Random Brain Dump

Last month, we took the kids down to LA for a spring break visit.

While Suzanne was paying a visit to her friend Ly and her newly born baby, I spent some time with the kids and their cousins. We had a little easter egg hunt in my sister’s backyard. The kids had fun looking for the left-over eggs that Suzanne had prepared for her class. The older kids were too fast for Allison as they were darting back and forth grabbing the hidden eggs. Not wanting her to miss out on the fun, I resorted to lead Allison to one of the hidden eggs. She happily grabbed one and put it in her ducky basket. Didn’t take long for her to realize that the other kids got more eggs than her, so she complained to me: “I have only 1 egg Daddy, I don’t even have two eggs!” I busted out laughing and explained to her that there weren’t any eggs left.

On another day, we took the kids to Getty Center. My friend Allen recently showed us some pictures of his visit to the place. The museum recently opened after years of renovation; it sits on top of the hill next to UCLA campus and provides an expansive and awesome view of LA and the pacific ocean. Just the view itself was worth the trip. We didn’t get much of a chance to check out the art collections, as the kids quickly got rowdy. When Katelyn fell into the water fountain, we packed up and headed straight home. What a nightmare! 🙁

The highlight of the trip was a day visit to Disneyland which has become sort of an annual spring break mecca for us last few years. Suzanne got all the kids each a hat; Katelyn picked her own hat and wouldn’t take it off the entire day! As usual, everyone liked “It’s A Small World” and of course the Dumbo ride. The highlight for Katelyn was posing with Minnie Mouse who was her favorite Disney character. After catching the Disney parade in the afternoon, the adults and the small kids were exhausted and ready to call it quit. I decided to stay with Katelyn and my nephew Andre.

With only three of us left, we were whizzing from ride to ride the rest of the day. Andre was a great sport— the oldest kid and had to stick with the girly and kiddie rides all day.  So to make it up to him, I took him & Katelyn to a Buzz Lightyear ride, after which Andre proclaimed “that was an awesome ride! It’s all worth it!” The two cousins even braved the “Haunted Mansion”! After a late dinner of hot dogs and pretzels, we caught the fireworks. Katelyn loved it when Tinkerbell flew back and forth high above the castle. We didn’t leave the park until 10PM. Katelyn was a trooper as she walked all day long on her own two feet. I was totally exhausted when all was said & done!

Here’s some of the pictures from the trip…

We basically had very atypical California weather the last 2 months here in the bay area. But this past weekend was just simply gorgeous and so we took off to beach with the kids. After a lunch at the Santa Cruz Marina, we hit the sands & the surf. The girls spent hours playing on the beach. A great day for the family.

I lugged my camera bag out to the beach and quickly learned that was a mistake. Sands and lenses don’t play well together. I didn’t dare to change the lenses twice with the sand blowing everywhere. Here’re some of the shots…

Last Thursday, Suzanne had to hold teacher conferences at her school. So I quit work early and came home to take care the kids. It was a gorgeous evening, so we grabbed some food and headed to the park. We sat down on a field of grass and happily chowed down Baja Fresh burritos. Afterward the girls & I ran barefoot on the grass in the park, chasing ducks and each other… The girls had so much fun that they didn’t even nag me about taking them to the playground, like they usually do.

I brought along my big zoom lens and snapped a bunch of close-up shots. Of all that I took that evening, the one pictured here on the right stood out to me. A little sepia treatment and it’s become one of my personal favorite shot of the girls! I simply can’t help but smile when every time I look at it.

We went to the Getty Museum when we were visiting LA 2 weeks ago; it was an utter disaster. Museums are generally inappropriate for young kids. But undeterred, we decided at another go at visiting a museum, this time without the kids. We drop Katelyn & Allison at my aunt’s place and spent last saturday in San Francisco.

The sun had burned through the morning overcast, revealing a beautiful day ahead of us. Our first destination: The Embarcadero. Mr. Sunshine added the bounce in our steps as we eagerly walked through the market place. Like us, there were many few people out lugging nice cameras & taking advantage of the nice weather.

We called ahead and made a reservation for a late lunch at Slanted Door, one of those restaurants serving Vietnamese fusion cuisine. We had a great lunch of perfectly grilled halibut, manila clams with bacon bits, celophane noodles, and delicious egglant in coconut sauce. I had a refreshing cocktail called Summer in Danube too. All very yummy! It was of those enjoyable fine dining we no longer get to experience all too often these days. 🙁

We then hit the Legion of Honor; well, we tried anyway since unfortunately the place closed for the day by the time we got there. Yet another failed attempt at visiting a museum! 🙁 Suzanne basically blamed me for spending too much time taking pictures. But, we at least did spent some time hanging outside of the Palace and Lincoln park. I was taking more pictures of course…

We then drove across the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito, our first time back since we attended our friend Katie’s wedding there a few years back. We grabbed a cup of coffee and an ice-cream cone and strolled through the quaint downtown, window shopping (well it was really Suzanne since I don’t window shop). We saw this street performer making seemingly impossible stacks of big rocks by the water. Pretty novel way to make a buck!

