Raising identical twin girls (71st month)

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This journal is about raising identical twins.
Seventy First Month
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Friday, Jun 6, 2003 (5y+10m)
The twins are 70 months old today.
Daddy worked the night shift to get work done at the office. When I got back home in the morning, I found Joanne sleeping on my spot in bed. Mommy said Joanne was sneezing too much on her bed. And she moved to our bed. It was time for mommy to get up, so Joanne could keep her spot. Recently Joanne was allergic to something in her room. She sneezed and had a runny nose almost every morning. She was well prepared with a roll of tissue paper next to her pillow. At first, she wiped her nose with tissue paper and then threw them on the floor as suggested by daddy. Later she threw the paper in a bucket next to her pillow after mommy complained about the pile of paper next to her bed every morning.
The twins went to school early today. It was about time they got up when daddy went to bed. The kids had a "field day" at school. Basically they spent their school day outside of their classroom. All academic work was completed at school since last week. The kids just goof off until summer arrives. Mommy thought the twins would want to take a nap after school because they got up earlier than usual this morning. However, the twins would rather play. They practiced piano and took a shower before dinner. Since the school gave no home work since last week, mommy got out the workbook we bought them from Costco to keep the twins busy.

Saturday, Jun 7, 2003 (5y+10m+1d)
We had an appointment with a tax consultant in the morning. We brought the twins along. The meeting ran two hours instead of one that we originally planned. It was hard for kids to sit still and quiet for two hours. The twins were behaving okay given the situation. They were a little noisy, but we were still able to talk to the consultant with them in the same room. After we left the accountant's office, we went to Jonathan's birthday party.
The birthday party was held at Kennedy Park in Hayward. When we arrived late, lunch was being served. After lunch, everyone went on their own activities. The twins and daddy played frisbee on the lawn. Jasmine purposely threw the frisbee in the wrong direction so that Joanne couldn't catch it. Joanne told daddy that when the kids in school played frisbee, they don't throw to each other. They throw it away from other kids so that the thrower could chase after it before other kids could get it. Frisbee was not a cooperative game to these kids, they were too possessive of the frisbee. Joanne said the teachers didn't let Jasmine's class to play frisbee because they always threw the frisbee outside the fence. Jasmine basically played the frisbee all on her own and drove Joanne in tear.
Daddy took Joanne across the road to a vacant parking lot of an abandoned cinema to teach her how to ride her bike with no training wheels. Joanne had been pretty good in balancing her scooter in the past few weeks. So balancing her two-wheel bike came quite naturally for her. Daddy only needed to hold her seat for a few yards and she was on her own. In less than 5 minutes, she was riding two wheels around the parking lot. She was still nervous when getting too close to any obstacle. Jasmine was mad at daddy because mommy didn't know where and when we have gone away.
Kennedy park was a pretty good place for the kids. There was a big playground, train ride around the park, a jumper house, a carousel, a petting zoo and pony ride. It was the twins' first time on a pony. They seemed to like them despite the stench of the stable. The twins said the ponies didn't stink too much.
We spent quite some time in the petting zoo. The goats crowded the kids begging for food. The goats were quite aggressive especially to those kids with oat in their hands. They stood up with their front hooves on my belly to get the oat in my palms. One of the kids in the zoo was pushed by a goat. She lost her balance and fell into a large tub of water. Everyone got a big laugh. It was a not a cold day, so it was not a bad thing to get wet. Some younger children were frighten by the aggressive animals.
The twins rode the carousel too. The twins had so much fun that they were reluctant to leave the playground when it was time to sing happy birthday song to Jonathan. After the cake, we took the train ride around the park. The twins did some bouncing in the jumper house. There was a younger girl in there who chased our twins around pretending to be a roaring monster. It was fun at first and then Jasmine disliked being chased around. She came to daddy for help. I told her that she cannot let a younger girl bully her. She needed to tell the other girl to stop because she did not want to play anymore. The twins returned to the playground. They spent a lot of time on a swinging tire that could spin around. The twins called it the "Challenger swing" because they used to play on similar swing at the Challenger school.
Before we left the party, we took the twins back to the vacant parking lot. Joanne wanted to show off her new bicycle skills to Jasmine. She was quite proud of herself because she learned that in less than five minutes. Jasmine wanted to learn too. It took a lot of convincing before Joanne gave up her bike for Jasmine. Jasmine's bike still had the training wheels on and she wanted to keep them for a while. I told them they should know how to ride a two-wheel bike before their sixth birthday. Joanne already met her goal. Jasmine still needed a lot of work. Daddy's lower back was hurting after several runs of chasing the bike bending down . Jasmine was in denial. When she couldn't balance, she was mad at daddy for not holding her bike upright. She refused to continue blaming daddy for not helping.
There was a sibling rivalry going on between the twins. When Jasmine was good at piano, Joanne refused to practice her piano. When Joanne was good at bicycling, Jasmine refused to practice her bicycling. It seemed like that they felt inferior when their sister was doing better. I guessed it was a right decision to separate them in school. Otherwise, they would have interfered with each other's learning process.
We went to a video rental place after we left the party. The twins picked two DVDs. Jasmine picked Disney's Country Bears. Joanne picked Babar because she read about Babar in a book from the school library. We had Japanese dinner before returning home. The twins ate quite a lot. They did a lot of exercise today. They complained about being tired on dinner table. Mommy had to feed them the last few bites.
As soon as they got back on the car, we asked them to take a nap. But they refused to, they said they didn't feel tired anymore. When they came home, Joanne wanted to practice her two-wheel riding. Daddy put on a pair of roller skates and we went to a cul-de-sac nearby to practice. Joanne still had trouble starting on narrow sidewalks. Her bike sway side to side when she started to roll. She felt more confident on some open pavement. The cul-de-sac was the ideal place to do so. Jasmine got to try the two-wheel bike one more time, but she gave up again after just a few trials. Daddy didn't force her because I knew she was motivated to catch up with Joanne. We went home when the sky started to turn dark.
We sent the twins to bed before we watched "Vanilla Sky" by Tom Cruise. It was a strange movie. We were totally lost throughout most of the movie until the plot was revealed near the end.

