August 31, 2007

Happy Birthday D!

Today is Dylan's 1st Birthday! I can't believe my little baby will soon be walking and talking.

Big-D, you are my sweet chubby ball of love. I hope you never grow too old to enjoy snuggles with me.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Dylan's first year. It really amazes me at how accommodating he is when the camera is out.

August 24, 2007

Graduation Day

We made it! We have never studied so hard, lost as much sleep, been so frustrated, cried as many tears, laughed so hard, learned so much, or been so in love as we have in the past 3 years. But, all of our efforts have not been in vain. Today is our graduation from the Terrible Two's.

Happy Birthday, Tyler! You are 3 years old and we have 3 wonderful years of memories. Our lives would not be nearly as interesting and dynamic without you. Thank you for bringing your zest and enthusiasm to our family. We love you!

Here are some pictures from each of your 4 Birthdays:




August 16, 2007

Never a Moment of Peace

I was sitting down munching on a bowl of cereal this morning. The boys were playing nicely and I actually got a chance to read a bit of the morning paper. About half-way through an article detailing Reggie the alligator's failed escape at the LA Zoo, I realized that I was enjoying breakfast. This was a sensation that I had not felt in about 3 years. As expected, this is what I found when I went to check on the boys:


August 14, 2007

Happy Birthday, Grandpa Shek!

It was Tyler's idea to make the following video, but I think sitting still and cooperating are not his strong points right now. Persistance does pay off sometimes, though.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa Shek! We were happy to have spent some time with you last week!


August 12, 2007

Rescued in Sac - Town

Last week, Arthur was down in San Diego attending Siggraph to learn about mind-draining subjects like Isosurface Stuffing and Gradient Domain Editing. (If you are interested in topics like that, you should stop reading now, bury your head in your hands, and think of ways to remedy your sad life. Everyone else can consider themselves normal and keep reading.)

To avoid trying to run after the boys by myself, I decided to take them up to Sacramento to spend time with the family.

We started the week at Funderland, a cute little amusement park for small kids. Tyler warmed up his nerves on the Carousel with Grandpa Shields. After that, he was ready to take on Himalaya with me. By then, he felt really grown up, and rode the Airplanes all by himself. His cousin Kellen rode with him on the Back Road Buggies (it was a pretty quick ride, and I missed getting a picture). The boys were fast best friends as they waited in line for the Log Flume.





All was going so well on the Log Flume until the very end of the ride. Sensing the small dip ahead, Tyler decided it was time to abort ship, and threw his legs over the boat. Thankfully the workers spotted him, stopped the ride, and pulled him to safety before any major catastrophe occurred. Somehow, after that, I still managed to convince him to ride the Dragon Coaster with me. Even with his head buried in my chest, he walked away from the ride saying, "That was REAL fun!". I think that next week, we will take him to Six Flags to try out Goliath.




The remainder of the week was spent eating great food and playing with Uncle Alvin at Grandma and Grandpa Shek's house and more playing and swimming at Grandma and Grandpa Shields' house. We also got both grandparents together for a dinner at Macaroni Grill.



I know I tend to go a little nutty with all the pictures, but I hope that at least the grandparents appreciate all the fuss.

Lastly, just to add a little life to this post, here is a video of the boys playing near the swimming pool. It is a bit long, but Kellen, Tyler, Quinn and Dylan are just too cute to cut it any shorter.

*** On a side note, there was no way to get pictures while they were actually in the water because we had our hands full trying to ensure that the kids were not drowning***




August 3, 2007

I Hate Whales

If you enjoy life and like to feel joy, NEVER EVER go on a whale watching cruise in Monterey Bay! Even now as I type, I need to hold a paper bag up to my mouth in case of nausea by memory, and I am virtually certain that various bodily systems have had their life expectancies reduced by several years because of my experience.



The excursion started out innocently enough. It was just Tyler and I - Kerri and Dylan lay near death in our cabin and encouraged us to go. The sun was beating down on us, there were no waves, and dolphins and sea otters literally escorted us to the mouth of the bay. Tyler and I stood on the outside deck and pointed joyously at seagulls and sailboats bobbing on the water - in a moment of weakness, I may have skipped along the deck.

Five minutes later, I was in the middle of The Perfect Storm. Here is a snapshot I took of our trip.


Seriously, our boat was bobbing up and down at least 30 degrees from side to side for the next hour and a half it took us to get to the whale migration path. The temperature turned from 80 degrees to 50 degrees immediately, so we went into the interior of the ship (and when I say ship I am giving the creaking, accursed vessel too much credit), along with lots of previously smiling tanktop clad ladies and their significant others. That was our home for the next miserable 4 hours.


Luckily, Tyler fell asleep in my arms for the next two hours. Unluckily, I was locked into place with a direct view toward a poor little Asian girl who started vomiting 10 minutes into the trip and continued for the remainder. Immediately, the weaker stomached members of our interior-seated posse began to lose their lunches into a garbage can that was passed around. A fortunate few were able to follow the crew members' mandate to run to the back of the boat and point your mouth over the railing if you felt nauseous. An unfortunate majority weren't able to make it and gave up their ghosts right there in the cabin. I have an iron stomach which has remained strong where others have fallen by the masses, but I began to swallow bile and take deep breaths about an hour in.

Half an hour later, we reached a whale utopia. When the overly-excited lady guide began screeching over the microphone that humpback whales were doing incredible displays of tails flapping the water and blowing geysers of water into the air, only half our group even cared enough to groan, get up, and limp their way outside the cabin. When she yelled "Look, a whale at our 2 o'clock," someone moaned "Screw whales!" back.

As for myself, with Tyler asleep across my lap, I never got up to look in the 45 minutes we bobbed up and down with only the one lady screaming at every sighting. I was busy doing mortal combat with my own stomach. Tyler woke up just before we left, so I weakly stood up from inside the cabin and snapped these pathetic pictures.



Then I collapsed back in a heap. I never had the energy to even point out whales to Tyler, so he thinks he was just on a boat ride.

As we left, the guide told us we had a two hour trip back to land. With this miserable thought, I ran outside onto the deck, leaving Tyler to his disbelief with an unsuspecting stranger, and I shared my lunch with the fish. For the next two hours, we enjoyed a wonderfully choreographed ballet of people running out in pairs, then groups of three, and in all sorts of wonderful combinations, to lean over the railing and commune with nature.

With Tyler starting to complain about a "tummy hurt", I took him outside to get some fresh air and we held on to each other for dear life in the cold wind, splashing water, and rocking boat. Literally 15 minutes from land, sweet land, the boat stopped and bobbed while the guide yelled "hey, there's another whale off to the port side!" One woman literally started screaming at the captain and the guides, pointing out the large numbers of guests who were curled up in fetal position or hanging off the railing with limp, bloodless hands. Miraculously, we started up again.

As I stumbled onto shore, I sent loving thoughts to our Viking predecessors, European explorers who found America, fishermen, and the Coast Guard for their contributions to my life. May they get paid more.

August 2, 2007

Cooler Online

We have been having internet problems for the past month, so it has been hard to post anything new. I am off to Sacramento to visit with family next week and Arthur is going to a boring computer graphics conference in San Diego. For all of you nerds out there that may be interested, here is a link to the conference: http://www.siggraph.org/s2007/

I have been listening to the new Brad Paisley CD. Anyone familiar with his music will know that many of his songs have amusing lyrics. Here is the video of one of my favorite songs from the album, "Online". It features Jason Alexander, Maureen McCormick, William Shatner and Estelle Harris.

Hope you enjoy it: