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My sister Teresa visited me over the weekend, and it was fun-filled enough to where I think I need to chronicle it (both as just a pleasant memory and also as a reference for ideas on where to take out-of-town guests while they're here).

Warning: image-heavy post ahead.

( Saturday and the Death Cab Concert... )

( Sunday and San Francisco... )

( Monday and the English tea shop... )

It was such a great weekend. I'm glad to have this time now to catch up on things I need to do this week, including making this update. :) More photos on Facebook if you happen to have me friended there.

Christmas has been very pleasant so far. Photos to come. Here's a preview photo:



More photos are already uploaded if you check out my Facebook account.

She wrote this for me when I came home for Thanksgiving. Funny how it's written on an old invoice/receipt, too. :)

I'm worried I won't have enough time for this, but I'm going to attempt it anyway.

I can't really afford Christmas gifts this year. So I'm limiting gifts to family only this year. My gifts to them?

Comic strips chronicling my favorite memories of each of them.

And if I have time, I'll do one for MF, too. But this is no easy feat to have it done by Christmas, because I have 6 siblings. My parents'll share one set, unless I end up thinking of two good memories of each. Jenny's will be the easiest one to do because I write about her often in my LJ. The others, not so much, but I think I'll be able to do it with some good planning.

If I can pull it off well, I'll scan them and post them before I have them framed and wrapped. :)

Edit: Ahh, I don't think I can do this quickly enough! Work has piled on for the next two weeks. On the plus side, this means that I may be able to afford some gifts this year instead of making them. BUT HOW TO FIND TIME TO SHOP? The answer's probably to stop blogging.

I've left my LJ in a state of nearly complete privacy. So I'll start with some general updates for you interested parties.

Work

• For those that don't know--most of you, probably--I'm currently working 3 jobs. One is for the money, one is for the love of the job, and one is a combination of both. The less I like it, the more I get paid. :P


• If you're wondering how the counseling gig is going, things are going better. And by better, I mean that I'm getting more cases and more experience. I recently bought the book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. It's a good resource for parents and for those working with parents. I'm considering buying a few cheap, used copies online to give away to parents whom I think would read them and would benefit from them.


• Also, because of the counseling job, I am both pleased and slightly surprised that my graduate education is put to good use. I'm finding myself pulling out textbooks and old notes as resources.

Holidays

• Had a great Thanksgiving weekend. It was low-key and involved a memorable dinner party with a Jon Troast performance. It also involved a new haircut (not a great photo, but a better one to come) and a pretty, red trenchcoat I decided to buy at the encouragement of my more fashionable sister.


• My family put up our Christmas tree. I don't remember if I mentioned this in a previous entry, but our special family tradition is that each of us gets a new ornament each year. This being said, I'll have my 25th ornament this year, and Jenny will have her 6th ornament this year. She was very sad that she had the fewest ornaments out of all of us, and we have way too many ornaments anyway, so my parents made a new rule that we'd only hang up 5 ornaments each on the tree this year. Aside from our ornaments, the only other things we have up are the lights and the angel at the top. I like it. I'm pretty sure it could qualify as a Hallmark commercial seeing as how all the ornaments are strictly Hallmark.


• I'm looking forward to a lot of holiday things coming up. There's the ski trip in Tahoe in a couple of weekends, which I almost couldn't go to because I thought I couldn't afford it. There's also the holiday events around the South Bay that I want to check out. Downtown SJ has what looks like a Christmas festival, so I want to check that out this weekend if I can.


• Due to the slimming of expenses, I'm only buying gifts for family this year. I might do cards, though.


• For those of you sending Christmas cards and who happen to ahve my new address, please don't send me anything. I'm having trouble receiving my snail mail and am working to get that fixed, but please don't send anything til then. Or send it to my Torrance address (email me for it).

Personal

• Things with MF and I have been fine, as usual. I can't wait til he comes home later this month so I can show him a bunch of new, local discoveries.


• One place I wanted to check out with him is uWink, a "social entertainment restaurant." It's a restaurant that has various computer games at the table; you can even play group games with/against other tables. Sounds like fun if you ask me. Plus I'm told it's a good first date place. For those in the LA area, there's one in Hollywood, and up here, it's in Mountain View.


• Some of you may or may not know that I'm going to my own personal counseling. It's just general good practice for therapists/counselors to have their own counseling, and not to promote the profession so much as it's to take care of ourselves and help us keep ourselves in check for work. For me, I have some concrete goals that I'm working on in therapy, all of which will be part of my 2009 resolutions. One is making friends with girls. I'd just like more female friends.


