Italy Trip - Rome

We just came back from Italy yesterday. We went to Rome, Florence, Tuscany area, Venice and then spent several days in Luzern, Switzerland before flying back from Zurich. We were exhausted (physically and also moneywise) after this two weeks trip especially with a toddler but we really enjoyed it. I think we were being too ambitious when we planned the trip. All three of us learned a lot from this trip especially Meredith. Meredith learned about 20 new words during this trip (probably being stimulated by all the new things we encountered during trip and being around us 24 hours everday. I took a lot of pictures, so I will attempt to select a few pictures for each cities we visited. Here are some photos of Rome at night. Overall, Rome (and the Italy) is very charming but with some rough edges at the same time. In fact, the chaos in the street and level of cleanliness reminds me of Malaysia.

The Spainish Steps. This is where all the tourists came to sit and people watch. There are a lot of illegal peddlers hawking fake hand bags (Prada, Guccis etc...) and even cold beer all over Rome. We sat around at the Spainish steps for quite a while. Every 45 minutes or so, the police will come by and all the hawkers will roll up their mats displaying fake handbags and run away to the next street. Five minutes later, they all came back and unroll their mats on the same spot. The fake goods are not entirely cheap either. But business is good and a lot of American tourists have never been to Petaling street or Hong Kong, so they don't know how much good fake goods should costs. Law enforcement in Italy in this regard is pretty lax or sporadic. It's just like VCD hawkers and the police in Malaysia.
View of St. Peter Basilica from the top of Spainish Steps.

Meredith drinks from the fountain in Vatican city. A lot of water fountain in Rome are supplied from ancient Roman aquaducts and is safe for drinking.
The Pantheon. This is nice. It is a temple to worship all 30,000 of Roman Gods. "Pan_ theos" or all the gods. Worship them all under one roof.

Peach tree is bearing fruits again

My parents planted a peach tree in our backyard last year when they were here. I think we had three peaches from this tree last summer. Since last summer, the tree did not bear fruit again. I thought the tree was dead. Amazingly, three small peaches started appearing on this tree a few months ago. Finally, I plucked the peaches today. It tasted very sweet, more so than those we bought in the grocery store.

Crawfish boil

A family from Penang invited us to crawfish boil on Memorial weekend. There were eight adults and 38lbs of crawfish. Typically, each person will eat about 3 lbs of crawfish in a crawfish boil. I think I consumed about 6 lbs of crawfish in that afternoon/night (from 3pm to 7pm). We got home about 9pm that night and I had to go running in our neighborhood to help with digestion.

short legs

Meredith has short and stubby legs as seen in these two photos.

Meredith with Bandana

Boon Hong bought a new bandana for herself. Meredith saw and insisted on wearing it. Here's some photos of Meredith wearing the bandana and putting on her shoes before we go to the neighborhood playground.

Helping daddy get ready

Sometimes when we tell Meredith that we are going out, she would go pick up my cell phone, wallet and car keys. She seems to understand that when we go out, we will need the keys, wallet and cellphone.

Brushing teeth

Boon Hong started brushing Meredith's teeth a few months ago. Sometimes it can be a daunting task because she would not open her mouth. It hasn't been any easier lately but sometimes Meredith likes to imitate our action. We found her pretending to be brushing her teeth one day when she was playing with her toothbrush. She also likes the flavor of the infant toothpaste. She tried to suck on the toothbrush to taste the toothpaste.

New lake near Hwy 6 and supertarget

We recently discovered a lake with running trail near Highway 6 and Highway 59. The lake has about 2 miles of running trail around it and is not too far from our house. It is just behind Supertarget and we didn't know about it for years.

Meredith encountered some ducks near the lake and she was hesitant at first about feeding the duck.

Meredith at the playground

We just bought a new camera, Nikon P5000. So I took quite a lot photos to test this cameras last two weeks. The autofocus mechanism is rather but image quality is good. The following photos were taken at the playground near our house. Meredith likes to go on the slide.

Like mother like daughter

Eric did a post "like father like daughter" while back. I am going to do a version of "Like mother like daughter". Eric and most other people always complain that I am a clean freak. I like to "wipe" the kitchen floor with a wet cloth every time after I cook. Although we do have a mop at home, I still prefer kneeling on the ground and wiping the floor with a piece of cloth most of the time. Meredith observes me all the time and she likes to imitate my actions. One day, she saw the table cloth on the kitchen floor. Without any instruction from us, she started kneeling over and wiping the kitchen floor with the wet cloth. So, like mother like daughter, she loves to make sure the kitchen floor is spotless.

