This web site is made possible by the advertisement on these banners.
This journal is about raising identical twins.One Hundred and Second 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.
Friday, Jan 6, 2006 (8y+5m)
The twins are 101 months old today. The twins went to school as usual. Terence's parents invited us to dinner. Claire's family was invited too. They prepared roast beef. The kids watched cartoon while the adults watched TV. We left the party before midnight.
Saturday, Jan 7, 2006 (8y+5m+1d)
We stayed home most of the day. We went out to a hot pot dinner with Christopher's family, grandma Chui and aunt Elaine. We all returned home to play mahjong. The kids played video game and watched "Spaceballs" on DVD. The party was over at around 11:30pm.
Sunday, Jan 8, 2006 (8y+5m+2d)
In the morning, the twins jumped on our bed singing "two little monkeys jumping on the bed". They acted out the lyrics too by jumping on and off the bed and they were laughing hysterically. I asked them to do the same with the song "The little one says rollover". The twins said they did that before but falling off the bed was painful. Daddy tried to repair the garage door opener, I spent an afternoon driving around to find a store that carried the capacitor. The twins and mom stayed home most of the day. In the evening, we went out to dinner with Claire's family.
Monday, Jan 9, 2006 (8y+5m+3d)
The twins went to school as usual. They told mommy that they wanted to do their homework according to the schedule given by the teacher. They didn't like mommy asking them to finish their homework ahead of schedule. Mommy agreed to let them decide because it was their responsibility anyway. One thing they would give up was the flexibility to do other things when they was not tied down by their homework.
Tuesday, Jan 10, 2006 (8y+5m+4d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins had been practicing a two-part version of "The music of the Night" from "Phantom of the Opera". Joanne got lazy, she recorded her part and asked Jasmine to play along with the recording. Jasmine complained that her recording didn't follow the beat and had a 10 second long pause in the middle.Jasmine said Joanne was the first to get off the bed every morning. Jasmine preferred to stay in bed after the alarm went off.
Joanne weighed 55 lb. Jasmine weighed 59.5 lb. Mommy noticed a black ring around Jasmine's neck. Jasmine said it was just the shadow. Mommy sent her to the bathroom to check with a mirror. Joanne laughed at Jasmine's "black pearl necklace". Jasmine responded with an embarrassed smile. The twins had been taking care of themselves for a long time now. We were not surprised that they missed a certain spot in the shower. Overtime, the dirty spots just turned into stains.
Wednesday, Jan 11, 2006 (8y+5m+5d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had music class in the afternoon.
Thursday, Jan 12, 2006 (8y+5m+6d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had music lesson after school.
Friday, Jan 13, 2006 (8y+5m+7d)
The twins went to school as usual.
Saturday, Jan 14, 2006 (8y+5m+8d)
We got up at 5:30am. We left home at 6am heading towards the High Sierra Mountains. We arrived at Squaw Valley USA at around 10am. It was snowing heavily all day. The visibility was very low. We decided that it was too dangerous for the twins to ski in such condition. We let the twins played in the snow. Jasmine's classmate Shannon arrived with her family a little later. Shannon and her little sister Erin and the twins played in the snow and built snowmen and snowball. We later enjoyed lunch in the cafeteria and sat by the windows to watch the snowfall outside. After lunch, we returned to the slope. Erin tried her skies for the first time. Shannon and the twins played on a sled. We left Squaw Valley at around 2:30pm. We arrived at the Nuggets Hotel in Sparks NV by 3:30pm. We got a room adjacent to Shannon's. We opened the doors between the two rooms so the kids could play together. After we settled down in our rooms, the kids went to the swimming pool. We ordered pizza for dinner. The kids left the pool when the pizza arrived. The pizza turned out to be too small. Daddy and mommy decided to go downstairs for dinner. The twins wanted to stay behind to play with Shannon. By the time we returned, they were ready to go to bed.Terence's family started their trip at 10am, but the highway was jammed with stop and go traffic because of the heavy snow storm over Donna Summit. They arrived at the hotel after midnight. Their trip took 14 hours while the same took us only 4 hours.
