I just love road trips. There is just something fun about driving, discovering places, trying new foods, being outdoor, being spontaneous. For Thao, she just doesn’t like the part sitting in the car for too long. I don’t think the kids like sitting in one place either, not to mention the dreadful repetitive question: are we there yet?

With recent little short road trip to Denver with the kids, another issue arise: bathroom break. Benjamin was quite fussy and kept requesting bathroom break like every fifteen minutes. When he was younger, he just slept the entire trip in his car seat, which was a whole lot easier. He’s not wearing diaper anymore, but for little road trip like this, we put him in diaper just in case but he refuses to go in the diaper.

The we have the little guru in back seat giving us tip: “Mommy, usually he wet his pants when you don’t tell him. If you tell him pee in his diaper, he won’t. You should tell him: don’t pee in the diaper, then he will!” Then, she turns to her brother: “Don’t wet your diaper, ok?” I couldn’t help but laughing out loud during that little therapy session. She already uses reverse psychology at her age.

This gets me thinking of the huge “road trip” the Israel took from Egypt to Canaan, the promised land. Now, that is some road trip, 40 years long, crossing many desserts – not so much of a scenic drive. There was a shorter route but of course due to their constant complaining, God made them took the long route, wandering in the dessert.

Forty years, can you imagine that? There were lots of them, like sand on the seashore, like stars in the skies, with donkey, camel, pets, cattles, belongings, kids. That is one heck of a trip. I don’t know how Moses did it, leading millions of people, knowing when to start moving, when to stop, what to do for foods. Then, I got to curious how the bathroom breaks were handle. That trip was a miracle in itself.

Road Trip

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Lately, I notice how Grace and Benjamin play and interact, and their differences in solving problem just amaze me.

When we give Ben a toy still in its package, he immediately goes for the “main content”, yanking it off the box, then try to press on everything that might be a button, or flip it up side down to locate a switch. If nothing happens he gives it couple bangings against the floor. If still nothing, he concludes: “het pin roi!” (translation: it’s out of battery!) and will try to find a screw driver to open it up.

As for Grace, she goes for …the manual booklet first. Ha ha ha. She carefully pulls out the piece of paper from the box, spreads it across the table, and starts reading the instruction and follows the steps. When she got stuck, then she goes to daddy.

(On a side note, I’m so proud of her on the reading part. She’ll read just about anything she sets her eyes on, whether it’s her Bible, her books, Mommy’s book, back of a cereal box, or.. a toy’s manual booklet!)

The other day I bought them Happy Meals at McDonalds (bad parent, I know! Lol. This is not a frequent thing so it’s OK .. ha ha I hope), so they both got the toys that come with. Benjamin already gave me the Iron Man toy so I could turn it on for him while he’s eating the fries. I was driving away from the parking lot, finding the switch on the back of the toy and flipping it on, Grace shouted from the back seat: “No Daddy! That’s not correct. You have to pull the tape off on the chest first. That’s step one!” I looked in the mirror and saw Grace already had the instruction sat squarely on her legs with the toy already blinking light on her hand.

Isn’t that something?! We are blessed that God gave us 2 beautiful children with very unique in personalities and characteristics, which make our parenthood quite flavorful and completed.

I don’t remember the first song I sang when I was a kid, and I doubt if my parents would still remember. As for my kids, Grace’s first songs  were both “ABC” and the “Barney’s Song: I Love You“. That’s right, she knew both song, sang it loud and proud.  Songs are pretty easy for Grace to remember, and she sings some Vietnamese children song as well.  Quite the opposite for Benjamin, words and English vocab doesn’t quite stick with him.  He knows them, but he doesn’t say it back. When he was younger, Thao usually sang to him a Vietnamese lullaby and he remembered it.

You start singing and he can sing the next words for you, but he doesn’t sing the song. His babysit lady is from Hue, a central region of Vietnam, and she speaks with thick central-region accent. Ben also now has some Vietnamese central accent when he talks. It’s quite funny. The other day he went home from daycare and sang first line of  ”Ai Ra Xu Hue” (a well-known song about that central region) and we had quite a laugh.

