A happy mother’s day…

Mother’s Day has never been so busy! Up and early this morning, the boys had their 5th game. Unfortunately, I had to miss it because I was busy preparing for the mother’s day picnic in the afternoon. I heard they did great (though nobody was counting the scores, the boys agreed that their team won!).

After the game, our family gathered to have a small picnic at a local playground. It was a great playground since there was a play structure for the little ones and a good sized basektball and tennis for the older kids. For lunch, one of the sisters grabbed some vietnamese sandwiches while another cooked bbq pork noodles for the younger ones. When everyone was full, there was friendly competition between the younger and older generations. Though the older ones had the height advantage, we weren’t as agile. The younger ones were very competitive as they were in to win the game. They had great passes and was quick to steal the ball. When more people showed up, we had a battle of the sexes! Of course, it was a tight game since this time we played the full court! It was a lot of running, sweating and yelling. At the end, we all had a fun and memorable time.

When the game ended, we headed to a nearby bowling alley. The little ones had their own lane while we bowled without breaking any bones. Luckily we only got the lanes for one hour. It was time for dinner! One of the BILs made my mother’s favorite meal – vietnamese style curry duck. It was absolutely delicious to the bones! What a great way to end mother’s day!

Hope everyone got their day off today because we are so entitled to. Just worry about the aftermath tomorrow!

“Today I am thankful for another memorable day…”

A list of simple things…#894

The little things we should appreciate in life…

A moment – “Composing”

Inspired by Soule Mama:

A Friday ritual.

A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember - {this moment}.

A week of Teacher appreciation…

Being the room parent for Ah Lo’s class, I coordinated little gifts for our teacher for the teacher appreciation  throughout this week.

Day 1 – have each student bring a flower (bought or from home’s garden). I wrapped my glass vase (from $1 store) with pencils. Used rubber band to hold it in place and hide it with a thick ribbon.  His teacher was delighted to see the beautiful bouquet of flowers which she displayed in her classroom all week long.

Day 2 – have each student bring a fruit. We had mostly apples, along with oranges, bananas, grapefruit, mango, and one even brought a lemon! Again, teacher was very pleased with the gesture and shared her fruits with the class.

Day 3 – Since we have exactly 22 student in the class, I thought of a phrase “We Love Our Teacher Ms. Chue” which had exactly 22 alphabet letters. I gave each kid a letter (and instructions) to bring home (last week). The idea was to have each kid write a word that best describes our teacher. I glued everything together and brought it to school for the teacher (received 20 letters out of 22 – not too bad). I had a few kids presented the banner to her and she was completely and utterly surprised. She was amazed with the wonderful work the kids did! I took a picture of it (I had to take 3 pictures and paste it together because it was a long banner.

Day 4 – Many parents chipped in cash for the teacher appreciation gift. With that money, I spent $50 to get our teacher some basic school supplies: crayons, push pins, glue sticks, dry-erase markers, paper clips, white out, hand santizers, DVD-R’s, and a ream of white paper. I also got her a $25 gift card from Staples if she needs anything else. I put all these things together and included small thank-you cards (pre-cut) the children wrote. I heard from Ah Lo that his teacher read the cards out loud in front of the class that morning.

We are very lucky to have such an amazing teacher for our kids! She deserves every bit of it!

 ”Today I am thankful for all the support from the parents…”

A baseball game…

Game 3. This was the same team we played with on our first game. It was amazing to see how much the other team has improved. I always thought baseball is pretty boring sport to watch, until now, when we’re a part of it. Keep up the great work, boys!

“Today I am thankful for dim sum…”

A year older…

Pretty much celebrated Dai Bee’s birthday like the same we did with Ah Lo. Invited some of Dai Bee’s friends over, had pizza and then watched movie: Jackie Chan’s The Spy Next Door. Half of the kids have already seen it! But of course, they all came for the popcorn!

After sending out an e-mail to his friends’ parents, I also made a hard copy of the invitation: movie ticket. Of course I asked Dai Bee to pass them out discretely since not everyone in his class was invited. With an innocent slip, a 10-kid party came out with 15 kids! Party started at 6pm. After pizza, the night was not dark enough to show the movie. When you have 15 10-year olds, you better be prepared.  Luckily I kept them still by playing the card game – Murderer. Surprisingly, most of the kids were very into the game. They all fought to come up with of a story on how and why the murder happened.

For treats, I gave each a bag of popcorn to take home (with the clapper board stuck in the front of the bag). By 9pm, the parents started to show up to pick up their kids. Whew, it was a long night, but glad to have that 2 hours of silence in between when the movie was showing.

I didn’t bake or buy a birthday cake for Dai Bee this year. Everyone was super happy with small of ice cream (chocolate or strawberry-flavored)! Let’s just say, a year older, and a year wiser for my little man.

“Today I am thankful for Dai Bee had an awesome day…”

一位人兄。。。

一本正經，

兩子之首,

三思而行。

四人同心，

五彩繽紛。

六藝七技，

八斗之才，

九煉成鋼。

My son. My pride. My love.

An edible concert…

More musical bentos for this week. I attempted to make a bunch of ongiris playing music – like a concert, but didn’t succeed. Oh wells, I ran out of time, at least I got a “wow” from the boys this morning when they saw it.

“Today I am thankful for being able to bike to school all week long…”

A trip to the State Capitol…

We picked one of the hottest day for our field trip to the State Capitol – whew! This was an all day trip, we chartered a bus for the whole day bussing us from the State Capitol to the Old Sacramento, where we ended up with a treat (ice cream) from our sweet teacher.

We had our tour guide who took us around the Capitol Building, stopping at the Senate Chamber and the Assembly Chamber (which was also known ad the House of the Commons). We walked under the rotunda and got a chance to view the historic Governor’s office suites. It was a great civics experience for the students and me!

After lunch (outside of the Capitol building – thank goodness we found shade), we hopped onto the bus where it took us to the hisotric park – Sutter’s Fort. The class was broken up into smaller groups and each was given a list of questions to answer about the history of the fort. We were baking under the sun at that point since the Fort was an open area. I lead 4 and walked around the park, looking at the tools used during the gold rush days, old guns and cannons. We cooled off at the orientation and exhibit rooms. There were volunteers (dressed in costumes that takes us back in time) who were very knowledgeable and helpful to provide us with answers to some of the questions about the history of Sutter’s Fort. Besides the scorching heat, overall, it was an educational and informative lesson for the students to take outside of the classroom.

Next we walked across the street to the State Indian Museum . The museum isn’t very big with not much to it. There are mainly visual display of artifacts, relics, traditional clothing, basket weavings, and tools once used. We found the world’s tiniest woven basket there! No photographs were allowed. It was another fantastic way to learn about the history of Native Americans.

Our last stop was Old Sacramento. We had a stroll in the old part of town through old buildings, train museums and boats. We didn’t stop since everyone was dying to get their hands on a scoop of ice cream.

On the bus back to school, I thought to myself, “wow, what a great trip! Anyone who thinks the public education isn’t fabulous, is mistaken.”

“Today I am thankful for being to enjoy this educational trip with my son…”

A musical bento…

These few weeks music just filled our ears. So I made these bentos for the boys for lunch. Not knowing anything about music, hope these notes make sense to them.

“Today I am thankful for the hiking trails…”