Chicken Dance

Every year, Cueprtino has a fall festival, and all the kindergarteners took turns to perform chicken dances. Ha was there 2 years ago, and this year, Hee got his turn to join it. Their school got the spot from 11:40am to 11:55am, and we went there early in order to check out other booths.

Here are some video clips of chicken dance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiZ8Kp3EdR4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MVLJrL1xlA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GST0xQxp8Ig

It was on 9/20, and it was hot, so the chicken kids became roasted chicken. We went to few different booths, and Ha and Hee got some different prizes, see, these were what they got:

Here are some video clips of the chicken dance:

真人按摩器

如果有40-50磅的小朋友，請他幫忙踩，真的很舒服：

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omboT5-G5cs

More kids

Last night, we went to YMCA to swim. After swimming, as usual, I took a quick shower and read magazines in the waiting area while waiting for the 3 boys. I met a friend from the church, and he told me that every time, when their family came to swim, he read the magazines while waiting for his wife and 2 daughters. The waiting time usually ranges from 10 minutes to 20 minutes.

When the 3 boys came out, I told them that I was lucky to have boys instead of girls, but Ha and Hee told me that I should have a girl or more girls, so it will be fair. The following was our conversation:

Kids: 妳應該再生一個女的,妳就要幫她洗澡，弄久一點了
Y: 我不想要女的，我喜歡自己很快洗好
Kids: 搞不好妳肚子裡已經有了
Y: don't worry,我確定沒有
Hee: 爸爸 do something to 媽媽就會有了！
Y: mmm.....你怎麼知道？
Hee: 妳跟我講的啊。
Y：..........

至少，他知道自己不是石頭縫蹦出來的。

Airplane on the ground

Have you ever taken the airplane driven on the ground? I did, and I was the pilot!

Here was our airplane:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_PGtdbCYe8

First "complete" movie experience

In Spring, when we went to a mall, Ha saw a movie poster: Cloudy with the chance of Meatballs, and he told us that he read that book at school, and he wanted to see that movie. Prior to this, we only had 2 "imcompleted" movie experience. The first time, after 10 minutes, Ha and Hee wanted to get out. The second time, it was better, we stayed about an hour. Fortunately, Stephen's company offered free tickets for those 2 movies, so moneywise, it was not too bad.

Finally, the movie that we were waiting for was in theater this week, so we got the tickets and ready to go. At the beginning, Hee was not very interested in watching it, but since Ha wanted to go, and Ha told him many times that it's not scary but funny, so he agreed to go, too. Ha finished his homework just in time for us to go to the 11:10am movie, and when we got into the room, the commercial was over, and the movie was ready to start. It was all dark, and Hee refused to get in, but seeing the cute 3D characters, and with Stephen's promise to hold him throughout the movie, he finally agreed to sit down and watch.

Personally, I thought that it's an ok movie, and Hee and Ha thought that it was ok, too. (not excellent). The main character is an inventor, and after many useless invention, he invented "food rain" to save his city; however the rain was out of control, so he tried to stop it. I really liked the idea of having "ice cream rain", so when I want to eat ice cream, I just go outside.

After movie, we went to Fresh Choice. With the same day movie tickets, adults can get $1.50 off, not bad!

My Shy Son

Ha is very very shy, not only to the outsiders, but to us as well, sometimes.

One day, I heard that he sang in his room, so I tried to video tape it, but he insisted turning his back to my camera, oh well.......It's a little better now because before, he even stopped singing right away when I was there.

He bought a MP3 himself (less than $20. I told him that he has a CD player, so I'm not going to buy MP3 for him. If he really really wants it, he needs to pay his own money for it.), and asked me to download songs from internet for him; therefore, I downloaded some free Christian songs for him. I've never heard those songs before, but I guessed that he enjoyed them.

Here is the video clip that I took...without his face for the whole song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMwhctajUhM

Today, I was volunteering in his class, and during recess time, one of his classmates tried to play the ball with Ha ( that boy looked shy, too), but Ha played with him for few minutes and then tried to stay away from him again. On lunch time, that same boy sat beside Ha, but Ha only talked to him for very few words and turned his head away from that boy and concentrated on eating. I really hoped that he can be socialized a little bit more.