Sunday, Jan 15, 2006 (8y+5m+9d)
We were out of the hotel at around 8am. We headed towards Mt. Rose ski area. We stopped at McDonald's on the way to buy breakfast. We had a scary moment when the car slid down a slope when our car approached the drive-through lane without engaging the 4-wheel-drive. Our car slowly slid down the slope totally out of control towards another car. We could see the horror in the other driver's eyes when she saw our car approaching hers. We were all relieved when her car went out of our way. Our car stopped right at where her car was two seconds earlier. We switched on the 4-wheel drive and the car was in good control since then. The road up to Mt. Rose was very icy. All the cars were moving at below 20mph. The road was jammed all the way. We spent over two hours to travel the same trip that used to take only 30 minutes. Since the car moved slowly at low gear over a long period of time, a warning light that said "A/T Temp" came on. We decided to continue with an overheated transmission because the navigation said we were only half mile from the ski area. We arrived after 10am. And we parked the car far away from the lodge.It took quite awhile for us to get all the rental equipment ready. Shannon's family brought their own equipment, so they were up on the mountain early on. Ashley's family left the hotel late and they were ready when we were. We started out with Ashley's family and her friend's Jasmine's family. We all started on the top of the chair lift at the same time. Within a minute, all of them were all gone leaving daddy behind struggling on the snowboard. Daddy snowboard alone the rest of the day while mommy followed the twins.
We took a long lunch break since everyone needed a good rest. Skiing resumed after lunch. After everyone got back to the lodge, we found that the traffic leaving the ski area was jammed up because the road downhill was icy. We decided to sit around instead of getting stuck in traffic. Due to the long traffic jam in the morning, our gas tank was almost empty. Fortunately, Terence's daddy carried a 2-gallon spare gas tank in his trunk. We used his tank to fill up our car, otherwise we would have been stranded on the mountain. We left the parking lot at around 5:30pm or so. It took us almost an hour to descend from Mt. Rose because everyone slowed to under 20mph due to the icy road condition.
After we got back to the hotel, mommy took a shower first. The other families knocked on the door for the dinner call. We have six families at the dinner table. They were: Shannon, Erin and their parents Phoebe and Joe, Ashley, Brandon and their mom Anna, Jasmine and her parents Annette and Eddie, Natasha and her parents Chuck and Dawn, Terence and his parents Hing and Lucy, and, last but not least, our family. The husbands and wives sat in two separate groups. The kids sat at another table.
After the dinner, the kids wanted to swim. Joe, Eddie and I were in the pool to look after 8 kids. Terence was at the pool side but refused to join us. The kids played in the pool until closing at 10pm. After we tool the showers, we went to bed at 11pm.
Monday, Jan 16, 2006 (8y+5m+10d)
It is Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. The twins has no school today.We got up at 7am. We packed the luggage and checked out the hotel at 7:30am. We took off and headed down the mountain because daddy needed to attend a meeting at work at 1pm. We stopped at the McDonald's in Truckee for breakfast. All the other families stayed to ski one more day.
It was snowing on the way, and we found that our wind shield washer was frozen. We had to stop multiple times to wash the wind shield with bottled water. The outside temperature was 31°F at the time. The anti-freeze washer fluid had no reason to freeze at such temperature. We suspected the car dealer filled the bottle with water when we took it in for maintenance. Half way down the mountain, the washer fluid flawed and we didn't have to make the stops any more.
The twins were very active on the way. They were saying silly things to each other and they laughed hysterically from time to time. They told us they were hyperactive because of the walnuts they ate from McDonald's fruit salad. I couldn't figure out how they found out walnut would have such effect on them. We arrived at Sacramento at 11am. We bought some takeout food from our favorite restaurant before we resumed our journey. Mommy dropped off daddy at work at 1:15pm.
Mommy took the car to get a wash because it was all muddy with snow and sprays from the highway. Mommy and twins took a nap in the afternoon to recover from the exhausting trip. We later found out that the other kids didn't ski much today because they were tired from yesterday's skiing. The traffic was smooth for them and most of them were home before 8pm.
Mommy and twins came to pick up daddy from work in the evening. The twins demanded Korean Tofu pot for dinner. So we bought takeout food from a Korean restaurant and we had the meal at home. The twins went to bed early because they needed to return to school the next day.
