It’s been a while since I updated the blog, I know.  I’ve been abandoning this site lately because I was too lazy to write.

Anyways……the boys have grown and got tired of their bunk bed so my husband took it apart and now we have two twin beds in their room.  You see, this is why to this day I haven’t really decorated their room because I don’t want to change it every couple of years according to their taste and needs.  Now that the beds are on the floor, we have a bare wall on the left side and I’m tempted on painting a big mural there.  I’m seeing a big rail road crossing sign with a train passing through and some cars on one side.  Kyle’s eyes got really big when I told him that idea.  He loves trains and cars so the idea of having them in his room is fantastic.

A few weeks ago I had the boys ‘paint’ an abstract painting for their room and as you can see they had a blast doing it.

Speaking of decorating, our house is starting to look a little tired now.  We have Shane’s ‘artwork’ on some of the walls and doors so we’ll have to repaint soon.  The carpets are bunching up everywhere.  The shag carpets are looking kind of shaggy now.  Whose idea was it to install shag carpet anyway?  Ouw, right, not ours.  We’re planning to put in hardwood floor someday, when we have the time and money or when the bunches are the size of speed bumps, which ever comes first.  I still vacuum regularly but I don’t even bother rubbing the stains off of it anymore.

I’m getting tired of the red kitchen and am thinking about painting the walls a different color but am leaning toward putting in some tile back splash instead.  Tiles are not that expensive and since my husband can install them himself — he had done it before –, we won’t have to spend a ton of money on labor.

Anyhow…….the weather has been fabulous lately so we went to a car wash last night.  You watch, it’s going to rain one of these days and my car is going to be dirty again.  Ack.

The boys and I have been doing something fun during the sunny days; we have a little picnic in the porch after school.  I lay a little quilt down and put some throw pillows for the boys to sit on.  I brought their juice and snacks out so they can enjoy them while they read their books. Some people look at us as they drive by our house.  Who cares.  Mind your own business, people.

You see those wicker chairs on the picture? They are at least four years old and have changed color a couple of times.  They were brown when we bought them at IKEA and then I painted them white, and now they’re golden.  I spray paint our outdoor furniture every time I get tired of them.  It’s easy, it’s cheap and it’s fun.

So yeah, that’s what we have been doing.  Sounds pretty fun, eh?

See you next time, guys.

Sometimes in February — when we’re lucky — we’d get some nice and sunny days here in Oregon and when that happens, we usually head to the coast. Last week Kyle told me that school was off on Friday and I immediately checked the weather forecast to find out if we could have a weekend getaway somewhere. I have Seaside on the list of my saved cities on weather.com so it only took me one click to look at the weather there for the weekend and voila!, it was sunny in the high 50s. Awesome.

We were planning to have our anniversary at Shilo Inn in Seaside last month but had to cancel the reservation due to the snow so it was nice to know that we could do it a couple of weeks later. But no, this time we didn’t do it to celebrate our anniversary.

Shilo Inn is located right by the promenade, next to the turnaround. We had always wanted to stay there because of the location but the rates are really high during summer time so winter time is the best time to stay there cost wise.  I have to say that I had a pretty high expectation on this place being that it’s so pricey.  I imagined the rooms would be somewhat nicer than the other hotels/inns nearby.  All the hotels in the area (I’m talking about the ones right by the ocean) are outdated so I expected Shilo Inn to be a little newer.

And the verdict is……..it’s just as outdated as the rest of them!  Sigh.  The decoration and the furniture look like they’re at least 25 years old.  The TV is small and boxy, something that not even Goodwill will take.  The room is nice and roomy — we had the oceanfront double queens with a kitchenette.  The place was really clean.  The carpet wasn’t sticky, although I had my sandals on almost the whole time.  And although it’s dated, it doesn’t have the musty smell like most old places have, if you know what I mean.  The balcony and the view, phew!…..that’s what you’re paying for.  It’s nice to be able to watch people at the turnaround but I can see that it could get really noisy in the summer time because that’s where people usually hang out.

The weather was perfect when we got there on Friday.  The wind wasn’t blowing and it was sunny.  I think the temperature was around 58 F/14 C.  It was fairly warm for us but I know my mom would disagree.  The boys had fun playing in their giant sandbox.  They laid down on the sand like it was tempur pedic.  We let them play for about three hours at the beach before returning to our hotel room.  I actually left them and ordered Pizza Hut online from the room.  The beach is steps away from the hotel.

