Spotlight on Kai / Early morning runs / Day dates / Elysia's and Victoria's birthdays

 A pretty quiet last week.  Let's see..

Kai recently asked to sleep in his own room.  Part of it might be that Jad sometimes wakes up early in the morning and cries, waking everyone up, but also it may be that he's starting to feel a little older.  He's moved to sleeping in the front bedroom on his own and doing very well actually.  The room was (and is) slated to be Sora's eventually when she got old enough to be separated from the boys but for now, it's a good refuge for Kai.  

There's an LED color changing light in there so
Kai likes it either blue or green for sleep

Kai has been enjoying jujitsu and we think it's still good for him.  He often doesn't pay much attention and isn't very careful (in a lot of things actually), which is very frustrating for Amy and I but lately, we've been trying to shift focus from telling him what he's doing wrong to telling him what he can do to change his behavior and improve.  It's a small shift but I don't want to be cutting him down all the time and instead want to focus on empowering what he can do to change.  It's a hard shift and we're still working on it.  He's really a great kid, we want him to feel that way even if there are some improvements to be made.  Man, parenting sure is hard..  In many aspects of adulting, I feel like I'm doing well but this is something I can improve, for sure. And also in caring for my parents..

Still rollin'

I'll leave Kai with one more pic.  Even though he acts like he's older sometimes, he's still very silly and still enjoys lounging in the tub and pretending to dive with his goggles :D

We'll miss this when he gets older, for sure

Now I have to throw in a picture of Sora, who usually prefers showers nowadays.  She's super cute but still has to work on her reactions when she's frustrated.

Cutie

Amy has been running with a small group of friends she found on Strava.  Norm and Kelly get up early in the morning about 3 times a week to run around Miliptas and it's nice for Amy because it's close by to our house.  Amy has been trying to run with them once a week, usually going out around 6am so she can get back before the kids are up.  She's got really wonderful discipline, though she said recently that she's "addicted" to running ie. if she doesn't do it she feels down.  Hey, there are far worse things to be dependent on :)

An early run in Alum Rock park

These are the kinds of pics Amy brings 
back from her mornings

Amy and I got out for a quick lunch date on Friday last week.  We checked out the taco truck which is parked a the Shell gas station at Sierra and Piedmont.  Pretty good! (though the portions are a bit small).  I'm glad that Amy and I can sneak out for dates occasionally :)

Tasty tacos and consume dip for berria

This past weekend was Elysia's birthday and she had a bug themed party!  It was really fun with the Beetlelady (she's apparently a PhD entomologist who also does children's parties :) who brought out both live creatures and props to teach about little critters.

Captivating for youngers and elders

Sora held a praying mantis with 
very cool leaf mimic wings

Jad enjoyed the feet of the giant millipede

First time holding a tarantula for me!

We had a nice outdoor dinner
with the firepit afterwards

The celebrations continued to yesterday, which was Vic's actual birthday, with RCC neighbor dinner to finish off the food from Elysia's party.  We are super lucky to have such great neighbors who can celebrate and spend time together :)  Happy birthday, Vic!  (thanks for reading our blog :)

Mini chocolate and dessert wine
(from Sonoma) tasting

I'll leave you with a pic of the kids for this week.  The creek is flowing for now but not for long if we don't get more rain soon!

Kai's Jujitsu / Kids are doing ok / Vic's Surprise Birthday Girls' weekend / The dads survived / Happy Chinese New Year

Let's see what's happening this week..

Kai is continuing with Jujitsu.  I'm really proud of him.  He's not a big kid, just like I am not a big person, and I know it's not easy but he's a hard worker and is very scrappy :)  I think if he keeps up with BJJ, it could teach him a lot about discipline, self control in addition to the skills of BJJ itself.

A bit of sparring action

Sora is also working on her piano.  She really likes it but has a tendency to become frustrated when it isn't perfect.  This is a tendency she has when she does a lot of things.  When frustrated, she starts to whine a lot and this builds upon itself until she is crying or distraught and can't do anything anymore.  We keep telling her that the way to improve at something is to practice or just keep at it as becoming frustrated or angry isn't going to help and usually just makes things worse.  But it's also easier to see it from the giving advice side and she's only 7 so we'll keep working on it.  

Jad is doing well as usual.  He's so happy go lucky and is generally a joy, most of the time.  He does need to work on not crying / yelling / punching (playful) when he doesn't get what he wants but usually responds well to correction.  Just have to remember not to give him too much attention for bad behavior.  

Otherwise, the kids are doing well overall.  There's always a bit of a thought about whether we are doing enough to push them but Amy and I both agree that they need time to be kids and they are happy so we're not asking for much more at this point.  Hopefully, we can develop the "soft" skills like discipline, self control, patients, empathy and resilience so they can use those when they are older to succeed.  Not that we're doing a particularly great job but that's what we're working on anyway :p

The big event last week was Vic's birthday party celebration.  Kegan had been planning this for months and the plan was for Vic and the moms to go on a weekend trip to Napa while the dad's kept the kids at home.  Anyone who is a parent knows this is a difficult undertaking already but everyone planned and kept it quiet (we didn't even tell the kids for fear they would let it slip.)  Kegan arranged with Vic's assistant and boss to give her the day off but also to put fake meetings on her agenda. The pièce de résistance was that Audrey would fly up on Thursday night to surprise Vic and then they (Vic, Amy, Audrey, Kendra and Kristy) would go on the trip from Friday to Sunday.  

