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This journal is about raising identical twins.Most recent entries
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, August 6, 2007 (10y)
The twins are officially 10 years old today even though they have already celebrated their birthday.
Mommy promised to take Valerie to her summer camp at 8:45am. She jumped off the bed at 8:35am. Nobody set the alarm clock. We rushed Valerie through her wake up routine. Mommy and Valerie were out of the doors in less than 10 minutes. In the car, Valerie told mommy that there was no need to rush because her mom was never on time. They arrived at the camp drop off place a couple minutes late. The drop off was still in progress, so they were not late technically. Claire and the twins got up along with Valerie. They continued to play through the morning after Valerie left.
When daddy wished happy birthday to the twins in the morning, they said they were not 10 until the afternoon. So daddy asked them to enjoy the last few hours of their single digit age.
In the afternoon, daddy joined them for lunch at Todai buffet. Claire's mom joined us at lunch too so that she could picked up Claire afterwards. The waitress brought the twins a couple of small cake with a candle. The timing was so perfect that the twins blew off the candles within minutes of their actual "birth-time".
The twins went swimming at Claire's neighbor's pool.
In the evening, we went out to dinner with grandma Chui and aunt Elaine. The birthday girls requested teppanyaki, so we honored their wish.
Before bed time, the twins asked daddy to help them with the jigsaw puzzle they started a few days ago. Their wish was granted too. Joanne walked away upset when Jasmine refused to put in a piece that she knew where it belonged. Daddy asked Jasmine to go to bed also so that they could continue together the next day.
Daddy asked the twins if they had a happy birthday when daddy tucked the twins in bed. Since their birthday celebration lasted two days, they said they actually had happy both-birthdays. Joanne commented that she was much happier than she expected. Jasmine told daddy that Joanne was worried because she was not good at bowling. Daddy told them that the main idea was to have fun regardless whether they could get good scores or not.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 (10y+1d)
Claire was dropped off at our place so the kids could play together. They went out to lunch with Benjamin's family. The twins practiced piano in the afternoon. Claire stayed past dinner. Mommy made them ravioli. When mommy made daddy udon, the kids wanted that too. They actually had two meals for dinner. Claire's dad picked her up later in the night. The twins played their DS games before bedtime.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007 (10y+2d)
Ashley, Brandon, Jasmine W., Britney came to play with the twins. Britney's dad and the girls' moms came too. They went out to lunch together and played tennis afterward. Jasmine helped Brandon to set up the cheat codes on his DS games. It didn't work. He left his game behind and daddy helped on the setup in the evening.
Thursday, August 9, 2007 (10y+3d)
The twins, mommy and Ashley, Brandon, Jasmine W., Britney and their parents went to Santa Cruz. They played on the beach. Mommy said the kids played really hard by hauling the sand and water around for their sand castle. Brandon and Jasmine went to the edge of the sea and stood in the water to receive a water massage from the ocean waves. Jasmine said some of the waves were quite big and they had to run away from the sea. Despite that she was hit by a wave and got wet up to waist height. They had lunch in Santa Cruz.
When they came back, it was past 4pm. The twins were tired and took a nap. They got up at 8pm when daddy bought some takeout food home for dinner. They practiced piano after dinner. Jasmine W. gave the twins a Pokemon Revolution game for the Wii as their birthday present. She missed the twins' birthday party because she was on the plane that day coming home from Japan/Hong Kong. The twins showed daddy how to do Pokemon battles.
We received the twins' STAR test results. They both did quite well. Their scores were in the mid 400s out of full score of 600. They were in the "Advanced" range which is the top rank of score above "proficient". In general, Joanne's score was a little lower than Jasmine's in many areas. Joanne's score on "Writing Applications" was the weakest, but still within the "proficient" range.
Friday, August 10, 2007 (10y+4d)
The twins went to lunch with Jocelyn's family. They came home to practice piano. In the evening, the two families got together again for dinner. After dinner, they came to our house to play on the Wii and the computer.
