This year we had a white Christmas. It started to snow at about 11 in the morning on the 25th. So we just spent a quiet day at home as we had our Christmas dinner on Sunday already.

I was already eagerly awaiting boxing day...I slept early at 11:20. I fell asleep BUT woke up an hour later! Then I couldn't get back to sleep! So I just spent the night tossing and turning all the while thinking of what I'd get today. Hahahah!

I got up at 4:30am as Karen and I planned to be at the Metrotown BestBuy before 5:30. Our dad wasn't going to go this year but our mom made him come with us anyways! He dropped us off at BestBuy then lined up at Futureshop.

It was SO CROWDED! There were about 300+ people in front of us already. But we got everything we wanted. Hahah my credit card is going to blow up! We bought so many DVDs!

After we went to Lansdowne mall to for lunch and to check out the other BestBuy. It was SO crowded. It was so hard to find parking. There was this aggressive lady driver who STOLE our parking spot! Someone was leaving and we were in right spot to get the it. There was a car in front of us and SHE was in front of that. She had the audacity to reverse and wave at us to backup! >>>=( Stupid lady! Once you're past you can't claim the spot! The nerve!

Well, eventually we found a spot. We just ate at the food court since all the restaurants had lineups. Then Karen and I went off to BestBuy while our dad went to look for phones at Rogers and Fido stores. There wasn't anything much I wanted to buy anymore. It was still very busy there compared to Burnaby.

Heehee another productive boxing day. Tomorrow? Round two!

Hahaha I think it is fitting that I got a dog for a daemon.

The test said:

"Your profile reveals that you are: Flexible, spontaneous, modest, dependable and passive. You are therefore matched with the Whippet Daemon."

I got dragged to an Avril Lavigne concert yesterday in the middle of a BLIZZARD! Ok maybe it wasn't quite a blizzard but it was snowing pretty hard. I had to stand in Swangard Stadium for about 2 and a half hours. She was an hour late showing up.

My cousin was too short and couldn't see anything so I made her a snow pile to stand on! Hahaha. Everyone else started to copy me after that. Heeheehee. It was about 1 and a half feet high. The highest out of everyone's. Everyone probably thought I was crazy rolling snowballs around.

But I guess the concert was okay. My sister had gotten VIP tickets so she HAD to go. And my cousin also wanted to go therefore I had to go in order to watch over her since we had regular tickets.

We got some freebies though. $5 off coupons for BestBuy and Telus bags! The Telus bags are the best. They were also giving out little BestBuy flags (this concert was put together by BestBuy) but why would anyone want those?! It's just garbage. They should give out lanyards or something that people will keep and use.

I was freezing after the concert. We hopped over to the Starbucks at the corner and had mochas and hot chocolate. That Starbucks had such good business. It was SO crowded. Everyone wanted to warm up after standing in the snow for several hours.

After coffee , we took the bus to Bestbuy. I wanted to buy another nunchuck because my sister bought Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games on Friday and each of us needed a nunchuck to play 2 player.

Afterwards my aunt and uncle and parents went to Uncle Willy's for dinner. I don't know but for some reason my dad really wanted to go there. I thought there was nothing to eat there. But then I don't like buffets anyways.

Sigh. Another study day wasted.

I want to watch Enchanted so badly!

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=21557772

"I've been dreaming OOFF" Heehee!

Too bad it comes out so close to the end of term. I'll probably busy with finishing up projects and assignments.

I got my wisdom teeth pulled today. I only have two top ones. I have no room for the bottom ones. These top ones are already growing out at an angle at the end.

Hurts. Can't eat anything but congee. Sucks because still I'm hungry.

I got the chance to go to Calgary today! Just for the day for an interview. lol I didn't get a lot of time to go anywhere though. I just spend one hour at the Chinook mall before I had to go back to the airport for my trip back to Vancouver. Not enough time to properly go shopping! =( Oh well. Next time.

I was so brave I actually talked with my cab driver and the passenger sitting next to me on the plane! Wahahahah! I would usually just avoid talking to people. I felt so proud of myself. lol

I don't have any photos because my sister gave me dead batteries. >=( She took all the good ones to her trip to Bamfield. Battery hog! I wanted to take some pictures of the rocky mountains they looked very nice.

I rearranged my aquarium (again) today. I actually went out and bought some driftwood and slate so that I could start aquascaping. So here is the result. The left is still a little bare...I'm waiting for my plants to grow first so that I can take some cuttings and filling in those bare spots.