Today mark a milestone for him as he can sing his first English song, “Happy Birthday to you!”  ”ABC” didn’t quite work out. Too many letters.

Here are our little superheroes dressed up for Halloween night. Grace is Blue Power Ranger (yeah, it’s her choice of color since they don’t have orange, and she prefers blue over red), and Benjamin is Superman.  Grace was excited walking block after block for trick-or-treating, while Ben preferred sitting in the stroller and being pushed around the block. Not so super, after all!

Our superheroes

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Also, beautiful sunset sky on Pikes Peak the night before Halloween.

Pikes Peak

Sunset

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Both Grace and Benjamin caught a flu bug and were down for two days.  They had fever, coughing, and vomitting.  They’ve been sick-free for quite a while until now, so we were little frantic, worried, and afraid if they have got the swine flu, H1N1 virus. But we also trust in God’s authority over our lives, and nothing is out of His reach. We prayed and certainly God had heard our prayers. He gives them strength and they are sick no more. Grace showed sign of recovery in the afternoon, while Benjamin recovered the next day. Today, they are up, running around,  laughing, and active as they can be. Praise the Lord for His mercy. He reigns over sickness, or even death. What an almighty powerful God we serve!

The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised – Job 1:21b

My apology for the lack of posts lately , and my typical excuse would be ”I’ve been busy“. However the truth is rather I’m been lazy.  Also somehow I couldn’t stay up late like I used to anymore. Usually after my evening devotion time, I would grab my laptop and browse, or write blog,  or find something to watch on the TV until 1AM before I hit the bed. Now, I could hardly open my eyes after I finish my evening prayer.  Sign of old age, I know!

Anyway, here is a long updates with what’s going on last few weeks.

Kids

Grace is doing fine in 1st grade and has fun at school. We get the hang of managing homework thing every night now.  Grace is also reading everyday, and I’m very impressed with her developing skill in phonetically pronouncing unknown words by breaking out letters and sounding them.  It’s amazing! I don’t know why this skill was never taught when I learned English back in the day in Vietnam.

Benjamin is into cars, or anything with wheels. Anywhere he goes, he brings a car toy with him. He’s still learning to talk, slowly. Ben goes to sleep by himself without mom or dad laying next to him. Though many occasions, he quietly sneaked out of bed, laying down on the carpet on top of the stair, observing us while we were cleaning in the kitchen.  When he heard me calling him out , “Benjamin! Go to bed, now!” he quickly ran back in the room,  climbed onto bed, closed his eyes and pretend he was sleeping. It’s kinda cute!!

Work

God has been great to us. We are still blessed for having our daily job.  Our company’s client cuts back, our company has to follow as well. It’s sad to see co-worker being laid off, or cut back in working hours.  It’s the ugly sight of this downturn slow economy. Though our hope is still in the Lord, who knows our future, and carries us in the palm of His hand.

Church

Our family’s been attending New Life Church morning service for about a month now. I’ve been going with friends before, but now Thao and the kids are joining me, which make me extremely happy. The messages past several months were on Proverbs, and they were so good. I certainly learn a lot, and these series of messages are meaningful, lifechanging to me.  God’s Words brings conviction, yet refreshing, and certainly makes my life, my family, my marriage happier.  I challenge you to listen or watch these sermons online at the New Life Church website, http://newlifechurch.org. Your time won’t be wasted.

After morning service at New Life Church, we usually go out for lunch. Then we rush home to get ready to attend our main church service, the Vietnamese Baptist Church in the afternoon. Thao is still teaching Vietnamese to the kids prior service time. I am still playing guitar for worship. It’s a long busy Sunday for us, but we are in it for the Lord, to worship Him. Last week message was great, too. That also reminds me to continually praying for my dad for great insight and teaching to bring transformation, revival for the congregation. Dad is also a guest speaker for the convention for the northern states and Canada this Labor’s Day weekend.

Guitar

Talking about guitar earlier reminds me that I want to tell you I have changed to a different guitar teacher for 5 weeks now. Yeah, I kept saying I will write all about this but that laziness got to me,  you see….  I really like this new tearcher, and absolutely learn a whole lot from him. He not only taught me guitar skills, but gave lots of insights in praising and worship.  It’s pretty awesome. I’ll talk more about that in another post.

