augies' realm

Happy Holidays 2007

2007-12-25T10:20:00.000-05:00

Please click here to view our Happy Holidays 2007 video!

Happy Holidays 2007

Jake's Obsession with Thomas the Train

2007-10-28T18:58:00.001-04:00

This afternoon, we were doing some games on the floor.

"Train Train!" Jake said

"Ohh, you want to play train?" Mom said

"Yep" Jake nodded

So I found some trains and showed them to him.

"No no! No no! Train! Train!" Jake exclaimed

"Show me trains" Mom said - I always asked him to show me something if he gets upset or I don't understand what he was trying to say.

Jake went in the storage closet and pointed to the Thomas the Train box.

"Train! Train!"

"Let's ask Daddy if he wants to help" Mom said

Jake pushed the box toward Daddy who was sitting on the couch talking with his mom on the phone.

"Daddy, open open" Jake begged

"Jake, I'm talking to your grandma. Wait a few minutes"

"No! Train! Train!" Jake wailed and he was trying to open the box.

"Ok, Ok, I will help you" Daddy said

Daddy and Jake walked to the dining area and started to set the train set up. Daddy still was on the phone with Grandma A. She was the one who gave Jake the train set.

When the train set was set up - he was beaming with happiness and watching the trains go around the track.

Here is a mini movie (click play button to play) If you can't see the movie - Click here

Imus and Lisa Lampanelli - are we being ignored?

2007-04-15T06:38:00.000-04:00

As you all know the commotion with Imus. Lisa Lampanelli did the same thing a month ago at a radio show in Rochester. She was invited to give a show at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York. She has a show with Comedy network. At the radio show, she said some things that were inappropriate. The following conversation was extracted from the radio show.

Lisa Lampanelli: I was always [wondering] if God would maybe think my act was awful and make me deaf so I can’t do comedy no more, ’cause that’s why people are deaf; ’cause god hates them.

Male DJ: Now, listen, Lisa.

LL: God hates deaf people, what is wrong with you?

Male DJ: There are gonna be a lot of deaf people there.

LL: Oh, I hope so.

Female DJ: Well there will be. There’s a college within RIT that’s specifically for deaf students.

LL: Don’t you think deaf students, could be maybe just retarded, and they’re trying to sneak by saying they are deaf?

Male DJ: Lighten up a little bit.

Female DJ: You can’t make deaf jokes in this town. (The DJ’s quickly change the subject of conversation.)

Now, my question, what is the difference between Imus and Lampanelli? To me, NONE. At least Imus apologized that he made the “ho” statement, but Lampanelli didn’t give any crap. She went ahead with a show at RIT and without any apology to deaf community for the statement that she made.

It just appalled me greatly that Lampanelli still has a show at Comedy network and Imus was fired from NBC and CBS for making that statement. It makes me to wonder if we are being ignored.

Orlando

2007-04-03T18:37:00.000-04:00

Yes, I am in Orlando. It was last minute thing. A group who went to Orlando to give a presentation at a conference lost their technical person and they were very nervous and begged my boss to send me along so I bought the ticket yesterday morning and flew out at 5 pm yesterday afternoon. Now I am in Orlando airport, typing this blog before I fly back to DC.

Too bad, I couldn't stay here longer but I can't due to Jake. Jason has a friend visiting from Kansas and it was hell trying to arrange babysitters. Jason and Cameron are going to a hockey game tonight so Jake is staying at Noah's house until I come and pick him up at 10 pm tonight. I was supposed to arrive in DC at 8 30pm but we were stuck in the traffic on the way to the airport so I missed the earlier plane and am taking the later plane at 7:55 pm.

Last time I was in Orlando when I was 14, vacationing with my family. Things looks the same even the airport. It has not changed in 15 years. Jeez. It's so 80's. They need to upgrade the airport badly. Perhaps make the airport more interesting like creating airport that looks like Disney World, MGM and Universal Studios.

I better get going and walk around and see what they have in this lousy airport.

A year and half

2007-03-28T22:10:00.000-04:00

It has been a year and half since we last posted something. We have been so busy with Jake. We have some recent pictures that you might like to look at - click on photos.

So many things had happened. Jason got an even better job and is making more than I do! He now is working for DOD in Crystal City. Our commuting is much easier now that we all ride together to work, I drop him off at the Pentagon since there is a shuttle there that will take him to another building in Crystal City. I continue go in the city and drop Jake at the daycare at my work, then me. We saved a lot of money using this method. Jason doesn' t have to use metro anymore and if Jake has a playdate in the afternoon, he would take a shuttle back home.