I also bought some proper lighting and test kits. I found that I was using only a 3000K bulb. So I went to Home Depot and bought a 6500K compact fluorescent. It is way brighter! Maybe that is why all my plants were looking miserable. lol. This is costing me quite a little fortune...And still I want a 55 gallon.

I also have about 23 baby guppies O_o hence the small plastic tanks I'm floating in the corners. They are growing so fast!

Hehehe it seems this has become my aquarium blog...

Yes, that's right I saw one of my guppy females (the big amazon one) plop out a baby guppy! I wish I had taken a video clip of it! This was last night. Today I have several more babies that I fished out. I'm going to run out of places to put them!

Ah I'm so sad! All my fish died! Well not ALL my fish, just the tetras and the oto. :( That's 3 glo-lites and 5 neons gone. I think it was a heater malfunction. The water was sooo hot. They got boiled to death.

This morning I found two of the glo-lites had died. I thought it was odd but didn't do anything about it. I thought I'll fish them out when I get back from work...When I got back they had all died! I'm so sad. They were so fun to watch. The sucker fish was still swimming around at that time but it was slowly dying.

Amazingly the shrimp is still alive. So are the six guppies...and the baby guppies! Yes, I found 5 more baby guppies in the tank. I fished them all out. Heehee. Some are not very strong looking. Maybe they haven't had any luck in finding food to eat...or effects of the boiling water.

Stupid heater. On one of the hottest days of the year too. >=(

Yes! One of my guppies has given birth! I didn't see it happen though...and there are only two. Maybe the rest were eaten. Too bad. It was not like I have anywhere to put them all anyways.
I've isolated the two and they are doing quite well I think. At least they are eating. I still have the powdered food left from the whole white cloud fry fiasco. Baby fish also makes me happy. XD

Happy Canada Day!

I spent today at home gardening. Look my freesia are in bloom! I stepped into the garden and it smelt so nice! I cut a whole bunch and put them in the kitchen.

Blooming flowers make me happy. The is a sense of joy when the flowers you planted thrive and bloom. I love gardening.

If only the weeds grow slower! I put one up and ten more come up! LOL The front yard has been neglected for a while now so there are so many weeds. And all the plants are in a disarray. I plan to dig up everything, plant new things and organize it a bit better. I want flowers to be in bloom all summer long and I like only the fragrant flowers. :)

Woohoo! I bought the Wii! I went to Superstore today to get my Grandpa some of those European weiners he likes so much, so I stopped by the Electronics department. I saw they had a Wii box out and I asked if they still have one. And the girl said yes they still have one and did I want one! Of course I said yes! Haahaha! She reached inside a big cardboard box and lo and behold! I had try so hard to hide my glee! Heeheehee!

I was surprised they still had it since it Superstore started advertising it last Saturday. Karen went to check if they had it at Metro (I got it at Marine Drive) but they didn't and when she asked the people to check the other stores if they still had some in stock they refused! They said that it was probably sold out anyways and so they didn't bother to check. >:(

I was a little suspicious though so I asked I asked if it was a return. She said no. They just got it this morning!

I'll be playing it tonight!

Ok for a while I've had blue-green algae growing in my tank. It spreads over the substrate in the front of the tank and climbs up the sides and some grow on my plants. Sob! I've tried cleaning and manually removing it but it kept growing back then I bought some erythromycin antibiotic to kill it but that just seemed to slow the growth down. So I kind of gave up getting rid of it. I just try to get rid of as much as I can during my water changes.

But today most of it was all gone! The sides of the tank and the ground are nearly clean! My hungry guppies ATE the cyanobacteria! Hahaha! Yay! I love guppies!

I finally bought some guppies. I bought 3 females on Wednesday and 2 males today. The males are so pretty I think. Now the tank is so active! They are always swimming around all the time! The tetras just like to lurk in the plant forest and come out only once in a while. They don't swim as fast as the guppies. I might get 2 more females because I think the males are harassing the females too much.

Well from my previous post you probably know that I went to Disneyland. It was a nice break from co-op. I went with my dad and Karen. We left on April 30th and came back yesterday. We spent first day in traffic and the last day at the airport. >_< We spent the middle three days at Disneyland! Yay!