Concerts

Two weeks ago, I went to the Chapel Service at Forcus on the Family with Rush of Fools lead the worship, and John Morgan was the guest speaker.  I wasn’t planned to go, but I heard of it on the radio on the way to work, and decided to take 2 hours off from work to come. My sisters and two other friends also went.  Without prior information, we probably would be fooled thinking the President George Bush was there. John Morgan not only impersonated the president well, he looked just like the president.  At first I was troubled by the idea of impersonating the president and sharing Gospel message, like how do you make fun of someone and talk about God at the same time. But it actually wasn’t a comedian showto make fun of the president.  With all the jokes aside, he presented the characteristic of the president that people don’t see. John’s message and the testimony were actually quite entertaining, funny yet inspirational.  You should check out his website: http://www.georgebushimpersonator.com .

Last week we also went to the Lincoln Brewster concert event hosted by our local Christian Radio. It was pretty awesome as well. I knew about Lincoln and his music, but did not know about his background.  It wasn’t like typical concert with music after music. He took breaks, joked around, played secular song requests. He introduced his family, talked about his kids, his wife. He gave the testimony about his life, his step-father…. There was calling and there were people accepting Christ on that night.  It was great. Lincoln is such a talented guitarist, and the praise and worship session was splendid.

Youth

Several youths go to New Life Church with us in the morning. It’s always fun going with the whole group, and hang out more. Lately, we are hooked on Sequence board game and played that a lot. We still play volleyball after our afternoon church service ends. Last Saturday, we went to Youth Fellowship event in Denver to hang around with other youths. It was been a long time since we last had such event.

Photo

I haven’t taken any pictures with my camera lately, or I might have and forgot to off load them onto computer. Last week at the Youth Fellowship event, I left my camera at the church and forgot to bring it home, so a friend is holding it for me. There won’t be any pictures anytime soon until I get my camera back.

But while waiting, enjoy some pictures I took with my phone at the Famous Dave BBQ restaurant last Sunday. I like my new phone, did I tell you that?!

Moose head	BBQ
Grace	Benjamin

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Kindergarden was easy and carefree. First grade is totally different. They have homework almost every weekday in first grade. This is not Grace’s rant but mine.  Making sure my child is doing homework, and completing any school requirement is another huge add-on responsibility that I did not see or experience that until now. Welcome to grade school! Another milestone for me as parent.

Passing my understanding to a simple minded child like my daughter is a frustrating process. Last night, we sat at the table and we were working on counting numbers, recognizing them, and writing them down. Grace can count more than 100, and she can also recognize the number and identify them as they were written. But when I randomly sounded out number, some of them she has problem with. She is still confused between “-tee” and “-teen”, as in fourty and fourteen.  The special exception such as “eleven” and “twelve”, she got it, but from “thirteen” to “twenty” is still a mistery in her head.  There’s some misconnection there somewhere.

Our conversation was like:

Me:      Write Sixteen
Grace:   Sixteen .... (thinking) ... Six  .. Zero!
Me:      No! That's sixty.  When you hear "teen", it means 1.
Grace:   OK ... Six ... One!
Me:      No, no! Let's count from Ten.
Grace:   Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen.
Me:      Right there. Sixteen. How do you write Sixteen?
Grace:   One .. Six! 
Me:      Now write Seventy-two!
Grace:   Seventy-two  .... Seven ... Two
Me:      Good job! .... Twenty!
Grace:   Twenty .... Uh.... (pat hand on forehead)
Me:      When you hear "tee", it means zero.
Grace:   Twenty  .... Zero... uh...
Me:      The leading number first. ... Two .. Zero.
Grace:   Two ... Zero!
Me:      Now write Fourty!
Grace:   Fourty  .... Four ... Zero!
Me:      Good! Now, ... Fourteen!
Grace:   Fourteen  .... Four ... One...
Me:      No, Grace!... What did I tell you about the "teen"?
Grace:    ... (don't remember, and about to cry)...

