Last week: 7/18/10 to 7/24/10

7/20/10, San Jose Giants Game:

It was San Jose Giants, not SF Giants. It's a minor league baseball team, and Stephen's company gave away tickets for 7/20 and 7/22 games. It was against Stockton Ports, and this was our first time to watch a baseball game in the stadium. It was ok, a little boring, but Ha and Hee seemed to like it. One good thing about minor league was that the pitchers were not as good as the ones in major league; therefore, it's easier for hitters to hit the ball and easier to score. It made the game more fun.The game started at 7pm, but around 10pm, it's only at 8th inning, so we decided to go home before the game was over. The final result of the game was 6:8, Ports won.

7/21/10-7/23/10, Grandparents' House:

After Sophia's family moved back to the Bay Area, these cousins had more opportunities to get together. On 7/21, I drove to Sophia's house, and we took their van to my parents' house with them. This time, kids had their own table to eat, and we sat on another table either at my parents' house or at the restaurant. They took care of themselves, and we had relaxing eating and chatting moments.

Here is a short video clip when they watched "Tom and Jerry". Ai was not in it because she's taking her nap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfaLFk-UvOM

7/24/10 Lightrail

In Taipei, 捷運 is inexpensive and fast, and we took it very often when we were in Taiwan. Ha missed it, and we planned to take the BART to SF on Saturday. After 3 days of fun time at Grandma's house, kids were tired, so they couldn't wake up in the morning until I woke them up at 10am. Also, we were invited to friends' house for dinner, so we wouldn't have plenty of time staying at SF. We went to Fremont BART station and found that the round trip fare to SF was around $13 per person. It was too expensive since we wouldn't spend too much time in SF. We changed our plan from BART to lightrail since to kids, they were about the same. We drove back to Greatmall and had a lunch, and then we bought a day pass to ride on the lightrail. it was a boring ride because all we saw were houses, offices, offices, houses. and maybe one or two small size malls. Well, at least, it satisfied Ha's dream of taking the 捷運in the U.S.

7/24/10 Friend's house for dinner

Victor and Yang are in our fellowship, and they were in the same church as Ran and Sophia in Chicago. They cooked delicious dinner and invite both of our families to come over. We also watched interesting videos and photos. It was a great gathering!

棄狗從蛙

哈哈狗爬式游了好一陣子，今天手開始有點蛙式的架勢了，不過腿還不會，要繼續努力。嘻嘻還在狗爬式，不過不怕水了，繼續學換氣。

Intel Museum

In June, we learned that Intel Museum had a "Sizzling Semiconductor Summer for Grade 3 to 6" program, and they didn't really care about what grades are kids in, so both Ha and Hee went through the whole series of 4 sessions. Basically, it's a self-guided program, and kids got few pages of "homework" to complete by reading the displays and doing the experiments.

The 4 topics were code and conductivity( 0s and 1s; test the conductivity of different materials); sensational circuits(built a circuit; making a music card); keeping it clean(learn about fabrication, dress the bunny suit); and fabulous fabs(learn how sand transformed into silicon; learn about UV light).

It's a great opportunity to learn some new things even though we didn't understand all. Also, each of them got a water bottle as gift for completion of all 4 sessions.

兄友弟恭

什麼叫兄友弟恭？我們家剛剛發生了，趕快記下來，免得忘記。

哈起得很早，吃了早餐就在車庫幫他自己和嘻的bikes 裝燈。
嘻起得較晚，還在廚房吃早餐。

哈去廚房拿東西，看到嘻，就說：“嗨”。
嘻也回：“嗨”。
然後哈走回車庫，嘻繼續吃他的早餐。

他們每天在一起玩，居然早上看到還打招呼，好像不太熟的朋友一樣, very funny! 這是我第一次看到他們這樣打招呼，或許以後也沒有了，所以趕快記起來。

In general, they are good brothers, 吵架次數屈指可數，打架更是少，這是神的恩典。

國際旅舍每晚22元 有回家感覺

這看起來蠻便宜的，不過對於全家(有大人，有小孩）旅遊來說，Priceline還是更便宜。　Fullerton Hostel：25+25+13+13=76， 我們去年去san diego用priceline，3天不同的旅館，都低於這個價錢。
From world journal:　http://www.worldjournal.com/view/full_news/8810034/article-%E5%9C%8B%E9%9A%9B%E6%97%85%E8%88%8D%E6%AF%8F%E6%99%9A22%E5%85%83-%E6%9C%89%E5%9B%9E%E5%AE%B6%E6%84%9F%E8%A6%BA?instance=hota

