Pets // Sick Kids // Christmas Lights // Nik's mom

Happy holidays, everyone!  Not too much has happened in our household that last two weeks but generally just weathering through December.  It has been cold with a little bit of rain here and there.  We've all dug out our heavier jackets and sherpa pants the last few weeks.

We've had a couple mini additions to our household!  First, we got a new betta fish to add to our aquarium along with three more neon tetras.  Amy and the kids had gone to Petsmart to get the tetras to create a bigger school but then they saw the bettas looking so pathetic in their little cups on display and had to rescue one.  There were ones that were more colorful but Amy chose one of the ones that had been in its cup the longest (almost a couple months) to save it.  Luckily, it seems to be getting along well with our other fish and there isn't too much fighting.

It's gotten more color back into its fins
after getting out of that little cup

Second, we've almost fully adopted Sesame.  He often comes into the house now and prowls around.  Vic has been instrumental in giving us scratching posts/boards, blankets, catnip and treats so we're very thankful to her.  She even gave us a collar that I slipped onto him.  We have to watch him in the house as he still attempts to scratch the couch but he's slowly getting better.  He has also scratched at the kids a couple of times but that may be partly their fault as they may not be approaching him correctly.

Lounging inside

I'm surprised that he allows us to pick
him up so easily

Sleeping in his carrier outside.  We're tempted
to bring him in but don't trust him fully yet..

The kids have also gotten a couple mild illnesses.  First it was Kai with one day of fever and missed one day of school.  Then Jad was sick for one day last week with fever and diarrhea and missed three days of school.  Then Kai was sick again for one day this week and stayed home for one day.  Sora was like, "how come I'm the only one who doesn't get to stay home?" :)  Fingers crossed, no major illnesses yet or anything lasting really long.

Amy went on a walk with Kai at Alum Rock

My day with Jad while he was climbing 
a fallen tree near the creek

Of course, Christmas season is upon us.  We managed to send out all of our Xmas cards early this year (way to go, Amy!)  We went out this week to look at the lights in Willow Glen so that was fun, if cold :)  We also had a nice Christmas party with our small group and did a little white elephant gift exchange for the kids where almost everyone got the present they wanted..

Our holiday card this year 
w/ a high tech QR code 

Willow Glen Christmas Arches

White elephant with the small group!

..Sydney had gotten the plasma globe initially but it was stolen from her so she was rather sad.  Ethan also got a pop-it thing which was he was probably too old for so we ran back out to Marshalls and got two more plasma globes for both of them.  At $12 each, they were a good deal and little effort to make their days. 

Sydney with her plasma globe

Lastly and most significantly, over the last two weeks my mom (Nik's) has continued to decline.  Joe got there in early December and he felt that she was suffering.  After a long talk with my dad and some difficult consideration, they decided to move my mom to full comfort care.  I had a very difficult time trying to figure out if I needed to be there before she passed but eventually decided that it was too hard to make it there on such short notice.  Over the last week, she has only been getting liquid nutrition by mouth and morphine for pain when she seems uncomfortable.  It's immensely hard to bear that we are not doing anything while she is dying but it's clear that she will not get better from here so we're rather she pass away naturally instead of prolonging her suffering.  I am planning to go there in January for a week whatever happens.  It's hard for me to see my mom this way so here are a few pictures of her from happier times when she was with us.

June 2018, my mom jumped in when she
saw Amy taking a picture of all three kids

July 2019 when Chris and I were able to visit Thailand

July 2015 when we were lucky enough to take my mom to Greece..
her first time in Europe

Sep 2013 The Grandparents at Kai's red egg

2016 maybe, I love this picture of my mom and Chris..
She looks genuinely happy

1978?  I was less than a year for sure in this picture with my mom
and Joe.  Yes, I was born on a pig farm

There's a complex mix of emotions currently. love, regret, longing, joy, guilt, sadness..  She never thought there was anything after death, just that you go away.  Hopefully she is comfortable at the end and then goes to sleep peacefully.

To not finish things on too sad a note, I'll leave a pic of the kids here on their way home from school with their friends.  Til next time!

After the rain, often there's a rainbow

Sleepover at the Shaws // Multiple Thanksgivings // Joe in Thailand // Whiskey Mini advent // Santa Visits // In Person Small Group Again

A busy end of November and beginning of December.  Here we go..

We didn't have much planned for Thanksgiving, mostly just going to Amy's parent's house as Matt and Nichole were coming up from SoCal and David and Sunny as well.  Our good friends, the Shaws, were going to visit their own family but then someone got sick and their whole trip was cancelled so they didn't have much planned all week.  The kids wanted to do a sleepover anyway so the Shaws were kind enough to take them all for a night (when Amy was working night shift and I was working morning shift the next day) and the kids had a lot of fun together.  

