ho ho ho..

hope everyone have a merry Christmas and happy 2008!

"TIMBER!"

two years ago when nancy and i were choosing between our current house and the one next to ours, we (or more me) chose our house because of the 100+ yr old oak tree in the front of the house. one thing i hate about new developments in Atlanta is that they get rid of all the mature trees before they build. also, it is especially hard to find within city limits with mature trees all around.

well this past summer, late summer, the leafs of our big oak tree in the front started to brown. at first i was hoping that it was not dead because of the drought and wanted to wait till next spring to do anything with the tree, hoping it will come back. during the past month or two the small branches and barks started to fall. the last thing i wanted is to have a lawsuit, or worse, the trees falls to our house (taylor's room faces the front) or to our neighbors.

i asked some friends to see if they can recommend some tree companies. i got 5 quotes around thanksgiving and was ready to hire the cheapest one - found out two weeks later they went out of business. not good. then we went with our 2nd choice and was able to talk the price down (being chinese). they really did a great job - everything was cut down safely and cleaned up nicely. they had to get like 8 men out here, along with a crane and trucks because of the size of the tree. it wasn't cheap, so don't be offended if you receive a small christmas gift from us this year, if any. so sad.. about the tree being gone.

they grinded the stump yesterday, i need to go rake now.

penguins & sea otters

nancy's best friend jenny was in town for a week. taylor finally got to meet her god mom. two fridays ago we took jenny and the kids to the aquarium. it's been a little more than a year since we get to see with our god son tyler too. the kids' mandarin is much better than mine.. wow, i need to take the chinese class 102 after my 101 this past summer. the kids had a good time at the aquarium. hailey's favorite was the penguins and tyler was the sea otters. it would be so wrong if they have them on the menu, but i was craving for some sushi and sashami at the aquarium's food court.

congrats to the chens as they are expecting their third child! i was telling nancy before they left, this may be their last trip for a LONG time to atlanta as it may be impossible for jenny and james to travel with 3 kids! nancy was sad that jenny and family left last wednesday.

after my last posting, many of you have joined facebook, but just a few more! as always, pictures are posted on our new photo sharing @ shutterfly: http://funkyketchup.shutterfly.com

thief!

growing up, each year for halloween i tell sunny (my bro) that he MUST give me half of his candies from trick or treating. this year was no different, nancy and i have the excuse to go trick or treating and eat all of taylor's candies. nancy was all excited all week as it was taylor's first halloween. nancy carved a pumpkin for the first time. actually this was the first time i went trick or treating.

we wanted to go to the lenox square, but found out they didn't have it and ended up going to a nearby neighborhood, dupont commons. we didn't expect to see so many young couples with kids in the neighborhood. everyone was real nice there and we ended up only going to about ten houses. ppl knew we just wanted some free candy.. haha.




nancy is very proud of her work..




but she was caught stealing candy from taylor!!!

more pictures are uploaded on shutterfly: funkyketchup.shutterfly.com

they are back!

finally, nancy and taylor came back from taiwan today. it's been tough for not having them home for the past 10 days. congrats to scott (nancy's bro) and mandy who had their wedding banquet sunday oct 14th in taiwan.



i have posted the taiwan pictures on our shutterfly website:
http://funkyketchup.shutterfly.com/

i have transferred most of the recent pictures from imagestation to shutterfly. if you haven't joined facebook yet - why wait. i am thinking i may start posting my random and useless blogs on facebook.

taylor is cracking up

practice part ii

last weekend we went out of town again.. this time to charleston. we found out that we couldn't do much on vacation with taylor this young, other than finding time to eat out and shopping between her feedings. all we wanted was a relaxing trip, so we didn't mind that we didn't do much.

there are definitely many things to do in charleston for young families. many sight-seeing places and many good southern and seafood. we were gonna try to take the boat ride to fort sumter tour on the last day before we drive home, but we didn't want to rush and figured we would come back to charleston again in the future.

on the first day, we were going to go to Hyman's Seafood place, but it was packed on a friday nite, so we parked downtown and nancy chose Charleston Crab House. it was nothing special. Sat lunch we tried Magnolia. it was good fancy southern food. definitely go there for the cheaper lunch menu. if you ever go to charleston downtown, park at the free magnolia parking lot but you would have to tell the attendant that you are eating there. sat nite somehow we found a Grand Buffet near the tanger outlet. near the end of the dinner i was shocked when nancy asked me "if we'd come back again", but she was referring to charleston. before we came home on sunday we got to try Hominy Grill for brunch. nancy wanted to try that place b/c rachel ray on food network did a thing on her $40 a day show.



is this a diaper bag or stealing free drinks bag, nancy?




you can view the rest of the pictures on funkyketchup.shutterfly.com.