Claymation

Went to Zeum and made some clay figures with the kids and was able to get the last spot on the waiting list to make the following Claymation featuring Tigger meeting ET, a bunny, and a girl doing her cartwheels (can you guess who made each figure ?). Enjoy:

2011 Summer Road Trip - Day 5

On our way back home, we stopped by Solvang, then made impromptu stops to a lavendar farm and Nojoqui Falls after checking out ostriches and emus. Nojoqui was such a nice spot that we definitely want to go back after a rainy season to see it at its full splendor.

2011 Summer Road Trip - Day 4

After a leisurely tour of San Diego and La Jolla, we spent an entire day at Legoland:

2011 Summer Road Trip - Day 3

After a full day at Sea World, we thought about hitting the San Diego Zoo or kayaking at La Jolla, but opted to take it easy and went on a harbor cruise. We would have never considered it had it not been part of our lodging package, but it was a nice interesting leisurely ride. Hanging out at Balboa Park and La Jolla (both last-minute decisions) were also fun:

2011 Summer Road Trip - Day 2

Visiting these mega parks on a weekday kept our day sane and smooth. We were able to leisurely see all 4 shows (Shamu, Cirque de la Mer, Sea Lions, Pets), a 4-D movie, ride on the cable car and Sky Tower, feed sea lions, touch a dolphin, get on a wild arctic ride, check out sharks, penguins, polar bears and various marine life and around the park, all with minimal wait times and crowds. Enjoy:

2011 Summer Road Trip - Day 1

This trip proved that kids don't always need big amusement parks to have lots of fun. Sure - they enjoyed Sea World and Legoland, but playing at beaches and skipping rocks underneath a waterfall brought just as many giggles (if not more). I also found last-minute spontaneous activities can end up being highlights of a trip. The stops at all the beaches, an obscure county park, and many other places were totally unplanned, but many of them were what made the trip special.

Originally we were going to hit the major attractions using a discount pass that required going to different theme parks on consecutive days, but then decided to take it easy and play it by ear as we go. After finding a good deal at a Newport Beach hotel, we stopped there the first day to break up the long drive to San Diego. The ferry ride, beach, and museum the following day were all last-minute destinations. It happened to be a free day at New Children's Museum that day, and a couple of hours there before closing was a perfect way to end our first SoCal day.

Backyard Sighting

The kids were arguing what type of bird is in our backyard one morning - imagine my surprise when I saw this:

Although we've had a couple of wild turkey sightings in the neighborhood - they were quite a few miles away and little did I think one would come roam right in our yard !

Lunar New Year Flower Market

I've always wanted to check out the SF botanical garden, so this Flower Market event was the perfect excuse to go. Although we did so much in the pavilion that the kids got exhausted and we didn't get to walk around garden much, we had lots of fun watching acrobats, lion dance, chinese instruments, dancing, making crafts, and trying out chinese painting.

Although this 花市 is not very traditonally "Chinese", it's very nice and airy and much less crowded than the one in Chinatown - highly recommended - we'll probably go again next year :)

Special Person Book

The hubby did not think I should be be spending this much time on a kindergarten project - but I knew if I didn't take the time to make a meaningful photo book when there's an "excuse" to do it, I'd never make one. Having always wanted to make a time capsule/keepsake box/baby milestone book but never did, this was my opportunity to make up.

The book stays at school till the end of the school year so having an electronic version is nice so she can enjoy it at home too.

