Fire Drill

This morning, I helped in Hee's classroom. They have about 26 kids in a class; 16 kids go to school from 9am to 12:25pm; 10 kids are from 10:55am to 3:05pm, so they are overlapped from 10:55am to 12:25pm, and the teacher welcomes parents volunteers to help out in the classroom.

Today, there's a fire drill, and it's my first time to join the fire drill at school in the US. The teacher explained very clearly before the drill, so the kids fully understood what they were supposed to do. When the bell rang, the teacher asked kids to cover their ears because the bell was very loud. By doing that, kids didn't talk, either because everyone covered their ears, and nobody could hear others anyways. Within few minutes, all the kids gathered in the field quietly. It amazed me that all 600+ kids could be there in good order and without making any noises. I believed that they will be doing fine when the real thing happens.

複雜的頭腦

Y: 我嘴唇有個洞還沒好。
S: 是缺乏維他命B吧。
Y: 那有什麼東西有維他命B？
S: （想了幾秒）臭米。

臭米？？？？？？？？那麼慘，嘴唇破了要吃臭的米？

幸好我想了一下： 你是說糙米吧！
S: 對。

我再花了一點時間研究糙米變臭米的過程，以下是我的發現：

糙=tsao....想成臺語....再翻成國語=臭！

我老公的頭腦實在太複雜，連說個字都先在頭腦裡繞了好幾圈。（他不是有意出個腦力激盪，只是可能一開始不確定那字怎麼念，思考了一下，結果蹦出來一個沒人聽得懂的字！）

Ha's Sunflower

These are Ha's huge sunflowers. The big one is much taller than I am, unbelievable!

寵物洗澡

In church's garage sale, Hee bought a big panda, so we gave all our "pets" a bath. 他們正在做日光浴。

玩水

There's a floor fountain in front of Cupertino Library and City Hall, and we went there 2 years ago when we just moved here; however, it was closed afterwards for repair. It reopened this August, so before the school started, I brought Ha and Hee to play with the water. They had so much fun there! At first, Hee was afraid of going in, but later, he enjoyed it, too. I also liked to play with the water, but since there's no adult playing there, 我只好藉著去“關心我兒子”的名義，“不小心”被噴到！

I got 2 video clips:

Hee was afraid to get in, so Ha shot the water at him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFkeNunQgXk
Ha pretended to cut down the tree, Hee 則是一路從頭笑and叫到尾: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy9KaRKABug

開學第一天

It's the first day of Ha's 2nd grade and Hee's kindergarten year. In the morning, Hee told me that he didn't want to go to school, but later, he acted better than I thought. Neither Stephen nor I wanted to miss their first day of school, so we drove 2 cars to school (so Stephen could go to work directly). The parking was so hard! I guessed that every parent didn't want to miss their children's first day of school. I imagined that it would be bad if we needed to say good-bye at the doorway to Hee, and he would definitely cry. Fortunately, Hee's teacher (who's also Ha's kindergarten teacher) was experienced, and she asked parents to go into the classroom with the kids. After all the kids were settled in their spots, she asked kids to say good bye to parents together. Hee was ok with that. He has a preschool classmate in his class ( Hee said that he did say hi to her today), and I knew a girl from our church's VBS.

At noon, I went to pick up Hee. Ha's lunch area was just in front of Hee's classroom, so I was able to see him as well. Both told me that they were doing good on the first day of school, and they seemed happy.

Ha knew his teacher when he was in kindergarten, and he had 2 people who was in the same kindergarten class with him; however, none of his first grade classmates is in his 2nd grade class. He can only see them during recess and lunch time. Hopefully, he can make friends soon.

錯用橄欖油 養生不成反傷身

錯用橄欖油 養生不成反傷身
2009-08-19
中國時報
【中央社】
　蕭先生罹患高血壓10多年，平日飲食清淡，健檢發現抗氧化指標及血脂異常，原來家人天天拿不耐高溫的橄欖油來炒煮煎烤，結果吃進比回鍋炸油還糟的劣質油。
　聯欣診所院長林美秀今天指出，她原以為蕭先生吃得太油，蕭先生喊冤說自己30歲出頭就高血壓，而且馬上戒菸，經常運動，家裡油炸食物從不上桌，如今知道家人拿橄欖油來炒菜煎魚，不但糟蹋好油，還吃出問題。
　蕭太太在營養師建議下，改用發煙點216度的葡萄籽油來炒煮煎烤，發煙點約120度的特級冷壓橄欖油來涼拌食物或沾麵包，1個月之後，蕭先生的丙二醛（MDA）指數從2.2降到正常的1.1，幾個月之後，再降到0.54，三酸甘油酯檢查也正常。
　林美秀說，丙二醛指數是一種細胞抗氧化能力的指標，當人吃進太多回鍋油、油炸物等自由基，或經常曝曬在強烈紫外線、過量電磁波的環境中，丙二醛指數就會升高，此時身體可能未病，但已有血管硬化等警訊。
　她指出，日前麥當勞等速食炸油不合格事件沸沸揚揚，民眾以為減少外食就可避免，但是聯安預防醫學機構分析1342人的健檢報告，有7成的丙二醛指數偏高，他們常見的錯誤用油觀念就是錯用橄欖油，這是另一種「食」油危機。
　林美秀提醒，外食族在挑選食物時，以蒸、滷的菜色取代油炸品，居家烹調則依烹飪方式選擇不同油品，愛吃零食及甜點的民眾，少吃酥油或反式脂肪的餅乾糕點，可以羊羹、紅豆湯、蒸蛋糕等中式甜品代替。980819