• I love playing pool, and I like going to Shirley's pool mixers for this reason, but I really, really dislike being flirted with by various guys there. I've considered buying myself a silver band to wear on my left ring finger to signal to them that I'm not available. MF thinks this is an unusual thing to do (I think he explicitly said "crazy"). I don't think this is that odd, but I do think it's kind of lame that I'd buy myself a ring to do it instead of MF getting me one. Think it matters? I'll probably just keep an eye out for a silver ring. I think I wear size 5 or 5.5 (can someone drop hints to MF for me? he doesn't read my LJ :P).

I think that's all for now. Is there anything else I'm missing?

My little sister, 17-year-old Teresa, got into FIDM (only the most awesome fashion school in the west coast)!

Great work, little sister. It felt like only yesterday that you were the little toddler who was changing into different outfits 5 times a day. Now you're going into fashion design, and I am so proud of you. :')

(Also, I hope I get rights to mooch off your fabulous LA or NYC apartment one day.)

From an email I wrote to a friend the other day:

Everyone's got their reasons for their candidate/party, and his reason's probably not the worst I've heard. :P I've been tired lately of the political animosity between the constituents lately, and I'm especially embarrassed when the liberals say or do something stupid... just doesn't make us look good. Like when they talk about the Republicans being complete morons. They're not morons--they just have different needs and priorities.

MF and I were looking at a map of the red/blue states the other day*, and we were talking about guns for some reason. I mused that maybe gun ownership was more important in the central states and rural areas because by the time the trespasser/serial killer/etc. gets to your place, it'd take too long for law enforcement to arrive because facilities are so spaced out in those areas. I'd want a way to protect myself, too, if I were in that situation. In the big cities, one can argue that law enforcement could get there faster, and civilian-owned guns end up being more of a liability than an asset. Same with business regulation: concentration of big businesses is greater in big cities, and as an average consumer, how could you really protect yourself from Big Corporation XYZ? A consumer has greater power in the rural areas where businesses, particularly small ones, have greater sensitivity to the market.

Looking at issues by need makes a lot of sense that way and takes a lot of the "good party vs. bad party" out of it. Your friend's voting reasons fall along the same lines: he's just looking at what he'd need. :P

I had a conversation with my mom recently about the upcoming election, too. She usually doesn't care much for politics, but this year she's been much more interested and involved with it. Because my parents are Republican, I asked my mom out of curiosity what she thought of McCain and Palin. She was happy with the Republican ticket, and I was really surprised to hear her cite the war as being a strong reason for supporting McCain. "I don't think the US should pull out yet," she said.

Before those of you holding an olive branch get testy with my mom, keep in mind that she's a Vietnamese-American immigrant who was a refugee from the Vietnam War. In her mind--and many Vietnamese-Americans in Southern California--the American military departure from Vietnam was premature and left the country in a lot of pain and hurt with the Viet Cong. She sees pulling out of Iraq in much the same light and wants to spare Iraq the same pain Vietnam went through post-war. I see this reason as a kind of "need" for Vietnamese-Americans like my mom, too. For her, it's a different way to heal from the experience of war: to see the US make a different choice this time and help "save" another country when hers couldn't be "saved."

In response to her explanation, I related an analogy about resources. "Say you have a certain amount of money available to loan out to people. You have a lot of family and friends who need a loan from you, but you just don't have enough to loan out to all of them. Do you first loan it out to your friends or family?" She processed this thoughtfully, too. I continued, "Maybe after years of war, Americans just needed their government to focus on issues back home instead of abroad. Maybe it was terrible for Vietnam but good for the American family." "Maybe," she responded. "Maybe we should both look into whether America as a whole was better off from pulling out of the war." (Vague suggestion, I know, but I'm sure there are ways to examine the issue more concretely.)

All in all, I just wish people could be more respectful in their discussions of politics. Mom was so used to having polarized political discussions that having me just listen and trying to understand her perspective actually made her think that I was going to vote Republican, too. (I quickly corrected her, and she was respectful about my choice, too.)

We may not all know the details about the histories of each candidate/party/etc., but everyone's just working with what they can handle. If political education is an issue, then I'd hope such educators keep it respectful instead of name-calling. Every party's got their skeletons and scandals, and every constituent's got their need that they need addressed.