Jake now is 21 months old and is signing a lot of words. I was surprised when I saw him reading a book and saying colours by himself. He also can count up to 10. Now I am trying to teach him how to spell his name.

Send me a comment if anyone actually reads this blog. It is my own fault for neglecting this for so long.

Anniversary

2005-09-04T00:56:00.000-04:00

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY SWEETHEART! :) Jason

Jake, Jake and Jake

2005-07-29T10:32:00.000-04:00

I'm back to blog world. I am going to post one of my favourite picture of Jake. We just got back from Canada. Orginally, we were supposed to stay there for one week (13 July to 19 July) but my dad had to go to detriot for a meeting a day before I was supposedly to leave and he asked if i can change the ticket. Of course United wouldn't change my ticket becuase I purchased the ticket from hotwire so I checked southwest airline and found one way ticket for 90 dollars, 10 dollars less than United would charge if i am able to change the ticket. I also discovered something - you have to purchase a ticket for an infant even if he's under 2 years old due to international traveling. It only costs me 15 dollars for him but now I have a stub with his name on it so it's going to be in his scrapbook :)

The birth was surpirsely easy, but every women are different, I was fine with pains but I need the sleep because none of us went sleep the night before due to a severe thunderstorms that caused the cars' alarm going off in the parking lot until 2:30 in the morning and I couldn't sleep because of the lightening, and Jason was a little scared because the windows were rattling badly - he said "i hope we still have windows tomorrow". It finally sudised at around 2:30 and we finally went sleep, but we had to get up at 5 30 to go to the hospital. So I was so exhausted by 11 am and asked for epidural so I can sleep. I slept until 5 pm, then the doctor checked me and was disappointed that I was still at 6 cm (I was 4 cm dilated when I checked in the hospital and once I got pitcotin, it dilated to 6 cm immediately) They thought I will have a short labour but apparently not. Anyway at 5 pm, the doctor said if I wasnt dilated to 10 cm by 6 pm, then we would have to consider about c section. But by 6:15 when the doctor finally came in and gave a yelp. Said that I'm ready to give a birth. by 7:30, Jake made his grand entrance :) To see the pictures - you can look in my photo albumn and check it out.

Anyway, here is my favourite picture of Jake at 5 and half weeks - just before he goes in for his first swim in the pool at my father's house.

Jake

2005-06-30T14:06:00.000-04:00

I know it has been a long time since I last blogged :) As most of you already know, I had Jake on June 7. The pictures are in photo album - enjoy them :) Will tell the story when I have time. In a few minutes, it will be feeding time for Jake.

It's offical

2005-05-30T22:06:00.000-04:00

Orry passed away. My father and my sister were with her when she passed away, it was pretty quick. My father took it very hard - he would say that Orry is an Ok dog, but when it was time to let her go, he cried hard. Especially that Orry was the pet that we all had the longest. 16 years of her life with us.

It would be awkward when I come and visit my father's house in July/August only to come home to humans. No more pets.

Now I can bring Hershey - my dog - to his house without worrying that he would hurt Orry (by jumping and playing with her).

Farewell, Orry

2005-05-30T15:25:00.000-04:00

This was taken on September 4, 2004 on my wedding day with my family's beloved dog of 16 years.

It is the farewell to my beloved dog of 16 years. She is going to be put down to sleep today as I am writing here because she has been suffering of arthitis for a couple years. Lately, it has been getting worse and worse, she couldn't control her bowel movements. We discussed and decided it's time to let her go. She has been with us for 16 years and was my beloved mom's dog. So it was extremely hard on my family to let her go because she was the link to my mom. She is an expectional dog.

I took it very hard but I know it's better for her since she wasn't happy for a while now. She has been part of most of our family's lives. I just wished I could see her before she passes away.

farewell, Orry, you are going to a better place and be with my mom.

Been a while :)

2005-05-06T07:46:00.000-04:00

I know it has been a while. We finally moved to a bigger apartment. As we mentioned before, we were going to buy a condo/townhouse but the market in DC is so crazy - people bid over the asking price and asking price already is HIGH. We have been looking for 3 months and by then, we are running out of time before the baby is born and I have been in the hospital twice due to insufficient oxygen, we decided to hold on house hunting until the baby is born and is about 3 months old. So we found a nice apartment in Alexandria, VA so Jason doesn't have to deal with traffic trying to get in the city from VA during the afternoon rush hour. (One thing annoys us, a lot of marylanders work in VA (Pentagon and a lot of federal buildings) so Marylanders need to go through Washington, DC to get to Maryland so it clogs up and we lived in the city. Jason begged me to find an apartment in VA so we did and we are very glad that we did.

