Happy Birthday Karina!

In early August, it was Karina's birthday!  She is our last summer birthday and loves presents.

She asked for and got a desk organizer for the pens, paper tablets and trinkets that she keeps on her desk.

She also got a new pair of headphones--in pink of course.  She plugs them into an old iPhone and listens to books on tape.  She has the stamina to listen for hours and hours if we let her.

And she asked for and got a new dog bed for Lucky.  Even though it's for Lucky, the bed is also pink!  It came super compressed in a plastic bag and her and Gabriel had fun unwrapping it.

Lucky seems to realize that it's his bed.  Even though it's quite ginormous compared to him!

But Lucky will have competition for this bed!

And also for Lucky, Karina asked for some dog scarves.  Lucky tolerated it fairly well when she tried it on him.

And in keeping with the dog theme, she got a new fleece blanket covered with little dogs.

Now she can create a little nest for herself on the couch, while she listens to a book on tape and stares off into space.

Karina also got a card from Elvin's parents.

And also, our wonderful neighbors dropped off a gift bag for Karina, filled with treats, coloring pens, and other things.

As far as singing Happy Birthday, Karina does not like cake.  So instead she opted to go to Cold Stone and get three different types of ice cream.  The flavors she chose were vanilla with raspberry, lemon sorbet, and cotton candy with gummy bear mix-ins--which is a very blue-looking ice cream but the kids love it.  

The candles went on top of the ice cream!

And, one last "present" that Karina got was that we let Lucky go upstairs and into the girls' room.  So far, he's been confined to only the first floor of the house while the kids have been begging us to let him come upstairs.  We finally relented and now he can go into the girls' room.  Also, he is not a good sleeper at night and so our thinking is that this may help him stay calm at night better.

So our Karina is now 11 years old and looking forward to another exciting year!

Trip to Sunriver

In early August, we made our trek down to Sunriver, OR, as we usually do every summer (except for last summer.)  It's a three to four hour car ride and we meet up with Emily's family down there.

During the ride, Karina was showing off her bubble gum blowing skills.

We rented a house down there for a few days and it's in a resort with a pool, tennis courts, and lots of other fun activities.

One of the things you can do is check-out the stand up paddle boards.  The girls enjoyed doing this.

At the lake, you can also use their kayaks which Xiao Yu did with Aunt Gretchen.

After the temperatures warmed up a bit, the kids then went to the pool.  It was in the 80's but overcast...pretty good weather!

The kids bounced between the pool and the hot tub.

And on the lake, you can also go fishing, which the kids enjoyed doing.

The resort also has a golf course, and our rental backs up to it.  The kids really enjoyed exploring the area and hunting for golf balls that golfers have left behind.  They wander around and look especially closely in the areas with tall grasses and brush.

By the end of the trip, they amassed quite a few balls.

Gretchen took Xiao Yu on walks every day around the resort, which he enjoyed very much.

One day, we went white water rafting in the Deschutes River.  It only has class 1 and 2 rapids, but the kids really enjoy it.  This time was Gabe and Xiao Yu's first time coming with us.

While we were waiting to get ferried to the river, the kids played with a ginormous checkers set.

And corn hole...

On the bus ride there, the kids made silly faces.

These two boys were inseparable.  They fed off of each other's energy and definitely the sum was more than the parts.

Here are some normal faces.

Here is a picture that the company took of our boat.  It was fun and the kids got water splashed on to their faces.

While out there, Elvin took the opportunity to go fly fishing at a river called the Fall River.

It has really clear water and you can actually see the fish resting at the bottom of this section of the river.  However, after several hours of trying, no fish were interested in biting what was on offer.

There was also downtime when the kids just hung out or watched the Olympics.

After a couple days of going into the pool, but not washing his hair, Gabe's hair took on a different texture.  It became very malleable and was able to defy gravity too.  It took several washing afterwards, plus conditioner, to get his hair back to a semblance of normal.

The kids enjoyed going to the game room for a round of pool.

And one day we decided to check out tennis rackets.  Except for Gabe, this was their first time playing.

There were no long rallies, but they had fun swinging at the ball.

And there is a section of the Deschutes River which is very slow and meandering and known to be good for inner tubing.  We rented several inner tubes and floated down the river for 1.5 hours.

We also rented a huge stand-up paddle board, at the suggestion of the worker, because we had several kids with us.  It turned out to be the best thing because it was so large--about 8 feet long and 5 feet wide--that it was like a platform that the kids could jump into the river from.  Which they did the whole time.  Much to our surprise, they declared afterwards that this was unequivocally their favorite part of the entire trip.  Go figure.

And we went to the local shops to window shop and browse.  Karina ended up buying a stuffed animal in the shape of an elephant made out of alpaca fur.  This is similar to the stuffed animals that Gabe and Eliana had bought months earlier.

And speaking of alpacas...on the way home, we stopped at the alpaca farm that we've visited before.

We bought the little bag of pellets that you can use to feed the animals.

The kids tried giving preference to the little ones as opposed to the adults.

Eliana fed them, but was always wary and on guard against any that are showing any signs of sneezing on her.  If you recall, the last time we visited this farm, a full-grown alpaca sneezed onto the front of her jacket and left a blast of green slime on it about the size of a dinner plate.

And that was our trip!  Until next time, Sunriver!

Backpacking trip!

In mid-July, Elvin took the kids on a backpacking trip to an area called Goat Rocks.  It's about a 3 hour drive into a national forest and supposedly inhabited by mountain goats along its mountain peaks.

We went with a some of the kids' friends and another dad.

It was a longer hike than the kids were used to and at a higher elevation too.

The scenery was very pretty and we had to cross little creeks every so often.

We wore headsets because there were lots of mosquitos and they were hungry!

In the prior weeks, Elvin encouraged the kids to exercise in order to get in shape.  Eliana listened to him but the others not so much.

We had left later in the day than we had planned and so also were trying to get to the campsite, about five miles in, before sundown!

We did arrive in time.  And the sunset was very serene and beautiful.

It was a rather cool night, in the 40's but the sleeping bags did their job.  Gabe slept in a tent with Karina and Elvin slept in another tent with Eliana.  It used to be that all four used to share a 3-person tent, but that doesn't anymore because everyone is bigger now!

It was a beautiful morning!

We set out to climb further up into the mountain, this time without the packs, thankfully!

We wanted to get to the peaks above the timberline, to see if we could spot some goats.

We reached Goat Lake and did see some goats, where were tiny white spots far off in the distance that moved every once in a while.  We were so high up that the lake and its surrounding area was still covered in snow and ice.

The boys enjoyed throwing rocks into the lake.

We had lunch up at the lake.  Everything tastes better on the mountain!

Back at camp, Gabe also liked exploring the little creek nearby which was also our source of drinking water.

Dinner is served!  The one bad thing about this site was that there was no good place to sit!

For breakfast the next day, it was eggs, bacon, cheese and english muffins!

And we were ready to head out!  The kids declared that the hike down happened much more quickly than the high up.

Here is a little video that Elvin made of the trip.

On the drive back, everyone was hungry.  We stopped at a diner that had humungous portions, which was good because everyone had humongous appetites to match!