We rode Indiana Jones like four times! Hahahah! This year we lined up for pictures with the characters. I spent 1 and a half hours lining up for 3 princesses! Karen went off on her own and got a pic with Goofy WITHOUT ME! When we finally got to the front of the line Cinderella LEFT! NUUUU!!! She's the one with the prettiest dress! *sniff* We only got Jasmine, Mulan and Belle. And Mulan isn't even a princess! Humph. We also got a pic of Ariel!!! She's my favourite! And I told her so. Heehee. She said "Thank you!"

Pictures later.

I came back from Disneyland to find myself hacked on Gaia! I can't log in and all the stuff I was wearing is gone. Sob.

Well. This is a sign I should quit playing.

Who's the bright person who made the new Contac? They made the daytime pill blue and the night pill white! I would have done it the other way! It makes me so confused. I have to always think about which one is which.

Sigh. I was SUPPOSE to run in the Sun Run today. But in the beginning of last week a caught a cold and now I can't run it. The doctor thought I was crazy to even consider running it.

My first Sun Run...and I didn't even get to run.

So I stayed home and did my taxes.

Life's not fair.

Phew! Gardening is hard work!...Especially if your garden is composed entirely of WEEDS! I only weeded one small side of the garden. The front and the right side is still unweeded. I started on the front but it was getting dark so I stopped.

It was a nice day to garden because it just stopped raining and but it was still cloudy so there wasn't as much sun out. The earth was nice and soft to dig in. I planted Freesia bulbs on the side. We only have white and blue colours. And I divided up some of the Mei's grass flower bulbs. There's still a whole bunch of them.

I can't wait to see the Freesia grow. I still have to plant the Dahlia bulbs. I have four. The question is where to put them. We have a lot of tulips, daffodils and dying rose bushes already occupying space. If it were up to me I would dig them all up and replant them.

I really should dig up all the bulbs in the fall so that I can replant them in the spring. That would also make weeding a lot easier. I'd just get a big shovel and bye bye weeds.

Odd. I seem to be missing a tetra. I can only count 5. Last time one of my goldfish went missing. No body was ever found...Seems like it is happening again.

And an Oto died on Sunday. My poor lonely Oto. He has such a big head.

Another one of my tetras died. It was gasping so I isolated it. It looked like it had 2 little bumps on its side. So now from 10, I'm down to 6 tetras.

Two other tetras became ill. I quickly isolated them but I don't know if it is going to help. I have read that once Neon Tetra Disease gets introduced into a tank it is very hard to get rid of. The others seem fine for now but the disease spreads by spores. Once a tetra consumes a spore it is infected. All my tetras are going to die! T_T

I've been planning this for a long time. I'm feeling a bit more ambitious this time and will be attempting a planted AND warm water aquarium!

Last week I went to Big Al's to buy gravel. I ended up buying FloraBase substrate and a whole bunch of plants as well! There was a sale on and some other guy bought a lot of plants and I thought I might as well get some too.

I bought 3 bunches of Java ferns, 1 hygrophilia polysperma, and 2 plants I can't identify maybe some type of Vallisneria or Lilaeopsis macloviana and Limnophila aquatica or Cabomba caroliniana. I hope it is not the latter because that is hard to grow! I shouldn't buy plants that aren't labeled. I asked the store person but he didn't know either! X( But I bought it anyways because it is a pretty plant. XD

I didn't have anything to attach the Java Ferns to so I just kinda left them floating about in the center of the aquarium. But today my dad help me find his BC Jade from his old aquarium. He used to have a 55 gallon aquarium at the old house. We can still see the indentation the weight of the water made on the floor!

It was my first day of work today! And I have my own little cubicle. I just got shown around the office and now I'm learning Flex. Looking at demo apps and following the tutorials online. I think Flex is very neat. It let's you do a lot with little coding. I like it.

Sat Dec 23
We left Vancouver for Las Vegas late last night (we took off at 8:15 and landed at 10:28) and took a shuttle to Alamo to rent a van. There were only two vans left and we ended up picking a teal Dodge Crystler over a silver one. This year we stayed at the Aladdin Hotel which is just next to Paris. They are doing some construction so there was a discount or something. I think they are building and extension and some towers.

