Book worm

Last fall, Gabe started learning how to read in earnest and he made great strides.  Then in the beginning of the year, he become more and more of a fluent reader--reading all the street signs and store signs everywhere.  And then, all of a sudden, he picked up a novel and never looked back.

Now, instead of playing with Legos or drawing, we often see him immersed in the pages of a book.

He is a voracious reader and will sit and read for hours.

The location does not matter.  Even on the stairs is fine with him.

Often while eating a snack.

And now sometimes, he will keep company with his book worm older sister.

Sledding in Sunriver

Last year for Spring Break we had a staycation.  This year we decided to head out to Sunriver near Bend, Oregon.  (We also headed out in order to vacate our house--contractors were doing a little bit of remodeling at our house.)

The kids tolerated the four hour drive by listening to books on tape.

On the first day it was a little rainy and so we went to the local indoor pool, which was fun.  We played ball, and swam around too.  Karina can pretty much swim by herself without a life jacket.  Gabe has not progressed much in swimming because he's not willing to put his face in the water!

We also went to the local park and played, of all things...tetherball.  It was definitely a blast from the past for Emily and Elvin who have not played it since they were in elementary school.

Because it is at a higher elevation in Sunriver, there were still quite a few ice chunks left over from the many inches of snow they got this past winter.

The kids also got to play on electronics (the iPads) which is a special treat.

We had stopped at Costco on the way in and dinner was made up of various Costco items.  The pre-made scalloped potatoes is one of the kids' favorite.

And for dessert, they were allowed to pick out ice cream at the local market.

The next day we drove about 20 minutes to a higher elevation on Mt. Bachelor.  There was an awesome sno park with a very looooong sledding hill.  We were able to pick up extraordinary speed on the sleds!

At night we watched some Jeopardy and also had a movie night--we watched Greatest Showman and the kids are now addicted to the soundtrack of that musical.

The third day we checked out of the condo we rented and headed back up to Mt. Bachelor again, this time to a ski resort.  It was actively snowing up there and there was fresh powder on the ground.

We got passes to the inner tube hill and went down that lots of times.

And then the kids wanted to play in the snow.  We read that there were hundreds of inches of snow up there but didn't believe it.  Until we saw this.  This is a wall of snow on the edge of the parking lot of the ski resort.

But it was not snow anymore but mostly solid ice.

There was a mini-crevasse in there, which the kids thought was fun to go into.

In the crevasses, apparently some of the ice was melting but then re-froze into icicles.  Karina found a long one and wanted to bring it home.  We told her that was pretty much impossible.

She also made a pear out of snow and wanted to bring THIS home.  Also not possible.

Xiao Yu took advantage of the snow on the ground to make a snow angel.

After that, we got into the van, changed clothes, and then headed home!

Tom Sawyer the Musical

A few months ago, Karina and Eliana tried out for the musical Tom Sawyer, and they both got parts.  This was Karina's second musical.  Eliana's role was as a townsperson.  Karina was also a townsperson, and also a bat and a star.

Leading up to the musical, the girls hung up posters around the community to get the word out.

The kids do rehearsals for 6 weeks.  And then the week before opening night, there is rehearsal every night.

Here is a group picture with the entire cast, dressed in their Tom Sawyer-type garb.

Because Karina was also a bat, here she is as a bat.  In the story, Tom Sawyer gets stuck in a cave, and a group of bats come out screeching and fly around Tom.

Karina also got to be a star...these girls wore little LED light strings and posed in the dark to simulate a night sky.

Elvin got to see one of the shows with Gabe.  He really enjoyed it.

Because this community theater group is mostly volunteer-run, the parents have to help out and do certain roles or jobs.  This time, Emily was in charge of ushering and taking care of guests' needs.  So she got to wear a button saying "Usher", and a fancy earpiece connected to a walkie-talkie.

The kids performed really well.  Karina is in the blue dress and Eliana in the second row, wearing the red dress.

Here you can see Eliana fake crying, during a sad scene where the townspeople are mourning Tom Sawyer's supposed death.

Great job girls!

Snow Day(s)!

We had a relatively mild winter...until late January.  Then at that point, they started to predict a Snowpocalypse with some people saying that we were going to get between 8 and 12 inches of snow. This, of course, would paralyze the entire area for days.  And because of that, people here went crazy stocking up on food.  Elvin went to buy a gallon of milk and in the store saw that ALL the milk was gone, all bread, and the entire shelf in the meat department was completely empty.