* I was thinking about how liberals commonly use the map to say that more educated areas tended to vote Democrat. I think that it just tends to be bigger cities vs. smaller towns, which of course are going to have different needs and vote accordingly.

S and I were on the beach in Balboa, looking for my family. We both spotted a cute, older couple sitting in the shade under the docks, and it was easy to see that they were my parents.

"Do your parents ever hug or hold hands in front of you?" I asked S.

"No! They'd never." MF has told me the same of his parents, and I remember the same about Yu-Hung's parents and the parents of other friends.

I like that my parents are publicly affectionate without being overly so. They walked down the street in Balboa Island holding hands, and they'd put their arms around the other while they sat next to each other in the sand. Every now and again, they'd give each other a quick peck on the cheeks or the lips. And it was sweet. (If you're wondering how long they've been together, my parents have been married for about 26 years now.)

What about you? Are your parents publicly affectionate, too? (And if they're divorced, are they publicly affectionate with their SOs?) How do you feel about it?

Don't mind the subject line. I'm just enjoying this delicious ginger cookie from Bakesale Betty's. They're in Oakland, but they were giving out samples at Caltopia last Saturday (thanks, Will!). Normally I don't like ginger, but these cookies are so satisfying and delicious!

Other freebies grabbed from Caltopia: a blue water bottle, cereal samples, a bag of popped (instead of fried or baked) BBQ chips, a black Pasta Pomodoro bag with red letters, a green Half Price Books bag, more cookie samples, gelato/sorbet samples, apple "fries" from Amanda's, a free mini sewing kit courtesy of Minute Rice, a slice of pizza from the Bear's Lair, sample packets of granola, a $6 Cal keychain (which was free, but they left the price tag on so that you KNOW they're not skimping :P), and a sample packet of hemp that I'm supposed to add to my soups and breads for added nutrition. And probably more that I don't remember.

Other things going on:

• I need to get back on a tennis regimen. Or maybe I need to get jogging first. But tennis is more fun. But jogging doesn't require a partner to do. I guess tennis doesn't either, but it's not as fun hitting the ball against a wall. Alan, do you want to play after school? I can't do early mornings. :P


• I start my new internship next week. I'm excited while also a little nervous about getting acquainted with several school cultures at once. Just seems a little overwhelming.


• One of my best gal pals, S, is coming to LA this weekend and will be staying until next weekend. We haven't seen each other since my visit to Boston 2 years ago, so I really want to make the time to visit over the weekend. I just don't know if I can afford another trip out of town again this month.


• MF left for Syracuse last Friday. It hurt to see him go, but I think the time away is good for me. We've spent a lot of time together over the past month, so much that I've been feeling really guilty about not making time for other people. It's just when you're in an LDR, it's sort of like, "OMG we need to take advantage of this time together NOW," and it's hard to see that a month straight of that can get to be overkill. If you're not careful about balancing your time, that is. And I sure wasn't. :\ But the time with other friends this weekend was refreshing.


• Over the past few days, I've seen Kung Fu Panda and Bill, both of which I enjoyed. Kung Fu Panda was better, though. My thought the whole time I watched KFP was "Whoa, that's like MF!" A big guy who likes to eat and obsesses over kung fu anything. :P


• I just downloaded The Battle of Red Cliff. If you don't know of it, it's based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a Chinese epic on the scale of Homer's Odyssey. Directed by John Woo, and from the bit of it that I've seen, it looks good. I'll probably watch it tomorrow.


• My brother's new girlfriend seems pretty nice. From what I've seen of them over my LA visit (esp. during Jenny's birthday party), she lets him be who he is, which is more than what I can say of his previous relationship. Brother kind of let himself go a little in recent months, though. We were worried he might've had something like anorexia for awhile, but I think he's got that beat now. :P


• My bangs irritated me and badly needed a trim, so against my better judgment, I went to a random hair salon to get them trimmed. The stylist trimmed them way too short, and now I wish I went to Kim's in the first place. Maybe Kim can still fix them somehow, but they're just too short. No new photos for awhile! :P


• I spent a lot of time with MF's family last week. His mom seems to like me a lot. She thinks I can't cook (she might be right), so she says I'm free to come over on the weekends for some traditional Vietnamese cooking. If you think I'm crossing my fingers for homemade pho, you'd be right. His niece and nephew are adorable and seem to like me a lot, too, especially after I bought them some books and stickers. Nephew wanted to see some YouTube videos of sharks one afternoon, and I accidentally showed him "Zombie Vs Shark." I didn't actually think it would be a zombie versus a shark, but I was very wrong. Oops. I think if MF was the one to show him the clip, his sister would've yelled at him.

