Almost pictureless vacation

We flew to Houston Thanksgiving morning and spent the next five days catching up with friends and family. Thursday evening my parents hosted their annual Thanksgiving dinner for a good number of church members and their families. Friday morning, Cora and I hit the Galleria at 8 AM for the sales. Afterwards, we met the rest of the family for dim-sum and then did some more shopping at Town and Country Village. When Lydia got up from her nap, I took her and my mom to Katy Mills Outlet to purchase some kids' shoes. Needless to say, but the end of the day, I was "shopped" out, but still managed to have a wonderful time reminiscing with old junior high friends later that night. It probably helped that we sent the kids back home after twenty minutes when it was obvious that they would destroy all the antiques in the house.

Saturday we met with old college friends and tried to catch up as much as possible with our limited time. Then off to Taste of Texas for good ole steak to celebrate Trung's birthday. We also got to enjoy a date night and watch the new Harry Potter. We could barely keep our eyes opening at the late showing, but it was nice finally watching a movie at the theatre after four months.Sophie is much more interested in the Snickers pie

Everyone got a piece

Sunday morning was too eventful for my liking; Trung realized that he didn't have the car keys while at the airport after I had dropped him off. Apparently he had put the keys in Lydia's backpack and forgot to move them, so...I frantically texted, called, and e-mailed around and managed to get Trung home safely without spending a penny. Whoo-hoo, thank goodness for our new friends Guro and Trond who saved the day and my sanity! After church and the kids' naps, I met up with Jen and we went to meet Connie's kids. Later we were the last two people standing while eating hot pot...that is some good stuff!

Monday was very low-key, the girls and I just stayed at my parent's house and chilled. Tuesday we went over to Jimmy's house; Cora and I watched "Eat Pray Love" while the kids played with all of Jocelyn and Jason's toys. After a delicious Japanese lunch, we packed up and headed to the airport. The flight home wasn't too bad despite a 45 minute delay, though the kids got bored very easily. I don't think I'll be traveling for awhile, but it sure was nice being with family and getting a break from the kids from time to time. :P

The girls sitting on their cushion-y backpacks while waiting in line to board the plane.

Birthday boy

We celebrated Trung's 34th birthday with his favorite home-cooked meal and special pictures drawn by the girls. Happy birthday, honey!

Giggling girls

A song just for dear Daddy


The loves of my life

Small Gift LA

Sanrio hosted an event called Small Gift LA in honor of it's 50th anniversary and even though we heard mixed reviews, we still went to check it out. The environment was pretty cool, but everything cost money, even just a simple face painting of whiskers and a black nose cost a couple of bucks. And the lines...oh the lines. We went on the last day of the event, a few hours before closing, so we must have hit the "last minute" crowd. Overall, a cute event, but only fun if you're willing to fork over a lot of moo-lah.

Waiting in line in the chill to get into the event

Where there is a photo op, there is Lydia

Presenting...Hello Kitty!

The only time you'll ever see the entire family crammed inside a Smart Car.

The best part of the event...meeting Hello Kitty

Getting things done

Today was an errands kind of day. We started off dropping the Infiniti off at the dealership to get some scheduled maintenance done. Then we had a delicious (and very fatty) breakfast at Huckleberry; they have the best green eggs and ham. After a short drive around Santa Monica looking for places to rent again, Lydia and I got our first hair cuts since we've moved. Antonio did a good job with our basic trims, though he was very quiet. For only $19, he can talk as little as he wants. :P After picking up the car and Sophie taking her nap, we checked out Plaza El Segundo, a nice shopping complex that we always just drove by. We ate a light dinner at California Fish Grill and got the yummy green tea delight crepe at KC's on the way home. Of course I got a milk tea, a nice hot one, to end the day on a toasty note.

Lydia chasing pigeons

When there's time to kill, just stare at the ocean

Lydia and a cannon

Sophie looking for something inside

We went to Plaza El Segundo for their annual Christmas tree lighting event, only to find out that it had happened the night before...bummer.

Lydia's namesake store...

well, nickname store

Gingerbread time!