Teaching

Our cluster team has been meeting with many parents lately due to poor behavior (and consequentially poor performance) of the kids at school. X's parents are a shock to me. I could not imagine that X has been facing such problems at home. The parents were divorced a year ago and the mother badmouth X's father in front of all teachers and also her child and her ex-husband. From the conversation, the mother was telling everyone that X's father is soon getting married and becoming a father once again without disclosing much information to X. I was realy shocked after listen to X's mother statement. She was making very personal statements in front of X and the school teachers. Have she ever thought about X's feeling at all because X has to face all these people in school eight hours per day everyday. Through out the whole conversation, she tried to blame everything on X and X's father kept looking at the watch as if he was in a hurry to leave the meeting.

After two years teaching, I came across all kind of parents. We have MIA parents (we have to send police officers to send letters home), 24/7 parents who always want to make sure their child is the top 15% in class, rude parents and etc. However, many parents share a common trait as they like to blame all faults on the kid and the teacher, and parents always think they have done everything possible.

Photos from Easter weekend

These photos were taken by Chin Wern on Easter Sunday. The church group went out to lunch at Sandees (the restaurant inside a grocery store) to celebrate Kristy's baptism. Meredith had on her bunny ears hair pins.

Recent Photos of Meredith

We have been taking photos of Meredith but just haven't had a chance to upload to our blog. Here's some photos from the past two days. Meredith is wearing Eric's sunglass while riding in her car seat. She also enjoys bath time and would not want to leave the bath tub until we forcibly pick her up.

It has been a while........

Eric and I were busy recently. He has been out of town for the last two weeks and soon he is going away for several weeks. A friend of us is leaving us soon for Singapore for a career advancement. At the farewell dinner, you can tell he is sad about his own leaving. I would feel the same as him if I am the one who is leaving the states.

I came to the United States in the year of 1997, finished school in 1999 and then went home worked for two years, and then made a U-turn back to the States again. I remember the 1999 depatures was sad and heartbreaking. Back then, I started the relationship with Eric for almost 18 months. When I was back in Malaysia, I kept thinking about going back to the States. Eric was part of the reasons, but still I had grown into adulthood while in the US. This is a place that has mold me into an independent adult. Having said that, have both of us immersed ourselves in the US melting pot cultures? We both are working in a only English speaking working environment, and only see American and Hispanic-American at the workplaces. Other than that, we love hanging out with Chinese. We go to a local Chinese Church, meet and dine out with Malaysian Chinese during weekends, and attend Chinese Mandarin Chinese Fellowship. I joked with Eric one day, stating that Meredith doesn't know that we live in the States, a foreign contry where majority of the residents have different colors of hair and eyes than us. Would Meredith thrive when she starts attending the daycare where the teachers are speaking English?

Anyway, just a thought.

The following are some photos from the recent treasure hunt in church and also at the farewell party for the friend leaving for Singapore.

More Gong Xi Fatt Choy Photos

Last night we went to a friend's house for Penang noodle on Chinese New Year Eve. Meredith received her first Ang Pow last night. His house is very far from our house, it took us almost one and half hour to get there. But getting her first Ang Pow was well worth the trip.

It is Sunday afternoon currently or the first day of Chinese New Year. We were frantically preparing for Meredith's one year old birthday party tonight. There's about 30 people coming tonight and we haven't prepare that much food in a long time. I have been cooking on the grill since 1pm today. Meredith stood by the door and observed me curiously as I grilled the ribs. She hasn't changed from her chinese new year cheong sam since last night.

Anyway, we finally bath her and change her into her birthday dress. Here she is again walking around trying to supervise us as we prepare for her party tonight.

Meredith clapping her hands

Meredith has picked up a few tricks in the recent months. She will kiss you on the cheek if you tell her "xiek xiek" which is kiss kiss in cantonese. She will also clap her hands when she hears people singing or a tune that she likes on TV. I caught this on a video clip a few weeks ago when our church group had a gathering at our house. She started clapping her hands as we sang. This is in the middle of the video clip.

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Happy Chinese New Year

Gong Ｘｉ　Ｆａｔｔ　Ｃｈｏｙ！It's another year that we spent away from home and family. I　came here in 1997 thinking that I will here for just a few years. Boon hong came here in 1996. Time flies and this is Chinese New Year 2007. It's been ten years since we last celebrated Chinese New Year with our family. I sincerely hope that we will going home for chinese new year soon.

Meredith and papa and mummy wish everyone Happy New Year of the Pig! Ang Pow na lai!

The following is a short video clip of the Chinese New Year gathering in our church on February 16.

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