Pisa Christmas Tree

Two weeks before Christmas, we decided to buy a real Christmas tree on Thursday night. It was a good thing we did buy on Thursday night because it was "raining cats and dogs" the next day.

By the time we arrived home, David immediately put the tree up before letting Dylan and Ryan decorated the half of the Christmas tree. The problem was the Christmas Tree looked like it was a Pisa Christmas Tree. I thought it would be a perfect unique Christmas tree, but David despited my idea. Bummer!

Once David finished straighten the Christmas tree, we gave our sons, Dylan and Ryan a privilege to decorate the Christmas tree for the first time. You could have seen their looks on their THRILLED face! I honesty can say that it had save time for one of my Christmas Things to do!

They continued to amaze me because they did a SPLENDID job; otherwise, David and I would be fuzzing it over the way it looked before Santa Claus arrived. David put the final touch- the Santa Claus on the top of the Christmas Tree.

Do you think it is still a Pisa Christmas Tree? Aren't they beautiful?

Pardon Me

Please pardon me for not posting my blog lately. I've been extremely busy over the past two weeks both in and outside of home. However, my husband David has promised me to let me update my blog over this weekend.

So, look out for the new pictures and news as well.

Pager/Cell Phone

At the parking lot, I was using my pager to communicate with my husband while my boys were in the van with me.

Ryan inquired me, " What is that?" I replied to him, "Oh, it is a pager. It helps me to talk with your dad." Who ever thought about the conversation would began about "growing up too fast?"

Ryan said, "I want a pager." Dylan jumped in the conversation, "Yeah, I wanted a cell phone."

This conversation made me curious why would my five and six year old sons would want to have a phone. Dylan mentioned, " One of my friends at school has a cell phone." It stunned me and got into me a further questionnaire.

"Oh, what grade is she in ?" First grade??? Oh my goodness ! Do you think a first grade would take a good responsibility to own a cell phone or even a pager???

Nancy Drew's " Who Would Buy Old Ragged Shoes for $100?"

This time I am giving you the privilege to become a detective and start investigate the story after you read this real life event. It happened at my work site. However, I am changing the students' names which involved one of my students.

The scene occurred in P.E locker room. The three young good looking boys decided to exchange the shoes before the next class. The incident began:

Alex: He had a brand new pair of Van shoes. He had a soft heart by loaning his brand new shoes to the second student, Brian.

Brian: He took them and put them in his P.E. locker. However, he had an eye for a pair of skater shoes. He asked the third person, Chris, if he could use his skater shoes.

Chris: He would accept Brian's offer to keep his skater shoes if Brian pays Chris.

Then, the story began at Detective Nancy Drew's office with all of these three boys: Alex, Brian and Chris to get the story straighten.

Chris was telling the detective that Brian gave him a hundred dollar bill. Detective Drew asked Brain if it was true.

Brian replied, " No, it is not true. I gave ten dollars to the cafeteria. " The detective had asked her partner to check it out at the cafeteria. Unfortunately, the cashier had gone home, except one of the cafeteria workers came to assist the partner by checking it out how much Brian owed to cafeteria. The result was that he only owed one dollar. The partner went back to give a part of the report to Detective Nancy Drew.

Detective Nancy Drew asked Chris if it was true that he had the one hundred dollars. He then showed her the hundred dollar bill. A REAL Hundred Dollar on a school campus?! Detective Drew had asked Chris to give him the bill. Chris had a poker face when he handed her a HUNDRED dollar to Detective Drew. Why would he have a poker face? Why was it so easy for Chris to hand over the $100?"

She also questioned Alex whether he had seen the scene. His good looking response was," I didn't see anything." But the question still is "Why would Alex lent his brand new Van shoes to Brian?". "Is Alex an innocent bystander or is he some how involved in this $100 transaction?".

The next scene was Alex and Brian were assigned to pick up the skater shoes that Brian had left it in his P.E. Locker. After the boys came back with a pair of skater shoes, Detective Nancy Drew was bewildered that Alex "would give him a hundred dollar" in cash because the shoes were a pair of REALLY old, filthy, and ragged shoes.

So, he commanded Brian to give Chris his old ragged skater back. The mystery is "Why did Alex lend Brian his new pair of Vans and why did Chris say that Brian gave him $100 for his old ragged skater shoes?".

Hearing your possible thoughts would be appreciated or even better to have a possible solution for Detective Nancy Drew.

Do You Think It's Reliable?

This idea was coming from my sister in law, Deby. It caught my attention. Frankly, I had skeptical because I was not sure if this would tell you the correct information that I went to a graduate program. It was due to that writing was not my best subject (still is not my strength.)

Without a doubt, it left me a lot of pondering how the readability test knew that I actually graduated from a university; though I had a personal writing editor throughout my college years. My best guess is that it read my entire blog-- one of the posts mentioned about my career. That probably gave it away!

Or, when we all had to fill our blog out, it asked basic informations about us that include our educational background. Isn't that correct? What do you think?