Here are some pictures of the stroller that I got from my dad :). We actually got them last Christmas but my dad said that they are cheaper in the US and prefer to order from the US and have it to be shipped to our place in VA. So we waited until last week and found out that they were not selling the stroller that he bought and I found this newer model and decided to order it and I really like it better than the older model because the older model only has blue and white, while this one is blue and lime green so it was pretty to look at. One advantage about this stroller, you don't have to pick up the baby from the car seat and move it into a stroller. You just pick up the carrier that was attached to car seat dock, then transfer it to the stroller without taking the baby out. A lot of mothers told my dad when he was looking at strollers that it was blessing because the baby wouldn't wake up when you pick up the carrier and move into the stroller.

This is the baby room/den

My sister and I were in that bassinet when we were babies. My sister redid it and fitted it with demin fabric - looks so good!

More Pictures

2005-03-31T16:56:00.000-05:00

We will change blogs pretty soon - we will have our own blog spots to write because right now, it says that it was written by me, but it was written by Jason. So keep an eye out for a new blog site (it still will be on this site).

I have been very tired lately and have been referred to a high risk pregnancy doctor due to several complications (I was brought to ER twice this month). They finally found out why I am having shortness of breath - turned out that I have small volumes of lungs and the pulminologist wanted me to be monitored by a high risk pregnancy doctor. As of right now, they are going to wait until I am 36 weeks (I'm 29 weeks now) and decide when is the best time for me to have the baby. They are not going to wait until I am 40 weeks, by the then, the baby will be too large and pushing up my lungs.

I'm in my last trimster and my emotions have been changed. I get tired easily everyday now. So far, I gained 23 lbs with this baby - everyone says that it's normal.

Anyway here are the pictures of Jake at 25 weeks and 4 days (I know I have been neglecting doing this for a while but as I mentioned before, i get tired easily :) )

Jake's profile

Jake's confirmed gender - yes he still is a BOY

Jake's left foot

Jake's feet

Jake's face - I know it looks like a sketelon

MUAHAHAHA

2005-03-16T12:52:00.000-05:00

I've invaded Shannon's brain today! Ok so I didn't, but she finally let her husband post things on the site without using the comments portion of blog (yay!). Anywho, at this point in the pregnancy I'm excited and scared out of my mind all at the same time. Why does everyone keeps saying that I'll do fine, guess we'll see huh? Oh well enough for now, time to get back to the grind of work. Until then...

Jason

Absence :)

2005-03-16T05:48:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't written anything for so long time. So many things happened since my last update.

Jason got an EXCELLENT job at Fort Belvoir Military base. When we found out that he got the job, we were so thrilled so we went out for a nice dinner (he was down with a flu on that week and we had to wait until the weekend to go out) We went to Cheesecake Factory and had to wait an hour and half to get the table but it's WORTH it! Jason had his favourite meal - Pork chops! I can't remember what I got but it was delicious! So far, Jason is doing good with the job - it's a 6 month to permanent - meaning after 6 months, if they like Jason, they would hire him which I hope so. Jason became a good friend with Lou and when they found out that Jason could sign so they took him and introduced to some deaf people who are working there and told them that they can come up to Jason if they have problems.

I have some recent pictures of our baby - Jake - We kept postpoing scanning the pictures because we were so busy trying to find an apartment to live (since Jason just got a new job, the lender said that they only can use my income to buy a place - my income alone isn't sufficient so we decided to rent an apartment for another year and when he works more than 6 months, then we can start and look for houses again this fall). I promise I will post pictures of the baby/fetus sometime this week!

One interesting thing, - I was rambling on how my computer died and mad at Jason because he was the one who handled the computer - I was very moody at that time and being pregnant doesn't help. A friend of mine wanted me to upgrade her computer and she ordered new memory systems. I connected her computer and see if it is on before turning it off and put memory systems in. Well it wouldn't start at all and I noticed that the CPU fan will NOT spin - the exact same problem as my computer. So Jason looked at it and said it's very odd that both of our computers are not working and both of them came from the same house. So we thought they may be short fused or something because it's impossible to have two computers with same problems from the same place. So I told a friend of mine that she had few choices, take to Best Buy to find out why the CPU isn't running, and that will cost her about 200 (labors, parts, and services), or buy a new tower which is only like 600 for a good enough tower but much better than her old computer. She decided to buy a tower. Later on, Jason said, "See, I didn't do anything to your computer" I laughed and said I know, I was just mad that I lost my computer because I was looking forward to having my computer back and it turned out not working. Currently, I'm using the laptop to do things and will wait until this summer when my work give out some surplus computers for 50 bucks.

