What a crazy/ weird weekend

On Friday afternoon, our AC broke. Because it was so late, I could not reach the handy man. ARG! When I went outside to check on the AC unit, I discovered a huge crack in our patio wall. I called DH and asked him to bring dinner home because it was too hot for me to cook. Then, when DH came home, he discovered that his PC was broken. It was not a good start of our weekend at all.

On Saturday morning, DH went to Best Buy to buy parts for his PC to repair it. While DH was doing that, I decided to take DD to the OC Marketplace to pick up some fruits and vegetables. As soon as we got there, DD asked for some strawberries.

What a goofball!
Loving her strawberries!
By the time we got home, DH was already home from Best Buy. After DH fixed his PC, we took DD to Costco for lunch. DD wanted pizza. She only ate the toppings though. As you can see from the photo, she picked the toppings and the cheese off.

Saturday was an extra tough day. It was 98 degrees and without a working AC, we were totally dying. We ended up sleeping in the living room last night in our attempt to cool off. This morning, I sent DH to the store for some fans because I was taking DD to meet up with Jessica & Meimei today. My friend Irene had given me a pass to the Company D store (Disney store for Disney employees only). Since I could take 1 guest with me, I decided to take my bff Jessica. While Jessica and I shopped, DD and Meimei were running around like crazy. The girls were so cute with their matching outfits and they both had their Polliwalks shoes on too. Too cute!

Because everything was 50% off or more, we brought a lot of stuff (for the kids, of course). We had a lot of fun shopping, and the girls had a blast running in circles. LOL!

* I am calling the handy man first thing tomorrow morning, so I am hoping that the AC can be repaired asap. As for the crack in the wall, I already contacted the company who built our patio for us. They are coming out tomorrow to look at it. I hope that will also be repaired by the end of this week too.

Receipe Tea Eggs 茶葉蛋 -- Yummy!

When I was growing up in Taiwan, I loved eating tea eggs. It is a snack that can be purchased at the night markets. My grandfather would buy it for me as a special treat about once a week. I remember way back then, it was $5 NT for each egg, which basically works out to be about 15 cents. If you visit Taiwan now, each will cost about 50 cents. Not bad, right? Anyhow, I love these eggs, but it is nearly impossible to find them in the States. On the rarely occasions when I do find them, they are about $1.50 each. Yikes! During our last visit to Taiwan, I discovered that DD loves them as much as I do. I have been wanting to make them for sometime now. Today, in the hot summer heat and broken AC, I thought, "why the heck not?!" I am already hot and miserable, why not make it a few degrees hotter in the house by boiling eggs for an hour (I know, I am totally nuts).

Recipe:

1 bag of spice (from the Chinese supermarket)

1/2 cup of soy sauce

2 bags of Lipton tea (any black tea bags will do)

2 star anise

2 teaspoons of salt

2 tablespoons of rock cane sugar

1 dozen eggs

Tips:

* You can use any sort of black tea bags you want, but the better the quality of tea bags you have, the better your tea eggs will taste.

* You can pick up the rock cane sugar from any Asian supermarket. If there isn't one near you, you can also pick it up from Teavana. Just know that you will have to pay a lot more money if you buy it from Teavana.

* The bag of spice can be substitue with 1 small stick cinnamon or cassia bark & 2 strips dried mandarin peel

Steps:

* Boil eggs for about 12 minutes (the same way you would make hard boil eggs).

* Crack the shells (without removing the shells at all).

* Return your eggs back to the pot, submerge your eggs in water and add the rest of the ingredients to your pot. Bring to boil, and then cook for an hour on low.

* After your hour is up, storage your pot in the fridge overnight (do not toss out the liquid).

* Next day, cook again on low for 30 minutes.

This is what the final product looks like.
I removed the shells on a couple of eggs to take a photo, and as soon as I was getting my camera to take the picture, DD's fingers were going for the eggs.
DD approved! She called them "chocolate eggs." LOL!

Gymnastics Wednesday & Leotard Fix-Up

DD had her gymnastics class yesterday, and as usual she had a blast. We got to class a little early, so she got to play with her friend Charlotte before the class started.
The girls warming up for their lesson.

Go, little monkey girl!

After her coach showed her how to flip herself over, DD was able to do it all by herself later.

Walking across the blanace beam.

Today, I finished fixing DD's leotard. When DD started her gymnastics classes a couple of months ago, I brought her a bunch of leotards. One of them was this leotard that I paid $5.29 for. It looked adorable on DD, but the green foil on her leotard started peeling off after she wore it a couple of times.

Since the peeling turned the leotard into a sad state, I decided to take all of the green foil off by hand. It took me a few night (while watching TV to do it). But I was able to remove all of the green foil from her leotard.

Today, I went to Michael's and brought a skull iron-on (only $1) for the leotard. A couple minutes later, we have a new leotard. Hooray!

Disneyland fun

We made another trip to Disneyland today. When we got there in the early AM, we did our usual Splash Mountain ride to avoid the long line later in the day. After that, we were off to Thunder Mountain Railroad. Here's a few photos of DD waiting in line. Dancing around while we waited because she was so excited about it.

We only waited for about 10 minutes, it was not bad at all.

The highlight of our day was the Space Mountain ride. This was DD's first Space Moutain ride ever!

Waiting in line to get on the ride. After the ride was over, DD turned and said to me, "I was in Space, Mommy." So cute! She really enjoyed the ride.

It's been awhile since we been on Buzz Lightyear ride, so we did that today too.

Shooting the space aliens, LOL!

After the ride was over, she picked up the Buzz Lightyear gun at the toy store & wanted me to get it for her.

She was shooting at her mommy too. What a silly girl!

Right before lunch time, we met up with our friends, Lara, Katie & Lindsay. Lara took this photo of DD and me.

We took the kids on the carousel ride. LindsayKatie

Mr Toad's ride photo up of the kids.

Lydia's 3rd birthday party

Lydia turned 3 today and we went to a park in Irvine to help her celebrate her big day! Lydia's mommy and daddy (Anna & Lois) had a bounce house set up for the kids. As soon as we got there, DD wanted to get into the bounce house to jump. After awhile, the kids got really tired, and they all lied down to take a break.

When DD got tired of the bounce house, we decided to sit down and do a craft. Lydia's mommy had a craft table set up for the kids to make their own crowns.

After she was done with that, DD and DH were off to swing.

DD kept on asking her daddy to push her higher and higher.

Then off to play with the slides.

DD got really thirsty from playing so hard, so DH helped her drink some water.

Lydia's mommy set up some eggs with goodies in it. After a very yummy lunch, DD went around the park looking for the eggs (Easter Egg Hunt in August, LOL).

So happy that she found some eggs.

She was not aggressive enough to get the eggs in time, so she was sad that she only got 2. DH walked around the park with her to find more, but there wasn't any more. Poor baby!

Luckily there was a pinata filled with candy and toys for the kids.

The birthday girl hitting the pinata. Yes, the kids were beating a pink kitty to get to the candy and toys in its tummy. Disturbing? Yes, I would say so.

When the kitty busted open, there was plenty of goodies for the kids.

The birthday girl and her grandma.

The kids enjoying cake.

The birthday party was packed with a lot of fun. We all had a great time! When we got home, DD could not wait to check out all of the good stuff she got from the birthday party.