Off to see the wizard!

This past weekend, my mom and I headed off to Kansas City and Omaha for my cousin's wedding. We flew off on 4th of July, landing there in the afternoon. We met up with everyone for a nice BBQ, catching up on our recent lives, and doing last items for the wedding the next day. The evening ended with 4th of July fireworks in a nearby park.

Sat, July 5th
I had the honour to play flute during their unity candle lighting. Early in the morning, I went to the church ahead of time to runthrough the song with the accompanist. At 10:30am, the wedding ceremony began in a beautiful and warm Catholic church. After the ceremony, there was a very nice lunch reception with a beautiful wedding cake!
We left when the dancing started and visited a museum in Kansas City - Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. This museum is well-known for its wide collection of Asian art. Since my cousin from Boston is an Asian art history professor, it was perfect that we visited this museum and had her be a guide while touring all the art items.
That evening, we drove to Omaha (3 hour drive) to our other cousin's place. During that drive, we actually crossed 3 states! Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska! I discovered that I suck in US geography...

Sun, July 6th
Woke up early to play with little Aubrey. She is so adorable!!! a bundle of energy - ALL THE TIME! She eats so well by herself and she's such a playful girl! I love her to death!!!

My flight was in the early afternoon, so they dropped me off at the airport...but after a 2-hour hoopla....my flight left...WITHOUT ME!!!! So I headed back to join the family in the fun festivities...we had a delicious BBQ that evening!Side story - During our stay in Omaha, it was the same weekend as the USA swimming meet for the Olympics...and I actually saw Michael Phelps at the front of the tryout building!!! That was one of the highlights....

Mon, July 7th
Today was zoo day. We visited the Omaha zoo, and the zoo is very well laid-out and built with lots of rare animals! Shortly after lunch, I went to the airport and tried again....

More Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=146487&l=26564&id=534615390
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=146490&l=801c9&id=534615390

Here's Aubrey in action!

a little scare...

We had a little scare just this past sunday night! We were at my mother in law's condo and after dinner, my sweet tooth was calling out for dessert. There was an apple pie in the freezer, so I turned on the oven and put the pie in.
We were all watching the movie King Kong on tv, obvious to what was going on in the kitchen. 20 minutes later, when it was time for the pie to finish warming up, I turned my head and saw the kitchen ceiling filled with black smoke!!!!! I rushed into the kitchen and looked into the oven. I saw the oven burning inside (a little fire has started!) and quickly ducked and opened the oven door. Luckily, the fire was not that big yet, so only a little flame was burning on the heat coil. Lai lai took the fire extinguisher and snuffed the fire out.
All this happened really fast, next thing we know, the smoke detector in our condo kept going off! We were afraid that the whole building will learn about this and have to be evacuated, so we quickly started to fan the smoke away from the detector and opened the balcony door. When the smoke dissapated, and everyone's heartbeat returned to normal, we were left with a condo full of black sut - and I mean EVERYWHERE! We spent the next 3 hours cleaning the kitchen and vaccuuming, but after the intense 3 hours, there were still more surface to clean...
We suspect the fire started because there was some left over grease from previous use on the coil and that burned when we turned on the oven this time.
After this little mishap, I realized there are a few facts we should keep in mind:
- make sure there is a fire extinguisher at home and know how to use it
- when opening a burning oven, duck down low before opening the door because the oxygen can feed the fire creating a burst of flame
- in a grease fire, don't pour water on it. instead, use corn starch. the corn starch will stop the air from feeding into the fire.

Please pray for my grandma

Just got an email from my cousin last night, my grandma fell unconscious last week for 5 minutes and she has not rebounded since. Even though she is conscious now, her conversation is not making sense and she is very hyper all the time, not able to sleep.

Please pray for her...