哈哈的Potato和Raspberry

When Ha was in the first grade, his teacher taught them to plant the potato, so he asked me to get a potato from the market for him to plant. We cut it in half and put them in the water, and at the end, one got sprout and the other one died. Ha planted the good one in our backyard, and it started having a lot of leaves. We are not professional farmers, so we didn't know a lot about planting the potatoes, and we didn't know when to harvest, so we just left them there. One day, I found a very tiny potato, and I thought that the potato plant was not good because it only grew tiny ones. I tried to dig the whole thing out and plant some other vegetables, and while I was digging, bigger potatoes came out! However, the biggest ones got sprout again, so I put them back under the ground because we couldn't eat the potato with sprouts. That night, I cooked our potatoes, our one and only carrot and some meat, and we enjoyed that dish very much because it was from our backyard.

This week, every night, Ha made smoothies for us. In the afternoon, he cut apples, peaches, golden kiwi, our pears into small pieces and put them in fridge. At night, we blended his mixed fruit and our raspberries and yogurt ,and each one can drink a cup of smoothies. Our raspberries are really good because Ha bought a little plant in 2008 for about $2, and it just grew into many many many many plants by itself. Now, we have more than 20 raspberry plants, big and small, and every day, we are able to eat fresh raspberries.

Ha really got green fingers. One of his sunflowers is taller than I am. I'll take a picture of it later.

放掉輔助輪

This summer (after Ha's summer school ended), every weekday night and Sat. afternoon, we go to YMCA to swim, and every Saturday morning, we go to Memorial park to learn biking.

Ha and Hee have been riding on the 4-wheel bikes for few years, and we thought that it's about time for Ha to take off the training wheels. Since Ha's bike is high, and his feet can hardly touch the ground, we decided to use Hee's bike for them to learn for now, and Hee can learn it, too.

Stephen was the main coach 在後面幫他們扶車推車, and I was the 啦啦隊，在前面搖旗吶喊，要他們騎過來追我。They have made good progress, and last Saturday (8/15), Ha already can ride a short distance without people's help. Hee's was doing good, too, but Stephen still needed to help him a little. I forgot to bring my camera to the park, and I hope that I will remember to bring it this weekend to capture this memorable milestone in their lives.

Milpitas Library

Milpitas Library was rebuilt after we moved away from Milpitas, so we haven't got the opportunity to visit the new library. Since it was close to Great Mall, we decided to go there on the same day when we visited the Great Mall.

It was huge and beautiful, and it's about 3 times bigger than the Cupertino Library. I really loved it! It also had very comfortable reading area, so we spent 2 hours there...just read the books. It's kids-friendly because it's not very quiet, and kids could talk and ask questions whenever they wanted without feeling embarrassed of disturbing other people.

Great Mall

When Hee was just born, and Ha was little, we went to Great Mall very often, so Hee could get a nap in the stroller, and Ha wouldn't be bored at home. When they grew older, we didn't go there as often, and after we moved away from Milpitas, we went there rarely.

During this summer vacation, we have been to Great Mall several times already because they were interested in using walkie talkie, and Great Mall is a good and big place to try their walkie talkies. They held one walkie talkie, and I held another one, and we tried to find each other. Actually, it's not hard at all because they were still afraid of getting lost and wouldn't run far away from me.

We usually bring some yogurt, cheese and chicken nuggets and buy some bread from the bakery as our lunch, and after lunch, we walk round the whole circle of the Great Mall..good exercise.

移動菜攤 方便社區

I like this idea!