Saturday, August 11, 2007 (10y+5d)
We had noodles and rice porridge for lunch. The twins practiced piano in the afternoon. We went to a Korean BBQ party at Jasmine W's home. After dinner, the husbands chatted about the latest gadgets around the kitchen table, the wives started a game of Mahjong, the kids played on the Wii and their DSs. As tested from time to time, the DS won over the Wii. Despite how popular the Wii was, it was eventually abandoned and everyone returned to his or her DS for games.
Sunday, August 12, 2007 (10y+6d)
We left home at around 11am. We headed to the Santa Cruz Mountains. Daddy's company held a picnic at Roaring Camp. The twins were hungry. Lunch supposed to start at 12:30pm. We were the first to ask for food at noon. We were able to get the server to start lunch early. Everyone followed suit.
After lunch, the twins played on the haystack for a while. At 2pm, we took the steam train ride up to Bear Mountain. The trains made a 15-minute stop at the top. The conductor let us visit the Cathedral grove where a ring of redwood trees was formed around a dead tree stump. The tree stump was the grandmother tree that lived to over 2000 years before she died. All the trees surrounding it are her offspring growing from her root. The conductor said this kind of redwood trees take moisture from the coastal fog and bring the water down to their roots. The water flows in opposite direction from other regular tree. The train ride was quite special because it needed to do two switchbacks to zigzag its way up a steep slope. The twins were kind of bored by the 1.5-hour ride.
By the time we came back to the train station, we were a little dehydrated. After we bought some drinks, we returned to the company activity area. The twins did some painting on Frisbees. Daddy joined them too.
At around 4:30pm, we left the picnic and headed to the Mystery Spot. We got there around 5pm, but the attendant said that all the guided tours were full and after we bought the ticket, we would need to wait 2 hours before our tour starts. We decided to cancel our plan and headed home instead. We had leftover for dinner.
Monday, August 13, 2007 (10y+7d)
Rachael came to play with the twins. They went to Ashley's home together in the afternoon. The twins didn't come home until 5pm. Joanne practiced piano before dinner. Jasmine practiced after.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 (10y+8d)
They rested at home most of the day in preparation for a trip.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007 (10y+9d)
Mommy and twins left the house at 6:30am in the morning. They headed off to Las Vegas. Mommy took it easy and took as many stops as needed. They arrived at Primm Outlet at around 1pm. They spent sometimes in the shopping mall until check-in time. Ashley's family took off a little later, but they never caught up with mommy despite mommy made frequent stops. Mommy checked in to the timeshare condo at 4pm. Ashley's family arrived a little later.
The condo unit has two bedrooms and a pull down bed hidden in a closet. Ashley's family also brought an air mattress with them. There was plenty of room for two families of four.
They saw rainbow in the sky. Then the two moms won some money at the casino table. They thought the rainbow was a good omen. The twins said there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That was why the rainbow brought the moms good luck.
They went to Paris Hotel for buffet dinner. They strolled around to enjoy Las Vegas night scene including visiting Ballargio and its musical fountain. They returned to the condo to rest. After 8+ hours of driving, they deserved a good sleep. The twins were not too tired because all they did in the car was to watch movie on DVD, played the DS and took naps.
Thursday, August 16, 2007 (10y+10d)
After breakfast, Ashley's dad took all the kids to the aquarium in Mandalay Bay Hotel while the moms went gambling. They cooked some instant noodles for lunch. They spent the rest of the afternoon in the swimming pool.
Friday, August 17, 2007 (10y+11d)
Daddy left the car at the office in the morning; took the light-rail and the shuttle bus to the San Jose airport for a 10am flight to Las Vegas. The flight arrived before 11:30am. Mommy drove to the airport to pick up daddy. Jasmine had swollen eyes in the morning. Jasmine said she cried because she had a very sad dream about Joanne and mommy. She refused to talk about the dream.
We rendezvoused with Ashley's family in Venetian Hotel. We had lunch in an Italian restaurant above the indoor canal. We did some window-shopping in the Venetian Hotel. Then we went to The Forum Shops in Caesar's Palace Hotel. We watched the animatronics show at the Atlantis fountains. After the show, the kids went to FAO Schwartz toy store. We bought a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.
