Seventeen

Happy 17th Birthday to my first born! 

She is a truly a gift from God! It was an unforgettable memory! It was January 2000. I was feeling tired and rundown for awhile so I went in for a blood test and told my doctor that I probably had the flu, was anemic or had a thyroid problem since it does run in my family. Little did I know that it was because I was pregnant! A phone call came through into my classroom phone after school (I was not one of the privileged who had a cell phone) and she told me I wasn't sick .. I was pregnant!! It was an answer to prayer since we had been trying to add to our family for two years. It was only until I decided that it may have been the stress of working and teaching full time that was preventing me to conceive. So I decided to quit teaching at the end of that school year and surrendered my desire to have a child to God. In His time; not mine. And when I relinquished my desire to control my life, He blessed us with Emily Ka-Yen when I did not expect it! #HE>i #godisgoodallthetime #beingamotheristhebest #mybabyisalmostanadult😵

Friends since the womb! Literally! We were having dinner with her family at Chevys when one of the older Yee siblings came up to me and asked 'Ms. Cezanne, I think we need the bassinet back.' Now we've only been using it for like a month or two and I didn't know why it was such a rush for them to want it back! Well Rachel was a big surprise for them! And now they attend school together with the last two years having almost identical class schedules. Thank you Rachel for being Emily's forever friend, sharing your love of bunnies with her and coming by today to wish her a happy birthday!! #friendsforlife❤️

Gorging

I thought the weekend Rachel would be with us would be a quiet time at home playing with the bunnies the whole time. In fact I thought she might even get bored here.

Not so! As it turned out we were out for every meal except one the whole entire long weekend! Who knew?!?

First off....Friday after picking up the girls from school.. we headed to the Great Mall.

Unfortunately, Rachel told me that their microwave broke and she ate a half-frozen hot pocket for lunch. Hmm... not so appetizing. I decided to help her forget her 'lunch' with a yogurt snack.

Check out what/who we saw displayed at the GAP Outlet?

It's a picture of Hannah's good friend Laneya! Who knew!?!?

The mall wasn't very crowded for a Friday evening Rachel noticed. (The last time she was there it was Black Thursday! Yes I would say it might have been a little bit more crowded on THAT day!) BUT it was Valentine's Day so I was thinking who would bring their date to the Great Mall on Valentines?!?! Not many people I tell you!

Are you wondering why I'm at the mall on Valentine's Day with the girls and where was my wonderful husband?

Well.. he was here with his 'date'.. a church friend invited him to stay at his timeshare and ski at Northstar. He couldn't pass up the opportunity and of course as his loving wife, he had my blessing to go!

Saturday was the funeral for my sister-in-law Hilda's mom. I must say it was the longest-shortest funeral I ever had the privilege of attending.We sat and waited for 50 minutes and the service was less than 10 minutes. (I felt kind of weird walking up to the family to pay our respects and bowing to the deceased with Matthew and our 'three' girls right after my sister and her husband walked up with their three boys. All of a sudden I felt like my side of the family was huge!)

After the burial, we went to Moonstar Buffet for the lunch reception.

We love Moonstar! It's one of our favorite buffets. (I think our Buffet Club gave it 4 bibles but I have to check with our Prez & VP to confirm)

They have cotton candy!! Rachel said she had to roll out of that restaurant. Luckily she had a swim class after we got home so she can swim off the calories.

BUT after swim class, we headed straight to DINNER with Matthew's family at Happy Kitchen. I don't think I could have eaten another bite! I mean lunch only ended at 3pm and dinner just 3 hours later?!?

But we did eat.. they have great food! And we even got dessert at Tapioca Express. We rolled home and fell into a food-induced coma.. until the next morning!

Church! After church service.. Dim Sum!

Yes.. we went to Fu Lam Moon to have dim sum with the Louies, Wongs and Matthew's ski date, Doug.

That afternoon the girls got on their bikes to ride off their calories. Matthew washed his car and I did what I do best: I took a nap!

The next day... Monday - President's Day Holiday.. no school.. no work.. so what did we do? .. go EAT!

This time with our Buffet Club Prez & VP and their girls. Grace wanted to try Chicken and Waffles in Oakland.

We gave this place 2 bible rating. The waffles were nothing special and the prices were high!

We ordered waffles, fried chicken and fries.. the garlic fries were delicious along with the side of grits. I never had grits before!

After breakfast, we checked out Jack London Square. It has changed so much since the last time we were here which was eons ago. Owen reenacted his marriage proposal to Grace at the same spot where he proposed.  Well.. Grace told us 'her' version of what happened!

The Mr & Mrs.. (one of the many weddings I coordinated)

The 'spot' where she said YES.

Then we headed to a tourist attraction... the huge Mormon temple!

I have never been actually on the church property before. Always drove by. It was huge! But the views were amazing!

And last but not least we ended the fun filled day with dessert at Castro Valley's Rita's Ice & Custard
I was very impressed with their ice. Loved the watermelon flavor!! So many choices! A must to come back to if we were ever in the area again.

We finally got home and quickly packed up Rachel's bunnies to bring them all back to her regular home to have dinner with her grandparents and brother. I wonder how much weight she gained this past weekend with us? LOL! Hope you had fun with us, Rachel!

Rachelsitting

Our good friends Michael and Angela went to Europe to visit their daughter Michelle who is away studying in Oxford with Azuza Pacific University. We took their youngest daughter, Rachel, in to stay with us for the long weekend.

And YES.. she came with her bunnies!

Can you guess who's Cocoa and Coconut?

And again I transformed my living room into a bunny room.

These sisters always ate together, slept together and groomed each other.

I wish humans would act the same way. LOL!

I have to say.. the Febreze Refresh stand up air freshener works wonders on masking pet smells!

Cocoa and Coconut take up more room since there are two of them compared to BunnYee. They are more playful and eat a lot more too.. which means they poop a lot more.

Coconut is huge next to Cocoa.

But of course she eats more.

So Cocoa has to get as much as she can before her sister eats it all away!

Isn't Coconut adorable?

If they weren't transforming my whole house into a gigantic bunny-castle playground (they took over my kitchen and eating area also to let the bunnies roam around), they also went outside to explore  the neighborhood...all by themselves.

We discovered that Hannah can ride Emily's bike now and Emily can ride my bike! Who knew they grew so big already! Rachel is riding our friend, Carolyn's bike which we are storing while they are in China.

They rode down to Shinn Park.

Everyone had a great time. Mostly they gorged on food. Yes, we over fed her. Rachel. Not the bunnies. Check out how on my next post.