Fruity

When we were at Phuket, I was able to try several exotic fruit that I have never seen before. The fruit pictured above is called shampoo (not sure of the spelling) that tasted like a cross of apple and pear. You slice it and chill it in the refrigerator for a bit then enjoy!

Another cool fruit is the dragon fruit or strawberry pear. It has a rind with a fleshy fruit inside. The first one I tasted was bland and pulpy so I was disappointed. I had another chance to try it later in the week and was surprised to find it delicious. Maybe the earlier fruit was unripe but this one was sweet, slightly juicy kind of like a kiwi. I found out that this fruit is mostly found in Central and South America although southeast Asia is growing it. There are several varieties with either white, red or yellow fruit inside. Maybe I'll look for it at the Asian market.

I finally found out the name of the last exotic fruit I had and it's called a rambutan. The rambutan is a small fruit with spines (soft) that are cut along the rind to reveal a fruit that looks like a peeled grape. There is a seed (almond size) in the middle of the fruit but you eat around it. The fruit is sweet and firm. I definitely have to look for this fruit too. Apparently it is very common in southeast Asia.

Mountain View

We made it to Mountain View, California! My mom and I left around 11:30am and arrived here at 5:30pm. I was very good, even though I could have risen to the bait on the topics my mother brought up, I let it go. The drive up Interstate 5 was uneventful, then we switched to the 152 through Gilroy (the garlic capital) and San Jose. I was driving kinda fast down a hill when I noticed about 5 CHP cars lined up along a turnout. When I got to the bottom, a CHP officer was holding a radar gun...yikes! I think I was going 75-80mph in a 65mph zone but eased my foot the gas...ugh. I was getting a sinking feeling as I passed the CHP cars and one pulled out afterwards. Oh no! There was a Yukon that was to my right when we got clocked and I saw the driver totally slow down and eased between 2 18-wheelers. The CHP was a ways behind me and in my lane so I'm preparing myself to see flashing lights. But no, he pulls in behind the Yukon and flashes him! Whew! That was sooooo close! I should have gotten a ticket but I guess the Yukon acted more guilty than me by trying hide between those 2 trucks (I had slowed to 65mph without braking). I think we'll take the 101 home on Sunday.

We are staying at the Residence Inn but there is only one queen bed..oh well. I can't complain, this place is really nice. A couch, TV, kitchen and decent bathroom plus we got a senior discount for my mom! We had dinner at Chili's and it was okay. My mom's grilled chicken was way too salty but luckily there was a HUGE Whole Foods market across the street where we got a roast chicken. So now she is very happy.

It took a little while to figure how to get internet access but as you tell, we have success. I'll take some pictures of our room to post later.

Family Matters

The other day, Hector didn't have to go in to work until 5pm so he went to see his mom and sister. He called me later to say that he was driving them to Rose Hills in their car to put flowers on his father's grave. A few hours later, Hector called to say they had a blowout on the way home and they were all okay but the car fender was messed up. It was a good thing that Hector driving at the time because his mom and sister freaked out.

Then I found out that my nephew had a car accident a week or so ago. He is okay and it wasn't his fault but now needs to get his car fixed. There is that whole thing of dealing with other people's insurance which can be a real pain.

Last night when Hector gets home, he tells me that Anthony is coming over. I ask, "Anthony, who?"
"Anthony, our nephew."
Wow, we haven't seen Anthony is about 8 years and it turns out that he works about 2 miles from our house! He came by and I remembered him being very tall and skinny. Well, he filled out and he seems to doing really good. It was so nice to see him and we caught up on his twin sister who had a baby boy in February. Hopefully, he won't be such a stranger!

Fall Weather

I love the cooler weather of fall and winter. It doesn't get too cold here in SoCal but I like wearing sweatshirts, scarves and sweaters. Lately the weather has become cooler where I can wear a sweatshirt at night or in the morning when the marine layer hasn't burned off. Like this morning, I put on a sweatshirt over my T-shirt and when the clouds burned off, I took it off. That's normal. But I saw a man at the medical building wearing Uggs and shorts. Okay, I love my Uggs too but come on...I also saw a woman wearing a long sleeve shirt with a light down-type vest over it! Uh, okay. It kinda reminds of Japan when fall starts, all the people break out their winter clothing and wear it whether it's cold or not.

