2d)
Joanne went to school as usual. Jasmine stayed home and slept throughout the day. Mommy took Joanne to piano lesson. She took two 45 minutes sessions end to end in Jasmine's place. Jasmine will do the same next week to make up the difference. Daddy worked late. Joanne was still watching TV when daddy came home. Jasmine was already in bed since she came home from school. She still had a 99°F fever.
Friday, Mar 9, 2007 (9y+7m+3d)
Joanne went to school as usual. Jasmine's fever was gone the morning. Her coughing was getting worse. She stayed home again and slept the whole day.When daddy came home from work. Jasmine was out of her bed. She looked more alert for the first time in the last 2 days. Joanne was playing her Nintendo DS. They had been grounded for a week and Joanne was glad to play the game again. Daddy played the Wii with the kids after dinner. They also played some games on the Internet before going to bed. Mommy commented that Jasmine should returned to her homework now that she felt good enough to play video game.
Saturday, Mar 10, 2007 (9y+7m+4d)
The twins woke up in the morning and they were making a lot of noises in their room. Laughters, giggles were non-stop. That was a sure sign that Jasmine had recovered. She was silent in the past few days when she was sick. She still coughed a lot, but she chatted like a song bird now.Daddy and mommy started to prepare the house for the window replacement project. It was scheduled to start last week, but due to the rain a few weeks back. The contractor's other projects were delayed and our schedule got pushed back too. We needed to take down all the shades and blinds, moved all the furniture away from the windows. We took the opportunity to clean up our crystal display case. The twins helped us wrap each piece of crystal with a paper towel. Daddy also checked why the lights no longer turned on. Looks like the 12V electronic transformer for the halogen lights was burnt out.
In the afternoon, we visited the window contractors showroom to figure out how we needed to put back the alarm system wiring after they replaced the windows. We also bought some new magnetic contact switches for the alarm system. We anticipated some might break when the contractors ripped off the old windows.
After the shopping, the twins requested to have lunch at Miyata. We returned home so Jasmine could catch up with her project and piano practice. Joanne later said Jasmine played piano for 2 hours. Even Jasmine didn't know how long she played. Daddy went out to shop for the 12V transformer but couldn't find one.
The twins played games on the Internet and they used the Mii channel and the "Everybody votes" channel on the Wii.
Sunday, Mar 11, 2007 (9y+7m+5d)
The clock rolled forward an hour because of the Day night saving time. We got one hour less to sleep. When daddy went to the twins room in the morning. They were already awake and chatting loudly in bed. They asked why daddy got up so early on a Sunday morning. They got out of bed when daddy told them it was almost noon because of the time change. They didn't seem to know about the new day night saving time which was changed due to a 2005 Energy Legislation in an attempt to save energy nationwide by lengthening the day light saving time period. This was the first time the new law put in place and many computer programs needed to adjust to the new time change. Some experts said it was similar to the Y2K problems a few years ago, but the impact was not as serious.Daddy and mommy continued to prepare the house for the window project. Daddy also took down the Christmas lights from the roof. The weekends were usually too busy or too rainy. It was not too late to have them pull down in March.
Jasmine continued to prepare for her presentation on Wednesday. She would present her research about the state of Virginia in Mandarin. She found the information on the Internet and she printed out pictures of the state bird, state animal, flag, map etc. about the state. She glued the picture on a big poster and wrote the presentation in Chinese. Joanne helped by tracing Jasmine's pencil writing on the poster with a dark marker.
Daddy went out again to shop for the 12V halogen lamp transformer. None of the store carried it. Even Lamps Plus only carried the landscaping lights transformer which was an overkill for indoor usage. OSH, Home Depot, Lowes all carried halogen lamps, but not the replacement transformer. Daddy gave up and found one on the Internet, the mail order cost almost $50 and it should arrive in a few days.
We went out to dinner in the evening despite Jasmine requested that we should order take out so that they could stay home. Jasmine had been in bed for days last week. We thought she should get out of the house more to get some fresh air.
