End of Season

Lydia's basketball team ended the season with a tie against a team that beat them quite badly the first time.  The "Dream" team showed much improvement over the last several weeks, but more importantly, new friendships were made along the way.  Lydia doesn't seem to be much into basketball, but her coach think she still has it in her to keep playing, so we'll see.  I usually let her take the winter break off from swimming when it's colder and play basketball, but we may try another sport.  We've got plenty of time to decide.  :)

Coach Rondell, who Lydia was deathly afraid of the very first day of practice last year, and his two biggest fans.

The best way to get a kid to eat salad is for them to make it themself.  Here is Lydia's club salad masterpiece.

Empty nest

We had a rough start to the week and I had a feeling it was going to be a tough week.  Mid-week things were back to normal again until Friday, after my zumba class, I asked my friend Simona to come over to see the hummingbird babies.  When she peered into the nest, she said they weren't moving and something seemed wrong.  I told Simona to blow on the them because that usually gets their attention, but that didn't work either.  For some reason, the mother never came back to feed them, so the poor babies starved to death.  

The girls were more curious than sad when I broke the news to them when I picked them up after school.  We held a little service for the birds and buried them under the tree where they were born.  Though they didn't get to live long, we were blessed to have gotten to witness the short life they did have.

Now just an empty nest

Shoo Stye, don't bother me

Last Friday, Sophie got a stye on her lower eye because I think I accidentally got lotion in her eye while trying to moisturize her upper eyelid.  We drained her eye with warm, put a warm compress on her eye, and gave her stye medication.  By Monday, her eye was looking much better and you wouldn't have even known she had a stye at her performance Wednesday.  I didn't do the whole nighttime routine for one day and Thursday she woke up with the stye now on her upper eyelid.  We are back to the nightly routine and will keep it up this time until it definitely goes away. 

Lower eye

Moving up to the upper eye

All About Sophie

Today was a busy, but fun day for Sophie.  In the afternoon, her class had their last PS Arts class (dance, visual arts, music, and theater arts) and the parents were allowed to come and watch.  I think it's a nice way to see what makes our school special.

Sophie's group

Getting Happy, Sophie and her partner made up their own hand shake

I picked Sophie and Lydia up right after school to head for Hollywood for Sophie's audition.  I probably shouldn't have confirmed one for today because Sophie had a performance at 7, but the past two times she auditioned at this particular casting agency, it went really fast.  Fortunately, it was a quick audition and we made it back in ample time to have dinner and be back at school for the performance, which was the exact same one Lydia did last year, but this time it was with another class.

Sophie the biologist

I know this song by heart since Sophie would sing it every night for at least three times.

Makes all things better

We had a rough morning...totally forgetting to do Sophie's "student of the week" poster due today and finding out that Lydia's country speech about a person for that country, well, she didn't write anything about that country!  And to top it off, we were running so late that I had to drive the kids to school in my jammies!  After zumba class, I went to check on the hummingbird babies and they made my day better just by watching them chirp in their sleep.

Sided by side

Upside down

Chirping sweet nothing

Hungry and waiting for mom to come back

Gotcha

Lydia's team posing for a picture for an inside joke.  Apparently, their coach Rondell makes the gesture that the kids are making while he talks to people to get them to look down.  And when they do, he says "gotcha".  I tried it one time and it really does work; people's eyes just naturally look down.

Hodge podge fairy

Sophie has been getting a steady line of auditions this year and this morning, I got a text for a pretty good job that was pretty specific.  I had to ask around for fairy items and my friends came to the rescue.  I don't do hodge podge too well, so this was the best I could come up with.

The different shoes was Trung's idea

Growing

I hadn't checked on the hummingbird babies lately and took a quick peek today and boy, have they grown!  They almost fill up the entire nest now, but still don't have their feathers yet.

Benihana birthday

If you join their Chef's Table program, Benihana gives you $30 to spend every year for your birthday and the kids absolutely love it there, so naturally, we went.  My dad came into town yesterday, so he joined us, and we happened to meet Lydia's classmate Violeta there with her grandmother.  We shared a table and got a black chef, which was a first, but he was nice and had some cool tricks up his sleeve.

The girls

Convincing customs

Since the kids didn't have school today for President's Day, I took them with me to zumba.  After we got home and had lunch, I received an urgent text from Trung...his backpack, with his passport and work computer, had been stolen right out of the rental car.  I did what I could for him on my end, providing phone numbers and information, but all he could really do was talk to the airline and see if they would let him come home without the passport.  After talking to several people, he finally was able to talk to customs, who asked him many personal questions, and finally let him go on his way.  Whew!

Trung took this awesome picture at Whistler.  I am thinking about entering it into a photo contest.

We met Trung's middle school friend in Irvine for a little while; he and his family were visiting from New York and weren't sure if they would be able to make it up to Santa Monica.

Randy and Trung lost touch for several years, until Randy met his wife Mai, who was friends was Trung's sister Mai, and then they reconnected.

While Dad was away

Trung left for his annual guy's ski/snowboard trip on Wednesday. Since then, the girls and I have been keeping it really low key, especially since I've been sick.  Friday night we had a movie night for a bunch of the girls' friends...I figure that since I wouldn't be going out with my "valentine", I might as well let my friends go out with theirs.  Saturday, we stayed home all day, only to run out to return the redbox movie from the day before and to drop by the library.  Sunday, we went to Sophie's auditioning workshop and made dumplings for dinner.  Overall, a very chill weekend.

Watching "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day"  Did I mention I met Hilary Swank while picking up those individual popcorn containers at Bed Bath and Beyond?  I even gave her five 20% off coupons!  :P

Dumplings for dinner

Hatched!

The hummingbird eggs that we've been watching have hatched!  I was walking home from school with Sophie and she insisted that the eggs had hatched, and even though I didn't agree, I took a look and sure enough, they had!  In my opinion, hummingbirds are cute and their babies certainly are not, but it's still amazing to see such tiny living creatures.

The babies look like hairy ants with beaks

Head bob

Hungry baby looking for mama

Birthday Festivities

I sent an e-mail out a month ago asking all my friends to "save the date" to celebrate my birthday with me on my actual birthdate, Friday, February 6th.  As it so happened, a week before my birthday, Sophie auditioned twice for jobs working on my birthday.  I thought the chances were slim that she would even book one of the jobs, but sure enough, she did!  Yay, Sophie, but boo, now I had to change the festivities.  Even though twice as many people would have been able to come to my birthday brunch if I had kept in on the 6th, I was still able to celebrate with a group for Happy Hour on Saturday and another group for brunch today.  I am blessed with good friends.

Happy hour at Michael's

A few of the friends from brunch at Del Frisco's Grille

My meal

Lemon birthday cake

A chill Sunday

The California Omelette at Amanadine + mocha = breakfast of champions

Dropped the girls off at Magicopolis for a birthday party, while Trung and I enjoyed lunch and a walk down the Promenade

Our neighbor pointed out that a hummingbird had made a home in a tree in our building's courtyard AND there were two eggs inside

Momma bird keeping watch

Big Hero 6

Our movie theater was offering a free showing of Big Hero 6 and especially since we hadn't seen it yet, we were all up for it.  Seating was on a first come first serve basis, so I arrived at 1:30 as suggested even though the movie didn't start until 3.  We did get prime seating though and enjoy a really fun movie with friends.

Lydia and Sophie with several of their friends

Interview with one of the animators (the one on the right)

Baymax and friends

National Yogurt Day (Take 1)

Enjoying free fro yo at Yogurtland and the owner, Alex, (on the right), wanted to take a picture of us to submit to the local newspaper