Call Me Crazy

After a 9 year relationship with Blogger, I am bidding this site a Final Farewell!!  This will be last post on this blogsite.  To my loyal readers, DON'T leave me just yet!! I'm just moving my blog to Wordpress! I still love to blog and will continue to blog.  After thinking about it long and hard, I've decided that for the long-term, Wordpress seems to be a better option for me. It allows me to create additional pages and password-protect some of the my posts. It was just the right thing for me to do.  For those who know me well, I'm a nostalgic person so it was extremely hard for me to let go all my previous posts.  You can call me crazy, but I've replicated every single post from Blogger to the new Wordpress blog.  Yes, it was a lot of time devoted to copying and pasting, but alas, every post is accounted for!!  Now I still have the luxury to go back in history and reminisce the past on the same blogsite!! Please bookmark my new blog and visit me and leave comments!!

http://wanwanha.wordpress.com/

Discovery Museum / Sausalito

Lately, we've been blessed with gorgeous weekends here in San Francisco!  We took advantage of the warm weather and made a trek out to the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito this past Sunday. Traffic was a breeze and we arrived at 10am, just as the museum was opening up. Sarah immediately made herself comfortable with the water feature and the indoor playground designed specifically for Tots.  She had a blast!!  This place is perfect for kids aged 2-5, with lots of activities both indoors and out.  The stunning view of the bridge & the bay also made the place a great hangout place for adults. This place is very nicely laid-out with shady picnic tables for lunch, and different areas for different age groups.

After the museum, we made a quick visit to downtown Sausalito, since we haven't been here in years!  It's still a very charming little town - relatively the same as I last remember it. We had some ice cream and walked along the pier and storefronts.

We ended our long day with an early dinner at Cheesecake Factory in Union Square (downtown SF). What a beautiful and fun-filled day!!

Hearts!

I used to go around town just to take pictures of these hearts all over San Francisco - that was back in 2004.  Wow, how time has elapsed!  I ran across 2 of them today at Union Square and made me remember my old pastime. Look under the label "hearts" and you'll see pictures of the other ones I took!

Sarah is 23 months old!

Happy 23-month old Birthday, my sweet baby.  In a month, you will be turning TWO!! 

Reloc - Moving Along II

It's utterly surprising how moving out of the country can push you to do all the things you have always "wanted to do" but "never got around to doing it."  It's like a time clock that makes you realize that time is short and you need to get things done!! Here are some examples of what I mean:

Financial Planner - This was on the list of to-do's for a long time. SQ and I are good savers but we are poor investors. We do not know how to use our money to make money.  We want someone to not only help us invest our money, but also guide us in retirement planning and estate planning. We know we can not depend on Social Security or Medicare when we retire.  Also, now with Sarah in the mix, there is a lot of things to think about - like setting up a will / living trust and her future education expenses. We need desperate guidance on what to do.  So we finally met with a Certified Financial Planner a week ago.  The session was only 1.5 hours, which was very short for the topics we had to cover.  I felt like we barely scratched the surface, but felt good that we were given some ideas and quick fixes which can help us in the long run.  We will meet him again in a few weeks.

Re-Finance - This was one of things that the CFP suggested we do.  Late last year, our mortgage broker approached us to refinance our house.  The rate difference between our rate vs the new rate was about 0.25% at that time and would save us about $100 a month in mortgage.  We had just re-financed the year before and didn't want to reset our loan for such a small difference.  Plus, we were too lazy to gather all the documents so we didn't re-finance. When our CFP suggested we re-financed - I was still a bit reluctant to, just because we only have a couple of months left before we leave and the last thing I want to do is to add 1 more thing to do on my already-long list of to-do's.  He said if I don't have time, then I should just call my current mortgage bank and start there.  So I did that, and I was surprised how easy it was!  I got ONE full point rate difference!  Every month, I will be saving $265! Hopefully, everything will be OK and we will close escrow in 21 days!

Medical Check-up - This applies to SQ only. He hasn't been diligent at getting his annual physicals. So because of the move, he finally saw his doctor for his physical!