It was good to be back in LA the last few days. The thing that stood out the most in my mind this weekend was a brief period of time with my grandmother. It's probably safe to say that we haven't really spoken in years now for a few different reasons, but mostly I had developed a Vietnamese-language phobia for awhile that I only recently started really recovering from.

Anyway, my dad drove my grandparents and some of us kids to church on Saturday night. I greeted Ba and asked her how she was doing. She said she was doing okay, complained about some ailments but praised God every other sentence for still being alive. Oddly enough, she kept saying over and over how praying for years had finally blessed her with her two sons, my dad and my uncle (never mentioning her daughters, curiously enough). By the 10th mention of this, I asked her how old she was when she gave birth to my dad. "Ninety!" she giggled, then my dad interjected with, "No, she was 43 when she had me." Whoa!

My brother's mentioned how she's started giving unusual answers and reactions lately like that. I'm not sure if she's got dementia features, but I pray that it's not any form of dementia; aside from the strong genetic factor, watching a loved one suffer from it is indescribably painful. I'm still amazed that she had children after 40, though! This means that she's 92 this year.

Also, I got busy trying to impart some wisdom on my little sisters seeing as how I have some impact on them. This weekend, it was about the importance of trying to keep at least 2-3 months' worth of living expenses in one's bank account. I know Jenny's just turned 6 and all, but kids often absorb a lot more than you think they do. ;)

Things have been good lately in various areas of my life, seems like. Maybe it's because USF is on spring break this week. No, I haven't gone anywhere or done anything out of the ordinary this week because I still have work and traineeship, but it feels so good to have space to relax.

Work
Getting the raise about a month ago really helped ease things quite a bit. I left Tutor.com as a result--I had a lot of good moments helping students online, but it was getting to be too much on top of what I'm already taking on this year. The current pay rate is also going to help me get through internship as much as possible, which brings me to...

Counseling
I had a quarter-life crisis moment back in January that I shared with very few individuals. I seriously considered switching careers because of the level of overwhelm I was experiencing in my Master's program. Actually, to be honest, I even seriously considered and applied for SJSU's library science program... yes, that sexy librarian talk was alluding to that. But mostly, the application was motivated by fear more than desire. By the time I got my acceptance letter in the mail, I had resolved some of my hangups about counseling and decided to continue down this career path. There's such a huge diversity and richness to the counseling career, and I would be making a mistake not to explore that further. At the very least, this career's guaranteed to be interesting (hopefully in a good way!).

Anyway, cross your fingers for me. I had an interview last week with a school district. It's in the city I want to move to, it's paid (not high-paying, but most MFT internships are unpaid), it's more of what I'm doing now, and the supervisor seems awesome.

Family
My family's doing well. I mentioned in a previous post that one of my cousins is getting married in April and is having a Catholic-Buddhist wedding, so that should be interesting. Mom's promised to take notes for me since I can't be there.

Baby Jenny is no longer a baby. It's kind of hard to see her growing into the elementary school ageset. She's outgrown her cuteness, but I'm always so amazed at how smart she is. It won't be long before she grows into the "awkward age"... Cathy is in that right now, going into middle school soon.

My family's visiting in May to see me walk. My brothers and I don't care much for graduation ceremonies, but my parents wanted to see at least one of us walk, and it being (presumably) my last degree, they asked that I sign up. So I did. It's a great excuse to have a fun, family day in SF.

Friends
Due to my busy schedule, I've felt disconnected from a number of my friends. This week has been my chance to reconnect with a few, and what timing! None of them know each other, and yet it seems like everyone is trying something (or someone!) new. Unfortunately, some of those resulted in heartache. I hope everyone gets a chance to heal and transition to better times in their lives.

Love
MF and I started this thing a few months ago in which I would let him know when my PMS week was, particularly when I'd have a hypersensitive moment. He's been so receptive and sensitive to this, and I've also been much better at letting him know what I need from him.

Recently, I thought about the time when we were just friends and how he had seemed the sort of person I would never date but become good friends with. How things change! The commitment really started to settle fully when I began visiting his sister's family in January; the positive relationship with his family members really helped to deepen my love for him in ways I hadn't experienced before.