We rushed to the MGM Grand Hotel to catch the Cirque Du Soleil's show KA. On the way, we saw a double rainbow in the sky. The end of the rainbow lined up with the MGM Grand Hotel. Mommy said it was a good omen.
The show was quite entertaining with a high tech stage that could pivot at any angle. We sat at the second to the last row a little off center on the right. Though a little far from the stage, we could see everything quite well. The kids loved the funny scene on the "beach" and the lively shadow puppet show. After the show, we walked around the MGM Hotel to look for dinner. Most the restaurant was booked. We got a table at FiAMMA, an Italian restaurant. It turned out to be a very good restaurant. The food was delicious.
After dinner, daddy and mommy went off to gamble a little bit while Ashley's parent look after the kids. Within a few minutes, daddy won $100 and mommy won $50. We called it a day. We took over the kids and brought them back to the condo while Ashley's parents took their turn to gamble. They didn't win any money despite the double rainbow they saw earlier. Due to the show and late dinner, we went to bed kind of late.
Saturday, August 18, 2007 (10y+12d)
We took our time getting up in the morning. We left the condo at 10:30am. We headed towards the East.
Ashley and Brandon rode on our car too so the kids could play together along the way. They watched a movie on DVD during the trip. Daddy called out sightings of dust devils on the farmland along the way. Daddy said "Dust devils at 2 o'clock direction." "Joanne, you are looking at 10 o'clock direction, not 2 o'clock!" Joanne said, "I know." and her eyes still stared to the left. A day later, Joanne confessed that she had tears in her eyes after watching a moving scene on the movie they were watching at the time. She looked away from everyone else because she didn't want Brandon or Ashley to see her tears.
We arrived at Grand Canyon National Park at around 5:30pm. The trip took much longer than we expected because of the traffic jam near the Hoover dam and we took a lunch and a snack break.
We spent about two hours on the south rim of the canyon taking pictures. It was not too hot because there were down pours of occasional showers. We were lucky that we didn't get soaked like other tourists there.
We said good-bye to Ashley's family. They decided to stay in a motel in Williams, which was about one hour outside of the national park. We wanted to return to the condo in Las Vegas because we wanted to spread the driving over two days instead of driving less today and more tomorrow. We were back to Las Vegas and in bed at around midnight.
Sunday, August 19, 2007 (10y+13d)
Mommy woke up early to pack up the luggage. We took our time getting ready in the morning before checking out from the time-share. We contacted cousin Amanda's family at around 11am. They came from LA to Las Vegas yesterday. Since we were in an excursion to Grand Canyon, we didn't meeting them until today. We had dim sum with Amanda's family at Ping Pang Pong restaurant in Gold Coast Casino.
Amanda's grandma was in the States from Hong Kong. She wanted this Casino trip before returning to Hong Kong soon. She treated us the lunch. She returned to the casino after lunch. We went with Amanda's family to play bowling. The bowling took longer than we expected. We said goodbye to the cousin and left at 3pm.
The freeway entrances in Las Vegas must have changed a lot because the navigation system on our 2003 car is already out of date and we had to guess our way back to the Interstate highway. The I-15W was so jam up with gamblers returning to LA that our car crawled on the freeway for the next two hours. We achieved highway speed starting at 5pm after we exited I-15W into CA-58W.
The twins killed time taking naps, played their DS games. We took a dinner break in Barstow. They also watched Disney's Brother Bear on DVD Jasmine admitted that she cried when watching the movie. Joanne said she didn't cry though she confessed that she cried in a movie yesterday when daddy told her about the dust devils.
We took several piss stops along the way. We were home at 1:30am in the morning. The trip took longer than we planned due to the traffic jam.
Monday, August 20, 2007 (10y+14d)
They practiced piano. Mommy wanted them to lengthen the practice because they skipped practice during last week's vacation. In the afternoon, they attended Kimberly's bowling party. Many kids and moms participated. After the game, they went to BJ's restaurant to have an early dinner. The big group stayed there from 5pm till past 7pm. The meals in the restaurant were so big that 3 kids could share a meal. They had left over to bring home to daddy.