We had pizza in our hotel room (why eat somewhere else when you have the best view?)  and went to our secret place for some cheap ice cream.  There are a lot of places that sell ice cream at Seaside but if you look harder, you’d find a place that sells the same Tillamook ice cream for a much cheaper place.  Where?  Do you know the intersection where they sell elephant ears?  I’m sure you do.  Just follow your nose and look for the greasy smell straight from the turnaround and you’ll find it.  Or if you know Norma’s, it’s right across the street from there.  Anyway, at the intersection there is usually an older guys who passes free taffy candies to pedestrians — that’s the guys who owns the taffy/ice cream place.  You can ask him where it is or turn left (if you’re coming from the turnaround) and cross the street into the deserted building with the footprints painted on the sidewalk.  I think you can get a scoop of ice cream for 75 cents.  No kidding.

If you ask Kyle which one he likes the most; the beach or the swimming pool, he’ll tell you that he likes the pool best.  I was surprised to hear that but he does love to swim.  The boys, dad included had fun playing in the water while mommy watched.  Daddy really wanted to rent a surry (a 4-wheel bike) and couldn’t wait to do it as soon as he got up in the morning.  If you’re thinking about renting it, don’t.  Well, it’s okay if you’re in a good shape but we’re not and that thing is really heavy.  My husband and I couldn’t wait to return it when our time was up as we were running out of breath.  It looked fun when somebody else is doing it but it really isn’t when you’re doing all the work.  I wish we could stay longer but daddy had a dinner party on Saturday so sadly we had to leave.  We let the boys play at the beach — after they took a shower — where they laid down on and had sand all over them before headed home.  Shane had a bad night at the hotel room and kept waking up that night so he was tired that day.  Both boys fell asleep in the car on our way home so I guess they had a great time.

It was nice to see the sun in the winter.  I can’t wait for summer to be here so we can have trips like this again.  Wait, let me blink.  Nope, it’s not working, it’s still winter here.

All righty then.  Gotta go now.

After watching the movie ’2012′ a few years ago, my family in Indonesia kept telling me for a while that 2012 was going to be the end of the world. Well, this is it, guys. I guess we’ll find out if the world is going to stop turning sometime this year. Now that’s just silly. By the way, happy new year from your the four of us at the beehive.

Christmas is long gone now and there’s almost no traces of it left behind at our house, well, except when you open the cookie cabinet. There are still a few left there. The boys were really sad when we finally took all the decorations down. Shane kept telling us how much he loved Christmas during the holiday season and was still singing some Christmas song yesterday. See, I told you Christmas would go by really fast when it came.

~ Shane -- wearing his new snuggie ~

Speaking of Christmas, we had a lovely yet hectic one last year. We taught Sunday school until the weekend before Christmas and I didn’t have time to focus on stuff that I had to do at home until afterward. I had a cookie-baking marathon for a few days, followed by hours of gift wrapping on the morning before Christmas. On Christmas eve I was pooped, not literally.  We usually go to Christmas eve service at church but I had no energy to do that — good thing we went to the candle light service on the weekend before. As usual, we hung out in the living room by the tree, read the Christmas story while listening to some Christmas songs and let the boys open their stockings and small presents. The snuggies (the blankets with sleeves) were one of the presents and although they’re corny, the boys seem to love them.

Later that night after the boys went to bed we put the presents under the tree for the next day.

~ Christmas morning ~

On Christmas morning they got to open their real presents as soon as they got up. As you can see, Kyle’s eyes were still puffy when he opened his present.  I’m telling you, Christmas is a lot more fun when you have little kids because you can see their excitement, especially when it’s time to open their presents. All the hard work I put into wrapping them — rrrrip!, with one single tear the paper is torn from end to end. But that just adds to the fun so that’s okay.

Christmas day is usually the most hectic day for us because we have so much going on. Open presents and breakfast in the morning, brunch at Aunt Harriet’s in Vancouver, WA and then open more presents with our big family at my in-laws. Last year for some reason I looked at the boys and thought about what it would be like having their girl friends over on Christmas. I know, that’s insane because Shane is still a toddler now. I don’t know. I actually am looking forward to it. I think I’m going to be a nice mother-of-the-boyfriend, don’t you think?

Anyway, the boys and my husband are at Lowe’s making some castles at their free ‘build and grow workshop’ right now.  We found out about this workshop while we were shopping there on a Saturday morning last month. Actually, I had heard about it before but thought that the boys were still too young for it at the time. Boy, time does fly because they’re ready now.  We went there twice last month and made some wooden trains from some free kits and Kyle wants to come on every workshop after that.  I’m feeling a little lazy today so I sent my husband alone and let him have some quality time with the boys at the guys’ store.  That’s the benefit of having only boys; I get to spend some ‘me time’ while the boys are out and about. A few years from now the boys will go watch football games with their dad and my husband will say, “Woohoo!” because he’ll have new football buddies and I’ll say, “Woohoo!” back because I’ll get to have some uninterrupted shopping time by myself.  The bond actually already started because every Friday at 6pm the three of them would watch the ‘Gold Rush’ show on TV.  It’s funny because the boys really enjoy watching it, too.  Kyle knows the names of the characters and Shane would tell his daddy that he wants to watch Gold Rush. Lol.