Good news, my blood pressure has gone down - my blood pressure was SO high last Jan and it has gone down considerably in Feb and the last time I visited the doctor, my blood pressure was under control. My next doctor visit, I would have to take glucose test, making sure that I don't have diabetes - Apparently pregnant women do get diabetes during the pregnancy but they usually disappear after they have the baby.

Oh oh! Jason finally felt the baby kicking for the first time a couple of weeks ago!!!! Jason was in awe when he felt and kept asking me how I feel when it kicks. It's so hard to explain, saying it felt like you have a bad case of gas but you know it's not gas - different kind of gas.

I better shut up here and get those pictures scanned! The doctor said the fetus now is 2 lbs as of 2 weeks ago and said that the fetus has long LEGS - like his father :) The doctor said that the baby is above than average for its age. I guess I will have a big baby after all. I just hope I can make to full term!

Computer died.

2005-01-27T10:57:00.000-05:00

I was giving my husband the heck last night. He somehow broke my computer and now it's not working but now I am suspecting that KVM (keyboard, mouse and monitor switch - where you can use 2 CPUs with one monitor, one mouse, one keyboard) blew my power supply and now my CPU fan won't spin at all. I was really upset last night because I had some files on that hard drive and I haven't connected it yet and my husband went and connected it last night. A big mistake on his part. You don't mess with a technician's computer and it doesn't help that both of us are computer experts. I told him that I won't touch his computer because he will kill me and i will kill anyone if anyone tries to mess with my computer. So basically he got a lot of heat from me. Now we are going to try to connect the computer directly to mouse, keyboard and monitor instead of KVM and see if it works. Jason went out last night and bought a new heatsink and fan which I don't think I need it. See what I have to put up with.

I know Jason is trying to get it set up and ready for me to come home and be happy about it but I guess he learned to not mess with my technical things because I am very fussy about those things and I like them set the way that I set them. That's why I wanted my computer back and I hate Jason's computer and the way he set it up. He installed some games on it and it is making it VERY slow and it's driving me nuts when I try to use his computer. I hope connecting directly would work!

More pictures!

2005-01-18T17:27:00.000-05:00

Well well, see what I promised!

More pictures!

Can you guess which gender I will be having?

A face :)

Back and skull

right foot

Nose and face

gender?

"My dog ate my homework"

2005-01-14T13:19:00.000-05:00

Well, it actually happens. My dog ate my Rx paper that I need for my ultrasound appointment on Tuesday. My husband paged me and asked me if i have the information on my pager about the ultrasound because our beloved dog decided to have Rx paper as his meal. I was like, I need that paper to get ultrasound, I can't get it without that paper, so I called my gyn and have them to issue me another one. Now my husband has to go and pick it up between 1:30 and 5.

My car is killing me, this morning, my car decided that it doesn't like rain and doesn't want to go anywhere so it stalled on me three times. We had some floodings in the area and there are some puddles of water on the road which I had to drive over. Now I know what is the problem and will explain the the mechanic the situation so he can pinpoint the problem. I tried to explain before when I took my car in for oil change but I didn't know what cause it to do that. Now I know what is the cause and will be able to explain the cause. I hope by then, he will figure how to fix it so I can drive my car in the rain!

While I was stuck in Maryland at a house that I was house sitting, I had to wait for Jason who was just finishing work in Alexandria, VA and he got stuck in the traffic due to floodings, and a lot lot lot lot lot lot of accidents along on the way. He finally got to DC at around 10:15 (he got out at 8 am) and let our beloved dog (who loves to destroy things) out so he can do his business, then Jason went and got me at around 11 am and I finally got to work at 11:30. Thanks to my beloved car. *jeez* What a week for me.

Enough of my complainings. Things are going very good for me, I finally moved on with my life after the traumatic experience on New Year's eve. Jason and I decided to buy a condo - we were saving for a house but with the baby coming and we thought we can start with a condo now and in 5 years, we can move to a house in time for the baby to go to school. We are going to the bank tomorrow to get some paperwork going and get things ready for us to look around and making bids.

Will add some more pictures (I know i have been promising some, but I will put some pictures this weekend - I PROMISE!)

Sigh, Life...

2005-01-03T11:06:00.001-05:00

Life sucks...

I'm back to work now, and I felt that it's not worth it. My job should be 11 month position instead of 12 because I felt that I'm wasting my time in December doing nothing. We always are busy during in the summer.

Saw in the newspaper that most government workers will get 3.71% increase in their paychecks for New Year. Not fair. :(

As I said before, life sucks.