Aiyah

I need to finish some things before Friday. This morning Tyler had a dentist appointment. He has several cavities that will take a couple of visits to fix. Next week Joshua will have his appointment that requires sedation and IV anesthesia. I hope that Hector will get the day off so he can be there too.

My cousin, David, is getting married this Saturday in San Jose. I will be driving up there with my mom. David is Grace's son (my mom's sister) and Grace passed away just a little over a year ago. My mom feels she has a family duty as the elder sister to be there. I will take her for family support and to show that I'm such a good daughter. I also get the chance to see a really good college friend that I haven't seen since she got married in 2002. Thankfully, we are staying at a Residence Inn where they have complimentary internet (wi-fi) access.

So that means that Hector has the boys for 3 days! I have to list what he needs to do this weekend. The only thing he needs to worry about is Tyler's soccer game. Hector will do fine but he tries to do so much. He wants to get my mom's car brakes done. And by the way, my mom's other sister, Sarah is flying out from Philadelphia this weekend but not for the wedding. She is out here for a funeral for a cousin's wife. It was very sad that this lady was hit by a car while they were crossing the street. The woman driving the car took off but the police found her. The sad thing is that the couple were on their way to the airport to fly to New Jersey and see their daughter & her new baby. My mom and I already commited to the wedding so she won't be able to see Sarah this time.

My mom and I will be leaving Friday morning and return Sunday. I will be bringing my laptop so I can keep myself busy. I promise to be good and not argue with my mom!

Loose Tooth

With all the excitement of last weekend, I forgot to mention that Tyler lost his first baby tooth Friday night! We discovered that his 2 front lower teeth are loose about 10 days ago and I was wondering how long it would be before it came out. So Friday night, Tyler was taking a bath and I called up asking if he was done. He yelled that his tooth fell out and he didn't know where it was. I got him out of the tub to dry off and I found his tooth in the bathwater. :) So Tyler got a visit that night from the Tooth Fairy and received a dollar! He is discovering that he can stick a straw through the space and drink his juice.

Let's Celebrate!

We finally had Tyler's birthday party on Saturday. His birthday is September 1, but we were flying home. It worked out for the best since I was able to invite about 10 of his school friends and they all showed up! We rented a bounce house which is always a big hit, had pizza, hot dogs and a pinata. I think the kids had a good time. I borrowed an idea from Tyler's school which is lots of fun. We call it Dunkin for Donuts. You take mini powder donuts, string them up and have the kids try to eat them without using their hands. It is so cute and funny to see them get powder sugar all over their faces.

See? It's good, clean fun plus who can resist a donut! I wanted to have the adults have a go but it seems that the guys who tried it can unhinge their jaws and swallow the donut whole!

Sunday was another reason to celebrate, Tyler played goalie for his soccer team. He only played goalie for one quarter but he stopped & caught the ball whenever it was within reach. We are working on his speed and catching, but he definitely was getting the hang of it. The team tries so hard but we haven't won game yet. Joshua spent his time making faces and playing on the bleachers.

Have you ever seen a Pepsi elephant? We did at the Phuket Fantasea and it was just one of the unusual things there.

We saw this "jellyfish" at a midway-style game area for children. The picture is kind of deceiving since the flash went off but this guy was under a black light so he glowed.

This is more like it. It was really cute, done in an underwater world theme. This whole theme park was filled with shops and other ways for people to part with their money. I guess we can say that we experienced it but I doubt we would ever go back to Phuket Fantasea.

Random shots

Dressing up is fun and Tyler is in superhero mode with his sidekick Joshua. They will fight EVIL and bring fun into the world!!

Uh-oh, Joshua is blocking the stairs...he looks like he means business.

Charley is ready for his close-up...he is sooo adorable!

Hidden Talent

Who knew? Yesterday at soccer practice, the coach had Tyler as goalie for scrimmage and he did great! He was able to stop the ball most of the time and he has a good drop kick that gets the ball halfway down the field. I did have to tell him that the ball will be kicked a lot harder & faster during the actual game so it might hurt a little but he seemed prepared to handle it. Plus he also had a more mature attitude if the other team scored a goal and he said he would do his best. Hopefully, I can fit in more practice time before his game on Sunday. I think Tyler may have found his calling!