Glasses/Contacts
I had my eye exam. Dr. Lem was very nice and didn't try to talk me into buying anything. Actually, he confirmed that contacts have no benefit of vision preservation and said contacts were really for convenience and cosmetic reasons. He also added that since I have a slight astigmatism, he'd have to special order contacts for that which are more expensive. So I decided to stick with glasses.

I didn't get any from his store since they didn't have frames I felt strongly about. I'm going to try ordering them online, but measuring the pupillary distance (PD) is going to be awkward. Eric recommended Optical4Less. Anyone have recommendations or tips on ordering glasses online?

Misc
Oh, for fun recently, I've been apartment-hunting in the south bay for an affordable studio. It's just helps with the whole "positive thoughts/energy towards the future" thing.

Also, I've been doing some research for cheap summer vacations. MF and I may be taking a trip with some other friends, but from the sounds of their summer plans, it might end up being just the two of us (and we're both very okay with that!). Caveat is that it's gotta be $300 or less per person. Someone suggested camping, but here's how that conversation with MF went down:

MF: "Yeah, that sounds like fun. Let's rent a cabin! Last time I went with my family, we got this cabin that had cable TV..."
Me: "MF! Seriously! I'm not against indoor plumbing and showering, but cable TV?! That's not real camping!"
MF: "Okay, Phuong, YOUR kind of camping--the kind with dirt--is the kind I don't like."

Um... no.

I liked the idea of going to Mexico or Hawaii, but it's beyond our budget. Taking a California cruise would be fun, too, but also beyond our budget. Oh, beach camping could be--bleh, nevermind. >:( Someone else also suggested a B&B, which could be pretty awesome. Maybe we'll finally do that drive down the 1. If you guys have ideas or recommendations for cheap vacations, that would be great, too.


Hope you're are doing well!

I finally downloaded photos from the past month or so into my computer.

( Weekend(s) with MF )

( Thanksgiving weekend )

Most interestingly, though, today I just got back from my first "tea time" experience at Lovejoy's in the Mission district. I met up with Chrissy and her friend Sarah there, and we were amazed that the place was so cute! I think the mismatched china and quirky decor had something to do with it. We had unlimited refills of the spicy citrus tea and the gingerbread tea (I highly recommend the latter!).


( Tea time! )

It was a very cute experience. If you're in the city, I highly recommend visiting Lovejoy's with some girlfriends and at least $20. It's not cheap, but it's so worth the splurge, and I think it's still cheaper than the other tea rooms in the city.

My memories of my family's Canadian vacation have faded, so I'll just recall what I can remember based on my photos.

It was a long road trip. The first rest stop we took was somewhere in Oregon...


( More photos )

Sorry for the vague descriptions and convoluted photos. I thought I had more, but maybe it was because I had taken several using my dad's camera, so they're probably still in his memory card or on his computer; if I get ahold of those, I'll try to upload a few more here.

I'm a little sick this weekend, so instead of going out, I thought I'd make a photo post. I still need to update about my Canada trip with my family, but that could still wait. I just want to get some other photos out of the way first.

Last month, I accompanied a classmate to John Muir Woods in the north bay. If you enjoy hiking, Muir Woods is a great place to check out with lots of trails, varying from easy, paved paths to more difficult paths (in which you'd be rewarded with really lovely views of the bay!).

( photo... )

The week after that, I went to the Ghiradelli Chocolate Festival in SF (on the Saturday). I was hoping for more than just ice cream, cookies, and brownies, and I think the Sunday festival featured chocolate pasta or spaghetti or something.

( photo... )

About a week after that, I flew home briefly for friends (visiting James/Theresa) and family (taking our family portrait). The following was taken on our way to the photo studio. Dad was driving, and Mom's sleeping in the back. Teenage sister Teresa took this photo from the front passenger seat.

( photo... )

The week after that, I had to stay in during the weekend to finish a paper. MF surprised me by ordering me Thai food from a local restaurant, having them deliver it to my place. I thought it was one of the most thoughtful and romantic things he's done for me. The delivery came in a huge brown bag, and it took me about a week to eat all this food (I ate an entree once a day).

( photo... )

The week after that, no photos were taken. I get pretty drained from the weekdays, so lately on weekends, I'm content to just stay in. I had "movie night" with MF that Saturday, which I know probably sounds a little corny with us syncing our DVD players to watch a movie at the same time, but when you're 3000 miles away, that's pretty much what some of your dates are gonna look like. It was still a pretty sweet evening.

Huh. I thought there were gonna be more photos, but I guess not! I have some time to do the Canada post now, so I'll do that right after this one.