Our room as down the hall from Uncle Adrian's not like last time where we were neighbours. Karen got some tape from Auntie Maria to tape our dad's mouth shut. It supposedly stops him from snoring. Karen is really sensitive to noises and can't sleep with Ba's loud snoring. It doesn't stop his snoring completely but it does muffle some of the sound. But apparently during the night the tape fell off and Karen left to sleep in the bathroom! But by that time early birds started taking showers and the plumbing was terrible so there was a lot of noise of water rushing through the pipes! Poor Karen.

Like last year we got up at 8 to go to the M&M store (AGAIN! Karen's obsessed!). But before we left Karen had to put all her dimes and nickels (she had a lot) into the vending machine just outside our room so that she could get quarters back! Heehee I thought it was ingenious...for the first few dimes and nickels. Then I just got impatient of waiting for 10 minutes! >:(

When we finally got out of the hotel (taking the FRONT exit this time) we stopped by some sovenier stores to look around. We ended up buying postcards and keychains. Karen gave the poor lady all her change and rolls of pennies. lol

The M&M store was decorated in a Christmas theme this year. Last year it was Star Wars. We watched the 3D show again then Karen bought SO MUCH STUFF! 60 Dollars worth of stuff. It was at least 60 since if we buy $30 worth we get a 0.5 pound of M&Ms for free and we paid separately to get two bags! She's still sore about not buying enough to get the free plushie last year. xD

This time we went over to the Coca Cola store to look around. But then we were out of time so ran back to the Aladdin to meet our parents and Auntie and Uncle. But as usual Aunt Maria wasn't ready! We found this sign on the door:

When everyone finally got ready we headed to the Spice Market Buffet in the hotel after waiting around indecisively. Heheh while in the line we had our eyes on some Strawberry tarts in the dessert section and when we were seated we made a beeline towards them. Food was ok but we took a lot of crackers (for later!) heheh. I didn't eat too much lox or smoked salmon this time. I was sick of it from last time! That's what I get for being greedy!

After lunch, we headed out to the van only to find that the steering wheel fluid had all drained onto the ground! So we couldn't go anywhere while we waited around for the adults to phone Alamo and complain. After 3 hours we finally got our replacement but by that time it was too late to do very much so we headed out to Macy's to do some shopping! I love Macy's. XD

We then watched Sirens of Treasure Island. "Ahoy!" "Who are you calling a hoy?" HEEHEE! It was a funny show. I liked it. I wouldn't mind watching it again but I would like to be in the middle. We arrived late so we were in the back to the side. I couldn't really see the men's pirate ship.

Then we had wonton noodles for dinner and went to bed.

Sun Dec 24
We woke up early again but as before Auntie Maria wasn't ready so we took Ba to the Bellagio to look at the Christmas decorations. Nothing spectacular; it was almost the same as last year.

For lunch we all drove to the Wynn but the line was MILES long so we left and ended up at Monte Carlo were there was no line. I like to eat the mashed potatoes. Mmmm.

After that Uncle Adrian dropped us off at the Mirage with Ba and we when to Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden! We saw Bottlenose Dolphins, white lions, white tigers, leopards and regular tigers. I could stay there forever. Those cats were so beautiful!

We wanted to catch the moving statues at the Forum Shops but we were too late! It's a maze in there! Too many shops! And they make you walk ALL around you can't even cut across to get to where you want.

Since we didn't get to watch the show we went across the street to Harrah's to ask where the trollies were except the stupid people didn't know anything and not even what Circus Circus was! We asked a dealer but he didn't know anything so he called over his floor manager but he didn't know what we were talking about either! He thought we were speaking in some foreign language. CIRCUS CIRCUS! Stupid! He said do you speak Cantonese? And we were like uh my dad does and Ba said English is fine. We FINALLY got directed to the loading bay where buses were and found the Strip Trolley but they had raised the price by $1.50! So we paid $19 in total.

We stopped by the Hilton to look the Star Trek Gift Shop. xD Karen bought the little Klingon plushie keychain that she wanted to get. Now the Trip and T'Pol dolls have 3 children! Heehee! But apparently a Tom and B'Elanna doll will come soon to take away the klingon man. XD

Stopping at the Hilton proved to be a big mistake as the Trolley did come at all. We waited like an hour before walking to the Stratosphere to take a look. We took the wrong way and ended up circling the building in the outskirts of the strip. Freaky. Good thing we weren't mugged! When we got to an entrance to the Stratosphere there was nothing there but we saw the trolley leave us behind. X( So we waiting 15 more minutes to take the next trolley to Circus Circus.