Progress

I went to Back-to-school night for Joshua and I came home very pleased. His teacher Miss Charlotte was very excited that Joshua really loves school and is trying new things. We will attempt to potty train him again with the whole class in October. I also spoke to his speech therapist Miss Neely (?) and she told me that he is starting to talk and enunciate better. I sometimes feel a little disconnected because he takes the bus to school & back everyday so I miss that interaction with his teachers. But after tonight I was very happy and hopefully soon I can sit in on his class to see him in school. Miss Charlotte feels that he is poised to have everything come together which makes me so happy that I might cry (just a little).

Merlion

On Sentosa Island, there are several attractions. One that stood out was the Merlion. As you can see the Merlion is half lion and half fish. We saw a short cartoon explaining the origin of the Merlion and how Singapore sees it as their protector. I can't remember how tall the statue is but it is probably around 10 stories. There is a lookout point on top of the Merlion and at its mouth.

When you first enter, each person is given a gold coin. Right before the elevators, there are 4 stations with lion head statues and you choose a lion to insert your coin into its mouth. A card comes out with either A, B or C and it corresponds to a free gift. "A" was a cheesy plastic fan, "B" was a Merlion keyring and "C" was a set of Sentosa coasters. So we ended up with 3 sets of coasters and 1 keyring.

Then on to the elevators and straight up to top. You can either climb a flight of stairs to the top or down a flight to its mouth. We got a great view at the top but too bad it was cloudy and later rainy. We could see all of Sentosa Island and the Carlsberg (beer) Tower. At the mouth, it was kinda cool with the teeth and all but a limited view.

More Singapore

This is a very cool bridge that was close to our hotel. I noticed it when we drove by on our very first day. The next 2 days were rainy and cloudy so we didn't walk over there. On our very last day, Lupe and I walked to the bridge for some pictures.
We also got to see some signs that we've heard so much about. Singapore is known for its "No __________ (fill in the blank). The most famous is no chewing gum and there are many more. No spitting, no urinating in public etc. We used an underpass to cross the street and we saw the signs. It also said for bikers to walk their bikes through the underpass. We watched a biker to see if he would obey the law but no he rode his bicycle. For a country with so many laws, I don't recall seeing any policemen. That bike riding incident would have cost that man $1000.

Yesterday was extremely hectic...I had to take both boys to the dentist. Tyler is very good and isn't a problem. Joshua, on the other hand, refused to cooperate for x-rays and I had to restrain him with my arms & legs for the exam. Both have cavities, Tyler will be fine but Joshua will have to be sedated. I am not looking forward to it at all but it has to be done.

So on to some other news. I had ordered some party supplies online and it arrived! I had to go that route since Pokemon are not the most popular toys anymore. But I did manage to find plates, table covers etc. so that should make Tyler pretty happy. I scheduled his party for this Saturday and all the children I invited are coming! It should be lots of fun.

The pictures are from Singapore. The boys are standing next to a finger but I didn't have the chance to find out what the significance was. We were running out of time before we had to meet out tour group so I took the picture. There were pony rides also at the zoo and Joshua really enjoyed it. So maybe he will have some horse therapy in the future. Tyler wanted to swim in the hotel pool at Singapore and finally on our very last day, the sun came out. Since our flight was late afternoon, Hector took the boys for a swim.

You Belong in the Zoo

Phuket Fantasea

I'm still using my sister-in-law pictures and this is from Phuket Fantasea. This is a stage show that was about 15 minutes highlighting Thailand's culture. Hector thinks that all the women on stage were men and I can't tell. Some of the perfomers were definitely men dressed as women but the others were harder to tell.

Yikes! The mahoot (elephant handler) got this great picture of Lupe & Tyler's elephant. He does some kind of signal or command and the elephant opens its mouth and raises its trunk. Later when we were trekking down the mountain, their elephant slipped a little and the mahoot smacked the elephant hard in the head with their stick! Twice. It's awful but I think it is to keep the elephant in line because if they go mad, they kill the elephant.