We spent quite sometime with all these numbers. I tried to explain three-zero is called “thirty”, not “three-ty”, or five-zero is “fifty”, not “five-ty.”  She nod along but I think I probably just confused her more. It had been like 30-40 minutes on these numbers already, and she just wanted to get out of there and do something else.  I tried to keep my cool, but noticeably my voice got louder and I scared the kid rather let her think about it.  It was time to stop and gave her a break.

I totally give props to teachers, people in teaching profession, or people who homeschool their kids. It takes a lot of patient and consideration.  Grace has no problem understand her teachers, but she is totally lost sometime when I try to explain things.   Certainly raising voice or wrong  attitude while teaching the kid do not help either. I remembered back when we were kids, we usually got whipped for not understanding certain concept after many explanations. I don’t see how that help and it’s totally a big no-no that I will refrain from doing that to my kid.  

I train people at work. I explain a technical problem to friends, or show someone how to do something.  I speak in front of crowd, lead the church program, lead Bible study, teach Sunday Bible school.  But  I got to admit, teaching is definitely NOT my talent and is NOT something I am good at.  I think I’m easily frustrated or loosing my cool when I try to explain something, that seems to me a very fundamental or simple concept,  to someone who absolutely has no idea what I’m talking about after many explanation attemps. I certainly have a lot to learn, and need a lot of strength and wisdom for doing this every day.

Happy Birthday Grace

I asked Grace what she wanted for her birthday, she thought for a second and said she wanted a horse. Well, certainly that wish could not be fullfilled. So we went with the second choice and got her a kick scooter. Thao also bought her an ice cream cake, decorated with her favorite cartoon characters: SpongeBob Squarepant and the gang. Unfortunate, someone I’m-not-gonna-say-who forgot to put an ice cream cake in the freezer, it became … SpongeBob’s world, the Bikini Bottom!

But it’s alright. Thao took the kids to play at the kids arcade.  I also made an appointment for horseback riding, but due to schedule conflict with the church camp, it didn’t work out. Oh well, she had plenty of good times already, not counting gifts she received from grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Well, Happy Birthday, Gracie!!

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Last time we went to the zoo probably was a little more than 2 years ago. Ben wasn’t even born yet. Last weekend, the kids had nothing to do so I decided to take them to the zoo. I’m not sure why but it was very crowded on that day. We had to park in the overflow parking lot.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is not like San Diego Zoo, you know. There’s nothing much to see, you see it once you see it all. Actually, they built a Sky View ride recently, which is basically a nopen air, noncover ski lift that take you up the mountain and back. If you don’t ski or snowboard, or have never been on a ski lift, this is your perfect chance. It’s as close as you can get. 

On the lift

Lift

One of the advantage point is that the  zoo is located near the foot of the mountain, so its layout has many hills. It’s great for getting some excercise while you enjoy watching the animals. If you have young kids, you should definitely bring stroller. You’ll need it.  Just in case you forget, they do rent out stroller for a price.

Top of Mountain	Resting
Riding Horse	Watching

Grace is pretty excited going to the zoo; she’s an animal lover. Benjamin is quite the opposite. He’s timid and afraid of animals, even cats and dogs. Probably he’s a little bit too young for this. He’s terified as the giraffe reached in his neck  for the crackers. So, while Grace is enjoy riding horse, petting the wallaby, Benjamin just sat in his stroller and watched.

Giraffe	??
Sleeping porcupine	King of the jungle

We had a good time. We headed home just a little bit before the rain came pouring down.

Check out pictures here

We just got back from the Vietnamese Southern Baptist 25th Convention in Dallas, Texas.  There were about 1400 registered attendees, and 1500+ came to Sunday service. The weather was crazy hot, 100 Fahrenheit, but most of the time, we were indoor in the hotel where the air conditioner was running full time. I brought a netbook along and thought I might write the journal recap of the 4-day events (beside using it as entertainment mean to keep the kids occupied while waiting at airport of on an air plane.) As it turn out, wi-fi wasn’t available at the air port, and internet wasn’t free (wasn’t cheap either) at the hotel.  There is a business center at the hotel, but I was too lazy to take elevator down there to spend time in that isolated room anyway.

