Snow Day!

Two Fridays ago, there was a freak snow storm in our part of the country.  The weathermen did not predict it, but we woke up to an inch of snow on the ground.  Karina ended up not going to preschool that day, so the girls suited up and went outside to play.

 They absolutely love the snow and spent hours outside...

Of course, you have to make a snow angel.  That's a bit hard, however, when the snow is not deep enough.

The girls also tried making a snowman.  But the temperature was well below freezing and the snow was really dry.  You really couldn't make a snowball, let alone a snowman.

Eliana also was interested in tasting the snow.  She always put things into her mouth as a baby and I guess that trait carries on into childhood.

Where is Gabriel in all of this, you might ask.  Well, he really didn't like being outside in the snow--AT ALL.  When Emily set him down, he would start crying.

After the girls were all done playing, they got a special treat--hot chocolate!

Here is our house semi-covered with snow...

The next day, on Saturday, what was the first thing that the girls wanted to do after they got up?  You guessed it.  After scarfing down breakfast, it was time to suit up again!  The snow gear went right over their PJs.

 This time we played out in the front of the house.  It was very cold so all the snow was still there.

 We had bought a sled from Costco a while back.  After tying a jump rope to it, we were ready!  There are no hills in our area, do Daddy had to do the pulling.  And Eliana started singing, "Dashing through the snow…in a one-horse open sleigh…"

Eliana wanted a turn pulling…and thought it was fun for a couple of minutes.

 Then Karina tried, but couldn't get the thing to move very much.

Elvin pulled and pulled.  He finally forced the girls to come in so that he could take a breather.  Here is what happens to Karina's hair after pulling off her cap.

 That evening, the girls wanted to go out sledding again, so they did and the next day on Sunday as well.

They tried again to make a snow man but the snow was still quite dry.  We did put some in a tupperware and tucked it away in our freezer.

By Monday, most of the snow was half-melted away.  But we certainly made the most of the snow that we had.  We went sledding a total of 4 times during those two and a half-days and the girls played in the snow for hours.

Can't wait for Christmas...

The girls' first presents have arrived in the mail--they came from their Aunt Sue.  We put them under the tree last night. We were wondering how long it would take for them to notice it this morning…

It took Eliana about half an hour!  Both girls of course got very very excited and want to open it now.  The anticipation is killing them!

Zoo Lights!

After Thanksgiving Day, we decided to go to Zoo Lights on the following Friday.  Here in Portland, the local zoo puts up miles and miles of light strings.  We decided to arrive early-ish while there was still daylight so that we could see some animals while we were there.  (Last time we went, two years ago, we arrived at night and when going home after seeing the lights, Eliana asked, "When are we going to see the animals?")

We ended up going with Emily's brother and the girls' cousins.  Gabriel is not too fond of being held by anyone except for Mommy or Daddy right now, and only tolerated Uncle Charles for a few seconds.

The zoo has a train that normally takes you through the zoo to see the lights.  This year it was out of commission because they were re-routing some tracks.  So the area around the train was open and we got to see it up close.

To give you a sense of how many lights are put up, here is a mural that cover the wall of an entire three-story building.

We swung by the elephant exhibit and saw momma elephant taking care of the baby elephant.

Karina loooooves watching the elephants and will stand there for hours if we let her.  Gabriel was intrigued too and was mesmerized by these big animals.  He was reaching out to the elephants, wanting to pet them, I guess.

We brought our double stroller thinking that Karina and Gabriel would ride in it.  Instead, it was Karina and Eliana getting a ride from Uncle Charles.

The zoo had this cool walkway/corridor/tunnel full of colored lights.  It was pretty impressive.

Gabriel was really interested in these glowing things that we call light bulbs.  He's never touched one before, or seen one up close.

There was a small gift shop and the girls were naturally attracted to the useless junky toys there.  They both liked the flamingo pincher things, where you squeeze one end and the beak on the other end of the stick opens and closes.  But no way we were going to buy those things for $4.99.

