Random Brain Dump

A few days ago, my buddy Vince came up for a visit. So we decided to do a day trip to Yosemite to take some pictures. The drive there back wasn’t bad, very doable for a day trip.

The best part about driving to Yosemite is how the first glimpse of the valley takes your breath away when you make through the bend of the road. Yosemite seems to always sneak up on me, every time.

We grabbed lunch at the Ahwahnee hotel and then headed out to do the scenic thing. The water falls were flowing at full force. We abandoned our plan for a hike to Nevada Falls because of the heavy snow on the trails up the mountain. Looking back we should’ve tried a flat trail like Mirror Lake instead. I regretted that we didn’t do any hikes…

We spent two nights at my sister in-law’s on a short trip to LA after Christmas. On the last night, Suzanne was out late seeing an old friend. I was putting the girls to bed when they asked for a story as they often do. At home, sometime instead of reading books I would tell them stories– some true accounts and some I make up. So, I was looking around at the new surrounding for things to work into my story (I usually make things up as I go) when I saw a ceiling fan. That gave me an idea.

So I made up this story of a boy who woke up and discovered himself all sweaty on a sweltering summer day. He got ready for school, but grew increasingly uncomfortable in the hot morning. He kept complaining about the heat to his mother and didn’t want to go to school. His endless whining throughout breakfast gave her an idea. She gave him a shoe box and told him that it was magic! This magical thing in the box will instantly make him cool and comfortable. But there’s one condition: he cannot open it until he gets to class. Otherwise, the magic will not work. The boy got excited, grabbed the box and sprinted out the house. Along the way, he bragged about the magic box that will make him cool to every friend he encountered.

By the time he got to school the entire class knew about the magic box. As the boy sat down in class, anticipation built and all eyes were on him. The boy excitedly put the magic box on his desk, took a deep breath, surveyed the entire class and then calmly removed the cover. His eye bugged out, mouth gasped as he reached in the magic box with his hand and grabed its magical content: a paper fan which his mother made and inscribed with crayons “I love you, mom!” The boy raised the fan to show all his friends in pure delight. The collective excitement of the students exploded in a thunderous applause.

The end…

Katelyn and Allison were cracking up as I finished the story– just the feedback I was looking for. Allison then excitedly jumped out of her bed, made a fist with her hand, put it on the middle of her forehead and excitedly said to me: “Daddy, when you were telling the story I see everything in my head!”

Well… with a response like that, I guess that story was magical to me too.

This past Saturday, I had a rare afternoon which I didn’t have to tend to the girls. I took advantage of it, grabbed my camera bag and headed out for a hike at Rancho San Antonio. The rain the night before cooled the afternoon but not enough, fortunately, to leave mud on the trails. The highlight was the view at vista point at “High Meadow” and my encounter with a pack of deers on my way back.

It was a nice way for some quality time alone and decompress…

We returned to Maui this summer after our wedding there 8 years ago. It was mainly a family vacation but we scheduled it so we got to celebrate our anniversary on the island. It was a quiet celebration at Roy’s, one of our favorite Hawaiian fusion restaurants.

The girls are bigger now, so traveling with them is so much easier & less hassle. Also helps that we traveled a little lighter this time. Airlines these days charge hefty fees for additional or over-weight baggage.

The girls had blast, spending most of their time in the pools & beaches. We pretty much stayed put at the hotel most of the time. We didn’t even make it to Kea Lani (hotel where we stayed when we got married) as planned. 🙂 Katelyn got around the pool by herself this time, good to see those swimming lessons paying off. In fact, she’s pretty much like a fish. Allison too enjoyed it more since she’s much more comfortable in water.

We hooked up with a few friends. My buddy Vince flew over from Oahu; hanging out with him and his friend Vijack made us feel less touristy. We also hooked up with our friends, the Truongs, for a few days. Our hotels were close by, so the girls got to swim with the Truong boys. It was a shame our stays only overlap for a few days. One highlight of the trip is a sailing trip with Alex & Nicholas. The kids were super excited we spotted dolphins & turtles. It was a first snorkeling experience for our girls. It was a kick for them to see the fish & corals in the water.

Another highlight was a trip to Haleakala summit with Vince. Haleakala is a dormant volcano in Maui. We started out around 2AM up the windy road and made it to the 10,000 feet summit while it was still dark. Dozens of other tourists crowding at the the little shelter– it was very cold and windy. Dawn broke and we saw a glorious sunrise (my last memorable sunrise was at Bryce Canyon in Utah). Wow– sunrise above the cloud! Vince & I spent the next 4 hours snapping pictures, including some with us jumping up & down at the top of the world. That was great fun.

We also took the girls to a luau at the Sheraton, it was way overrated for me. But it was the first for the girls and they enjoyed it. They even went up the stage with Suzanne to do the hula.

As with other family trips, I found I was so busy having fun with the girls and I barely have time to shoot some real photos. In fact, I had all but one opportunity to shoot sunsets. So the night before we left, I spent 2 hours in the middle of the night shooting some night photography. It was cool to walk the emptied beach at night under the moon light. Plus I don’t have too many chances for night shooting.

Below is a few shots, check out more here @ Flickr or here @ Shutterfly.

I use Flickr for sharing my photographs. While I like the social aspects of it a lot, I always find the page rendering to be too minimal for sharing (after all these are pictures not search results).

Shutterfly is a “personal expression” site and is one of few sites that store photos in full resolution, with no storage limits. Your photos are guaranteed never to be deleted. All free of course. Check out the photo books, they’re pretty awesome!

This isn’t meant to be a shameless plug. But Shutterfly is beta-testing a new photo share service. It’s very cool and super easy to design pages and render photos. Since I started to upload pictures on a monthly basis mainly for online storage, now I can effortlessly share them and make prints all in one place. I’ll use Shutterfly for family photographs but I’ll definitely continue to use Flickr for my other type of photography.

Anyway, check out Our Lives In Pixels of regular updates of our family pictures…

This Saturday was a beautiful, typical Californian spring day. So we decided to take the kids and spend the day at Oakland Zoo. Kids had a fun sun-filled day and I got to snap a few pictures.

This past weekend I drove the girls to Palo Alto for them to check out some roaming horses on this open pasture. The girls got to feed and pet a few horses, they always enjoy that. I got to snap a few shots, and I enjoyed that.

We spent this past Christmas with a big get-together at Tahoe. I mean big: four families! The cozy cabin I got was barely big enough to accommodate all of us. The weather was nice so the kids went out and played snow pretty much every day.

We probably had the most fun spending the afternoon sleighing at a snow park on Echo Summit. We also spend a day at Squaw Valley; the kids went snow-tubing while I snow-boarded with some of my cousins. Snow-boarding this time wasn’t as fun as I remembered– yet another subtle reminder of me getting old! We stopped and checked out Emerald Bay along the way. Too bad we were in haste and only spent a a few minutes snapping pictures; the place was simply breath-taking.

It was a nice break for everyone and it was timely for me after a few stressful weeks on the new job. I especially enjoyed the opportunity just relaxing and snapping some pictures on a snow-covered landscape.