Goats, Chickens, Ponies, Oh My...

Goats, chickens, ponies, Oh My.... And puppies too!

It was quite the Animal Planet weekend for the Hamiltons. It all started Saturday with a trip to Gilroy Gardens. Their seasonal attraction this month was Country Fair featuring country music, BBQ lunch buffet and of course, a petting zoo with pony rides. Oh we must let Mekayla ride a pony. She would love to do that. She'd been on the carousel horse at Gilroy Gardens before and it was ever so cute when she started saying "Yee haw" before the ride started.

So we get there, and we fish out $5 for the petting zoo and $10 for the pony ride. Yes, $10 for a 5 minute pony ride plus photo op with your own camera. They say that the money goes to caring for the animals and they did look healthy (the goats most of all) so, okay. The petting zoo had tons of goats, chickens, ducks, a pig, a goose and some bunnies. She had a blast but man those goats really do eat anything... Goat food, duck food, chicken food, they really don't care. A few of them were a little too interested in checking out to see if Nadia was edible (she was in my Moby wrap) and I saw one of them trying to nibble on some kid's sweater. Fortunately, we escaped unscathed.

Then on Sunday, as we were getting ready for yet another Ikea trip (for on-going home organizational stuff), Carter walks in with a little Chihuahua puppy in his arms. Now for those of you who know us well, you know we are not fans of those little ratty, yappy things. But I must say, most puppy anything is cute and this little guy was no exception. Norbert is freaking out, Mekayla is all excited "Wooo puppy!" and I'm going "Where did you get this guy from?" (slightly concerned). Turns out a mommy Chihuahua was walking around the neighborhood with her troop of 3 puppies and this one just scampered into our garage to say Hi! So, Carter picked him up and brought him in to see Mekayla (mommy Chihuahua was quite worried). They looked hungry so we led them to a corner of our front yard, gave them some kibble and let Mekayla make friends while we got ready to leave. It was quite the highlight of her day. I must add to the mommy Chihuahua's credit, she is the nicest, most mellow one of that breed I had ever met (and that is rare). Most of them are nasty little noisy ankle chompers. But she was sweet and nothing fazed her including Carter carrying off her puppy and Mekayla playing and messing around with them.

Well, without further ado, here are some pictures:

Yee haw!

They have the biggest bunnies I've ever seen.

Gotta have a cute shot of Nadia.

Puppies!!!

Mooncakes and Lanterns

My mooncakes are here!!! Airflown from Malaysia.... Yummm. I opened my front door today and saw the big box of stuff from my mom including mooncakes sitting on the doorstep. Thanks mom!!! I know what I'm having for dessert tonight. I love mooncakes and perhaps the fact that you can only get them once a year makes them all the more special. BTW no, they are not the same as moonpies. So here's yummy foodie pictures of my mooncakes:

One of the boxes came with the cutest mooncake knife ever so I thought I'd show it here.

Mekayla's comments: "More cake. More cake. Yummy cake."

I remember as a kid, we'd celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival and you always knew it was coming because there would be mooncakes in the stores and lanterns for sale. I used to think the best part were the lanterns (us kids would call it the Lantern Festival - what did we know?) but now it's the mooncakes. The lanterns would be made in various animal shapes. For some reason, I always wanted a nice big dragon (pre-Christian days of course). A pretty goldfish was also nice. They would be made of a wire frame wrapped with cellophane of various colors for the different body parts and detailed with paint (i.e. a goldfish would be made of orange cellophane and the scales, eyes and mouth would be painted on). In the center of the lantern would be a little candle holder where you could place a lit birthday candle. The top of the lantern would be attached to a wooden or bamboo stick by string.

So, on the night of the festival, dressed in our PJs (don't ask me why - I guess coz it was at night and late?), we would get our lanterns, have our parents carefully insert and light the candle, and carry it around the yard/neighborhood with the other kids. We'd compare lanterns and be really happy until..... your lantern burst into flames... Yes, people, our lanterns would sometimes burst into flames. You see, the cellophane used to make the lanterns is highly flammable. And the lanterns are not very sturdy. So, it was highly probably for the lantern to tip (as it bobbed around at the end of the stick) or the candle to fall over (if not probably inserted) resulting in this big lantern fireball that would completely freak any kid out, sending them into fits of traumatic screams and tears. These lanterns did not win any safety awards and would certainly never be allowed in the U.S. today.

