The Lynns Visit and Two Weddings

Since Haniel and Anita were coming out for Emmet's wedding on 9/19, we told Hansel's mom, so she could come out at the same time. She came out the Tuesday before. The kids always have a great time with her.

Below is a photo of Mathis playing with a ball with GrandMama.
I caught Beck being very caring with Maile's baby doll.

As we get older and our circle of friends remains the same, we have less and less weddings to go to. But the weekend of 9/18, we had two -- Emmet and Emily's and my friend, Dean's.

We unfortunately didn't take any photos of Emmet and Emily's wedding and any photos with Haniel and Anita. Emmet and Emily's wedding was fun and very personal, and we knew a lot of people. Actually, outside of their family there didn't seem to be many guests from the older generation. Jim flew out from Minneapolis to attend. It was great seeing him, but strange to see him without Joyce, who was due any day, and Payton. Luckily, their baby girl, Mackenzie, did not come early.

Emmet and Emily had their own spin on the old "how many people does it take to change a light bulb" joke when it took four people to get the rings untied from the ring pillow. It definitely added to the light-hearted nature of the ceremony.

For the reception, they had the same Balloon Lady that was at their engagement party. She was a hit with the kids but a bigger hit with some of the adults (friends who went to rival colleges).

I felt some pressure when Caroline reminded us to do our scrapbook page and said she was expecting something good since she considered us creative people. Well, we definitely disappointed. That was one ugly page. Didn't help that Hansel had a lot to drink.

The food was yummy although I missed a dish or two while I was trying to salvage our scrapbook page. The speeches were touching and funny. I especially liked Rich's "but" story, where he recounted how he knew Emily was the one when, after asking about their first date, Emmet simply replied that Emily was nice and not "she's nice but..." And, I liked the slideshow. I'm a sucker for slideshows.

We actually have one photo from the wedding. Caroline took the below for the scrapbook and made me an extra copy.

Our second wedding was on Sunday at Foreign Cinema in SF for Dean and Tiffany. Dean was the first person I met on the Taiwan Study Tour (aka "The Love Boat"). We were in different groups but became good friends and remained friends. Dean found Tiffany when he was searching Craigslist for cars and came across her personal post looking for a fellow foodie.

They had a Shanghai 1930s themed wedding, so the bridal party was styled accordingly. For the processional, they played Bittersweet Symphony while a friend of the bride accompanied the song on a violin. Dean's brother-in-law was the "officiant," and they wrote their own vows.

The food was passed hors deuvres, which doesn't sound like much, but there was actually a ton of food. They had like 30 different appetizers and plenty of vegetarian and seafood options. At first people were attacking the wait staff whenever they came out, but later there were plates of food waiting to be eaten. Their cake was a Croquembouche (pronounced crow-come-bush), which comes from the French words "croquant" meaning crunchy and "bouche" for mouth. I knew what it was since I had seen the owner of Citizen Cake make it on a Food Network Challenge. If any couple was going to have that cake, it would be a pair of foodies.

In the gallery, they had a slideshow going and a table set up for guests to take photos. They printed two copies of the photo -- one for the guest and one for the couple. So below is the photo we took.

Random Photos of Mathis

These photos are from the beginning of September. I took the first two while Mathis was eating Cheerios. Each time after we gave him a Cheerio, he would put his fingers to his mouth.

I just think he looks super cute in the last photo.

The Big Move

So this is what happens when you fall two months behind on your blog, all the entries get out of order. No surprise that since our lives have been chaotic the past two months, that our blog would also be in chaos.

I originally hoped we would move to Palo Alto by 8/18 to give us a week to get settled in before Maile started school. But at the start of August, that did not seem likely. We didn't have countertops or floors. So we scheduled our move for 8/21. We wanted to do it on a weekday when the kids were in school. I even asked the Director of the kids' school if they could go all day the day of the move vs half day.

Our move was not going to be typical. We were moving, but we were also going to rent out my family home. It being my family home we had two households of stuff to go through. We decided to close off one room and one large closet but even with those two rooms we wouldn't be able to store everything we'd need to store. So, we arranged to rent a PODS (portable on-demand storage). All month we packed -- stuff to move, stuff to store in the Los Altos house, and stuff to store in a PODS. We pretty much packed everything except our clothes and most of the kitchen.

Our movers had their jobs cut out for them. They had stuff to move to their truck, stuff to move to our PODS, kitchen stuff to pack for the move, and kitchen stuff to store at the house. Everything went fairly smoothly except they had the guy who spoke the least amount of English pack the kitchen stuff, so Hansel ended up having to repack some stuff, which was like finding a needle in a haystack. So now we have 12 wine glasses and 4 drinking glasses.

Even though the movers worked their butts off, they weren't going to be able to complete the move in one day. So that night the kids and I stayed in Los Altos while Hansel worked on getting our bedrooms ready in Palo Alto. We moved in Saturday with no appliances in place, only one working toilet, the only working sink in the kitchen, and no shower doors, but we made it.

First Days of School

So both Maile and Beck started at new schools the last week in August. We enrolled Beck at a bilingual preschool closer to Palo Alto, and Maile was starting Kindergarten at Ohlone.

They both had opportunities to visit their schools before they started. For Beck we took a tour before we applied to the school, and they had an ice cream social the week before school started. For Maile we went to three playdates at her school -- two for all incoming kindergarteners (or kinders for short) and one for her class, which includes kinders and 1st graders.