I think they went to sleep at 11pm and woke up at 5am

Then we had Thanksgiving in Fremont with Amy's family.  Nichole is pregnant so there were congratulations all around and she is due in the summer.  She helped make the food but the smells made her nauseous, so she didn't even get to enjoy the meal.  

I didn't even get a picture of David's smoked
turkey before.. but this is it after being demolished

Since they didn't have plans, we invited the Shaws along for dinner.  They got along well with Amy's parents too.  

Thanksgiving is a time for family AND friends

The Friday after Thanksgiving, we had Friendsgiving at the Connicks with our neighbors and watched some football.  Kegan had his parents over from Hawai'i and a number of the neighbors came as well.  Good times.

Finishing off all those leftovers

On the Saturday after that, Amy and Matt had a run.  As they are a bunch of runners in their family, they wanted to run together so they signed up for a 10k at a local school fundraiser.  I hope our kids are more like her in this respect and less like me :p

Amy was the first place finisher for women!
Matt finished first in his age group!

Matt and Nichole came over afterwards and then David came and Sunny decided to come too so basically, we had three Thanksgivings in three days.  Opulence, I has it, for sure!  We also want to support Matt and Nichole so next time they are in town, maybe they'll stay with us.  The kids will love it too :)

Thanksgiving at our house.  Sunny cooked another
turkey! So much food!

Everyone playing Kingdominoes

Nichole was feeling a lot better this day and
had a chance to eat some food

On a less happy note, Joe made it to Thailand just after Thanksgiving and was able to see my mom.  She's still in the hospital and probably will stay there at the long term care ward, where there is help for her.  I hope to be able to go visit in late January or early February.

Hard to see her like this but
I'm glad Joe and my dad are there

As December rolls in, there has been more rain, for which we are glad.  Sesame cat has not been sleeping in his box even though it's freezing outside but he's doing ok so what can we do. The kids have continued to love on him and he comes by the door at least twice a day for feeds.  The next step is to trap him and get him neutered and shots, though he still can't come it because we're all allergic, except Jad who is always very quick to say he is exempt.

He is a cute cat

For advent, the RCC Gang has cooked up another scheme for Xmas.  Spearheaded by Vic, each family has contributed two bottles of whiskey which have been split up into twelve mini bottles for each adult to be drank on the 12 nights before Christmas.  These guys are going to make alcoholics out of us all.

The Connick's alcohol distribution service

Each bottle was designed and hand labeled/drawn by Vic.  I'm not sure if I should be impressed or scared by her OCD.. er, I mean, dedication :p 

Very nice looking bottles.. with a 
labeled sheet for tasting notes too!

Jad's school had a little Winter Wonderland event with crafts and Santa pictures.  We're not big on these things but it's a nice community event so we went to support the school.  It's possible that many of the working parents in the area may not have time for these kind of things and it didn't cost much so that was nice too.

Santa and Mrs. Claus

Jad had his 5 year old doctor visit with Derek and he was fine though his BMI is a bit low on the curve.  Derek encouraged him to eat but I don't think he listened.  Too much focus on playing and not enough on eating, just like his dad.

That's a lot of ribs, dude

Lastly, our church small group has been talking and a lot of us miss gathering in person, something which went away over the last two years.  Virtual meetings are good and convenient but just aren't the same for camaraderie and sharing and the kids also don't get to socialize with each other.  This past week, our entire group got together again and it was great to see everyone and catch up.  I think we'll plan to do it every other week from now on with men's and women's gatherings in between.

Amy made a giant pot of Japanese curry for everyone

Kids all playing together making a giant
mess but totally worth it to see them interacting

Hot Wheel ramps, elliptical, climbing
wall.. all getting used!

I'll leave you this time with the RCC kids after their latest "talent show".  When we've had dinner together, the kids have gotten into doing silly performances and acts.  There is light saber fighting, cartwheels and tumbles, silly dances, drumming on various objects, etc.  They even did a whole play once, though it was not coherent at all. Lots of silliness and sometimes it seems like a chore to watch them but I bet we'll look back on it and miss the cute stage they are in now.

Kids taking a bow after their performance

All for now.  Til next time!

Hearty Harvest // Sora and Jad's Bday #1 // Trivia King! // SF getaway // Bday #2 // Cast off! // Semi-Cat

The busy season continues!  It's been a couple weeks but here's what happened with us recently..

Church always does a program called Hearty Harvest, where families will get a bag of groceries and gift card to donate to those in need.  We've been doing it for a couple of years now and we joined again this year.  I lean into it pretty hard about how we are lucky to have more and should give when we can.  The kids did like finding and choosing which groceries to buy.  I tried to give them lessons about how to choose not the cheapest option but close when possible :)

That Sora's always posing ..

