Happy July 4th!

We would like to share about our July 4th festivities this past summer...

Emily's sister and brother-in-law came to visit from Colorado, which was exciting because then they could meet Xiao Yu for the first time and also, we met our newest niece for the first time too.

They stayed at our house and the kids got to play together.  Cousin Jace is very close in age to Gabey.  Here is a rare shot of all three boys playing together (well).  It was summer so the two boys were in their outfit of choice--being naked.

The weather was pretty hot although not too bad in the mornings.  Here is Karina showing off some of her skills on the hanging bar to Uncle Darin.

Karina was also very interested in her new cousin Julia.  Karina is in a very chatty phase of life and was making all sorts of observations to Aunt Jenny.

We went to Emily's mom's house for a dinner and get-together.  We had baked salmon as well as other tasty things.

The kids got to sit at their own kid table and enjoyed drinking fizzy fruit juice drinks.

The kids play around more...

As you might know, they allow people to buy fireworks here.  We bought a small amount to set up, although many people here, including our neighbors, spend thousands of dollars on huge fireworks that make humungous explosions.

We set a few off in front of the house.  This was Xiao Yu's first time, of course and he liked the loud noises.

Karina didn't appreciate them as much.

Here is cousin Lena setting them off.

In the evening, after we returned home, we let the girls go out to watch the show set off by our neighbors.  They were setting them off about 3 houses down the street.  Ear protectors were in order! Karina actually found it to be too much and after five minutes went inside to watch Strawberry Shortcake -- clever use of her getting to stay up late!

See...they are huge!  Some of the explosions are so large that it makes the windows of our house shake.  We wonder how many accidents are caused by these...

It was a long day and late night for everyone.  The next day, Xiao Yu was so tired that...

My Trip to the Zoo by Eliana

This is where we [Eliana] went on our first field trip in 2nd grade today.  We went to the Oregon Zoo.

That's the home of the sea otters.  You can't really see them, but they were really cute.

That picture is of the leopard.  I couldn't really get a good picture of it because it was behind those leaves.  But you can see its spots.

That's a picture of the monkeys.  I couldn't really take a good picture of it because they were behind those bars.  But you can see the white and black of their fur.

This is another monkey I found.  It was staring straight at us and so it was a good time to take a picture.  You can really see it.

This is a picture of a chameleon I found.  It is really cool because it changes colors.  And I saw its eyes and it has really cool swirls of green and red.

These are the flamingos that I saw.  They were really cute and so I took a picture of them.  My sister wanted me to take a picture of them too.  She is in pre-school and so she didn't come on the field trip.

Those are some ducks I found.  They are really cute and I really wanted to take a picture of them.  So I did.

This is a lungfish.  Seemed kind of weird to me that this fish was out of water and it was fine.

This is a porcupine.  It's really spiky and you can see the spikes.  It looks sort of like a really hairy cow, maybe.

This is a giraffe.  I think you already know this but I want to put it in.  It was reaching really far up over the ledge if it wanted to.

These are mole rats.  I can't tell if they are babies or grown.  But they are really cute.  I found some other ones that were eating broccoli, corn, and carrot.  We had broccoli for dinner tonight.

[Elvin's commentary: Mole rats are some of my favorite animals because they are one of the few animals other than insects that live underground in a colony.  And these are not babies, they are fully grown and are about the size of a hamster.]

This is a gazelle.  It was in the giraffe exhibit but I couldn't take a picture of it then because I needed to get to a different point to see it.  This is the last picture that I took because then I ran out of batteries.  Too bad!

Family Photo Shoot

A couple of months ago, we hired a professional photographer to snap a few photos of our family.  We wanted to do this so that we could have a family photo that included Xiao Yu in the pictures.

We know this person from church and having a two little girls herself, she is good with the kids and patient.

We had two shots that for sure we wanted to get...a shot of the kids and one of our whole family.  Everything else was bonus.

The photographer tried the method where all the kids would hold hands and walk/run towards the camera.  The kids had fun but no 100% normal shots came out of this.  We're not sure why the girls have their tongues out.

Putting them on a bench seemed to help them settle down a little bit.  But they were still easily distracted, as you can see.

But she FINALLY got a good one.  Yes!!!!

She also got other ones which were cute.  Here are the two "middle" kids together.  No matter how much we tried, we could not comb Gabriel's hair and have it stay looking like it was combed.