Sunday, Jun 8, 2003 (5y+10m+2d)
Jasmine came to wake up daddy in the morning. She reminded daddy's promise to take them to see "Finding Nemo". Mommy wanted to stay in bed. Daddy fed the twins some cereal and milk, packed some snack into their handbags. Then we headed to the theater. We arrived there at around 10:30am. There was already a line and they started selling tickets for the 11:05 show when we joined the line. The twins said they saw two of their classmates, but they refused to approach them to say hi. We purchased a drink and a box of popcorn. Jasmine didn't want the popcorn because she liked her own snack better. Joanne did okay throughout the movie. Jasmine said she was tired towards the end of the movie. She probably didn't sleep well last night being too excited about the movie today.
After we came out of the movie, the twins wanted to use the restroom. At first I tried to take them to the men's room because daddy cannot take them to the ladies' room. The twins said they could take care of themselves in the ladies' room. But a couple of minutes later. They came out and said they couldn't hold their pee no more because the line in the ladies' room was too long. We went into the men's room to take care of business rather quickly because the line to toilets was much shorter than that to the urinals. Jasmine finished first. When Joanne took her turn, Jasmine disappeared from daddy's sight. Daddy called her to come back with no response. After Joanne finished, we found Jasmine at the sink washing her hands. Daddy gave her a lecture on staying in sight. I used the movie as a lesson and asked her why Nemo got taken away. She said because Nemo didn't listen to his daddy. She seemed to understand the lesson.
The twins wanted to play some video games. Daddy stopped for gasoline on the way home. We were home at 2pm. Mommy already had hot lunch waiting for our return.
Lucy and Terence stopped by. Terence played with the twins in the backyard. Joanne wanted to practice two-wheel cycling again. Jasmine wanted to go to the park. They were too impatient to wait for mommy and Terence to get ready. Daddy and the twins went to the cul-de-sac to practice bicycling. Jasmine tried two-wheel cycling and quitted again about a few trials. The twins had fun chasing after daddy's roller skates on their bikes. They kept asking why mommy didn't show up yet. We returned home to look for mommy. It turned out that Terence didn't want to go to the park. We went on without them.
When we got to the park, Joanne took a shortcut across the lawn. Jasmine's bike could not run on grass because of the training wheels. She was mad about being behind when she had to go along the paved paths. She threw her bike on the ground and sat down at a picnic table to protest. Meanwhile, Joanne already went to the other end of the park. Daddy couldn't get Jasmine to move. I asked Joanne to come back to play frisbee with daddy. Jasmine came out of her strike to hog over the frisbee again. Joanne was unhappy when Jasmine wouldn't throw the frisbee to her. I asked Joanne to sit on daddy's lap to watch Jasmine chase after the frisbee all by herself. I told Joanne that Jasmine would get tired really quickly and she wouldn't last very long. As predicted, Jasmine lied down on the lawn in exhaustion about just a few rounds. Joanne giggled when she realized daddy's prediction was so precise. Daddy and Joanne played the frisbee while Jasmine took her rest.
The twins also played on the swing and the monkey bars on the playground. Joanne loved the monkey bars. I had to stop her when I noticed she got blisters on her palms.
When we got back home, the twins sang along some children songs on Karaoke. Terence took the microphone to recite the alphabet. He did quite well for a 3 year old.
Joanne found some Barbie clothes. But she couldn't found her regular Barbie dolls. She said she could not put the clothes on her mermaid Barbie. She wanted daddy to look for the dolls. When daddy failed to locate her Barbie dolls, she threw a tantrum and cried for a while. That was the time our guests departed.
During the search of the dolls, daddy found a remote control toy car. Joanne wanted to play with it. Jasmine snatched it away claiming it was her toy and Joanne could not play with it. Daddy took the toy from Jasmine and gave it to Joanne. Jasmine didn't like to share. She chased Joanne around the house to get it back and she hit Joanne to make her cry. Daddy asked Jasmine how she spelled her name. She said J-A-S-M-I-N-E. Daddy said her name actually spelled J-A-S-M-E-A-N because she was too mean to Joanne. Both twins got a big laugh out of it.
Once the toy was off their minds, they played together again as if nothing had happened. This time, they played treasure hunt with some coins. At first, they took turns to bury the coins under the long hair of a sheepskin rug. When they found the coins too quickly, they hid them at different places around the room include under daddy's butt. But when one twin asked for a clue, the other gave such an obvious clue that it was actually the answer. I guessed the twins were still too young to know what subtlety means.
Mommy went out to buy some lightbulbs and flowers. Daddy did some repairing around the house while the twins helped mommy plant the flowers in the garden. They particularly enjoyed hauling the watering jug around the garden and fetching the flowers for mommy. We worked till dark, which was quite late when it was summertime. Mommy prepared a late quick dinner with salad, soup, "ham, cheese and egg" sandwich. The twins were so hungry that they finished their dinner quickly and they kept saying the sandwich was delicious. I guessed hunger could make the plainest sandwich taste better than usual.
The twins watched the Country Bears movie before they went to bed. Long after we tucked them in, we still heard noises from the room. I went in their room to check them, they were playing with the toy car in their beds. The car made honking and alarm sounds, the headlights and brake lights came on too. The lights on the car enabled them to play with it in the dark.

