Happy birthday Gabe!

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.

Yummy!  The leftovers go in the fridge.  

So that's our Gabey at ten years of age!

Visit from Ye ye and Nai tai

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!

Hamilton here we come

In the Spring, Elvin was able to win a pair tickets to go see Hamilton live in the theater.  He has an app (which Eliana recommended) which let's you enter a lottery for these tickets.  The only trick was that the tickets were for Vancouver....BC.

So on the day before the show, which was on a Sunday, Elvin and Karina packed up and started driving north!  It was going to be a daughter/daddy trip.

We stopped in Seattle for dinner.  Karina posed next to Mr. XLB.

We enjoyed dumplings for dinner.

Then we stopped in Bellingham for some ice cream at a place called Mallards.  The parking spots there had meters that took actual coins.  This was Karina's first time feeding a meter...and maybe her last as these types of meters are almost extinct?

There were lots of yummy flavors and we enjoyed our dessert.  And then we were off again.  It's a total of six hours from Vancouver WA to Vancouver BC.

We made it through the border after being interrogated by the Canadian border patrol.  (That's a story for another day!)

The next morning, we had a little bit of time to kill before needing to pick up the tickets at noon.  So we visited the Granville Island Market, which had lots of cool shops and eateries.

Breakfast!

Closer to downtown, there was a pet food store with a funny sign.

We didn't forget about Lucky and Karina bought him a treat...a pack of dried chicken breast which he loved!

And we arrived at the theater.

And it turned out that our tickets were front row seats!  Here is a picture before we were told to stay in our seats by the security guard because we were too close to the orchestra pit.

It was a great show and a great trip!

Happy Mothers Day!

For Mother's Day, we ventured away from the usual Eggs waffles to something more ambitious.  Our tradition is to always serve Mommy a breakfast in bed and this year Gabe and Elvin tried to make cinnamon rolls.

They were sort of cheater cinnamon rolls which used baking soda as the leavening agent instead of yeast.  We rolled them out and covered with the sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Here they are going into the oven.

Gabe also worked on the scrambled eggs.  This year, he was the main chef!

That's a lot of egg for Mommy!

And here we are going upstairs.  Lucky was already upstairs, lounging on the bed like he always does.  Eliana hand delivered the tray of food.

Gabe brought the water and a little vase with flowers for an extra floral touch.

And everyone watched her eat.  Emily remarked that being watched while she ate was the slightly strange part of the annual tradition.  Lucky was also very attentive, perhaps because he was hoping for some bacon.

And last but not least, Karina's contribution was a Cold Stone ice cream.  She had bought some previously and saved it in the freezer so that Mommy could have some on Mother's Day.  Good idea Karina!