Peanut and Winter

After Tristan was born, I hardly have time for my dogs anymore ...

I used to play with them, took bath for them weekly for a period of time, trim their nails and clean their ears. Also, me and hubby used to read newspaper outside the house at night time to accompany them, and they used to be allowed to come in to the house at a restricted corner during hot days, as my mother-in-law does not like dog to move around inside the house. But after Tristan was born, we had to ban them from coming into the house due to their hair, and occasional ticks.

Here are a few photos of them taken back in October :


Winter, a German Shepherd, at 3 years 11 months (in October).



Peanut, a Golden Retriever, at 3 years 5 months (in October) :


Not long ago I was surprised to know that my nephew and niece in the States who visited us in June 2007 still remember these 2 dogs, my niece's favourite is Peanut, and her brother's favourite is Winter. Now they are having a 3 months old new brother, wonder which one would be his favourite in future.





Both of them loves to play and fight with each other, it is hard to separate them especially for Peanut, Winter is like his big brother, when we had to bring Winter to the vets, Peanut will keep crying, thinking that he won't be able to see Winter again.

We put them together in the same cage when we have visitors, Peanut is the favourite of most visitors, he is more elegant, but Winter is smarter, I wonder which one is your favourite ? ;o)

Chihuly Glass Show at the de Young

de Young Museum in the morning of September 7th, 2008 (located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park) :


Saffron Tower — a 30-foot yellow neon sculpture installed in the Pool of Enchantment on the de Young’s east side. :


From the observation tower of the museum, we could see the city view and the area around the museum :

My favourite lotus flowers :



Glass Forest - I thought it look like a Swan Lake :




The Macchia Forest occupied the entire room, I wasn't able to capture the complete picture :




Persians :



Tabac Baskets :





These purple pipes look like water fountain to me :



The boats that full of treasure :




There are more Chandeliers, I just took 3 of them :
The Turquoise Icicle and Ruby Red Chandeliers :



56-foot-long Mille Fiori garden that is packed with creative sculptures :







You can view the more complete pictures here


After the show, we went to a vegetarian restaurant called "Greens" at Fort Mason for lunch. Looking out from the window while we were enjoying the food :
I had a wonderful time with my dear friend - Kathy, thanks so much for an unforgetable trip :-)

Tristan at Singapore Zoo

We brought Tristan to the Singapore Zoo last month. We joined the membership where our family has unlimited entries for a year.



Tristan doesn't seem excited, but he's happy. I think he couldn't differentiate those animals that he's seeing there versus the ones in his VCD.



We didn't manage to watch the Elephant show as we have to wait for half an hour, and Tristan is impatient to stay still at one place.



He seems a little tired, so we skipped some animals' section such as the monkeys and Orang Utan.



We ended the tour early as Tristan seemed to have enough. While we were having our pizza, which was nasty, it started to rain and we felt lucky to have completed our tour. To compensate for the nasty pizza, we had the Ben & Jerry chocolate ice-cream, and we all love it very much.


Here's the link for Singapore Zoo if you are interested to know more about it.

The Kungfu Suit

During Chinese New Year back in February this year, my sister-in-law bought Tristan a kungfu suit, putting on this suit making him sweat all over before we switched on the air-conditioner, not due to any kungfu action, but was caused by the material of the suit, there was no detail labeling of the material used, as it was bought from the so called flea market, it looks like cotton but wasn't good in absorbing sweat.


This video clip was taken during the Chinese New Year, which was the only time he gets to wear the suit :




I had to keep this suit in the closet since then. Quite a waste as Tristan has outgrown it now.


Although he hasn't performed any action in this video clip, he did imitate one of his VCD's karate kick whenever we played that VCD sometime back, it was real fun looking at his action. Seems like most boys love the kungfu action, unfortunately I don't have a girl to prove this or otherwise.

Tristan's Second Birthday

Although I don't have much time to write about Tristan, I do hope I can make short notes about his progress and growth, I am sure I would enjoy these records at my old age :-)




I still have to work fulltime to support my parents, with the limited amount of time that I can play with him, he is quite a fast learner, picked up things that we have mentioned once and can use it at a later time out of our surprise, eg. he said "oh my god" last night when the milk spilled onto his face by accident.



By now he already can recognize A-Z and a-z, numbers 1-20, more than 10 shapes including trapezoid, more than 10 colors, but there are certain things that he's having hard time picking up, such as the spelling of "octopus", "elephant" etc, and if you ask him "what's your name ?", he will said "name." LoL



Here's the link to his first birthday if you would like to see how he looked one year ago :-)

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

This bell tower is located in the city of Pisa, in central Italy. We took a train from Florence to Pisa, arrived in an hour.




The entrance :


It's 8-storey high, made of white marble, and standing at 183.27 feet.



According to Wiki, this tower began leaning to the southeast soon after the onset of construction in 1173 due to a poorly laid foundation and loose substrate that has allowed the foundation to shift direction.



Piazza del Duomo, dating from 1063 :



The Leaning Tower is just next to the Duomo :



The view from the back :



View from the side :



Closer look at the side :



The top 3 levels at the side, the sun has just come out from hiding :



Inside the Duomo :









The Baptistry of St. John which looks like a Romanesque crown :



Completed in 1363 :



We didn't climb this tower as we had been climbing bell towers and catherals in Florence, needed a break ;o) It's estimated to take 40 minutes to climb up this 294-step staircase.



Sky is getting cloudy, leaving, catching our train back to Florence.