Random Brain Dump

This past weekend Kyle, the Jedi-in-training (also, the birthday boy), lead the young rebels in the fight against Vader and the darkside. Katelyn & Allison relunctantly joined the rebellion. Yes, they have much fear in them. Who wouldn’t fear Vader in his full suit and sandles? The padawans valiantly fought their way to Yoda’s swamp where all young rebels eagerly took a refreshing dip in celebration. May the force be with the young rebels…

Here are the visual newsreel documenting the younglings’ efforts.

Katelyn and Allison got a hold of an old family photo album the other day. They excitedly asked their mother about some photos of an old dog they discovered. I guess they found it was cool for their own mom to have a dog (Katelyn asked for a dog a few times). Suzanne explained the photos and described how the dog was her pet and that it died some years ago.

That night, when I was readying Katelyn for bed, she went on bragging to me how her mommy used to have a dog. I told her that I do remember the white poodle. She then said to me in a sudden sad tone: “Daddy, Mommy said her doggy died.” I acknowledged it with a nod. Since I noticed a sense of curiosity in her, I explained to her that the dog died of old age and how that’s is natural process. After some thinking and debating in my head whether she was old enough for me to explain the concept of eventual death, I went on explaining that even her daddy & mommy will grow old too.

Katelyn immediately made the connection, sat up and asked me in an alarmed tone “does that mean you & Mommy will die too?” I replied “yes, we will die of old age eventually.” She started to tear up and asked “will you come back after you die?.” I answered that you cannot come back from death but that death is natural and happens to everyone.

Growing more distraught, Katelyn said “but I don’t want you to die.” I calmly tried to allay her fear and explained how that it is in a very distanced future. I explained that we’ll be taking care of her until she grows up and that it’ll take a lot of years before we even reach her grandparents’ ages.

At this point, Katelyn hugged me and in tears, she said “I will miss you!“

Suzanne & I went to attend a free jazz concert last evening. Santana Row is offering a summer long series of jazz concerts. We were talking about hitting a jazz club for some time…

Parking was pretty much a nightmare, particularly since we got there rather late. The open court was crowded with a mix people lawn chairs in the graass and those dining at outdoor tables, all enjoying the music and the nice cool weather. The band featured was “A Touch of Brass”; I thought they were okay. I lugged my camera with a long tele-lense and was happy to get the opportunity to roam around & take some pictures. I probably would’ve enjoyed the band more had we gotten better seats & I stayed put in one place.

We left early to grab dinner with the Tieu’s before calling the nite. Get back just in time for the kids’ bedtime. All in all, it was a great way to spend a summer evening…

Yesterday morning, Allison & I were watching the openning scenes of the Wallace & Gromit movie. Allison was puzzled when Wallace & Gromit chased a rabbit around at the openning scenes. She expressed “concern” when Wallace finally nabbed the bunny by the neck. I explained the scene to her with the following exchange:

Allison: Why is he hurting the bunny?
Rex: Because he’s been bad; he steals oher people’s vegetables.
Allison: Why?
Rex: Because he likes to eat carrots.
Allison: Oh, he’s a bad bunny!
Rex: That’s right. Do you go around & steal carrots?
Allison: No… I’m not a baby bunny.
Rex: Good…
Allison: I stay home with Mommy!

I came home from work last evening and I quickly grabbed dinner. Then, we prepare the kids to go to local park and while I was dressing the kids, Allison & I had this little exchange:

Allison: Daddy?
Rex: What is it, baby?
Allison: I miss you when you go to work!
Rex: Ohh… thank you sweetey, I miss you when I’m at work too!
Allison: I love you too much…
Rex: (heart fast melting…) 🙂
Rex: I love so much too.

I often tell her “I love you so much”, but for some reason she likes to say “I love you too much.” It almost sounds like a complaint! At any rate, I’ll take what I can get from her… 😉

It’s Father’s day, so I want to blog a few quick lines about my girls. As you get to my age, I find that you start to look more forward to Father’s days than your birthdays… 🙂

4 families + 2 big campsites + 7 kids + toasted marshmellows + numerous pounds of yummy BBQ + good weather = great family fun.

We kinda kick off the start of the summer with a camping trip. It was our girls’ first camping trip & first in many years for Suzanne & I. We all had a great time with the Tieus, Jarvinens & Truongs. Mt. Madonna turned out to be a great little camping destination, wooded and conveniently nestled east of Gilroy. While the kids don’t exactly make camping as care-free as I remember, I still enjoyed the relaxing time since I had a marathon work week. The highlights for the kids were a trip to feed some white fallow deers at the deer pens. The highlight for me was the BBQ. 😉

Here are some of the shots from the weekend trip.

Suzanne had an outing with her girl-friends the other day. Sounded like their day was a day of pampering: afternoon tea, massages, spas etc… Sheessh, women. 😉 Determined not to unfairly miss out on any fun, I decided to go out as well. So, I arranged for a double-date for myself! Read it and weep, Suzanne!