After we came home from the restaurant, Joanne wanted to learn HTML from Jasmine. We sent Jasmine to work on her project and daddy answered Joanne's questions. Jasmine's poster was completed earlier in the afternoon. She still need to make some index cards as cues for her presentation. Daddy never learned to use cue cards for presentation in grade school nor high school. The twins learned to do that since last year. The US education system works much better than where daddy came from. Jasmine couldn't resist from coming over to see what Joanne was learning from daddy. Jasmine was pretty good at programming in HTML because she needed to customize her user page on Neopet.com and she learned by reading other user's instructions and examples. Daddy showed her a book on using HTML to make webpages before. But she actually found learning on the Internet easier because she could do searching and cut and paste other people's work. Looks like our next generation may not need books anymore when the Internet provides a better source of knowledge.
Before they went to bed, Jasmine rehearsed her presentation in front of the family. Their biological clocks were still stuck in the old time because they were not ready for bed until 11pm.
Monday, Mar 12, 2007 (9y+7m+6d) through Friday, Mar 16, 2007 (9y+7m+10d)
The window project started. We had to take down all the window shades. We lived in total brightness. The sun woke us up in the morning before the alarm clock went off. Daddy took the twins to school on the way to work because mommy waited for the contractors to come to work. All the trimming was down by end of monday. They started to replace the windows starting on Tuesday.Jasmine had her presentation on Wednesday. She practiced two more times on Monday and Tuesday. Mommy had arranged someone to pickup the kids at the end of school. Ben's mom picked them up for two days and Jenna's mom picked them up for two days.
On Friday, they stayed late at school with Ashley's family because Ashley's mom needed to work longer after school. We then went out to dinner at a new restaurant nearby.
Daddy worked overtime almost everyday except Friday. After dinner with Ashley's family on Friday. Daddy changed the fish's water and finished the tax return.
Saturday, Mar 17, 2007 (9y+7m+11d)
We had lunch with grandma Chui and aunt Elaine. She had not seen the twins for like two weeks when she was sick. She has recovered already except she still has headache.Daddy worked overtime at the office. The twins and mommy went shopping with Jocelyn's family at Stanford mall. They came to our house to play the Wii game afterward.
When daddy came home, we went to have ramen for dinner. When we came home, mommy and daddy did exercise on the Wii. The twins watched some Naruto episodes.
Sunday, Mar 18, 2007 (9y+7m+12d)
The twins were fully booked with two birthday parties to attend. Shannon's birthday at 1pm and Ingrid's at 7pm. Daddy went to the office to work overtime.
Monday, Mar 19, 2007 (9y+7m+13d)
The twins went to school as usual.The contractor would suspend the job for now because they ordered a window of the wrong size. They would wait till the re-ordered window arrive before they would wrap up everything. The window contractors worked only a couple hours today to caulk some of our windows so that we can put back the shades to restore our privacy. Also the twins could sleep a little better without the sun shining into their eyes in the morning. Since the wrong window was in the master bedroom, we needed to bear with the sun every morning.
Tuesday, Mar 20, 2007 (9y+7m+14d)
The twins went to school as usual. It was a rainy day today. The painter sent the workers to power wash the exterior walls. They said it was perfect to wash the house on a rainy day. They were willing to complete the paint job in two parts. They would do all the exterior as much as they could. Then they would come back for the last installed window.
Wednesday, Mar 21, 2007 (9y+7m+15d)
The weather was gorgeous. The rain only came for a day yesterday. The twins went to school as usual. The painters started on the house at 7:30am. They finished the base color in one day.
Thursday, Mar 22, 2007 (9y+7m+16d)
The twins went to school as usual. The painters started at 7:30am again. They stained our new sliding doors' wood frame and painted the window trims and rain gutters on the house. The twins went to their piano lesson in the afternoon. They asked mommy to stop by the public library on the way. They borrowed several books. When daddy came home late at night, they told daddy they have finished reading two books today.
Friday, Mar 23, 2007 (9y+7m+17d)
The twins had no school today. The painters put the clear coat on the sliding doors after the stains had dried. They finished up the paint job and will come back for the last window when it is replaced. The twins played the Wii at home in the afternoon.We went to the twins' school to see a musical play "King and I" at 7pm. Many of the twins' classmates were in the cast. The main character Anna was played by Ariel. Kimberly also had a very major part too. Ashley only played a minor role. Kendall was in the play too, she wore a neck bracket while she recovered from the car accident. The photos of the cast of the play were displayed near the entrance and Sydney's picture was not taken down after her death because the cast wanted to honor her.
