Dance Play date

Lydia finally got to have a play date with her BFF Mia today, though it wasn't the usual "come over to my house" kind.  The only day I don't have to pick Sophie up straight after picking Lydia up is on Friday, but Mia has gymnastics every Friday.  Her parents were fine with me driving her around, so we decided on a play date during Sophie's dance class because I thought there would be plenty to do in the waiting area.  Apparently, Mia has a short attention span and wasn't soft-spoken like I thought, so maybe next time we'll try a play date at our place.

Finally settling on drawing pictures for each other

 

Watching Sophie in class down below

Today's class was a good size with six little girls

Crustacean

Tonight Trung and I went out to dinner in early celebration of my birthday.  I purchased a deal a couple months earlier for Crustacean, a restaurant specializing in crab.  Though my senses were a bit off due to getting sick again, I still enjoyed the meal of sashimi, garlic noodles, crab, lamb, and cheesecake.  Happy birthday to me!

There was a koi aquarium under the walkway, which was pretty cool

Yummy!

Not your typical raspberry cheesecake, but still delicious nonetheless

Hollywood

 The family got an audition in Hollywood this morning for a print job, so we made our way to La-la land to try to make it big!  Ha ha, j/k, Trung is opposed to auditions where he needs to be there, but since it was a weekend, he couldn't complain too much.  Plus, the house where the audition was held was near The Grove, so we could hang out there afterwards.  The audition went well; normally they take a picture of an individual, then the family, then another individual, then the family, and so on and so on.  Then they tape us answering questions and this time, they asked about our last family vacation, which fortunately we just had one to Mt. Baldy, so we had something to talk about.  Overall, the audition went better than the last one, so cross your fingers for a phone call that we got it!

 

 Taking a picture of our food at The Cheesecake Factory and apparently Lydia doesn't want to be in it.  Too many pictures for one morning.  :P  The kids' mini corndogs were surprisingly pretty good with a nice juicy dog in the middle.

 I ran over to Janie & Jack and Banana Republic while Trung and the kids hung out at Pottery Barn Kids; they just love that place!

5 Seconds of Fame...literally

Lydia was on Grey's Anatomy tonight!  I recognized the little girl who was in "school" with Lydia, and by the time I got Trung to come watch, Lydia's scene was already over.  Yes, that's how short it was.  Oh well, it was cool being on a set of a TV show that I watch regularly.  I waved at "Karev" and got to see the reserved parking spots for "Yang" and "Jackson".  Funny how the day of shooting was rainy and we really did feel like we were in Seattle.

Look for Lydia behind and between "Yang" and "Karev" in the green shirt holding a guy's hand and a teddy bear

Sand Sledding on Venice Beach

Today after school, a bunch of Sophie's classmates met at Venice Beach to go sand sledding.  We had never gone before, but I've heard that it is pretty fun.  The timing couldn't have been more perfect, with the parking price reduced a couple of dollars and the sun setting for the day.  It took awhile to figure out these man-made dunes, but once we did, it was a blast.  We will definitely be back!

Sophie and a sunset

Figuring out how to get the sled to move

Improvising

The sandy was way to bumpy to just slide down

So, yours truly had the idea of creating a cardboard trail

Whoo-hoo!  Brillant!

I have to admit, it was pretty fun!

Each ride down was as thrilling as the one before

The sled stopped, but Lydia kept going

Another day on the mountain

Though we ended on having an early start, we didn't end up leaving Chantalynn's aunt's house until around 10.  So, by the time we go to the mountaintop, it was already noon and lunchtime.  Trung inhaled his chili cheese dog and took off while the rest of us took our time eating lunch.  Since he had just gotten back from his ski trip, Trung just wanted to check out this mountain and then would watch the kids to let me ski the rest of the time.  He managed to get in six total runs, and I got in 7 if you include non-skied ones.  I am always a little scared skiing since you hear so many stories of people crashing into trees or what not, but once I got the hang of it, it was a lot of fun.  Maybe next year we'll put the girls in a ski class and then soon, we'll be skiing as a family!

Sophie keeping herself busy on the ride up

Making snow angels

Letting the girls play "X marks the spot" with my ski poles while Trung got a couple runs in.

My turn at the top of Mt. Baldy

This trail looked a lot friendlier up on top

Not so much as you are going down it, well, more like sliding down with no clue when you are going to stop.  Yes, this will probably be the only black diamond that I will ever "ski" and no, I didn't know it was a black before I went on it.  :/

Chantalynn offered to watch the kids for a little bit so that Trung and I could ski together.

Ready to go down the correct side of the mountain this time

Now we are in business

Keeping warm inside the restaurant while people without kids wait in line outside for the lift down...it was a good 1.5 hour wait too!  Poor Sophie was starting to come down with sometime, hence, the red eyes but brave smile.

The kids taking turns with the Ipod since all our other electronic devices were dying off one by one.  Too bad they couldn't just sit back and enjoy the gorgeous sunset as seen through the window on the top right.

An unexpected journey

We had planned to go tubing on Mt. Baldy Christmas Eve, but postponed our trip until this three day MLK weekend.  Lydia's kindergarten classmate Cy and his mother Chantalynn joined us on our first visit to Mt. Baldy.  We left around 10 AM this morning and dropped by a Taiwanese breakfast place and a Vietnamese sandwich place before we finally made it to the mountain.  We enjoyed tubing for a couple of hours (the kids a little less) and then headed back down the mountain so we could get situated in our cabin and have dinner.  Unfortunately, the place where I reserved was a very shady place and no one was there to check us in.  We took the advice of a nice man living on site and not affiliated with the lodge, and decided to find another place to stay.  All the places down the mountain were either fully booked or only had single beds left.  Somehow, we ended up at Chantalynn's aunt's house in Riverside and had a good night's sleep in a gorgeous home.  Getting there (and just finding a place to stay the night) was certainly an unexpected journey, but at least everyone was happy and safe.

 Going up the mountain on the longest ski lift ever

 Our family with Chantalynn and Cy

 Our second ski trip as a family

 Sophie insisted on pulling the tube, until she realized that it wasn't moving

 Wheeeee

 Chantalynn took a turn with Sophie, who she nicknamed "Snow Bunny"

 My sweeties

 Cy and Lydia tubing together

 It was a long, bumpy ride down

 It's fun going down, but then you have to pull the tube back up.  The kids didn't last the allocated two hours because they got tired of trekking back up.

 The workers were helping our family tube down at the same time that they forgot to wait for the lane first.

 Running start

A long ways down

 I got a different companion on the way down

 Such a gorgeous day

Chilling

A-list sighting

After running errands all morning, I went to pick Lydia up from school and walked right by Halle Berry and her boyfriend Olivier Martinez!  I recognized Olivier first and of course, Halle was walking arm in arm with him.  She even smiled at me, probably because Lydia was stuffing her face with a fruit roll-up.  :P

It took me a moment to get over my initial shock and bust out my camera to take a picture of them.  By that point, they were already on the other side of the street.

A night of celebration

Tonight we celebrated Jessica's birthday at Hillstone's.  We all had delicious salads and enjoyed a bottle of sparkly that Snow brought. Weiru had to leave after dinner, but the rest of us walked over to Coffee Bean and had cheesecake and hot tea lattes on this cold (for Californian standards) night.

The original three...me, Jess, and Snow

DanceTime with Miss Kai

Sophie is really enjoying her dance class and Lydia wishes that she was signed up too (she didn't want to do the class when I was registering).  I think we may have a little ballerina in the making; she already is quite the diva.

Practicing first position

My little ballerina

Hot pot season is upon us

Our monthly potluck brought us to Weiru's place.  This time we did it a little differently; one person bought all the ingredients for hot pot instead of everyone bringing a couple of dishes.  It worked out pretty well and everyone had a blast eating and talking and eating.

The sun setting over the Pacific Ocean, and also the view from Weiru's place

Nothing says "winter" like a dip in the pool

Complete view from the balcony

Hot pot time!  Complete with an individual cooking pot and a glass of wine.

The little kids table

A birthday surprise for Jess

Karaoking the night away

Trung's attempt to sing "Gangnam Style".  Keep in mind that he doesn't know a lick of Korean.

Friday Happenings

Sophie was so excited about her share items (gloves) that she got ready for school two hours before she needed to.

Since we didn't need to rush home for once, Lydia and I went to Menchies for some frozen yogurt and ran into Jessica, Isabelle, and Ryan

Teddy Bear Sleepover

 The library hosted its first ever "teddy bear sleepover" where a librarian read several "teddy bear" stories and the kids, who all brought stuffed animals, left their toys overnight to be picked up the next day with an album of their adventures.  It's a cute concept and the girls enjoyed being at the library in their pajamas.

 Late night snack

 Hot chocolate and cookies with "Polar bear" and "Sparkles"

 Each kid laying their stuffed animal on the sleeping bag

 Goodnight, animals!

Ready to roll

 We weren't sure how the kids would feel from their first couple days back at school, but they seemed to be okay, so Snow and I went to the Kidspace Museum and La Grande Orange Cafe like the good ole days.  The kids don't get to play for very long because traffic after picking up Sophie at 3:30 is pretty bad, but they still have fun and are pretty much ready to go by dinnertime.  We can't wait until Spring Break when we get to go earlier and the kids can just chill at the playground before heading to the museum.

 Tia made Sophie an adorable pair of Wikki stix spectacles

Waiting for the train to go by behind the restaurant

Clowning around

 After taking care of some chores around the house, the girls and I went to the mall to kill some time before picking Trung up at the airport.

 The girls purchased this ride with their own money, too bad it was kind of boring

 Sliding down a horizontal exclamation point

Sophie's beautiful blonde hair