對預算有限卻想旅遊的外州及外國人士，每晚只收費22元、室內陳設宛若住家、且打理得舒適有序的非營利「富樂頓旅舍」（Fullerton Hostel），簡直就像天堂。


由非營利「美國國際旅舍洛杉磯委員會」（Los Angeles Council of Hostelling International-USA）經營的富樂頓旅舍，自1985年開放後，已接待來自世界及外州各地的9萬1000人次。

這個每年6月中至9月中才對外開放的旅舍，去年暑假共接待近1000人次，不乏來自中國大陸及台灣旅客。

該旅舍雖設址於忙碌的海港街（Harbor Blvd.），卻隱身於一塊三英畝土地、由綠樹掩蓋的斜坡上，鬧中取靜。已有80年歷史的房舍所在地，由美國陸軍工程公司（U.S. Army Coprs of Engineers）擁有，以極低價出租給美國國際旅舍洛杉磯委員會。

執行主任、也是富樂頓旅舍經理艾斯崔達（John Estrada）指出，美國國際旅舍與國際青年旅舍聯盟（International Youth Hostel Federation）為姊妹會，後者在全世界60多個國家擁有近4000個旅舍。

美國國際旅舍在美經營近100家，均需符合國際年輕人旅舍聯盟訂定的高標準。

富樂頓旅舍為橙縣唯一一家非營利旅舍，洛杉磯縣聖塔蒙尼卡尚有另一家。前者有20個床位，後者有260個床位。

富樂頓的房客70%來自世界各地，30%來自其他各州，適合前往附近迪士尼樂園、諾慈百利坊觀光的旅客下塌。

艾斯崔達說，旅客可以像住在家裡一樣使用廚房，與旅舍提供的電視、DVD電影、書籍等設備。富樂頓旅舍並提供咖啡及早餐食材，但須由旅客自行沖煮。

富樂頓旅舍每晚會員22元、非會員25元。不招待七歲以下幼童，但與大人隨行的7至12 歲孩童只須半價。旅客在投宿時則須出示合法身分證件。

Read more: 世界新聞網

Hula Hoops and other Sports

Hee was good at sports, like Stephen, and he started to play with hula hoops few weeks ago. I learned the hula hoops after I was married, and Stephen was my teacher. We didn't teach Hee, but he just learned it by himself. This summer, Ha and Hee made good progress at Ping-Pong and biking. They played Ping-Pong two to three times a week, and we went biking almost every night. We still went swimming once in a while, too. Those 3 boys are riding their bikes very well, and my skills are far behind. I learned to ride the bike when I was about 14 or 15 years old, and I didn't touch it after I came to the U.S. until I got married, and Stephen helped me to picked it up again. However, since I didn't learn it when I was young, I am not as good as they are, but it's ok, I'll keep trying, no crying.

Hee's Hula Hoops video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYpcDfN7t64

按鍵信用卡 打擊網路盜刷

看起來，這個方法不錯！

Visa卡即將推出配置按鍵及螢幕的新式線上信用卡，持卡人每次上網購物時，必須鍵入個人身分辨識碼，產生一組含英文字母及阿拉伯數字的不同密碼後，再轉至網路商店確認，可收遏止網路購物詐騙之效。



倫敦每日郵報18日報導，新式的Visa-s信用卡大小與傳統信用卡相同，除配置12個按鍵與一個小型螢幕之外，另外使用一顆續航力達3年的迷你電池。

在此之前，不法之徒只要取得受害者的信用卡卡號等資料，就可在網路上盜刷。新卡的特色是，唯有知道個人身分辨識碼的持卡人才能使用，每次上網購物都會出現不同的通關密碼。Visa公司表示，這種新卡也可供持卡人進入網路銀行帳戶，可避免重複使用相同的密碼。


新卡還可供持卡人透過電話尋求金融消費服務，不必再經過層層問答。它已在英國、義大利、以色列、土耳其、瑞士、德國等地試用，客戶可在現有卡片的有效期屆滿之前，收到新卡。Visa歐洲區創意總監珊德拉‧艾爾塞塔表示：「這種獨特的解決之道極為便利，可確保網路購物的安全。」


From: 世界新聞網

Happy Camping, Happy Vacation-5 (完結篇）

7/6 morning, after breakfast, we went to Luther Burbank Home & Gardens.The garden is not very big, only around 4 acres, and the plants are the ones that we can see everywhere; however, four of us just enjoyed walking through the garden because planting is our common interest.