Anyhow, what a depressing weather we’re having right now. They’re saying it’s going to snow for a few days starting tonight and we already booked a hotel room at Seaside for tomorrow so we may have to cancel it.  My husband is torn because he wanted to play with the snow at the beach, which according to him only happens once in a decade but is afraid about the road condition. If it’s freezing rain, which is rain mixed in with snow, which is what they’re predicting then the road will be slippery. There goes our anniversary celebration. I was already dreaming about having a nice anniversary dinner overlooking the beach.  Oh, well.

I’ll let you know how it goes on my next post. Until then, enjoy the three-day weekend, folks!

Now……

and in between…….

my love for you never changes.  Happy anniversary, honey.

~ The Boys ~

We looooooove Christmas and can’t wait for it to be here but at the same time I fear that once it’s here, it’s going to be over really soon. So I don’t know. I guess I prefer this time of year, you know, a week or two before Christmas because I get to enjoy the holiday spirit for a while. Don’t get me start on what will happen after Christmas. It’s Nothing, with a capital N. Boredom, that’s what will happen.

Anyway, I tore my left ear while I was in the shower today. I was washing my hair and somehow my ring got caught in my earring and I must have pulled my ear pretty hard because it hurt so bad that I started to scream. There was no blood on my hand, so I figured it was nothing major. I immediately thought of Shane when he ripped his ear open while we were on our trip last Summer. He had so much blood around his ear, that poor thing. So I took a look at my ear and saw a little bit of blood and what looks like a small cut above the earring. I don’t have my contacts on so I can’t really see clearly but I don’t really care. After what happened to Shane, this is nothing.

~ My new toy ~

I kept myself busy with my new toy yesterday. I got myself an early Christmas gift (“Among other ones,” I could hear my husband said that in the back of my mind) this year, a new sewing machine from Costco. I contemplated about getting a new one since my old one broke but didn’t feel like spending a ton of money, especially since we already spent quite a bit for Christmas gifts, but it was such a great deal that I really couldn’t pass. It was on sale for $109 during their black Friday sale — they don’t have them anymore now. I think it was $50 off their regular price. And if you know Costco’s prices, especially on sewing machines, you know that their regular prices are pretty low compare to other stores. Where can you get a computerized Singer with 100 built-in stitches and other features in it for $109? Oh, in case you’re wondering, the machine comes with detachable sewing boards and I removed one of them so the jeans’ leg could go through it, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to sew the holes on the knees. I found some bad reviews on the internet on this machine but I didn’t have any problem with it. I went through jeans pocket that had layers of thick denim fabric and it worked fine. And the computerized stitches feature is awesome. I can choose fun stitches and adjust the width and length of them with a push of a button. How fun.

I was a little intimidated to use it for the first time because I didn’t feel like reading a manual book to find out how to thread and how to get it going. But I did it and to my surprise, it wasn’t that complicated. The funny thing is, I couldn’t find the spool holder and almost called the customer service until I looked back and saw it on the back of the machine. Oops. Long story short (I know you don’t want to know the detail), I fixed a lot of holes on the boys’ and their daddy’s jeans. As far as I know, if I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life, that was money well spent. I’m actually going to make some throw pillows to fill the pillow cases I got from my trip for Christmas gifts.

~ In front of OMSI ~

Two weeks ago on Sunday we went to Kyle’s favorite place, OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) in Portland. He had been asking to go there forever but I told him that we could only go there on the first Sunday of the month, because that’s when they have cheap admission fee (it’s $2 per person instead of $12, so we saved $40). I thought the line was going to be huge since we had a late start and didn’t get there until after 1 pm, but I found out that the earlier you go the bigger the crowd you’ll see, so we did good.

~ The crane -- his favorite exhibit ~

The first thing we did, of course, was to see the crane. Kyle is crazy about construction machinery so to be able to use ‘the actual one’ is pretty awesome for him. He asked me if we could go to a museum where we could see the machines up close but I can’t think of one around here. We could go to a road construction zone when they’re not working but I don’t think they’ll let you go near the machines. So listen to this, we actually (um, it was actually ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ but my husband paid for them so he gets the credit, too) got some really cool toys for him this Christmas. I found this backhoe (this is his most favorite machine of all because the front and back work) Lego toy at Toys’ r Us during their buy 2 get 1 free sale, two of die-cast Caterpillar construction sets (every machine included), buy one get one 50% off at Kmart’s website and an Erector powered crane that he can build at Target (I did a price match on this one at the store). Here are the pictures in case you have a kid who is also passionate about this type of toys:

My husband was excited when I told him about the Erector toy because he had one when he was a kid and loved it. These toys aren’t cheap, I won’t lie to you, but they will last forever. They’re the kind of toys that you’ll want to keep for your grandkids when your kids are done with them, you know what I’m saying? And I’m not going to give all of them to him at once, of course not. I know he’d love the backhoe lego but my husband thinks we should give him the Erector. The thing is huge. I saw a video of it at youtube and couldn’t believe how big it is.