Shooting at Giant Store

2005-01-01T10:12:00.000-05:00

Sigh, we had an experience on New Year's Eve. We went to Giant (on Brentwood Road near Rhode Island Metro Station) to get some food because we just got back from Canada and we had nothing in the fridge. At around 6 pm, we were done shopping and were coming out of the store. Since I'm pregnant so I walk slower than Jason, Jason was a few feet ahead with the shopping cart, and I was still at the curb where you load the grocery onto your car. I was looking at the guy who was standing by a red SUV talking to two women about the leather jacket that he got it (he showed the jacket to the women. He was maybe 3 feet away me, I was at the end of the SUV and he was standing in the rear passengar door.

As I looked away to follow Jason and sudden I heard 3 loud pops (3 or 4) and at first, I thought it was backfires because I had heard backfires before and thought it was the same. However as I looked around and noticed that people were trying to take covers. Jason was taking cover behind the shopping cart and was trying to tell me to get down. By then, I finally realized that it was not backfires so I took cover behind the SUV which was a big mistake because the guy who was standing by the rear passengar fell down and had wounds on his face. Jason left the shopping cart and ran back into grocery and yelled at me to run in the store so we did. At first, I was like, our 150 dollars worth of food are sitting in the middle of street. Then it finally hit me and I was in the path of the shooter and I just got very upset and shaken up mainly because I didn't know where the noises were coming from and I had a hard time decising which to take cover. Jason told me it was coming from my right and the guy was on my right. If the shooter had missed the guy, he would have gotten to me. He told me when he first heard the first shot, he just took the cover while I didn't realize until after the shooting happened. I felt like I'm a deer in headlight and standing up and didn't know what I'm doing. The guy who was shot is dead.

Apparently there was an off duty police in the grocery so he took after the suspect but I don't know if they have caught the suspect. I just told Jason that I just wanted to be home for New Year's eve. We were supposed to go to Pentagon Row to skate for New Year's eve, by then I was having cramps and I knew it was stress related so I decided to stay home. There were a lot of people who was doing last minute shopping, and even a little boy of 12 years old was there when the shooting happened. There must be about 20 people outside when it happened.

I found this article in the news, not much information but at least there are some information.
http://www.nbc4.com/news/4039514/detail.html

The road to O' Canada

2004-12-24T07:38:00.000-05:00

The road trip wasn't too bad as we thought it would. When we woke up yesterday morning to discover that an entire east coast is having wet and some mix ice. I was like, oh no, i will be the only one who can drive because I don't trust Jason driving in the winter (I haven't seen him drive in the winter (snow wise). But the FUNNIEST thing is, the WORST part of the road trip was in Maryland! It was raining SO hard and windy and my car is VERY light - VW golf. So sometimes, I feel like it's flying haha. After that, there is an easy trip all way until we reach highway right before my house in Guelph. I saw how bad it is because they had a big dump of snow a couple of days ago and they haven't plow this area yet. So when I turned into the road that leads to my house and I got STUCK! Jason didn't know how to do it, I told him to get out and give my car a push. He pushed and finally I could drive but Jason wanted a cigeratte break so he walked along me while he smokes outside (I don't allow him to smoke in the car for several reasons, i'm pregnant, I have a sentitive nose and I don't want my car to smell like an ashtray). Then I got stuck again like 15 feets away from my house. Found out that the local streets haven't plowed. So 3 guys from my neighbourhood (well my dad's now) helped get me to get out. Finally we are HOME! The snowplow came like a couple of hours later to clear the street. Everyone here was like finally about time. It's so good to see white Christmas! I'm going to post a picture of the snowbound here on here soon as I take Hershey (our dog) out for a walk. He doesn't like dad's backyard but loved the yard out front but i think it's because of his bad experience with the pool. He fell in the pool last October and it was freezing cold. Poor him. He learned his lesson. So that's what it is going on in O' Canada :)

Pardon my mess

2004-12-22T15:52:00.000-05:00

Pardon my mess on the website. I have been too busy trying to fix the front page and I know when you click a link on the left side, it will lead you to the "identical" page but with a whole different links. It used to be our wedding site and since we are already married, so we are changing it into a family website since we are expecting a baby and you know how families can be. They want to see photos of the baby as it is growing.

Ahh finally a blog!

2004-12-22T15:06:00.000-05:00

I finally got blog up and running. I didn't like any of blog template so I had to create a blog from stratch using blog's tags. So here I am! Yes I'm pregnant, and I will post a picture of my baby. It was taken when it was 9 weeks and 2 days. I will have my first ultrasound in Feb. Here is the picture :)

I know it's a tiny thing, but it is amazing how fast it grows! Now it's about the size of apple. (I think). Will post more later. I'm pretty tired from coding the webpage to get what I like!