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This journal is about raising identical twins.Eighty Nine 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.
Monday, Dec 6, 2004 (7y+4m)
The twins were 88 months old today.The twins went to school as usual. It was a gloomy day because a storm was on the way. The twins got their report cards for the first trimester. Both of them got Satisfactory to Satisfactory+ in all catagories. Jasmine got a little better score than Joanne.
The twins taught daddy a song that they learned from their classmates, it went as follows:
(sing to the tune of Jingle Bell) Crashing through the snow with a pair of broken skis. Bumping into trees, Bruises are on my knees. The snow is getting red, I think I'm almost dead. I wake up in the hospital with staples on my head.The storm arrived at night. High wind and rain storm hit the area and would last till tomorrow afternoon. Joanne lost her raincoat. Mommy couldn't find it in preparation for tomorrow's storm.
Jasmine finished her homework and practice piano early. Jasmine got to play the EYE TOY game with daddy. Joanne was a procrastinator, she didn't finish her work until it was almost time for bed. She got to play only one game. We skipped bedtime story again.
Tuesday, Dec 7, 2004 (7y+4m+1d)
Mommy ordered Joanne to look for the raincoat. She asked Jasmine to help, but Jasmine said it was not her responsibility. Mommy asked Joanne to trace what she did with her raincoat since Saturday. Joanne found it hinding inside the closet. The storm was over earlier than forecast. By the time the twins went to school, it was a sunny day. The twins went to school as usual.In the afternoon, they finished their homework and they went to their writing class too. After dinner, the twins got to see Peanut's Christmas special on ABC because they have finished their homework early.
We read bedtime story about how the Tang monk started his Journey to the West. The storm came back in the night.
Wednesday, Dec 8, 2004 (7y+4m+2d)
The twins went to school as usual. It was rainny today. The twins said they didn't get to play in the playground.They have music lesson in the afternoon. After dinner mommy gave the twins a rehearsal of their upcoming spelling test for both Chinese and English. Jasmine got everything right. Joanne got three Chinese character wrong. When daddy told her she made mistake, she said "So?" She received a scolding from mommy before daddy showed her how to correct the mistake.
We continued the bedtime story. We read about how the Tang monk freed the Monkey King from his 500 years imprisonment under the mountain.
We watched "Bourne Identity" after sending the twins to bed.
Thursday, Dec 9, 2004 (7y+4m+3d)
The twins went to school as usual. Mommy was a classroom helper today. However, she spent a lot of time helping Joanne to look for her Chinese textbook in the classroom. It turned out that Joanne left it at home.The twins went to writing and ice skating class in the afternoon. We went out to dinner with Annette's and Nicholas' family. Jasmine and Joanne both wanted to eat lasagna, we had no choice but Italian cuisine.
We watched "Bourne Supremacy" after sending the twins to bed.
Friday, Dec 10, 2004 (7y+4m+4d)
The twin went to school as usual. Jasmine played with Lynn. She swang Jasmine around off the ground and dropped on. Jasmine got a bruised knee, but she didn't cry. She said it was fun.In the afternoon, they went to grocery shopping with mommy.
We watched "White Chicks" after sending the twins to bed.
Saturday, Dec 11, 2004 (7y+4m+5d)
Mommy took the twins to a makeup ice skating lesson. They missed the session on Thanksgiving day. While they were out, daddy climbed to the roof to add more Christmas lights. After the lesson, they rode their bicycles on the driveway and occasionally checked on daddy's progress. Daddy noticed that Jasmine had a cough. When I asked what happened to her, she said it was because she cried too much. But she refused to say why she cried. Joanne leaked the secret to daddy. Jasmine had a sad dream that made her cried. Both daddy and mommy tried to find out what the sad dream was about. Jasmine refused to tell except to Joanne and Joanne kept the secret this time.During lunch time, we had an appointment with some consultant. When we talked to the professional, the twins sat on one side to draw on their notebook. They didn't bother us.
After the appointment, we rushed to Annette's piano recital before 2pm. The twins were well behaved during the two hour performance. Jasmine leaned on daddy to took a rest toward the end. Annette has been taking lessons from the piano teacher since age 5. She was quite skillfull compared to the other students. She performed the third from the last. So we sat through the whole recital. We had some snacks and drinks at the reception afterward.
Annette's daddy suggested to have dinner in San Francisco. We had no other things to do, so we followed. We also drove to twin peaks to take a quick look at the city lights. It was so windy and cold that we didn't saty too long. We were back home at around 9pm.
