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.
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| 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.
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| Billiards room |
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| The hot tub was often full of kids |
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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!) |
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| Da Shaka! |
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| 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 :)
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| The adults at the wine bar for a tasting |
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| The kids were very patiently waiting.. |
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| Owen is very photogenic |
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| Casey and Evie are the youngest |
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Amy took the kids on the ice.. I am not balanced enough
to not hurt myself :p |
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Kai did great even though he doesn't
get excited about it |
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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.
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| Kids having breakfast together |
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| Audrey and I replaced a flat tire on her van |
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| ALL the kids hanging out upstairs.. |
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| .. while the adults are downstairs |
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| 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.
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| We found their kids in the squid dissection activity |
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| Some cool jellies |
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| 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 :)
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| 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.
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Rock / Alternative music blaring in the background
though the kids liked the weird videos |
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| Some of these house lights were very elaborate |
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| 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.
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| 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 :)
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| 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.
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| Straight from Costco |
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I also got Kai in to Slay the Spire that weekend.
Great game!
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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 :)
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Rope drop! jk, we just went at 5pm. Jad forgot his jacket
so he wore my sweater |
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Cuties! Amy was so tired she had
to get Starbucks in the evening |
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| Silly boys |
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On the flying gliders.. Kai and Sora
are getting old enough to ride on their own |
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| Which left me with Jad |
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Woodstock Express mini roller coaster..
neither Kai or Brandon liked it |
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Kai drove this little circuit on his own..
my dude is growing up! |
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Sora had fun driving as well but they
wouldn't let her go with Jad so Amy went with her |
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That a good family pic :)
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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.
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| 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!!
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