Trunk or Treat

We had our ward trunk-or-treat Friday night before Halloween this year. We decided to decorate Christian's truck and hand out candy this year.

The girls dressed up as little witches. There was a pretty good showing, especially since we kind of all threw it together somewhat at the last minute. As usual, there was way too much candy flowing. Some of the kids just keep going round and round the parking lot until all the candy are gone or their parents force them to go home. Luckily, our kids were too shy and managed only going around about one and a half times.

They spent the rest of the time running around with their friends. That's fine with  us!

Afterwards, the girls always like to lay out all their candy to see what they got. Emily had hers spread out over a wide range on the floor. Caitlyn took a more organized approach.

Pumpkin Carving

We finally decided to carve our pumpkins Thursday night. We had to keep putting it off because it has been so hot still that if we carved the pumpkins earlier, it would be nothing but a steaming black pile of goo by the time it was Halloween.

We broke our pumpkin carving tools on our pumpkin last year and I swear I bought new tools but as we were getting ready to carve them, we couldn't find them anywhere! We had to make due and use kitchen and pocket knives. It was too difficult and dangerous for the kids to do, so we had to confiscate them and do them ourselves.

The kids still got to clean out the pumpkins seeds and junk. Also, since we plan to use the pumpkins for our trunk or treat tomorrow, Christian and I decide to go with a Nightmare before Christmas theme on our pumpkins and we carved Jack Skellington and Oogie Boogie pumpkins.

They came out pretty neat but it was not easy to do it without the proper tools. I did, however, finally find the tools I bought a couple of days later! Oh well. At least I'm not going completely out of my mind...I knew I bought some!

October Haiku

Kids are off to school

A beautiful foggy morn'

for a pleasant hike.

Ascending the mount

to take pictures of the fog

drifting at our feet.

Box Springs Mtn.

A Dream Realized

Living vicariously through my little girl...

Caitlyn reading in her tree house...of her own accord. I repeat, without any one making her! 

Pay no heed to what kind of book she is reading (it is inconsequential...don't burst my bubble).

Birthday

Christian took the day off to spend with me on my birthday. Caitlyn had a melt down in the morning over some absurd thing about her socks. Christian had to take her to school because she wouldn't get on the bus. We had a lazy morning after, trying to recover from the kids' nonsense.

We spent most of the day running errands together...mostly stuff for the kids. But also, my sewing machine died the previous week, so Christian and his dad decided to get me a new sewing machine for my birthday. He took me to JoAnn's to pick one out. The one I thought I wanted, didn't turn out to be so great so we took a while trying to figure out what to get. I finally settled on one, but it so happens that it was on back-order. So we purchased it but I am still waiting to receive it. It's fancier than I wanted but I'm excited about some of the new features now. We barely got home in time to pick up the kids from the bus stop. It was really nice spending some time with just Christian though.

Emily had a tantrum relating to having to do her homework. Meanwhile Christian was trying to make me a nice dinner in spite of it all. He bbq'd up some beef, made some fresh bread (naan, a really tasty flatbread) and smothered cabbage...yummy, even the kids ate it.

As we were trying to finish up for the night, the girls were fighting about wrapping little gifts for me...mostly because Emily did not listen to instructions her dad gave her (apparently 3 times) about what she was to do. So she thought she was being cheated and wanted to encroach upon Caitlyn's project. Caitlyn wanted to do hers a very specific way and didn't want her sister to mess it up.

Aaah, what a day. Happy Birthday to me...I'm beginning to dislike my birthday. Not only because I'm getting older (which doesn't help) but it is increasingly frustrating and just sets you up for disappointment. You never expect anything really special but you can't help but want to be a little selfish, to get just a little peace...a little thoughtfulness from the kids. But apparently it is too much to ask.

At the end of the week, Christian's dad drove up with Mark and Danielle for my birthday. We decided on a simple menu so that we don't stress ourselves out too much. As part of my present, Emily wanted to make eclairs for me with her dad. There was still a lot going on. We were trying to tidy the place up a bit. Emily was pestering her dad. I wanted to clean the bathrooms a bit. The bathroom sinks (which are kind of connected through the wall since our bathrooms sit back to back) were draining a little slowly which was worrying us but we did not have time to look into it yet. It decided to stop draining as soon as I started scrubbing. Christian was in the middle of making the eclairs but we decided that having working sinks was far more important than the eclairs and went to go fix it. Evidently, an ingredient was left out of the eclair dough. I tried to pick up where he left off and finish it but it did not look right. Anyway, I piped them out and baked them but they did not rise. They were like dense little cookies.