Tuesday, Jan 17, 2006 (8y+5m+11d)
The twins returned to school as usual after a 3 day long weekend. They said their weekend would have been better if they could ski one more day.In the evening, the twins helped daddy make steam Chinese style egg custard. This time we consulted grandma Chui for the recipe because our last attempt few weeks ago was not successful. The recipe was as follows:
Beat one egg in a bowl with 3 table spoons of sugar. Mix in the equal amount of milk Add a drop of Vanilla extracts Stir the mixture well Try to get rid of and foam or bubble on the surface. Place the bowls into a steamer after the water started boiling. Turn down the stove to lowest setting. Set the timer to 10 minutes. When 10 minutes is up, turn off the stove. Don't open the steamer lid until everything has cooled down a little.The twins did most of the work this time. Daddy only helped with the stove and steamer part. The outcome was pretty good though the twins said it could be a little sweeter. It was just fine to daddy's taste.
Wednesday, Jan 18, 2006 (8y+5m+12d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had piano class in the afternoon.
Thursday, Jan 19, 2006 (8y+5m+13d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had piano lesson in the afternoon. In the evening, we noticed that the house was colder than usual. We found out that the furnace failed to ignite. We put some wood in the fireplace and heated the house with fire.
Friday, Jan 20, 2006 (8y+5m+14d)
We called the furnace repairman. He couldn't come till Monday. We continued to warm the house with wood fire. The twins were quite enthusiastic to help us move the firewood. They said they didn't want to light the fire because kids should not handle fire.
Saturday, Jan 21, 2006 (8y+5m+15d)
We had lunch at grandma Chui's place. She prepared some deep fried wonton, some rice porridge and Chinese style stir fried spaghetti. We left before 1pm in order to attend Annette's piano recital.
Sunday, Jan 22, 2006 (8y+5m+16d)
Daddy climbed on the roof to remove the Christmas lights and also spent some time fixing the garage door opener. We went to the sporting goods stores looking for some skiing equipment. We only bought some skiing helmets for the twins and mommy. In the evening, daddy moved a TV to grandma Chui's house. The 27" TV was sitting idle in the guest room for years. Grandma Chui could make better use of it. Daddy needed to purchase some additional firewood. The stash from last years was consumed in the past few days. It turned out that the firewood was not cheap. The hardwood could produce hotter fire and last longer, but a box of 0.8 cubic foot cost almost $7. We could easily consume one cubic foot or more per night. It was not a very cost effective way to heat a home.
Monday, Jan 23, 2006 (8y+5m+17d)
The twins returned to school after the weekend. The furnace man came and replaced the electronic igniter unit. It cost over $300 for the part, included labor, the repair was over $400. He recommended the whole furnace should be replaced because it was over 20 years old. It felt so good when the house was heated under thermostat control once again.
Tuesday, Jan 24, 2006 (8y+5m+18d)
The twins went to school as usual. Jasmine had to go to the nurse when she was stung by something. The nurse called mommy to find out if Jasmine was allergic to bee stings. The nurse put an icepack on the wound and let her rest 15 minutes before returning to class. When Jasmine showed the wound to daddy, it looks like three ting red dots about 1mm apart in the shape of a triangle. I wonder what kind of bee would sting in a triangular shape.Jasmine cried after bumping her feet on the door while running away from Joanne. Joanne apologized when she thought she hurt Jasmine by accident during the play. She took back the apology when she found out Jasmine hurt herself.
Wednesday, Jan 25, 2006 (8y+5m+19d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to piano class in the afternoon.
Thursday, Jan 26, 2006 (8y+5m+20d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to piano lesson in the afternoon.After dinner, we were watching "Wheel of Fortune" on TV. Jasmine solved a puzzle before the contestants. She looked towards mommy for a reaction. She was upset when she received none. She then complained to mommy why she didn't cheer for her when she got the answer right. She complained that Joanne got a cheer when she solved a puzzle last time. Mommy explained that Joanne seldom got it right but it was not an unusual event for Jasmine. Jasmine was not satisfy with the excuse. After a minute later, we found her sobbing quietly. When mommy tried to tell her there was nothing to upset about, Jasmine broke into tears and a loud wailing and ran into her room.
