Puo Puo, and the City

New York was fantastic! We had high expectations, which is always dangerous, and it was everything I love and remember about New York.

Meanwhile, in West Richland, the kids were in the best hands with Puo Puo, Tai Puo (my grandma) and Ev and kids who came for the weekend and took some beautiful photos.

Our first stop upon arrival was Joe's Shanghai at 10pm, right before closing. It did not disappoint and we returned for a total of 3 visits!!!

I love that you never know what you'll come across in New York. Our first morning jog through Central Park we stumbled upon No Doubt performing for GMA!

Gwen Stefani

Jogging in Central park was so nice. I have been trying to jog every morning when I have a chance and especially when I have no kids. You would think this would result in a fast mile or some sort of distance, but I am still chugging along at an 11 minute mile for no longer than 3 miles. You see that person behind me? I guarantee I barely passed her :)

Freedom Tower at Ground Zero, in progress. It is the tallest skyscraper in the skyline.

Ground Zero

This memorial was really beautiful. All the names of the victims were inscribed all around.

Le Bernardin tasting menu. It was tasty, but I'm not sure we'll be back again. It's kind of a once in a looong time type of meal.

Dylan's! It was a feast of candy. Strangely, I did not buy any candy, just a souvenir, but it was fun to browse through.

In case Dae needed to seek asylum in the Big Apple

Given enough time, I bet I could single-handedly polish this puppy off.

The High Line, the new elevated walkway/park they build in the Meatpacking and Chelsea district. It is really cool! It runs along the old railway where they used to transport goods into town.

LOVE this store. How have I never heard it before? Cheap & simple, right up my alley. Dae and I bought a lot of items here. Dae had some grandpa pants that needed to go, so we got him some slimmer-fit pairs for work.

With Dae's friends Chae and Karen and their son Tyler at Momofuku's Milk cafe.

With Dae's friends James and Gina at Koreatown. They live about 30 minutes away and came in two nights to eat with us. We stayed out until 1:30am and they needed to work the next day, which I find unfathomable. We must be really old!

Dae and James after a few bottles of Soju

We entered the lottery for the Book of Mormon same-day tickets. We did not win :( I was so disappointed, but not disappointed enough to pay $300 per ticket full price!

Much-needed foot massages in Chinatown. 60 minutes for $40! I was in a lot of pain, as I always am during foot massages. Perhaps I just should stop getting them.

Now, the really good photos from this past weekend!

Olin & Tai Puo

Christian and Tai Puo at the outdoor concert getting a balloon. Christian looks totally fixated.

My grandma - easily one of the prettiest people I know! She's 82 years old.

How good is this photo?

Looooves him some smoothie. Look at that face! Oh, he also got tooth #F (upper front left incisor) while we were gone! Always waiting until we are out of town to get those new little teeth.

Badger Mountain Water park

Love this photo.

My mom said Olin was not pleased with the prickly grass....picky, picky.

NYC & the challenge of my life

We're NYC-bound in 7 hours! We have been on-the-go so much this past 6 months we should almost just stay packed and live out of a suitcase in general!

My mom and grandma are here watching the kids for 5 days, then Ev and her kids arrive for the weekend to help my mom out and hopefully provide some distraction for Leelee. He has been really hyper, and really difficult to get to bed lately. Like 1 hour of crying and time-outs. It is completely exhausting. I think I need to read some books on how to get him to bed...time to pull out Ferber again! Anyway, I can't express how lucky I know we are to have family who is willing and happy to come all the way over to Eastern Washington to help us out. We are very fortunate!

So the greatest challenge of my life, besides getting Leelee to bed in a timely manner...trying to cram all of my 5-day belongings into a sub-carry-on sized suitcase. Sub-carry-on-size! Dae got this little gem of a Tumi as a graduation gift and my cheap luggage is on its last legs so the timing was perfect for me to accept this challenge. This little guy is going to potentially hold my outfits for 5 days, shoes for 5 days, including 'fancy' outfits for dinners, workout clothes and shoes (my ugly Vibrams finally are redeemed - no bulky running shoes!), make-up, curling iron, flat iron (yes I need both), camera, iPad, snacks, wallet, PJ's, and I can't remember what else but it's all jammed in there. I am confident I can do it.

