7/25 - 7/31/2022

7/25 - Monday

Upstairs became a death oven! Moved my work monitor & accessories downstairs. I somehow cleaned up Jam's desk to have enough space to put down my laptop. I have hoarded a display port to VGI cable for years, only to use it today and found it didn't work :'D So I put my monitor completely in front of Jam's monitor and walled off his whole desktop setup. Jam was very nice to let me keep my setup here for the night <3 (It turned into a whole week.)

Sabrina came by to deliver the books she borrowed from us. I transferred Kumon worksheet pictures to her USB. It took almost half an hour! Apparently Clement liked playing in our backyard in the meantime. Sabrina also spotted some plants she wanted to get cuttings of, including a fern like plant I was sure was a weed. One Chinese woman's trash is another Chinese woman's treature!

Ella: "How fast can cats say mew. How fast can a crab write Chinese. How fast can a BIG crab write Chinese. How slow can a small crab write Chinese." I tried to pretend to be cat and crab to show her. She seems to the satisfied. Apparently they saw a video (at Y or from 姥爷？） of crab writing Chinese. 

7/26 - Tuesday

We've been reading full metal alchemist everyday. The girls really like the drawing, the characters, and the story. 

After dinner the girls requested for a walk. It just so happened I was eager to try out the new pgo daily incense ^^b We started on a walk, alas the girls requested "we two go one way and dad you go another way". Jam went home. I was allowed to go.

Mimi wanted to be Pikmins but Ella wanted to be Edward and Alphonse. Mimi went with Ella's idea. She called Ella "Ed" the whole way. The girls were excited to go through the forest trail and picked many berries. Despite setting a reminder for myself to get the berries out of Ella's pocket, I found them already exploded soon after we got home XD

Rare matching shirt occasion!

The girls were sticky! So I gave them a shower, and got sticky from the humidity, and had to shower myself. Time-wise it didn't add too much, but energy wise was a lot of physical work, so I abandoned homework for the day. We all slept downstairs to escape the upstairs oven.

7/27 - Wednesday

Got kids covid boosters! Ella was distraught. Even Mimi became distraught when she saw the needle. . Good job Jam for holding them down. We went to icecream afterwards, which turned out to be distraught too, as the day was too hot and the soft serve started melting in front of Mimi's eyes. Both girls agreed Dairy Queen was "the most hateful icecream".

Rest of the evening was more calm with an extra shower, some NNAT, and a pokey catch loop :)

7/28 - Thursday

Learnt Tom the stuff engineer who've been at Niantic for couple years(?) was laid off. Made me a little uneasy, but oh well, what is one more hour of cramming gonna do XD

Both of Mimi's bottom front teeth fell out yesterday! I asked her what happened, she said she was in the gym and suddenly the teeth fell out. So she went ptoo and "trash!". Ella's left bottom tooth is finally poking one, although she had been chewing everything way before Mimi's teeth surfaced. I gave Ella an ice pack to ice her poor bumpy cheeks, they were too itchy she said. But then I heard crunching, and her saying she loved chewing the ice pack. I let her be, for how cute she was, and I had wrapped a towel on top of the ice pack and she was chewing on the towel. After a while I checked on her, and found she had chew through the plastic :O Luckily it was a non toxic ice pack.  

Ella said she saw when king Bradley turned into a humonculus, in the full metal alchemist manga. I asked if it was now or in the past. Ella: "I think it was in the past because it (the pages) had black lines." Expert manga reader! 

7/29 - Friday

Excitedly woke up in the morning to look for a survey for pgo battle. The reward was a shiny Togepi! No email in any of my inboxes :') Ping'ed the PM, turned out she didn't hit send XD The dogfood task was actually battling another dogfooder. My battle with Jam last night didn't count. So I battled an intern, and lost to his single Stunfisk :') Now eagerly await my pink Toge!

I had Spong schoolworks the girls brought home when school ended, that I just picked back up to talk through with them yesterday. Their drawings had really improved :O

7/30 - Saturday

Missed the 7am wake up goal, but did drag myself up by 7:50, got the girls ready by 8:30, and got to the farm a little after 9. Mimi threw a tantrum not wanting to put on sunscreen, but cheered up as soon as one raspberry went into her mouth. The day got hot so fast! It was less than an hour of picking and we were all sweaty.