After about 15 minutes, mommy lifted the "no TV" ban to make Jasmine happy again. They were banned from the TV since Monday because of something they did that upset mommy during last weekend. There would be no school tomorrow, so mommy decided it would be a good time to lift the ban. Jasmine was happy again after watching couple of episode of Naruto. Naruto was a Japanese anime about a 12 year old ninja in training. There was a lot of violence and killing. Their classmate Cyrus got them hooked on this cartoon series. They were no longer crazy about the W.I.T.C.H. cartoon series after they started watching Naruto. However, they continue to read the W.I.T.C.H. books.
Friday, Jan 27, 2006 (8y+5m+21d)
The twins had no school because it was the staff learning day. They forgot to turn off the alarm clock. They barged into out room at 8am. But mommy sent them to do their homework. After they finished homework and practiced piano. They went to visit Annette's home. Karyssa was there too for the play day.
Saturday, Jan 28, 2006 (8y+5m+22d)
We had lunch with Benjamin and Christopher's family. Mommy came home to prepare the New Year Eve dinner. Daddy and twins went to a pet store to buy some fish. We put the six black mollies in a Chinese style ceramic tub. The twins were very excited about the fish. They sat around the tub and watched the fish for a long time. They later said they were very happy because of the fish.We invited Christopher's family to our Chinese New Year Eve dinner. It is Chinese tradition to have a family reunion dinner on New Year Eve. Of course, aunt Elaine and grandma Chui came to the dinner too.
Sunday, Jan 29, 2006 (8y+5m+23d)
Gung Hay Fat Choy! It is Chinese New Year. It is the year of the dog. We had dim sum brunch with three other families. C.W., Bonnie, Addison, Deanna, Jenny, Albert, Jacky, Carmen and their two sons were in the party. After lunch, we paid a New Year visit to grandma Chui. Then we visited Jocelyn's family. Then we went to Aunt Tina's home for a family dinner. Great grandma, grandma Ling, grandpa, aunt Jun were there too. The twins spent the afternoon playing cousin's Natalie's video games. Daddy, mommy played mahjong with uncle Ivan and great grandma. Grandpa, grandma and aunt Tina was busy preparing dinner. Grandma is an early bird and we finished dinner early. We were home at around 7pm. Jasmine already missed the fish and the twins gathered around the tub to watch the fish for a while.
Monday, Jan 30, 2006 (8y+5m+24d)
The twins went to school as usual. Jasmine was eager to take care of the fish. She was in charge of feeding the fish before and after school. Joanne was not as excited. When daddy came home from work, Jasmine urged daddy to vacuum the fish poop out of the tub.
Tuesday, Jan 31, 2006 (8y+5m+25d)
The twins went to school as usual. After dinner, they went to Lucy's home to attend a book fair.Only three days after the New Year, the twins each had already collected over $200 in red envelop lucky money. Jasmine gave the money to mommy to deposit into her bank account. Joanne said she wanted to keep the money in her wallet for a few weeks so that she could count her money occasionally. Daddy warned her to take care of her wallet carefully because last year she left her wallet with a lot of money on the floor in Fry's Electronics store. We were lucky to recover the wallet before someone picked it up. Joanne insisted that she didn't lose the money. But daddy argued that she indeed lost the money except that she recovered it later. The losing and recovering were two separate events.
Wednesday, Feb 1, 2006 (8y+5m+26d)
In the morning before going to school, the twins checked on the fish tub and found one fish missing. Jasmine reached in and moved one of the decoration. To her horror, the body of a dead fish rose from the bottom. She ran to daddy seeking help. She didn't want to touch the dead fish. They went to school as usual. The went to piano class in the afternoon. Mommy bought a black moor (goldfish) to replace the dead fish. We found that the goldfish was cheaper than the molly and they were prettier too. If more mollies die, we would replace them with goldfish instead.
Thursday, Feb 2, 2006 (8y+5m+27d)
The twins went to school as usual. Their piano lessons were cancelled because their piano teacher was sick. Mommy was upset with the twins because they didn't finish their homework despite they got extra time from the cancelled piano lessons.