The program was all right; there were goods and bads. We got to see our friends and familiar faces from all over the States. Some workshops were interesting. Out of all the things to complain, I have to say it’s the foods, which were really bad. For this huge number of attendees, it is understandable that the food wouldn’t be great, but it wasn’t even decent. We wasn’t planned to tour Dallas, thus we didn’t rent a car. Otherwise, we would have eating out for lunch and dinner.  Benjamin didn’t eat much for the 4-day event there. There wasn’t a fridge in the room either, so we had to go to the restaurant downstair to purchase milk  every breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometime they gave us for free, other time they charged $1.50 each. It was weird.

But anyway, not to get caught up in my silly little whining rant,  I actually had a great time. The highlight of the trip for me was to participate in the Evangelism Explosion workshop, and hand-on experience by going out to the Vietnamese market and witnessing the next day. After the workshop, I spent sometime in prayers and asked God to prepare me for the witnessing trip. There were many things to hold me back: fear, lazy, sports event that I want to go to, etc… but after the pray, I felt ready and made up my mind about coming to the witnessing trip. I prayed for 5 people whom God will prepare for me to listen to the Good News.

On the day of the event, we were dividing into groups of 3 or 4 people, and being dropped off at several Vietnamese markets or shopping mall. My group was assigned to the strip mall, not the actual mall that has indoor shops. It was very hot outside at 2:00 PM, in100F.  I’m not used to this kind of heat, and my vampire skin hasn’t been exposed to such sunlight for extended period of time, so I was a little nervous walking around in this weather. But I believe that God has prepared the 5 people I prayed about, right here, in this strip mall, so I shouldn’t focus on my own confort right now.  It was interesting though, and our God is great. Somehow the electric in these shops was out, so the AC wasn’t running.  People closed their business and stood outside the door waiting for the electric to turn back on. I’m not sure when the electric was out, but I just noticed it after our group finished witnessing to the first person. There, you see, it must be His amazing work. So, opportunity just presented itself to us. There stood this big man with tatoos all over his 2 arms in front of his shop. His look was definitely intimidating, but for some reason my legs were approaching him, and my mouth started asking his name, and witnessing the Gospel to him.  God just gave me a nudge, a courage that I normally don’t have. Few minutes later, this man wanted me to pray for him to accept Christ and the gift of heaven. It was amazing! His name is Tien (I don’t know the last name, forgot to ask)…  And of course, God is faithful, more so than we ever know, and He gave abundantly. We have talked to 7 people, and 3 people came to Christ. The others received the message and hopefully the seed has sown in their heart and it will grow one day. Oh yeah, the shop of same man that I witnessed to was selling beverages, so he just gave us couple icy cold water bottles for free. Certainly great to  beat the heat! It was awesome! There was one drunk Mexican man came on a bike, and he came chatting with us for a while. Lots of things he said we didn’t understand, but he did mention something fixing the roof for $300… hahaha.  We thanked for his time, and gave him a cold bottle of water, and he seemed very appreciated it. Anyway, that was a great experience for me, and hopefully it inspires you in some way.

Grace really wanted to swim in the swimming pool, and she kept asking us to go. It was way too hot during the day and so crowded in the afternoon, so we didn’t want her to go. But eventually, Thao took Grace and Benjamin to the swimming pool to cool off in one of the afternoon. They had a blast. Grace  also had fun in the children class. They were taught to sing and dance to the song “You Are Holy” by Planet Shakers. They performed it on Sunday in the last service. It was also the only chance I used my camera that I brought along the trip.  Here is the video uploaded to Youtube.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Now the Convention is over. You know what worry me? Next year 26th Convention is in Denver. Here, in Colorado. There are a lot of works ahead of us. Scary!

My kids are looking forward to summer break. I know I used to when I once was (or still am ??! hmmm…)  They can go to bed late, and don’t have to wake up early. They look forward to summer vacation, outdoor activities, fun things to do… It will be a very long and boring summer if there is nothing to do.