Dae's standard-size carry-on on the left, my little Mini on the right.

Things I am most excited about in New York:

1) Dinner at Le Bernardin - site of the best dinner we've ever had
2) Joe's Shanghai for Xiao Long Bao's - yet another site of a best meal we've ever had
3) Dylan's Candy bar. I've never been and I am all about candy so I think it will be a match made in heaven.
4) Today show: I coerced Dae into going over to Rockefeller center or wherever the Today show is filmed and standing outside. Last time we did this I was with my sister and dad and NSync was playing live! Oh how times have changed...

It's a little embarrassing because we really have almost zero interest in museums, art, or history. I wish I did, just a little, but at the present time I don't. So we will be skipping anything cultural. Oh! We are also hoping to get on Cash Cab. hehe.

So we've been in Richland exactly one week and these are things that have popped out:

1) Nearest Target is 4.1 miles today. I clocked it on my odometer today. Very manageable.
2) They have no recycling in West Richland! You have to drop your stuff off at a recycling center! That's crazy.
3) I love having a house and yard. It is so nice to have the kids be able to just run outside as opposed to staying stuffed up in a condo. The only downside is the maintenance. We've been here a week and Dae has mowed the lawn and it already needs mowing again. I have pulled quite a few weeds and they seem to just pop up out of nowhere. We aren't used to this exterior maintenance!
4) It is so hot and dry here and I absolutely love it. I feel like I am just in a better mood in general because it's so sunny.
5) I could not be a stay-at-home mom. Dae and I have spent the entire month of July with our family, around the clock, and let's just say neither of us are terribly disappointed at the prospect of having a little work distraction here and there. However, I have to say from the few days I have been by myself with the kids (Dae has had orientation the past 3 days) I have been enjoying staying at home much more than I thought I would. I do know I need a little outside stimulation and challenges, though. I also know that the kids need to get enrolled in some sort of camp or pre-school :)
6) There are lots of these behemoth garages which hold RV's. I don't recall ever seeing one until we moved out here and apparently lots of people in West Richland own RV's because these crazy garages are everywhere. My kind of peeps...RV folk!
7) Lots of bugs here. I think it's normal, it's just that Portland was abnormally bug-free, so it's much more noticeable to us now.
8) This isn't Richland related, but while packing for New York I realized almost every item of clothing I own is from either Target, Forever 21 or H&M. Yikes.

Peaches for you, Peaches for me

This little fruit-lover absolutely demolished a peach slice or 5 tonight after dinner. He could not get enough. He started by palming each peach slice, crushing it with his ferocious grip, and then jamming as much into his mouth as humanly possible, skin and all. I managed to retrieve a few peels before he choked on them.

Quality control inspection

Inhalation begins

Caught in action!

Happy camper

I had been feeling guilty all week since a vast majority of the time Leelee asked me to go to Gong Gong's pool or play with him my answer was "No, I'm unpacking" or "No, I'm cleaning". So I told him we could go to the Badger Mountain Water Park today and he was all for it. Knowing it involved aquatics, I was sure he would be second-guessing his decision once we arrived and I was right. He was pretty tentative with all the water works, and after 15 minutes or so he shifted his attention over to dry-land and the slides next door. He did ask to return to the water park after another 20 minutes or so, so we gave it another try. Baby steps!

We've been seeing a lot of Kelly and family lately and that has been really nice. Her daughters (all 3) are very well-behaved and take very good care of Christian. When he whines, they actually listen, as opposed to his family!

Dinner on the lawn of the Washington's.

Home Sweet Rental Home

We're here!

