Coming home from summer camp // Year end shenanigans // Nik's out of the ER // Christmas!

 Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!  Finishing off the year strong ..

Kai came home from summer camp and he says he had a great time.  In his laconic way, he said that it was fun and that he was only missing home for a bit on Tuesday.  He appreciated the letter we sent that was delivered to him on Wednesday and was happy to come home.  I am glad he had a great time but like to think that we've prepared him well for these kind of things by traveling a lot :)

Amy had to help with transport so was
able to see him at camp 

His first request at home was a bowl of
Thai Instant Ramen

Kristina's birthday was in early Dec so the parents asked/coerced Tien and Tam to babysit the youngers while we went out to dinner. 

Getting all dressed up.  Amy cleans up nice!

Out at a bar in San Jose (though Amy did say
that the line was too long :)

I ended up going to my work holiday party and that was fun too.  It is always nice to see everyone out of scrubs :)  

Some of the original crew that I started
in the ER with

That's a good segue to me getting out of the ED.  The ED has just become very hard to work in over the past couple of years.  Not that the work is too much harder (it is) but it takes much more of toll on the ED staff as the ED has continuously become more and more overcrowded, wait times become severely extended and we're treating people from the waiting room, which is not a good situation for anyone.  Still both at the holiday party and leaving my last shift, I did feel a bit of guilt for leaving while my colleagues continue the good fight in the ED.  There is a bit of a feeling that the next time I enter or gather with them, that I'll be looking in from the outside and not part of the crew.  Still it's the best decision for me and our family at this time.  Everyone there has my greatest respect for pushing and doing their best every day for patients and for each other.  

Unfortunately, a typical number of patients
checked into the ED in the evenings these days

A picture from my last ED shift with
Albert (who is also Ryan's cousin)

Then a bunch of random stuff.. 

Kai had his end of year strings concert at school.. he likes violin
so we'll keep at it for now

Amy took Sora and some girl scouts to see The Nutcracker Ballet

Amy and I dropped off some food for our friends Anu and Kristie, who 
just had a baby then had a lunch date in our car :p

Jad had his holiday concert

I had a day off and volunteered at Sora's class for her winter potluck.  I haven't gotten to go to the kids' classes as much this year.  Hopefully, I'll get more time with my easier schedule in 2024.

Class picture

Sora is very much the leader
in her class

Amy was able to take the kids to Gilroy Gardens while I was at work.  Apparently, the grounds are very nice (used to be a garden after all) and the rides are very kid friendly, which is nice because our kids don't like roller coasters anyway.  

Arch tree

Kai and Sora went on the Banana Split
ride and they were not big fans :p

I'm not sure what these poses are but the kids are very cute

Amy is still trying to run where she can..
This is up at Alum Rock Park

We had our RCC Christmas party at Terry and Trang's house where the kids rocked out with karaoke.  Good times. Jad's got some moves for sure.. gotta put that kid into a break dancing class.

A silly video with dancing animated aliens

All the kids enjoyed karaoke.. even
Kai, who is not pictured here

Karaoke with three mics!

On Christmas eve, we had a whirlwind of activity.  We started the morning by going to church with Joyce, John and Mia.  It was fun and the kids got pulled into a singing/dancing routine.  Their worship group was a dozen large and very animated. 

Good to see the Rongs at their church

We then stopped to see the Shaws and drop off some old girl clothes for baby Elizabeth!

Such a round face cutie.. All their kids
look like Ansel as a baby

We had a dim sum lunch with Daniel, Amy cousin, and his wife, Gabby.  They are pregnant and expecting a baby, just about the same time as Matt, Amy's brother, and Nicole.  Too bad their babies will be on opposite ends of the US :)  Then after that we went back to RCC and had dinner and drinks with the RCC crew.  We also had a white elephant gift exchange which was separated into adults and kids until Tam stole a bottle of wine (for her dad) and then it was just chaos.  That girl changed the game :) 

White Elephant time!  We came home with
three books and an inappropriate candle

Christmas morning was pretty low key.  The kids opened their presents from each other as well as the ones from Santa.  I am glad we had them buy presents for each other, which will hopefully lead to them caring about each  other as they get older and less reliance on us.   Sora and Jad still believe in Santa but Kai has figured out the scheme, but we're recruited him in so he's helping to obfuscate for his siblings.

David and Janet (our neighbors) had the winning prize with a
massive pack of Pokemon cards

We ended the day with dinner at Amy's parents' house with cousins and their families.  It was nice to see everyone and overall, pretty low key.  

Huang/Sun/Udompanyanan families

That's it for the year.  Til 2024!  Happy new year, everyone!

The end (of the year) is upon us! // Temecula Friendsgiving // Matt & Nicole are expecting // Amy's parents are 49er's! // Great America // Kai is off to Science Camp this week

 It's December already :)  but we've been really busy so I can see how time has flown by.  Here we go..

We had the beginning of Thanksgiving week off so we planned to go down with our RCC neighbors to visit Audrey and Jacob, who had moved down to Temecula 3 years before.  People are always surprised that we went on vacation with our neighbors but we always count ourselves super lucky to be in such a cohesive neighborhood.  Four families traveled down together and the rest rented a house, while we stayed with the Halls at their place.  

Before we left, Kai had this soccer tournament.  His team didn't do that well but they tried they best as usual and you can't ask more than that.  

