Happy Birthday Karina!

Waaaay back in August, Karina had her birthday.

We started the day with her opening presents.

She wanted a clip on fan that she could turn on while in bed.  In pink of course.

Xiao Yu drew her some very nice pictures.

She got a card and red envelope from Elvin's parents.

And then we took off for Mt. Hood about an hour away.  She wanted to spend the day at the park there, where there is, amongst other things, an alpine slide.

She also rode on a pony.

And played in this huge inflatable tube that sits in a pool of water.  The kids love making it rotate so they tumble inside of it, like clothes in a clothes dryer.

She also got to jump around in bungee cords and a trampoline.

And afterwards.....a cup of berry ice cream, which was nice on a hot summer day.

A couple of days later, another of her presents arrived via mail.  It was a little kit where you make little food items made of felt.

The reason why it took so long to get this post up, was because Karina took a long time to decide what sort of party with her friends she wanted to have.  A few months later, it finally happened.  She invited a couple of friends and they went to get a pedicure.

After that, they went to an ice cream and donut place called Angel's Donuts, where she got more presents!

Such as an art kit...

And a miniature scooter for her doll.

So our Karina, amazingly enough, has turned 9 years of age!

Sports!

Our kids have been involved in various sports and activities this fall.  Gabe, who likes all sports in general, decided to forgo soccer and try out basketball.  So we signed him up for a team with other 6 and 7 year olds.

Here he is doing drills with his coach.  It turns out that she is a really good basketball player who played college basketball.

They met once a week to practice and learn the basics, such as passing, dribbling, and shooting.  Coach also tried to teach them special plays, but it went over most of the boys' heads.

The baskets are lowered, so it's easier for the boys to shoot.  Gabe's specialty was to wait by the hoop for a pass and then shoot.

At this age, there is a rule where you're not allowed to steal the opposing team's ball while they are dribbling it.  So this made it easier for them to learn the basics of dribbling.

It took Gabe a game or two to get used to the rhythm of basketball, which is very different from soccer.  But once that happened, he was able to get the ball more and scored 2 or 3 baskets almost every game!

After the last game, one of the boys had a birthday party at Round Table Pizza.  Also, the coach handed out trophies, which all the kids got.  She said a few special words about each boy that came up.  Gabe was very stoic when he went up, but was happy with the trophy especially because it is glow in the dark!

Some friends of ours signed their kids up for a running club, and so we signed up our kids as well.  Every Sunday for several weeks, the all ran a race of differing lengths according to the ages of the kids.  The goal was to get kids active and healthy.

In Karina's age group, she had to run 1/2 a mile.  She was playing soccer at the same time and we think that running made her be in better shape for the soccer games.

Gabe ran a 1/2 mile as well.

Because Eliana was in the older group, she was running a 1 mile race.

These events are timed and as the kids place in the races, they earn points.  At the end of the 6 weeks, they handed out trophies to the kids who had accumulated the most points.  To our total surprise, it turned out that Karina placed third in her age group for the girls!  So she got to stand on the podium.

 And everyone got a medal for participating.  (Xiao Yu ran the 1/4 mile races.)  Here they are standing (sort of) on the podium.

 Afterwards, to celebrate, we went out and got frozen custard from a restaurant.  It was yummy and a well deserved treat for our runners!

Karina played soccer again this fall.  Here is her team.  Most of these girls have played on the same team for several years and they've gotten to know each other well.

 She has gotten better every year and this year is passing well and dribbling well too.

Here she is dribbling and suddenly switching directions.

She is doing pretty well as goalie too, although she doesn't like being goalie because it's a lot of pressure.

She has been scoring too!  She has scored several times this year and in one game, she scored twice!

Karina enjoyed herself a lot!

Happy Halloween!

October was a busy month with soccer games and basketball games.  So it took us up until the last week before Halloween to go out and let the kids pick out pumpkins to carve.  We went to a local farm and everyone picked one out (except Xiao Yu, who had already picked one previously from a school field trip to another farm.)

And then it was time to carve.  We've reached the age where the older kids are able to mostly carve by themselves.  

And they are responsible for taking out the guts by themselves.  The pumpkin that Gabe picked out was a sideways one, which made for interesting carving.

Eventually things got too messy for him, so the shirt came off!

And here is the result, with the kids' costumes.  Gabe dressed up as Iron Man, Karina wore her dress from China, Xiao Yu was a puppy from Paw Patrol, and Eliana dressed up as a businessman.