Friday, Feb 3, 2006 (8y+5m+28d)
The twins went to school as usual. After school, they took out their 2nd grade commemorative autograph books to read their classmate's comments. Joanne offered Jasmine her book to read. After Jasmine finished, Joanne expected to read Jasmine's. Jasmine said only those whom she loved could read her book. That implied that she did not love Joanne. Joanne was so hurt that she cried for a long time. Mommy had to sooth her before she would stop.Jasmine called daddy at work. She reported that one of the black mollies was hiding like the one died a few days ago. She said it was still moving but not much. The other fish were very active dashing around the tub except that one. One of the molly was as big bully that chased every fish away. The weak fish had not come to feeding for a few days. So it might not be sick, it might be starving to death.
After dinner, we checked on the fish tub together. The sick fish was struggling and gasping for air. Jasmine said she could not bear to see the sad sight. A couple hours later, the fish was dead. We gathered around the toilet bowl to say goodbye to the fish.
Saturday, Feb 4, 2006 (8y+5m+29d)
We went to the store to buy another black moor to replace the dead molly. We also bought a powerhead with a sponge filter for the fish tub. We went to lunch with Benjamin's family. After lunch we went to the twins' school fundraising event. The twins participated in a play with the rest of their class about the story of the 12 Chinese zodiacs. Joanne played the part as a villager. Both also did a couple of short segments of narration for the play. They did well. When we asked if they were scared on stage, they said no and it was fun for them. I guess the twins has been in a couple of piano recitals by now so stage fright is not a problem for them. Besides, we never gave pressure to their performance. In all the recitals they attended before, they have seen performers made mistake. So they understood that despite any mistake, the show must go on. After the show, the kids gathered outside to play hand ball in the playground.We went home to rest awhile before going out for dinner. We had a nice Chinese New Year dinner with friends. The party included Denis, Jane and their boys Jonathan and Benjamin, Poon and Sharleen brought two Claires, one of their own and one was friend's daughter, Ron and Evon, SiuLing and ChinLi. Sixteen people squeezed to fit one table. We had the dinner with elbows bumping each other. At the end of the dinner, Jasmine complained about being tired and asked frequently when we would go home.
After dinner, everyone wanted to see Ron and Evon's home. We had been there many times, but the other guests had not seen their new home since they moved in a few months ago. Jasmine's eyes opened up and she was not tired anymore. After we left the restaurant, the twins climbed into Claire's minivan and forgot we were still with them. Ron and Evon have a huge 5000+ square feet home. The kids were excited to play with so much space. We left at around midnight.
Sunday, Feb 5, 2006 (8y+5m+30d)
We stayed in bed in the morning. The twins woke up early, but they chatted in bed for awhile. Joanne later came and jumped into our bed. Jasmine got off her bed and ran downstairs to check on the fish. When she came to our bed, daddy jokingly commented she should have come to our room to count how many parents she had before she count the fish. Daddy and mommy were jealous of the fish. Jasmine didn't say a word for a few minutes while she did some soul searching about what daddy said.We went out to lunch with grandma Chui. On the way home, the twins sang along with Rod Steward's "Have I told you lately I love you?". Joanne then turned to Jasmine and sang "Have I told you lately that I love you? Have I told you nobody else love you?" The twins laughed hysterically for a while.
We have a superbowl party at home. We have invited CW, Bonnie and their kids Addison, Deanna, Albert & Jenny, Edmond and Elsa. The husbands and Addison watched the ball game. The wives played mahjong. The girls played video game. The twins also spent a long time watching Naruto on the computer. Jasmine probably have gone through 10 episodes in the afternoon. Joanne joined in occasionally.
We started dinner after the game. We played a little more mahjong afterward. Since the kids had school the next day, the party was ended before 10pm.
Monday, Feb 6, 2006 (8y+6m)
The twins are 8.5 year old today.
ATTENTION: If you are a regular visitor, please help me divert traffic away from my Geocities site by using the mirrored sites instead. Thank for your cooperation.
Previous Next Site map Book List
Visitor Count
Search this site!
Feb 10, 2006