Monday, Jun 9, 2003 (5y+10m+3d)
In the morning, Joanne played with Jasmine's toy car first thing out of her bed. It turned out that Jasmine did not like to be called Jas-Mean, she wanted to be Jas-Nice. So she wanted to share her toy car with Joanne. I asked the twins to stay at two ends of the hallway. Then they sent the toy car to each other. I explained to Jasmine that it was like playing frisbee. If they played with each other, then they didn't need to fetch the toy.
The twins continued to play with their names. Jasmine called Joanne Jo-Mean, Jo-Nice, Jo-Funny etc.
They went to school as usual.

Tuesday, Jun 10, 2003 (5y+10m+4d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins called daddy at work to remind daddy that "Jungle Book 2" is available on DVD today. As soon as daddy came home, Joanne wanted daddy to take her to practice riding her two-wheel bicycle. It was a windy day. I asked Joanne to cycle for 15 minutes because daddy couldn't keep warm in the wind. After 10 minutes, Joanne had enough. Actually she was eager to go home to watch the new DVD. The twins watched Jungle Book 2 after dinner.
Mommy found Joanne's toy car. So they no longer fought for Jasmine's toy car when each had one. The unfortunate thing is that Mommy also found Joanne's beanie puppy. The fight started all over again.

Wednesday, Jun 11, 2003 (5y+10m+5d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to gymnastic class after school.
Joanne reported that she weighed 38.5 pound. Jasmine weighed 37.5 pound.