The first two Hansel and I met people but Maile just played on her own at the first one and played with just Beck and Hannah at the second. The third, which was a potluck, was successful on all fronts. I met some parents, and Maile made a new friend, a fellow kindergartener. So, having Hannah in the same program but in a different class and having befriended someone in her class helped make Maile's transition to Kindergarten a good one. Thank goodness!

Even though Beck is a bit more outgoing than Maile, I was more worried about his transition to a new school. He's younger, and he had always gone to the same school as Maile. I spent a little bit of time with him the first morning and left when he seemed comfortable, and all that week his teachers were very supportive and affectionate. He, too, (thankfully) had a good transition.

Beck on his first day (8/24)
(The school requires preschoolers to wear smocks.)

Maile on her first day (8/25)

Ed and the Kids

Below is a photo of Ed and the kids. I think this is from his last night here (8/15). Based on Ed's hair, it looks like we took the picture post-shower but pre-gel.

Rich and Caroline's Future Home and Dim Sum

I downloaded some photos from my phone that I forgot were on my phone, so some of these August entries will be out of order.

On 8/1 we met with Rich and Caroline and kids at their new home in San Mateo. They are not living there right now. They're remodeling it before they move in. The house is in good condition; it's just also in its original 60s condition. We wanted to see the house before they started any work. It's a nice house in a good location with great light and terrific views from the living room. It has a nice layout, which they're going to make even better. We can't wait to see the "after."

Vicki and Stew also went to the house to see it. After we all got the tour, we went for dim sum at ABC restaurant in Foster City. Too bad Jim and Joyce weren't still around to join us.

The kiddies in a post-dim sum photo
(Cameron, Maile, Avery, Beck, Zoe)

3 Is a Magic Number

I don't think School House Rock was singing about potty training when they said 3 is a magic number, but it applies in our case. A year ago or so I ran into a friend at ToysRUs. She also has three kids in the same configuration -- girl, boy, boy, but her kids are slightly older. Not sure why but we got on the subject of potty training boys. We both agreed they get how to pee in the potty right away but don't consistently and independently go until much later. She said she has found from her own experience and talking to others that for boys 3 years and 3 months is the turning point. They'll all of a sudden decide they don't want to wear a diaper any more and want to only wear underwear.

As our move to Palo Alto was fast approaching, Hansel and I were worried about Beck not being fully potty trained before starting at another school. He always came home from preschool with a dry pullup, but that was due to the fact that while he was at school for 6 hours the teachers would him to the bathroom 4 times. When he wasn't at school, we were not as diligent.

Part of the problem was that while his poops had never been hard, he had one poop that hurt. And so from that point on he did not want to poop in a toilet or potty. A few weeks before he was going to start at his new preschool, I was able to put him on the potty just as he was about to go poop. He went and it didn't hurt, and he got a treat. After a couple of more times of getting him on the potty at the right time, he was pretty much over his fear. Then just two weeks before school at 3 yrs 3.5 months, he started telling us when he needed to go to pee. And then we finally made the switch to underwear, and he has never looked back.

Oakland's Fairyland

So the month of August was very stressful for us. We were planning to move to Palo Alto to a house we'd been remodeling for a year right before Maile started Kindergarten at Ohlone. She got into Palo Alto's Mandarin immersion program. However, the kitchen and the bathrooms were not finished, and we did not have any floors. On top of that, we had to clear out two households of stuff from my family home, so we could rent it. Thankfully, my brother was able to come out to help us with packing up our family home, including some of his stuff.

On 8/11 while my brother was here, I planned to go to Oakland to pick up our kitchen sink, which got delivered to the wrong facility. I decided to combine the errand with taking the kids to a place called Fairyland. I remembered a friend of mine taking her son there a while back. It's more like a fairytale place versus tinkerbell-type fairies (Maile wore her wings nonetheless) or the Castro in SF :) I asked my brother if he wanted to go. He wasn't over his jetlag yet, so I knew he'd be able to wake in time.

Fairyland is a great place for young kid. And since it was a Tuesday, there weren't that many people there. The food is very reasonably priced unlike most amusement parks and decent quality.

August Family Photo

Family photo from 8/6. Check out the kids in each photo. Pretty funny. Mathis is holding onto Beck's hair for dear life.

You Can Do It

In these photos from the beginning of August, I was trying to encourage Mathis to scoot. I think he moved a little. He actually gets around by rolling. I had heard of babies who did that but hadn't witnessed it until Mathis.

Gotta Dance

Here's a photo from the beginning of August of Beck singing and dancing for Mathis. Mathis was a captured audience.

Jim and Joyce's Going Away Picnic

I am two months behind in our blog, so this post won't be very fresh. Our good friends, Jim and Joyce, had decided to move to Minneapolis. Being a follower of their blog I was not surprised but I was still shocked (if that makes sense) and saddened. Caroline and Rich, Jim's brother, threw them a going-away picnic at a San Mateo park on 7/25.

At one point during the picnic I was talking to Joyce and a friend of hers, and she said something about how weird it was to see all 5 of their worlds together. 5 worlds?!? I was about to ask her what the 5 worlds were when she got pulled away. Since I'm not working, I pretty much only have 1 world. They have 5! Coming from a couple who say they are introverts. Maybe by non-Asian standards they are introverts, but compared to all the people I know (Asian and non-Asian) they are definitely on the extroverted side. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I personally think being extroverted makes life a little easier or at least less stressful.

When we left the picnic, Jim walked us to our car with Payton, which was very thoughtful. Our timing was pretty bad though. We found out they were about to cut the cake. How could we have left the party before cake?

We miss you Jim, Joyce, and Payton. Can't wait to get to know you Mackenzie.