Grace has been asking me to set up the pool in the backyard. We did that last year and maybe used it once or twice. But this year, the weather hasn’t been hot enough and it rains every afternoon.  So, we think she probably would enjoy  swimming lesson by now. Last year, we wanted to sign her up for swimming lesson, but she did not want to go.  I don’t know what change this year, but apparently she is very excited and tells everyone about her swimming class.  Grace starts at the very beginning level, because we want her to feel comfortable with the water. She’s somewhat afraid of being under the water, so there is no reason to skip ahead, then scare and scar the kid for life. Thao switches role with me to take Grace to swimming class in the morning, while I take care of Benjamin (showering, changing, feeding…  you know, all that jazz) before dropping him off at daycare.  The swimming class will last 2 weeks. Grace  has had couple classes, and she really enjoyed it. It’s funny! She does not ask us to stay up late anymore knowing she has swimming lesson in the morning. Also, she gets up quickly now, no snoozing.   She tells me all about the 3 seconds submarine, the pencil body formation, the hand shovel, not fork to dig the water, and … her friend Cody in swimming class.  LOL!  I am really glad that she likes it, more comfortable in the water, and of course, will know how to swim very soon.

Get ready..	Get in the water
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Nothing fun planned for Benjamin yet, or maybe he doesn’t know the difference anyway! We just don’t know what activities would fit for him yet, but whatever they are, definitely one of us has to be involved.  We usually take Ben and Grace to the park in the late afternoon, after picking them up from daycare. They swing, slide, climb…. you know, be a kid!  Unfortunately, there is no plan for summer vacation this year. With the blurry future of the economy, we probably should stick with Stay-cation instead. Bring vacation home!! Though, this July, we will be in Texas for the Vietnamese Baptist Convention. It’s not really a vacation, but definitely a  short break from our normal routine. To the kids, staying in hotels is like vacation to them.  Then, Summer Bible Vacation will start pretty soon in July.

We were talking about camping recently. We haven’t done that for years.  I love camping and I want the kids to experience it, too.  All the tent setup, sleeping bags, campfire, roasted marshmallow, jokes, songs … all of that… and no bear! But I don’t know when that will become reality. There are still rollerblade, and teach Grace to ride bicycle without the assistant wheels.

So what’s fun for daddy and mommy? None! Just working! … but there’s always volleybal!!! hahaha … We haven’t played much due to bad weather, but I am ready to hit few balls  every week.

It was so… last week,  thing in the past, but I didn’t get the time to blog it. Just busy, busy, busy, you know?!  So let me quickly write about it before another weekend is coming!

It was a good weather warm and sunny weekend. It’s June already but we still have snow on Pikes Peak. That is not unsual at all!

Snow-covered Pikes Peak in June

So, it was time to hit the park with the kids. The bicycle gang is ready for some laps!

I'm ready	honk! honk! Coming through
Daddy push me!

On Sunday, after church service, the weather was just perfect for volleyball. We haven’t played volleyball much lately due to rainny weather.  I was so ready to hit some balls, and I got my sports clothes with me in the car. Oh wait, I forgot to grab my tennis shoes.  Shoot! Anyway, we didn’t get to play: not enough participants. We figured 2-on-2 would waste lot of time in collecting the ball on the open field. 

We sat on sofa, like an hour trying to figure out what to do. We’ll try to think or remember any news or commercial for weekend community events, but we got nothing.  Finally, we decided to drive to downtown and would more more decision from there. But t here was nothing in downtown. It was Sunday, and businesses  closed early.

Well then, we thought we might just have some ice cream while we already made the drive to downtown. We  stopped at this ice cream hut in Old Colorado, called Colorado City Creamery. It was a very nice little shop, with lots of flavors, buffet topping, inside and outdoor sitting, and with live keyboard music.

Colorado City Creamery

Jazzy tunes from the organist

We enjoyed our ice cream outside, picture posing with the cow, and strolling couple blocks in downtown before heading home.

Our family	Bao and Hoa
Destiny	Nguyen
Nhan	Grace (and the cow)

It was just in time for dinner. So, on the way home,  we stopped by groccery store and grabbed some chicken legs and wings for  BBQ.  Few hours later, our hunger was satisfied. The chicken was very tasty. Sorry, I was too hungry and forgot about taking pictures.

But, you can check out the rest of the photo here.