The Destruction Begins

Hi, Family!

This morning promptly at 8am, two dimiinutive Chinese men appeared at my front door. They were to take away all the old kitchen cabinets, strip off the tiles from the floor, and remove all the built-in appliances. One was Tony. He was the foreman and spoke English very haltingly. I took them over to the kitchen and told them all I wanted to keep was the light fixture over the dining table and the garbage disposal. Everything else is fair game. They proceeded to work and work they did. I stayed only for a few minutes before I left for work. I gave Joey my work phone number just in case there was a problem. I did not receive any calls. I guess "No news is good news." Arriving at home after work, I expected a dumpster filled with the old stuff from our kitchen. Instead I saw Tony's Honda sedan parked in our driveway. No big hunking American truck. Just a regular sedan. Going into the house the two men were still working to strip the old wallpaper from the dining area walls. The kitchen was already stripped bare. They had piled the debris neatly in the back yard in front of my brick barbeque grill. They were basically done. I couldn't believe it.

I knew going in that the floor under the dishwasher and kitchen sink needs major work. The dishwaher was broken and had leaked. The garbage disposal that I had installed to replace the original one had also leaked. My fears were realized. Five planks need to be replaced. Tony wasn't too worried about it. He said that they will order the wood and hopefully get the planks replaced before putting on the floors tiles. He was more interested in the overhead lighting. He asked if I had done the lighting in the kitchen. I said that the previous owner had put them in. Tony just shook his head and said that it was not good. The previous owner had cut through the 2X4's to mount the lighting fixture panel. Now he has to replace all those 2X4's in the ceiling. Hopefully he will be able to do that tomorrow.

These two Chinese workers reminded me of the industrious workers that laid the railroad tracks for the Union Pacific Railroad back in the 1850's. They even had to tunnel through the mountains to make way for these tracks. Their Americans counterparts doubted that these tiny Chinese cannot do the task. They will fail. But they proved them wrong. Sometimes we need to be reminded how our tireless and hardworking pioneers pathed the way for us. And it was because of them that we enjoy the life that we have now.

Until tomorrow,

Dad

p.s. our first dinner without the kitchen is Mimi's Cafe...buy one get one free.

What a bummer!

Hi Family,

last night we worked really hard to put all the stuff from the kitchen into ten plastic 66 qts containers thinking that Allen will start today. No, he did not make it. His foreman, Tony, will do the demolition tomorrow morning at 8a.m. So, tonight we will have our last supper in our old kitchen with paper plates and plastic forks.

It was not easy to do the packing. I cannot imagine if we have to move and pack the whole house. But, yesterday, if I have my way (mommy talking), I will throw away most of the stuff. But, it is not just me. I have found your baby plates, cups and thermos (carebears, gobots and ballerina). They still look fairy new and they don't smell. I wish I know how to put the pictures in this blog so that I can show them to you. All and all, it was a fun night but very tiring. I started out singing while we worked and then turned into grumpy. Joey was a big help to move the table to the TV room, the big butcher table to the garage and chairs to Jaime's room.

Util tomorrow, have a great evening.............love, mom & dad

New adventure for Mom and Dad - Part 2

Hi, I am back...... Where was I? Oh, yes, after granite, we went to look for the hood over the stove. I wanted a strongest fan that they had. We found one which is 750 cubic feet per minute. They told me it is the strongest and the best feature is.....it is self cleaning. We will show you when you come home later. By this time, I am very hungry. We got some water and a ham and egg bow and off we went to Airport Home Applicance in Hayward. We did not like what we saw so we are skipping this place. The next thing we had to shop was the kitchen floor. We wanted to go with tiles. So, with Allen's recommendation, we went to Uni-tiles in Hayward. We were overwhelmed. There were a lot of people and lots of tiles. We did not know where to start so I asked the sales lady. She told us to look along the side of the wharehouse. We looked and looked and looked and we could not decided. Finally, a man came over and asked if we needed help. We must have looked pathetic. With his help, we found what we needed. So, we went over to the front and wait for our tiles. When the crate came, I almost felt down. It was a full pallet. How are we going to put all these tiles in our little Corolla? The man laughed at me and said, "they are not all for you." I said, "thank goodness!" It was only 9 little boxes....oh well. By this time, I am tired and hungry (did not finish the bow) and I want to go home. But, we have to go back to KZ Cabinets to put a deposit on the order so that they could give us a plan to give to Allen. We have 1/2 hour to go back to Milpitas. We made it and our salesman Wei told us that he could give us another 5% discount......not bad huh. To finish the day, Daddy took me to dinner at Left Bank Steak House in Santana Row which used to be Tanglewood.