I missed snapping sunset pictures as I originally planned, but we drove up to one of the hills anyway and staked out a place to take some pictures of the Golden Gate bridge. This time I blamed Suzanne for taking too much time checking out the boutiques. 🙂 We waited and it got windy and really cold. Finally, dusk came and the skyline was dark enough for long exposure shots. I knew the wind and my cheapo $15 flimsy tripod in particular wasn’t going to get me sharp photos. I got a few okay shots, I will have to go back one of these less-windy days and try my luck again with a better tripod. It was pretty exciting for me as it was my first time trying my hands at long exposures.

We originally planned to dine at Ti Couz, but it was yet another plan foiled thanks to my spending too much time photographing… So, we headed straight to the Punch Line for a 10pm show. Greg Proops headlined and he basically “killed.” We found him to be hilarious on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and he didn’t disappoint. The odd thing was there was a party that left the show because I guess they were offended by Greg’s materials. I don’t know why people easily-offended go to these comedy shows. Greg kept referring to them as the Donner party the rest of the show after they left. Pretty funny…

We didn’t get home until 1am. I can’t remember the last time we were out that late together. All in all, it was an enjoyable day playing local tourists– good change of pace doing adult stuffs without the kids. Plus, I was happy to shoot some photos. I got my chance to really try out my new Canon 30D. Suzanne was again my reluctant model for the day and was patiently accomodating to the shutter bug in me. Thanks babe!

All in all, it was a great day out in the city.

Here are a few of the shots posted.

The weather gods finally smiled on us, yesterday was beautiful. Taking advantage of the first dry & warm day in weeks, I took the girls out to the local park after work. The girls were happily enjoying their outdoor dinner with their Daddy, feeding & chasing the ducks, and had a blast at the playground. Obviously, they were couped up for too long. It was an absolute joy to see my girls having so much fun.

I barely managed to gulf down a burrito since the girls were all over the place; but I had a great time myself. 🙂 In addition to running around & playing with the girls, I managed snapped some quick shots of the kids with my 200mm zoom lens…

Katelyn: “When I grow up, I want to be a vet.”
Daddy: “You do? You’ll have to study hard but you can be a vet or anything else.”
Daddy: “What about you Allison? What do want to be when you grow up?”
Allison: “I want to be a tiger!”

Allison has a small stuffed tiger that is one of her favorite stuffed animals. She sleeps with it practically every night. I wonder if her stuffed tiger has anything to do with this…

A conversation in the car with Katelyn this past weekend:

Suzanne: “What’s mommy’s favorite color, Katelyn?”
Katelyn: “Your favorite color is yellow!”
Rex: “What’s Daddy’s favorite color?”
K: “Blue!”
R: “What’s Katelyn’s favorite color?”
K: “Yellow, white, black, pink, and red”
R & S: laughing
S: “Honey, you can only have 1 favorite. That’s what favorite means…”
R: “So which is your favorite color then?”
K: “All of them. They are all my favorite colors because they’re all in my heart…”

I was watching TV last night and heard Allison repeatedly said “you time out!” I turned around and saw Allison sternly pointing her finger at our front door and said “Bad Fo, you time out!” I looked and saw nothing at the door so I had no idea what she’s doing. Suzanne & I were amused but for a sec, I was confused and a bit alarmed thinking that perhaps she has an imaginary friend named Fo or something.

So I got out of the sofa, knelt down next to her and asked what she was doing. Allison looked up with her face remaining serious, and again repeated “time out!” in a stern voice while still pointing at the door. I asked her “who are you timing out?” but again she simply repeated “time out!” This time though, she came closer to and pointed at the bottom of the door. I still saw nothing, so I came for a closer look and couldn’t help but bustedout laughing.

On the floor next to the door was a tiny plastic frog. You see, the corner next to the front door is where we usually time out the girls. So she was playingly disciplining her toy frog and had meant to say “bad frog, you time out!”

The fact that she put on a stern voice & serious face for punishing this little tiny plastic toy of hers was all too funny.

We were playing Hide & Seek with the girls tonite. We divided into 2 teams: Mommy & Katelyn versus Allison & Daddy. So at one point in the game, it was Suzanne & Katelyn’s turn to seek, so Allison & I went and hid in a bedroom closet. I closed the door and we sat there in the dark. I repeatedly reminded Allison to remain quiet. But when Suzanne came into the room and didn’t find us, she called out “Who wants candy?” Allison bolted out of my lap, flung the door open and ran to Suzanne yelling “candy!”

Game over… 🙂

We took the kids to Nicholas & Wesley’s birthday bash @ a place called Pump It Up earlier this month. This place in Sunnyvale has connecting rooms with gigantic bounce houses. The place is smaller than we had imagined, which is good because it is less crowded than places like The Jungle. Suzanne & I joined in the fun, bouncing around and sliding with the kids. Was a good work out for us as well. 😉

We got some pics here, including this funny one where I managed to capture Nicholas giving Wesley an “evil eye.” Notice how innocent Wesley looked, as if he’s a helpless lamb waiting for the big bad wolf to pounce on him.