And here is our breakfast with the orangutans at the Singapore Zoo. We had such a better time at the elephant rehab center with the gibbons. Here we had a buffet breakfast and then we're allowed to take a picture next to the orangutan. It is very fast with other waiting in line so we didn't have a chance to really observe the orangutan. Kind of a let-down. Overall, I did enjoy the zoo but I would skip the breakfast if I could do it again.

Dog Tired

Poor Josh...it's tough being a young kid. They fall asleep at the wrong times and they can't help it. I can't tell you how many times that Joshua has fallen asleep at dinner (mostly when we eat out). I think the car rides just lull him to sleep. There was no exception while on vacation. He fell asleep on the bus tour in Phuket and missed half of it. In Singapore, he fell asleep on the bus to Sentosa which was a short 20 minutes. Here we are at the cable car station waiting to board the gondolas. They had some funky chairs so we placed him inside and everyone took pictures.

Most of the time, Joshua is awake and lively. He is full of energy and ready for action. This was the closest he would get to Charley but this is pretty good. This was before our elephant ride where Joshua pitched a fit. It turned out fine in the end (he fell asleep)!

Wow, Lupe took some nice pictures! I haven't had the chance to go through all of them but they look pretty good. The pic above was taken at Karon beach...I had wanted to take a walk along the beach. We stopped at a coffee house to get cold drinks and for every drink we bought, we were given 15 minutes of internet use. Cool. Lupe and I took 1/2 hour each to check e-mail etc. On our way back, we walked along the street and took some pics of this serpent/dragon statue. I am not sure what the significance is but it is pretty cool.
This pic is from the Sunshine Bar. We met some fellow travellers from the Trip Advisor forum for some all-you-can-eat BBQ then on to the Sunshine Bar. It is basically a U-shaped bar with stools and a few tables around the bar. This pole is smack dab in the middle of the U with a smaller bar at the top where a bell hangs about 6 ft from the ground. There are 4-5 bargirls who sing along to CDs and they shimmy up the pole like squirrels. They make it look so easy which fools everyone into thinking climbing the pole is a piece of cake. Lupe attempted the pole and had a little help from a bargirl. She even scored 1000 baht ($25) from some man that laid down $$ for any woman that could do it. As the night wore on, we had the kids try (with obvious help). That's one thing that it was a kid-friendly evening. The bargirls were funny, even shouting out,"Hey, handsome man, where you come from? What's your name? We love you long time!" It was all in fun, poking fun at themselves.

I'm in a frenzy to post some pictures now that I know Blogger uploads Lupe's pictures and not mine.Here is a Buddhist temple that we visited. I wasn't able to go inside since I was wearing shorts and a tanktop (2 no-nos). Hector and Lupe went inside to see what is in there. There is that fine line where you want to observe other's people religion and culture but don't want to be offensive or rude. Hector saw people praying so he let them do their thing without pushing a camera in their faces.

Here we are having dinner at a Thai restaurant by our hotel. I think that this is the only place we ate at during our entire stay besides the hotel. They had an international menu so the kids enjoyed pizza and hot dogs while we stuffed ourselves on Thai food.

Hallelejuh!

I can post a picture!! Woo hoo. Of course, blogger uploaded my sister in law pics and not mine but hey, I'll take what I can get at this point. Here we are in our van en route to the Hilton Phuket Arcadia. Our first van overheated and the driver was on top of things. He called ahead to his company for another van so we didn't have to wait very long at all. The new van was much newer and had better A/C & higher ceiling.

Lupe managed to stay awake the first day to catch a pic of the sunset. The rest of us crashed and poor Lupe was watching Discovery channel for hours waiting for us to get dinner. Good thing because the rest of the sunsets were much cloudier. So thanks, Loop.

A quick note...I am still having problems loading pics onto Blogger beta but hopefully they will fix it soon. Also with my new, more active lifestyle I don't sit in front of the computer for hours at a time. So please be patient, I will post more exciting (hopefully) tidbits for you soon.

Now that my foot has healed from bunion surgery, I am walking/jogging on my treadmill and keeping more active with the kids. So maybe I won't be blogging every day but I'll definitely try every few days!