At Sophie's Mommy and Class, the moms had to build gingerbread houses for the kids to decorate. I'm not that creative, so my juices didn't run wild and I ended up more with a RV. Sophie ate 1/3 of the candy she was supposed to be putting on the house, but had a fun, messy time.

Faye and Sophie with their "modern" houses

Poor Sophie was feeling out of it, but made it through the class.

Chicken Dancing at Kid's Club

We had our usual Tuesday morning routine, but this time, Karen had an appointment so Emily joined us. Jogging was a bit difficult with the jogger going off Sophie's side all the time since it was lopsided, but we made it through. Then much dancing ensued during storytime and kid's Club as guest singers entertained the kids. Lydia even volunteered to assist with the chicken dance, but ended up just standing there with a chicken on her head...hee hee.

Chicken Lydia

Christine and I were greatly outnumbered

Hungry kitty cats

Legoland (with the whole family this time)

Jean and Andrew get guest tickets for Legoland with their memberships and they invited us to join them for some major fun. We woke up bright (it was still pretty dark actually) and early at 6:15 AM to make our 7:45 AM reservation at The Beachcomber Cafe at Crystal Cove. Trung had his corned beef hash and the kids had the beignents again, but this time I tried the florentine benedict...yum! We met the Shapiro's at Legoland just after it opened and stayed for an entire afternoon of fun. Sophie fell quickly asleep in the car as we drove to Irvine to meet Mike for dinner at a handmade noodle restaurant. Too much fun, it'll probably take me days to recover. :P

Crystal Cove, it was a gorgeous day

Our new Lego family

Our first ride, the flying planes

This ride was actually a bit scary

Playing follow the leader in the huge treehouse

Lydia is a pro at driving now, since she went on this ride three times!

Sophie barely made the cut for the helicopter ride

Sheer delight

Sophie and Teddy with some PDA

Fairytale Boat ride

Trung Skywalker

A Dinosaur "Hunter" birthday

Lydia didn't have school again today, so the three of us visited some new places in our neighborhood, Playa Vista. We walked with our new friends Guro and Norah to the library for storytime, which was a bit chaotic, but not too bad. Then we went to the tot lot, a fully gated playground perfectly suited for kids Lydia and Sophie's ages. We had to shorten our time there because Lydia had to go to the bathroom (#2, we managed with #1 behind a bush), so we went home and had lunch. We attended a meet-up member's kid's (Hunter) birthday party in Malibu in the afternoon, our first California party. The dinosaur hunter was young and not very entertaining, so the girls just played with the toys laying around. The barbeque was excellent (expected from the Texan daddy) and the dinosaur cake was very cute, though a bit lacking in the tasty category. We had to fight traffic on the way home, but it was well worth it!

Lydia and Sophie mastered the spiral at the tot lot

Hello, Lydia!

The young "Indiana Jones" had the kids' attentions at the beginning of the party

My scary little dinos

Looking for dinosaur eggs

Nolan's Barnyard Birthday Baaash

We attended one of Sophie's MDO classmate's birthday party at The Little Barnyard in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. The indoor play area was small (the 70 people that came probably maxed out the capacity), but had just the right amount of activities for all the kids. Ironically, the barnyard themed birthday cake was also red velvet, like the cake from the day before...popular flavor.

Lydia and Sophie spent most of the time in the ball pit

Lydia "Deere"

The host asked that we wore plaid shirts and jeans...this is as country as we'll probably ever get.

Trung has always wanted to be a cowboy

Can't ever get enough!

The super fast slide...Sophie would only slide down when she was good and ready

California Science Center

After picking Lydia up from Broadway Gym and Sophie from Mother's Day Out at the YMCA, we went straight to California Science Center. We met other mommies there from one of my meet-up groups and got a slow start since the organizer was running late. The center had several kid-friendly discovery zones, though I didn't feel they were as interactive or fun as the ones in Kidspace. Still, for only $8 parking and free admission, it wasn't too bad. Next time, I plan on piling more people into the minivan to make it more worth-while.Running around while we wanted for other people


Artifacts

In the bedroom of the play house

The center was very creatively decorated

I see you

Puppet show

My new Facebook profile picture