Finishing up Disney / Oceano Beach House / Teacher Sonia

Another week and the The 2nd part of our Disneytrip..

So, we watched some youtube videos and asked the kids which rides they wanted to go on and Jad was really excited about the Radiator Springs Cars ride.. but he was too short!  Unfortunately, Disney is pretty strict about their policies so I took Kai and Sora on the ride while Amy walked around with Jad and got him on the Tractor ride in Cars Land.

He got to meet Lighting McQueen at least..

The ride was fun and the racing portion was exciting.. 
the kids got to go twice because of rider share :)

Disney California Adventure doesn't have as many rides but we wandered to the Little Mermaid ride and then to Pixar Pier.  The kids enjoyed the smaller rides, like the Golder Zypher and the Jellyfish Jump, but real highlight was the Ferris Wheel (really!) 

The Golden Zypher, pretty tame but being far off the ground
made it a lot of fun for Jad

Sora did want to go on the Goofy Sky School coaster 
while Kai did not so the girls went on their own

So the Ferris Wheel at DCA is cool because there are two types of gondolas.  Some are stationary on the circumference like a regular Ferris wheel but there are ones on the inside that swing back and forth.  And actually, depending on where you are in the wheel, it can swing quite a lot!   We were all surprised as we rocked back and forth to almost 90 degrees.  

Just going gently up.. Later, we took some video of everyone screaming
during the swinging which was amusing :)

The memorable part came when we got on the ride the 2nd time.  Halfway up, the Ferris wheel stopped and the announcement came on that there was a delay.  It was nice to be up there and look all around until Jad said, "I have to poop!"  We asked him to hold it but when we didn't move for several more minutes, we knew we had to come up with a different solution.  Luckily, they had emesis bags inside the Ferris wheel for those people got nauseous.  I took out several bags, and laid them on the floor, then told Jad to poop right on them.  He did his deed and we picked up everything, stuffed it into another clean bag and cleaned the floor with alcohol spray.  All the while, Sora and Kai were making faces and yelling out the sides, "my brother is pooping in the Ferris wheel!"  Then we started moving again.  Overall, I think we did an excellent job cleaning up and no one was the wiser.

This is a story for the future fiancee

It was hard to top that excitement, so we wandered over to the Monsters Inc ride and then headed out of the park to meet up with Matt and Nicole for dinner. 

Monsters Inc was a good ride.  Glad I had
the kids watch the movie beforehand 

Matt and Nicole are living in an apartment in Costa Mesa and settling in well.  Matt cooked up a good stew for us and it was fun to catch up. We also played a game of Apples to Apples with the kids but it was very hard for Sora.  When it comes to decisions where you have to make a judgement call (as opposed to a type of decision where she can get points or something concrete) then she freezes up and can't choose.  I wonder when that will get better.  Kai on the other hand either choose what's most ridiculous or what will antagonize his opponents.  I'm not sure which is better.. 

Thanks for dinner, Matt and Nicole!

Kids also had fun feeding Nicole's cute rabbit

After that we returned to the hotel for rest and Wednesday woke up for one more day of Disneyland.  What was great was that Sue and Ophelia decided to come to Disneyland on that day so we got to hang out together for part of the day.  They were excited about Rise of the Resistance and Star Wars Land as well so we headed there early and hit the rides before the crowds came in.

Ophelia with the fam.. and the Millennium Falcon!

The Millennium Falcon ride was a lot of fun as you could take on
various roles.  We rode it 3 times!

After that we walked leisurely around Toontown, had a giant turkey leg for lunch (one plus sides was enough for all of us) and then went back to Rise of the Resistance.  The ride actually broke down so we were stopped in the "hangar" of the Star Destroyer.  It was kind of fun to stop and look in detail at the set and they also let us come back later when the ride was fixed.  Ophelia said it was her new favorite ride.  We took it easy and had some dinner then finished off the day with a ride on the Disneyland Railroad. 

The dinosaur tunnel was pretty cool but we 
didn't get any good pics

Thanks, Disney!  Til next time (but not for a few years, cause who can afford that..)  We slept well that night and the next morning, checked out and headed to Oceano to meet our neighbors.  We drove along the 101 and actually passed by Newbury Park (my hometown) so we made a quick stop.

Our old restaurant space is now .. a gun shop?!  Domino's
is still there though..

 

Also dropped by 7 Sandra Court

After more driving, we finally got to Oceano right before the Connicks.  The kids were excited about seeing their friends again and quickly claimed the bunk room was off limits to adults.