Gabriel continued his fascination in the light bulbs.  He kept pulling at them.  Which made us wonder how he was going to react to a Christmas tree in the house when we got around to setting one up…was he going to pull on the lights so hard that he would pull the tree over?

Afterwards, we moseyed on to Uncle Charles' house for a yummy dinner of take-out Thai food.  Karina enjoyed the pad thai and Eliana the stir-fried beef.  Then the kids put on jammies and we snapped a picture before heading home…

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!  It snuck up on us this year, as I'm sure many of you can relate to.  The girls were excited because they know that during Thanksgiving dinner, they would get to hang out with their cousins.

In the morning, Elvin asked them what they were thankful for...

By the afternoon, after Gabriel woke up from his daily nap, we headed off to Emily's mom's house to prep some food.  We were bringing the green beans but needed to sauté them first.  Gabriel, of course, wanted to watch.

At Hugh and Ruth's (Emily's brother and sister-in-law) house, everyone was gathering and the hosts were putting finishing touches on the feast.  Tim, our nephew cooked the turkey by butterflying it first.  It only took two hours to cook, he said, and it was delicious!

Karina was a little tired and so was pretty clingy in the beginning, especially in a new environment with so many people.  She stuck around mom.

Gabriel stayed in Daddy's arms too, observing everything.  While watching others cook and prepare food, he wanted a pair of tongs of his own, so Elvin found a pair laying around, washed them, and they were his for the rest of the night.

Here is Eliana getting a plate of food--turkey and mashed potatoes.  She really likes turkey…too bad that we only have it once a year.

After a while, Gabriel get comfortable enough to wander around on his own...

After dinner was over, the kids ate dessert.  Most of our kids don't like pie, so they stuck to ice cream.

It was a late night for our kids, so they put on jammies before we headed home.

Hope you had a fun and safe Thanksgiving!

Let it snow!

We recently encountered snow here, but not the cold stuff that falls from the sky.  This is the sweet stuff that comes out of a C&H bag.  Gabriel somehow got ahold of the bag of powdered sugar in the pantry and dumped it all out into his pan.  He is constantly foraging in our pantry for more ingredients to "cook" with.

The result?  The very happy kids who got to dip their fingers (or hands) into some sugar for them to lick off!

 We also had our nieces for the day and they didn't mind this either.

Here's a video of the kids taking advantage of Gabriel's foraging skills.

And here is Gabey very proud of his handiwork.

Trip to California

Last week, we flew to California to visit Elvin's parents and brother's family.  After quickly packing, we were off to the airport on Friday.  Even more than the airplane, the girls really enjoyed the shuttle ride from the park-n-ride to the airport.  They really liked it.

On the plane, we brought a bunch of activities for them to do and treats for them to help with the air pressure in their ears.  The girls did fine, of course.

Thank goodness, the plane was only half full, so Elvin and Gabriel had a whole row to themselves.  This was very convenient as it was hard to contain our little bundle of energy.  He was everywhere and into everything.  He also spilled a bunch of water onto a seat--luckily the water spilled onto the seat and not someone's lap.  Overall, Gabriel did great for his first flight ever!

 When we got to Elvin's parent's house, the kids really enjoyed the toys that were set out for them.

 Eliana, our little book worm, didn't play as much with the toys but stuck to reading books.

The next morning, we hung out and had an early dim sum lunch.  The girls didn't eat a huge variety of things but Karina did wolf down 4 steamed dumplings call shao-long-bao.  Gabriel didn't come along because this was during this nap time.

Then we headed off to a park and petting zoo called Happy Hollow.  Karina was tired and fell asleep on the way there.  Eliana entered the park with Elvin's parents while Elvin stayed in the van to let Karina sleep.

After waking up, Karina really enjoyed riding the merry go round.  She picked the zebra to ride on because it had (fake) colored jewels on its side.

 Then we visited the goats.  Karina wanted to feed them but was afraid that they would bite her fingers.