Win or lose, Kai always has fun fooling around with his team

The game finished mid morning and by 1130a, we were packed up and on the road.  We pretty much drove straight except for a quick stop to pick up In-n-Out (ate in the car) and it still took about 8 hours.  Our kids were great, I think we've trained them well for long car rides, though Jad does always get whiny towards the end.  I also got pretty tired.  Gone are the younger days when we could drive SF to San Diego straight.  Now, after 4 hours, my legs are aching and I'm ready to switch with Amy.  Luckily, she's a better driver than me :)

We arrived at the house at almost 8pm but everyone was still just having dinner.  The house itself was very nice with bunk beds, courtyard and game room but the highlight was the pool, which was huge, and hot tub.  Most of the time was spent hanging out in the kitchen and in the water.  We were glad we could stay with the Halls and catch up with them separately too. 

Billiards room

The hot tub was often full of kids

The water was pretty cold but it didn't stop the kids
from jumping in from the wall (then immediately
going to the hot tub to warm up!)

Da Shaka!

Dad's gotta get in on the action too!

We visited a couple of wineries too but they weren't spectacular or anything.  Still, it was fun to hang out with everyone.  One even had an ice skating rink set up, which was cool (haha :)

The adults at the wine bar for a tasting

The kids were very patiently waiting..

Owen is very photogenic

Casey and Evie are the youngest

Amy took the kids on the ice.. I am not balanced enough
to not hurt myself :p

Kai did great even though he doesn't
get excited about it

Sora took a bit of time to warm up but got
better as the time went on

Other than that there was just a lot of time sitting around hanging out and catching up with each other.  We ate lots of food (thanks to Alex and his cooking) and drank a bit :)  It was really nice to be able to catch up with Audrey and Jacob and see our kids playing together.  Amy and I are glad that they have found a good place to be down there but, boy, do we miss them as our neighbors. 

Kids having breakfast together

Audrey and I replaced a flat tire on her van

ALL the kids hanging out upstairs..

.. while the adults are downstairs

Just the cute moms

We finally left on Wednesday mid morning and drove up to meet with Viet and his family.  Viet is now living in Brea with most of his family relocating down to SoCal over the past few years.  Again, I'm glad it's working out well for them but it's terrible that they are not coming back to the bay area. We met up with them at the Ocean Institute at Dana Point.  It was a small place but had a few cool exhibits.

We found their kids in the squid dissection activity

Some cool jellies

Family pic with big head Santa

We then drove up the rest of the way to Costa Mesa and met up with Matt and Nicole.  Originally, they were planning to come up for Thanksgiving but Matt couldn't get the day off so we decided to visit them instead. Nicole is pregnant and expecting their first baby (boy) in April.  We brought them our old jog stroller :)

Hanging out at Matt and Nicole's place

We ended up going to Balboa Island to look at the Christmas lights, which were cool though I don't know if I'd want to live in these houses where people are always walking by and looking into your window.  We all had dinner at a Mexican bar, which is a very cool location when you're single or a couple but harder when there are three young kids along.  Still, our kids made the best of it and had bean burritos and chips.  We also got to ride the ferry across the bay which was cool.

Rock / Alternative music blaring in the background
though the kids liked the weird videos

Some of these house lights were very elaborate

Ferry ride at night

We slept over at their place on Wednesday night then woke up at 5am and drove back to the bay area to make Thanksgiving dinner with the parents and David.  The driving was very smooth and we got home by about noon!  Amy's parents didn't want us to miss this particular day not only because it was Thanksgiving but also because it was their 49th anniversary.  Amy had prepared ahead of time and gave them shirts to celebrate.  They were very happy, which is always nice to see.

49 years married.. amazing!

Mei Li was also in town that weekend so we went out to dinner with her and Zaldy along with Lin and Sean.  We went to downtown Pleasanton to celebrate Lin's birthday.  Hard to believe that we've all known each other for such a long time :)

Good times :)  Nice selfie, Nik

We also got a new fridge.  Our old one was cranking and not always starting so we felt like it was time to switch it out before it totally failed.  The new fridge is nice and a bit roomier than our last one.  

Straight from Costco

I also got Kai in to Slay the Spire that weekend. 
Great game!

We also took one day to go to Great America.  The park is slated to close in the next couple of years so we wanted our kids to check it out before it went away.  Amy also has some good memories of it from when she was a kid. There was a sale this summer for season passes so we decided to get passes for our family.  We've heard it's fun to go during the summer for their water park and are looking forward to that.  They do have their Winterfest event when the park is lit up with Xmas lights and opens late into the night so we decided to go with Tim and his kids :)

Rope drop!  jk, we just went at 5pm.  Jad forgot his jacket
so he wore my sweater

Cuties!  Amy was so tired she had
to get Starbucks in the evening

Silly boys

On the flying gliders.. Kai and Sora 
are getting old enough to ride on their own

Which left me with Jad

Woodstock Express mini roller coaster..
neither Kai or Brandon liked it

Kai drove this little circuit on his own..
my dude is growing up!

Sora had fun driving as well but they
wouldn't let her go with Jad so Amy went with her

That a good family pic :)

Lastly, Kai is off to science camp this week.  It's the first time he's been away from us for so long but I think he'll do great and have lots of fun.  He was very sweet the morning he left and gave me a couple random hugs.  I hope it isn't raining too hard in the mountains and that he doesn't get his shoes all wet because he didn't bring boots.  

He did the packing himself

Amy helped that luggage to the camp (there was no room on the buses) and she took the opportunity to go for a run around the Sanborn area.  She's slowly getting back into running after taking it easy for the last year.  Go, Amy!!