We hung couple more strings of Christmas lights inside and outside the front door. The twins helped too.
Daddy borrowed a Asian version of the movie "House of the Flying Daggers" from a coworker. The movie was not debut in the US yet.
Sunday, Dec 12, 2004 (7y+4m+6d)
Jasmine continued to have a few coughs. The twins had not been sick for quite a long time. They seemed to have quite strong immune system. They also had very clean habits such as eating clean, washing hands often etc. We hope Jasmine would recover quickly.Mommy wanted to go to the outlet mall at Vacaville. Daddy was required to go along because aunt Jun and several of her friends changed their mind and bailed out at the last minute. It was over 100 minutes drive in each direction. The twins were excited because they knew there was a Sanrio store and a KB Toys at the outlet. As we arrived, we asked if they wanted to have lunch first. Joanne said, "No! I love shopping. I am so excited that I am not hungry at all."
The twins bought some items from the Sanrio shop. At KB toys, they wanted daddy to buy them a couple of Bratz's wrist watches. The toys at the outlet store were cheaper than usual. Certain items has 10 to 20% off the lowest tagged price. Daddy purchased several toys for the US Marines' Toys for Tots collections at work. For mommy, it was a failed mission. She failed to find anything she liked. She went home empty handed. We had lunch at Applebee before we headed home. We asked the twins to take a nap in the car. They slept all the way.
We were home before 6pm. We watched "Elf" before dinner. After dinner, the twins watched "Alladin" while daddy and mommy watched a Chinese comedy on DVD. Terence and his parents visited us and they brought some desserts. We had have seen them for many weeks because they had been sick all along. They just recovered recently.
Daddy offered to let Terence borrow the Aladdin DVDs. Joanne held on to one of the discs saying she had not finished with it. Jasmine also said something mean in the presence of the guests. Due to Joanne's incooperation and Jasmine's misbehavior, daddy refused to read them bedtime story as a punishment.
Mommy wanted to monitor Jasmine's coughing overnight. Jasmine was invited to sleep in daddy's spot. Joanne joined them in bed too. Daddy took Jasmine's bed.
Monday, Dec 13, 2004 (7y+4m+7d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins apologized to daddy about their bad behavior yesterday. They got their bedtime story after their apology. The twins got a big laugh from how the monkey king make a skirt out of the tiger that attacked them. The monkey king also made meat patties out of the bandits who tried to rob them.
Tuesday, Dec 14, 2004 (7y+4m+8d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to writing class in the afternoon. Jasmine still had her cough, but she was much better than few days ago. She took some cough medicine in the afternoon and took a two hour nap.
Wednesday, Dec 15, 2004 (7y+4m+9d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had music class in the afternoon.The twins helped doddy prepare the Christmas cards for mailing. Daddy was kind of busy, and bedtime story was cancelled.
Thursday, Dec 16, 2004 (7y+4m+10d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had writing class in the afternoon. Jasmine seemed to have recovered. However, her voice was still hoarse, though she didn't have soar throat. Mommy decided to skip their iceskating class today because they could always make it up.At bedtime story, we read about how the monkey king got his shrinking head band.
Friday, Dec 17, 2004 (7y+4m+11d)
The twins went to school as usual. It was the last day of school until next year. Mommy invited few families from the twins' class to our home for a Christmas gathering. They started in the backyard and when it got dark everyone moved inside. There were many kids in the house. We had Annette and her brother Alex, Sean and his sister Melenie and his cousin that we met the first time, Nicholas and Patricia, Kevin and his sister Jackelin. Among the parents there were Sherry, Jill, Arthur, Debbie, MayNa. We served beef steak and pasta. The kids played before and after dinner. They watched cartoon on DVDs; they played board games; they played the EyeToy. The EyeToy was very popular, the kids fought to get a turn. The party was over at around 10pm.Some of the low-lights of the party was Annette's brother Alex throwing marbles at other kids. Jasmine ran to us crying after being hurt by the three years old. Another was also by Alex when he swang some toys at our piano that left some scratches on the fine finish. The other one was when Annette asked mommy why we only gave her one gift. Mommy was surprised and rendered speechless. Such question from a seven year old really gave us a new perspective on gift giving. I later told mommy that the proper answer to such question should have been "greedy child deserves no gift at all." Mommy started to reconsider the wisdom of inviting undeciplined children to our house.