A few weeks ago, Brownie--our family's adorable little chihuahua--had run away, escaping via a little hole he dug under the gate. Technically, he's Cathy's dog, so she was really upset when she realized he was gone. They checked the pounds, but there was no luck there. "He's such a cute dog," my mom said, "that someone probably found him and took him in."

Just a day or so ago, Peter and his friend JP were walking around the neighborhood, and JP asked Peter what happened to Brownie. A lady was walking her dog around the neighborhood and overheard the conversation. She stopped them and told them that she found a dog fitting Brownie's description a few weeks ago, and that she gave him to a friend who lived about an hour away.

My parents are now trying to get in touch with the lady's friend and giving both of them a small reward for their trouble. But while I felt glad that my sister got her dog back (puppy, really!), I felt a little sad for the friend who was caring for Brownie. Her kids got attached to Brownie, and she was hoping to keep the dog to cheer her kids up from some other family issues.

With a cute face like this, how could you not feel a little cheered up?

I've disappeared for awhile and will disappear again this Memorial Day weekend. Though I'm really glad to be taking another trip out of town, I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't be around to show my brother around the city since he's visiting.

However, I've been able to take lots of photos and video clips since I got my new camera. Here are some of my photos from last week during my visit to LA. I wish I could show you some more video clips of Jenny, but alas, I haven't quite figured out how to size down the video clips to upload them. For now, photos will have to do.
( Photos! )

I've been playing the "What's better game" a lot with Jenny, though she calls it the "What do you like better?" game. She's often very quick with her answers, so the fun for me is coming up with questions I know she might struggle with, e.g. "Which do you like better: blue or green? Ice cream or candy? Rainbows or flowers?"

I tried playing the "What's better game" with MF, but ever since I started with superpowers (I think it was mind-reading vs. invisibility), he hasn't wanted to stray from the superpowers theme. At all.

In other news, I started my summer classes yesterday. Our Monday class is just what I had hoped for in my counseling program: no papers or assigned readings (though we do have books we purchased for class), only (audio) taped practice sessions to be constructively critiqued. But as a bit of a technophile, I cringed a little when the professor said he required those 2" x 3.5" cassettes to be turned in. So now I need to find a cassette recorder with an external microphone.

Teresa's friend filmed Jenny one day and uploaded this brief clip on YouTube. :)



Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! :)

This is a cute Mother's Day video. :)

What are you getting for your mother or mother-figure this Mother's Day? A few of you may be stuck for ideas, so I'll make a few plugs suggestions that you might like to use for yourself. Feel free to add to this list of ideas in the comments.

Things You Can Get for Mom for Mother's Day

• A personalized set of DVDs that she'd enjoy. Ideally, these would be mother-themed, but not necessarily in The Graduate kind of way. Some of these could include: Sleepless in Seattle, Saving Face (esp. if your mom is Asian), The Incredibles, Little Miss Sunshine,... I'm kinda stuck for titles. But add more if you think of any!


• Instead of DVDs, you could also try downloading Mother's Day-themed TV episodes from different shows and burn it in a DVD for her to watch.


• If you don't want to send the traditional bouquet of flowers, you could send edible bouquets, either from Edible Arrangements (which does really gorgeous fruit baskets) or Mrs. Fields (for cookie and flower bouquets).


• A more affordable and personalized option could be photo calendars. I think these have become a lot more common in recent years, but they're still nifty, especially if you write in comments and special dates on the calendar.

More to come as I think of them, or as people comment. I'm still kind of brainstorming for my mom, too. :)

I called Jenny up and spoke to her for a few minutes today. She was drawing another picture for me (she could publish a book with all the pictures she draws for me) and sweetly sang me a song she learned at school. But she was also "helping" Dad with something for confirmation class.

Me: You can call me back later if you need to go do something.
Baby Jenny: Okay, I'll call you later.
Me: Okay! Call me later!
Baby Jenny: You hang up first.
Me: No, you hang up first!
Baby Jenny: No, you! You you you!
Me: Okay, okay, how about we hang up together?
Baby Jenny: Okay! Ready?
Both of us: One... two... three!

[silence]

Baby Jenny: Hey, I thought you were supposed to hang up.
Me: You were supposed to hang up, too!
Baby Jenny: Okay, okay, let's try again.
Both of us: One... two... three!

[clicks]

---

Edit:

P.S. I also love it that whenever I ask how she's doing, she always responds, "Gweat!"