Thursday night we all arranged to have dinner outside on our driveway (a weenie roast!) which was a lot of fun actually.  We also had to delay a bit as Audrey wouldn't arrive until about 720p.  Luckily, the meeting about the RCC crosswalk was that day and Amy also had to take Sora to gymnastics so she was late getting back.

I didn't get great pics of that evening for some reason but there is a video of Audrey arriving (couldn't upload to blog.. file size excessive apparently) that Amy took.  The uber pulls up and stops, the rest of us are pretending we don't know who's arriving, Audrey gets out in a mask and Vic has no idea who she is.  Audrey walks towards us with a suitcase and says "hi' and Vic replies with a curious "hiiii.." but then Audrey takes off her mask and Vic is like "What?!?"  Audrey then proceeds to reveal the rest of the surprise and, after a brief moment of disbelief, it was great.

The moms left the next day after the kids were off to school.  It would have been great to have Trang go as well but she was being careful with Terry's mom coming back to stay with them.

Things started with a pedicure

They had a chef come in a cook them
dinner on Friday night

Workout to burn off some of the food

Wine tour to Viansa and Homewood on Saturday

Very stylish (and a little drunk :)

Saturday dinner at The Girl and The Fig
(Vic's favorite apparently)

Sunday breakfast at Murphy's

Stop at Dirty Girl Donuts for a sweet treat 
on the way home

Overall, the girls had a great time and we were glad we could give them that time to get away.  Now for the dads..

I enjoyed the few hours of solitude to myself on Friday while the kids were at school then the kids came back and we had art class. 

Peggy and Wally worked on colored outlining

Friday night, we all made spaghetti dinner and ate outside at Terry & Trang's 

The kids got a bit of extra Switch time

Saturday, the connicks came over and we had donuts for breakfast and then lounged for a while.  After lunch we went for a bike ride up to the playground in Alum Rock with everyone.

Nice day!  We had nine bikes + one trailer
going at one point..

Kegan, Alex and I played Seven Wonders and Diplomacy 
while the kids played in the afternoon

Dinner was with tri-tip and tater tots.  Kegan sous vide the tri-tip and it came out perfect medium rare!  Sunday we all got back together and had a pancake breakfast with bacon and strawberries before I took the kids to church.  The moms got back right as we returned and there were many hugs :)

Pancake breakfast!

I have to say that we did quite well for ourselves with only one moment of lost temper over the weekend.  Still something I have to work on.  Maybe consider walking away when the situation gets too frustrating or angry.  We all have something to work on.

Yesterday was Lunar New Year.  We celebrated with dinner at Amy's parent's on Sunday but heard some obligatory fireworks on Tuesday night.

Happy New Year from Jad!

This kid is such a ham.. I don't know
where he gets these poses from

Amy and I also had a day date Tuesday while the kids were in school.  We went to see a movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home, something we hadn't done since before the pandemic started.  The movie was pretty good, some funny moments mixed with some poignant moments and good cameos.  

Nearly empty theater

Lastly, plans continue to be made to visit my mom.  It's complicated because of COVID as we have to have our itinerary laid out with plane tickets and hotel reservations (including COVID tests on days 1 and 5) then we have to apply via the Thai Consulate for the Test and Go program.  That and arrange for COVID tests 72 hours before departure (and hope we get results before we leave).  On my mom's end, she trialed a nursing home while my dad was away for a few days and Joe was sick.  It was ok but not ideal and I think Joe is going to try to find a helper who can come into their condo instead.  Hopefully, that will work out with my dad, who is also have more trouble as he gets older.  What can we do but keep on going the best we can.

I'm putting a picture of my mom here from the nursing home.  I don't think she's actually happy but they did catch her when she was smiling.  She's back home now with my dad and Joe.

Til next time, everyone!

Lunch time exercise // Rotary playground // Tree work // Kai Jujitsu // Visit to the ER

 Not too much going on this week..

Since the beginning of the year, with the Omicron spike, I haven't been going to the gym much and trying to exercise at home is always very difficult.  Hopefully as the weather gets nicer, I can start to bike to the clinic again but for now I'm trying to incorporate exercise into each clinic day by doing push-ups, sit-ups and squats.  It's not perfect but does get me moving in a day when I'm mostly at the desk.  The hardest part is getting going at the beginning of lunch hour when I'm hungry but I'm trying to allay that by eating a snack at 11am.  Let's see how long I can keep it up!