移動菜攤 方便社區 (from world Journal)
美聯社
August 12, 2009 12:00 AM 490 觀看次數 0

底特律「桃子和綠葉菜」(Peaches & Greens)機構的司機黛安‧布朗，每周五天駕駛這輛卡車，巡迴社區，平價提供新鮮蔬果給社區中沒有汽車、需要公共服務或行動不便的居民。

Swimming

Ha and Hee loved swimming, but they didn't like to go to the class, so we go to YMCA every available weekday nights and weekends. Ha is not afraid of water anymore, so it's not a big problem for him to put his head under the water; however, he didn't know how to 換氣yet, so he needed to stand up when he's out of the air. Also, he is still swimming in the 狗爬式，so we will adjust it later. Hee had fun in the water, but he still refused to put his head in the water. He's making the progress gradually. In the beginning, he didn't even like any water on his face, but now, he's ok if I splashed his face with water.

While they were learning swimming, I practiced my skill as well. I learned to swim because there's a swimming test in our high school PE class, and I never really liked to swim myself; furthermore, I never thought that I would swim after I graduated from high school. However, since we needed to take care of our sons in the water, both of Stephen and I needed to get in the pool, and after we go to YMCA almost every day, I started to like it, and I found that I was better than ever.

After swimming, we all took a shower in YMCA, and kids could go to bed directly after the bedtime story. Not bad!

大餐

We left our parents' house around 10am on Sat. morning, and my mom needed to have a short stop in Oakland, so by the time we got home, it's about 1pm. My mom said that we could stop in Milpitas and buy some food home for lunch, but I thought that it would take longer time, so I asked Stephen to buy something to eat for us.

When we got home, we found whole table of food; however, it was not bought from the restaurant, but cooked by my husband: 香煎豬肉，橙汁烤雞排，魚片，裝飾美麗的荷包蛋，大白菜炒小蝦仁，還有一鍋湯。Very nice. 我出門一個禮拜，所以冰箱幾乎快空了，他還能搞出這一桌菜，真是太厲害了！

Going to Grandma's House

Last Monday, my Dad came to our house to pick us up. We stopped by my grandpa 's 墓地 first, and then we headed to my parents' house. We stayed there until Saturday.

During these days, we had Japenese Buffet, went to Chuck E Cheeses, Flea/Farmer's Market, Hometown Buffet, park, went to Ro's swimming lesson, had a lot of fun in the backyard, and went to Jennifer's house to celebrate my Mom's birthday. Stephen needed to work, so he couldn't come with us.

For more photos, please go to sidebar for slide show (when it's available), or go to http://picasaweb.google.com/happyfamily.huang/VisitGrandmaSHouse

Here is a video clip taken in Chuck E Cheeses http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=necF71-JX7U

7/21 Sea World

Sophia's family came to our hotel in the morning, so we could go to Sea World together. They have been there so many times, but they still made time to go with us on their last day in San Diego...thank you!



With “本地人”Sophia and Ran as our special tour guides, we moved easily from one show site to another without reading the map.



We went to : Shamu (day and night), dolphin, Sea Lion, Pet's rule, Cirque de la Mer---shows

Tip Tide----nighttime stage show presented by musicians, dancers and athletes

Sesame Street---4D movie

Water play area, play structures, and a rollover lawn

and we watched the firework after Shamu show at night.

We went there at 11am, and we left at around 10pm. It was a long and fun day. Ran's parents came to join us at 5pm.

I really enjoyed all the shows. Each one was different, but yet, each one was very entertaining and attracted all our attentions. Almost all the shows had a "splash zone" meaning that when you sit on that zone, there's a good chance that you are going to get wet. Ha insisted in sitting in this zone, so we took turns to sit with him. Personally, I liked that zone, too, and Sophia sat in that zone many times as well. Hee was not very into the water thing, so he always sat far away from the stage.

Our seats got better and better one show after the other. During the Cirque de la Mar show, we couldn't find good seats, then we saw some seats close to the stage, but they were marked as "platinum member only". Since the show was about to start, the staff allowed us to sit on those seats, and we watched the show clearly. Our last show was Shamu Rocks. Again, it's all packed. Since there's no hope for the splash zone, we tried the seats upstairs, but they were reserved, so we went down again. Finally, we saw few empty seat in the splash zone, so Ha, Sophia and I went to sit down. After we settled down, we realized that our seats were ones of the best seats. It was the 2nd row on the middle of the stage where Shamu would be on. We were super excited, and when you watched the video clip, you would definitely hear our voices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZ_I7N32rE I didn't take out my camera in time, so the clip was short. I hid by camera under the raincoat, and I only took it out when I was sure that there wouldn't be any more splash.

Two other video clip: Water playing area: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTl5rb7XPd8

Rolling down the hill: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CXfMQjbux8

I felt that Seaworld was a "must-go" in San Diego trip.

Thank God for keeping us safe and happy, and we were very grateful for this trip.