圣诞节

刚刚修好的木地板好像又有问题了，这个项目要交给Biajee去做，所以他会给盖房子的人打电话。Biajee说这很正常。

我们的电视和电视柜改为明天送货了，所以这周末并没有看到新电视，但孩子们都很开心。圣诞节的时候下了雪，这是奔腾村自1975年以来的第一次白色圣诞节。

我们又去了当地的家具店，发现有一套餐桌和椅子非常适合我们的早餐餐厅。但是桌面是不平的，有点波浪一样的微微有纹路，据说这是最新潮的趋势，这样子如果孩子们将餐桌弄出凹陷就看不出来了。Biajee和我商量着要不要也新潮一把。而且现在的趋势是沙发前面都不摆放咖啡桌了，要放那种搁脚的奥托曼，这样客人来了还可以坐，又不必使客厅里充满家具。而且还可以买一个盘子，将看电视时喝的饮料放在上面。

总之，Biajee受了现代派家具的教育之后，有点觉得自己落伍了。

早上阿诺发烧了，大概是这几天冻着了。圣诞节那天我们全家去好风景的小公园散步，当时气温只有华氏26度，风也很大，我们一定是疯了。今天一天还没有出过家门，好像应该出门去购物，否则会得“山洞狂”的心理疾病，好可怕的。

我们已经选好种什么样的灌木了，春天就可以去买来破土了。一切都是为了风水。

White Christmas

We filed Biajee's green card application to the attorney's office today. It was sent by FEDEX ground so they should get it around next Wednesday. We hope it'll be officially filed to US Department of Homeland Security some time in January.

It is also said that we're going to get about 6 to 8 inches of snow starting from noon tomorrow. It'll be a true white Christmas then. Nobody should be driving on the road then since it could be very dangerous. We had some heavy rain this morning, which made us feel the ceiling of our office was about to drop on our head.

We made a nice try to to the Circuit Court of Benton county yesterday applying for Arthur's passport. The office was closed between 11:30 am and 1:30 pm since everyone went to a Christmas dinner.

We took Arthur to Table Mesa for lunch instead. It's a modified style Mexican restaurant and their food is definitely first class. They even used Shanghai Bok Choi for both fish entrees we ordered.

Biajee finished cleaning up the rental house and setting up Christmas tree in the new house yesterday. His big project today is to throw away our old queen size bed and mattress. We can no longer stand mattresses. We only sleep on hardwood bed, i.e., tatami beds these days.

Crawling Forward

Arthur officially started to crawl forward on Dec. 20th. He seems to not realize that he has the super ability to crawl forward at this moment. He is only crawling for it only when something extremely attractive is in front of him.

The Zhu Zhu Pets are very well received amongst my coworkers. It is a very cool toy for kids and adults. The Zhu Zhu can run around, squeal or turn according to a computer chip built inside it.

We're planning on applying for a passport for Arthur during lunch today. His picture was taken at Sam's Club a few weeks ago. We just didn't find the time to take him to the County Clerk. Yes, we do not have to go to the postoffice to do it. The county clerk can seal the application, check our IDs and send it to US Department of State. I don't think we're going to the postoffice to apply for passport any more in future.

Biajee's plan today is to clean out the rental house since our utility and water will be stopped by Dec. 23rd. We went to BestBuy last night and picked out a TV console. The store opens till 10 pm for holidays.

Zhuzhu Pet

We got up early today and bought a lot of Zhuzhu pets since I was going to give everyone in my department a Zhuzhu pet for Christmas. Two of the people have left the office for the holiday so maybe they'll not receive anything from me. It'll be weird for them to see something sitting on their desks after they come back from the holiday.

Biajee and I returned the TV and the TV stand we bought from Sam's Club. The Philips TV is nothing compared to Samsung. We ordered a Samsung 52 inch LCD from BestBuy, which will be delivered and installed on Dec. 26th. Now we need to order a TV stand for it. We are still eyeing BestBuy for the TV stand. There is one that costs around $500 that'll probably soothe our needs.

There will be a storm and snow hitting Bentonville starting from tomorrow so we may even have a white Christmas. The weather is beautiful today, but Christmas will be cold. Helen Walton is closed on Christmas Eve so Biajee will have to watch the kids for half of the day since I didn't take any time off.