Snowpocalypse didn't pan out, however.  We got about one inch only.  The kids were deeply disappointed.

They were able to scrape enough snow together to make a couple of waist high snowmen.  And we had a snowball fight too.

By the next day, lots of the snow had already melted.

A couple of weeks later, snow was predicted again--several inches.  This time, it actually came.  Here is Karina making a snow angel on our driveway.

Elvin pulled the kids on the street.  It was a weekend and so he was able to play with the kids in the fluffy snow.

They wanted to pull Daddy for a change...

And it wouldn't be a snow day if hot chocolate wasn't involved!

We also went to a local park with a good hill with some friends.

We went there both on Saturday and Sunday.

Both days combined, the kids were sledding for about 8 hours.

They were happy but exhausted by the end of the weekend!

From Shaggy to Shorn

We are not sure when the last time was that Gabe had a haircut.  All we knew was that it was growing past his ears and over his eyes.

So it was time to take him to the hair salon.  He is not a big fan.  But this was the first time he sat on the chair by himself instead of someone's lap.

Yes, he tolerated the process, but just barely.  

Afterwards he got his lollipop and we got a Gabe that wasn't shaggy anymore!

Hula hooping fun

When Elvin came home today, for some reason the kids were showing off their hula hooping skills.  I guess this is what happens when it's cold and rainy outside and the kids are cooped up inside.

First Karina showed off...

And then it was Gabe.  It's impressive he can keep it at knee level for so long.

And then Eliana...

Who do you think has the best skills?

Merry Christmas, part deux

After we were done with Christmas at home, we packed our bags and headed to the airport.

The plane we rode in was an Airbus with little movie screens for every passenger.  We didn't even have to get out every iPad.

Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai met us at the airport and after that we had lunch at In-N-Out.  Yum!

The weather was beautiful.  Elvin's cousin from Brazil was also in town and the kids ended up playing soccer together on the street for hours.

We had last seen them in July.  They got reacquainted with each other very fast!

Gabe and his cousin Sebastian were especially happy about getting to play soccer.

Then we had dinner together at a Chinese restaurant.

During our time in California, we had another round of opening Christmas presents.  Karina, who is now an avid knitter, made coasters.

As a gift from their grandparents, the girls got tickets to see the Broadway version of Lion King.  This was as a follow-up to their own performance in Lion King Jr.

Karina also got a Lego Friends set.

Gabe got a game called Pucket where you use an elastic band to shoot small wooden pucks through a slot to your opponents side.  It is an action packed game!

People of all ages can compete against each other!

We also met up with several friends.  One friend took us geocaching, where you search for a hidden containers using the GPS on your phone.  The kids loved it.

We found a container which was hidden under a gazebo.  There were little trinkets inside which you can take.  You just have to be sure to replenish it with other trinkets.

The girls got to go see Mary Poppins in the theater.  While they were out, Elvin took the boys bowling.  

They had fun!

And afterwards we played pool.

And some video games!

For dinner, we had hot pot, which was fun to do.

And we celebrated Uncle Leslie's birthday--he was born on New Year's Eve.

That night, no one, including the adults, stayed up till midnight.  We were all pooped.

On New Year's Day, we were looking for an activity to do, so we went geocaching!  Cousin Elliott lead the way.

We searched and searched and searched.  And then searched some more.  It turns out that the "container" was very tricky indeed.  It was disguised as a bolt.  However it had a false top...the head of a bolt was actually a lid which you can twist off to reveal a hollow center which held a little strip of paper where you can sign your name as one of the finders of this geocache.

For lunch we decided to eat pastries at a French/Chinese bakery.  Even the kids were impressed with the variety.

Decisions, decisions...

Being gluten free, Elvin had to settle for a hamburger from a joint next door.

Eliana tried and liked egg tarts for the first time.

Another treat the kids had was Guarana, which is a soft drink from Brazil.  It's a cross between Sprite and Squirt.  It's very good and the kids love it.  Here is Karina savoring every sip.

One thing we noticed was that Eliana was almost as tall as Nai-nai now.  We conjectured that by next Christmas, she may actually be taller!!!

And so that was our Christmas #2 in California.  We returned our rental and hopped on the short flight home.

And home sweet home...