After the twins went to bed, we watched "I, Robot" on DVD.
Saturday, Dec 18, 2004 (7y+4m+12d)
Mommy had a make up tennis class from her instructor in the morning. Daddy and twins went along. Joanne brought her bike, Jasmine her scooter, daddy his rollerblade. We got a lot of exercise in the park while mommy got her lesson. The twins also played in the playground and sandbox too.We went to Hing and Lucy's place for lunch. While they were preparing the meal, Terence showed the twins his video collection of Bob the Builder. The twins had outgrown that kind of kid's show. But they didn't mind watching it when they got nothing better to do. After we had lunch, dads and kids went to the park in the afternoon. We still had the bike, scooter and rollerblade in the car. Terence brought his bike too. The two moms went shopping a little. They also bought ingredients for dinner.
The kids returned to Hing's house to have some snack after a lot of exercise in the park. We then moved the gathering to our house. The kids started to play some boardgames. The kids played the EyeToy games later. Even Terence figured out how to play the games after awhile.
We had hotpot for dinner after some sushi for appetizer. Terence's mommy didn't feel well during dinner. They left soon after dinner. Terence didn't want to leave. He said he wanted to stay over. I told him that he could not because he didn't brought his sleeping bag this time. He accepted the reasoning.
After the twins went to bed, we watched the animated film "Dark Fury - The Chronicles of Riddick" on DVD. We had watched "Pitch Black" and "Chronicle of Riddick". This film formed a bridge that connected the two.
Sunday, Dec 19, 2004 (7y+4m+13d)
The twins were up early. Their laughters woke us up. After we got ready, we went to lunch with grandma Chui. Aunt Elaine also joined us at the restaurant.We returned home to pack for the upcoming ski trip. The twins played the EyeToy games. They explored into the "Playroom" of the EyeToy which showcased some of the capability of the EyeToy camera. They went hysterious in the "copycat" game. The game delayed the video image of the camera by about two seconds. So the image in the TV behaved like a copycat of the player in front of the camera. The twins made funny moves and gestures in front of the camera. They were laughing at their copycats like crazy when they repeat their actions.
We went out to dinner with Nicholas' family. Nicholas had a very proud weekend. His team just won a 2nd place trophy today at his baseball league. His mom had to drive him up to Oakland yesterday and today to play the final games. His mom treated us dinner because she said it was a celebration for Nicholas' winning. Their family were returning to Taiwan for good a couple weeks after the new year. Nicholas and Patricia didn't plan to return to school after the holiday break. So officially, they were no longer the twins schoolmates after last Friday.
We returned home and put the twins in bed early. We watched "Supersize Me" on DVD before going to bed.
Monday, Dec 20, 2004 (7y+4m+14d)
We got ourselves ready before 9am. Nicholas' family arrived at 9am. However, Kevin's family was late. They arrived at 9:30. We departed for the mountains. Nicholas's mom said she forgot to bring the snow chains. So we detoured to stop by her house. By the time we got on the highway, it was already 10am. The twins watched "A Cinderella Story" and "In Search of Santa" on DVD We arrived at the restaurant in Sacramento by noon. After lunch, we continued on our way. We arrived at Boreal Ski at around 2pm. We let the kids played with sleds on the icy slope. After a while, the kids complained about pain in their butts. They turned to building snowmen. But the snow was too icy and hard. They could only moved big chunks of snow around. We continued our way to Reno. We checked in to the hotel rooms. Nicholas and Kevin got adjacent rooms. They could connect the two rooms by opening the doors in between. We got a room across the hall.After we settle down, we went to the buffet in the Eldorado hotel. We were all full after the dinner. We took a walk into the midway of the Circus Circus Hotel. The twins played the games along the way and they ended up with four stuffed animal toys. We returned to the hotel room. The kids gathered in Nicholas' room to play games before they went to bed.
Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004 (7y+4m+15d)
After we got up in the morning, we went to Mt. Rose ski resort. We arrived at around 9am. We were already too late for private lessons because all lessons had been booked. We could only sign the kids up for a group lesson at 11:30 am. We went throught with the registration and equipment rental. Then the kids gathered on the slope to get familiar with the equipment. They were bored by walking around with the heavy skis. They started climbing a steep icy slope. I gathered all the kids and showed them the basics of skiing, such as how to fall down safely, how to get up without struggling, how to walk up slope with the herringbone or side stepping technique, how to skate on flat land etc. When the kids the ski lesson, I followed them with a camcorder to take some video footage. After the two hour lesson, we gathered at the cafeteria to have lunch. We skied some more in the afternoon.After we got back to the hotel, the kids washed up. We had dinner at the Sweetwater Cafe in Silver Legacy Hotel. The twins wanted daddy to fetch their stuffed animal prize from the hotel room. They wanted to trade up to bigger toys in the midway of Circus Circus Hotel. While they were there, they couldn't resist to play more games. Instead of merging their small toys to trade up for one large one, they ended up with more toys than what they began with.
All the twins returned to Nicholas' room to play before going to bed. Mommy had some luck with roullette and won some money.
Wednesday, Dec 22, 2004 (7y+4m+16d)
Since we missed the class yesterday, we woke up very early in the morning. Nicholas and our family went to Mt. Rose early. We arrived at 7:45am to sign up the private lessons. After we signed them up, we went to breakfast at the cafeteria. At 9am, Nicholas and his sister Patricia took the lesson together. Our twins took the lesson with another instructor. Kevin's family arrived later. Kevin and Jacklyn skied with their dad.The instructor gave the twins a report card. They passed the squirrel class and they would move up to the fox class next time. They knew their skiing basics and could link their turns. Daddy and Mommy joined the twins after their one-hour lesson. Kevin's family joined us too. We had three adults and six kids skiing as a group. Kevin's dad led the way, mommy skied along with the kids. Daddy stayed at the back to pick up any fallen kids. We skied several runs before lunch. The kids took a long rest after lunch. Joanne said she had enough for the day and she stayed with Nicholas' mom and Kevin's mom in the cafeteria. It was 2pm when the rest of us went up the slope again. After two runs, Jasmine wanted to quit too. Mommy skied with her back to the lodge. The rest of us continued. Kevin's dad continued to be the leader. I followed behind the group to make sure the kids received help when they needed it. We made seven more runs before we called it for a day. The last chair-lift ride up the hill was at 3:40pm. Since the ski area closes at 4pm, we didn't miss much skiing time. Towards the last couple of runs, Nicholas fell down several times. It was a sign of fatique though the kids couldn't tell that on their own. We quitted at about the right time without pushing the kids beyond their strength.
After we washed up at the hotel, we went to have a nice French dinner at the Bistro Roxy in Eldorado Hotel. Three families spent over $300 including tips. It was quite an expensive dinner considering we didn't drink wine with dinner. The kids returned to the midway again to win more toys. The kids then returned to Nicholas' room to play games before bed. Daddy played some slot machines in the casino and lost some money.
Thursday, Dec 23, 2004 (7y+4m+17d)
Nicholas' family had some other Christmas plan, so they needed to go home early. Joanne said she didn't want to ski anymore. We slept in a little. We had breakfast with Nicholas' family before saying goodbye to them. Kevin's family woke up early and went to skiing again before we got up.We drove towards Lake Tahoe via Donner Pass Road. We drove past Donner Lake and Donner Summit. We have many ski trips but this was the first time we went up the Donner Pass. We stopped at a vista point which had a great view of Donner Lake. We got out of the car to take some photos. The wind was freezing and blowing very hard. While we were taking pictures, another car came by. They stopped but left without disembarking the car after they'd seen how the strong wind blew on us. We stopped by Soda Springs ski area to let the twins played in the snow for a while. It was windy and cold. We left when our faces were hurt by wind burns.
We looked up some tourist attractions in Reno from our navigation system. We made couple of stops around town. All the place we stopped were deserted because of the middle of winter. The twins wanted to check out the National Bowling Stadium across our hotel. But all the doors were locked when we got there in the afternoon. We didn't know if the place was out of business or it was too early for bowling. It was rather misleading because the building was all lit up at night.
We returned to the midway of Circus Circus Hotel to watch their free circus acts. We took an ice cream break. Mommy played the wheel of fortune slot machine and she won $150 from it. We watched another show before we got back to our room. The twins were impatient and they repeatedly knocked on Kevin's door. They didn't come back until much later.
When Kevin's family returned, we went back to the midway to see two motorcycles spinning inside a steel spherical cage. Kevin's family went to buffet again. We went to a pizzeria. We ordered one 16" pizza and we only finished three quarter of it. The meal only cost $15 for a family of four. It was the cheapest meal in the whole trip.