~ The boys at OMSI ~

They have this cool toy at OMSI (picture above) called Gears! Gears! Gears! Super set (you can find them at amazon for less than $30) that I was interested in getting but I knew he’d be bored with it really soon so I didn’t get it. I’ll save that one for our next OMSI trip. Oh, speaking of OMSI, we also went to the planetarium and watched an outer space movie there because Kyle is also crazy about planets right now (his favorite one is saturn). As soon as we got home that day, he asked his daddy to search for saturn on the internet and they found NASA’s site which contains everything about planets including games (which some of them I’m not crazy about) and crafts. Last week I built him a saturn planet from there. He insisted that he wanted to go to Joann to get the styrofoam balls at 8 pm that night — of course we didn’t go. Ai yi yi.

~ Kyle -- so proud after finishing the brain teaser game at OMSI ~

It’s Friday and we have Sunday school to teach tomorrow. I haven’t even read the lesson. I’m planning to bring cupcakes and let the kids decorate them with green and red M&M’s since it’s Christmas, so I’ll have to bake them tonight. I promised Kyle that we’re going to make some gingerbread man cookies  when he gets home from school (I did last week and brought them to Sunday school for the kids so they’re all gone now). My gingerbread man cookies are totally different than the ones out there. I tried making some last year using different recipes but didn’t like any of them — my kids wouldn’t eat them either so I threw them away. In desperation, I came up with my own recipe for a crunchier, spicier cookie and it turned out yummy. They’re not as thick as the regular ones but hey, as long as we can actually eat them, you know.

Anyway, I have to bake a TON of cookies before Christmas so I better start now. Happy holidays!

~ Our Little Decorators ~

Okay. Thanksgiving is over. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are history. What comes next? Well, it’s time to deck the halls, of course.

This year I decided to let our older son, Kyle take over the tree decorating task with the help of his little brother, Shane. My husband put it up in our living room on Saturday morning and the boys couldn’t wait to plug the lights in and start hanging the ornaments on it. Mama’s tired. She is ready to retire and pass on the decorating job to her little assistants, who were more than willing to do it, obviously.

~Kyle decorates the tree~

~Shane stares at the singing garland~

"Look at this ornament, daddy!"

By the way, how was your Black Friday? Did you participate in the annual shopping extravaganza? Well,  I actually did most of my shopping online this year. Did you know that some stores start their Black Friday deal on Wednesday night, which was almost TWO days before Friday? This year I did my first BF shopping at jcp.com (JCPenney) at 9 pm. Well, it started at midnight Eastern time, which (to my benefit) is three hours early here since we live in the West Coast. They hadn’t announced the sale on their home page yet but I kept checking the items until the prices changed.

I did get up quite early that Friday but not because I wanted to. I must have eaten something with dairy in it on Thanksgiving (we had brunch at my in-laws) that caused a great pain in my stomach at 3 in the morning the next day. I might as well get up and do my shopping online. My dear husband told me that he wanted to go shopping really early in the morning but changed his mind when he realized that he’d rather sleep in that day. What?? It was almost 10 when we finally left the house and went to a nearby Freddy’s. Kyle didn’t want to go so I had to bribe him by giving him my $2 toy coupon and let him pick one at the store. What a team I have.

Anyway, I didn’t really find fantastic deals during Black Friday nor Cyber Monday. I was tempted to get some cheap kitchen gadgets like the mini cupcake, pie and donut makers but decided not to after reading some bad reviews on them (that’s one good thing about online shopping; you can do some research before ordering), although I did buy a popcorn bowl machine because of the good reviews. Kyle doesn’t like microwave popcorn and I heard that it’s not good for your health because there something in the paper. So far we’ve popped two batches of popcorn with it but I’m not too happy with the result. I used the loose corns, put a little oil, melted butter and salt and the popcorn tasted too healthy. We like the greasy and salty movie theater popcorn but I’m too scared to put too much butter in it — does that make sense to you? Next time I’m going to try using the bagged popcorn minus the bag.

