La-la-land

We haven't gone down to So Cal since way back when.. the last time we went down Kai wasn't even one yet and Sora was just a tiny cluster of cells. So this past weekend was a long overdue visit to see some of our good friends down south.

We drove down on Friday morning and arrived in LA just in time for rush hour traffic and were quickly reminded of why we would never ever want to live in Southern California. Fortunately, the kids were relatively well behaved for the majority of the drive, they slept most of the time and we only had to stop twice: the first time at McDonald's and the second time at a park in LA.

I'm lovin' it

When we arrived at Jorge and Lauren's house Kai and Sora were immediately greeted by their two dogs, and Kai was obsessed with the dogs. Undoubtedly, Kai takes after his papa.. because even though Kai isn't crazy about swimming pools, he loved the jacuzzi (must be something about the heat).

Charlie gets up close and personal with Sora

Since Sora and Viviana are almost the same age and size, they were fascinated by one another.

"Nice to meet you, Viviana. Let me grab your head."

We stayed over for the night and the next day was a flurry of social activity. We started off with breakfast with Jorge, Lauren and Viviana.

Kai: "Lemme show you babies how it's done."

We then met Linda, Damon and Elizabeth for an excursion to the park. Kai had fun playing with Elizabeth's toys.

Elizabeth was already down for her nap by this time

For lunch, we met up with Jennifer and Ethan. Kai chowed down on pizza, while Sora and Ethan became friends.

We then drove out to Sabrina and Kane's house and met up with the UCLA girls. Kai was transfixed by Thomas the Tank Engine on TV while we caught up with one another. We admired Kane's plumeria forest in the backyard and once it was dark, Jo and Tom set up their telescope in the backyard so we could see the planets (you could see the rings on Saturn.. really cool!).

We spent the night at Jo and Tom's and after breakfast with Jo, we drove up to LA to meet Brian for lunch. On the way up, we made a quick stop at Yogurtland.

Making himself at home on Jo's couch while watching TV

And after lunch we had even more treats, because we (of course) had to make our requisite stop at Blockheads.

Sora's making a grab for it...

Sora's first taste of Blockheads

And although it was a bit chaotic, we saw more friends at Pearl and Simon's house as they were helping Pearl and Simon pack up and get ready for the movers that were arriving the next day.

"Uh Mason.. you're in my personal space bubble."

We spent the night at Brian's and on Monday, had Italian ice and ramen for lunch.

After lunch, we drove out to meet Dana, Yop and Eli. Eli and Kai are close in age, so when they first met, it was a bit rocky (sharing can be problematic with toddlers), but by the end of the visit they were good friends and were having a blast together on the slide.

Eli practicing his doctor skills on Sora

After dinner with Dana, Yop and Eli, we made the long drive up home. We got home at 2 am and although it was exhausting and we got stuck in a patch of construction traffic, it was worth it to have the kids sleeping for most of the drive.

Also.. just wanted to note a few things about Kai. He's basically a little parrot at this point and repeats back a lot of the things that we say these days. He also understands a lot and the things that he says sometimes surprise and amaze us. The other day, he said, "Thanks mama, I appreciate." It's still difficult to understand him at times, but he is so excited when we do understand him.. he usually will smile widely and say, "yesh!"

Hanging out at the 'Row

The other night, Nik went to a retirement party for one of his co-workers at Santana Row. While Nik was out to dinner, I took care of the kids and Kai ran around the little green space at the 'Row. Kai contented himself to eating his pouch while watching some of the bigger kids play football. He even got a mini cupcake as a treat since he was behaving so well.

International man of mystery

"All done!"

Kai can now cover quite a bit of distance while walking (although he does get tired and request, "Baba or Mama hold Kai-Kai"). Yesterday was a busy day: in the morning, Nik and Kai walked to the elementary school across the street. Kai is getting quite adept at climbing around on the play structures.

We're getting ready for our big international trip to Greece this fall, so we had Sora take passport pictures and submitted her passport application at the post office in the afternoon.

Juxtaposed next to big brother's passport photo

This past week, Nik and I have been furiously working on getting everything together to close escrow for our new house. It's been a frustrating and drawn out process and all I can say is this: do not get your home mortgage from Bank of America. Fortunately, it seems like we'll close some time next week. After Sora's passport appointment was our final walk through, and we spent some time in the area familiarizing ourselves with the local library branch and park where Kai continued his climbing practice.

Kai's enjoying playing with his new digital camera, although he hasn't quite figured out how to frame his shots yet.

It's fun watching Kai start to engage in imaginary play. Sometimes when he's drawing, we'll ask him what he's drawing and he'll reply saying "train" or "panda" (even though his scribbles look nothing like what he says it's supposed to be). Yesterday, he built a Mega Blok tower taller than himself and then started building a "tractor" with the bloks. He was so proud after he was finished!

"Cheese, tractor!"

We think that Sora may bypass crawling entirely and just go straight to cruising and walking. We'll see, she's pretty strong and can support herself while standing, although she immediately loses her balance when she tries to take a step.

Matthew's been over a lot lately helping with the kids. Kai loves playing with Uncle Matt-Matt.

Dance party!

Even though our family has been pitching in to help Nik and I care for the kids, the kids certainly miss Grandma Udom. Sora was laughing and smiling so wide when she saw grandma on Skype today!

Time to sleep train

Nik's mom left for Portland this past Saturday and will be staying up there for the next two months, so now we're back to cobbling together childcare with my parents and our brothers. I think we'll manage through the summer, but we're certainly going to miss Grandma Udom while she's gone.

Matthew helping us one day..

.. Chris the next..

.. and then, my parents and Matthew.

Though while she's gone, we have an extra bedroom again, so it's time to work on sleep training Sora.. because right now, this is what a lot of our nights look like:

We had a fun time this past Fourth of July. We went to Emma Prusch Farm for the church celebration. They had chickens freely roaming around the park grounds and a pig and goats for the kids to see. Kai enjoyed chasing around the chickens and they had a face painter on site. Kai requested a "Kung Fu Panda" and although he was a bit apprehensive about getting painted at first, once he started, he wanted to keep going and ended up with two pandas, a frog and a football.

"Check this out!"

Addicted to ink

Harsha stayed over with us during the holiday weekend and although we didn't go out to see any big fireworks show, we did play with some sparklers in the backyard once the kids were asleep (we'll wait until they're bigger to play with them).

Harsha's attempt at light writing "Udompanyanan" :)

Kai loves playing with the camera and he actually took a pretty epic picture of Sora the other day. Although I'm pretty sure it was just a fluke, because the next shot was of Sora's thigh.

But since Kai loves playing with the camera, we acquired an old digital camera from my parents.

Kai likes to "help" around the house these days.. we've found a couple of ants randomly wandering around the house and when Kai sees them he likes to pick them up and throw them out of the house, saying, "Kai-Kai throw ant!" He also helps bring in the garbage cans.

Kai continues to figure out novel and fun ways to do things and play.

Why use one spoon when you can use two?

"Hiding" with papa

Kai and Sora are becoming good friends. Sora is starting to develop a sense of humor and no one makes her laugh quite like Kai-Kai. Kai also loves serenading his sister and sings "Wheels on the Bus" to her.. he even sings her to sleep, singing "Baa Baa Sheep" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (aka the "star song").