减价

今天去圣诞聚会之后顺便去山姆俱乐部买了些过节的食品，发现有些东东已经开始减价，于是买了两个箱包准备送给同事。Biajee已经决定星期一早上跟着任潮去抢购猪猪宠物，今年最热的圣诞礼物。我们准备多买几个，送一个给阿瑟当生日礼物。

早上带孩子们去了小小体育馆学习体操。Biajee基本上已经把所有破烂搬进新房子了，只不过大部分东东都还在箱子里。拆箱子大概又要花一个星期的时间。好在我既经决定下星期请假，和Biajee一起去堪萨斯城买家具，还可以在家睡觉，出去吃饭和看电影。

早知道自己这么辛苦，应该多休几周假。我的美国护照申请已经交上去了。现在我们在等待税务局的2007和2008年的缴税收据，拿到之后就可以帮Biajee申请绿卡了。这段时间过节，公司里大部分同事都休假了，很多人已经离开本地，回乡过年了。想不到这里在节日时会如此冷清。

我们的新电视看上去也很好，只是希望山姆俱乐部不要将它减价，否则我们会义不容辞地退货的。我们现在正在搜寻好看的原子钟，其实需要好几个，只好慢慢买。

刚才在网站上发现我最喜欢的护肤品商店买礼品卡打折，于是我用上次打折的礼品卡买了新的打折礼品卡，增加了生前的数量。Biajee建议我再多干几次，没准能将礼品卡的价格减少到最低，多么可怕的物理专业人才。

Hair Business

I went to Brian's home for his birthday party last night after doing my hair.

The salon I go to has 3 hair dressers worked on me so far. The first one was a nice girl. It took her about 2.5 to 3 hours to do my hair. She left a few months ago. Then I got a young girl who was an apprentice. It took her 3 to 4 hours to do my hair. She quit 2 months ago so now the owner of the salon does my hair and I can usually be out of there within 2 hours.

The amazing thing is I used to pay $120 for the first girl, $80 for the 2nd girl. Now I'm paying $75 for the owner. Salon is an interesting business. The markup of products and labor can be so high that it's easy to cut price in half or offer something to customer for free.

I also got a clear understanding of this year No 1 Christmas wish list for kids: Zhu Zhu Pet. Amazon is selling it for $30, eBay is selling it for $50. Starting from next Monday, Walmart stores will sell it for $8 from Monday to Wednesday, starting from 7am. Maybe we should get one for Arthur's birthday. Biajee will have to decide whether he'd like to fight the crowd in the stores next week.

LCD

Biajee bought a new LCD TV and a TV stand from Sam's Club yesterday. This happened at the same time when I was in the oath ceremony for my citizenship. I had to go to the courthouse of Western District of Arkansas in Fort Smith. There were about 50 people taking the oath yesterday and I was the only person from China.

The appointment letter said I need to arrive there at 8:30 am, but I got lost again as usual so I was late for about 20 minutes. The way it was set up was everyone had to sign in first and then the ceremony began. So even if I had arrived earlier, I would still have to wait for all the people to sign in.

Then everyone had to stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance together. We each got a Certificate of Naturlization. Now we can apply for a US passport. Right after the ceremony, I found a parking ticket on my car and I had to go to the Police Department of Fort Smith to pay for it. I parked my car at meter parking, which only takes enough money for an hour. I put more money in, but the time on the meter will not change. This is just a gift of being an American citizen - I contribute to tax dollars.

Trash Can

Our new trash can and recycle can arrived at the new house today. Biajee took Arthur to The Little Gym this morning to make up for last Saturday's class. We're thinking about signing Arthur up for the swimming class in the Walton Fitness Center next semester.

I'll have to join the Walton Fitness Center as a member first. At this point, it's all about Arthur because Arnold is enrolled in four classes at school. We went to his Christmas dance recital last Saturday and he did pretty well.

Biajee forgot to move the hair dryer yesterday so I came to work with wet hair today. Judging that I already caught a cold, it really won't have extra negative effects on me.

Commute from the new house to the company is better than the rental home. It only takes 7 minutes for me to get to work every morning. It's a bless that we live in a small town. I'm really tired of the metropolitan area at this stage of my life.

Virgin Night

I talked to Biajee on the phone. He was making strides moving us. All the beds are in the new house now, which means we're going to sleep our virgin night in the new house.

The downside is that Arthur is sick. He is having diahrrea and is throwing up. Biajee had to go to Hellen Walton and pick him up. We will not have a TV today because all these crisis leave Biajee no time to go shopping for the TV. The Cox guy won't come to switch our service till Thursday so even if we have the new TV, there will be no signals yet.

