新年快樂，情人節快樂

Last night, my sweet heart bought a bouch of balloons home to celebrate Valentines' Day, and we took many pictures with them. Above are some of the combinations. After the photo session, we seperated the balloons and gave them to Ha's and Hee's teachers, our neighbor and our family.

Our friends and families: We love you! May you have a happy Valentines' Day and a Happy New Year!

8 Years Ago......

We were married on January 2001, and at that time, we had a plan that we would enjoy our newly wed life for a year, and then, we would think about having a child. My mom told me that if we were not ready for a child, we needed to avoid “doing anything" during  the "12th to 18th days" , and we followed this rule strictly.

On the Memorial Weekend of 2001, we went with Tong-Sing Fellowship to Yosemite, and we were two of very few people who were able to climb up to the big waterfall. When we got home, I realized that my period was late, and I got very nervous. I refused to buy the testing tool because I was in shock and tried not to believe that it really happened.

Well, finally, I adjusted my emotion and accepted this gift from God. Thank God that I didn't experience any discomfort throughout the pregnancy, and everything went so well. I went to LA and Las Vegas during the Labor Day weekend because it's the last trip that we could enjoy "alone".

The Due date of Ha was 02/02/02, so his nickname would be "雙雙”。The doctor was not able to tell if it's a boy or a girl, and for some reason, we just knew that it's a girl, so we prepared a girl's name for the baby, which is Esther. We were not ready for boy's name yet because we couldn't decide between Justin, Joshua and Wayne, but we were not worried since it would be a girl anyways.

02/02 was a Saturday, nothing happened. 02/03 was a Super Bowl Sunday, still, nothing happened. The doctor said that she would need to induce the labor if the baby doesn't come out in few days. 02/04, after a good night sleep, I started to feel the contractions around 7am, and later, we went to the hospital. I brought my CD player and 讚美之泉 CDs because I planned not to have the Epidural, and singing was a good way to ease my pain. I wanted to experience the real pain that a woman needed to take due to Adam and Eve's sin against God.

Singing and Praising did help, but at the last hour before giving birth, it's too painful to sing. Thank God that Ha was not a big baby, so it's not very hard to push him out. He was out around 8:20pm. Well, speaking of "him", when the doctor announced that "It's a boy", I was just in shock and speechless. It's good that Stephen's mind was still very clear, so he said "Joshua" immediately, and that's his name. ( I didn't get the chance to chip in my preference at that time, but I like this name now.)

6 Year Ago....

We didn't want the 2nd baby at first because Ha was not an easy baby at all...he didn't like to eat, didn't like milk, didn't like to sleep but liked to cry and was very energitic. However, on the date of his one-year-old birthday, he started sleeping overnight, and after he started walking when he's 14 months old, he started eating better. Our life was much easier, so we thought about having a second child, and very soon, we had the good news again.

1/31/04, we had Ha's 2nd birthday party at my parents' house because he would be two years old in few days. Hee's due date was 2/11, so actually, I hadn't really started prepared for baby items.

On Monday, 2/2, I somehow had a feeling to get things ready, so I washed all the bottles, took out the breast pump, and cleaned the kitchen.

On 2/3, we made an appointment for Ha to get his 2nd year checkup, and in the same hospital, I had a routine pregnancy check up. When I saw the doctor, she said that mine had opened 5 cm, and I needed to go to labor and delivery as soon as possible. Wow, what a surprise, I didn't even feel a thing! We rushed to send Ha home and called my parents to be with him and then rushed back to the hospital (Real Camino Hospital). After we checked in with the L&D, I was still a happy lady, laughing and joking and without any pain. We waited and waited but nothing happened, so the nurse sent us for a walking. We walked for almost an hour, and finally, I felt it coming. Unlike giving birth to Ha, this time, I didn't bring CD and CD player because we were rushing out, so what could I do with the pain? I read Psalm 23 in my heart many times, and it helped a lot. In 30 minutes, 4:01pm, Hee was here in the world.

Ha在浴室唱歌

在浴室唱歌不是大人的專利：
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wM0fPiURBo

Haha, Heehee Birthday Party

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, Haha, Heehee, Happy birthday to you!

This week, Ha turns to 8, and Hee turns to 6, so we had a family gathering to celebrate their birthday on 1/30/10. We ordered Tres Leches cake from Safeway because my dad had it before, and he said that it's very special. It's not too sweet and tasted like rice pudding, but I still felt that Chinese cake is better than that. Hee chose a pie from Marie Callender's, and it was good, too.

We had a lot to eat!

They had a lot of gifts!

Drawing and kisses!

Today, I brought some goodie bags to Hee's class (I will bring some to Ha's class tomorrow as well), and kids celebrated Hee's birthday for him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5JaAPifqsI

Hee was waiting at the door to pass out the goodie bags.

Today is Tuesday

This morning, after dropping Hee at school and jogging at YMCA for 30 minutes, I went back home to work, and I remembered to go & pick up Hee at 12:25pm. However, when I went into his classroom, his afternoon classmates were all eating lunch, and he was the only morning kid there.........I forgot, today is Tuesday, and they were supposed to be dismissed at 12:10pm!!!!!