Click on the mid-page arrows on the side to flip and click on the middle to view in full screen mode:

Yosemite Trip

For the first time in 10 years, Yosemite closed ALL ingress and egress roads due to huge continuous snowstorms. This rare event happened RIGHT before our scheduled trip - the 1st time the kids were going to get to see Yosemite. We were therefore very thankful that the roads opened up and the sun all of a sudden came out RIGHT ON that particular morning of our trip. It was also the ONLY sunny day with sunshine in a 20-day time span (it was rainy/snowy/cloudy 10 days before AND after that first day of our trip.) It was also on that day that I finally felt justified to have an SUV with all-terrain tires :)

Due to its low elevation, snow usually melts as soon as the sun hits so photographers had to get up really early in the morning to film the Valley in snow. Although folks who got stuck in the Park during the prior week also had continuous snow capped tree views, they had to endure horrid storms and road conditions. So we were indeed very blessed to be able to enjoy the magnificent snow-veiled Valley against blue skies with decent driving conditions.

We were actually glad that it snowed on the 2nd day as it was the kids first time experiencing snowfall and seeing how individually intricate each snowflake was. It got cold and rainy the 3rd day but we finished building our snowman and were on our way home anyway.

Had a great time relaxing, enjoying the scenary, sledding, tubing, making snow angels, watching snowflakes, and photographing. Enjoy the album :)

gobble gobble wobble wobble

We were heading home from preschool and saw a bunch of wild turkeys. I decided to make a U-turn so Nathan can take a closer look. Glad I had a decent camera phone but should probably keep a real camera around even on errands like picking up from school from now on. Glad that wild life is still so accessible after we moved away from the zoo.


The fact that this one got off the sidewalk gave me an excuse to slow down enough to take this photo.

Being Green with Orange Stuff

In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint - I tried to use up the pumpkins that both kids brought home instead of chucking them into the garbage --> landfill like I did in previous years. Incidentally, both kids' schools provided recipes in their newsletters so I adapted those to make these:


Omitting at least one cup of sugar from each recipe still gave the muffins and bread just the right amount of sweetness as the farm gave us sugar-pie pumpkins (a sweeter variety). I also added some ground flax and walnuts to the pumpkin bread to up the nutrition and the kids loved both creations. Don't forget to toast the seeds to make pumpkins seeds for a nutritious snack !

Pumpkin patch albums

Both kids went to the same pumpkin patch but with different schools on different days with a different parent. Being an actual preschool and not a daycare, Nathan's preschool requires parent participation on field trips. Basically a child doesn't get to attend a field trip if the parent can't come because they simply don't have enough teachers to watch the very young 3 yr-olds. So you can see Nathan's album has a lot more posed photos as Daddy only needed to watch one child; while Mommy, as a volunteer, was chaperoning a bunch of very active kids and took mostly candids.

靚菜

When I got this beautiful head of Radicchio di Treviso from our biweekly farm box - I couldn't resist taking a picture. Most folks will grill this to mellow its slightly bitter flavor but I'm one of the weird ones who'll eat 苦瓜 raw (pickled with garlic/lemon/soy/sesame), so I actually enjoyed this with a simple vinaigrette - I was very surprised that our kids actually happily gobbled these as-is also and even asked for seconds !

By the way, if you're interested in trying out having just-picked 100% organic local fruits and veggies delivered to your door, let me know and I'll email you a coupon. By referring you - they'll give me a free box that I'll share with you if you live locally.

Little Picasso

Katrina came into my office with this picture and asked me what I thought it was (the original version didn't have eyes and was presented to me horizontally - I was deep in thought trying to solve a work problem and was about to tell her good job on a really nice colorful set of triangles). She then drew on the eyes but didn't really wait for me to speak before telling me her answer - take a guess before clicking the button to see what she said:

A walking dinosaur holding a flower

Muir Woods

We visited a while back at the end of summer but never got around to posting pictures. This was one of the few National Parks that our 3 yr old could hike on his own.

Before our visit, we downloaded the Quest for Katrina to read (I had her highlight words she didn't know and surprisingly, only a few words were highlighted.) It was a fun guide that helped us see and learn much more than if we were just idly strolling around as we do on most hikes.

Mommy helper

It all started when I replied to a mom's email asking if anyone can help her out as her meeting in San Jose got moved to the day she's scheduled help at Katrina's Kindergarten class.