Biking update

Ha got a new bike because his old bike was too high, and his feet couldn't reach the ground. When he learned 2-wheel biking, he used Hee's bike, but now, when he wanted to take out the training wheels of his bike, it's a little bit dangerous (Hee's bike is 12 inch, Ha's old bike is 18 inches); therefore, we bought a 16 inch bike for him. We didn't put on the training wheel because he didn't need it any more.

Hee was 99.5% ok. He just needed a little help when going uphill because he was not strong enough to make it through.

I started practicing making short turns, and I was making the progress, too. Stephen has been riding the bike for 20-30 years, so it's too easy for him.

Hee's swimming- another break through

Heehee 的頭敢完全下水了。。。。He had a good coach Ha.
His next step is to learn floating.

Ha's homework and Hee's swimming breaking through day

I thought that we would stop going swimming on weekday nights after Ha has homework because he was usually very slow at doing his homework. Yesterday, Ha brought his homework home. In 2nd grade, they had a homework calendar, and each day, they needed to finish the homework based on the homework calendar that the teacher assigned. Normally, it will be 20 minutes spelling and math homework and 20 minutes reading time each day. I don't worry about the reading time because Ha likes to read, and he reads every day even when nobody asks him to. However, asking him to write the homework was my headache for Ha's kindergarten and 1st grade. He's so slow and not very concentrated, and I needed to call him many times before he started doing his homework.

Yesterday, after he had snack, I asked him to do the homework. I introduced him the timer, and I told him that the teacher said that the homework could be done in 20 minutes, so let's try to see if what she said was true. Also, if he could finish his homework early, we could go swimming at night. He was very interested in the "timer" idea, so he did his best to do his homework without asking for water, without walking to the living room, without playing with his pencil, and he finished his homework in 17 minutes. He was so happy, and I kept my promise, so we had an early dinner and went to YMCA at night.

Ha loved to swim, and even though he's still in 狗爬式，he had no problem at 換氣。In the pool, he was very relaxing and exciting. Hee was afraid to put his head in, but he liked to play in the water, too, so every night, he loved to go along. Last night, Ha asked him if he wanted to see some strange creature down in the water, and Hee immediately put his mouth, nose, eyes and forehead into the water without the second thought, and from that moment on, Hee was ok to put his face into the water, but he was not ready to put the whole head in yet. However, it's still a good break through for Hee. Now, Hee called Ha his swimming coach, and I believed that Ha will do the trick for Hee to put his whole head in in the near future.

Labor Day Weekend

This weekend, AWANA had a camping activity in a far away place, and it would take 3 and a half hours to drive there. We were not so fond of long distance driving, but Ha and Hee wanted to go camping, so we invited few families to have a camping at our backyard. Camping with friends always had more fun than camping alone. We set up the tents on Friday night, and our lawn was good for 3 tents; two 8 people tent and one smaller one. Kids were so excited, and of course, we roasted marshmallows after dinner because it's Ha's special request.

Saturday morning, after breakfast, we drove to Capitola, which was about 45 minutes away from our house, and it's close to Santa Cruz. This long weekend, it had a Begonia Festival and had sand sculpture contest. We brought our sand tools (toys) and a big shovel and went there. We got off from Hwy 1, Bay Road exit and parked on the free street parking and took their shuttle to the beach. Many people had already started their sculpture (it started at 8, but we arrived at 11pm), and many of them looked professional. We registered for the contest, but we knew that there's no way that we would win the prize, so we mainly just tried to have fun.

Sunday morning, we went on a short hike with my brother & sister-in-law; Sunday afternoon, after Sunday Service, we went to visit the new building that our church just bought. It was huge, and I pray that God helped us to make the best use of this building.

On Monday, we did the two activities that we do every weekend: biking and swimming. This week, Hee was able to ride a short distance by himself when Stephen was not holding, and I am pretty sure that next week, he should be able to do it all alone. I will remember to bring the camera next week.

I had a short video clip for the sand castle contest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tArOAJb3gds

Learning 2-Wheel Bikes

Ha and Hee was learning to ride the 2-wheel bike this summer. Ha was about 99% ok, and Hee was making good progess, too.

Here are the video clips:

Haha: 情況不錯，保鏢可以在後面散步 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZgojesKjHY

Heehee: 醉漢來了，保鏢辛苦了 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5IjvEyFQDg

Heehee: 酒醒了一些，有進步 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEvBq4JHmGA

Haha: Memorial Park 騎一圈 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELeJ6nqhOCg