Okay, I have gone back to work for more than 1 month now and boy is it tiresome.  As most of you know, I work very far from home so my days are like 12-hour work days.  It’s long and by the end of the day, I’m really tired.  After I come home, I normally have to make dinner and help Nicholas with his homework.  By the time things are all done, it’s normally 9 to 10 PM at night.  If you’re wondering what Michael does during this same time, he works on other stuff like the bills, cleaning up the house and watches Mackenzie. 

Since I’m the one writing the journals, I’m going to start of with news about me.  Well, I found a new job and will be starting it on June 25^th.  It’s a contracting job with CalPERS.  CalPERS, you say?  It’s that where Michael works?  Yes, it is.  We will both be working in the IT department but just in different units within the department.  I’m very excited about the new job.  I won’t have to drive all the way up to Rocklin anymore which saves me a lot of time in the morning and at night.  We can also carpool to work so we will be saving a lot of money on gas and car maintenance.  We can eat lunch together, although I hear that Michael eats lunch around 11 AM while I usually eat lunch around 12 or 1 PM.  We have a couple of friends who also work at PERS so it’s going to be fun during lunch time.   

Okay, onto the more exciting one, Mackenzie.  She can flip now.  She can do a 360 on her flips.  I videotaped her doing that the other day and if I can get Michael to show me how to put that on the web, I will add that to the website.  She also can do a lot with her hands now.  She can now reach and play with her toys that are hanging from her car seat and from mat.  She also seems to pick on guys.  My father is normally the person who watches her, but for some reason, he can never get her to drink her milk.  Every time he can get her to start drinking it, but never finish it.  My mother would usually need to intervene before she will continue drinking.  She will cry even if my father is holding her, but once my mother picks her up, she’s fine.  My mother says that she’ll reach her hand out for her when she sees her passing by.  The same is with me.  When I am right next to her, she’s fine, but then when I walk away and ask my father to watch her, she will start crying.  She sometimes will do the same thing to Michael.  Michael will try and try to feed her a bottle of milk and she refuses to take it.  Then he hands her over to me and I will have no problem with her.  My brother and cousin all seem to have the same problem with her.   

The only male that I have not seen her have a problem with is Zachary.  She loves it when Zachary plays with her.  And Zachary loves to play with her too.  No matter where Zachary is (even when we’re not at home) or what he’s doing, he will every now and then stop and come over and play with Mackenzie.  He loves to put his head against hers and do an affectionate hug.  He loves to make her laugh.  He would grab a hold of her two legs and kiss the heel of her feet and then go “Who’s the baby?”  This normally makes her laugh and he would continue doing this for a few minutes.  He’s a very good big brother.  He will make sure that she’s happy when we’re in the car.  He’ll push the button to play the music on her car seat toy to make sure she’s happy.  Whenever she cries, he’ll help put her pacifier in her to calm her down. He’s even helped me with feeding her.  I would ask him to help me hold her bottle and he will patiently hold it there until she’s done.  And if you know Zachary, he doesn’t have a lot patience with anything.  During the weekends, when he wakes up, he would come into our room and watch cartoons with her.  Sometimes, he’ll stay for a few hours and would continue to come in and out of the room to check on Mackenzie.   

Nicholas just had his 8^th birthday party and I would have to say that he had a lot of fun.  Quite a few friends and family attended this year and Jennie (my little cousin, not Mui), got tossed into the swimming pool by Michael.  She was naïve enough to stand outside right next to the pool. I personally think that she forgot all about Michael’s little prank every year.  Nicholas got a lot of presents and we would like to thank everyone who took the time to come to his birthday party.      

We also got a chance to see the twins again since Richard and Carla were here also.  Oh boy, have they grown.  They are almost as big as Mackenzie.  When we went down to visit them, I put Mackenzie right next to them and took some pictures.  Well, we did that again when they were here and boy, she’s only bigger by a few inches.  I am going to guess that by next month, when they come up for Zachary’s birthday, they are going to be the same size as Mackenzie.   

Oh yeah, last month, we celebrated my mother’s 60^th birthday.  Well, in Chinese years, it’s her 61^st birthday.  We took a lot of pictures and for the first time, we had pictures of the grandparents with all the grand kids.  If you want to see these pictures, click here.

We also went to Discovery Kingdom during the Memorial Day weekend thinking that the Thomas play land was open.  To our disappointment, it was not finished therefore the kids were not able to play there.  The kids however did have lots of fun at all the other attractions there.  Don't believe me, see for yourself. 

Well, I’m kinda lazy so I’m going to stop here, but be sure to check back next month because I’ll be writing about my new job and Zachary’s birthday party.