Thursday, Jun 12, 2003 (5y+10m+6d)
It was the last day of school. The twins went to school early for preparation of the kindergarten graduation. Daddy took two hours off work before lunch time to attend the commencement ceremony.
The ceremonies were held in each classroom. Joanne's class started first, Jasmine's class started 45 minutes later. The format were almost the same, though the parents in each class prepared it differently. Each of the kids was called out by name to receive a diploma. Then the kids in Joanne's class handed a real tulip to their own parent. The kids in Jasmine's class used nicely-made paper-flowers instead. Each of the kids in Jasmine's class also wore a square cap. After the ceremony, food was served in a reception like setting. Of course, we didn't stay in Joanne's class. Joanne and we attended Jasmine's commencement next door. Daddy returned to work after the event.
The twins went to piano class in the afternoon.

Friday, Jun 13, 2003 (5y+10m+7d)
It was the beginning of Summer holiday. The twins got up earlier than usual because they were all hyped up for the cherry picking trip today. Four families from school planned a trip to the orchards in Brentwood. The kids spent the morning eating cherries, peaches, nectarines from trees. They picked some to take home for daddy too.
When they got back to the Bay Area, they found too much time to kill. The whole group went to Great America Amusement Park. Since everyone held a season ticket, they could go to the park anytime they wanted. The twins rode the roller coasters they used to like from two years ago. They showed no expression when they came off the rides. The twins had outgrown the kid's rides, they found the old rides boring. They were tall enough to ride more rides than their previous visit. They loved some rides that were good enough for adults.
The families went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. The dads joined them at the restaurant.
When we got home, Jasmine soaked in the hot tub after they took the shower. Joanne didn't want to soak in water because she scuffed her knee today. Daddy and mommy each had their turn after Jasmine's.

Saturday, Jun 14, 2003 (5y+10m+8d)
We stayed home in the morning. In the afternoon, we went to Stanford Shopping Mall with Lucy and Terence. In the evening, we had a dinner with Grandma Chui and Aunt Elaine to celebrate Father's day in advance. They came to our house to see the video footage of the twins' graduation commencement. They saw the photos of the twins' fruit picking trip too.

Sunday, Jun 15, 2003 (5y+10m+9d)
We went to Great America because mommy's VIP membership could bring a guest for Father's day. Daddy could get in for free. Nicolas' family, Cousin Natalie and Uncle Ivan also joined us. They rode the Celebration Swing as soon as they entered the park. The twins were not too picky, they tired anything that they were tall enough to ride. They rode Psycho Mouse. They were almost rejected by the attendant for the Grizzly which was a bumpy wooden roller coaster. We also rode the Rip Roaring Rapid and the white water falls and get ourselves all wet. While we were waiting in line and not watching, Jasmine swung upside down on the railings. She miscalculated the height of the railing and her head hit the ground and scratched the top of her head. She cried for awhile and later complained that her scalp was swollen. Daddy lectured her on the danger because she could have cracked her skull when she hit the ground.
We left the park around lunch time. Since everyone except daddy had a season ticket, we left when the crowd arrived. We went out for lunch together. We all went home for a nap after lunch.
In the evening, Annette's, Nicolas' and our family went to California Buffet for dinner. We went to Annette's home after dinner. The kids played in the playroom while the adults watched the movie Infernal Affairs on VCD.

Monday, Jun 16, 2003 (5y+10m+10d)
Summer holiday continued. Mommy let the twins sleep as much as they wanted in the morning.
They went to an abacus class in the afternoon. The abacus was a tool to teach mental arithmetics. They took a nap before dinner.
The twins hurried to bed when mommy said they could go to Great America again tomorrow.

Tuesday, Jun 17, 2003 (5y+10m+11d)
Mommy took the twins to Great America. They rode the Celebration Swing again today. They met the cartoon characters including Jimmy Neutron, Wild Thornberries, Flintstone etc.. They saw Blue briefly, but she left before the twins could meet her. They rode the Taxi Jam roller coasters and mommy dropped her hat in the water. Mommy tried to get it back from the attendant. But she was told to come back after the park was closed when they could retrieve the hat for her. They went out to lunch and came back to the park in the afternoon. The twins fell asleep on the way home. Mommy let them sleep in the car in the garage before dinner. After dinner, they worked on their abacus homework in preparation for the class tomorrow. Jasmine did her homework quickly, she read the beads to tell the number immediately. Joanne counted her beads one by one. I hope the class help her get rid of the habit.

