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| 2005/12/19 18:47:43瀏覽367｜回應0｜推薦7 | |
| It is very common to be running all over the places for party during the holiday season in US. I have lost count on how many holiday parties I am going to attend or host this year, company party, neighborhood party, family party for kids, family party on Christmas day, Taiwanese Mom's party, New Year Eve party, and THE Rose Bowel Party, go Trojan!.... Party is part of life for American. So far this year, the one we spent the most time was the neighborhood Christmas party. Chris' and our family, along with Ann and Patt, moved in to the same street the same day five and half years ago. Chris and I have becomes pretty good friends, since we are both Asians, and both in software related area. We could spend hours standing on the street talking about software development, project management, investment strategy, etc. Chris' husband Ross grew up in similar background like me, liked to mess with all the things we are not supposed to do in our teens. Luckily, we ended up in the same neighborhood. It becomes a tradition for our neighbors to have Christmas party together. This year, Chris quit her job from Schwab, and switched to another global company recent;y. Like most people dealing with globalization and software developments, she has been so busy at work and almost gave up on hosting the party. But nobody would let her! Dennis and Debbie were out of the town until this week. Ann and Pat just had their first child, Lawarence is still on his business trip. Tina and I are the only back up, but we also have five parties lined up in our house, starting from the Chinese brunch party with the family. With all the encouragements, Chris decided to bite the bullet. So, here we are, the 6th Christmas party was set to be on Dec. 17. as usually the Sat. before Christmas weekend. In this little street on the West Dublin Hill, five out of the six family have been really close. We have July 4th BBQ, Holiday Party, and some special events, like welcome parties for our Japanese visitor, baby showers, kids birthday parties, etc. It has been a fun six year. This Holiday party is the best. The best thing about Holiday parties is that you are going to meet even more people from the host/hostess' network. Chris and Ross best friend Jay is one of them. It is like every year we get to talk to different people for extensive period of time. The first year, we spent the party get acquainted with our neighbors. Tony and Julie, who moved to Texas already, are nice couple with their two little girls. Who became really good friends of us after that party. We knew Lawrance more in that first year since his wife Diane was on a business trip at that time. Dennis and Debbie, our next door neighbord were no strangers to us since we share one common fense that we need to maintain the landscape together. Ann and Pat, two outstanding lady lawyers were the couple shared similar tastes about decorating the house. In the second year, we met Chris's family, and some other friends. I was still more comfortable dealing with our neighbors and other Asian guests in the party. Along all these years, we are all like family or at least close friends to those who come to the party regularly. Lots of interesting things happened. I remembered that Ethan always know his way around Chris house since our houses have the same floor plan. He first tried to climb the stair in Chris's party when he was less than eight month old. He spent a good amount of time messing around with the stairs. He just learned enough, and the next morning, he climbed our stair all the way to the 2nd floor. This years' party was the first time I really get to enjoy the party without feeling strange and without worry about our two kiddos. Ethan and Amelia really learned how to behave in the party, and respect others. They were playing with other kids without us watching. So, we sat in the family room, chatting. Our neighbors occupied the couch in the family room. When we were along, we were sharing stories of each family, like Ethan's T-ball league, Ann and Pat's new son, Jackson, Dennis and Debbie adventurous to all the oil field, Debbie's story about how Lawrance loves to be on business trp, etc. When other people joined us, we sometime split to several smaller groups and got to different topics. My one-grand Christmas tree story was the one that cracked into a easy conversation. My USC jacket led to a series of great conversation. There was another USC alumn, the class '86 in system engineering. We started to share the story of USC, how we appreciated USC's different acceptance standard for people like us, then to how USC are running some specialty programs that provide experts in different fields. The story about military system, how US plan and manage the force in PacRim was Marty's background. He shared lots of thing in common. Then we talked a little about my encounter of Gene Krantz. The conversation led to the space traveling. We were having so much fun talking about our dreams to the outer space, and how much the progress have been. People asked me why it would take another 10 years for human being to land on the moon again. All those subjects kept attracted more people to our corners. Jay was one of the more experienced person, who is doing security trading for living told us how different the view about outer space has been after all those years. At the end of the party. Only us, those who didn't need to worry about driving in such horrible weather condition, stayed. We started to share different things about landscaping, hardscape and plaints, interior designs, kids, etc. It is amazing how much you can share with people in a party. At the end, we shared about how much we appreciated the surrounding we have in our street, the people, the valley view, the quiet neighbors and how great a hostess Chris has been. Finally, we found out the reason we ended up on the same street was not coincident. None of us care about school district that much, none of us hates commute, none of us put the estate growth potential as top priority, all of us enjoys the less busy feeling in the east bay compared to other parts of the Bay Area, all of us enjoy having the nature surrounding us, and all of us enjoy having a big house. Isn't it nice, in US, there are so many different choices for you to make? We made different choices, and as a long run, you are going to meet those who are most compatible with you. This is a great neighborghood to raise family. We enjoy this more and more. Six straight years of success. We believe living here is going to be better every year. Chris must be really proud of herself after the party. |
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