Daddy thought Kimberly sang the best in the whole show. After the play, we went out for a late dinner with Ashley's family. Ashley's mom would take Kimberly home after the play, so Kimberly joined us for dinner too.
Saturday, Mar 24, 2007 (9y+7m+18d)
We went to lunch with Terence's family and Evon & Ronald. While we were waiting for a table at the restaurant, the twins were busy playing with Ron's Yorkshire terrier. They just handed their Nintendo DS to Terence. Usually they would just let him watch them play.After lunch we all parted our way, daddy went to the office to work overtime. Mommy and the twins returned home.
In the evening, we had dinner with cousin Samantha's family. They came to IKEA in Palo Alto. They just wanted to check out the store, but didn't find anything to buy. When the cousins met, they just exchanged games and played on their DS. They didn't talk much when they all focused on the games. Last time they met, the twins borrowed a Game Boy Advance from Samantha and we meant to return to her when we meet again. However, the twins lost the game. Mommy was quite upset about the twins not taking responsibility of things they borrowed. Mommy told the twins to give their DS equivalent of the lost game to Samantha as replacement. And the twins knew that we would not buy a replacement for them. They either had to locate the lost game or they had to live with the consequence. Mommy borrowed the movie "Curse of the Golden Flowers" on DVD. The twins practiced their piano when we watched the movie. The English version of the movie will be released on DVD next week, but we got to see the Chinese version early.
Sunday, Mar 25, 2007 (9y+7m+19d)
SiuLing had some good deals on seafood again. We bought a big Australian King Crab and a geoduck clam. We got up early to prepare a seafood lunch. Both were still alive despite sitting in the garage over night. Daddy slaughtered the shellfish. The crab was chopped into pieces for stir-frying and steaming. Mommy prepared a broth with the geoduck clam for noodle. We invited grandma Chui, aunt Elaine, Christopher's and Benjamin's family to lunch. Since the crab was pretty big, we had enough for everyone.The kids played on the computer and the Wii after lunch. Joie watched cartoons on her own.
Benjamin was going to a water polo class for the first time today. Christopher's parents needed to paint their window frames. They left at 3pm.
The twins asked if they could go to the library. We first went to Sears to shop for a new garage door opener. Then we went to the library. The twins borrowed a stack of paperback books. They started reading as soon as they got in the car. They each finished a book before they went to bed.
Monday, Mar 26, 2007 (9y+7m+20d)
The twins went to school as usual. After they finished their homework and practiced piano, they continued to read the books from library. Jasmine announced that she finished another one before she went to bed.
Tuesday, Mar 27, 2007 (9y+7m+21d)
The twins went to school as usual. Every thing else ran as usual.
Wednesday, Mar 28, 2007 (9y+7m+22d)
The twins went to school as usual. Daddy got a surprise when coming home in the evening, mommy has already hired a contractor to replace the garage doors. The whole project was done within a few hours when our wallet was set back couple of thousands.Mommy went to Target and found out that the Nintendo DS was in stock again. Many DS games were on sales at $24.99 too. Mommy bought a batch of them expecting some other moms might want to buy them before they went out of stock again.
The twins were eyeing the DS game console though mommy told them it was not for them. Daddy told the twins, perhaps if they behaved well, mommy might let them have the game.
Thursday, Mar 29, 2007 (9y+7m+23d)
The twins went to school as usual. The last window had arrived. The contractors came over to install it. The window installation was all complete now. The painter will come back to paint the last window. The twins had their piano lesson in the afternoon. The teacher told mommy that the twins were doing very well in their piano lesson. They had no problem at all in their music theory and technique. She said they would have no problem taking the 5th level music test a year from now. The twins took the 2nd level exam last year.We put back the remaining shades over the windows. We looked forward to a good sleep without the sun shining right into our eyes in the morning.
Mommy was unsatisfied with the twins' dental care. She helped Jasmine floss her teeth and many debris came out. While mommy was at it, she wiggled and pulled Jasmine last baby tooth. It came out with no problem at all. The tooth had a big cavity in it. Daddy gave the twins a big lecture on how important it was to take care of their teeth because they have no second chance for the permanent teeth.