Wednesday, Jun 18, 2003 (5y+10m+12d)
The twins went to the abacus class. They spent the afternoon in Annette's and Nicolas' house before dinner. Three families went out to a Korean dinner. The dads joined them at the restaurant. The twins came home and practice their abacus.

Thursday, Jun 19, 2003 (5y+10m+13d)
The twins stayed home all day. Julia came to visit mommy. The twins played with Michelle all afternoon.
Joanne called daddy at work requesting an early return so that she could practice her bicycling. Joanne practiced her bicycle. Jasmine practiced her scooter. Joanne didn't use her brake and ran into Jasmine feet and scuffed her ankle.
At bedtime, Jasmine finished brushing first. When she got in her bed, she noticed mommy had changed Joanne's pillow case to Tweety Bird pattern. She secretly switched the pillows without letting Joanne know. Ten minutes later, Jasmine came downstairs complaining the pillow didn't smell fresh. It turned out that despite the clean pillow case, Joanne's pillow had some smelly sweat stains. I told Jasmine that she would be stuck with Joanne's smelly pillow because she switched it herself. Jasmine tried to switch it back by force but with strong resistence from Joanne. They fought over the pillow for a while. Joanne lost because Jas-mean was really mean. Joanne cried only a little but she didn't mind getting her own smelly pillow back.

Friday, Jun 20, 2003 (5y+10m+14d)
Daddy worked the morning shift and left home at 4:30am. The twins and mommy slept in till late in the morning.
Mommy had lunch with SiuLing, Evon, Sharleen et. al. After lunch, the twins follow Sharleen home so they could play with Claire in the afternoon. Actually, Sharleen would be busy in the afternoon, our twins would help her keep Claire occupied. In a sense, our twins served as a baby sitter even though they were just one year older than Claire. Mommy took the opportunity to shop at Costco in the twins' absence. She bought two new pillows for the twins and washed the twins' old pillows for future use. She also bought a tent because the twins had asked many times when we would go camping like Dora the Explorer did.
Daddy got off work early. We picked up the twins from Sharleen and went to dinner. Joanne said she was tired. She slept on daddy's lap and refused to eat. We let her sleep and packed the left over for her. Jasmine ate very well and kept asking for more. After dinner, she ate three fortune cookies. When we got back to the car, she ate the last fortune cookie instead of saving it for Joanne. Joanne barely woke up and cried because Jasmine ate all the cookies. Mommy told her that she didn't deserve a cookie because she didn't eat dinner. We fed Joanne the left over when we got home. The twins did some abacus homework and sang some children's songs on the Karaoke machines. Then they were sent to bed.

Saturday, Jun 21, 2003 (5y+10m+15d)
We went to Grandma Chui's place around noon. We picked up Aunt Tina and Cousin Natalie on the way. Great grandma was there too, but grandpa went to work. Uncle Ivan went to take a license exam in the morning, so he arrived before we did. Uncle Ivan bought lunch and had the meal ready when we arrived.
The twins asked me yesterday why they never saw people surfing like Lilo and Stitch do. So we decided to go to the bayshore after lunch to watch some surfing. Mommy and Aunt Tina took the BART to SF to do a facial. Great grandma, Uncle Ivan and Cousin Natalie followed us to Alameda Beach. Many surfers were preparing their gear on the beach, but no one was on the water yet. We put down a towel on the beach and sat down to enjoy the scenery. The kids started to play in the sand while we waited for some surfer to go into the water. After we watched a few kite surfers and wind surfers dashed around in the water, we left. It was sunny and warm but very windy on the beach. Though the twins were dressed warm, I didn't want to stay too long to avoid the risk of hypothermia.
We had dinner before leaving grandma. Cousin Natalie went home to pack. She followed us home to stay overnight with us. We planned to go to Great America tomorrow.
When we got home, it was dark already. Joanne was disappointed. She told mommy that we should have come home before dark so that she could show Natalie how well she could ride her two-wheel bike. Jasmine said she could still show off to Natalie how well she did hula hoop. Jasmine could keep the hula hoop swinging around her waist indefinitely as long as she wanted to. Joanne on the other hand couldn't catch the rhythm. The hoop fell down in less than five turns. She had a humorous attitude to her inability. After Jasmine finished her demonstration, Joanne wanted her turn. She picked up the loop around her waist. She dropped it on the floor without moving her waist and said "Oops!" Everyone got a big laugh out of her demonstration. It was another example of the sibling rivalry. Jasmine did well on hula hoop, Joanne wouldn't attempt the same event.
They had to do their abacus homework before they went to bed. Jasmine did her quickly. Joanne just goofed around until daddy, mommy and Cousin Natalie all sat next to her.

