The rest of July 4th Weekend

Uhmm what else did we do over the great weekend of jULY 4TH?

We picked cherries and watched fireworks!!

I have cherries coming out of my ears now. I ate half of them and froze the other half.

We got to watch fireworks right outside our window :-) We also made the best use of the sparklers.

July 4th continues- pizza party

My good friend Kate is from Chicago. We used to make these Chicago pizzas together. Once in a while, I crave for them. So we dicided to make them for the weekend.

Chicago pizza is stuffed with spinach, cheese, and sausage optional. It's more like a pie. You put the sauce on top of the top crust. It's yummy! We also made a deep dish pizza with olives, green peppers, sausage, pepperoni, and lots of cheese!!! I wish we had mushrooms :-(

The best part is crushing the tamatoes with my hands :-)

They both turned out great!!

John picked me some peas in the garden. I discovered colorful vegies: yellow and purple peppers, and a three-color cauliflower :-)

I love Kate. She's one of my best friends in Amrica. She's taught me many things throughout the years!

July 4th continues- Freedom Festival

I had Friday off work. So John and I took Megan to the Freedom Festival on Center Street. Kate and her roommate Jillian joined us. We had tons of fun, but we all got suntanned :-( . John's the only one that is happy about the tanning. Megan and I were both sad. We've tried so hard to keep our skin white and pretty through the winter, and now it's ALL gone!

I'll let the pictures tell the stories.
John spoiled me with my first cotton candy!

He REALLY wanted a kilt, but I said no :-)

Remember the Mall Cop? It was fun riding those things :-)

We had fun playing with the hats :-)

We were so brave! WE went on stage and danced the Yankee Doodle with these Colonial people :-)

I love America. I'm grateful for the beautiful life I have right now.

July 4th- BBQ at Selnate

This year's July 4th started with a BBQ at Selnate.

Selnate is a small ESL school with only about 20 students, 4 teachers, 2 interns, 1 secretary, and 1 boss. The school could use a larger enrollment for economic reasons, but I sure love the small size of it. Everybody knows and hangs out with each other. It just feels like one big family.

We planned a BBQ in the backyard at 1:30pm and guess when Mr. Rain decided to visit? Yes, exactly at 1:30pm! But we still managed to have fun!
These two cute Japanese girls had a crush on John, I think, because they couldn't keep their eyes off him. haha, very cute :-)

It was also Karen's bday(Karen is the teacher/administrator.)

Diego dared me to try a tranditional drink from Argentina, called Mate. I didn't realize it was tea until I tried a sip. Oops, the WoW! It tasted just like tea, only sweet tea, because they put sugar in it.
He carried a hot water bottle and a packet of sugar with him :-)

Uhmm, not my favorite :-)

Yessica is my best student. She's smart AND hardworking :-)

It was fun despite the rain!

Manti Pageant

We had a fun weekend. I wish it was longer. Friday I hung out with Megan. We went shopping at Chao's and got some nice Chinese food, such as stuff to Sichuan fish, yumm! John thinks that's the worst combination: spicy + fish! Oh how much he is missing out! We watched some movies together and she did my hair.

We were driving around one day and saw this little store called Sammy's that has what they call "the most famous pie shake". So we went there to try it out. They were out of the apple cobbler shake so we had to order a raspberry cheesecake thing. "It was good, but not amazing. " that's John's review.
Then on Saturday, we went to Manti to show her the Pageant. It's very sad that they limited the blanket area to this tiny corner now. We had to sit in chairs to watch it. It got a little chilly and I wish I had more blankets. Megan enjoyed the show. She didn't know what the word "BEHOLD" means. We got her a plot of the show written in Chinese, so that helped. We actually just watched the Joseph Smith movie with her and the missionaries a couple weeks ago. So it was a good review.
It was a pretty drive down there.
We played some Chinese card games and it was lots of fun.

John's two favs: lemonade and pecan.

I love the funnel cakes. I had to stand in-line for 10 minutes. But it was way worth it.


The Manti Pageant brings back sweet memories for us. It was the last thing we did together two years ago before I had to go back to Shanghai. How time flies! I love John! He's my whole life right now :-)
Us in Manti two years ago. I look so young then :-) Oh I just noticed I was wearing the same pair of jeans :-)

Mooncake DIY

So I made mooncakes all by myself!! It looks hard but it's the easiest thing, just pie crust and red bean paste. Usually we put a salty duck egg yoke in the middle, but I don't think John will like it, so I skipped that part.
This is how it's supposed to be like.

I did burn the first batch of my red bean paste. Being as emtional as I am nowadays, imagine how hard I cried over it :-) I'm becoming one of those wimpy girls I despise :-( Oh dear!

Before

After!

John's Big Toes

Lately I've been very emotional and I usually am not that way. For example, last night I cried just because I felt bored. Poor John had to take me out to Wingers with his broken toes :-) Then today in church I cried twice, once in Sacrament, and once in Relief Society. This afternoon, I took some rib soup to Max and wished him a happy Father's Day, and I almost cried when he sent us off. What's wrong with me?

Anyway, back on track, this post is dedicated to John's big toes :-) He has two in-grown toe-nails that makes his life miserable whenever something happens to them. When I accidently step on them, it hurts him so bad that I think he might hurt me someday :-) So before I get hurt, he decided to get them taken care of.

When I came back from work the other day, this is what I saw.
The doctor took out the in-grown part I guess.

The next day when I came back from school and went to the bathroom, I saw this:
I almost fainted. Now I know why I chose not to be a nurse.

John's getting better changing his own bandages every 8 hours. I would not do it. I hope I don't have naughty boys who hurt themselves all the time :-)

One good thing about not being able to walk too much is this:
Riding a cart at Macey's! He had fun until everybody was in his way :-) Then he's glad he didn't have to ride one of these all the time.

I told him, until he's 100 years old and couldn't walk any more, this might be the only time he gets to ride one of these :-)

Busy Weekend

We had a busy weekend.

First, John and I went to Costco and got a bed frame and a roast chicken (it's one of my favs from Costco)! Finally, the boxes went under the bed where I can't see their ugly faces! Then we went to Ikea and got a dresser! John also found his dream bedroom and study. Too bad I didn't take a picture of the bedroom! I didn't bring my camera and I had to ask John multiple times to get him to take any picture for me :-( The designer is a genius in using space. It was great!
This is the desk John likes.

This is the bed Megan and I like.

I realized more and more that I'm such a poor house decorator. One thing is I don't want to spend money, but sometimes I think even if I had moeny, I'm not sure I know how to decorate the house. But then again I can always hire a someone if I have money :-) Good thing I'm very low maintenance. I can go without many things.

One thing I AM good at, though, is shopping for clothes!! I love it and I think I pick good clothes for John. Sometimes he doesn't think so, but usually after I force him into his new clothes, he ends up liking them :-) I just can't go shopping with them cuz nothing in the store looks good to him. He tends to pick gray, white, navy blue shirts- BORING!! So this time I got him some bright colored T-shirts, green, yellow, and blue. He ended up liking them. Next time, PINK!! But I'm taking it slow, one step at a time :-)
He only allows me to take one picture :-(

Of course I had to stop by the semi-annual sale at Bath and Body. Some lotion and stuff were only 4 for 10 dollars. I had to stock up even though I still have leftovers from Christmas! John said I could open my own store now :-)
I was too tired to make any Saturday dinner, so we went to Panda Express because it's close and it's quasi-Chinese (better than no Chinese at all). It's funny I don't like the dishes everybody likes, such as sweet& sour pork, orange chicken, etc. To me, they taste nothing like Chinese!

I wish there's a better Chinese restaurant in Provo!