After short stop at the garden, we drove to Petaluma to join a tour at Marine French Cheese Factory. Personally, I don't like cheese except for Cheese sticks (String Cheese) and American Cheese. Cheese on the pizza is acceptable, too. Other than that, no, thank you. However, going on a cheese factory tour is a new experience for me and the kids, so I'd love to go.

The factory was the oldest in California. It's very small, and most of the things were done by people, not machine. The tour was very short, and then, we got cheese tasting.Ha and Hee only liked Breakfast Cheese, and I liked none of them. I tasted every kind of cheese because I hoped that I might find my favorite here; however, all the cheeses disappointed me. 只有一個字：臭！最後，看到一個"award winning" cheese, 心想這該好吃了吧，一口吃進去，只有兩個字：最臭！本來來試吃是想顛覆我對cheese的不良印象，沒想到更堅定了我對它的厭惡。唉，還是我們的臭豆腐好吃！

Happy Camping, Happy Vacation-4

Catching the fish was the perfect ending for the camping, but it's not the end for our vacation. Since it was a 3+ hour drive, we decided to take a side trip on the half way, Santa Rosa.

After a quick lunch at Jack-in-the Box (we liked its teriyaki chicken bowl), we headed to Charles M. Schulz Museum. Who is this Charles Schulz guy? He's the author & illustrator of Peanuts & Gangs, and Charlie Brown and Snoopy are two of the most popular characters.

The museum has many exhibits about Mr. Schulz, and it also has his studio. Last year, when we went to Getty Center, kids were not very interested in the museum, but this time, Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Mr. Schulz's life seemed to attract their attention. We stayed there for about two hours.

At night, we stayed at Sonoma Wine Country Hilton. Again, we used Priceline.com to book the hotel. The trick for Priceline is to bid as late as possible; therefore, we bid just right before we left for the camping trip. From Travelocity.com, the rate for one night at Sonoma Hilton is normally above $100 (http://hotels.travelocity.com/hotel/HotelDetailGuide.do;jsessionid=2CE5999E441FB00F0F654A0DF2878B69.p0603?propertyId=23054&tab=guide&fromPage=&SEQ=12789988920956132010&hotelQKey=7345947389906562272 ), but we got the room for $ only 58. It's a very good price in Sonoma County. It's like paying the price of motel and staying at a 3 and half star hotel.

We also made the coffee in our room. We never made coffee at home, so Ha and Hee were very curious about that. We got our breakfast from Safeway because it's way too expensive to eat in the hotel restaurant. $20 or $30 per person!

Here is a video clip of our hotel room (nothing special, very standard room, just for my memory): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6akcwDmme8

Happy Camping, Happy Vacation-3

When we decided to join this camping, I did a little research about Clear Lake State Park ( http://www.clearlakestatepark.org/ ) and learned that it's a good fishing place. Then, I did a little research about getting the fishing license and learned that July 4th is a "free fishing day" which means no license is required on July 4th.

I started getting excited about having BBQ fish as our camping dinner because one of our friends' dad is very good at fishing. According to her, he used to be a fisherman, and now, he still goes fishing almost every day. We've never gone fishing before, and since we went camping on the free fishing day, it's a good opportunity for us to experience it once.

I went shopping for the fishing gear with kids on Thursday. Target only had 3 fishing poles, so we went to Walmart instead. Walmart had good collections of fishing gears, and we chose a $15 combination fishing pole. Then, I discovered that besides fishing pole, we still needed some small gears, such as hooks, floats,weights...., so I used the best of my knowledge (actually, I know nothing about fishing gears. I should say "my best guessing") and compared the gears in the Fancy boxes ($10 per box, it's not worthy to buy it) to choose the ones which are good for catching Catfish. Walmart also sold ready-made baits for different kinds of fish, about $4 per box, but I thought that the bait is too much for one time use. The bait for Catfish was made of liver and cheese, so I went to the market to buy pork liver. It's only $1.25, and we ate half of the box.

That night, by the help of Youtube, Stephen assembled the fishing pole, and we were ready to go.

We didn't do anything on July 3rd, and we started fishing at around 4pm on July 4th.

We prayed before fishing, but it was too early, and the fish was still at their nap, so after 10 minutes, Stephen decided to leave. He didn't like to waste time sitting there and doing nothing, so he chose a good spot and tied the poles there. He went to check it at 9pm, but no fish yet, and he decided to leave it there overnight. He used to catch the fish when he was young, so he knew a little about where and when is the best to catch the fish.

