At the begin of summer, I was thinking of what activities for the kids and family to do in the summer. I happened to hear a genius idea of asking the kids what they want instead of try to second guess. Absolutely genius I say!! So I asked Grace to make a list of things she wants to learn, to do, to have, and places she wants to go. She put quite some thought in it and came up with an elaborate list of things. It’s great because some of the things of that list are things I absolutely want to do as well.

So a whole month of summer break had passed, and there were few things that we were able to check off the list. However, there are things that weren’t on that list but have been spontaneously done and checked off. Things from the “bucket list.” Things that are milestone.

I’m proudly to share two things Grace marked her calendar as huge accomplishment:
1. Prayed and invited Jesus in to her heart.
2. Rode her bicycle without training wheels.

The awesome thing is that it is totally Grace’s decision and I did not influence her at all. She came out of the children ministry classroom and shared with me: “Daddy I prayed and invited Jesus into my heart today.” Best words ever heard!

Summer break is going great so far.

I had a day off yesterday in celebrating President’s Day holiday. There wasn’t any plan other than sleep-in, kick back and relax at home with the kids. Supposingly, I should have worked on finishing up filing the income tax but playing Toy Story game on Wii with Gracie was much more appealing. Or watching Veggie Tales with Benji, my little Batman – that’s what he wants me to call him. And I took a good 2hrs nap just because Benji “saved a room” for me on the bed where he made his ‘house’ with pillows and blankets.

At dinner, I asked Gracie how would she rate today home with Daddy, on a scale of 10. She quickly said “A Ten!!” then thought for few seconds and changed it to a Five. “Only Five?! But we played the Wii game?” I tried to defend for some bonus points. She changed it to a Six. “Okay Gracie. Were you happy today?” She nodded. “Well, how about you draw a picture with the subject is Happiness? What makes you happy” She quickly disappeared to her room, grabbed the sketchbook and pencil, and started scribbling. “Don’t look okay mommy and daddy. I’ll show you when I finish.”

I was done with the dishes, and so did Grace with her artwork. It was a family picture of Mommy, Daddy, Benji and herself, all together, each wears their favorite color shirt and pants. She even titled it “My Happyness Thing”

That was my Six-star day, nothing special, wasn’t perfect, but I love it!!!

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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

First day of school

Backpack, check! Supplies, check! Lunch money, check! Grace is going to 1st grade this year, and today marks her first day of school. A school year has begun! This school district has 2 weeks of Fall Break and and 2 weeks of Springs Break, hence their school year begins earlier and ends later than other schools.

Grace doesn’t seem to mind going to school though. She catches up with her friends, and stats chit chat right away while lining up. This year she will experiences full day schedule, and eat lunch in cafeteria for the first time. Somehow I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day for her. But she’ll be alright.

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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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.

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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!

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.

Last week, Grace asked me to go to Chuck E. Cheese. So I made a promise to her that if she’s been good all week, she will get to go on the weekend. Well the weekend came and I totally forgot about it, and so did Grace. Though she remembered and reminded on Sunday night. It was late so we postponed it to another weekend.

Unlike us, our God never forget His promises. Thankfully!

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
       and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
       Though she may forget,
       I will not forget you!

 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
       your walls are ever before me.”  (Isaiah 49:15-16)