Universal Studios with Tia Doris

Tia Doris and Joel were going to return to Honduras on Sunday night, 1/30 so we decided to send them off by going to Universal Studios the day before. It was a fun day for everyone! Surprisingly, Tia Doris was quite daring as she rode on basically all of the rides that we had time for, including the scary rollercoaster type ones! Since we had young kids with us, we couldn't go to too many rides. We watched the Waterworld and Animal Show, as well as Shrek. We also rode on the tram and watched that awesome 3D King-Kong vs T-Rex extravaganza! Even though it was his 3rd time watching this, Wes was quite scared this time around. Kay, on the other hand, had started to like it. Afterwards, we all went to Souplantation to have dinner. We barely had time to chat before having to go home since it was getting very late for the kids. We said goodbye to Tia Doris and Joel, and hope to see them return here very soon!



Jaws on the tram ride


Wes with Uncle Joel


The Waterworld show


Sisters


The lovely view of the valley


A very cool orangutan at the animal show




Dinner at Souplantation


Kay with Tia Meli

The New Goby

Today was the first day Kay started her new swimming class (Goby). Miss B said she did very well. It's so cool to see how far she's progressed. She seriously swims better than me! :) Look at her go at it with her free-style hand movement now...She also has to move her legs on the back float. So proud of our little fish girl!

Mr. Wes

I was about to be on my way to take Mr. Wes to music class today when I saw him dressed in his new blue guitar shirt. He looks so cute in it and I just had to take some shots! I would normally just snap it with my phone but with the nice overcast going on, I ran upstairs and grabbed my good camera. We only had a few minutes so only 2 of them came out decent. Here is Mr. Wes...

Smart Progress

I was anxious today as I took Wes to his first day of preschool-type class offered by the city. He was sick last week so he didn't get to go. From what I observed last week, the class was structured and I was closed to dis-enrolling Wes, thinking that I may not be able to control him (considering his awful, frequent temper tantrum lately). But after chatting with one of the moms there, she encouraged me to give Wes a chance. So I did, and I'm glad that I stuck with it.

Wes did pretty well. He was manageable (only resisting a few minor times), and participated in most of the activities. Today, we learned the letter "W", the color brown, and number 3. He liked to paint (though I personally didn't since it's so darn messy) and he didn't resist too much when we had to go inside after the playground time. To my amazement, he liked Cheez-It during snack time (usually he only goes for Oreos or Pringles). Overall, I'm relief that he did well. He is going to turn 3 in a few months, and this is a good prep class for him before the real preschool. Yay, Wesley!

Wes in his "brown" outfit (color of the day)



His "W" hand stamp



His favorite activity (painting)

The Graduate

After 9 months in the beginner (Frogs) level swimming class, Kay graduated to the next level (the Gobies). Yay!! It took her a while to master the back float but as you can see in the picture, she finally did! According to the certificate, she is "relaxed in the water and swims a short distance comfortably. She is able to perform a prone float, glide, and glide with kicks. She can kick on the noodles and swim on her back from the wall with minimal assistance."

I took her to the mall and she picked a Hello Kity necklace, bracelet, and ring from the Sanrio store for her well-deserved accomplishment.

Here comes the new Goby! :) We are so proud of her!!

Youthful museum

Today we met up with Loraine, Aaron, and Matthew at the Chino Youth Museum. This is such a fun place for the kids. Especially for Kay, she truly enjoys hanging out with her friends vs. playing there by herself. Loraine and I also had a great time catching up while the kids played.



Matthew had just started walking last week so it was fun to see him walking around today. So cute!

Castle Park

We love this small amusement park! It's sooo...close to our house (about 15 minutes) and has tons of rides that the kids can ride on. Plus, we barely have to wait for any rides so we hit all of the rides within a few hours. Such a gem! Of course, it can't replace Disneyland, but if we only have limited time (and energy!), this place would certainly do!

Kay saw silly hats at one of the stands and begged us to buy it. It looks so cute on her!



Here are a few clips I took today....





Check out the crazy 360-degree loop ride that my daring husband took... I wouldn't ride this, even if someone were to pay me! Then again, I'm a chicken when it comes to these things. No wonder Kay is such a scaredy cat (sigh...)

Easy Saturday

We had a pretty relaxing Saturday this weekend. David and I decided to start the day with a homemade pancake. Yummy! It tasted soo...much better than the boxed one, even than the restaurants' ones! I added a corned-beef potato mixture with scrambled eggs to complete this meal. We then relaxed for a while at home.





We ended up going to the mall afterwards. It was Kayleen's first time using a booster seat that Aipo bought her a while ago. She absolutely loves it. Our little girl is growing up so fast!

TGIF

Yay...it's Friday! While Kay went to school in the morning, I took tante Iin and Wesley to go shopping at the LE outlet. We got some great deals there. In the afternoon, the piano tuner came over to tune our piano. Apparently we have to have it tuned every 6 months for the first 2 years since our piano is brand new and needs to have its strings to be properly stretched out. Take a look at the inside of the piano below. It's pretty cool! Our piano sounds especially good after the tuning.



I then took Kay for her swimming lesson at 4PM. She has been taking lessons since April 2010 but started with this particular teacher, Miss B, in October. This teacher is fantastic and I've seen significant improvement since then. She said that Kay would probably graduate soon to the next level, if only she can be more comfortable with her back float, as you can see in the video clip below. Otherwise, she is quite comfortable with the water and I really hope that she can swim by the summer.







In the evening, I tried a new recipe, courtesy of our housecleaning service. It's a husband and wife team, and they are from Austria. The food is called Kartoffelgulasch, which is basically sausages and potatoes in a red stew-like sauce. The red color is from paprika and I got to put marjoram, which is an herb that I've never used before. When I first tasted it, it was somewhat bland to me so I added some chili powder and chicken stock. The result was quite a yummy dish, that was happily devoured by David and me.