Eli's first year

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Our boy turns one today. This has been the best year of our lives.

thank you uncle Jon

Eli got a package from his uncle Jon yesterday.

Christmas tree

You know what's crazy? That we got rid of all the food I cooked for the Christmas dinner. (see previous entry) We ate all the chicken wings, sickening I know, and I took most of the lettuce wraps to work this evening.

We went to the mall yesterday, and we finished our Christmas shopping yay! We only had a few people to buy for. I hate mall shopping these days. Eli was good, but really, there's no place for babies or little children at the mall during holiday seasons. It's too crowded and too much stimulations. I'm sad that I can't put up our Christmas tree this year. We don't need to have a fake tree filled with lights and breakables for Eli to destroy.

Christmas dinner

We had our church Christmas dinner party last night. The theme was national cuisine. We were supposed to bring dishes from different countries or heritage, preferably our own. I didn't have any family recipes, but I picked up one of the suggested recipes from church the other day. I was going to make chicken lettuce wrap ( I ended up making turkey because I couldn't find any ground chicken) and chinese marinated chicken wings. The recipes were very simple and didn't require much time. I didn't start cooking until three, and the party started at six. I did have enough time, but I didn't defrost the chicken all the way. Some of them were still frozen inside. They were delicious, just weren't cooked all the way. So I thought at least I had the lettuce wrap. On our way out the door, we were in such hurry that my husband grabbed the lettuce and the chicken wings. I didn't realize until I got to the party that I had lettuce, no fillings, and half cooked chicken wings. I quickly carried my food back to our car. Not too many people noticed. Some asked me about the food, and I had to tell them this embrassing story. I actually got really sick on the way to the party that I didn't feel well enough to be embrassed. Also, I had never cooked for fifty people before, so I overestimated the ingredients and got tones of chickens and round turkey left. We know what we will be having the next few months. We had to much fun at the party. The food was great. There were plenty of food that my little mishap didn't runin anything. After dinner, we all sang Christmas hymns. Eli was good most of the time. He wasn't happy when he had to sit in the high chair. All he wanted to do was walking around. After the dinner, there was piñata. Eli got scared from people hittimg the piñata. Haha... Silly boy. We had a blast.

happy days

The low gas price is the best Christmas gift this year. Everyone is smiling at the gas station, well not literally. The other day, it only took twenty bucks to fill up our suv. No more "back in the good old days when gas only cost...". I hope this will last for a long time. At least until our economy improves.

Eli is walking, and he's loving it. He's very skilled too. We have hardwood floor, and we always put socks on his feet. Sometimes they are very slippery, but Eli learned to balance himself most of the time.

ignorance

[I just want to make it clear that this post is not supposed to offend anyone. I'm no better than any of you. This is just my two cents, so you can take it or leave it. Also, this post is somewhat incoherent, because that's how my thoughts are.]

My college roommate came to visit this past weekend. It was nice to be able to catch up. We both have been really busy, her with career and my with changing diapers. On the last day of her visit, she asked me how I can live in a place that has so little diversity. I can see why she asked such question. I live in a caucasian dominant town. During the three days she was here, she only saw a few asians and few mexicans. She also mentioned how borthersome it is to be around people that are igorant. I was agreeing what she said, but now I have time to think about it, I have a different view on that. It's easy to quickly assume small town people are ignorant because of their lack of exposure to other cultures. If that's that case, aren't we all ignorant on some level? Big city people aren't necessarily less ignorant. When we city people laugh about how the country folks know nothing about the world out there, do we know anything about their culture? Wouln't we seem complete idiots when we walk into their daily lives and know nothing about it? And aren't we a little arrogant to assume just because they prefer the small town life style, they are automically narrow minded? I have lived and been to quite a few places around the globe, but there are still so many cultures I haven't been exposed to. I can pretend to be an expert if you ask me topics about Asia, but when it comes to other parts of the world, the Middle East for example, I know very litte. From my personal experience, it is safe to say that people from big cities can be just as ignorant. While most of my asian friends often talk about how americans are always wrong about their asian knowledge, I have to laugh, because if you ask the people in asia, most of them are probably wrong about their american knowledge too. They probably think all women in america wear stiletoos and sip on cosmopolitant like those in the "sex and the city".

Nowaday with the magic of internet, there's really no excuse to be ignorant. I think the worst kind of ignorance is the arrogant ones. There are people who are ignorant because they too prideful. They can never admit that they ignorant. It's okay to not know about something, just don't assume you know everything. Those are the true ignorant people that I can't stand.