So why not try to give yourself a test, and see if it matches to your background experience?!

http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx

A Day with Grandparents

A Day after Thanksgiving, we all decided to have some fun for the day while my hard working husband had to go to work.

Before we had our left over Thanksgiving for lunch, my mom, the boys and I decided to go out to a nearby Border's. Their eyes lit it up when they heard we were heading for bookstore. Yep, they loved to read books after my generous mom spoiled them by buying the books they wanted.

Dylan got few books especially his first series book, "Dinosaurs Before Dark" from Magic Tree House. Once he got a book from Grandma Jacobs, he was already hooked to the book. In fact, I never or ever dreamt that he would complete an entire book, 68 pages! Now, he wanted more of these new books. Apparently, he will have to get it more for Christmas, especially from Santa Claus. (Later, I found him tucking his book under his arm while sleeping in his bed.)

Ryan was also an avid reader. He read briefly to Grandma Jacobs, " The Fat Cat Sat on the Mat." Yep, he can read basic books on his own. But, he would rather to look/read at Trains Book, his obsession hobby.

After we got back from Border's, we all went out to Miniature Golf for the first time in our sons' life. Their eyes grew bigger when we walked in Boomer's Place. Both my mom and I tried to teach Dylan and Ryan on how to play golf. Actually, they knew what was the objective for the game. It took them a while to make into each hole.

Dylan was a challenge ones because he is a left- handed. We had to teach him the opposite way of how we used to swing our golf. He was being in a good sportsmanship throughout the game while teaching him the proper way to use the putter.

Ryan was doing pretty good at the game. He usually stroke the first ball, and then he would pick the golf ball up to be near the hole. He would make an attemption to get in each hole.

As for me, it was quite some time since I played miniature golf. I did play poorly at the first few holes. My average per hole was 3 until the last hole. I only swung once on my last hole. Too bad, I did not do the entire miniature golf game; otherwise, I would have beat my step father in law in the game !

Bruce, my step father was the winner. It was because he had the advantage of practicing the game in his home town where they have over 25 miniature golfs in that area !

The best part of was none of us had our golf balls in the man-made water! No matter who won the game, we all had a marvelous time ! Even better, it was a great way of getting to know each other.

In the evening, we had delivery pizzas in our home while we were able to sit and chat at the table ! The laughter had relax our day.

Zany, Blessed Thanksgiving

On a bright, early morning, David and I had a nervous wrecked to do all of the errands before our loving family coming out for our first Thanksgiving feast in our cozy home. Can you image we did our short errands: mowing our front yard, vacuuming, taking all of the ash dust out of our brand new BBQ and few other little errands that needed to be done within three hours?

That s right, three hours!?! Oh boy, we were freaking our minds out until our first guest, Linda Miller who arrived an hour before others coming in our home. She did witness David rushing his last minute errands including putting his first time Turkey in his brand new BBQ ! My mom and Bruce, who came all the way from South Carolina, showed up on our first Thanksgiving, too. Within only an hour left for the actual time, David sweat himself whether we were going to eat with or without a turkey on our first Thanksgiving. Luckily, we had several other guests (Uncle Doug, Richard and Bruce) came in to rescue David.

Our first Thanksgiving meal did not start an hour and a half late. All of the relatives were acting it out by facial expressions since they were starving. Who wouldn't blame them especially listening to our whining sons, Dylan and Ryan who begged for their meal, even serving them with a mini cheese ball ??? The heartfelt Aunt Pam were kind to offer these two boys for their tiny mini cheese ball before the real meal started. Still they were hungry, and continued to make facial expression. Know who started it? It was Cousin Becky and then Dylan started making face.

Finally, our first Turkey was on our kitchen island. David was so proud to show his very first Turkey off (Truthfully, it was half cooked, and other turkey half was not cooked) But Cousin Beth decided to show David the proper way of cutting/killing the turkey. We even had other meat, Honey baked Ham and Fillet as a back-up, if the turkey did not go well. But with a miracle, we had some luck to taste our first Turkey. It was not that bad enough to kill you!

Uncle Doug could not get enough of eating his own meal! He would rather to have it all to himself before anyone was allowed to have a mouth-watering meal. Again, after all we had our delicious meal, none of us were stuffed until we had a dessert: Custard, Pumpkin Pie, Cinnamon Apple Pie, and Cheesecake with cherries on the top. Uncle Doug and Beth wanted to have something more tasty-- making a homemade whipped cream. It was too good for anyone to have one, especially Ryan who had his eyes bigger than his own stomach.

Boy, many of us became sleepy due to having so much stuff in our stomach. Some of them snoozed it off while National Football League TV was running on. That included my own mother who woke up at wee hours before arriving our house. The only person who did not fall asleep during the football game was Grandpa Jarvis. He adored football !!!

While not being snoozed off, David decided to give Cathy, my mother in law a back plus massage system. OHHH ,that was heaven for anyone, including Uncle Doug and Aunt Pam who were all stressed up got a massage. Grandma Jarvis just enjoyed relaxing and chatting with everyone she knew.

What a hectic day we have had! Still, we thanked for our first zany, blessed Thanksgiving !