With Jad and Sora's birthdays so close together, we usually have a couple of joint birthday parties to celebrate.  Our first involved the neighbors and school friends and we had a bunch of people over at our house.  It's been a long while since we've had such a big party (maybe 3 years) and it was a bit chaotic but the kids had a great time.  We got a bounce house in the backyard and pizzas from Costco!

Inside the chaos.. glad no one got hurt

Amy set up a craft table where the kids
decorated their own Christmas ornaments

There was some video game time too

Parents got to chat a bit as well

The kids liked pulling down the bounce house

That's a lot kids!  Donut cakes and loose donuts
were very popular

The party went late in the evening with
our neighbors closing it out

All in all, an excellent party and hopefully signs of things to come.  I think COVID really did a number on us as a society and it's going to take years for the effects to reverberate and fade away.  We'll take it one step at a time, I suppose.

One silly bit, at work one day we had a trivia contest instead of our usual staff meeting.  I took first place, thank you very much though it wasn't til the very end that I pulled it up. 2nd place went to Derek Ng who is a friend from church :)  Sweet!

Brings back the quiz bowl days

The week after was Amy's birthday.  Because it fell on a Thursday and the kids were off school both Thursday and Friday, we decided to take a 2-day trip up to SF to celebrate.  We started with a pancake breakfast for Amy.

Sora was the architect of the penguin pancake

After some gaming time, we went up to SF, stopped at In-n-Out on the way for early lunch and then met up with Dali and her family at the California Academy of Sciences.  Not only is it a spectacular museum but also we both bought the annual pass and we have to go at least twice to make it worth it!

Plantarium show.. It was cool but I think I fell
asleep in the warm darkness

Jad and Sophie in an aquarium window

They had a photos exhibit and one was of a white weasel
jumping up.. I love this picture of Kai 

We also made it for penguin feeding time
which was very cool

After that we parted ways with Dali then drove over to Union Square to check in at the Westin.  I had used some points to get a room there and we got a free upgrade (I think the clerk felt sorry for us when he saw that we had three kids running around :) to a room with a view of the square.  

pretty swank :p

We had a ramen dinner at Hinodeya.  Pretty good
with a lighter soy broth but not amazing

We had dessert at One65.. Jad is photo bombing here

We walked around a bit til it got cold and then
went back to relax in the hotel

In the morning, Amy woke up early and went out on a run
around the streets of SF as per her usual habit

We packed up and headed out to lunch at the
Sears Deli.  Some cool history memorabilia on the walls!

Amy then took Sora ice skating which she really enjoyed.  The boys less so and they just walked around with me and helped to check out of the hotel.

A couple of cuties here

We then went back across town to meet Kristin and Rich and their kids.  It was fun to catch up and to see the kids playing together :)  We really don't see each other enough for living just an hour away

Height order!

That concluded our 2-day trip and celebration for Amy's birthday.  It was really nice and I'll see if I can continue in the coming years. On the way we did make a stop at Uncle Wilson's grave site as it was Veteran's day when Amy usually goes by.  It was nice to see all the little flags up.

Thank you for your service

This past Sunday, we had the second celebration for Sora and Jad.  This time with the church friends after church with five of the other families. The kids had a lot of fun playing together and the adults had fun catching up.  Cake from Clover Bakery was spectacular as usual.

Besties church crew

The kids didn't want us taking pictures of them so this
was the best one we got

And just a couple days ago, Kai finally got his cast off.  He wore it for about 5 weeks and got so used to using his left hand that sometimes he forgets to use his right hand now.  It'll probably take some getting used to again and will need some strengthening.  It's still not fully healed though and our biggest worry is that he'll forget and fall down on it again but what can you do.  The plate might not actually have to come out according to his orthopedist so we'll see in a repeat xray in a couple months.

Gnarly scar, dude!

Lastly, we have been having some cat drama.  The background is that one of our neighbor's cats had kittens a while back and the whole family was roaming the neighborhood.  Some people asked said neighbor to neuter the cats and I don't think they took that very well but one day, most of the cats were gone.  We're not sure but we suspect that they were dumped somewhere but who knows.  There was one cat that was somehow missed, named Sesame, and lately it's been hanging out at our house.  I think because there's no dog at our house and there's plenty of places to poop (yuck!)  But it's been getting really cold outside lately, so we felt bad for him and put out a little box and blanket for him to stay wam.  He did sleep in the cardboard box and then this led to us getting some cat food for him from the Connicks and water.  The kids love feeding him and petting him and he's mostly quite friendly so now we have become "those people" who feed stray cats (or one cat anyway).  We are all basically allergic to cats though so we can't really adopt him fully.  We have been careful to only feed him and avoid other cats or any raccoons.  Silly cat!  Though he is very cute when he's purring.

We eventually decided to construct a more sturdy and
insulated box for him but he hasn't quite taken to it yet

Semi-pet

That's it for now.  Til next time!