If your lantern was spared so far, you'd feel sorry for the victim, console them briefly, go call a parent to deal with the fire and tears, then continue having fun with your lantern and the other kids, thankful that it did not happen to you... Yet... If you had the misfortune of having your lantern blow up in your face, then your lantern days were pretty much over till next year. You'd go home crying, feeling sorry for yourself and your pretty lantern that was. On the brighter side, there was always mooncake to eat when you got home.

As I got older, they came out with plastic battery-operated lanterns. But they never were the same as their hazardous, combustible counterparts. Even if they did last longer, they didn't come in as many pretty colors or shapes. So, no fun there.

I look back on this with fond memories (even though I've had a few combust on me in my days) and I hope that someday my girls get to experience this part of their culture. However, I must say that now, as a parent, the thought of a lantern igniting in their hands sends shivers down my spine. Perhaps I'll get Po Po (grandma) to send a couple of those battery-operated ones over.

Daniel San... Paint the Fence

Today was paint the fence day... Well, more like stain the fence day. For those of you who don't know, we recently got a new fence. To commemorate this momenteous occasion, we decided to stain it. It helps keep its nice color and helps the wood stay good longer, blah blah... Finally, after months of deciding on what type of stain, water or oil-based, what color, Cedar or Transparent Redwood, we finally made a choice and today was the day. Basically, it was a LOT of work.... Let me re-emphasize a LOT. The close to 100 degree weather did not help either but we were able to get 2 sides of the fence done. Flashes of Karate Kid dialogue flashed through my mind... "Daniel San... Paint the fence... Up down. No left right."

We got help from the older 2 Clark boys, Rayden and Matthew who did a wonderful job. I'm sure the $10/hr per person we promised them and a free lunch helped provide motivation. By the time we were done, all 4 of us were "painted" in stain and sweat. Here's snippets from the conversation that transpired as I was driving the boys home:

"I'm going to throw this t-shirt away."

and

"I don't think I'm going out anymore today. I think I'm just going to go home and sit on the sofa all day."

And I totally believed them.

Here's some pictures I took of the guys working:

After we were showered and clean, because we felt we weren't tortured enough, Carter and I decided to take Mekayla to The Jungle Island to let her expend some of her pent up energy from being cooped up alone in the house all day watching Playhouse Disney and Noggin. She had a great time but the whole time we were there, the only thing that went through my mind was "Germs!!! Germs!!!" It didn't help that we found cat poop in the outdoor sand pit that she was playing in. ARRGGHHH!!!! And the staff was like, "Oh where is it? Okay thanks." Picks up poop with a dustpan and tosses it in the nearby trash. Whatever... It's just cat poop

That brings me to my next point. Why do we do things like this? We spend hundreds of dollars on a sandbox and nice clean pretty safe sand for Mekayla to play with and what do we do? We go to The Jungle Island so she can play with sand there. Not just any sand. Icky, rough sand with cat poop in it. It's craziness. Oh but she had so much fun.

Well, here's some pictures of Mekayla playing at The Jungle Island:

Here's the grand finale, a brief, not very clear video of Nadia that I took while Mekayla played:

Busy Busy Day

Phew. Today has been a busy, busy day... First was sewing class till 1ish. Then I came home, fed the baby, had lunch, went to the car wash, Costco, returned an item at Carter's, came home, fed the baby, put the groceries away, prepped some stuff for lunch tomorrow, stained Mekayla's new table from Ikea, finished prepping tomorrow's lunch, finish staining the table (1st coat). Somewhere in there, Mekayla peed all over the floor and sofa, there were 2 poopy diapers from Nadia and I have yet to get a chance to wash her poopy explosion off her PJs from this morning. I am stealing a few minutes to write this then we have to put the kids to bed, eat dinner and hopefully then, sit down and chill... Phew. Thinking about it makes me tired all over again.

I learned a lot from sewing class this morning which isn't hard since I pretty much know almost zero about sewing and my sewing machine. I did piece a quilt together once when I first got the machine but there were a lot of oppses involved. I felt like such a noob (a.k.a. noobie, newbie, someone who's totally new and clueless). Just the littliest things impressed the heck out of me. One lady there had this monstrous computerized quilting sewing machine. It could sew stitches up, down, left, right, diagonal, upside-down - pretty much any way you wanted. Everything was push button and it had this giant touch screen display with a stylus!!! It could very well cook and make coffee too!

In case you couldn't tell from "Mekayla peed all over the floor and sofa", potty training is not going so well right now. I'm getting bad flashbacks from when we toilet-trained the dog. We might need to re-evaluate our strategy.

Ugh. I hear Carter getting the girl's baths ready. Here we go...

