Happy Birthday to Mom and Garfield!

Today is the birthday of mom and Garfield, the little girl on the picture. Garfield is the daughter of mom's best friend, Auntie Meng.Garfield and Mom were both born in a year of dragon ( different year though:)). Garfield is officially 8 today, but mom's age is a family top secret now :)

Mom

Happy Brothers

Justin is the best elder brother of ZiYi!
ZiYi and ZiXi are happy brothers!

Good-bye 2008!

2008 might mean different to everyone... To us, 2008 definitely marked quite some lasting_for_ever memory:

Feb __ record-breaking weight loss of ZiYi due to a 1-week constant high fever ( his new pants almost fell to his knees!)and of course ZiXi also successfully got the same virus ( he had to sleep in mom's arms for 5 consecutive days!)


April __ ZiYi turned 5 !!!

May _ Sichuan Earthquake!! Our whole family cried everyday in front of the TV.. God bless all the parents who lost their angles, all the angles who were left alone and all the people whose home, life or even part of bodies were gone...


June __ emergency of grand grandfather of Ziyi and ZiXi. ZiYi picked a nice new apartment for grand grandfather on the way to check ZiXi's one_year birthday party venue.



July __ ZiXi turned one year old! ZiYi kindly volunteered to take care of all the birthday gifts :) Grand grandfather successfully exited the ICU ( intensive care unit) room [ COMMENTS: try to spend more time with your grand parents and parents when they are healthy and able to enjoy the fun]. Mom successfully sold the old apartment in Kunming at a market peak price :)



August __ Olympics!!! Mom went to the tennis game, men's soccer semi_final and men's soccer final with crippled right foot and was seated at the special disabled section :)

September __ Special Olympics! ZiYi got to know how the huge birdnest looks like and how much difference a strong mind can make on a imperfect body.


October __ Financial Crisis and CREDIT TRAINING! Thanks for the financial crisis, mom canceled all the planned trip to visit antie Portia in NYC and to Disney!! mommy was just overworked ...

November __ Financial Crisis got worse! Ziyi started to ask mom when the crisis could come to an end ! ( Mom wish she could know) ZiXi started walking!!! ZiYi met Justin again and they are now indeed GOOD FREIND!



December __ Financial Crisis keeps going on! Grand grandpa and grand grandma moved into the new apartment!! Now, it is a time for us to consume to support the economy :)



After such a 2008, let's WISH we could have a NORMAL 2009

Sean is One Year! 子熹周岁了!

时光如梭,转眼间推推(子熹)就已经过了周岁! 现在14个月的推推已经是一个可爱的"大肚侠"了:) 为什么是"大肚侠"呢?因为推推的食欲真是超级好,只要看到吃的,就"毫不放弃"。真是让妈妈好担忧....


推推是个爱吃爱睡爱笑的宝宝，不过他也很有个性，不达目的誓不罢休。 原来我觉得推推胆子大，不过最近的一些表现让我改变了想法。例如，推推8个月的时候很喜欢玩滑梯，现在不了；推推1岁前很喜欢洗澡，现在也不了。让我们拭目以待推推一天一天的新变化吧！



懿懿5岁后进入了叛逆期，推推的诞生似乎也有些“推波助澜”的作用。懿懿经常非常明确和坚定地对妈妈和姥姥的要求说“不”。妈妈为此甚是发愁，大声说话已经没用，打手也没有了.... 妈妈希望能换一个方式和懿懿交流，像朋友一样沟通？其实妈妈每天上完班就很累了，还要教懿懿学习... 如果不教，对双方都是解脱，但是妈妈也不能就让懿懿放任自流在动画片中呀... 不过懿懿的钢琴弹地确实不错，自从上次指导错误后，妈妈就决定以后只担当听众的角色。

Summer in Bejing!! 北京入夏了！

Lovely Brothers

For those Kids in Wenchuan

Whenever I think of those kids who lost their beloved family, friends, teachers and neighbors in this terrible tragedy, my tears will stream down.... I wish there is a magic medicine that could enable them to delete all those dark and horrifying memories for ever.. as I know from my past experience how hard it could be for them to feel secured and happy


I was born in a city called DongChuan, which used to be the second largest city in Yuannan and was known for its rich copper reserve. Many of you in China at my age should know this city from one of the essays on our high school Chinese schoolbook, the essay is about "the massive mud-rock flow in Jiangjiagou". Yes, my hometown is now most famous for its massive mud-rock flow, the largest in the world. My hometown is also located in a very active earthquake zone. In 1976, the year I was born, there was a big earthquake ( about 6.7 degree) in Dongchuan and not afew people lost their lives. Therefore, I have learnt how to react to earth quake since kindergarden... However, before 1984, I just knew vaguely earthquake and mud rock-flow could be dangerous..


The geographic conditions in Dongchun is indeed quite similar to that of Wenchuan or Beichuan. The city is surrounded by high mountains with a river, called XiaoJiang, flowing at the mountainfoot... There are quite afew towns spread in the mountains, where most of the people are working on the copper mines. Either heavy rains or earthquake can easily trigger those mud-rock flow in action. In the summer of 1984, after a heavy rain, we heard that half of the residence in a town called "Yinming" were burried by the mud-rock flow.. Afew days later, I met two new friends, DanDan and DongDong, who just fled from Yinming to live with their uncle... DanDan and DongDong lost their mom in the mud-rock flow and the mud-rock flow even peeled off all the skins on DongDong's both leggs. As we become closer, they shared with me what they saw in that disaster and for the first time in my life I got to know what meant by the pain of losing your beloved ones and how fragile human being are in front of the nature.. Ever since then, whenever it rained at night, I tried to keep myself alert with all my clothes and shoes on and my brain was full of those imagined images of mud rock-flow.. I had to make sure I could run at anytime..., though I also knew the chance for me to run away from the disaster is minimal if it did happen.... It is until I setteled in Beijing that I finally got over those bad raining night stress...

If only kids-talk with disaster survivors could make me develop those stress, I just could not imagine how bad those surviving kids feel after witnessing this whole thing.. Though there might be afew kids with extra strong heart, most of them need our support to relieve their pain and feel secured.....