We watched another circus act before returning to the hotel room. The twins washed up and got ready for bed. After Nicholas' family left early, they left their room as the playroom for the kids. Kevin, Jacklyn and the twins had a slumber party for the night. The twins slept in their room overnight too.
Friday, Dec 24, 2004 (7y+4m+18d)
Kevin's family left early in the morning. They have decided three days of skiing was exhausting and more than enough. After we said goodbye to them, we had a late breakfast at the hotel. We originally planned to watch a circus act before we left. Daddy remembered the schedule wrong, we missed the show by 30 minutes. The twins left disappointed. We asked the twins to wear their ski pants because we would play in the snow on the way. Joanne refused to do so saying that she didn't want to play in the snow today.We left Reno at around noon. We stopped at Kingvale to play in the snow for a while. When Jasmine started playing, Joanne regretted her decision. She wanted to change into her ski pants. Since the snow was quite icy, it wasn't much fun though the twins wanted to play regardless. We headed down the mountains. The twins watched "A Cinderella Story" for the third time on this trip. The video system on the car kept them busy and reduced the "Are we there yet" to the minimum. We had a late lunch at 3pm in Sacramento. Mommy drove the rest of the way home. We stopped by Blockbuster video to return our rental DVD. Jasmine picked "The Princess Diaries 2 - Royal Engagement " as a replacement. We were home a little after 6pm. That was the end of a 5 day trip to Reno. Two out of 5 days were spent on the road. The twins only skied two days. Actually Joanne did much less than two days. We also inhaled more secondhand smoke in the hotel than we would like to. Given that the twins were not really crazy about skiing, we probably should not take too many ski trips unless their enthusiasm changed.
The twins took a shower and then soaked in tub until they became human prunes. Mommy and daddy unloaded the car. Mommy did laundry and vacuum the house. The twins watched Princess Diary 2 when they got out of the tub. We had a late dinner eating the leftover from the late lunch early in the afternoon. Mommy and daddy took turns soaking in the hot tub before going to bed.
Saturday, Dec 25, 2004 (7y+4m+19d)
The twins slept till almost 11 o'clock. We didn't disturb them because of the exhausting trip we just had. We went to lunch with grandma Chui. Grandma came to our house to watch the video footage we took on our ski trip. Grandma and the twins took some pictures in front of the Christmas tree too. After grandma returned home, we went to Jenny's Christmas party. Jenny, Albert and their daughter Vivian invited three families to their party. Edmond, Elsa and their daughter Erica, Jonathan and his wife Nancy were the other two families. When we arrived, the adults were playing Mahjong. Vivian came home from college for the holiday. She was watching some scary movie with Erica when the twins walked in. They replaced the movie with Harry Porter to entertain the twins. Vivian and Erica basically babysat the twins the rest of the night by playing board games with the twins. Vivian also had some faminine LEGO toys and she taught the twins some origami too. Vivian was an very active Californian girl. During this winter break from college, she went sky diving and surfing in Santa Cruz. She swam in the cold water of Lake Michigan around Thanksgiving. Erica was 10 months younger than Vivian. She was getting ready to get in college.We had a great dinner and good time playing games and chatting. We could hear loud laughters from the twins. We knew quite sure that they were well entertained by the two elder girls. The party was over at around 11:30pm.
Sunday, Dec 26, 2004 (7y+4m+20d)
The twins got up early in the morning. They woke us up in bed. Mommy went grocery shopping. Daddy stayed home and put back some air into a leaky tire on the Prius. We found a nail in a tire a week ago, but we didn't have time to repair it before our ski trip.We invited family to a Christmas gathering at our house today. A bit after noon, aunt Jun and her boyfriend Tu arrived first. Aunt Jun brought Tu's sister's toy dog with her. The dog got sick during the long trip, he threw up on the way. Aunt Jun cleaned him up, but the dog still smelled like puke during its entire stay. Mommy was not particularly happy to have a stinking dog running around the house. She was not happy when it pee'd on the rug in the family room. The twins on the other hand, were happy to play with the dog. They even went along to walk the dog.