Kids only club

The house was really nice (and expensive) with a great location.  All three days we were there, I think we really only walked to the beach and back with quick drives to pick up groceries.  The beach was just about 100 yards away and the weather was great.  A perfect end to the week after walking miles each day at Disneyland.

Hard to beat the natural beauty

Kids loved playing in the sand

 

Charcuterie lunch in the front yard

Our second day there, we discovered that at low tide, you could just dig down six inches and there were clams.  It was fun to dig them up though you needed a license to harvest them.  Hypothetically, one could take some home and boil them up.  Hypothetically, both clams with red wine, garlic sauce and plain taste excellent.  

Only works at low tide near the water line.. 

Jad got some big ones

The kids (except Casey) all attempted to sleep in one room but Kazu had to come up to sleep with the Connicks and the 2nd night, Kai went to sleep in the living room by himself but overall, it was very successful.  

Adult time with Cards Against Humanity

The house had a nice rooftop firepit lounging area
though we didn't use it much because of the cold

We left the next day and headed home.
Nice vacation, RCC! 

After a week away, it was nice to be home.  We still had a birthday party to attend on Sunday for Joanna's son, Austin.  It was superhero themed and Spider-man showed up to play with the kids, make balloon animals and take pictures.

Spider-Man used his super strength to help the
smaller kids win the 2nd tug-o-war

The last week was just our usual shenanigans.. Lots of catching up on work for me (considering cutting down more), activities for the kids, art class on Friday and hanging out with friends.  We did get a bit of sad news that Teacher Sonia from Agape passed away after getting sick.  I think it was COVID (damn you, coronavirus) .. she was a very kind person and treated the kids like they were her own.  She touched a lot of little lives.

Not to end on too sad a note, here are the kids doing two person yoga..

Don't drop Sora!

I especially like the boys going crazy in the back

Take care, everyone!  Til next time..

Nik's Birthday / Socal Road trip / Los Angeles / Disneylands

Oh man, there's two weeks to catch up on because we were on vacation last week and I couldn't write a post.  I might have to split this into two posts..

Let's see, two weeks ago was my birthday.  Turning the big 44!  I think that's a very lucky year in the Chinese calendar ;p  But I continue to feel like I am very lucky.  This past couple of years has been difficult in many ways but overall, I (and our family) am doing relatively well so gotta be thankful for that.  One more year and hopefully many more to go :)

A little cake and celebration one day pre-birthday

Picnic birthday dinner with the neighbors

I'm also happy to report that the climbing wall is getting good use.  The kids usually climb a few times as they go upstairs to bed.  I know they are just trying to delay bedtime but it still feels good to see it being fun for them.

Jad is getting into it too

Amy was also super busy with PPP stuff this week.  Hopefully, now at that there's a director, she can step back a bit.  She's doing a lot of work and it's all for the success of our kids' classes so she is greatly appreciated.  No exciting PPP photos though :) 

The other thing that kept Amy busy was preparing for our SoCal roadtrip last week.  Of course, we didn't get to packing until the very last minute and I was grumpy from work (sorry!) so we literally did not start packing until 10pm on Friday night.  Still, we're used to this and managed to get a bit of sleep before setting out on Saturday morning.

The drive was pretty smooth, I think our kids are getting used to longer drives though we did have to give them a bit of screen time with the laptop.  Our first stop was to have lunch with Dana and Yop.

  

It was great to catch up with these guys over lunch

The kids got along super quickly :)  Probably helped that 
Eli and Noe are both very sociable

Next, we drove across LA (took an hour, of course :) and went to Brian's house, where we met Sue and Ophelia for dinner.  Those guys are all so nice and, since we had seen them recently at our house, were like a familiar uncle and aunts to the kids.

Uncle Brian feeding Jad at Daikokuya on Sawtelle

A quick Sushi Go game before turning in at Brian's

Brian even got us Frosted Flakes for the morning before we departed for Redondo Beach to meet up with Siavosh and Karen.  We hadn't seen them in a while because of SF and pandemic but they moved to LA this past summer.  Again, it was nice to chat and see their new place as they are settling in to a house and neighborhood.

Kai took this picture.. pretty good!

We then dropped by Mauri and Lauren's house but he had just gotten called into the hospital so I think Lauren took the girls out.  We left them a small gift for their #3 and wondered what to do next..  We decided to take a quick trip to UCI to see what the campus looked like now.  I mean, I did graduate 22 years ago..   

As with every time we visit, it's a lot more built up
then it used to be

1002, my old house that I was an RA for.. 
is now the Culinary House?!