Sunday, Jun 22, 2003 (5y+10m+16d)
Cousin Natalie said she found two twins in her bed in the morning. The twins got up early this morning and sneaked into their cousin's bed. The twins finished their homework before getting their breakfast. They went on disney.com and printed out a birthday card. Joanne also made a card "from Joanne to MAD" She later explained MAD stood for mommy and daddy.
We went to Justin's first birthday party in the afternoon. The party was held at Dave & Buster. Before the lunch was served, the twins went to the game room to win tickets. They set their goal at a Hello Kitty doll which cost 1500 tickets. At the end, they saved up 850 tickets. After lunch and the birthday cake, we left for Great America.
We rendezvoused with Annette's family at the theme park. The twins picked the ride they liked. They also took many photos with the Nick Toon characters.
We went out to dinner and bumped into Claire's family at the Shanghainese restaurant. We merged our tables to have dinner together. The kids from three families had a great time at the table. All of them ate well. After we got home, the kids took shower. We played back today's pictures to the kids before we sent the twins to bed early.

Monday, Jun 23, 2003 (5y+10m+17d)
Summer school started today. The twins went to school at 11am for the past year. They started to attend 8:30am class in the summer. They had a hard time getting up in the morning. The teachers divided the students into the Mandarin class and English class. Those who were weak in English were sent to the English class. Those who were okay in English were sent to the Mandarin class. The twins' English were pretty good compared to their classmates because they built good foundation at Challenger pre-school. They were both assigned to the Mandarin class for the summer. All the kids in their usual playgroup were sent to a different class.
We knew that the twins looked up to each other's performance. Joanne avoided areas that Jasmine was good at. Jasmine avoided areas that Joanne was good at. They have bad influence to each other, so we believed they would be better off if they were in different class. However, we didn't mind the twins going to the same class for the summer because they were separate in the past school year.
Mommy sent cousin Natalie home while the twins were in school.
The twins were sent to bed early.

Tuesday, Jun 24, 2003 (5y+10m+18d)
The twins went to summer school early again. Mommy had a hard time wake them up in the morning.
It was a hot day in the upper 90s.

Wednesday, Jun 25, 2003 (5y+10m+19d)
The twins went to summer school as usual. Winnie and her daughter Jessica came to visit in the afternoon. Raymond was busy at work so he didn't come with them. It was a hot day in the upper 90s.
The twins said they made some new friends in school. Joanne made friend with Sarah whom was Jasmine's classmate last year. Jasmine made friend with Charlotte whom was Joanne's classmate.

Thursday, Jun 26, 2003 (5y+10m+20d)
The twins went to summer school as usual. It was a hot day exceeding 100°F. They took a swim lesson from Mat after school.

Friday, Jun 27, 2003 (5y+10m+21d)
The twins went to summer school as usual. In the evening, Annette and Nicholas' family came to our home for dinner. We set up a tent in the backyard, the kids played camping and frisbee before dinner. We purchased Japanese takeout dinner. After dinner they stayed to watch the movie "Hero".

Saturday, Jun 28, 2003 (5y+10m+22d)
Daddy took the twins to Mat for the swim lesson in the afternoon. They tickled Mat; they laughed and played with each other instead of following instructions closely.

Sunday, Jun 29, 2003 (5y+10m+23d)
We went out to have lunch with grandma Chui. We returned home after lunch. Taya next door invited the twins to her 5th birthday party in the afternoon. I joked that I could throw the twins over the fence. They said they'd prefer to walk over. After the cake, the kids played water balloon in the neighbor's backyard. After the party was over, Taya and her brother Grant came to our house to play for a while.
At 5:30 in the afternoon, Rachel's family invited the twins to their house for a swim. They recently moved into their new home that worth $1.4 million. Their house is in an affluent neighborhood on a lot twice as big as ours. And of course, best of all, they have a swimming pool in the backyard. Rachel and Randy was okay when they swam with a life jacket. Out of the life jacket, she was scared of the water and refused to get her hair wet. Rachel was pretty advanced in her skiing, but our twins were much advanced in swimming. The twins swam across the swallow end of the pool back and forth. The twins dunked into five feet of water and bounced off the bottom of the pool before daddy caught them again. They also wanted daddy to throw them into the air and splashed into the water. We went home at around 7pm. We didn't want to stay to late because Rachel's family went to bed at 8pm usually. We bought some hamburgers on our way home. We took a shower to wash off the chlorine before we had dinner.