~The busy bees~

"This is a messy job." *Mommy sighed*

Last Sunday, as promised, I helped Kyle build a gingerbread train from a kit. I bought the kit along with a gingerbread house one earlier this year and sure enough the bread is beyond stale. I can’t complain because I got them for about $2 each from Bed Bath & Beyond and they were left-overs from last Christmas. I don’t know about you, but we don’t eat our gingerbread house — we just leave it on the table and get rid of it when Christmas is over — so it doesn’t really matter for us whether it’s freshly baked or stale. They boys, especially Kyle had fun decorating it and that’s all the matters. We’re going to build the house this weekend so I have another messy job to tackle. Oh, boy.

~The nativity poster~

Last night I finished making a nativity scene for the Sunday school classroom. I saw something like that at orientaltrading.com (it’s totally different from mine) but decided to make one myself, so I went and bought a green poster board for 50c at the dollar store and printed some characters online, cut some paper, printed some scripture and voila! You can’t really tell how big it is but it’s pretty big (it’s  22 x 28 inches, according to the label on the back of the poster). And it’s really cute! I’m going to cut out ‘Rejoice’ word using the cricut and put it on the wall because it looks pretty bare right now.

~Sunday school craft~

Earlier today I made a craft for tomorrow’s lesson for the Sunday school. Initially I was going to make a Christmas ornament or decoration craft since it’s the holiday season but I found out that I already have this craft kit cut out and ready to be used and the best part is, it fits the lesson. So yay for me. I think the kids, especially the girls are going to love it because I’m going to let them use the fun stuff, you know, glitter glue, stickers and shapes. Instead of using ribbons or yarns like I normally would, I used some pipe cleaners (pipe cleaners are craft items made with wire sticks covered with colorful fake fur) to hang the paper. I was like, “Duh! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?” It took seconds to hook the pipe cleaners up as supposed to several minutes threading and tying up yarns. Plus they look cuter, much cuter than plain old yarns. Oh, well. Live and learn.

Anyway, I told my husband last night while working on the poster that I have finally found my calling. I have been having so much fun making crafts for Sunday school, you have no idea. My desk is filled with craft supplies. I don’t have time to scrapbook anymore. But I’m excited to be able to use my creativity and do something useful with it. And on top of that, I also get to teach, so I’m doing two things that I love to do.

Okay, I have to clean somebody’s behind — now that sounds like fun — , so I gotta to go. Have a nice weekend.

Can you believe it’s here already? Today is the first day of Thanksgiving week and that means all the craziness starts…..right now. I have a mile long of things to do (and to buy) on my holiday list, which I have to start working on, by the way. I have just talked on the phone with my husband, giving him the list of food that we’re going to bring for our family Thanksgiving at my in-laws. On that note, I have to do some grocery shopping after I dropped Kyle off at the tutoring place today. The last thing I want to do is to do that a day or two before Thursday. Do you know how crowded grocery stores right before Thanksgiving? Ugh. Don’t even think about it.

What did I tell my husband that we were going to bring? I forget already. Hm. Let’s see. Apple crisp, fruit salad, rolls and drinks. So it’s all about fruits. Yesterday I came up with the list of fruits that I’m going to use and they’re mangoes, grapes, pineapple and pears. Some of them sound tropical, I know, but that’s what makes it special, right? You know what, I just thought of something while attending Shane a few minutes ago — I leave the keyboard occasionally to do my routine, just so you know –; how about adding kiwi fruit to the bunch. That sounds good, if I could find some ripe ones.

~ My sick little boy ~

Shane was sick with stomach flu for almost a week last week. Actually, he just got over it a couple of days ago. This time of year the virus spreads around and there’s not much we can do about it. He probably got it from school, who knows. Luckily Kyle didn’t get it this time. I’m hoping that he won’t catch it like last year. They actually got it twice last year. The weird thing is, Kyle got it on his cousin, Jayden’s birthday party last year and Shane got it on the same day this year. So Jayden’s birthday, which is on November 15th is also known as the stomach flu day for us. I usually don’t give them milk and juice while they’re sick but after about four days Shane started asking for his milk. That day he was calling for me and I found him standing in front of the refrigerator while holding on his milk jug. Oh, dear. Milk is bad for them when they have stomach flu so you may want to hide it until they are fully recovered. It was a good thing that the milk had gone bad and he agreed when he smelled it. I ended up giving him a tiny bit of my lactose free milk and he seemed to be fine afterward.

~ Mr. 19 Teeth ~

Okay, we went from the food for Thanksgiving to stomach flu and now it’s time to talk about Kyle’s lost tooth. How exciting. You just don’t know what life throws at you. So Kyle, our oldest one had been complaining about his wiggly tooth for a while and last week he told me that it was really, really wiggly. I had to ask my sister, Lisa about it because she’s more experienced in this — I actually talked to her daughter, Rachel, who is the expert because she is experiencing it herself. They gave some good advice but I decided to let Kyle keep wiggling it with his tongue until it was really ready. Low and behold, a few days ago he told me when he came home from school that it felt like his tooth was super loose and that night while he was chewing on his food, it came off!

