Spoiled by the Grandparents

Last week, Arthur was at Game Developer Conference in San Francisco. He spent the week schmoozing with representatives from different game companies learning about all the newest technology trends in game making. So, I took the boys to visit their grandparents.

The timing was perfect. The town where my parents live was celebrating the grand opening of a much needed bridge across the river. It was an opportunity to take advantage of the beautiful scenery and get outside with the kids.

As I uploaded these pictures, I realized that I am not good at covering all the events. We got to spend quality time with Arthur's grandparents, parents and brothers, as well as my parents, my sister and her 3 boys. I don't have pictures to show all these people, but the boys were so happy. There were some tears shed on the car ride home when they realized that it would be a long time till we would get to have so much fun with family again.

3 of the 5 boy cousins squished onto Grandpa's chair:

At dinner with Arthur's family, the boys decided that they would only look at the camera while making funny faces:

Crossing the new bridge. This is 5 minutes from my parents house. You can see the dam in the distance. Thankfully, the boys are too young to make jokes using the word "dam"!

This is the other side of the bridge. If you look closely, you can see a famous prison on the left bank of the river. This is also 5 minutes from my parents house, but surprisingly, the town is extremely safe to live in. I am not sure why the prisoners get to live in such a prime and beautiful location, though!

Dim Sum with Arthur's family. Arthur's grandparents were here and I wish I got a picture with them.

After filling our bellies at Dim Sum, the kids entertained themselves by jumping off an art sculpture at the nearby college campus (Grandpa's workplace):

When we got to the campus, Grandma and Grandpa Shek were sad to realize that it was Spring Break already and the Student Union was closed. Of course, they couldn't back down on the promised ice cream treat for the boys! So, we headed to Leatherby's for a late afternoon snack!

Sports Blitz

Our city has a Sports Blitz class for kids ages 4-6. Tyler had a blast learning a little bit about soccer, t-ball, and flag football. Of course, his favorite part of class was anytime he got to run!

Here are a few pictures from their last day of class:

All the boys listening intently to Coach Andy:

Well maybe one of them got a little distracted by the photographer:

And he is off!

Nice Form:

Score!

Random Crazy

I haven't posted in FOREVER and finally got around to downloading the pictures from one of the cameras to our computer. These pictures have no order or relationship with each other, but I just wanted to post them:

I can't seem to get Tyler to wear his goggles during his swim lessons, but he sure has fun wearing them around the house. Here he is practicing his range of emotions at lunch time:

I came home from jogging one morning to find that Tyler had constructed this "Rocket Launcher" all by himself using Tinker Toys. It is quite impressive considering the poor kid doesn't have any play guns, and had to use his own creativity!

I have to say that with his hair pulled back like this, Dylan resembles Roger Federer:

This day, the boys decided they wanted to be twins in every way possible:

I will try to be better at posting. Plus, my other camera is full of pictures. The problem is that it doesn't want to turn on. I need to enlist Arthur's help in getting the pictures off of it.

Baby #3 is a...

By the way, we found out last week that the baby to be born in 144 days (dang babystrology baby-counter) will be a BOY!

P.S. We are accepting name* suggestions.

*The names Jarman and Sherma will be omitted from consideration

Portraits

Our good friend, Nancy, took some great pictures of us before the holidays. Our intention was to use one of them for our Christmas cards. Unfortunately, we got too busy and lazy to send one out this year. Please don't take us off your card list for next year! We promise to get them out next year!

Anyways, there were so many good ones. Here is a sample of my personal favorites:

Love Affair with a Garage

As Valentine's Day is upon us, I thought I would share a love story. But, this is not your ordinary love story. It is the story of the love between a little boy and a garage:

It all started a few years ago while visiting my parent's house. Even at 12 months , Tyler was extremely interested in being able to open and close the garage. He would beg to be granted the right to push the button at all hours of the day. Unlike the one at our house, my parents had a "newer" garage - the kind that runs up and down on a track and has windows. Our garage door at home was an old wooden door that simply lifted up and stuck outside of our garage. It had no windows and was apparently not too interesting for Tyler. Sure, he enjoyed pushing the button, but he would not beg at all hours to watch the garage open and close.

The nursery leaders at church told us about how he would sit for long periods of time in front of the "Little People House" that had a garage door. He would stare at it, and move his little cars in and out of that garage slowly opening and closing the door with such concentration!

I searched stores for a toy that had a garage door, so that he would have as much enjoyment at home, but was not able to find a single one. Unfortunately, the "Little People House" had been updated years ago and did not have the movable garage door anymore. I was even tempted to purchase one on Ebay, but the prices were just too crazy to justify it. Besides, this was just a phase, right?

Fast forward 3 years, and Tyler still is obsessed with garages. When we drive up and down our street, he likes to tell me which houses have opened or closed doors. If one is moving, he will scream until I stop the car and allow him to watch it.

A few weeks ago, our old garage door completely broke. This was an answer to Tyler's little prayers as we now could upgrade to a newer model. There is a whole new level of excitement over our garage! I cannot tell you how many times a day Tyler will ask me questions like, "So Mom, how do you like our new garage?" or he'll say, "Do you know that our new garage has windows?" or "Do you think the light on the garage will turn on soon?". This happens at least 3-4 times a day! When we are getting ready to go somewhere, Tyler will schedule whether it is his or Dylan's turn to open or close the garage. But, when we are in the car on our way home, he always lets Dylan close it. This is because he can run inside the house and watch the door close from our front window!

I am not sure how long this affair will continue, but I wanted to make sure that we don't forget Tyler's first true love.

Happy Valentine's Day, Tyler. I will let you open and close that door as much as you want on February 14th!


***Oh yes, and as I pulled up our blog to post this,Tyler asked me to click on the picture of Arthur with the Sparkler's (from the post below). Once the picture enlarged, he whispered in my ear, "Do you see the garage in the picture, Mom?"

Gung Hay Fat Choy

Happy Chinese New Year!

This year, the kids enjoyed making paper Chinese Lanterns and Glitter Fireworks. Then we went outside for the real fun - Sparkler Fireworks!!

Here they are showing off their crafts (notice the lanterns hanging in the back):
Daddy showing how it is done:
Tyler trying it out:
Tyler trying to burn the house down:
Dylan seems to be a natural at this:
Except when he got a little close to the car!

Paris Part 3 - Final Post!

The next day was our last day of our trip. We went to Montmarte, the highest point of the city. One highlight of Montmarte is the beautiful Sacre Coeur Basilica and views of the city. We also walked around the streets making sure to take note of Picasso's home and other well-known attractions.

Moulin de la Galette

Moulin Rouge - don't worry - we were there in the daytime and I wasn't about to let Arthur get much closer!

We ended our day walking the Champs Elysees. We started at the Place de la Concorde. This square is the location where the guillotine stood during the French Revolution. King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were both dismembered here. Now there is a giant Egyptian obelisk to mark the spot. During the holiday season, there is also a ferris wheel. Unfortunately, due to the extremely low value of the dollar, we were unwilling to spend $30 to ride it!

Champs Elysees - 3 days till Christmas!

We celebrated our final evening in Paris by eating dinner in a restaurant! As I mentioned before, the dollar's low value made this trip very expensive! We found ourselves eating at roadside stalls for every meal to try to save some money. Unfortunately, even this "cheap food" cost us a pretty penny! So, even though this picture does not show my mood, I was quite relieved and happy to sit in a warm restaurant, be waited on by a nice waiter, and devour a hot meal!