Grace and her family stopped by our home to pick up something. They stayed to play on the Wii while the twins took turn to practice piano.
Joanne weighed 70lb and Jasmine 68lb. Joanne cheered because she passed Jasmine weights for the firs time in years. Joanne shrunk about half an inch since last measurement. Jasmine is now about one eighth inch taller and half inch taller than Joanne.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 (10y+15d)
They practiced piano. They invited Ashley over to watch High School Musical 2. The show was aired when we were in Las Vegas, but we set the DVR to record it. They watched it in the afternoon. After dinner, they also watch the sing along version of the original High School Musical. The twins seldom sing, but they did sing along with the movie.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007 (10y+16d)
Today was the last day of summer. Mommy took the twins to school to find the class assignment. The twins will be in the same class this year. The last time they were in the same class was when they went to pre-School. I hope they would not interfere each other in class. Jasmine said if they started to fight doing projects, the teacher may separate them again. Joanne said the class assignment was interesting because the normal people are in one class and the "crazy" people are in another. I guess what she meant "crazy" were those wild kids, and the "normal" were those with milder manner.
The twins went to the Library to borrow some book. Actually their original intention was to look for Hannah Montana CDs. Unfortunately, they couldn't find any. They spent the evening reading the book they borrowed.
Daddy asked the twins how they felt about school tomorrow, when tucking them in bed at night. Joanne said she didn't feel right to be in Jasmine class. Daddy agreed that they already face each other at home, in bed. They used to be able to take a break from each other in school. Now they will be in each other's presence 24 hours a day. Jasmine said they still could get away from each other during recess.
Thursday, August 23, 2007 (10y+17d)
The twins went to school for the first time as a fifth grader. Jasmine said she was not happy because she didn't expect homework on the first day. The twins said the new English teacher Ms. Jung is a Korean woman. She and her brother drove from Illinois this summer. They said they agreed with Rachael that the new Chinese teacher was a little freaky because of her voice and look.
The twins did a draft on their Chinese homework assignment. They outlined what they did in the summer. Jasmine didn't really put much effort. She wrote (in Chinese) "We went to Japan, Hong Kong. We ate, we shopped." etc. Mommy was very upset that she wrote about irrelevant things. Mommy asked Jasmine whether she ate when it was not summer. Mommy grounded the twins for the weekend.
Friday, August 24, 2007 (10y+18d)
The twins went to school as usual. In the evening, daddy joined the family at the teppanyaki restaurant. We got two free meal coupons because of the twins' birthday recently. However, it turned out that each coupon requires two other paying customers. We could only use one coupon. Before we were done, we saw a teacher from the Twins' school who was dining with her family. The twins said this teacher had never taught them before. Mommy gave the unused free meal coupon to them so that they could use it on the spot.
Saturday, August 25, 2007 (10y+19d)
We went out to lunch with Terence's family. After we parted with them, we took the twins to Madeline's birthday party at a local pool. Madeline were in their school but she had never share a class with either Joanne nor Jasmine for the past few years. She is in the same class with both Joanne and Jasmine for the first time. Since this school year just started on Thursday, the twins were formally a classmate of Madeline for only two days. However, they were still invited to the birthday party. Hopefully that is a good ice breaker for the rest of the school year.
In the late afternoon, mommy's high school friends came to have a BBQ party. We had the dinner in the backyard at first. We retreated to indoors after the BBQ attracted some bees. They started a game of mahjong after dinner. The guests left sometimes after 10pm. Many live near Alameda, so they didn't stay too late.
Sunday, August 26, 2007 (10y+20d)
It was daddy and mommy's 2th wedding anniversary. Instead of a celebration on our own, we arranged many activities to occupy the day. We first had lunch with Christopher, Benjamin and Terence family. After lunch, the same group of people went to play tennis. The kids played a little tennis before spending the rest of the afternoon in the park playing water balloon. They got themselves all wet. But since it was not very cold day, they were okay.