“Mommy! My tooth came off!!!!”, he showed me a little tooth in his hand.

It was painless and there was no blood. Awesome. He then told me that it didn’t hurt him anymore. So I guess it had been hurting him for a while.

We don’t believe in Santa (they see me wrapping Christmas gifts for our big family). We never said anything about the tooth fairy. But I was caught off guard that night when he told me how excited he was that the tooth fairy was going to come that night. I guess he must have heard it from his friends because obviously they all are experiencing the same thing. How do I burst the bubble and tell him the truth? I looked at that happy innocent face and didn’t say anything.That night I told my husband to leave a dollar bill under his pillow, which he found inside the box where his tooth was. He then asked me why the tooth fairy didn’t take the tooth. I told him the tooth was for me too keep but didn’t offer anymore explanation. Ah, it’s complicated. Who says being a parent is easy? I told my husband yesterday that it’s hard because we care. If we don’t care about our kids then everything will be easy peasy lemon squeezy. Right?

~ Thanksgiving party at Sunday school ~

We had a Thanksgiving party in our classroom last Saturday. I call it Sunday school even though it’s on Saturday night to make it easier. Anyway, I made some decoration using card stock, construction paper and yarn for the ceiling. Everything is handmade, I didn’t have the Cricut machine until I was finished with them. Some of the parents asked if I used the Cricut and I had to laugh. I wish I did. But to tell you the truth, as strange as it sounds, I actually enjoyed cutting the shapes. The leaves were the hardest ones to cut because of the shapes but I did it while I was waiting for Kyle in the car when I went to pick him up from school, so they gave me something to do. The turkey is pretty big, although it’s hard to tell from the picture but it stood out amongst the little things around it. Well, there were two big sparkly pumpkins next to it but the turkey was the vocal point. The kids were so excited when they saw the decoration and so were the parents. Hanging them was a little tricky and my poor husband, who wasn’t feeling well at the moment had to do it. Thanks, honey.

Since Black Friday is coming, here are some tips for you if you’re gift hunting. The Black Friday ads are ready online so you can start making list now. Check websites that tell you all the deals that’s happening right now — my favorites are slickdeals.com and dealligg.com. Shop early so you don’t miss out on great deals out there. Believe me, the closer it is to Christmas, the higher the prices will be so do your shopping wisely.

All right then. Happy Thanksgiving (and happy shopping), you all!

"Cheeseeee......hurry up, daddy!"

Okay, guess where the picture was taken. Nope, not at a pumpkin patch. See the wiener car behind them? Got a clue? It was in front of a Fred Meyer store, the new one in Wilsonville. We stopped by there on our way home from our trip to the Family Fun Center.  Kyle’s school was having parent-teacher conference days and my husband decided to take a couple of days off to be with us so we took the boys for a fun family trip to Wilsonville.

@ Kiddopolis

Shane & mommy

We had so much fun at the Fun Center. First of all, the place was deserted. There were only a few people there so there was absolutely no line. None. Awesome. I used the gift cards that I bought from the fish’ website last year so we didn’t spend any money on this trip. Nice. I was reluctant to do the go-kart race but decided to do it since there was only another family in line other than us. Then I noticed that all the cars were brand new. The gas pedals on the old ones were so hard to push and I got tired afterward, which is why I didn’t like them, that and the fume, but the new ones were so easy to drive. And I didn’t smell like I worked at a gas station afterward so it was wonderful.

Anyway…..speaking of pumpkin patch, we actually did go to one but there was nothing exciting about it at all so I didn’t even bother to take pictures while we were there. My husband did but I won’t even bother to look for them. It was on Sunday, I believe it was on October 22nd. We went to a pumpkin patch in Sauvie Island after church. I don’t remember the name. Let me look it up. Um, you know what, I won’t waste my energy on it since it was pretty boring anyway. We got there around 3 or 4 pm and the place was packed. There was another one nearby called The Pumpkin Patch but it was on groupon so you can imagine how big the line was on that one. Okay. Back to this place. We came for the corn maze and couldn’t find the place to get the tickets. There was nobody to ask and the sign said you could pay inside the maze so we went inside and didn’t see anyone selling tickets there.  It was our first corn maze  experience and I was so bored I could fall asleep if it wasn’t so muddy in there. I can’t believe people would pay $7 per person to get in. Let me tell this, I won’t even go to one anymore even if it’s free. So there. We went, we saw and we left.

