Mommy's new pets!

Helen bought 3 adult African Sulcata tortoises the other night from a guy in Alhambra. These tortoises are huge, currently they are about 18-20" long, each weights from 32lbs to 37lbs! We let them stay at the garden during the day and they are super active! We have a big lawn at the side of our house and they have all the grass they want to eat! We will rush to build them a heated house so that they can live at our garden all year round. With 2 Russian tortoises, 1 Redfoot tortoise and 1 box tortoise, now Helen has 7 tortoises!

Missile attack!

Picked up the girls at the childcare this afternoon and we got missile attack! I guess Vivian didn't make it since she went to the wrong direction.

Boxing day gathering

We had Bonnie & Helena's family over to our house for the Boxing day gathering. Helen also invited her high school classmate Alice (visiting her family from Hong Kong) over with her parents and sons (who live in Chino Hills). Everybody had a fun time, kids were so happy to receive all kinds of toys and clothing gifts from uncles & aunties!

After Christmas teeth extraction

Two lower front teeth was blocking the growth of permanent teeth. Vivian had an appointment this morning & the dentist extracted them. There was a little tears but after a trip to the McDonald's with a cup of Vanilla milkshake, we saw Vivian's smiles again.

Temecula wine country

We love our stay at the La Quinta in Moreno Valley! Renovated hotel, beautiful room, HD TV, nice beds, best part was their free breakfast! Beacon, sausages, waffles, eggs, bagels, muffins, toasts, juices, fruits, yogurt and coffee! It took us about half an hour to drive to the Temecula wine country. We were not into the wines but really love the beautiful wineries and Old Town Temecula! What a nice place to visit! Lots of nice antique stores and shops, the whole street was filled with Christmas spirit! We spent over $170 and bought two piece of rocks with unique Siamese kitten paintings on them! Besides, we also bought a big poly-resin tortoise and a bottle of virgin olive oil to take home. It was only 45 minutes drive to get to San Gabriel Valley, we had dinner there and ordered some take-out food before we head back home for Christmas eve. Merry Christmas to everyone!!

Big Bear Lake 2011

It was our traditional family pre-Christmas getaway... We packed up in the morning on the 22nd, drove to Alhambra and had lunch, then drove straight to the Big Bear Lake. There was no traffic at all and it was a short hour and half drive from San Gabriel Valley. After checked in the motel, we immediately took off and head to the Magic Mountain Alpine Slide for snow play! The evening temperature up there was way below freezing, good thing we were well prepared and we all dressed very warm. Highly recommend night time snow play (Inner tube slide)! It's only $15 per person from 5pm-9pm, Vivian got in for free! We played till 7:30pm then went to the Sizzler for soup & salad dinner. Next morning we had breakfast at the McDonald's, then we drove to the north shore sight-seeing, an hour later, we drove to the Snow Valley and got tickets for snow play (Sledding), the girls had lots of fun riding the ski lift and made lots of trips sliding down the snow slope on the sleds! We left the mountain at around 4:45pm and drove to Moreno Valley and stayed a night at the La Quinta resort.

Morning dental check-up

Vivian & Erica's dental check up went well. Vivian is due for teeth extractions on the 27th, two baby teeth are taking up spaces and affecting the growth two lower front teeth, it will be a simple procedure to extract baby teeth.

We have been extremely busy in the past 3 weeks, new job and holiday parties every weekend. It's time to take a break, we are taking the girls to the Big Bear Lake for some snow fun today! Will be back home for Christmas on the 24th.

First time shooting with iPhone 4S camera, looks like a decent one!

Christmas card 2011 photo shoot

The annual letter is 90% done and we were shooting picture for the greeting card this evening after dinner. We've picked a nice picture of the girls sitting in front of the fireplace in the family room for this years greeting card. You have to wait to see that picture in the mail but here is a picture of Erica posting on the couch in the family room. We have done the card design on costco.com, 75 printed cards will be ready to be picked up by tomorrow noon! We will print the letters and send all cards with letters out by this weekend!

We had a really fun weekend! Bonnie/Danny, Helena/Henry & Benny/Linda's families came to visit us on Saturday! They were the first group of visitors we invited to the new house, everybody had fun and we had a great dinner! We have invited Dudee/Chen. Judy/Paul's families plus our realtor Gaye's family over for dinner next Sunday. We will then invite a couple of our old neighbors Pat and Judy over for afternoon tea on the following weekend, then Julia's family before Christmas, Mike & Mari after the holidays...

Tortoises at the front lawn

We hit the gold pot this afternoon when we went to pick up a wrought iron/ glass side table we found on the Craigslist, a family sold their luxury home in Simi Valley and moving to Hawaii, they have got lots of nice home decors for sale and we bought a bunch of them for a fraction of the price, we will post more pictures in coming days and you will see them here!

The girls took out the tortoise and let them walk at our front lawn...

Sunday morning, Vivian is fully recharged!

Vivian burned out all her energy yesterday afternoon at around 5:30pm, fell in sleep in mommy's arms while we were shopping, didn't wake up, skipped dinner, slept till 6:28am this morning, fully energized for a new day!

Over the weekend, we have installed the new TV in the family room, built the TV stand and put up the old TV in our master bedroom, the curtains were also installed in our living room, things are looking quite good now after all the hard work...