Thursday, August 16, 2007

First Day of School




"Why do I have to go and Nathan gets to stay home?" Monday, 8/13 was Kalista's first day of school. Of course she was not a happy camper. Glenn & I both went and video taped most of the day. She's in the afternoon class because we are all night owls and can't wake up in the morning. I was a little worried that she would be screaming in the room when we got there. We lined up with the other 17 kids. Being the big little girl that we trained her to be, she obeyed "the first time" and stomped in line with the other kids into class. She was the only one that didn't respond to her name when called and she didn't answer politely, "Good afternoon, Mr. Turner." We did find out that after a good story about the first day of school called the Kissing Hand, Kalista likes to do the art projects. We always knew she liked arts and crafts and drawing and coloring. You can see some of her handiwork on our walls. By the end of the day, she did end up getting a "green card" which means you had a good day. If you got a "red one" your mommy & daddy probably needed to attend Kindergarten with you that day. No one got a red card and all the parents were there anyways for the first two hours. I have to give credit to the incredible teacher that she has named Mr. Turner. He is like the Pied Piper of Kindergarteners. He knows how to mesmerize them into order with a kind and firm heart. He gave all of them a copy of the book and I ended up reading it with Kalista 3 times when we got home. She was so excited about the next day that she couldn't sleep. Daddy had to read it to her too. I think she finally conked out at 1 am. Tonight, I am the night bird and Kalista fell asleep early. Boy, Kindergarten is a lot of work!

Mount Hermon Family Camp



I'm finally able to upload a picture. This was taken on August 11th as we were leaving a wonderful week of Family Camp with the Andy & Audrey Sun Family and the Steve & Winnie Wong Family plus 2. This was a last minute impulsive decision to take off before Kalista started school and we would be bound by only being spontaneous a few times a year. We celebrated 3 birthdays during the week and ate cake and ice cream all week long. Glenn sneaked over to the Fountain and purchased chocolate malts almost every day while I was totally unaware. We let our exercise program go and decided to ride the rides at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk instead of riding the spin bikes in class. A huge difference. Although Glenn did do the bike ride to Santa Cruz with Andy and Daniel. They were the only ones who rode bikes while the entire rest of the camp went by train or by autos. More to come!

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Tivo K O'd!

Ok, that's my term now for frustration with timed shows that are being Tivo'd wrong. I have been following the Korean drama, Jumong, on AZN cable television for the last 80 episodes. I mean, I cleared out everything to make sure that even when I went on my two week vacation, there was room enough to hold all the episodes I missed. Every episode ended after an hour and a half and there was always time left over for commercials and such before the next drama came on. Well, the final episode 81 was tonight and low and behold it cut off the ending and Tivo ended with useless commercials for cell phone redemption and ring tones from Tupac Shakir! Hello, AZN is the channel for Asian Americans! We can learn korean, japanese, mandarin etc. through the subtitles! Do I really need ring tones from Tupac? Ok, can you feel my frustration yet? I was knocked out! I already cried through half the show with everyone dying and leaving and then I don't even get to see the ending after 81 episodes. UGH.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Childhood Friends

One of the neatest things that blogs can do is help you get in touch with old friends. I must have been feeling nostalgic these last few days thinking about my friends and wondering what they are now doing. This year I celebrate my 25th year after high school graduation. My classmate Samson has been trying to gather all the Chinese speaking students that we know for a reunion. The funny thing is that I probably didnt' speak as much Chinese back then as I do now! Well one of my childhood friends is named Honey. I haven't seen or spoken to her for more than 25 years since she left for awhile during high school to Washington. It felt so good to be remembered and to be remembered for good things like being kind, and helpful. Emailing her was like getting back to the good old days where we used to roam around Oakland Chinatown. It lead to getting in touch with a whole group of others. I miss the days of basketball at Lincoln Park and walking to Westlake around Lake Merritt during the bus strikes. Do we even walk to school anymore? I find myself driving a few blocks just to pick up my child from school and we used to walk 3.5 miles to Westlake Jr. High during a bus strike! Remember those? AC Transit.... Anyways, in the course of our lifetime, how many people do you think we meet and touch at some point in our lives.... 100, 200, 500, 1000, 5000?

Sunday, June 10, 2007

My First Late Night Blog Posting

Ok, due to the encouragement of my friend Stan and an overwhelming demand for my time, I am attempting to blog. Can't say that anyone will care about what I have to say, but I'll say it anyway. What's there to talk about they say...well, a 40+ year old women always has something to say. I've been keeping a private journal since junior high school. So, this will at least be an outlet to test out the waters of entering the age of technology and keeping news current. Plus people won't keep asking me where I live every time they see me although I've been at the same address for over 6 years here in Sacramento!
So, here I am late a night trying to put up this blog, and low and behold I get to a button that says," Show transliteration button for your posts? Adds a button to post Editor toolbar to convert English to Hindi script." Oh my gosh, are there that many people that will read my posts in that language? I sure would like it to translate to Spanish and Chinese. That way I can grow my business internationally too. Someone help me get out of this maze! It's late, I'd better get some sleep. I promised that I would get to 8 hours a night. For those of you that know me, know that that's a lot of hours for me!