Monday, Jun 30, 2003 (5y+10m+24d)
The twins went to summer school as usual. Daddy spent $250 for a used IBM ThinkPad 600E laptop computer. The computer was hooked to a musical keyboard for the twins to practice their piano skill. I showed Jasmine how the computer program "Teach me piano" could monitor how accurate they were in following the music score in terms of pitch and timing. Jasmine refused to use it because she didn't get 100% the first time.

Tuesday, Jul 1, 2003 (5y+10m+25d)
The twins went to summer school as usual. They went to swimming lesson with Mat. Daddy worked overtime. The twins were almost ready for bed when I came home. Mommy didn't sleep well last night and had a stiff neck all day. That didn't help her mood when the twins took forever to finish their home work because they didn't focus on their work.

Wednesday, Jul 2, 2003 (5y+10m+26d)
The twins went to summer school as usual. They went to swimming lesson with Mat.
Joanne called daddy on the phone in the afternoon. Daddy was away from the phone. When I came back to listen to the voice mail, I could hear Joanne speaking to herself. She said, "Why isn't the phone working? This phone is stupid!". Then when I called home, the phone was off hook. Joanne didn't put the ear-piece to her ear, she pressed the keypad to her ear instead. That explained why she thought the phone was broken. Moreover, she didn't know how to turn the handset off.

Thursday, Jul 3, 2003 (5y+10m+27d)
The twins went to summer school as usual. Daddy's cousin Allen's family came from LA to visit. Mommy told the twins that their cousin Amanda and Andric would arrive in the morning. She made sure the twins wouldn't stay up to wait for them. Their family arrived at around 11pm. They started at 4pm and was stuck in holiday traffic for over two hours. The twins were asleep when they arrived.

Friday, Jul 4, 2003 (5y+10m+28d)
It was the Fourth of July holiday. Twins were glad to see their cousins when they woke up. We first picked up grandma Chui and went to lunch at Santana Row's Left Bank Restaurant. We then did some window shopping at Santana Row. After we had an ice cream break, we went home. We set up the water slide in the backyard. The kids had a great time getting wet. We also played frisbee in the backyard. The game was over when Andric threw the frisbee into the neighbor's yard. We tried to ring their door bell, but no one answered the door. The neighbor must be out of town for the long weekend.
Mommy went out to buy some takeout food for dinner. At dusk, we went to Great America for firework. Mommy took a wrong turn and we were stuck in traffic because of road closure everywhere in preparation for the fireworks. Since we knew we were not far away from the park, we just randomly picked a parking lot with a clear view of the sky. We parked the cars and let the kids poked their head out of the sunroof to see the fireworks. The fireworks lasted for half and hour. We still saw fireworks in the sky on our way home.

Saturday, Jul 5, 2003 (5y+10m+29d)
We went to Jelly Belly factory in the morning. The twins had been there before, but they don't mind visiting again because they knew they would get many candies. We went to lunch in Sausalito. Annette and Nicholas' family were there too. We initially tried to rendezvous there so all the kids could have company. Since we were quite late, they went on their own schedule. We spent some time window shopping in Sausalito.
We later went to Battery Spencer in the Marin headland. It was a famous vista point over the Golden Gate Bridge. The place was extremely windy. The kids had a hard time walking a straight path under the strong wind. We took a few pictures and left before anyone getting hypothermia from the wind. We also spent some time at the vista point on the south end of the bridge. We then went to the Palace of fine arts. We originally planned to visit the Exploratorium. But it was almost closing time when we arrived.
We had dinner in Richmond district of San Francisco. We then went to the Sunset district for dessert. We got back home at around 9pm. The kids practiced piano, did homework etc. before going to bed.
We noticed Joanne's eyes were a little red. She also got some mucus like secretion in her eyes. She said her eyes were a little itchy. We didn't know if some foreign object got into her eyes because of the high wind in the afternoon. We put some eye drops in her eyes, hoping to wash out any foreign matters.

Sunday, Jul 6, 2003 (5y+11m)
The twins were 71 months old.

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started on Jul 7, 2003