The Zhao Family

Brennan joined the cub scouts and he's already helping to sell popcorn to raise funds for their future activities. It's his first time and he is not shy at all going to people telling them of the cause. In fact I am impressed with his boldness approaching people to see popcorn.

His first stint as a salesman.

Proud cub scout

First customer...SOLD!

Jumping with joy after first real sale.

Even helping her with her groceries while selling popcorn. Awesome!

Even convinced his classmate to get the mother to buy some popcorn!


The very first time...


A little coaching....



Almost got a sale


Nailed it!

This piano is USED as most of our stuff. Da doesn't know much about music and piano. I tried very hard to convince him that a real piano will be better for the kids to learn. There is couple things that I learned from this piano buying experience:

1) Listen to your spouse: I feel deeply since I don't make the money, I will not just go out and buy something, esp expensive thing like a piano. Da gave me good ideas and I listened, which include waiting for a better deal (which is super hard), trusting him that he is capable in doing things (like moving the piano to our home for free) 

2) Be Patient: This is one of my biggest weakness. If I want something, I want it NOW!! That's the old me. The new and better me knows that everything has it's season. I have driven to 1hr 45mins away just to see a piano in Haymarket, VA. It didn't work out. I went to two more private sellers who are also 1hr away, didn't work out. I went to 2 local dealers. Too expensive and this piano we got is only 1/2 hr away.

3) Appreciate other's effort: You will think that I am the one found the piano. You are WRONG. Da found it, basically I should say.....he has been on Craigslist 24/7, or long enough that he knows everytime when a Yamaha/Kawai piano is on sale on Craiglist.

The main point is Da loves me enough that he checks it so often so I can have a piano that I want.

This piano reminds me of the ring Da gave me when we got married. He didn't have much money nine years ago. He came to me and proposed with a kid CTR ring which cost less than a dollar. We went ring shopping and got a $999 ring with 20% off BYU discount (you have to love the Utah BYU getting married atmosphere). So Da used ALL, again "ALL" his money (include: Saving from his mission, student loan, allowance from sister and parents) to buy me the ring $800. I could not ask him to buy me a $2000 or one carat diamond so he would be in debt. He gave me all he had. That's more than enough.

Nine years later. Da didn't buy me a brand new piano which we do not need. He brought his secretly saved hard working money (Cash that he saved in the last few years when he fixed others' computer or took pictures) to pay for this piano. He told me that he didn't want us to spend any regular income money for the piano.

He is a great man and this is my husband. The same crazy Da that most of you know. Thank you for this gift. I am eternally grateful =)

I took the boys to go fishing which they had a lot of fun! Clayton and Brennan used their casting skills that I taught them a few weeks back.

Cayleigh likes to build and is really good at it too. She is smart enough to know that if she can't build the blocks any taller than her hands can reach, she'd break it in half to build it there and stack on the rest of the other half. I think she has mom's genes..hehe

We still have fun with our butterflies by letting them fly around the room and landing on the kids.

There was an open firehouse for the neighborhood. We of course participated in all the fun activities of dressing up in firemen suites and extinguishing fires. There was moon bounce and riding on fire trucks too! All kinds of fun.

Clayton found a school mate and neighbor to play with everyday!

Mom teach her shopping and dancing. Nice.

This past week we had a community clean up day so we participated to walk around our neighborhood and pickup small little pieces of litter. We get to know some of our neighbors and even get rewarded with donuts and juice!

Mom and daughter dress up and show off kind of thing

Brennan appears to really like eating crabs and he has the patience for it.

Kudos to Clayton reading to his sister!

Back in August, Clayton got a butterfly kit for his birthday. What we didn't realize is that the box does not contain butterfly larva but instead a mail-in card to receive the jar of 5 caterpillars. So this late post is a accumulation of delayed caterpillars, tracking the changes and transformation in their growth from caterpillars, to chrysalises, then to butterflies. It's quite remarkable and amazing to see these changes. Clayton would carefully put them in safe, cool, dark areas of the house to protect while they were young. Then one night they all turned from caterpillars to chrysalis hanging themselves to the ceiling of the jar which caused quite a bit of excitement with the family. So I strung a fish line across the play area so they can see it hanging in the middle of the room. About a week later when one day Abbey came one and they all came out of their shells and turned into butterflies and of course Clayton was ecstatic! Since then we've been feeding them juicy fruits so the kids can watch them suck up the juices from the fruits. We even let them out and play with them. It's pretty birthday present!