We unpacked some boxes of books on Sunday and there will be a lot of throw away trash for our family. If anyone needs a superior mover, I would strongly recommend Biajee. He moved the whole family all by himself, without renting a U haul or hiring extra hands. Talking about Every Day Low Cost, the motto of Walmart, nobody has stood by it as firmly as Biajee.

We bought 2 bar stools from Sam's Club yesterday. The were close to cherry wood color, perfect match to our kitchen. We have decided to buy our kitchen table from Nebraska Furniture Mart as well. We look forward to our trip to Kansas City on Dec. 28th, our wedding anniversary date.

Homeowner

We're homeowners now. Today is 13 degrees on the low end and wind chill is close to zero. Biajee is moving in this weather. I told him we could hire a moving company if he doesn't want to move us. But he said he could do it by himself.

We're going to sign the paper work for home owner's insurance during lunch. The house doesn't have insurance yesterday and today so if it catches on fire, we're totally hosed.

I'm thinking of taking the last week of the month off as vacation days and stay home. I need to cool down and recharge and enjoy the new house. We could take a day to go to Kansas City and buy some furniture during that week. And we can go out to eat, shop and just enjoy the time with only two of us. It's been a while since we did that.

I've copied some of the documents for Biajee's green card application. There are still more to be printed. Hopefully I'll get a citizenship card next week so we can file everything to the attorney.

Closing

We are closing on our new house at Elite Title Company in Rogers at 4 pm this afternoon. Our appraisal came out to be exact the same price as the contract price of the house. This sounds a bit weird. But since the house has 90% of what we need, we should not be mad at paying a bit more for it.

It's going to be rainy and cold this whole week and Biajee is going to move us all. It took 4 Walmart associates 2 hours to move all our stuff from Colorado so we assume it'll take Biajee about a week to move most of the things. Biajee had to arrange everything besides moving. It's a huge project.

Biajee went to get a Bentonville Library card yesterday. All our books are packed and in boxes so he had to go to the library to read good books. Our goal is to have everything unpacked and all the boxes emptied and thrown away by Christmas. We need to set up the tree and the gifts for the boys.

Arnold is getting an F-22 transformer and Arthur is getting a train/track set. Santa Claus will bring these to them from the chimney of the new house.

检查

昨天对新房子进行了彻底检查，没有发现大毛病。洗衣机，烘干机和电冰箱都已经运到了。这周末工人们会将木地板重新整修一遍，有松动的地方都会重新刷胶。Biajee星期一下午会再去做一次检查。马上就要搬新家了，我们都很兴奋，想到还要花很多钱添置家具和电器，不由得有些发愁。不过一切都可以慢慢来，先安顿了再说。

非常希望能在新家里住到孩子们上大学。希望Biajee能早些找到工作，我们就可以不用为任何事担忧了。一会儿得帮他把简历改写一遍。现在的问题是Biajee的简历寄出去，根本拿不到面试，所以希望朋友们能把简历寄给他，让他借鉴借鉴，知道该怎么写才能表现自己的价值。

我决定把乔治佛曼的烧烤机送给卡拉了，反正我们也用不到，美国人比较喜欢烧烤。我的秘密圣诞老人上星期送了我一些巧克力和垃圾，不知道下个星期会出什么花样。下星期二房子买下来之后Biajee就会开始搬家，扔东西，想到他一个人要搬我们四个人的东东很是心疼，于是告诉他，所有懒得搬的东东全丢掉算了，反正我没有恋物癖。

我们希望能够买一台新电视，沃尔玛的价钱不错。房子的卖方经纪人会给我800块钱买电视，正好可以买一台50寸的松下平面超薄的，大概可以凑合看了。本来想在楼上装投影机和幕布的，但总觉得那间阁楼太小了，装个大幕不会给人头晕目眩的感觉。

Lost

I lost Biajee today. He wouldn't pick up the cell phone and he is with Arthur. I have no idea where he is at the moment and I was going to go to lunch with them.

Arthur had a fever yesterday and was separated from other infants at school. Biajee was supposed to take Arthur to the doctor's to make sure it's nothing related to kidney problems. We think the cause may be that Arthur got tired of our Thanksgiving trip to Kansas City.

It's freezingly cold in Arkansas these days. It's going to rain this afternoon through tomorrow. I have to scrape ice for 15 minutes every morning before I can drive the car. Can't wait to move into our new house so that we can park in the garage.

My secret Santa at work still hasn't given me any Christmas gift. I've given up hope of receiving gifts this year. At the end of the game, we're supposed to find out who our secret Santa is and I could punch the person in the nose at that time.