Erin & Katye's Birthdays

We celebrated with Erin and Katye for their birthdays and the Princess not only made balloon animals, but she also did magic tricks and face painting.

Debs and Daniel's Wedding

My friend Christina's sister, Deborah, got married to a great guy, Daniel, in May. She was the one who showed us all the great shopping places in Shanghai when we visited last April. Now she's back in the states and a married woman!
The wedding was beautiful and fun. There was a candy buffet courtesy of Sweet Factory!
So there's a story behind these shoes. When I was getting married, I searched everywhere for the right shoes and finally found 2 pairs of these Stuart Weitzmans at the Off-Sak's at the Great Mall for $28 each. I think I was a 7.5 at that time and they only had a 7 or an 8, so I got both. I ended up wearing the 8. And they were great. Comfortable and classic. I never got around to returning the 7s. When Christina got married, she was looking for the perfect wedding shoes and couldn't find any. I remembered that I had these and they were perfect. She wore them, and since then, they've been worn in 2 other weddings and now this one. I guess the 7s are a more popular size than my 8s. But they still look good!

Goodbye Maytag - Hello LG!

Alas, our Maytag Neptune washer took it's last breath a couple of months ago. It was only 8 years old, but I guess that's past the age of being repair-worthy. I have a love/hate thing with having to buy new appliances. I love finding a great new appliance that makes life easier and does what it's supposed to do. But I hate researching and finding that nothing is perfect (remember my search for the perfect stroller?).

After a couple of weeks, we decided on the set from LG. We went for 3 weeks without a washer and thank goodness Lil and Anson graciously let us use their washer. I think they were shocked that I had at least 1 load every day. I think they do laundry once a week.

So with the new W/D set, we also decided to paint the laundry room. My first try at the color turned out to be too pastel. John said it looked like we had painted it with toothpaste. The final color is a darker shade of blue-green.

We tried stacking them, but it blocked the light. So we ended up putting them side-by-side again. But doing that, the detergent drawer couldn't open. So John's genius idea was to cut the door jamb, which saved the day.
The final part to complete the room will be when the shelving at The Container Store goes on sale in September.

Pot Pie Night

Lil gave me a recipe for chicken pot pie and here is my attempt. Not pretty, but it was yummy! It worked out well since Sydney mainly likes the crust and Lauryn just likes the filling.

Talent Show

My Lauryn begged me to be in the talent show. When I got the sign up form from school, I threw it in the recycling bin immediately - me being a practical type of person and could never imagine doing that sort of thing myself. But reluctantly, I let her and we took a family vote. What could she do for her talent?
Jumping rope?
Ballet?
Singing?
Hula Hooping?

Hula Hooping won out. She picked the song: "Who Said" by Hannah Montana. And we decided that she would hula with 1 hoop and then try to hula with 2 hoops. With 1 week left to the show, we added a 3rd hoop. She practiced and practiced and had a great time out on stage. We are so proud of her! I know my Auntie Rose would be proud of her too!

Where did all the water go??

Well, it went right under our yard, that's where!
Back in April the water main broke underneath our tree somewhere and water sprung up out of the ground like I would imagine it did before the Flood and God made rain. The water department came out and had to shut off water for our entire block for about 14 hours while they looked for the break. Aside from the inconvenience, it turned out to be a great way to meet the neighbors! Everyone on the block came by to see what happened.
They dug up our lawn and jackhammered the driveway. They never found it. In the meantime, the water pressure building under the lawn had no where to go except under our garage. The water bubbled up out of the cracks slowly, and then flowed like a river out of our garage to the street.

They finally decided that it must be under our tree and so they cut the pipe and rerouted the water. I guess some genius 50 years ago decided to plant trees right above the water main all along the street. The crew dug out the roots that had cracked the pipe and some of them were the size of elephant legs.
But in the end, all was well. The water department sent out an adjuster and will be paying for all the damages!

Where did all the eggs go??

Our neighborhood has an easter egg hunt every year, but this was the first year we participated. Each family was to hide 12 eggs per child in the park before the kids arrived. I hid my eggs and went home to pack our picnic lunch. When we went back all the eggs were gone! I think Lauryn found 1. Some of our neighbors were generous enough to "re-hide" some eggs and the girls got a few each to take home. I guess parents didn't tell their kids to find only 12 eggs. I saw kids with baskets filled to overflowing! It was a sad day at the park. Who knew hiding eggs could be so stressful!

But never fear, we packed up our lunches and had a picnic in our backyard. I think next year, I'll just hide eggs in the yard.

Disneyland in March

We jumped on the bandwagon and found us a fireman to get us into Disneyland during their promotion. Major thanks to Christine S's brother!

How many turkey legs did we buy this trip? 5! Don't worry, we didn't eat them all. We brought home 3. 2 for the freezer (they make the best jook), and 1 for Michelle and Wilson.

This was our first time catching the Star Wars show and we were pleasantly surprised at how realistic the costumes looked. Darth Maul freaked me and Sydney out when he marched right up to us in the crowd and glared at us with his spooky evil eyes. We all jumped back a few feet.

This was also the first time that Sydney realized that those were actually princesses and enjoyed seeing Ariel.

And finally we realized that we'll never ride on a submarine ever again. I'm not sure why we didn't learn from our Maui trip, but we apologize to all those riding on Finding Nemo with us for the disruption we caused.

Eclipse

We tried to watch the eclipse for Lauryn's homework. I attempted some pictures, but not very successfully. You just see the glowing.

New addition to the family

Can you guess which one?

Lil and Anson adopted a 3 year old husky named Yuki recently. Yuki means snow in Japanese. They had her coat shaved at the groomers b/c Yuki lived outside previously. Here she looks like a wolf, but she is really gentle and calm.

Year of the Rat

Oh my! #3

Camdyn is a cutie! Just like her sisters. This little girl has a furrow even when she's sleeping.
Congrats Brad & Christine!

Look out for the poop!

I know, I know...it's been, what, 5 months?

So here's where we left off:
We joined Grace and Herbie and family for a weekend in the snow back in January. Lauryn got back on her skis and this time John got to ski with her for a couple of hours.

The kids also wanted to build a snowman, but we couldn't find a nice slope for them to play in, so we ended up letting them play in this small island in the parking lot of the hotel. They made snow angels and a whole snow-family. There wasn't enough snow on the ground at times and we had to make sure they didn't get doggie poop in their snowmen. Oh well! They had a great time!

Sydney's taking a quick break.

Let the games begin!

Here's the Lin side of the clan at our Christmas gathering:And again, this year's main event was our round of "Screw Your Neighbor". We had to change the name of the game for the kids' sake, calling it, "Be Mean to your Neighbor". There were 13 people playing with 5 $1 chips. Plus, each person can Buy Back in one time for another $5 for 1 chip. Last person standing takes all the winnings AND the prize that the last year's winner contributed. Last year ,Yo won again, but she had brought an iPod Shuffle as the prize, which went to David for 2nd place.

So to do the math, that's a $130 pot plus a bonus prize. Lauryn started keeping tabs on who was still in the game and crossing off who was out. After a couple of hours and all the buybacks falling to the wayside, two remained. Lil and Darryl. David started taking side bets. Even money on Darryl and 2-1 for Lil.

After a tense last hand where they were both tied, they had to go for a final last hand. Both ended up with 7's until Darryl pulled a final card and beat Lil with a 10. Darryl walked away with a big pot and the bonus prize of an iPod Nano engraved with "SYN Champ 2007".

Congrats Darryl!