Is it really March already? Seems so recent that I was sitting down writing whatever was on my mind, no spelling/grammar checking of any kind just so I could catch up on the events that happened in our lives. Dan is always of the opinion that when it comes to writing, you need to leave room for people to ask you questions about your events when they see you. Simplicity, don't we all need it in this day and age. I for one, fill up my life almost to the seconds. I teach voice lessons, preschool, music to children and their parents at the community center, raising 3 kids, taking them to violin lessons and ice skating lessons, cook and clean my house to a spotless white (literally), translate documents from English to Vietnamese, or Vietnamese to English, sing in a choir, auditions, being an Activity Days for Girls leader, taking a class for financial advising, searching for Real Estate deals while managing 2 rentals, and on top of this all, writing a book, Legacy of Love. Ok there is no need to stretch it out in further details. I do take time out to watch movies with my husband...when he's not working on his robotics stuff. Don't get me started on ranting about how expensive that stuff is. Thousands of dollars spent on it. Hopefully a cool DRONE will bring me flowers some day, or maybe it will paint for me. I made Dan make me some chicken wire frames for my Jewelry business I started 2 years ago and he just barely got it done. Every day I walk past the park in front of our house and I see all these cool dads with their sons and daughters flying helicopters, drones, racing robotic cars, and I say, yep some day soon Dan will be out here doing the same thing. I do enjoy a few crafts here and there and baking is a passion and have completed Ronin's puppy blanket and made a 3 layer cake for the Hawks Superbowl game though. Breathe!! Just breathe!!! Yes that is my favorite song to play on the guitar nowadays.
Ok what am I doing up? It's 11:30. I'm tired of writing (don't expect novel quality from these blog posts). When you read my book, you won't believe I have potential for writing but yes when you went to school for psychology, you write a lot of papers. Heading to bed. Will resume tomorrow. Yes, sleep. What's that?
Alright December. We left off with our family's fun trip to The Great Wolf Lodge. What a wonderful indoor water park that was. So totally worth the money. December was so much fun. Our 1st counselor in the bishopric approached me a few weeks prior to the Christmas party and said "Thuan, I saw all the pics of your parties, we want you to be in the party committee to plan our ward's Christmas party". So I was assigned and got to work. I worked on the decorations and crafts activities for the kids as well as emceeing the event. Many hands helped with the food and entertainment and it turned out to be a wonderful event. Our Christmas tree made for a beautiful centerpiece and I used it to decorate the stage for Santa pictures.
Our building was being used for the Nativity, every single room was decorated including the hallways, so we had to have church and our party at a smaller older church building in the historic part of Issaquah. The space was small but we managed to fit everyone in.
The kids were happy we didn't leave our Christmas tree there at the church. They were a bit concerned. This year the baby gate had to be put up to protect the tree from a certain curious little monkey. He was too fast.
We did the usual, shopping, wrapping gifts, hanging out with friends and neighbors. The last day of school the kids had a pj day and we discovered that our neighbors across the street also shop at Justice just for girls. Twins!!
Our family performed Away in a Manger this time.
Reena and Debrie sang first and then Dan and I came in. My girls are
blessed with a beautiful voice. Thank goodness. I'm trying to teach
them to expand their range. The thing that most people find impressive
when I auditioned is my range. I can sing as low as a Tenor and as high
as an opera singer. I've done Alto II and Sop I at Women's chorus.
Reena and Debrie will occasionally watch when I teach music but they
don't participate and I wish they would. Although I think they do pick
up a few things.
And Christmas break came and there was no snow. We didn't have a white Christmas. It was very sunny.
My brother Mike came right after his last final. We enjoyed
our week with him. The girls jumped on him, teased him, loved him. Not
a waking moment was spared when they didn't surround him asking him
questions of life.We did a lot of holiday prepping and baking.
Then
after a week, Christmas Eve day came and my sister Thanh and brother in
law Alex came. They waited at the airport, an hour to be exact, for me
to pick them up. I tried coming up with excuses but
it was nonetheless my fault. The flight came in 35 minutes early and
our car was in the shop getting a rear entertainment system installed.
We knew the drive would be long to California and the tablet on every
seat ordeal was getting out of hand. We gave away a tablet when we were
in Vietnam and there is usually too much time spent on the tablet and
not enough time away, observing the beautiful scenery of nature. So I
wanted something where I have a bit more parental control over the
matter. With that determination Dan and I gifted ourselves an early
Christmas present and a nice entertainment system was installed. I got
the car done, excited and couldn't wait to show the kids the new toy. I
didn't bother looking at my phone to see the missed calls/text messages
from my sister saying her flight arrived a half an hour early.
Unfortunately I had already made up my mind to go home and grab the kids
for the ride to the airport. When I got home, nothing was done. Teeth
were not brushed, kids were still in their pj's, some did not finish
their breakfast and it was 11:00 in the morning. I guess Uncle Mike was
a little permissive in his babysitting. Anyhow by the time I got
things checked off for each kids, I looked at my phone and that was when
I saw the many messages on my phone. I'd like to say that I've learned
my lesson because a similar experience has happened to me, but I didn't
and still haven't. I did the same thing to my mother who recently came
to visit me. Guess I need to check on my phone more often.
