Spring happenings...

As the weather warmed up, we figured out new ways to entertain ourselves.  In keeping with the pandemic houseplant boom, Karina decided that she wanted a houseplant so she researched and researched and researched online for which type she was interested in.  

She decided on a philodendron; there are various types and she said she wanted one that had variegated leaves, which make them multicolored and they look like they've been painted by hand.  This type is called the "Brazil" type and Elvin had to visit multiple nurseries to find it. 

First she used a wet paper towel to clean all the dust off of the leaves.

And now her plant lives on a stand near her bed.  It gets lots of attention, including spritzes from a spray bottle, and is doing well.

She has also done quite a bit of baking.  Elvin wanted to have some gluten free snacks on hand and so asked her to make gluten free pop tarts, which are made with almond flour and cassava flour.

So she first made the dough (using plenty of butter) and rolled in out.

She then cut them into rectangles and put dabs of jam in the middle.

Then she put another layer on top and sealed the edges using a fork.


Here they are after being bakes.  One can put icing on top, but Elvin likes them just fine the way they are.


And the other day, she also made a cake to take to church on Sunday, and topped it with whipped cream and raspberries.

While Karina is busy baking....Gabe is busy being a monkey.  Here he is scaling our little cherry tree in the backyard.  From there, he has a clear view into the neighbor's yard!

Elvin has been eyeing a donut shop in Portland for a while and wanted to visit it.  It's called Doe Donuts and is famous because it's completely vegan but supposedly makes donuts so delicious one can't even tell.

He drove all the way down with the girls, only to find out that it was closed.  After another try, they made it and got a dozen donuts of all different types.  It came in a long skinny box.

They had lots of unique flavors, such as tahini+pistachio, birthday cake, tiramisu, and Portland Fog (a twist on London Fog.)  One of Elvin's favorite was their pineapple fritter, which may sound like a weird combination but actually tasted really good.  Eliana really liked the tiramisu one.  

One that was not good was the bacon and maple.  The vegan bacon, unfortunately, was nowhere near the real thing.  But overall we enjoyed sampling their interesting flavors.

Another thing we did was to visit a new cookie store that opened up in Vancouver called Crumbl.  It sells freshly made cookies and these cookies are about the size of your hand.  You can eat one by yourself but often people cut them into half or quarters because they are so big.  We went on opening day and all got free cookies.

They rotate flavors every single week and that week we were able to get PB and J, smores, Twix flavored, and birthday cake.

On a particularly warm day, Eliana got the idea that she wanted to make watermelon granita.  It did use up a large portion of a watermelon and and quite a few lemons.  Then you put it in a container and stick it in the freezer overnight.  After that, you take the container out and let it sit on the counter until it is a little bit soft, and use a spoon to scrape to make shavings out of the ice.  It's pretty good and yummy on a hot day!


And one day, Karina decided she wanted to make Cream Puffs based off of a recipe in Cooks Illustrated.

It's a French dessert and is basically a hollow ball of dough that you fill with cream.  Also, on the outside there is a coating of crunchy, crackly sugary goodness.  The first step is to make that outer shell by mixing together some things including a bunch of sugar into a dough, then rolling it out and cutting out circles.

Then you make the dough that will become the puffs themselves by mixing egg, flour, and some other things.

She piped this creamy batter onto parchment paper and then topped them off with the discs she made earlier.


The theory is that as they bake, the discs will melt over the puff and coat it with a crunchy topping.  Here they are!

You then make a hole in the side from which you pipe in the filling.  She actually didn't want to make a cream filling but filled them with vanilla ice cream instead.

They tasted delicious!

Other things that we did is to have some special meals during dinner.  Gabe wanted to have hot pot so on a day that was fairly cool, we set up the whole thing.  He is the little chef and very much enjoys dunking the raw meat into the boiling broth to what then turns the meat from raw to cooked.

We also sometimes still do homemade pizza at home.

Everyone gets their own pizza customized to the way they want it.

And to give you a health update...Karina lost one of her lower canine teeth in the spring.  It took a looooong time of being very loose to actually coming out.  It bothered her a lot because it made eating things like apples and steak difficult for her and she was very relieved when it finally came out.

And...when Eliana became eligible for the vaccine, she jumped at the chance!  It became eligible on a Thursday and she was there on a Friday getting her shot.  She is now fully vaccinated and glad that we are less restrictive when she is hanging out with her friends.

We hope you had a good spring as well!

Animal Update at the Yuen Homestead

We had a warm spring this year and the trees started blooming all of a sudden.

The rabbits love to nibble on apple leaves.  When Elvin prunes his trees, he drops the branches in their pen so that they can dine on them.

They both eat the leaves first, and then the bark off of the branches.

Here they are snuggling together.  Starlight is the one facing the camera and Churro is facing away.  Even though sometimes they fight, most of the time they seek each other out and hang out together.

For the past couple of years, we have gotten mason bees from a friend at church.  They are different from honeybees in that they are solitary, live in tubes, and don't produce honey.  They emerge while it's much cooler in the spring and so are able to pollinate flowers while the honeybees are still dormant.  Also, they are very docile and almost never ever sting!

The chickens are doing well...Maggie, Chippy, and Lilly.  They favorite activity is scratching the ground and taking dust baths.

Elvin built a run for them so that they would stay contained and away from the dog.  Lucky has a fascination with the chickens and either wants to play with them or wring their necks.  Since we're not sure which, we keep them apart.

But Lucky still tries to get at them...