Family Photo Shoot - I wanted to take family professional photos outdoors. We've only done photos inside a  JcPenney/Sears studio, which are a lot cheaper, but they are only a hit or miss.  Besides, Sarah hated these sessions. She doesn't like staying still and posed in a small hot room with a stranger and a camera.   I wanted something a little more natural and for Sarah to feel like herself.  It took me so time to get SQ to agree to go in on this. So we did it!  ** More to come

New Mattress - embarrassing but we've had our mattress for 10 years! We bought our mattress at the same time we bought the house. We've been talking about getting a new mattress for about 2 years now, but never got around to it (too lazy to shop around)...so with the move, we definitely need to get a new one!  You might ask why don't we just buy a new one in HKG?  Well, the Queen size mattress is HKG is about 5 inches shorter than the ones in the US.  I don't know if I'll like a shorter mattress ..Plus we want to take our bed frame with us, so we need to have a mattress that fits! Hence, we will buy here and have it shipped there.  Mattresses are cheaper in the US and since we don't have to pay for shipping, so why not?

Reloc - Moving Along

Moving to a new living space is already a daunting task by itself.  But relocating takes moving to a whole new level!!  Thank goodness we have a third-party relocation company and an internal dedicated HR relocation team to help us move along the process.

First up, FORMS.  Lots of it.  Let's face it, when most people move, they move within a City, or within a State, or within a Country. Sure, you have to change your address, re-set your utilities, and that's pretty much it. As I learned, moving to a new country requires a lot of changes that one would never think about.

• A working visa. I had to fill out the application and provide passports, photos, resume, University degree certification, marriage license, and birth certificate. All of this to prove that I am who I am, my family's relationship to me, and I am the best qualified candidate for this overseas position.
• Banking. I have to set up 2 new accounts - one here in the US (so my paycheck can be deposited in US Dollars and one there in HK (so I can pay my expenses in HK Dollars)  Both accounts can talk to each other and I can transfer funds freely at any given time. I also need to re-route my direct deposits to the new US account
• American Express card.  I have to get a new HK AmEx for any Company-related expenses in HK Dollars. The one I have now pays out in US Dollars.
• FSA. Flexible Spending Account.  I don't have one set up so I think I'm good here. But for others, if they have been contributing to FSA, then they need to fill out paperwork to change how the funds can be reimbursed.
• Health Care. This needs to be totally changed. Because we are moving abroad, we can only enroll in health insurance through Aetna Global. This allows us to use doctors/medical facilities in both the US and HK. 
• Physical Moving. I scheduled a survey date of May 18 to get an assessment of all the stuff we have.  From now until then, we need to decide whether we want the items to get (a) trashed, (b) donated, (c) sold, (d) packed in a storage facility, (e) brought with us on the airplane, (f) shipped via air, and (g) shipped via sea. Decisions, decisions, decisions!! 

A Letter to Sarah

Dearest Sarah,
At 22 months:

• You can speak short sentences now - 2-3 word combos.  In fact, you can say more than 3 syllables at the same time and can mimic a lot of words and sentences
• You like to do things yourself, like putting on your shoes and opening doors. You can't always do it but you insist and then eventually ask for help.
• You don't like to brush your teeth, but still loves bedtime stories and books.  
• You can walk up and down the stairs by yourself, holding onto a handrail and sometimes not
• You are sleeping later and later at night.  We will get you in bed at 9 but you will not fall asleep until 9:30 or even at 10 sometimes. But you still wake up around 7 in the morning, even though you sometimes get cranky
• Your appetite is stunning.  You are little eating machine, although you don't appear to be chubby. All your food goes directly into your tummy, no where else. You don't have cheeks nor your arms/legs show any "folds."
• You weigh about 28 lbs right now (home scale)
• You can sing along most songs and love to listen to music in the car on our way to and from daycare
• You can now identify and say all your alphabets, numbers (to ten), colors, and most animals. We think you learn pretty quickly
• You love to grin with only your bottom teeth showing! 
• You got your first passport!!