For some reason I really wanted to help this mom even though I've already signed up for Prep (which doesn't require physical presence in the classroom, just cutting/pasting etc. at home - thankfully Jonathan helped with most of last week's matting project) Maybe 'cause our situations are so similar that we both have long commutes and can't always teleconference but still want to be involved with our kids.

Turned out I became the very first official parent volunteer for the class so Katrina was pleasantly surprised to have mom there. I didn't know what to expect but the teachers made sure I got to spend time with Katrina by switching kids around and also assigned me a more interesting task of taking small groups of kids out for a "Fall walk". We walked around campus and talked about what we see/hear/touch/smell/taste (didn't do taste) in the fall. We stomped on some leaves to make some crunchy sounds and clipped some brown ones on our clipboards.

I was a little worried the boys would run off or become uncontrollable but everyone was eager to talk and write on their clipboards and behaved very well !

Monterey Bay Trip Day 3 - Carmel

It's probably not a typical Carmel Valley attraction that usually comes to mind, but the Farm Stand on Earthbound's R&D farm turned out to be a fun morning excursion.

We were then going to check out some of the art galleries at the village but came across the Concours on the Avenue event and decided to check out hot rods instead. The Bavarian Swiss stone cottages and window flower boxes made a perfect backdrop for these classic post-war machines. There were lots of interesting muscle cars but my arm muscles couldn't hold a 33 lb kid and take pictures at the same time for too long, so hope you like the few I did capture with one hand.

The beach was just a few blocks down the street and was a great place for a picnic and some fun with clean sand. We also encountered a nice surprise along the shore - check the album to see what it was:
View album

Monterey Bay Trip Day 2 - Monterey and Pacific Grove

Although it was a Monday, there were long lines waiting outside the Monterey Bay Aquarium - so we were glad to have purchased advanced tickets and proceeded to a special entrance with virtually no wait.

Even though the kids spent a lot of time at the touch tanks at Seymour the previous day, the touch pools were still our first stop here. Our enthusiasm was a bit dampened, however, after an employee yelled at Katrina for picking up a starfish, threw the starfish back in, and proceeded to ignore her when she asked to see a crab she couldn't reach from her side. Did she think Katrina wasn't old enough to understand instructions or was she discriminating against us ? We decided not to bother and moved on to other activities.

The MBA was so vast and impressive on so many levels that it's definitely worth visiting. The downside was so many visitors come from all over the world that often scheduled events like feeding times were stacked up with multiple layers of viewers. The Outer Bay's 54' x 17' x 13" window, though huge, can't even seem to accomodate everyone in a single layer at all times. At other popular exhibits like the Jellies and Seahorses, we had to inch along very slowly while viewers in front admire and photograph. Maybe going in the summer wasn't such a great idea but it was nice to stroll its outdoor area in this weather.

View album

Monterey Bay Trip Day 1 - Santa Cruz

Even though we were going to visit the MBA on the following day, we decided to also visit the Seymour Marine Discovery Center on the first day of our 3-day trip. I'm so glad we came as it was much less crowded than the MBA, had very friendly staff, and dare I say more educational and fun. It's also a bargain with free parking and the admission for all 4 of us was less than one AAA-discounted child MBA admission. In fact, you don't even need to pay for access to the outdoors area (largest displayed Blue Whale skeleton on earth, life-size elephant seal sculptures, native coastal plants, and a spectacular view on the bluff). The MBA of course is grand and awesome in its own way too but it's another post.

The kids spent a lot of time at the touch tanks (they went twice, before and after the tour) and the staff members were so helpful and chatted excitedly with us about new discoveries they made. You can tell they genuinely love their work as afterall, this is a research facility.

I'm also glad we canceled our stop at the Cirque Magnifique show that was scheduled after our brunch at the Farmers' Market and opted to spend more time at Seymour and got to the hotel earlier to swim before it got cold and dark.

View album