Katelyn's birthday party at the Iceoplex

It was Erica's kindergarten buddy Katelyn's birthday yesterday, both girls were invited to go to birthday party at the Iceoplex ice rinks in Simi Valley! They had lots of fun skating with their old buddies! At the birthday party, they have book exchanges, Vivian got two books: "Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days" and Vivian got "What Bluebirds Do" and "Redwoods", they later exchanged among themselves again.

Vivian's bad Friday the 13th!

Forgot to post this on Friday... Vivian got the stomach flu from school few days earlier... while she still had good appetite, her tummy didn't seem agree with the food she ate for a couple of days. Made a big mess on our bed on Thursday night, went to school on Friday but called mommy and complaint of headache before noon. Picked her up from school and gave her some Advil, she had good appetite again and ate a big serving of rice with grilled salmon from SanSai. Really don't know how kids pick their favorite place to throw up, this time was in my car on the way home... Got to snap a couple priceless shots before helping her to clean up. Check out Erica's expressions in the background!

Self-portraits on iPhone

Messing with iPhone & taking self-portraits while having late lunch after visit to the museum...

La Brea Tar Pits

Today we took the girls to the La Brea Tar Pits at Page Museum, what a wonderful experience for all of us! The Page Museum has the Earth's richest and most important Ice Age fossil collection. There are many complete skeletons of fossil mammals and birds on display, there are working paleontology lab, many tar pits where paleontologists discover fossil deposits of sabertoothed cats, dire wolves, ancient bison, mastodon, mammoth and many other extinct animals from 10,000-40,000 years ago! The girls showed very strong interests and asked many questions. It's an amazing place to let the kids spend half a day seeing, learning and understanding how scientists discovered, excavate, preserve and research pre-historic animals and ecosystem.

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!