Sunday was an easy going day. It is always good to slow down and focus on worshipping God. It was Sunday School promotion day. Our new Associate Pastor, Moa, started his first day with us. So, that was good. Even though the Bay Bridge was closed, Maria and Raymond came over and treated us to a great lunch with Jaime and Reiko.

Monday was the CUMC softball playoff: Team Orange (old guys) vs. Team Nathan (young guys). we did not not go because we went shopping for stove and dishwasher and other things. We went to orchard Supply, Sears, and Best Buy. We found a drop in range with a smooth cook top and a convection oven at Orchard Supply. The salesperson told us to come back on Saturday because there will be no sales tax.....YAY. Then we went to Restoration Hardward to find knobs. They are beautiful. They are a little expensive but I think I am going with them later. The last place we went was Home Depot where we bought the sink and faucet. Another full day, we needed to go home because Allen was coming to see the plan. Allen looked at the plan and requested a few remodifications namely order more stuff. Then, he said that everything looked good and asked when we would like to start. I said, "when can you start? And he said, "how about this Wednesday 9/9?" And we said, "OKAY!" So, now we are going to pack everything and see what happens tomorrow............ part 3 will be coming soon!!!!!!

New adventure for Mom and Dad

It is funny that I was thinking of all your first days of school when I was talking to my co-workers who have young kids in the beginning of this school year. I don't remember the actual day but I have the pictures in my mind of all your first days to kindergarten. You all were so cute dressed in your new clothes carrying your new lunch boxes. All of you looked so eager to go to school or I was proud to see you going to school. But, anyway, CC, I know you will be great help to your anxious students.

Okay, We were going to surprise you all except Jaime because she knew what is happening in our house. Did she tell you? If not, here it goes. We are remodeling our kitchen. On 8/26, I finally calledthe contractor, Allen Shao, from a mutual friend. He came two days later and did some measurements and gave us an estimate on that Sunday 8/30. We liked the figures and accepted the quote. He came by last Friday, 9/4, and gave us 3 stores and told us to go shopping on Labor Day weekend. And so we did. Daddy had a hair appointment on Sat morning. We had a late start. The first stop is KZ Cabinet in Milpitas. Allen told us that they have good quality cabinets in very reasonable prices. They are from China. The guy told us to look around and let him know which one we liked. They all looked very nice and beautiful. Finally, we found one style we liked. It is Canadian Maple, light color. So, he sat down put our meansurements into the computer, pushed a key here and there, and he have our new kitchen on the screen. It looked pretty good. We had a lazy susan in the corner bottom cabinet and a spice rack right next to the stove. we are going to take away the oven and buy a drop in range so that we have more counter space. When he gave us the quote, we almost had a heart attack because the quote was $3100 including the tax. It was 1/2 what I expected. But, this is our first store so we took the quote and head on to the other store named Sincere Hardware in Oakland. It looked bigger, busier and had more stuff. The cabinets did not really catch our eyes but we waited for a quote anyway. We picked the cabinets came from back East and the quote was $8800. We could not believe the big difference. They also had cabinets from China but we did not them. Allen did tell us to get granite from this store and we did. They were less than $1000. Daddy said it is time to eat............. I will continue after dinner. Bye.

First day of school

Good morning, family,

It is the first day of school for Garrett and I. It is both exciting and also stressful all at the same time.

I remember how much I did not like the first day of school. I love staying home during the summer. I was and am such a home-body. I do not have any specific memories about the first day of school but I do remember the feelings that would start to grow in me. I did not know what to expect, so I was nervous for the classroom expectations. I was nervous in meeting new classmates and not knowing who would be a new friend.

Looking back at the memories and the feelings of anticipation, I still feel that way when it is the first day of school. I hope and pray that I can help those students who feel the same way that I did when I was younger, but also to encourage the excitement as well.

This year will be different. I am looping with my kids from last year, so I know about 20 of the families. I also lost some kids so I have new kids on my class roster, all boys. I am at sixteen boys and eight girls and I think there will be a new boy added to my roster this morning. I will truly need to understand the mind of a boy quickly if I am able to survive the chaos. =)

I will post again after the first few days of school. Take care, love, cc