Where is Kyle?

There he is!

And into the yard debree container he goes.

It has been pretty dry lately, although it did rain so hard for the first time last night. The leaves were dry and crunchy when my husband and Kyle raked them up the other night. Our neighbors were out of town so my husband decided to rake their leaves as well. Aw, that was so nice of you, dear. I wish somebody would rake ours. Kyle was so happy when his daddy told him he could help out there. Someday he won’t find it so amusing anymore so we might as well milk it while we can. Too bad Shane couldn’t join them. He would have loved to ‘help out’ but it would take three times longer if we let him. Sorry, Shane, maybe next year?

Our beach bum

Who goes to the beach on late October? We did. We had dinner at Camp 18 with our family last Saturday and decided to go to the beach while we were there. So we left after lunch, got some gas at Costco and arrived at Seaside around 2 pm. I checked weather.com before we left and they said it was going to be 58 F/14 C and partly cloudy. I know, it didn’t sound too promising but hey, this is Oregon, if it doesn’t rain then it’s a good day to be outside. We were pleasantly surprised when we got there. It was g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s. The sky was clear blue, there was no breeze and best of all, there were almost nobody. The parking lot was almost empty. The beach was so peaceful. Ah, what a wonderful day.

The 'hang out' place

So we marked our spot, set the tent up — well, it’s actually a sport umbrella that looks like a tent — and put the mat down. The boys were already in their own little world while we were doing this. Check out our hang out place. That’s like the place to be when we’re at the beach. It’s fun in there, especially when I bring my magazines and sunglasses. I can read and snooze while my husband is busy chasing the boys or building a giant tunnel for them. In the Summer time, I’d bring some snacks and cold drink and we’d have a little party in there. We bring it when it’s hot for shade and when it’s cold to hide from the breeze. And for privacy. No, not ‘that kind’ of privacy. Anyway, this thing is a life saver and it’s worth every penny for us. Oh, let me tell you about the mat, too. It is made out of plastic straws and we can fold and tie it up into a small rectangle. It’s something that you’d see a lot where I’m from and we bought it at an Asian grocery store a long time ago. It still looks new, by the way, and we use it A LOT. Next time I see it again I’m going to get one for my in-laws. I think it’s better than a blanket because it doesn’t get dirty. You just shake the sand off and you’re done.

Leaving the beach

@ Camp 18

The boys were sad when we had to leave the beach but were happy when they saw everybody at the restaurant. Camp 18 is a rustic restaurant 18 miles away from the Seaside. You’ll drive by it every time you go to the coast. I’ve been there three times and I must say it’s quite unique. I was looking for the right word for it and unique is perfect. I’m not a big fan of American food, you know, burgers and fries — although I like fries –, so I can’t tell you how good the food is. But if you’re a burger fan than this is the place for you. Our nephew, Collin had a really tall burger that was almost impossible to bite into. My husband had a clam chowder and some corn bread while I had a plate of fried chicken tenders and fries. Their portion is HUGE. So if you’re a big eater, you’ll love it. We shared our food and I must say that I didn’t like the chowder. I like Mo’s better. And the corn bread was cold. We were like, really? How hard is it to put it in the oven for a few minutes? Get a small toaster oven if you’re afraid of the electric bill. Ah, come on.

My first caramel apel

So, to wrap this up, I wanted to share with you my first caramel apple. Well, not the real thing, but the picture and the story. Anyway, I was craving for some caramel apple and bought some caramel candy to make my own before my husband came home with two of them. They were from my in-laws for our sons but I knew that they wouldn’t eat them so they were mine. I don’t know how people eat a whole apple with chewy caramel around it but I cut mine into small chunks. I wasn’t sure about eating raw granny smith apple — I always bake them for apple pies or apple crumbles — but I gave it a try anyway. And the vote is……..it was delicious! Yum. I want more. I shared one with my husband and still have a whole one, which by the way is calling for me right now. I’m thinking about making some myself but cut them up first and dip them in some nut topping after dipping them in caramel for Thanksgiving.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I couldn’t wait for Black Friday deal so I bought a tablet of groupon last night. I’d kick myself if I see a better deal on Black Friday but we need it for Sunday school now so I really couldn’t pass it up (I’m making up excuses to make myself feel better, I know). It’s a Toshiba tablet for $299, $100 off retail. Don’t bother to look it up, folks, they’re sold out last night. I was interested in an Ipad but it doesn’t take usb or sd cards while this Toshiba one has all kinds of places where you can plug in all kinds of stuff around it, which makes it more usable, in our opinion. What I’m going to do is, I’m going to show the kids some pictures on the tablet while telling the story and maybe show a short video off of youtube about the story.  I already compiled some pictures that I found online and saved them on pdf. This way it will be more interesting because I’m going to use real pictures instead of the regular visuals. Oh, I actually asked for a tv in the classroom, which sounds a little insane, especially in this economy, but we got to keep up with technology, you know. A few years from now, all the kids will be carrying tablets, which some already have and nobody will read ‘real books’ anymore.

