I am back home now, after a few days in New Jersey. I usually like to write my blog in chronological order, but I am going to write a special post in honor of my Grandmother. This Thursday, I flew back to the east coast to attend my Grandmother’s funeral. Due to the snow storm, my flight(s) were delayed/canceled/rescheduled, and my cousin Dave waited almost 3 hours at the airport to pick me up. Door to door, it took over 16 hours.

Friday morning was the funeral. This may seem strange since I’m 36-years-old, but it to me, my Grandmother never aged. From the time she visited when I was a little girl to the last time I saw her a few years ago, she always looked the same, was always a strong and fearless person. It just didn’t seem real that she was gone. My sister Sophie played the piano during the service. Many of her children, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren spoke about her. There were numerous stories – some humorous, some sad, all touching – about her strength and love for her family.

My father spoke of her in high regards that day, as well as throughout my childhood. Having such a respected matriarch of the family definitely influenced the person I am – I don’t think it’s coincidence that all her granddaughters are independent, opinionated women!

The two nights I stayed in New Jersey, I shared a hotel room with my cousin Patt. It was a great bonding experience. We had so much in common, from our views on parenting to our poor taste in movies (Bruno anyone?) We talked every night until 3am! We had a family lunch after the service, and Friday evening, all the cousins who were in town went out for drinks and pizza at a local Princeton bar.

I’d like to think that Grandma was pleased to see all her children and so many grandchildren come together. Her life was truly one to celebrate. And even though she lived 100-years, it didn’t feel like enough. I will definitely miss her. May Grandma Shu-Ching (“Nai Nai”) rest in peace. 

Ah – my first post for 2011 … Happy New Year! But not so fast, I still have one week left in 2010 to blog. And it was a nice relaxing end of the year – almost everyone was out of the office, and I only worked half days. On Monday, we had James’ friend Bill and his family (including mom) over for dinner, where we served homemade tamales, salad, and pesto pasta.

The next day, we met up with them again at SkyHigh. We left Calie at daycare since it was her naptime, so both James and I could jump – Zachary loves it when we ‘double bounce’ him. That evening, we went to Sam and Melissa’s for dinner. What an honor to be invited to share a traditional holiday dinner with their extended family! We indulged in roasted turkey, stuffing, cole slaw, mashed potatoes, rolls, and pumpkin pie. I definitely have a weakness for freshly baked bread and homemade gravy. Visiting with Melissa’s parents and brother made me miss my own family though – I’ll need to set up a vacation soon to see my parents!  

Wednesday, we met up with Bill and his family at John’s Incredible Pizza. Most of the food was mediocre at best (salad bar, pastas, pizza, soft serve ice cream), but the freshly made donut holes were amazing – they tasted like funnel cakes! Calie loved the Frog Hopper ride and went on it 3 times. Our family favorite was ‘Wheel of Fortune’, but we also played Skeeball, and a few other games. Using Groupons, we fed our family of 4, went on a few rides, played carnival games, and redeemed tickets for a set of Disney Princess dominos and a Cinderella “Barbie” for under $30. Now that’s what I call cheap entertainment!

We drove home quickly (after the kids had one more ice cream cone), as Alice, Sophie, and Eddie were enroute to our home for a holiday get-together. We traded gifts and played board games … Settlers and Ticket to Ride. Zachary had a lot of fun playing soccer outside the next day with Uncle Eddie.

The kids also had a good time with spin art and crystal growing. Since crabs were in season, we steamed a few for dinner, along with a side of roasted red potatoes and salad.

New Year’s Eve, we kept it low key. We had Sam, Melissa, and John over for dinner … more tamales, salad, and pesto pasta! (We are really getting a lot of mileage out of the tamales – they freeze so well and we are also kind of proud that we made tamales from scratch!) I also baked a cherry pie. I bought a 4-cherry pitter last year and Sam challenged the usefulness of it compared to his 1-cherry pitter. So being the fool that I am, I said it would make a big difference when making a cherry pie. I have to say though … I made a really good cherry pie! I just followed a recipe, but it was delicious – the homemade crust made a huge difference. What can I say, butter makes it better.

 
 
The first day of 2011, I took Zachary to see “Cirque Dreams Holidaze” with Alex and Nicole. It was a good show,  but I could tell that in some parts (dancing), he was restless. He liked the balancing and acrobatics best, but admitted later that he would have rather gone to a Kings basketball game. This was a good test – it was worth taking him to this local, less expensive show, but he would not appreciate it enough for me to take him to a Vegas production. Post show, we met up at Hot Italian for dinner. I think this might be my favorite pizza restaurant (barring Village Inn from C-U, but that place comes with family memories so no restaurant can really touch that). Super thin crust and unique ingredients like smoked salmon, dill, and fresh cream …yum. The best part was the hot oil dip for the crispy crust. Sunday it was back to our regular schedule. Zachary had basketball practice, and as if they just couldn’t wait to get back to work, coworkers started logging in Sunday afternoon. Argh! (Yes, I realize I only know because I checked email, but I didn’t send any!)

Speaking of work, it’s focal/review season … that combined with all the hiring, and I pretty much had to hit the ground running Monday morning. Not quite as bad as Melissa though, who had to fly to Singapore the day before. Since Sam was playing single dad, we decided to invite him (and kids) over for dinner after work Wednesday. We also invited Kathy  – it had been too long since I’d seen her last because her weekends tend to be booked with travel! We had Dungeness crabs with sides of roasted potatoes and butter dill carrots. Not too bad for a weekday dinner, although if I had to be honest, the carrots were a bit over steamed and the potatoes could have used a few more minutes in the oven. For me, timing is one of the hardest things when it comes to serving a multi-dish meal.

Last weekend, was a very typical weekend. I got up early for a short jog with Erjia. Then it was Calie’s dance lesson. I have to admit I was annoyed with her class that day. Her classes is 9am-9:45am. But since there was a performance coming up, the teacher scheduled a rehearsal at 9:30am. Older girls started coming in at 9:15am, which was distracting. When I asked the teacher why her class was cut short, the reason was because there were so few kids in her class. Since when was the instruction time depended on the number of students?  Hopefully it was a fluke, since the 4 free lessons were good! The same day, Zachary had his basketball Jamboree … which is basically a series of 3 short games to get the boys familiar with the court and playing against another team. And because I enjoy self-inflicted pain, I signed up to track stats for his team. His real first game is next week.

(Bonus closeup photo of the gingerbread house kit Sebastian gave my kids – they had a fun time making and eating it!)
 
Sunday, the kids started up their swim lessons again after a 2 week break. Afterwards, we went to Dylan’s house for a lunch playdate. It’s been very cold here (for California), and warm Thai chicken curry over rice totally hit the spot. We played ‘Just Dance’ on the Wii, which was very entertaining. I am a terrible dancer, and my score totally reflected that. Paul was harassed mercilessly by Karen for his poor dancing ability – and he proceeded to beat her score! I love it when the underdog wins!

(The irony in this last photo … within a few days of owning the doll, Cinderella is now missing a shoe.)