I suddenly got the cold, so now my voice cracks when I speak. I am trying do my best to get better, because I don't want it to get worst since there is only a few more days until school again. I'm refusing to take medication unless it gets really bad. I don't really like taking medication when I get sick.

I'm glad, the snow has finally melted. 

I celebrated Christmas day at my cousin's house in the afternoon. The meal was so delicious! There was a mix of American and Vietnamese meals laid out all over the dinner table. The family party was very nice and relaxing. We ate, watched Kungfu Panda, took photos, and open presents. 

After about three hours at the party, my family drove down to Portland and enjoyed another family party. The family that I celebrated Christmas in Portland compared with the family party earlier was much more noisier and chaotic. My mom has eleven siblings and the siblings have children, so you can imagine how packed it was in that small house. I hung out with my cousins and played game boards that my little cousins rejected. My little cousins were being little brats; once they opened their presents and found it was board games, they immediately threw it to the side with no appreciation. They were game boards that we all loved to play when we were in elementary school, so I thought they would enjoy it. 

Overall, Christmas was fun. I felt like I've been so busy this week with all the Christmas errors. Now I just want to stay home and relax. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I attended church today, which is one of the traditions our family does on Christmas' Eve day. The ride there felt like I was riding one of those rides from an amusement park, bumpy and giving a sense of danger. There were a mass of people there, so each song sung felt very loud and powerful. 

Afterwards, my family went home and enjoyed dinner together. Then we opened presents! I got a purple Nikon camera, red robe, and some pajama pants. I gave my sister a book, called Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I thought she would like it, since she likes those funny books. 

I think tonight I will have a good night sleep, since I am so tired! 

Despite all the snow, I still went to my cousin to get my hair cut. I wanted to have nice hair for Christmas. Thank goodness for my dad's four-wheel drive truck that my family were able to maneuver safely in the snow. I refused to drive in the snow, so my dad did all the driving. 

There's only five more days until Christmas day! My plans for Christmas is have a family party at my cousin's house. The day before that, I would be eating for Christmas at my Grandma's house down in Portland. So it depends on the snow on whether I would be able to drive 45 minutes down to Portland. My family and I are ready for Christmas, we got all the presents we needed. This Christmas, I don't really have the need for any presents from other people. I just want to have yummy food for Christmas dinner. 

Plans for the rest of tonight? My family and I are going to watch Dark Knight and Hancock. We'll be having some yummy Vietnamese soup. It'll be nice eating hot soup under the cold weather. 

Yesterday, my family and I finally got off our butts to decorate the house with Christmas decorations. We always decorate it later than most people. We hung up lights that were shaped as a candy cane, reindeer, and christmas tree. I decided to make the theme of the Christmas tree to be red and gold. I finally agreed to add white into the tree decorations after my mom was nagging me to. We never really went with a color theme for the tree, so I gave it a try!

I went outside for the first time after the snow to help my dad decorate the outside of the house. We hung up the icicle lights on the fence and roof. Untangling the Christmas lights was a pain. I also helped shovel the snow off the walkway. I don't really like to play in the snow, besides maybe for the activities on the mountains. I do appreciate the beauty of snow though! On the busy rode, about four vehicles ran the red lights. Is it a really good time to run through red lights? I'm sure they had a good reason for that, right? ;]

Stay warm everyone and don't catch the cold!

The weather outside is windy and drenched with water, so the best thing for me is to just stay inside the house and stay warm. My dad and I were suppose to hang up the Christmas lights today, but that has to wait because of the rain. I will probably hang the Christmas lights inside instead, because I need some Christmas feel. 

My winter break started on Wednesday, so I am spending my third day of winter break. So far, I have only gone here and there, but it is nothing really exciting. Right now, I have the biggest urge to travel out of state. I want to venture to a new and exciting culture. 

Winter break reminds me of my trip to Texas and my friends there. Last year was my first year to Texas and it was a great experience. I made a good amount of new friends there. Without them, I think Texas would probably be really boring, because there were not many places to go. They are actually the children of my parent's friends, whom they have not met for like ten years! So the new friends I met there were all cousin and siblings with one another. Everywhere we went, it was in a big group, so it was never boring. We watched movies, shopped, and bowled.  We also did activities that were very new to me, like Wii, the game called Mafia, eating crayfish, and ice skating. I was begging them to take me ice skating, but I don't think I will ever dare to step back into that rink again. I swear my feet are abnormal, because I spent about an hour learning, but it didn't work in the end. My family and I spent Christmas with their whole family, and it had a really good Christmas feel to it. Usually, my families just eat and open presents with my relatives. But over in Texas, we did all these Christmas games. In conclusion, it was the best winter break I ever had. But sometimes I wonder what if I went over there again, would it still be fun as last time? Because sometimes things are fun the first time, but then the second time is not so great. Could it be because the expectations for it to be fun are too high? Or because things change as time go by?

Today, I had a one-month birthday party for my baby cousin, Tyler. Vietnamese culture don't celebrate baby showers, but we celebrate one-month birthdays instead. We rented the whole place at a small restaurant with all the family members of the mom and dad's side attending, so the place was packed. It was fun eating and talking with my cousins, who I have not talked to in a while. 

Tyler is cute, but I was hoping it to be a girl. I got too many little boy cousins, and they are always noisy and runny all over the place. Maybe if it was a girl, it would be more calm and quiet, even though I wasn't back then. 

One more week!

This week chemistry has been taking over my life and it will continue until next Tuesday, which will be my chemistry final exam. I have been behind, so now I'm trying to keep up. It's important for me to do well on this final, because I got an F on my last midterm. The professor said he will replace the final exam grade to the midterm as long as the final exam grade is higher than the midterm. So if I get like a B on the final, the midterm will also be a B!

On Thanksgiving day, my family drove to Vancouver, WA to have Thanksgiving at my cousin's house with my relatives on my dad's side. I felt bad for their dog that was blinded last year. The poor thing kept on bumping on the walls. lol. Afterwards, my family drove home and relax for about 1-2 hours. Then we drove down to Portland to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's sisters and brothers. The whole day, I felt like my family and I were on the rode the whole time. 

Back to chemistry! :/