Soccer Saturday

Saturday is coming to an end and it was busy. The kids woke up early (why don't they ever sleep in on Saturdays). I did some kitchen cleanup, etc. and at 11:30am I headed over to the soccer park to help sell soccer bracelets. I found a parking spot (luckily) and found the table. The lady in charge said," It's totally slow, go home." I asked several times if she was sure and she insisted everything was fine. She said,"Don't tell your family, go get a massage or your nails done." Hmm, tempting but I did go home. I convinced Tyler to ride our bikes to another park about 1.5 miles away. Hector strapped Josh onto his bike while Tyler and I rode our own bikes. It was fun. We rode around the park and Tyler whined most of the way. I tried to motivate him but sometimes I think a cattle prod would be more effective. :)

He also needed to be prodded along at his soccer game. Boy, that kid is rooted to the ground at times. Tyler did manage to kick the ball a few times but compared to the others he needs to get moving. As a whole family, we are spending more time exercising/playing to get more active and be healthy. Over the last year, Tyler gained a lot of weight. It didn't help when you add video games and junk food. So we are making a change...we cut our the video games almost completely since school started and cutting out junk food. So here is to our healthy new lives!!

Today when we were at the park and Joshua wanted to sit in his favorite blue swing, I remembered that the swing squeaks and makes such a terrible noise. I asked Hector to go get some WD-40 and sure enough it worked. The swing is ultra silent. Yesss. So that Hector and I talking about the many uses of WD-40 and here are just some of them . I don't think I'll be using it for everything but it does sound handy.

1st day of school

We had a good, busy day. The kids were up and ready in time for school. I misread Tyler's class room but that was straightened out and we found the correct room. Tyler was very happy to see his old buddies and to play on the big playground. We resumed our normal schedule of Joshua playing at the park right after dropping Tyler off. He played with Alex and actually played together which is a real improvement (versus side by side). Joshua jumped right back into his school schedule and was so eager to put on his backpack.

Tyler was out of school at 3:13pm and we had just enough time to walk home, grab a quick snack then off to soccer practice. The problem is that on Thursdays, soccer practice coincides with Joshua being dropped off of the bus. My mom came over to watch Josh while we are at practice. I also had volunteered to help with the team banner so after practice we headed over to the team mom's house. Tyler played with the other kids while the moms worked on tracing, cutting and gluing felt letters and paws onto a big blue felt banner. It turned out really good. The moms are really laid back and didn't get bossy or controlling at all. I think this season will be a good one! I am going help with the snack bar for 2 hours on Saturday so I'll let you know how that goes...

Do Not Disturb

You'll be glad that I don't have pictures of this incident. In Phuket, we had a room with an adjoining room for the kids. One day, my sis-in-law and I had a spa day which was heavenly and Hector was with the kids. Hector explained that he had just finished his shower and checked on the boys playing video games. Joshua had a poopy diaper so Hector proceeded to change his diaper right then and there. He is standing next to the bed right by the adjoining door and he glances over to our room where the housecleaning lady was standing. She must have knocked on our door but Hector didn't hear her so she came upon Hector in his full frontal glory. Eeeek! She apologizes then quickly runs out. Every time we'd see her, she would wave and giggle! We made sure that we left her a big tip for the week!

Last day of summer break

I'm still having problems with uploads and maybe it's because I switched to Blogger beta a few days ago. This is getting really frustrating. Today is the last day of summer vacation so several moms and I arranged a playdate at the park. It was nice to catch up on the latest news before school starts. Tyler starts 1st grade and Joshua will be in his same preschool class. The kids had fun riding bikes and playing in the sand while us moms chatted.

This afternoon, Hector replaced my mom's kitchen faucet. It was leaking and I bought a new faucet yesterday. That faucet turned out to be problemsome with connections etc so we ended buying a different one. I helped hand Hector the appropiate wrench or part so I felt I contributed. :)

I hope that blogger accepts my pictures soon since my Thailand/Singapore updates won't be as fun if you can't see what we did.

Ho-hum

I'm tired of trying to upload photos to Blogger so I'm gonna take a break from that. Today was spent doing errands, picking up Hector's paycheck, going to the bank and making various appointments. I haven't taken Joshua to the dentist yet because I am dreading how he'll react. I know I'm probably overreacting but if he decides to freak out, it takes its toll on me too. Hopefully he will see that Tyler has no problems with the dentist and that will affect him positively. There is no predicting that kind of stuff. Then for Tyler's annual medical exam, someone calls to say the kids' insurance group needs to be changed so everything will be covered. Ugh. Trying to get through to a human being at an insurance company was difficult to say the least. When prompted to say a word or date, the stupid computer didn't "understand" me and after repeating myself several times without any luck...I kept pushing "0" until I got a human. Yeah, success! We were able to switch groups and it'll be effective by tomorrow.