Next we dropped by to visit Josephine and her twins, Brandon and Allison.  They were big but you can tell Brandon's got a stubborn streak :)  Tom was sick so we didn't get to see him but it was fun to watch the kids play and catch up with Jo.  We were sad that we haven't had a chance to see Sabrina but hopefully we can see them next time.

Post playground pic

After that visit we went onto the 2nd phase of our trip.  Disney!  We followed the advice of Stephen and Cynthia (Disney pros from our church) and stayed at the Fairfield Inn right next to Disneyland. 

We were able to see the weekend fireworks from our hotel
at a perfect distance for the kids

We had three days (California resident tickets.. which were still expensive!) so we planned to take it easy.  We aren't Disney superfans but I did want to check out the new Star Wars Land and rides and the kids wanted to see the Cars ride at Disney's California Adventure (DCA, for those in the know :)  We got tickets for 4 of us and snuck Jad in as under 3, which honestly did make sense because even though he's almost 4, he wasn't tall enough for a lot of the rides (40" minimum)

First day excitement!

Overall, the crowds during our visit was quite mild.  We aren't big fans of lines so we didn't wait more than 30  mins for any ride.  A mediocre ride with no line is better than a good ride with a long line is what I say.. 

The Jungle Cruise, the string of jokes is almost too
much but the kids enjoyed it quite a bit

We wandered around a bit on Tom Sawyer's Island then went to Splash Mountain.  Sora was excited about this ride but I didn't remember that halfway through it gets a bit scary.  Sora started saying that she wanted to get off but I could only tell her that it was too late.  Kai was in the front and quite brave actually and Sora was second right in front of me so I was able to hold on to her as we went down the big drop.  

Everyone got pretty wet and the kids said they are not
going on that ride again!

Buzz Lightyear's Blasters was a big hit.  The kids all liked that one and Jad could go too.

I think I got the highest score with Jad

After a lunch of fried chicken at the Plaza Inn, we finally made it to Star Wars Land to get ready for Rise of the Resistance (which we had to virtually queue for at 7am).  The land itself was very well done, though there are only two rides and the rest seemed like merchandising (souvenirs, droids, lightsabers) and food/drinks.

They did a great job with the Batuu landscape

Rise of the Resistance was a really cool ride though.  There was a good mix of theater and movement and riding and I think they vary it too so it changes a bit each time.  

This was the best part, when you step into the hangar of
the Star Destroyer and see "space" behind the force field and troppers

After that, we went back to the hotel for a quick nap (advantage of being close) and then returned for the evening.  It was nice to see Disneyland lit up after dark with a different atmosphere.

Caught Halloween Mickey and Minnie..
though Kai has a funny blank stare

After rides on the Teacups and Carousel, we headed over to It's a Small World.  Still a cute ride though Disney has incorporated a lot of its own stories into the scenes (not sure how I feel about that).

Just us!

Since it's near Halloween, there was a projection light show at Disneyland (no fireworks on weekdays) but Kai and Jad were not fans of the scary images and music.

Eyeballs and ghosts, I can see why it could be scary

We slept pretty well that night in the hotel, probably because everyone was tired.  Jad is still in a crib for this trip but I think soon he'll out grow the pack and play (we've had that thing through all three kids :)  

On day two, I woke up early and got into the virtual queue for Spider-Man's Web Slinger ride pretty early at 9am so we got everyone up, had a quick breakfast at Macca's (Australian for McDonald's :) and then headed to DCA and Avengers Land.

Jad was garbed up in his Spidey gear for the ride

The web slingers ride was a bit disappointing.  The intro was cool with Tom Holland hologram and the spider bots but the ride itself was super short and just crazy chaotic.  It's very similar to the Ninjago ride at Legoland but that one was probably a bit better/longer.

We couldn't all sit in one pod.. I guess everything
 is made for families for 4

Outside the building, we did see a little show of Spider-Man testing his new suit and webline.  There was a cool part where Spider-Man jumps like 5 stories into the air and lands on a different roof (it's a robot/mannequin) but they make it pretty theatrical.

Mild acrobatics happen every 45 mins or so

I was wearing my Spider-Man shirt too!

The rest of Avengers Land was again cool but there were really only two rides and the rest was shops and dining.  We're not fans of this new model of money grabbing..  There were characters walking around and that was cool.  Apparently, there's another stage show of Loki and Black Widow but we didn't see that one.   We did see Dr. Strange from a distance.

Captain America and Mrs Marvel would appear
periodically above the Avengers HQ

I'll leave it here for now but will add more next time :)  Still got the rest of Disney and our beach stay with the neighbors in Oceano.