After playing tennis, we said good bye to everyone. We had invited Cornell's family and Ronald & Evon to our home for BBQ. The temperature dropped near dusk when the wind pick up. Daddy cooked the BBQ in the yard while everyone else stayed in the house. Before and after dinner, cornell spent most of the time playing Wii. He liked Wii Sports and Wario Ware. The twins took shower and got ready to bed. The guests stayed past 10pm before they left.
Monday, August 27, 2007 (10y+21d)
The twins went to school as usual. The teacher gave out the sailing crew assignment today. Joanne will be one of the deck hands. Jasmine will be one of the galley crew. Jasmine needs to get up at 4am to prepare breakfast. The early risers need not serve in the night watch. The twins were very excited about the sailing field trip.
The twins finished their Chinese homework before going to bed. It would be due the next day.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007 (10y+22d)
The twins went to school as usual. Mommy bought school supply for them in the afternoon. At night, after they finished homework, they decorated their new 3 ring binders.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007 (10y+23d)
The twins went to school as usual. The teacher gave them a test to check how much they remembered from last school year. Jasmine said she got three wrong answer and she got a B-. Joanne said she did poorly. Mommy asked how poorly, she said she couldn't recall. Mommy asked "C or D?" Joanne answered, "C and D rhymes, so I don't remember." Later when daddy asked the same question more nicely, she confessed that it should be a D.
Thursday, August 30, 2007 (10y+24d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had piano lesson in afternoon. It was the first lesson after the summer holiday. The teacher took a long summer vacations on her own. But she left quite a lot of assignment to the twins for their summer break. The twins said that the teacher thought she gave them other assignments too. Daddy asked the twins if they lost a page of the assignment sheets. They said they had no idea. But on after thought, the teacher must have confused because it would be unlikely that both twins missed the same assignments.
Several of our friends called us regarding a wildfire in Stevens Creek Reservoir that started in the morning. When mommy came home, she could see some ashes landed on our backyard. Though we could see the smoke, but it was still quite far to pose any danger to us.
Friday, August 31, 2007 (10y+25d)
The twins went to school as usual. They got 3 Chinese writing assignments for the long weekend. Some parents complained that such heavy load may ruin their holiday plan.
We are still in the middle of a heat wave. It got so hot that mommy called Jenna's mom to ask if the kids could swim at their community pool. Mommy picked up Ashley also after school. The girls had a great time in the pool with Jenna's family.
Karisa, Sonia and Brandon went to swim in Natasha's community pool instead. They started their swim really late. They were just started when the swim in Jenna's pool was already done. So they ordered pizza for dinner instead.
Since the swim ended earlier on this side, we went out to dinner instead. They washed and dried themselves after the swim. Daddy joined them afterwork for dinner too. Several other moms from the other pool joined us for the dinner too. The other dads at the other pool, stayed with pizza.
We all went to Natasha's pool after dinner. They were just out of the water. The kids played rope skipping next to the pool. They went to Natasha's home for some water melon before everyone went home.
Saturday, September 1, 2007 (10y+26d)
We had Japanese lunch with Claire and Valerie's family. We had so much to chat about that we had to leave when the restaurant closed. We then change our venue to Santana Row. We bought some ice cream for the kids. We sat on the side of the street outside Ben & Jerry to enjoy a hot summer afternoon. Valerie's family left early heading to Reno, NV. Claire and the twins requested to go to Border's book store. We spent some time there before they left for a BBQ party.
We came home and then went out again to have dinner with grandma Chui and aunt Elaine. Daddy picked a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant, but the twins were not very happy about the choice. When asked what they would prefer, they said "anything but this." We stuck with daddy's choice and we had a great tasting dinner. The twins didn't complain afterward. After we dropped off grandma home, the twins came home to work on their Chinese writing assignment.
Sunday, September 2, 2007 (10y+27d)
The twins got up in the morning and read in bed. They let daddy and mommy slept in.