Recently, Maggie has become broody.  For whatever reason, she has decided that she needs to sit on the eggs to incubate them, although the eggs are obviously not fertilized since there is no rooster around.  She will sit there most of the day which is why we kick her out every once in a while so that she gets food and water.

Our coop has only one laying area, and since Maggie won't usually leave, when the other wants to lay an eggs, they have to squish together in the same spot.

We still get a fair amount of eggs, although less now that our broody hen is laying less often.

Our Lucky is still the center of attention in our house.  He is close to a year now and probably fully grown.  He is only about 21 pounds so just a little guy.

And he still likes to do naughty things, such as climb on places where he knows he's not allowed.

He likes to sniff around the counters and is just tall enough to lick stuff if it's close to the edge of the counter.  We have caught him licking the butter dish which is very gross.

He also thinks he's a person and likes to lounge on the kids' size reclining chair we have in the living room.  He's claimed it as his own and will go on there when we kick him off of the sofa.  This is the only chair we let him stay on.

The sofa, on the other hand, is very much off limits.  But....sometimes in the mornings we will come downstairs to find this situation happening.  He is like a cat in that he likes to climb and be in the highest place in the room.  He will perch on the back of the sofa and sleep there.

A couple months back, he also got surgery to get "fixed".  He was VERY unhappy about the cone, about the incision and about life in general.  He would cry and cry and cry and also be frantic about licking his incision.  He also learned to use the edge of the cone to rub on the incision, which of course was not ideal.  So we had to stay within arm's reach at all times to stop him.  And then he stopped eating very much, and stopped crying, and just sat there and every once in a while would go into a frantic phase.   That didn't seem right so we took him back in to the vet and they said his incision got infected.  He had to take antibiotics and also meds to calm him down.

It took a while but he finally got better and we were able to take his cone off after 14 days.  Phew!

When not inside, he plays outside.  It turns out that he likes to dig and makes holes in random places around the yard.  Because of this, Elvin has fenced off the raised beds with the vegetables to protect them from his furry paws.

And when the water is on, he wanders over to take a drink because water straight from the hose always tastes better apparently.

There is an area of the yard that is all bushes and ferns.  Lucky likes to go in there and disappear for a while.  All you can see is the tips of the leaves rustling back and forth as he walks around.  And eventually he emerges.

And like Gabe, Lucky also periodically needs a hair cut.  So Elvin bought a pair of dog fur clippers, watched a couple of videos online and...

It turns out that Lucky did not like the activity, which is not a surprise.  At least one of the girls needs to be there to help out by feeding him treats and holding him to make sure he doesn't slink away.

It's actually not a walk in the park for the humans involved in this activity either.  Because we are all in there for more than an hour, and because Lucky's fur is so fine, a lot of it starts floating around the air and then somehow starts getting into your nose.  It feels like someone is tickling your nose with a feather the whole time and eventually becomes very maddening!  Here is a picture showing Karina in mid-sneeze.

We cut his fur in preparation for warmer weather and lots of it came off!  We are glad we only have to do this about every 6 weeks.

Because we got Lucky during COVID, and because we almost never all leave the house, Lucky has almost never been left at home by himself.  He does not like it, is not used to it, and definitely gets anxious when we do it.  

And the last time we did this, we came back home to find that he tore a big hole in the baby gate.  This is the gate that separates our living room area with the front door and the stairs going upstairs.  Maybe he thought we were upstairs hiding and was frantic enough to break through and go look.

We were not upstairs and we came home to find him waiting for us by the front door.  Poor guy!  Our baby gate is now covered with cardboard and packing tape.  It's extremely attractive.

Lucky has also decided to go on a hunger strike against the dog kibble that we were feeding him.  He would go for over a day without eating, which doesn't seem healthy.  Elvin's co-worker also has a doodle and says that her dog does the same until she switches food.

We never thought we'd do this, but we started cooking his food.  Here is ground turkey...

With some mixed vegetables thrown in.

We mix this with oatmeal and on good days he will eat this.  But sometimes even this doesn't seem that appealing to him.  He is a strange dog!

And even when he brings himself to eat food, he will pick around the stuff he doesn't like.  Just like a picky two year old, he will often leave behind the veggies.  And in this case, also the oatmeal.

On Sundays we go to another family's house for church in their backyard.  They happen to have a miniature pug.  After the two got aquainted with each other, they became good friends and run around together, wrestle each other, and chase each other around.  This is his only dog friend so far.

And after Sunday mornings, because he has spent the morning getting more physical exercise than all week put together, he is usually pooped and sleeps the rest of the day.  In sometimes strange positions...

So that's our Lucky!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Like always, on Mother's Day, Mommy had breakfast in bed that the kids (somewhat) helped prepare.  In actuality, she had already gotten up and gotten dressed, but we asked her to get back in bed so that the tradition can carry on.

We brought everything upstairs, including the bacon we made for her.

Usually, the kids make her Eggo waffles (yes, we're fancy like that), however, this year, Elvin had the idea that we should get pastries from a local French bakery that recently opened nearby.  

So Elvin when there at 7:30am to grab some pastries, thinking he'd be back home in 10 minutes.  Apparently, all of Vancouver had the same idea and he ended up waiting in line for about 20 minutes before making it inside the bakery.

Mommy chose a freshly baked croissant.

Then came time for Mommy to open some of her cards.  Xiao Yu gave her a napkin colored with interesting patterns and also a sheet of paper cut with more interesting patterns.

Then she opened up the other cards.

So that was Mother's Day for us.  And as you can see, even Lucky joined us for the festivities, for his very first time!