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!

Backpacking Trip

In mid-August, Elvin took some of the kids on a backpacking trip.  It consisted of a hike along a creek in the Gifford Pinchot Forest.  The weather was great and the scenery was beautiful.

Elvin went with three other dads from our church and between all the families, had nine kids in tow!

We stopped at various times along the way to wade in the water, which the kids love doing.

Gabe found a tree that has a plant growing out of it, with long thick roots enveloping the tree.  Of course, he tried to climb it.

After we set up camp about a mile and a half in, we ditched our packs and explored some more.

The water was very clear and we found a deep pool to fish out of.

Elvin caught a couple of tiny little trout in them.

Meanwhile, Gabe went off wading in the knee high water.

Soon it was dinner time.  Dehydrated mashed potatoes were on the menu.

Being on the mountain makes everything taste better.  Karina is our kid that mosquitos love to bite.  So she kept on a mosquito net but lifted it up to take bites of the mashed potato.  The kids also had beef jerky and cup-o-noodles.

For dessert, we built a fire (which kept the mosquitos away) and had s'mores.

The kids had lots of fun.  They collected a ton of ferns and moss and built a huge pile of them.

We spent only one night out there and then hiked back out the next day.  Everyone had lots of fun!

Happy Birthday Eliana!

Eliana's birthday was in July and now she's eleven years old!  She wanted an ice cream cake for her cake and here it is!

Blow!

She got several presents.  One was a little stuffed animal that Karina bought for her.  The kids have their own money that they get from allowances or that they save from Christmases or other birthdays.  And now they buy presents for each other.  (It is heartwarming and a relief as parents to see them being kind and generous to each other.)

Eliana also asked for and got a (knock-off) Fitbit.  She likes being able to tell the time and also see how many steps she has taken at the end of the day.

Another gift she wanted was a knife to whittle wood with.  So we got her a knife from Opinel and also several lectures about knife safety.  And she then spent several hours on the porch whittling sticks.

And the last thing she wanted was a new nightstand which she picked out.  And she also enjoyed putting it together herself.  The only part she needed help on was screwing some screws super tightly.  Otherwise, she did it all by herself.

Instead of having a birthday party, she opted to have a smaller shindig with just a couple of friends.  She wanted to go to a fancy restaurant and picked one called Hammond, which serves really good waffles and pizza as well.  And that's what they had!

She also went to a salon to get a pedicure done.  What a treat!

And then the girls went to Cold Stones to eat dessert and open presents. 

We hope you had a good birthday, Eliana!