A Trip to LA on Memorial Weekend

We went to LA in almost every holiday because Ivan wanted Charisse to enjoy the holiday with us, and he knew Charisse liked taking the rides and roller coasters. It's true that Charisse enjoyed more each time we went. However, there is one more attraction in LA, not a theme park but my friend Grace's home. On last day of our trip, we visited Grace and her family. Charisse loved her family so much that she didn't want to leave. We drove away for 20 minutes; when we went back, she didn't show any sign of missing us. It took us almost 2 hours to convince her leaving with us. Ivan and I thought it would be great if we could leave her there for the whole summer but I could see Grace's husband Kenny kept sweating when we brought up this idea. Ha ha ha...

LA Trip - Knott's Berry Farm and Legoland

Last Day of the First School Year

Time flies! The school year just ended couple weeks ago. When I looked back, I see Charisse have grown up a lot this year. She
...becomes more independent.
...is potty trained.
...has builds up trust between her and other people besides parents and our nanny.
...knows what's friendship.
...doesn't like to play with boys because they play rough.
...feels sad when she has conflicts with her best friend (Jessica).
...feels sad when she feels rejected.
...becomes more emotional.
...is more expressive.

We may send Charisse to another school next year. Charisse is looking forward to go to the new school. She always thought that going to a new school means she's a big girl. Kids always want to grow up. If I were at her age, I would like to stay young. There's another reason she wants to go to another school, she always complained that she got hit and push by a classmate named Garrett. I had raised this issue to her teacher. I have been teaching her to forgive and forget but I don't think she understands it yet.

This school has a tradition that all students walk on their feet with colorful paint onto pieces of paper. I believe that symbolizes the students walk out from school with a colorful life.

Last Day of School

Second School Field Trip - the Discovery Museum in Palo Alto

Charisse's class had a field trip on April 30. I took that morning off and went to the Discovery Museum with her. All students wore the T-shirt they made couple weeks before the trip. It felt like they were wearing uniforms.

School Field Trip

Easter Egg Hunt

This year, we went egg hunting at Central Park in San Mateo again. We shouldn't go to this place because we didn't have a good experience last year -- too little eggs and too many people. Before the hunting started, they kept announcing that "pick up one egg, you will get one gift; pick up 10 eggs, you will get the same gift." They tried to convince people not to pick up more than one egg. However, who would listen to them.
"Five... Four... Three... Two... One..."

Within 1 minute, the eggs were all gone. How many we got? Three... We were pretty lucky because there were many older kids in the crowd. I didn't enjoy it. Why were we waiting in lines for so long and fighting for those eggs.

In the afternoon, we went to Ivan's brother's home. Charisse's cousins Michelle and Toby went egg hunt at a local church in the morning too. They got more than 200 eggs home and many little gifts. Since the egg hunt at the park wasn't fun, we had a mini egg hunt game at their home.

East Egg Hunt