 After that, the girls wanted to get on the rides.  They specifically requested the "lady bug" ride by name.

 Then they went onto this ride with the police cars and fire cars.

 And then we were off to a huge play structure.  Karina did really well climbing on the cargo net.

 Eliana had fun riding on a race track on a bicycle-like contraption.

And then we made our way back to the merry-go-round.  Eliana wanted to ride on the dolphin but that was taken already.  So she had to settle for the manatee.  Not as sleek, but it did have pretty jewels on its harness.

 We thought Gabriel would enjoy riding on the merry-go-round too, but he didn't like it one bit.  He wriggled and whined until we got him off.

And we went back to the petting section.  We got more food to feed them; looks like one of the goats was hungry!  Eliana later said that the goats were her favorite part of the trip.

That evening, we went to Elvin's brother's house for dinner.  It was also a birthday celebration for Elliot, our nephew, who was turning three!  They had a basketball hoop, which Gabriel thought was really fun.

 Elliot is quite an expert shot with the basketball.  Karina had fun, too.

 Here are the kids singing happy birthday…  Eliana could hardly wait to sink her teeth into the cake.

 Gabriel really enjoyed riding in this little car, especially when Yeh-yeh was willing to push him.

The next day, on Sunday, the kids spent the morning at the park.  This park had a swing set with long chains, which means that the girls got to go very high and very fast!  Karina especially, loves the swing and spent about 20 minutes on it.

 Eliana had fun playing chase with Aunt Sue.

In the afternoon, we hung out at Elvin's parents home and the girls had fun dipping their feet into the icy cold pool.  Poor Gabriel had to look on from behind the fencing that separates the pool from the rest of the yard.

Karina also enjoyed dipping her feet into the frigid water.

After losing interest in the pool, Gabriel walked around to see if there was anything else to do.  And at last, he found a new toy!  There was one of those signs that the company that installs home alarm systems staked into the ground.  He pulled it right up and enjoyed playing with it.  He mostly pretended it was a vacuum cleaner and vacuumed the backyard with it.

The girls found a little lemon tree in the backyard…

...and helped themselves to a lemon.

They had fun decorating the lemons with a Sharpie pen.

That afternoon, we decided to go out for Shave Ice since this is something you generally don't find in Vancouver.

We got a huge mountain of lychee shave ice.  It had condensed milk on top and mochi on the side.  Much to our surprise and dismay, he girls didn't really like it, for some reason.  Gabriel had fun playing with it, but didn't eat it much either.  Elvin ended up eating most of it and was very cold by the end.

That evening, we had take out from a Chinese restaurant.  Here is Gabriel filling his mouth with fried rice.

After dinner, the kids played some more.  Eliana played ball with Elliott for a long time.  After a while she pulled the stool over to sit on because she said her legs were tired from standing.

The two boys played together a little.  Although most of the time, Gabriel coveted Elliott's toys and tried snatching them.

Elvin's brother brought over a mini-slide for the kids to play with.  They loved it and it appealed to all of our kids, not matter what age.

The next day, on Monday, Elliott and Aunt Sue came over again in the morning.  After playing around a little, Eliana put on a recital to show Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai the pieces that she had learned from taking piano lessons.  She played about four songs and it took about 4 minutes.

After lunch, Gabriel took a nap and we headed off to Yogurtland, which the girls loved.  But we called it "Ice cream land" because the girls don't like yogurt and wouldn't eat it if they found out that it was actually frozen yogurt.  Karina picked out the pink (strawberry) flavor plus vanilla.  Eliana chose chocolate.

The toppings were great--lots to choose from.

As you can see, the girls got gummy bears, sour worms, sprinkles, and chocolate chips amongst other things.

That afternoon, we headed off to the airport.  The girls gave lots of big goodbye hugs.

And again, we lucked out--the plane was less than 2/3 full.  So we had two whole rows for our family again.  With lots of snacks, activities, and candy later, we landed back home!