Soon after aunt Jun, her godmother Ruby and husband Tom arrived. Grandma Ling and grandma arrived at about the same time. Uncle Ivan arrived with the Honey Baked Ham before aunt Tina and cousin Natalie arrived later. Mommy's uncle, aunt and grandma, her cousins Kelvin and Ken and their families arrived soon after. Mommy bought Sashimi as apetitizer. Ken's wife Emily brought salad. Others brought some side dishes too. Kelvin's wife Vivian entertained us by playing the piano. The twins and their cousins Natalie and Matthew played the EyeToy and the a driving game on the PlayStation 2. We later played Blackjack with great grandma being the house dealer. At the last hand, everyone bet all the chips. Great grandma turned out to the biggest winner by sweeping the table. We had great fun but no hard feelings because we just played with chips. The party was over at around 5:30pm. Aunt Tina's family stayed a little longer.
We heard about the tsunami in Asia. We didn't know how large scale the disaster turned out to be. The twins paid no attention to the news, and we didn't they needed to know about such tragedy until they were older.
After we sent the twins to bed, we watched the movie "Colleteral" on DVD.
Monday, Dec 27, 2004 (7y+4m+21d)
The twins continued to enjoy their two week break from school. Daddy had to return to work. Daddy also took the Prius for a tire repair. That one nail cost me $25.Nicholas' family came to our house for dinner. The kids did some art work before dinner. We showed the skiing video during dinner. Nicholas' mom saw how her kids skied for the first time because she didn't went up the slope last week. The kids played the EyeToy after dinner. After the guests had left, daddy dug up a Reno video tape from December 1998. The scenes looked the same as what we saw last week. The twins recognized the hotels, the Christmas lights etc. However, the main characters in the video were tiny and cute, they were only 16 months old. The twins had a great laugh at themselves, they laughed at the way they walked and laughed. Jasmine said she laughed like a squeaking toy. Joanne refused to go to bed because she wanted to watch more. She agreed only after daddy told her she could watch the tape again tomorrow.
Tuesday, Dec 28, 2004 (7y+4m+22d)
The twins got up in the morning and started watching "Ella Enchanted" even before daddy'd gone to work. Mommy helped Sharleen babysit Claire in the afternoon. The twins and Claire had fun playing the whole afternoon. She stayed for dinner before her mom picked her up in the evening. While we were having dinner, Joanne requested to watch their baby video. All three kids had a great laugh at the two little cute 16 month olds.After dinner, we watched Jackie Chan's "Around the World in 80 Days". We let the twins stay up late for the movie. They were sent to bed immediately after the movie.
Wednesday, Dec 29, 2004 (7y+4m+23d)
The twins slept in till 10 am. Mommy took them and Claire to the ice skating rink. Daddy joined them for lunch in the afternoon. Mommy continued to babysit Claire for the afternoon. We had dinner with Nicholas' and Annette's family at a Japanese restaurant. The kids gathered at Annette's home after mommy sent Claire to her parents. Daddy went home to study the DVD burner purchased yesterday. It was about time to transfer some of the twins old home video into DVD format. The old Hi-8 camcorder was failing and it was hard to play back the old footage. The twins returned home after they had fun at Annette's place.
Thursday, Dec 30, 2004 (7y+4m+24d)
I didn't take note and no one remembered what we did today. I believe the twins watched "The Powerpuff Girls - The Movie".
Friday, Dec 31, 2004 (7y+4m+25d)
It was New Year Eve. It was a rainy day. We went to lunch at Koi Palace restaurant with Terence family. Hing and Lucy also brought along their friends kids, a teenager and her little brother. After lunch, we all went to Exploratorium. Hing and Lucy had some museum passes for everyone. The twins and Terence had been to Exploriatorium before and they liked the place. The other two kids liked their first visit too. At the end of the day, the twins visited the gift shop. They spent quite a long time there to check out almost every item in the store. They both picked an invisible journal. It was basically a diary with a pad lock and a pen with invisible ink and a UV emitting LED light. The museum closed at 5pm. It took more than an hour for us to go through the traffic in San Franciso. We asked the twins to take a nap on our way home. It was almost 7pm when we got home.We went to Simon's New Year Eve count down party at 7pm. The host had 3 daughters, Jocelyn, Carolyn and Christen. The twins played with Carolyn & Deanna whom were both older than the twins. The twins said they didn't play with Christen (who was younger). Jocelyn was 13 or 14 now and she was too old to play with the twins. Since the twins slept for over an hour in the car, they were all charged up. They had great fun entertaining themselves. We left the party "early" at 2am. We let the twins go to bed without taking a shower.
