Trick or Treat?

It's Halloween night and we went to a party at friends' house. After dinner, we went out trick or treating in the neighborhood with friends and a bunch of their kids. 1.5 hours later, we were all tired, the girls thought it was quite rewarding because they have collected total over 7 pounds of candies! (Last year's record was 4 lbs)

More Halloween costumes to show off...

It was a lousy Halloween Parade organized by the Chinese school this morning... we left after waiting under the hot sun for over half an hour... The girls bumped in to some old buddies like Cynthia, Amy and Katelyn, here's a picture of the girls with Katelyn Chen. Happy Halloween everybody!

Halloween Parade 2009

The morning temperature was quite chilly these few days (45-46 degrees F) but it didn't stop the girls being so excited about their annual Halloween Parades. Here are a couple of snap shots to share...

A fun filled day at the Halloween Carnival!

Today we went to the Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times 17th Annual Family Halloween Carnival at the back lot of Universal Studios. It's a fund raising event to sponsor the children affected by cancer. Daddy was a volunteer at the game booth and mommy took the girls to the rides, arts & crafts, games, food and collected tons of great toys donated by Jakks Pacific. The pictures posted above were all taken by mommy! Those are great shots mommy!

Our little princesses

Through employees' purchase program, we ordered half a dozen Disney Fairies & Princess/ Barbie costumes for the girls. Both girls will have Halloween Parades in school next week, they are so looking forward to show off their new outfits to their friends!

A few beauty shots...

I bought an pre-owned 5 year old 5 megapixel Panasonic with Leica Vario-Elmarit ASPH lens last week. Tried it out today and found the image quality is actually better than many of today's 10+ megapixel cameras! The actual file size of these pictures are approximately 1.8mb, I've reduced the file sizes to approximately 0.45mb for web posting.

Thousand Oaks Street Fair 2009

Once an year Street Fair started at 9am, hundreds of booths along half a mile on Moorpark Road... The girls collected candies, stickers, pencils, balloons and other goodies, it was a fun 2-hour walk on a beautiful Sunday morning.

Great time at Los Angeles Zoo

It's a fun day with buddies at the LA Zoo today...

Erica's old Pinecrest classmate Katelyn's family invited our family and another old Pinecrest classmate Caitlyn's family to visit the LA Zoo for a play day today. We arrived at 10am, it was a little chilly in the morning but we were all well prepared with jackets. This was our 1st time at the LA Zoo and we all love it! The girls were so excited to see each other! There were so many interesting animals at the zoo. We walked for almost 5 hours before going to see the bird show! It was tiring but relaxing day at the zoo for the grown-ups. We stopped by Sam Woo BBQ Restaurant for dinner before heading home, the girls were so exhausted, they passed out as soon as they sat down in the van.

Thousand Oaks Chinese School

We let the girls attend the Chinese school this school year. It's kindergarten level Chinese classes every Saturday morning from 11am till 12:30pm. We hoped to let the girls learn some basic Chinese pronunciations and vocabularies, most importantly we hope to create some interests for them to learn the Chinese language... They have been in the classes for 4 weekends, Erica seems okay with the classes but Vivian is just not enthusiastic about it, she's always bored in the class. Most students attending the class are from Mandarin speaking families and they already understand the speaking language. Our girls have extremely limited Mandarin language background and can not relate themselves to the language... I think the teaching method in this specific class does not fit the girls well. While letting them continue to attend the classes, I think I've a much better plan for them to learn Mandarin, I'll put in some efforts and teach them from ground zero at the home front...