In the morning when I mentioned we were going to Costco after berry, Ella pulled me down and whispered "can we get the pizza at Costco". Us adults agreed. In the car on the way to Costco, Ella asked for 盐酥鸡 for dinner. We were not sure about another evening trip out, so decided to get 盐酥鸡 for lunch at 10 seconds. The girls agreed. I of course ordered too much caffeine. Some accidental as I forgot I shared  a 2&1/4 cup equivalent can of coffee with Jam in the morning, and didn't expect the restaurant tea to be twice the size of the takeout tea (or just their tea vs. milk tea). Everything was tasty! Their bubble waffle is one of the best, with chewy batter and a generous filling of boba, like 4 in each bubble :O And we met the robot :O

Despite the heat we stayed at Benji's outdoor birthday party for a little more than an hour :O We were all soaked in sweat. Especially Ella. In the morning I reminded the girls we were going to Benji's birthday party. When we were on the drive to the berry farm, Ella suddenly said "Hey should we dress fancy for the party?". Before we left for the party I asked the girls if they wanted to dress fancy, Ella gave a hard yes. Mimi passed. I asked Ella to pick something, she enthusiastically pulled out the Elsa dress. She also asked to wear "a little shirt inside the dress. The dress is very itchy." When I changed her, she also asked to keep on her existing skirt "please". I let her, but was doubtful she could stand the heat in that dress and under shirt and under skirt, so I brought another dress just in case. She did ok in the dress, until the 10 minutes in the sun with the pinata, then she was drenched in sweat, when she returned with 10+ lollipops. The girls returned with tummies full of sweats, and us adults tummies full of pizza, plus hands full of another few pieces of pizza and cupcakes. Thank you Alyssa! 

7/31 - Sunday

Finally a day of sleeping in! The girls came to cuddle bully me in turns, and told me how lazy I was :') I said to leave me alone for it was only 9. Ella: "let me check". She went up from our cuddle, and went towards the oven. "It's.. 9." I asked 9 what, she said a number that was after 9:30. So I pulled my ass out of bed, got myself ready, got the girls ready, and asked everyone to get out of the door for BAM (Bellevue Arts Museum, where I had a library pass for the day). 

Mimi told us repeatedly that she hates it. "It is the most hateful boring place." Although she's never been to "it". Since Jam has been up since god knows when, we decided to go to totem lake for food before heading downtown. Mimi: "I hate everything in that place (totem lake). You guys are hateful." We had ramen, the pork broth is so much more flavorful than the shoyu broth. Ella ate a bunch of chicken and Mimi ate a bunch of tofu. I convinced Jam to give them icecream, so we can drink our tea peacefully. We were able to drink our tea peacefully, although the girls were a little wild and fought a little right after icecream.

We made it to the BAM. When I checked yesterday the museum calendar showed a kids's craft event. I thought it would be a fun appetizer for the potentially boring actual museum. It turned out to be a big event spanning the whole 3 floors, with ~7 activities to check out. We spend more than 2 hours doing the activities and crafts. Jam and me spent about half the time apart each with one kid. It was a nice break for the girls and I got to spend some good time with Ella. The girls loved the activities. The scavenger hunt activity also took us through a sci fi exhibit about future recycled humans(?) that was quit fascinating, to Ella and me. Afterwards we were all tired and decided to abandon seeing any other exhibits and went on a hunt for treats.

Lines were so long at every treat shop in Bellevue square, so we headed to meet fresh. Meet fresh did not disappoint. After coming home Jam cooked dinner, I herded the kids and provided desserts, fruits, and cleanup. Then I double account crazed Pikmin & Pgo, got two shinies on the craze walk, for my own account :O not Jam's super shiny lucky account. And finished NNAT K math set 3 ^^b 

I needed sticker backings for all the new stickers I got, so I asked the girls to bring some sticker backings home if there is any at the Y. Mimi: "if I see a box that says free sticker paper I'll take it."