At least my night ended well. We had Tyler choose a restaurant to celebrate his birthday since we were on an airplane. After some thought, Tyler chose Vince's (spaghetti ) and that was really good. He had his children's spaghetti dinner with cheesecake for dessert. And on Tuesdays, there is a magician that circulates from table to table. He made a red handkerchef disappear into Tyler's shirt sleeve and made foam balls go from his hand into Tyler's hand. Tyler got a big kick out of the tricks and it was great to see his eyes grow big in amazement. Now we are all super full of pasta so I'll call it a night.

Okay, Blogger or my computer will not cooperate in uploading my photos. All I was able to upload was this small pic so sorry for the lame post.

Phuket Fantasea

I probably can post new pictures of our trip since I took about 1000 pictures on my newest camera and Hector snapped about 300 more on our other little camera. I am in the process of organizing them on Shutterfly so they will be easier to view for family and friends.

Today's post will be about Phuket Fantasea which is a cultural theme park that is mostly based of various shops and the big show. It is another way for you to spend your money but it was fun. More elephants in the stores, around the park and definitely in the show. There was also a little stage show about the Phuket which I can't really remember what is was exactly. I do remember that one of the characters was a little person (man) who arrives in Phuket and there were lots of dance numbers. The reason why I was distracted is because in Thailand, katooeys (lady boys) are very common. Some are obvious since they looked like men wearing women's clothing/makeup but others are harder to detect. Lupe and I spent a lot of time discussing if the ladies were men or not. In each dance number, there was at least 3 katooeys dancing which was fun and entertaining. Katooeys are widely accepted in Thai culture and that's that. Take a careful look and try to find the katooeys.

The actual show is a big Vegas-style production with a 3000 seat theatre. It is the kind of show that surrounds the audience with elephants entering from all aisles toward the stage. It tells the story of a man & his magic elephant. There are battle scenes, a cirque du soleil type acrobatics dangling from the ceiling, a comedy bit with a magic show, then a love scene and final battle scene/grand finale with 16 elephants. It was entertaining. The kids had different reactions to the show; Tyler watched the first 20 minutes then promptly fell asleep for the rest of the show. Joshua absolutely loved it and was engrossed from beginning to end (90 minutes).

I'll post pictures later. Like usual, I can't load any right now. Sigh.

Jet Lag

Wow, jet lag really wiped us out! Actually the kids seem to be okay with Tyler back to normal the quickest. Joshua gets up very early (5am today) but he is basically on Pacific time. Hector is all messed up...we went to see my mom yesterday for her birthday and we fell asleep at her house for a few hours. I went to bed after midnight last night and woke up at 9:45 am feeling refreshed. Hector tried to fall asleep but no luck for him. He went to sleep as soon as I woke up so he is still out of sync.

We arrived in Phuket on Wednesday August 23rd and we spent the first 2 days relaxing by the pool and catching up on sleep. It was really cute that our washcloths were folded into the shape of elephants. In Thailand, elephants are revered creatures as we see elephants all over Phuket. On Thursday, we had a half day tour of Phuket which was kinda cool. We were able to see other parts of Phuket like Rawai beach which is the south part of the island. Sunset Point is a very popular spot to watch the sunset and the spectacular view. Go up higher and there is a shrine to elephants where people place elephant figurines. There is also some kind of monuments but I missed what they are. Hector would be interested in that kind of history/facts but Joshua fell asleep & Hector was stuck holding him.

For the first few days, we had plenty of sunshine and it was hot/humid. It took me lots of fluid and A/C to acclimate but I was glad to get some good pics. The rest of our stay was overcast & rainy at times which kind of cools things down briefly. The A/C was always blasting in our rooms and at night I had to turn them down or off because we would be freezing. Every time we's take a camera outside, the lens would fog up and we'd have to wait for it to adjust.