The plan was to take the ladies out for a nice dinner. Since these two particular ladies do have a reputation of, shall we say: mis-behaving, wild and difficult, I had to choose one of the rowdier restaurants. Since one of them expressed craving for ribs, I loaded up the ladies and the three of us headed to the local Outback.

Been quite awhile since I dined at Outback. Not exactly best known for ribs, but the ladies were hungry and I didn’t want to venture out of Cupertino. As I walked in the place hand in hand with the two ladies, I happened to notice that the ladies were attracting quite a bit of attention. The strange thing was that the attention was coming not from the guys, but from other ladies, especially mothers. Hmmm, curious…

The waitress greeted us and asked me: “night out with the ladies?” I proudly answered “that’s right!” with a big grin. After we ordered our drinks, the bread came and was as fresh and hearty as I remember. The ladies obviously enjoyed the bread lathered with butter, as their mouths were soon smeared all over with the butter. My dates were rather messy.

After the yummy bread we all began to chow down on the baby back ribs. The ladies took a few bites then quickly gave up on the ribs. Spicy sauce wasn’t their thing, I guess. Didn’t want to be a bad date, I ordered them an additional side dish of rice which was more to their liking. I tried striking up conversation, but one lady, the younger of the two, wasn’t a great one to hold a conversation with. Half of the time, she’d simply reply “What?” She seemed to carry some kind of an ascent as well…

Around this time, the ladies began to get a bit wild. Heck I don’t remember ordering them any alcohol; perhaps somebody spiked their lemonade. One of them started climbing onto the table and start dancing. The other busy causing a commotion of her own, kept peeping at the next booth. It helped that the place was as noisy as can be, so we didn’t draw any ire from fellow patrons. I can attest to my dates’ reputation, these ladies can be a handful! Whew…

Next came a dessert of vanilla ice cream with OREOs. The ladies went straight for the ice cream, no OREOs for these ladies since they don’t take a liking to anything chocolaty. By the time we were done with the dessert, the ladies seemed tired out and were ready to head home. These ladies do turn in rather early. Hmm… guess they aren’t the party animals I heard them to be.

All in all, it was a great time out. My two dates seemed to have a good time with me too! I’m already looking forward to another double date the next time Suzanne abadons me to go out with her friends! 🙂

We celebrate this past Mother’s Day with an afternoon family picnic on the beach in Carmel. It was perfect weather: sunny, warm, bright, yet not too hot nor windy. The water was as turquoise as I’ve seen in Hawaii. The kids had loads of fun playing with the sand and surf. Their mother enjoyed her special day relaxing and playing with the kids!

Here are some of the shots from the beach…

Last month, we took the kids down to LA for a spring break visit.

While Suzanne was paying a visit to her friend Ly and her newly born baby, I spent some time with the kids and their cousins. We had a little easter egg hunt in my sister’s backyard. The kids had fun looking for the left-over eggs that Suzanne had prepared for her class. The older kids were too fast for Allison as they were darting back and forth grabbing the hidden eggs. Not wanting her to miss out on the fun, I resorted to lead Allison to one of the hidden eggs. She happily grabbed one and put it in her ducky basket. Didn’t take long for her to realize that the other kids got more eggs than her, so she complained to me: “I have only 1 egg Daddy, I don’t even have two eggs!” I bursted out laughing and explained to her that there weren’t any eggs left.

On another day, we took the kids to Getty Center. My friend Allen recently showed us some pictures of his visit to the place. The museum recently opened after years of renovation; it sits on top of the hill next to UCLA campus and provides an expansive and awesome view of LA and the pacific ocean. Just the view itself was worth the trip. We didn’t get much of a chance to check out the art collections, as the kids quickly got rowdy. When Katelyn fell into the water fountain, we packed up and headed straight home. What a nightmare! 🙁

The highlight of the trip was a day visit to Disneyland which has become sort of an annual spring break mecca for us last few years. Suzanne got all the kids each a hat; Katelyn picked her own hat and wouldn’t take it off the entire day! As usual, everyone liked “It’s A Small World” and of course the Dumbo ride. The highlight for Katelyn was posing with Minnie Mouse who was her favorite Disney character. After catching the Disney parade in the afternoon, the adults and the small kids were exhausted and ready to call it quit. I decided to stay with Katelyn and my nephew Andre.

With only three of us left, we were whizzing from ride to ride the rest of the day. Andre was a great sport— the oldest kid and had to stick with the girly and kiddie rides all day.  So to make it up to him, I took him & Katelyn to a Buzz Lightyear ride, after which Andre proclaimed “that was an awesome ride! It’s all worth it!” The two cousins even braved the “Haunted Mansion”! After a late dinner of hot dogs and pretzels, we caught the fireworks. Katelyn loved it when Tinkerbell flew back and forth high above the castle. We didn’t leave the park until 10PM. Katelyn was a trooper as she walked all day long on her own two feet. I was totally exhausted when all was said & done!

Here’s some of the pictures from the trip.