The kids went trick-or-treating around our house with some friends.  It's amazing how much candy is collected in just 2 hours!  The parents were happy that the rain held off!

And here they are checking out their loot, and trading candy with their friends.

And then another round of trading occurred after they got home.  Since Karina doesn't like chocolate, she traded most of those away in exchange for things like Starbursts and Skittles.  We hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Back to School!

As fall came around again, our kids headed back to school.  Even though Eliana is homeschooled, she also participates in a program with our local school district where she attends school one day a week. They do a lot of project-based learning and other activities.

She seems to like it ok.

Karina also participates in the same program, but on a different day of the week.  She is our sleepy head, so getting up at 7am to get ready for a 7:25am bus pick up is hard for her!

And on the first day, the bus is late.  She is not happy about having to wake up so early only to sit around and wait!

And finally it arrives.

Xiao Yu is in full time kindergarten at our local public school.  He is a social butterfly so enjoys the interaction with the other kids.

His classroom has a pet cockatiel (bird) as well as an aquarium.  He seems to be enjoying his school and is learning a lot!  He has learned almost all the sounds for the letters of the alphabet and is starting to sound out and read some words!

Trip to CA!

In September, we packed our bags and headed off to the airport.  At least once a year, we go to CA to visit Elvin's parents and brother's family.  While the other kids needed a little assistance in planning what to take, Eliana packed all her bags by herself and her carry-on.

iPads made the two hour long flight seem like nothing.

And before we knew it, we touched down in San Jose!

That night, we ate at a Chinese restaurant.  The kids ate lots of xiao long baos.

Close to the restaurant was one of those ice cream shops that make ice cream on the spot using liquid nitrogen to cool down the cream.  The kids were enamored by the fog that was generated.

Especially Gabey...

Karina picked a flavor with confetti.  Gabe's ice cream has (blue) "unicorn dust" sprinkled on it.

The next day, we drove up to San Francisco to visit Chinatown.  The kids are interested in visiting places that remind them of China.

They enjoyed browsing around in the stores.

This shop had tons of kitchen gadgets and accoutrements.  

We grabbed some dim sum from a little restaurant (and we also needed to use their restroom.)

And we happened to run into a lion dance performance.  It was really LOUD!

This lion dance was done to "bless" the opening of a new business.

Xiao Yu likes to try on hats and costumes.  Here he is being a Warriors fan.

Here he is being a traditional Chinese farmer.

Here he is with the restaurant's cloth napkin being a....we're not sure.

Meanwhile Karina and her cousin spent their time drawing.

We wanted the kids to see the Golden Gate bridge and so drove to this spot.  As you can see, we couldn't have asked for nicer weather.  We didn't mean for the kids to get into the water and certainly didn't bring extra clothes for them.  Oh well.  They had tons of fun playing in the water and were asking to go back...not necessarily to see the Bridge, but mainly to play in the ocean!

Gabe was quite proud of finding some seaweed.

There they are posing.

 And here is our family together.

The next day, we hung out closer to home.  We went bowling, which was pretty fun.

Although before leaving the house for bowling, the kids just threw this ball back and forth and would probably have been content to do that for hours.  They're really good at entertaining themselves.

We visited this restaurant which served interesting Taiwanese desserts.  We ordered a tower of shave ice with strawberries for the kids.

They demolished it in no time.

For lunch, we ate at a French/Asian bakery.  The kids picked our croissants and other interesting things.

Gabe was pretty happy.

The kids also had Guarana, which is a soft drink from Brazil that they love but don't get to have very often.

The kids also had lots of fun in the pool at Elvin's parents' house.  Karina enjoyed scooping the leaves out.

It's amazing how they can entertain themselves with just a couple of toys.

They played forever swimming around.

And Eliana spent a lot of time jumping into the pool.

And also diving into the pool.  She pretended that she was in the Olympics and asked us to rate her dive.  The score would go down if there was a big splash or if her feet weren't together.

On the last day, we took the opportunity to have the kids take pictures together.

They (mostly) cooperated.

And there is the entire family.

And a silly picture.

And then it was time to go home.

We got lunch at the airport and Gabe decided to set his cup of chicken soup on the ground and slurp it up from there.  Not very ergonomically sound but oh well.

For dessert, Elvin let the kids all get Menchies frozen yogurt.  We put lids on the cups and ran back to the gate as the plane was starting to board.

And when we finally got home, no one was happier than Gabey who missed his bed very much!