Monday morning, he went to check the pole, and I was in the tent hearing him saying " I got the fish, and I need a bucket!" I gave him the bucket which was one of the beach toys, but it was too small. We went to find the friends' dad, and he got a net, and he helped Stephen to get the fish out and clean the fish because he has more experiences of doing so.

We had 2 leftover green onions from Sunday breakfast ( God prepared it for us. For some reason, I did use all of the green onions for my 蛋餅 and 炒蛋， and people who's in charge of Sunday lunch, dinner or Monday breakfast didn't need the green onions, so I kept them in the cooler), and that's the only seasoning that we had besides sugar and salt. The friends' mom helped us to panfry and made the fish soup.

Surprisingly, it tasted so good，一點都不腥！So yummy! Most people had the soup before they left, and we believed that it's the gift from God. It's the perfect and memorable ending for our camping trip!

Here is the video clip of catching the fish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Moaw1RX3o

Stephen and friends' parents

Happy Camping, Happy Vacation-2

After worship, we had a hike to the outlook point and the lake. According to the weather forecast, the temp. should reach 99 degrees, but in the forest, it didn't feel that bad. It was a warm, but not too hot day. It's a nice experience to hike with other 60-70 people, and we chatted on the way, so it wouldn't feel boring.

The beach was a rock beach instead of sand beach, and there were a lot of animal poops on the rock, so I didn't want to walk close to the shore. The water was not very clean, either, and I didn't want Ha and Hee play there. We brought beach toys, but this was not a good place to play. We stayed there for about 30 minutes and headed to our campsite for lunch. Lily prepared delicious sandwiches as our lunch.

The best thing about our campsite was the restrooms. It was the cleanest restrooms that I had ever seen in 20 years. There are about 5 separate restrooms and 4 or 5 separate showers, and staffs worked hard to maintain its cleanness. The restrooms have toilet seat cover and automatic flush system which are unusual to be seen in the campground.

In the afternoon, the trip organizer David and Wendy bought some ice cream for kids. Kids needed to kiss the parents in order to get the ice cream; therefore, I got 2 kisses, and kids got the tasty ice cream and great joy.

Happy Camping, Happy Vacation-1

Every year, AWANA and Living Water Fellowship will have a camping trip on the 4th of July weekend, and this year, we went to Clear Lake State Park, about 3+ hours driving distance from our house. We left our house at 11am with another family, but the traffic was bad on 101N. Both Stephen and I agreed that if there were not so much road work going on, the traffic wouldn't be so bad. We really don't need so much road work, and we believed that government kept dig out the road just because they wanted the workers to keep their jobs. With one hour lunch break, we arrived the park at around 4:30 pm. We found a good ground for us to set up the tent; however, we found that there were many ants in that area, so we moved the tent to another area. Mosquitoes were so happy to see us there, and within minutes, we all got "gifts" from them. Luckily, we had "Off" to keep them away for a while (not working perfectly, but without it, we would be even worse.)

There were more than 15 families joining the camping, and the families were divided into 3 groups. Each group arranged for its own meals.

First night (7/3Saturday), the dinner was in Potluck style, and I brought cool noodles and corns.

This was what we had for dinner. Most families brought cool noodles, too because it's easy to bring from home.

Campfire was what kids were waiting for, and roast marshmallow was their favorite. Here is a short video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_P57-gbzh8

I also signed up for Sunday breakfast, and I prepared 鹹麥片粥， 小菜， 蛋餅 和豆漿。

After breakfast, we had a Sunday worship, and we sang some VBS songs and some Chinese songs.

Bye Bye, Raccoon!

6/26, it's a Saturday morning, and Stephen did the yard work early in the morning as usual, and I was in the kitchen preparing the breakfast.

He called me to get a bucket because he wanted to catch the raccoon. I ran to the garage immediately to get the bucket, but when I ran back, stephen had already got a broken bucket in the backyard and caught the raccoon. Here it was. Since the bucket was broken, there were holes on the top for the raccoon to breath. We put the brick on top to prevent it from escaping. We called the trapper right away, and he came within an hour.

According to Stephen, he saw the raccoon under the banana tree, and he chased him all the way to the raspberry bushes. The raccoon tried to escape from a hole but got stuck, so Stephen was able to catch him.

The trapper caught the raccoon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzutoWT4ijQ and our $100 was gone.

Hopefully, this is the end of our raccoon story!