2008 Flashback

Time flies when you have kid! I cannot believe 2008 was over already and almost feel like James and I have just celebrated the Millennium in Vegas yesterday!

(pictures below are not from the Millennium celebration, instead they are from our Vegas trip during the 2008 Chinese New Year celebration - celebrating the year of Rat)

Similar to many Chinese Americans, we made the similar choices and tradeoffs to fill Joshua's schedule with various after school activities (swimming, soccer, piano lessons, and church interests) and school work (regular school and Chinese school). Joshua loves swimming and swam pretty much 5 days a week during the past three summers. I hope he will want to and be able to join a swim team once he masters his butterfly skill. During the fall of 2008, Josh played in the AYSO League; he has been running along and kicked around the soccer ball for the past two seasons now. Cannot say he is terribly fond of the sport, but it did help him burn some excess calories. It has been a little over a year since Joshua started taking piano lessons, and his teacher has sought different opportunities to get her students to perform in the public (at senior centers and in churches, etc). To celebrate this past X'mas, the students had a piano recital at the teacher's home and they all got to show off what they have learned and accomplished during the past year. Joshua has also been participating in our church's Xmas children performance for the past two years. For 2008, children sang and performed at the candle light church service the Saturday night before X'mas. He is also in the Awana program during the school year and has learned quite a few important bible lessons (we hope.)

Growing up in an Asian education system and culture, I've often found myself stressed and disappointed by the quality and the quantity of American school curriculum. Not only I noticed that a lot of basic fundamental skills were been taught at a much slower pace (may be because the 'no child left behind' policy?), but also I realized it became parents' burden to make sure the kids do truly learn and behave. Quite the opposite of what I have been through in Taiwan. So much so I don't think we can afford to have another kid because we are spreading so thin. I have bought a lot of text books and extra practice workbooks for Joshua to work on at home. After we moved away from the Bay Area (northern California), I realized that we probably only have 1/10 of the resources available for kids to learn Chinese here in Thousand Oaks, comparing with the environment in the Silicon Valley or places such as San Gabriel or Arcadia with much larger Chinese communities. Unfortunately for Joshua, we don't think two hours a week of Saturday Chinese school is simply enough. Again, all the burden and pressure would become the parents'. And yes, we do of course want Joshua to be able to appreciate and learn Chinese culture and traditions.

Aside from some international travels (visited relatives in Taiwan and went to Bali on a family trip with my Dad during the spring break),

we had a number of beach outings this past summer.

We also enjoyed a whitewater rafting trip, and two mini camping trips.




















For Joshua's 8 years old B-Day, we drove down to Sea World in San Diego to celebrate.

We also had a ski trip to Mammoth the weekend before Thanksgiving. During that trip, Joshua was able to ski down the green slopes (the Discovery trail) without help and without too many falls (and without too many turns either). After a couple of skiing experience from prior trips, he finally got used to the heavy gear, and was able to overcome his initial fear of height and speed. We were so proud that he did about 20 runs in total on the Discovery trail and was able to easily off-mount the chairlift with confidence.

Similar to X'mas of 2007, we also had a white X'mas and did skiing (and snow tubing) in North Tahoe (Squaw Valley and Mt Rose) over the X'mas weekend. At Squaw Valley, we figured Joshua had already mastered the green slopes, so we took him to an intermediate trail with both green and blue sections. Needless to say, we miscalculated his adaptability and flexibility, and overestimated his readiness. After a few initial happy and cheery falls in the puffy white snow, Joshua had one too many uncontrolled tumble in the steep section. After that, he took off his skis and insisted to walk/slide/roll down the rest of the steep section. With James and I putting on our best eternal cheer leading chorus, Joshua finally put the skis back on and skied the final green section. You know, I am just so thankful that no one got hurt. The fresh, puffy and powdery snow was the nicest I've ever seen in Tahoe in the past 10 years.

Personally, I pursued my lifelong dream and started learning and playing Gu Zheng (古箏, an ancient Chinese musical string instrument similar to a zither) at the beginning of 2008. Comparing it with piano, I've found that I can relate to Gu Zheng much faster and have a deeper appreciation. I also chose to realign my goals in life; I have already lost all my 'honeymoon and post-pregnancy' weight gain and started to do some local hiking on the weekends with some co-workers from Countrywide in 2007. Yet I amazed myself by setting some personal records too in 2008. To name a few, I have been keeping an eating/food diary (counting my calories intakes) for a year now and I've been religiously doing kickboxing at a local 24hour Fitness club at least once a week for the past three months. Even though I did not drastically shed any more pounds off in 2008, I could feel my pants are getting looser. James is sort of having this yo-yo dieting and cannot seem to lose the 15-20 pounds for good. To help him with his increasing 'love handle' problem, in addition to MAKE him go to the kick boxing classes with me, we recently started playing racket ball with our friends at their apartment complex. Hopefully, he can quit his old habit of staying up late at night, and can stick to a workout routine in 2009.


The best thing happened in 2008 for me was that we finally got a family dog again after 7 years of long wait. Joshua has finally out grown his allergic reaction to dog saliva. The new addition to the family is a hypo-allergenic Lhasa Poodle (aka 'LhasaPoo', I know, it doesn't really sound nice, but he is such a sweetheart). We call him Fluffy or short as Fify. He has a conservative and reserved personality, and fits into our family just fine.

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