Circus Circus is just like PNE except smokier. *Cough cough* The games were cheaper though and Ba played a game; one of those rolling ball horse races. And he lost. LOL he wasn't very good at all. We watched a 15 minute acrobatic show. The lady was making her debut swinging around in rings up high. Karen was disappointed being not able to play any games since she wouldn't be able to bring any of her prizes home with her. xD

After that we headed back to the hotel. Ma couldn't come back yet because we took all the keycards! But we found out that they were out in the street. Santa Clause was driving down the strip giving out presents! Ma said Auntie Maria went crazy and yelling to get the dog plushies and ran out into the street to get them too! She wanted the get one for each of us but everyone else was too afraid to get one. Mrs Clause recognized her and didn't want to give her another one. But she said it was for her other daughter. And Santa said ok. Heehee.

Mon Dec 25
On Christmas morning, we flew to LA. The wind was with us so we were 20 minutes early. We rented another van then went back to the airport to wait for Francis and Krystal to arrive from San Fran and John to pick them up. There was a lot of miscommunication going around on where we were supposed to meet each other and we ended up driving 'round and 'round the airport. Eventually we found each other and John took us to McDonald's for lunch. We all had Filet-O-Fish without the tartar sauce. Mmmm.

Karen and I sat with Francis and Krystal and caught up. We haven't seen them in two or more years. More for Karen since she never went to San Fran with Ma and me.

After lunch we followed John back to Aunt Martha's house and said hello to everybody then we went to our hotel the Quality Inn. It was a seedy gaudy pink and greenish place, much like the setting for My Name is Earl and where MURDERS happen! LOL. Our room was kind of damp and smelly so we turned the fan on full blast! So after we dumped all our luggage in the rooms we went out to the Zen Buffet for dinner with the entire family plus some other people we don't know. Naturally, there was nothing to eat.

Tues Dec 26
Boxing Day! Too bad we weren't in Canada to enjoy it. *grumble* Nobody seems to know what Boxing Day is in the US! Why it is only the single most enjoyable awesome day in the whole entire year! I can't BELIEVE that Francis and Krystal have NEVER heard of it!

Last night Karen ditched me to sleep with Krystal. The OTHER woman. XD She can't sleep with Ba snoring so I got the entire bed to myself. I think I slept better than when she's in bed with me. One of the other nights she punched me in the eye while she was sleeping! "Accidentally". Puh.

Anyways us kids and Ba woke up at 7am for the free breakfast (I love free breakfast!). We had to wait forever for Aunt Maria so we hung out in Francis and Krystal's room. We were watching Back to the Future and Karen was playing on Francis' Nintendo DS.

We went to a Dim Sum place for lunch for Uncle Anthony's birthday then went shopping at Macy's again! lol. We picked up a lot of shirts because it was super discounted plus on top of the discounts we have a traveler's discount!

For dinner we went to Tofu House. I love it! All that tofu! So delicious. I was so full afterwards. They also had an ice cream machine where you can get little tiny cups of ice cream. heheh.

Wed Dec 27
Yay! Today we went to Universal Studios! Aunt Maria got 50% discount for four people and $10 off for the rest of us. So it was like $51 for our family. I think I would like to be a part time travel agent! HAHAHA! We went on the Studio Tour first and it was really interesting. They had added new stuff since the last time we went, like the Fast and the Furious cars.

Next we went on the Back to the Future ride. Ma has bad memories of this but we dragged her along anyways. We sat in the front of the car this time because I wanted to know what the Doc was saying on the little screen. lol.

It was kinda cold so Ma and Ba went back to the van to get jackets and the rest of us went on the Mummy ride. Heehe they could have went on with us but Ma hates rollar coasters so avoided this one at all costs. Heehee. Before the ride there props and stuff and spooky voices whispering. Then there was that hole in the wall. Francis put is hand in it and it sucked up his arm! AHHH! I wanted to know how it felt but he wouldn't tell me and I was too scared. Hahahha. We also pushed Francis to touch the cursed book. hehehe. He touched it twice and a spooky voice said something about doom and stuff. I told him to touch it again so he gets uncursed. LOL. Karen and I sat in the middle seats with Francis and Krystal sandwiching us while Meighen, Aunt Maria and Uncle Adrian sat in the back. All of us were screaming and screaming but it was very scary just projects pictures or something. Hahah it was so fun.


To be continued...