Saturday, Jan 1, 2005 (7y+4m+26d)
It was New Year day. Everyone slept in. Daddy went downstairs to watch the rerun of the Rose Parade at around 10:30am. The twins joined daddy sometimes before noon. We had some late breakfast.The twins wrote their invisible journal with invisible ink. The journal can be read when the Blue/UV LED shine on the page. The writing glow in the dark when illuminated by UV light.
Hing invited over for a late lunch. Since we didn't plan to go out after yesterday's late party, we didn't get there until 3pm. We stayed after lunch. The twins brought along their invisible writings. They even made us a New Year card with invisible messages on it. The twins had fun playing with Terence for all afternoon. We stayed for dinner too. Hing prepared a delicious spaghetti dinner for us. We chatted all even while the kids played. We left at 11:30pm. We forced the twins to take a shower before going to bed.
Sunday, Jan 2, 2005 (7y+4m+27d)
We didn't disturbed their sleep. The twins didn't get up before 11am and they played the Eyetoy for a while. Mommy took the twins to Kaliko's birthday party at the ice skating rink. Daddy went to have a hair cut. We paid a visit to Nicholas' family at their hotel room. Nicholas' family was returning to Taiwan in a couple of week. They have moved out of their rental house. They would stayed in the hotel until they leave for Taiwan. At 3pm, we went to the rink to pick up the kids. Annette and Nicholas was in the birthday party too. Kaliko's actual birthday was in December, but her parents picked the day before school rather than the holiday week for the party. Annette asked if she could come to our house to play with the twins. Mommy hinted that it would be okay if her little brother would not come along. Her brother was quite destructive in his last visit. Her mother decided that they would not come over.We had a quiet evening. We watched the movie "Laws of Attraction". We asked the twins if they wanted to see the Powerpuff girl movie again. They said no. It was an honest review for the movie.
Monday, Jan 3, 2005 (7y+4m+28d)
The twins returned to school after a two week winter break. The twins nothing special happened at school.We had been eating different kinds of food for the past two weeks, noodles, sushi, spaghetti etc. We had rice for dinner tonight. Joanne commented that mommy could feed her rice when she needed to punish her. Her comment showed how much she liked rice as her meal. She was lucky because we were unlike typical Chinese family, we only eat rice occasionally.
It was a school day. We sent the twins to bed early. We resumed the bedtime story after a long hiatus during the winter break. We read about the pig-head monster in the Journal to the West. Then we watched "The Manchurian Candidate" after the twins went to sleep.
Tuesday, Jan 4, 2005 (7y+4m+29d)
The twins went to school as usual. Daddy bought a new game "Nicktoons Movin' " yesterday. I didn't plan to show them the new game until the weekend. But they discovered the game on their own. Since they finished their homework early today, we let them play the EyeToy game for awhile.I asked the twins if they continued to write their invisible journal. They said they only wanted to write it on weekends because every school day was the same. Joanne asked if she could copy daddy's journal. I told her it did not make sense to copy somebody's journal. I didn't tell her that I originally planed to use their invisible writings as material of this journal.
For bedtime story, we read about how the monkey king encountered the pig-head monster. After they went to bed, we watched "Ghost in the shell 2 - Innocence". Mommy was not an anime fan, she walked out in the middle of the movie.
Wednesday, Jan 5, 2005 (7y+4m+30d)
The twins went to school as usual. In the afternoon, mommy took the twins to the ice skating rink for a make-up class that they missed earlier. After the skating, daddy met them at the restaurant for dinner. Jasmine reminded mommy that she promised her a bento for dinner during last visit to the same restaurant. Mommy didn't remember the deal, but Jasmine assured her that she had good memory. Joanne ordered an udon and she shared it with Jasmine's bento.Jasmine rode with mommy and Joanne followed daddy home. Jasmine and mommy went home first. Daddy stopped by BlockBuster to rent some DVD. When we got home, Jasmine was just finishing her shower and Joanne joined her. Jasmine was allowed to played on the EyeToy because she finished all her homework early. Joanne returned to her unfinished homework. Public school only had little homework. What Joanne didn't finished was the optional package that she wasn't required to do by the teacher. But she had to do it because mommy wanted her to.
Daddy and mommy watched the movie "Little Black Book". The twins tried to join us towards the end of the movie, but we sent them to bed because it was late by the time Joanne finished her work. We cancelled bedtime story despite the twins asked for it.
Thursday, Jan 6, 2005 (7y+5m)
The twins are 89 months old.
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