Yesterday's Fire

So, yesterday was a rather eventful day in our little pocket of the world. The girls and I had gotten home from Gymboree and lunch with daddy and were taking a nap. Yes, that's right a nap. A wonderful hour I savored the rest of that day.... However, my glorious slumber was rudely awaken by the sounds of a helicopter flying so low over the house that the entire structure shook. It seemed low enough to try to land in my backyard. I tried ignoring it hoping and praying that the girls would continue sleeping. Then came the sirens. And then more helicopters trying to land on my house!

Okay now I'm freaking out. There's something going on nearby and helicopters could mean 1. There's something news worthy happening (but I didn't think news helicopters were allowed to fly so low). 2. They are looking for a fugitive in which case I better wake the heck up. 3. It's an insanely hot day (in the 100s perhaps?) and there could be a fire nearby in which case I better wake the heck up. So I bounce off the sofa, and look out the front living room window. Nothing but clear blue skies. I look out the back dining room window. Ack!!! Plumes and plumes of smoke really nearby. So I run upstairs to the master bedroom, open the window and look! There's one of those helicopters with the big baskets dumping hundreds of gallons of water over all that smoke! This is both wonderfully exciting and terrifying at the same time. So, what do I do, I run downstairs to grab the camera. This is too cool!

At some point, Mekayla wakes up. So, there we are, Mekayla, Norbert and me both looking out the window at the smoke and the helicopter (which she calls a plane). I take pictures of the helicopter, Mekayla watching the helicopter, Norbert watching the helicopter and getting all growly and Busy Bill going to check out the fire behind that one neighbor's house. It's cute but everytime the helicopter flies off, Mekayla will say, "Bye bye plane! Bye bye plane!" BTW, Busy Bill is a guy that lives somewhere behind us. He likes to know what's going on in the neighborhood and goes around checking things out. The house you see in the 2nd picture is pretty much right in front of his. Anyways, here are some pictures. BTW, if you notice specks on the pictures, it's from my rather dirty windows. Please try to ignore them...



I'm not sure if you can tell but this fire is really close by. It is just round the corner from my house. Carter walked by when he got home to see what the deal was. Turns out there was a brush fire (there's a big empty grass lot behind those homes) and the brush fire spread to 2 of the homes there. (sad) The police guy said at that time that they were investigating the fire and they think it's arson. Yikes. I wonder about my neighborhood sometimes.

Anyways, closer to the home front. I'm taking my 1st sewing class tomorrow... Yes, Carter bought me a sewing machine for my birthday in 2007 and I'm finally taking my sewing class. MJ's latest cute word is "Awesome". We had dinner at Black Angus last night and when the giant appetizer platter arrived, she said, "Wow.... Awesome." So very adorable. Nadia is smiling buckets and has even laughed a few times at some of the whacky things we do for her. She's probably thinking my parents are nuts! She used to do this cute thing where everytime she saw you she'd smile and coo and coo and this would go on and on for minutes. She's just stopped doing that which has totally broken my heart. (sob) Now she coos at the fan and fish in her swing... ??


Also, we are starting potty training tomorrow. Are we prepared? I don't know... We bought 2 potties. Does that count? 1 to keep at home and 1 travel potty. A lot of good stories should come out of this one. I don't know why but the thought of it just terrifies me. All I can say is God bless us... Everyone.

Hello World

Hello blog world. And so begins my foray into blogging... So why blog? I don't know really. The concept was introduced to me several years ago by my then boss when I expressed an interest in writing. Blogging was a relatively new thing then and I was kind of "Hmmm I don't know." Then a friend of mine started blogging and I was still like "Hmm. Yeah okay... Cool. Whatever. Not really for me." Finally, I guess I had 2 kids, my hormones got all messed up, I felt like I was constantly talking to myself (whoever says that 2 year olds listen to you has never actually tried having a full and decent conversation with one) and decided that I needed a (venting?) outlet (beyond my poor husband).

Also, it appears I'm in a new "artsy" phase in my life now (or so it seems). Something that has until now laid dormant under a thick, dusty layer of techno geeky engineering stuff. You see, I am an engineer by training. However I soon realized that it really wasn't quite for me. I understand the stuff and seem to do well it in but never really shared the same passion for it other engineers seem to have. So now, I'm diving into this whole other world that I've only waded in before. In a way, it's rather like the USS Enterprise on Star Trek... "To boldly go where no one has gone before."

I love that this would be a great way for me to share cool, fun things about the 4 Hamiltons with our general family without indirectly contributing to the college and retirement fund of everyone at the phone company.

So with that, I begin my blogging journey with 2 momentous words any student of programming would know:

Hello World.