My picture at the Award Ceremony, Mommy!!

This evening, Tasha will participate in her first Tae Kwon Do Award Ceremony and she is excited to have her new degree Tae Kwon Do belt and first achievement certificate (Little Dragon).

This morning, while I was having a breakfast with Sonya, Tasha spent time drawing a picture.

When she was done, she couldn't wait to show me her picture. After I looked at it, I thought "Oh my, my daughter drew a naked picture of herself!! I suddenly asked her to make sure what she had in her mind.

"Tasha, are those nipples?" I asked with a giggling voice.

"And what is that?" I continued.

"That is my new Tae Kwon Do belt and those are uniform patches" Tasha answered.

After I heard the answer, I just couldn't stop laughing and of course, I praised her for this great imagination through her beautiful picture.

What a silly mom (dad too!)!

A weekend getaway to Virginia

I believe most of stay-at-home moms agree that summer is the most challenging time to take care of children. While they are having fun with all kinds of activities and misbahaviors are often involved, moms will be so exhausted physically and emotionally that they need to express by yelling, complaining, and/or crying when their children are not around (moms usually wait until their bedtime). Sometimes the relief doesn't seem to be shown and absolutely they need a break.

I was one of those super exhausted moms. Thanks to my parents in law who strongly supported and assisted to babysit the girls so that I could plan a getaway trip over the last weekend.

Mark and I decided to have a weekend getaway to Colonial Williamsburgh, VA. Initially, we would love to go to a beach...just to relax (Mark was looking for a spa package) but we could not let our desire go over the over-priced oceanfront hotels (no way!!!). It was hard to find a fantastic place to spend for a short weekend especially this season but we eventually got one though.

Tips to save money for summer trips (especially busy stay-at-home mom or dad) :

1. Try to take a family trip by the end of June to save budget. A lot of hotels offer the package deals until the end of June.

2. Mid July thru Mid August is the best time for a getaway (if you go too early, you may need two getaway trips and that means more expensive).

We stayed at Hampton Inn and Suites near Williamsburgh Historic area. The hotel was very new, clean and reasonably priced and located in a beautiful area. We actually got a King Suite bedroom @ $179 per night including breakfast. We had fun at Colonial Williamsburgh and I just learned that Americans before revolution used to have Kings!!!

Then..our bad experience of the trip was driving to Virginia beach for the best oceanfront restaurant named Mahi Mah's. We were supposed to drive only one hour but traffic prevented us from happening. We made 3 hours to be there (one full hour on Atlantic ave, VA Beach..not only from traffic but also stupid GPS -Mark said that!). Once we arrived at the restaurant, we were informed to wait to be seated about 1.5 hrs....we finally had dinner almost 10 pm. Fortunately, there were a live music and a wonderful breeze out there while we were waiting. It was worth it after a long hour waiting...the foods were so delicious and uniquely tasted. We enjoyed being at this restaurant (I wish they would open one in Greensboro since we have no intention to be back to that worst beach again).

The day we had to head home, we stopped by local stores and outlets for the girls' souvenirs.When we got home, I knew the girls missed us so much although their first question was "Mom, did you buy any gifts for us?"