In the afternoon, I was working and playing with Hee, and I asked Hee to get ready because we were going to pick up Ha. The phone rang, no one was there. I said Hello for few times, but no one talked to me. I was patient and said: "This is Yi, whom am I talking to?" Finally, that person talked. He said: "Joshua Huang". what?Joshua?, and I asked: "what happened to you?" Before he answered, I knew what happened. It's Tuesday, they were dismissed at 2:30pm, not 3:05pm, and the time was...2:50pm...!!!!!I rushed to school to pick him up.

In the car, I mentioned that according to the weather forecast, today should be a sunny day, how come it's still raining? Ha said slowly: "The forecast said that Tuesday will have shower, and Wed will be a sunny day". Yes, today is Tuesday, not Wed..

Ha asked me: " you usually go to supermarket on Tuesday, if you forgot that today is Tuesday, did you go?" Well, no, I didn't go, and this may be the reason that I forgot that today is Tuesday.

California Capital

The day after our "snow day", before we went back Bay Area, we decided to have a California capital trip because our state capital Sacramento is not far from my parents' house.

In the picture, it is Governor Arnold's office. The guard was very nice, so we asked him if we could go in and visit. He said yes, and we went in and took few of Arnold's business cards. His secretary was chating with another person, and our coming didn't seem to bother them at all. I guessed that they were very used to it.
Even though we saw Arnold's family photos on the wall, I didn't believe that what we saw was really Arnold's office. It was so small, about the same size as my office at home. It might be his secretary's office, and his office should be behind the wooden wall where we couldn't get in.

There's a free tour, but it would take 45 minutes. Since we only paid for one hour parking, we went on our own. It's a short trip, but it's fun!

Snow Trip: 12/29/09

We went back from Elk Grove to Bay Area on 12/27(Sunday) morning because we needed to go to church on Sunday afternoon, and all of us had annual eye exams on Monday afternoon. It was raining on both Sunday and Monday, and there's a good chance that it would be snowing in Tahoe , too. Stephen had taken a week off  between Christmas and New Year, and we were thinking about the possibility of going for a snow trip during these days; therefore, Monday afternoon, after we came back from the eye exam ( by the way, all of us had good results), Stephen and Ha started studying for the weather patterns closed to the Tahoe area. The only day and time without the snow was Tuesday morning ( the best time to play with the snow is the day when the snow fell on the day before and didn't have too much snow falling when we played). We are a very flexible family, so I cooked a fast dinner, packed all the heavy clothes, packed some food for the following days. After dinner, we were on our way to Elk Grove again.

Our plan was that we slept in my parents' house on Monday night and woke up early on Tuesday morning to the Sno-Park because we wanted to play before the snow started on Tuesday afternoon.

Here are some video clips:
We woke up at around 7:30, had breakfast, and left the house around 8:30am. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V15A8PzAuX8

We had been driving for an hour, still no snow. Good highway, smooth traffic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxE71L9wmR0

Ten minutes driving distance away from our destination; however, only very little snow could be seen. We were a little worried. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhzKlk_XJAs

We were almost there; finally, we saw some snow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMO2kH71KF4

We were in the Yuba Gap Sno-Park (for more information about Sno-Park, go to http://ohv.parks.ca.gov/?page_ID=1233) Let's play! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrFI7tufMlk

After some sliding, we worked on the snow projects. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwpsmvoRdX8 雪又綿又細，實在好好摸。

Then, we all worked together for the igloo. It's a big project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MM-OIZ3wE

We had sandwiches, juice, crackers, fruit....for lunch, and after lunch, we headed home because we didn't want to get stuck in the traffic when it snowed in the afternoon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HgFCrCgb2U

It's a really fun snow trip!!!!!!

Christmas Gathering

This year, we had 2 Christmas gatherings: one was on the Christmas Eve, and the other one was on the Christmas Day.

On the Christmas Eve, we had a hotpot gathering at friends' house, The food was good, and kids were so happy playing together. They even swept on the cold winter night. Adults were playing a board game after dinner. I never really knew the "real name" of the game, and it's about planting the beans. It's a fun game, and I loved it. It's great to spend time with friends.

On the Christmas Day, we had a gathering at my sister's house. She and my mom did all the cookings, and we had another big tummy night. This year, Jennifer designed a program before we played the White Elephant. Everybody needed to say something that he or she was thankful and say something that other people could pray for him/her. Whenever people said that they were thankful for the spouse, we asked them to kiss each other, here they are:

After the gathering, we went to see the decoration at one of their neighbor's house. It was soooooo beautiful!

新年暴笑賀歲片：真愛聖誕鞋山寨版

12/31晚上哥嫂來吃飯，飯後哈嘻預備了跨年音樂會（ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCTfr7-9AyM )

之後，我去切水果，忽然聽到他們叫我出來幫忙演戲，因為演員不夠。我才發現原來我們要演的是“真愛聖誕鞋”。哈哈是導演，我們完全聽命行事。他們預備的道具真的是very funny!



請慢慢欣賞：



嘻嘻（樂樂）去買鞋：http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba2eASJ7Mx0

嘻嘻送鞋給媽媽：　http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9Y9vQDg0fQ

陳輝回家：　http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTJkZqM7UxI

陳輝家開禮物：　http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLJ4joqYalk

陳輝太太找到戒指：　http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbrfb3lFR_Q

Mr.　Grinch:　http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk2dBqGDrBA



沒看過正版的可能不清楚我們在幹什麼，因為掐頭去尾，又省略中間；不過看過正版的，應該能會心一笑。