Luckily, Christian was able to clean out the "clean out" for the sinks and get them working just as our guests arrived. We tried to salvage the afternoon and forget about all our frustrations. We had a nice lunch (no dessert...which is probably just as well since we were all stuffed) and relaxed with a movie afterwards.

So, that was my eventful, somewhat stressful birthday celebration.

A couple of days later (since it was bugging me), I figured out what the missing ingredient was (water) in the eclair dough and decided to make it again myself. It turned out this time. It was tasty and we ate too many. We were going to bring some over to a friend's house but it was kind of late so we just ended up sharing with our neighbor and ate the rest. I better start exercising again...it's been a while!

A baby shower, a funeral and 3 birthdays...

It was a busy weekend. It's taken me a while to get my posts up...I guess I have been a bit out of sorts lately.

I started off the weekend with a baby shower for a friend. I made french macarons for the first time. I was excited to finally try it out. It didn't come out perfect as a third of them were not presentable enough for me to bring. I guess it was just as well as my family loved them.

I think that I know what happened though, so I think I can do a better job next time. I will definitely be making them again. They were yummy!

We were supposed to visit with my family for birthday celebrations the next day but found ourselves unexpectedly going to a memorial service instead. Apparently my cousin's wife, Adele, passed away the week before and they were going to have a memorial service for her at Angel's stadium...which we thought pretty unusual, but then they wanted everyone to wear red...which really goes against the grain of any chinese person. I think they only got away with it because most of the older generation have passed on. In chinese culture, red symbolizes happiness. So even though this was not the actual funeral (they kept that with just the immediate family and close friends), and they wanted to call it a "celebration" of her life, it would have been highly impudent for a chinese family (had my aunt or grandmother had still been alive).

I think that I abstain on a lot of chinese traditions (much to the vexation of my parents), but I would not have even dared to do such a thing!

Adele had been battling cancer for the last 15 years. Adele and most of my cousins are much older than I am, so they seemed more like aunts and uncles to me than cousins. I am the youngest in my family and my mother and father were the youngest in theirs. So I can't say that we were close. In the last 10 or 15 years, I think we only saw each other at weddings and funerals. In fact, the last time we got together was something like 6 years ago since I was pregnant with Caitlyn still at the time.

But I would like to say this much for Adele...every time we got together, it was as if no time had passed between (although, their kids grew up and got married themselves and started having her grandbabies). She and her husband are so genuinely friendly and kind that you felt right at home around them. You never felt a awkward around her. I wish I had known her better so that I could have learned to be more like her. She was just "good people," you know? I guess that's why there were some 400 odd friends and family at her memorial service...I don't even know that many people!

She used to work for the Anaheim Angels...in the ticketing office, I believe. Her husband kept stats for games a lot. So I guess they were part of the Angels "family." It seemed weird to have it there at first, but when you consider the amount of people showing up and after you sit in back of home plate and hear the hush around the empty stadium, you felt like it was the most suitable place to have her memorial.

We took a quick snapshot together of just my family before we left.

We headed back to my family's house afterwards. We hung out with my brother's family for a while so that the kids could play and get their wiggles out. We had dinner at my mom's house to celebrate my birthday, my sister-in-law's birthday, and my father's birthday.

Although, I did not see my father once the entire day...but that's entirely another story.

Labor Day Weekend

We didn't go anywhere for Labor Day weekend. It was hot. There was too much work to be done (plus I'm fighting a horrible summer cold). The girls decided to go camping.

Camp Caldwell encompass many wonderful amenities, complete with picnic area and "lake". Emily set up their tents almost all by herself (her little sister gave her a little assistance). It was a hot and humid weekend, so the only thing missing from their little camp was a campfire. But it was way too hot and uncomfortable for that. But since the sun was behind clouds half the time, the girls could not stay in the pool "lake" very long before they were shivering. But they would get hot again in short time and jump right back in.