Friday, Mar 30, 2007 (9y+7m+24d)
The twins went to school as usual. They stayed on campus after school. They went to Ashley's mom's classroom after school. When mommy came to pick them up, mommy offered to take all the kids to our home so that Ashley's mom could take care of some school work. Ashley and Brandon spent the afternoon in our house. In the evening, we went out to dinner with Ashley and Natasha's family. After dinner, they all came to our place to play on the Wii. It was Natasha's first time on the Wii. She seemed to have fun on it. Before the party was over, we talked about Disney's "Meet the Robinsons", and all the kids expressed their interest in watching the movie in 3D.
Saturday, Mar 31, 2007 (9y+7m+25d)
In the morning, Ashley' s mom dropped her off at our home. Daddy took Ashley and the twins to the theater to watch "Meet the Robinsons". Jasmine W's mom and Natasha's dad also dropped off the kids there. Daddy took 5 girls into the theater to watch the movie. The movie was 104 minutes long, but together with trailers, commercials and waiting time, we spent over two hours in there. The kids all liked the movie. The 3D effect was pretty good and gave the cartoon more realism.After the movie, mommy and Natasha's mom came to the theater to pick up the girls. Daddy went to the office to work overtime. They had a gathering at Natasha's home in the afternoon. They played tennis in the afternoon.
We had dinner with Deanna's and Vivian's family in the evening. After dinner, they all came to our house to play on the Wii. They all had fun despite Joanne was hogging over the game towards the end. When the parents motioned to leave, Deanna did not want to leave.
Sunday, Apr 1, 2007 (9y+7m+26d)
We went out to lunch with grandma Chui. Joanne asked daddy to help her convince mommy to let her have the DS game. Mommy seemed to be okay with that because the twins behaved themselves especially when an unopened DS was sitting on the table since Wednesday. We knew that Joanne preferred to have a pink or black version instead of the white color that mommy bought. After we dropped off grandma back home, we went to Target again. We found that the pink DS were still in stock. We bought a pink DS for Joanne. When we got home, we continued shopping on the Internet to make sure we got the best deal. There was no discount on the DS. There were several bundled deals that were a little cheaper. But the bundled games didn't interest the twins. Either they already owned the game or they didn't like it. Once we decided we didn't need to return the purchase. Mommy opened the box for Joanne. Of course Joanne knew the opened box meant a done deal. She could not wipe the grin off her face. She was hopping and skipping around the house like a bunny. Though she didn't say it, mommy and daddy could see the joy radiating from her expression. Daddy asked Jasmine why her reaction was indifferent. Strictly speaking, both twins were promoted from a half to a full ownership of DS. So both should be as happy. The only differences were that Joanne got to pick the color and Jasmine got to keep all the old game statistics.In the afternoon, daddy went to the office to work overtime. Mommy took the twins to Jocelyn's house. Little Jonathan also received a DS game and his was black in color. They went to dinner at the Elephant Bar restaurant. Daddy had instant noodle for dinner when returning from work.
Before going to bed, the twins already started to picto-chat with each other by networking their two DSs together. The networking ability of these DS machines is probably the strongest selling point and one of the reason why the game is selling so well.
Monday, Apr 2, 2007 (9y+7m+27d)
The twins went to school as usual. Daddy worked over time till 11pm trying to meet a deadline the next day. When daddy came home, the twins were all asleep. Joanne told daddy that she tried very hard to stay awake to wait for daddy, but daddy came home too late.
Tuesday, Apr 3, 2007 (9y+7m+28d)
Daddy left home before the twins woke up. Daddy had a presentation to a team in Cyprus. Due to the time zone difference we had to attend the meeting in the early morning.The twins went to school as usual. Daddy came home after work at normal time. The twins were glad to see daddy after more than 24 hours.
Wednesday, Apr 4, 2007 (9y+7m+29d)
Daddy took the twins to school everyday last week when daddy had to work long hours. Now the deadline has past, daddy stayed in bed in the morning a little longer while mommy took the twins to school. The twins went to school as usual. Everything returned to normal.
Thursday, Apr 5, 2007 (9y+7m+30d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to piano lesson in the afternoon. Jasmine asked daddy to set up a gmail account for her because Ashley had one and she liked it better than her existing account. Joanne wanted one too.
Friday, Apr 6, 2007 (9y+8m)
The twins are 9 and 2/3 year old today.
Previous Next Site map Book List
Visitor Count
Search this site!
started on April 27, 2007