Lazy, family days

Ok, big change of vacation plans this Christmas holiday year. Instead of doing the overly craziness of traveling and crowds, we decided to stay in town this year to just hang out at home, doing lots of family time. I had a whole list of places to go and do, but with the rainy, wet weather all week long, we hardly ventured outside, except to run errands, playing in our back yard and visiting family. We had friends and neighbors visiting us, watched some good holiday movies, studied every morning and sometimes in the evenings where the kids worked on their phonics reading, baked cookies, walked the dogs, slept in and just hang out together.

At first I had high traveling plans, setting out to do Disneyland and Tahoe all in a week's time, but, my hubby got a bit lazy to do the driving, and so we decided to just relax and have fun staying home. Traveling is fun, but it's a lot of work too. Either way, it doesn't really matter where we are at or the places we go, it's nice that we all spent time together, focusing on quality family time.

On Christmas eve, we had some good friends visiting us and then we went to visit our neighbors to give out gifts to thank them and to wish them a Merry Christmas. One of neighbors gave us wine and chicken for dinner.  Isn't that so nice of them.  Ethan, Ellen and Emma loved giving out gifts and giving gratitude. I try to instill in them a sense of being thankful for all that we have and to love and support one another.

All is well with me. I'm just so glad to wake up each day with a wonderful, loving husband and kids. I'm blessed to have this wonderful life. Lots of Love.

On Vacation

Atlas, my vacation from work is officially on as of today! I couldn't wait to be off to hang out with the kids and focus on family time. I was already in  vacation mode since Wednesday because the kids were home, my hubby was off and I had such a wonderful day, logging off at noon from work to just hang out with my family and my good friend Moanie.

After my appointment with my acupuncturist where I focused on healing and wellness, I had a late lunch with her and then, we treated ourselves to an hour long of foot massages and Chinese style whole body massage. It was so nice to just catch up, hang out and relax outside of our usual meetings at Stanford. What a treat. I'm so humbled and ever so grateful for her friendship, love and support. So, thank you Moanie, for always being there for me and taking time out from your busy schedule to hang out with me. You are an angel.

Last week, since the girls love dancing, ballet and musicals, we ventured out to see a  ballet show called a Winter's Fairy tale. They loved it. Their was snow, Santa and lots of little ballerinas dancing in beautiful tutus. Afterwards, we had a lovely dinner at nearby restaurant close to home. It was a magical day. Of course, as usual, they had already finished studying and doing their Kumon study lessons in early part of the morning so it was all play and family fun afterwards.

As is well with me. Xalkori is keeping me well. Work's been great as we now have a new team member to my group and it's makes such a difference. I'm carpooling to work and loving it

I'm so thankful for a wonderful year.

As for our family plans, we'll be spending a day with my family for a potluck, perhaps going to Tahoe, seeing Christmas light events and just enjoy being together. We'll be baking cookies, pancakes, pie pops, cooking dinners, watching good movies, riding our bikes at the parks and having fun/

Merry Christmas everyone. Cheers. May we all have to continued happiness, health, peace and harmony. Lots of Love.

Happy Holidays! MRI results

Happy Holidays everyone. I saw a whole team of doctors last week, including Dr. Neal and Dr. Chang, my neurosurgeon.  Good news, my brain MRI and left foot xray all came out great. Everything is stable. No new lesions and no new findings. Hurray.

I'm feeling great. Thank goodness for Xalkori.  I'm feeling good as ever. My breathing is as clear as can be. Even Dr. Neal says he's never heard my lungs so clear. I'm so happy for this wonderful drug.

It's been awhile since my last post, so I'll catch up everyone on the happenings in the Pham family since my Thanksgiving.  Turkey day, Thanksgiving was great. I cooked the full course dinner and the turkey turned out great! Originally, I had thought that turkey dinner I had ordered was fully cooked, but nope, I didn't read the details and it came frozen and uncooked. But, no biggie, it all worked out as I thawed it 2 days ahead and had it all marinated for 2 days in the frig. We had a few family guests (nease, sister and their significant others) come over last minute to help us celebrate and enjoy great food. My kids, have yet to acquire the taste of Turkey. They always prefer their own kid type of food.

We are enjoying the holidays and are so looking forward for having the holidays off with them. We have lots of day trips in mind. Luckily, my hubby will have the time off too so that we can all enjoy time as a family. We're even planning to head to Tahoe to play in the snow. It's going to be a magical, wonderful winter this year.

Also, I've been re-starting my acupuncture/accu-pressure (massage) complimentary therapy again. I might as well give it another try to help alleviate stress and keep my body, back and mind in balance. Ever since I started getting a massage done from a Groupon I got, I felt it helped me relax and distress me. So, I figure, I might as well take time to focus on me and healing on Wednesdays.

All is well with the kids. Emma and Ellen just finished their preschool for the year and now they are on winter break. Ethan's doing well in school now. I've enrolled them back into the Kumon program and they love it. Last week, they also met Santa and did arts and crafts at their school. They are loving the holidays and Christmas. Our house is all nicely lit up with lights. We're baking cookies, watching holiday movies and having lots of fun. Lots of Love.