On the yoga mat on the office floor

I was away at work this past Saturday so Amy took the kids out to the Rotary playground.  We haven't been there for a long time (it was also closed for much of the last 2 years) but it was a lot of fun for them.  I remember we would always go there, then go to Petsmart to look at the animals, go to Sweet Tomatoes  (we miss you, unlimited buffets!) to eat and then Trader Joe's for groceries and lollipops.  It was a whole day thing :)

Strike a pose, kids!

They loved the merry go round

There was a crazy wind one day this past week and a number of things got blown around our yard.  One of the trees in our front yard, which was already mostly dead, had a big branch break off. It didn't fall but is suspended in the branches and quite hazard.  Yesterday, our helpful neighbors showed up and we tried to push it down to no avail.  While that probably means it's stuck up there for good, we are hiring a tree service to take down the whole tree.

This will make quite a story later
when Kegan shows up in the ER :D

Randomly, Sunny and Pam got puffy jackets for all the kids and also for the grandparents.  So nice!

Bunch of Puffins!

Kai also started back into Jujitsu this week.  He had to be convinced to go to Lute but Amy says that when he got there he quite enjoyed it.  I'm glad and hopefully, it'll help him with discipline as well as self control as he continues to get bigger.

Back to rollin'

Lastly, Amy's dad fell yesterday.  While Amy's mom was out, he apparently thought it was a good idea to stand up on a toolbox and try to replace the furnace filter.  Amy rushed over and it turned out he was ok but she took him to the ER at Washington Hospital.  I must say it sounds like they are more backed up than we are and it took from 7pm when they arrived to 1am before he got a head CT, stitched up and discharged.  Luckily, everything is ok.  It's nice that we live so close to Amy's parents and can help them out.

Gotta get a shot for the 'gram 

Til next time, everyone!

Jad home for the week / Neighborhood Campfire / Switch update / ShawUdom day / Mom's condition

I think we're in our third school week of the new year.  Kai and Sora are doing well though we are getting emails everyday about some positive COVID case on campus.  Agape closed for a week because of a positive case so Jad was home all of last week.  We're lucky that one of us is always home so it didn't disrupt our routine too much but it was tiring to have him home all day.  As noted last week, Jad loved it though.  I think he's always had Kai and Sora around and rarely gets to be home or with us without them so this was a big treat for him.  We also tried to take advantage and take him out to a few things that Kai and Sora used to get to do when they were younger and we had more bandwidth for like Emma Prusch Farm and the playground.

Feeding some chickens at Emma Prusch.  He
had a blast :)

At the library playground

While there, they saw Sora and Wally at Noble.
They look like they are in jail :)

After two weeks, we were itching to get back together with our neighbors so we did an outdoor dinner at our house.  It was really nice to see everyone again and we were kind of good about wearing masks some of the time.  

RCC campout complete with bonfire!

Roasting marshmallows on an open fire..

Eventually the kids did make it into our house .. it's nice
to have things more normal again

The Nintendo Switch has been mostly successful.  It has given us a bit more leverage especially for the Kai and Sora as timeouts are less useful for them.  They are pretty happy playing Smash Bros for now, but we'll probably have to get more games soon.  It's also nice that it's so easily portable..

Getting Gung Gung and Uncle David into
the brawl too!

We had 3 days off this past weekend for MLK birthday and we hung out with the Shaws.  Ansel brought the kids and we piled into the minivan for a day trip to Santa Cruz.

There are some advantages to the minivan, though
it was still a tight squeeze with all the car seats

Our first stop was the Mystery Spot!  We had always heard of it and Amy had been as a teenager but it was pretty cool.  Smaller than I thought, more of just a shack rather than a whole house, but it was really cool to see all the weird gravity distortions with us standing sideways, balls rolling and water flowing uphill.  Apparently, it's called a Gravity Hill and they are combination of optical illusions to fool your brain.  Pretty cool and the kids had a blast.

Looking good, Kai.. I like how Jad is trying 
to find his footing in the background too

Sideways pull-up

Our funny guy guide Henry telling jokes
Jungle Cruise style

Free bumper stickers for everyone!

Afterwards, we went for a quick hike in the mountains.  The kids are much faster than I am already and I'm very proud of them.  Gotta get my own cardiovascular health up.  I am trying to incorporate more exercises into my clinic days.  That's a couple of days a week of some exercise at least.

Wandering around the mountains

Our third stop was the beach.  At first we weren't sure if we had the energy but Amy decided to push for it and it was great!  We went to Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz and it was a warm day.  The kids had a great time running around and digging up sand crabs.  

Just another winter day in California

Warmer than we thought it would be

We finished up the day with dinner back at the Shaw Shack where Yukari could join us.  All in all, an excellent day with friends, new experiences, kids hanging out, physical activity and good catching up!

Lastly, Joe made it to Chiang-Mai finally after a long flight and stopping in Bangkok for COVID testing.  My mom isn't doing well.  Her alzheimer's is progressing and she's having trouble walking and swallowing now, mostly just eating soft foods.  It will likely slowly get worse from here so we're going to try to go visit her in April.  There are some sad feelings but they are compartmentalized from the day to day.  What can we do?  It's life.

She's happy here with Joe