We hung out, made food, ate, made food, ate again. We Vietnamese are
like hobbits. We have breakfast, second breakfast, brunch, lunch,
dinner, supper, midnight snacks. We just keep eating for as long as
there are food sitting out. We did this for 3 days and watched many movies and tv shows together. My siblings got me hooked on a show called "Once Upon a Time". I even signed up for Netflix so I could keep watching it. I hate to admit that it took up most of my time in January as well as February. I binged on it and now I have to wait for the 4th Season to be out. We almost felt so pleased with our staycation in Seattle that the idea of driving 17 hours to Southern Cali did not seem as thrilling anymore. However we stuck with our plan. We ate our final meal in Seattle and piled in the van at 9:00 pm and Dan and Alex took turns driving into the night. I woke up about every hour or so checking up on the driver. The kids slept soundly. We arrived in San Francisco tired and restless at 10:00 AM. We did some sight seeing, drove and walked up Lombard st. The kids had to use the potty, we ran into a Mormon family and they let us use their restroom. I love San Fran. Their houses are so unique and their streets are so romantically hilly. I fell in love. It certainly brought back memories of when the Nguyens first set foot in America and settled in San Jose in 1995
We played at the pier, got some foot massages, ate at the famous Boudine Bakery and Cafe, got some gifts and went on our way after some touring. We arrived near Anaheim late as well and as the kids saw the famous California Adventure ferris wheel, they could hardly sleep that night. We crashed at Cady's house, friend of my sister Thanh and I. They had 3 bedrooms for us and it was a decent stay. The weather couldn't have been better.
We walked the Disney downtown area since we decided that this would be a Universal Studios trip and not a Disneyland trip.
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS!!!
Thanh and Alex weren't sure about their flight situation. They thought they were ok to leave early to get back to Utah, until they realized how much fun it was to be there in Cali. Thanh was very hesitant to leave. Dan drove them to the airport early in the morning and came home only to get a call from them saying their flight had been canceled due to poor weather in Utah. So, we came back and picked them up to join us at Universal Studios. I was stoked. We gifted them all a pass to get inside Universal studios to have fun with us. We had an amazing time there and learned that standing in line for 70 minutes to get on the mummy ride was not cool. Then my smart brain reminded me that hey, we have a baby, let's be smart and use the baby swap system. Normally it would work for the mom and dad, but when you're a people person and you've got a way to talk to people, they'll give you an extra 2 or 3 passes and you could get the whole family in through. I simply asked for more. Everyone did take turns to watch Ro though so we did not cheat the system, we simply just had a psychologist who knows how to talk to people. But really it was Ronin who saved us so much time. After that 70 minute wait, we did not have to wait much at all, 5 minutes maybe for all the other rides. That's when it got fun!
Whoville
Those escalators were the longest I have ever seen. That in itself was a ride
Universal Studios California was fun but no where near comparable to Universal Studios Florida
Ronin loved this ride. He probably could've gone on a few more times.
After we got done with Universal Studios, we drove about 35 minutes to visit some friends we knew that used to be our neighbors. Chris and Dan are best buddies and they have done a lot of things together. Dan was heartbroken when Chris moved so we just had to see them. Chris and Nanette, his wife, made us all a chili dinner with hotdogs and fruits and veggies. They were so kind to have us over. We hung out 'til way after midnight and didn't get back to Cady's house 'til after 1 AM.
We wrapped up our vacay in Cali with a visit to the Vietnamese LDS branch. We chose the right week to be there as there was a farewell and there was a lot of food. The couple whose farewell it was for spoke and mentioned that it was their third mission. This time they are headed to Saigon, Vietnam mission. I felt so happy hearing the talks in Vietnamese. The spirit was strong in that meeting.
We headed over to Dan's brother Jeff's house for a New Year Party. It was a crazy mad house but we all had fun, maybe all but Jeff who was sick. We stayed up late to watch the fireworks on their TV and we let the girls have fun until about 10:00 AM when we headed back over to Dan's parents' house
When we were in California, I just thought how fun it would be to surprise Dan's parents so I convinced him to add a few hours to the trip and make more memories. They seemed to love all the other times that Dan and his siblings surprised them with a visit. With us being this far north it would be an even bigger surprise. Turns out we were surprised too as Dan's sister's family, the Applegates and his grandma and grandpa were there also. Dan's parents house was packed. We just sat around and talked and talked and I sneaked in every so often and tried to join one of the many conversations. I had a goal to catch up on my blogs by December 3st and...I did it
With every single clothing item worn and many memories set, we set off on our journey home. We didn't even stop by our rental home but did make a stop in Salt Lake. There we met my brother's girlfriend and had more great yummy food. My sister made us a delicious hot pot meal when we found out that we couldn't use our Melting Pot giftcard we bought in Seattle for SLC. My sister along with her husband, my brother Mike and his girlfriend decided we needed to have a date before heading out with the kids so they volunteered to watch all 3 kids for us and we went on a date. What a great time we had with each other. It made the drive home doable the next day.
And now after 2 weeks of working on this blog post a little here and there, I now conclude it :)
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