Earlier in the summer, the cousins from Denver came to visit us in Vancouver. They spent a couple of weeks here and attended summer camp with out kids.
One activity that they enjoyed when they weren't at camp was berry picking.
It was great weather and the blueberries were very sweet.
Lots of berries got eaten before they made it into the bucket.
And there were some huge ones!
After picking about 15 pounds of berries, we took at break in the shade.
We had a good 4th of July and celebrated by going to a friend's house for a BBQ. Every year, they host a huge get-together and it's been their tradition doing this for over ten years. Now over 60 people attend.
The kids stuck their heads into the thing they have set up.
There were games and one of them was a water balloon toss. Gabe and Eliana did pretty well.
In the evening, we headed over to Uncle Hugh's house for fireworks. The kids got to do sparklers.
Always a fun activity.
Under the supervision of big Cousin Daniel, Xiao also enjoyed watching some mini-fireworks get lit.
And we all watched the big fireworks go off that were set up by the neighbors. Hope you had a good 4th!
Our Gabey is now 10 years old! He didn't want a birthday party with friends, so we celebrated pandemic-style.
Here he is opening a bunch of presents. He got a "moon ball" which is a tennis ball sized ball made out of some material similar to styrofoam except that it retains kinetic energy really well. When you bounce it on the ground, it bounces super high up in the air...hence the name.
He also got a weird shape-shifting thing that he played with a lot.
He got a card and red envelope from Elvin's parents.
By far, the thing that excited him the most was a huge pack of Tic Tacs from Eliana. It was a variety pack with lots of flavors.
A big hug for big sister!
He also wanted and got a ton of Squishmallows. They are stuffed animals but made of some foam-type material that is really squishy. He sleeps with them every night and there are so many his bed gets really crowded.
His new friends...
Instead of a birthday cake, he wanted to celebrate with a cornucopia of donuts.
Happy birthday Gabe! Make a wish!
This past year, he really enjoyed playing soccer and that became his "thing". He has been playing on the same team of boys for three seasons now.
Here is a little snippet of him making a run for the goal.
And when not kicking the ball around the house (much to his mom's consternation) he is often climbing furniture around the house (much to his mom's consternation.) To help him burn off a little bit of this excess energy, Emily signed him up for ninja camp, which basically means he gets to run around, jump on things, and climb things to his heart's delight. Here he is on the last day, where the kids do the obstacle course in front of the parents.
Here he is again, doing more acrobatic type stuff. This time, he strung a rope across the swing set and is going across.
When not in motion, he can be found reading. Even if perched in what looks to be a very uncomfortable position.
He also does other ridiculous stuff. He wanted Elvin to slice him a circle slice of watermelon.
Which got a little messy to eat.
And then got real messy when it became his headband.
And he is continuing his interest in cooking. He decided to make tomato soup off of a recipe book he read. First, the onions were diced.
Then they were sauted, along with minced garlic and black pepper.
Then the tomatoes go in.
He added a little bit of chicken broth and blended it all.
In early June, we got a visit from Ye ye and Nai nai. It was a special time because this was the first time that we have been able to see them in person since a family reunion during Christmas of 2019.
When they arrived, they had a bunch of gifts and trinkets for the kids.
One thing that we did together was to watch the animated Little Mermaid movie. This was because the girls tried out and made it into a Little Mermaid production with our local youth community theater group.
We also made dumplings together. Karina helped to mix together the ground meat mixture.
And then everyone helped out with wrapping the dumplings.
This was Ye Ye and Nai Nai's first time meeting Lucky. He can sometimes be wary of new people and took a while to get used to them.
Eventually he warmed up a little bit.
We also went to watch Gabe's soccer game. It was, unfortunately, pouring rain and really cold. He still enjoyed playing though.
And he also played checkers with Ye ye.
Here is a group picture together. We made a point of taking the picture standing up, because all the kids are growing and we wanted to see how tall they were. As you can see, at some point during the pandemic, Eliana surpassed in height compared to Nai nai!