Here is another one of Gabey.  You'll notice the sticks laying on the table next to him.  He is really into sticks now and he is constantly in trouble for stabbing and hitting his siblings with them.

And here he is being tickled.

 Xiao Yu did not have the "uncombed hair" issue.  We had just given him a hair cut.

We were at a park and one thing that intrigued the kids was the water fountain.  It seems like all kids like water fountains and ours are no exception.

 We got a good shot as a couple.  You'll notice that in Elvin's pants pocket, a wooden stick is sticking out.  This was confiscated from Gabey moments before; you can probably guess why.

Here we are trying for the family shot.  Xiao Yu is crouched down probably because this is the very first time he's ridden on Elvin's shoulders and probably this is the first time ever in his life.  Elvin doesn't really ever put the kids on his shoulders and he is probably feeling very high up right now.

In this shot, all the kids are looking at the camera--what a miracle!  However, the composition, we feel like, is a little funky.

Finally, we got the shot we wanted.  Everyone is smiling (including Gabey--which is currently our most not willing to cooperate child) and at least in the picture, pretending to get along!

Back to school!

Summer has zoomed by and the yellow school buses are starting to make the rounds in our neighborhood.

Last week was the first week of school for Karina and Gabriel, who are attending the co-op preschool that Eliana attended, and that Karina attended last year.  Karina loves school and was very excited.  You can see in the picture below that during breakfast, she was wearing her backpack while sitting on the chair.  Gabriel also said that he wanted to go to pre-school, but we weren't 100% sure how he would do.  He had it in his head that he would be in the same classroom with Karina and we kept explaining to him that he'd be in the classroom next door.

Xiao Yu unfortunately was NOT going to attend pre-school but as with everything that the other kids are doing, he wanted to be part of the action.  

We arrived at the pre-school.  Elvin came along to drop Gabriel off.  Even though he is our third child, it still seemed like a big milestone since he was the baby of the family (up until recently.)

Walking into the school, which rents out space from a church.

The obligatory picture in front of the pre-school's sign.  As one could have easily predicted, Karina cooperates with the picture taking by flashing a nice smile while Gabriel does his usual averting his eyes thing.

The kids have to hang their backpacks on coat hooks and each kid has a specific number.  Being a Yuen, Gabriel is of course at the end of the alphabet and the last hook.  He was a little disappointed because he wanted to be number 3, not number twelve.  Karina, ever the logical and helpful one, pointed out to Gabriel that 1 plus 2 equals 3!  It was kid logic, but it seemed to have made sense to Gabey and he was happy again.

Then we drop off Karina in her class.  She has Mrs. Walker again, who is a great teacher.  Karina has pre-school three days a week this year, while Gabriel's is two days a week.

Xiao Yu found Pixie the guinea pig.  He has no fear and lets his finger be licked by the guinea pig.

Then it was Gabriel's turn to check in.  He turned in his folder and got a sticker.

We (especially Elvin) were wondering if he was going to be apprehensive or not.  Our fears were unfounded as Gabriel found the play-doh that was out and sat down to play.  He did great!

The following Friday, Elvin was a "helping parent," which means that he gets to help out with tasks in the classroom and also gets to play with the kids some.  Here is Gabriel listening to Mrs. Nuce read a book.  She is a very gentle soul and so nice with the kids.  Karina also had her as a teacher.

Gabriel also got to play with the trains.

When your parent is a "helping parent", you get to turn the lights off, then back on to signal that it's time to clean up.  All the kids think this is pretty great.

After cleaning up, it was story time.

And then, as the "special kid" again, another perk is that you get to bring a toy to do show-and-tell.  Gabey brought a toy laptop computer, which he thinks is his (even though it was a gift to Eliana when she was little.)  However, Gabey doesn't feel 100% comfortable in class yet, so when Mrs. Nuce asked him what he brought, and what it does, he wouldn't talk.  He just nodded "yes" and shook his head "no".  We think that in a few weeks, as he gets more used to school, he will start talking freely.

Gabey does love recess time thought, especially with all the shovels and buckets they have.

And here is Gabriel's first artwork from school.  With his two favorite colors--green and orange.

And, Eliana also started her school as well.  In addition to her home school, she attends Flex Academy one day per week.  It's a program through the local school district specifically for home schooled kids.  They get to do art projects, write poetry, and other fun things such as raise pet snails (no kidding!)  She attended last year as well and she absolutely loves it.  It is an all-day class so here she is packing her lunch.

And she also had to pack her pencil box.

And so here she is...off to school again!