Okay, it’s time to make the craft now. Again, I got carried away. If you’re still here, thanks for staying with me. Gotta go now. Have a good day!

It’s weird but is also true. For a while, all I could think of was our trip; how nice it was waking up and seeing my family, eating all the food I love, going to places I like. But now that I’m used to my life again, the real one that is, it seems like the trip is something that happened a long time ago. It’s sad in a way, but that’s just the way it is. I cherish the time that we were there so much that it almost seems unreal to me. It’s more like a fairy tale, a nice dream that only happens once in a while.

Our tomato garden

Anyway, I got a little surprise when we got back from our trip; we had tomatoes in our backyard! You see, I usually buy some vegetable plants and annuals in the spring but didn’t do it last spring because we were going to be gone the whole summer. But I noticed sometime in late spring that we had some new growths in the raised garden that looked like tomato plants. What happened was, last Fall when the plants died, I must have left some rotten tomatoes in there — they looked so gross I didn’t want to touch them, even with gloves on — and that turned out to be a good thing to do. We got some free plants this year. Woohoo.

Shane with the harvest

My instant noodle looks gourmet with the tomato addition

Long story short, I have been harvesting the tomatoes every other day now — yes, there are still lots of them. My husband has been enjoying them in his salad and I have been having them in my humble lunch, the Indomie noodle — no more good food for me after the trip is over. The other day I made some vegetable soup with them — I just remembered the name of the soup, minestrone — and am going to make some more one of these soggy days. We have two types of tomatoes, the little ones or the grape tomatoes and the bigger ones, which I think are the Romas. The small ones taste better but the big ones are good for soup.

Mowing together

Little mower in training

But our backyard is mostly covered in shade now and that’s not good for the tomatoes. Last night I went to harvest them and they didn’t look as bright because they’re not getting enough sun light and plus the weather has been pretty ugly lately. Luckily, daddy and Shane got to enjoy their time together while the weather was still nice. Kyle used to do that and now it’s his brother’s turn.

Speaking of that, I was out watering the lawn in the front yard last month when the temperature was still in the 80′s when I ran into our next door neighbor. We both got letters from the homeowners association regarding our brown lawns, which always happens when we leave the country (groan). My husband had to replace a section of the lawn to avoid a $75 fee, which was ridiculous.

But anyhow, she, our neighbor, started talking about the holiday season that is approaching and the cookies that I always bake for them and that I should consider doing a cooking class for her Korean group of friends. I was like, “Huh?”. My husband thought it would be a good idea and I should be proud that somebody thought I was good enough to teach my baking skill in front of an audience. Um, I don’t know about that. I don’t know if I have the confidence.

The two lil rascals

"It's Eva Air!"

Anyhow. Since the weather has been bad, the boys are pretty much grounded. Kyle has been going to Sylvan for math tutoring every day from Monday to Thursday. That sounds like a lot of driving but it actually works pretty good for us. I drop him off after school and then my husband picks him up on his way home from work. They have about 45 minutes at home to do their homework and or work on the kindergarten and second grade book that I got at Costco while they eat their snack before we head to Sylvan, which is about 15 minutes drive from here.

When you hear about tutoring, you instantly think there must be something wrong with the kid, but that’s not always the case. They have a program that’s called enrichment, which is an advanced program for kids who want to excell and that’s what Kyle is doing. He’s learning second grade math while still in first grade.

And that’s pretty much what I do every day. School, study, tutoring, house chores. Oh, and work on Sunday school crafts. Sounds pretty exciting, doesn’t it?

Anyway, it’s mid October already. Next month will be November and before you know it, Christmas will be here. Yay. I can see tons and tons of cookies in my future. If you want to be on my cookie list, let me know, but you have to be good first. Lol. My husband switched crew at work and one of his old crew members already told him that she was going to miss my cookies. Aw. I’m torn. But if I send her some, I’ll have to do that to the rest of them and all in all that would be too massive. Hm.

On that note, I’ll have to start baking some cookies to figure out which one of them will be ‘the ones’.

Have a nice weekend and thanks for stopping by.

We were on our way to his school when all of the sudden I smelled something.

“Shane, did you toot?”, I asked my little passenger who was sitting quietly on his carseat.

“Yeah….”, he answered. “It’s all gone now.”

Hmppf. It was all gone all right; it had moved to the driver’s side. Ay yi yi. And I held my breath until it was really gone.