We went out to have a quick lunch. We stopped by two restaurants and each was closed for Sunday. We picked the third one that we had never tried before. It turned out to be a decent restaurant and quite affordable too.
We heard on the news that a 151 acre wildfire near Stevens Creek Reservoir was fully contained after three days.
When we came home, the twins continued to do their Chinese writing. They took turn to practice piano.
We invited Benjamin and Terence and Claire's family to our home for BBQ dinner. The kids played in the middle of the backyard and they set up a picnic blanket there. We served them some salad and BBQ chicken. They got back into the house to play on their own when it got dark outside. The adults stayed in the backyard to continue the BBQ. The kids missed out the best part because we had beef steak and scallops after they were filled up with chicken. The kids watched TV and played their DS. After we finished BBQ, we moved the stuff back indoors. The kids asked for more food. We fed them some steak and fruits. The kids didn't start playing the Wii until the adults started to play. The party was over before midnight. Mommy still continue to clean up after midnight.
Monday, September 3, 2007 (10y+28d)
It was Labor Day holiday. We stayed in bed until late morning. We ate the leftover fruit from yesterday as lunch. We ate too much BBQ meat yesterday, so we switched to healthy fruits for lunch.
Mommy watched US Open on TV. The twins practiced piano and finished their writing assignments. They did 3 Chinese essays over the weekend. Their assignments were "My family", "My favorite animal" and one topic of their own choice. Both chose to write about "My favorite foods".
Joanne finished earlier than Jasmine. After we have checked their work, they were free to do whatever they wanted. Daddy showed Joanne how to extract the music from the "High School Musical" TV recording into MP3 format so that she could play back on her DS.
After 5pm, we went with Benjamin's family to hike in a local park. We saw several deers along the way. We didn't bother them though we stopped to watch. The walk was mostly in the shade after the sun set behind the hills. We were done at around 7:30pm. We went out to dinner together at a Shanghaiese restaurant. On the highway, we saw a big column of smoke bellowing into the sky in the distance. After dinner, daddy drove to the top of a nearby hill. We could see the wildfire in the south of San Jose. There was a dark red glow in the far distant horizon across the silicon valley. We watched news and found that the wildfire was in the Henry Coe State Park near Morgan Hill. It was a reminder of the wildfire last week near the Stevens Creek Reservoir, which was contained just yesterday. The poor firemen didn't get a rest.
We all got a good sleep due to the hike.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007 (10y+29d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins said the teacher took their composition book for grading, so they don't need to do their Chinese journal. They practiced piano and worked on other homework. One of the Chinese homework was to write about geographic coordinates in Chinese. Their writing mentioned the Longitude and Latitude, the Equator and the Prime Meridian. The writing were corrected by the teacher at school, so that were working on a second draft. Joanne wrote the work very neatly on a piece of paper. Jasmine typed the Chinese text into the computer and printed the text well formatted. Since daddy and mommy were not very good in pinyin, Jasmine could type Chinese much better than all of us.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007 (10y+30d)
The twins went to school as usual. They practiced piano and worked on these homework. The twins got the second draft of their writing corrected by the teacher. Joanne also wanted to type her writing in the computer too. Joanne was good in the pinyin too, but her problem is that she lost track of where she was in the draft. She typed a character on the computer, went back to her written page to find where she left off. She repeated the same word hunting process for each character. Daddy offered to lend her a finger to point to the next character. She didn't want daddy's help.
Mommy went to the school for the "Back to School night". It was a parent teacher meeting to set the expectation of this school year. It was also an opportunity to get questions answered. Daddy came home early to babysit the kids. Jenna and Tara came over too because their mom also went to the meeting. Their dad came to pick them up when he got off work. Mommy returned not long after that. Mommy was upset to find that the twins didn't take shower nor finished the homework during her absence. Daddy was not strict enough to guide them.
The twins are year ( days) old today.I have added two feature pages to the website regarding advices and music education. I have posted some photos at shutterfly.com. I have added a new page to our on-line photo album. The original photo album is being restored at 50megs.com. All the photos are in place, but I still need to link them to the thumbnails.
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.
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