Back in Richland and it is hot. I had forgotten about these dry, hot summers here but I can't say I have many complaints.

We arrived on Wednesday, movers came on Thursday and we have been unpacking and crabby every since. ha! Other than that, so far so good. The two major anxieties I have been having about the move are: 1) dealing with those 8-legged things that I don't even want to type about, which happen to thrive in eastern washington. Dae says I can get the house sprayed and I think he's hoping I do so that he doesn't have to deal with my constant paranoia and yelping whenever I think I spot one. I thought I could deal, but the fact that I am thinking about it every day leads me to believe my coping mechanisms are supbar. 2) Dae's possible 1-in-2 call (every second day). I know the hospital would love that, but I have some different feelings about that. Hopefully call is either waaaay less demanding than at OHSU, or it doesn't end up being 1-in-2 call for longer than the first year.

Pit stop on I-84. We have no shame, obviously! We just took the little insert out of the Bjorn potty and made ourselves a little port-a-potty. Leelee had no problem - he took his time, enjoyed the view...we probably could have brought him a magazine and he would have enjoyed that as well :)

Photo from Hawaii

Working hard. OK, hardly working while the movers did all the heavy lifting. I tried to keep the kids entertained and out of their way. You can see the front of our house here. We will try to take a better photo of the house today.

 

The kids are as excited about Target as I am.

I broke down on Friday and let them have several Diego episodes while I did some speed-unpacking. (I was in the bathroom supervising them - no I wouldn't leave them in a bathtub by themselves!)

Our 1st night set-up. Dae is on the left, off of the mattress. I fit in on the right in that little spot.

The drive over. Dae in the Mini in front of me.

Kauai Part Four - Last Day

So, our last full day in paradise, and we got rear-ended tonight on the way to Smith's Tropical Paradise Luau! We were stopped at a light and there was quite a bit of traffic when, out of nowhere, a Chevy Tahoe (of all cars...it couldn't have been a Mini Cooper) couldn't stop in time and slammed into us. It was quite a hit, in my opinion, and Dae said the front of the guy's Tahoe was pretty dented. The impact also pushed our car forward and lightly hit the Prius in front of us. Meanwhile, our little renter Mazda 6 emerged from the debacle pretty much scratch-free! I couldn't wrap my head around that one. The kids started crying immediately and I was shaking like a leaf right afterward, I was so worried about them. Luckily they were all strapped in and seemed to be totally fine, just scared at the sound and the subsequent yell from me.

Anyway, Dae got the guy's information and off we went to the luau. I am worried about telling the rental car company but at least it wasn't our fault. I also kept asking Leelee for updates on the baby on the way to the luau ("Are his eyes open? Is he awake? Check again!").

Here are luau photos:

Baby with businessman-parted hair

Kahlua pig cooked underground

This guy ate pretty much everything I put in front of him. I was so happy. Must have been a fan of Luau food.

Well, let's just say the dancers were alright. We took this obligatory photo, but truthfully we were far more impressed by the free show at the Poipu outdoor mall!

So tonight is our last night here. We were talking today about how nice of a trip it was, all in all, misbehaving children and everything. Kauai is gorgeous...breathtaking, really. We got to experience it in all its glory in the helicopter and today we drove up to Waimea Canyon, which was just as beautiful as I expected. At the top of the Waimea Canyon Road there is a lookout toward the Na Pali coastline which was also gorgeous. Below are the Canyon and Na Pali coast photos:

This view really did not seem real, it was so pretty. Clouds kept drifting in and out but when they parted the colors and the terrain were amazing!

On top of the world! At least Kauai :)

Waimea Canyon. The vivid greens and reds impressed and surprised me the most.

Ignore my pointy bandana-turned-hat, and two very lackluster kids. Otherwise pretty, right?

Probably one of my newest favorite photos. Olin's hair and smile continue to just crack me up!

Yesterday we checked out Tunnels Beach on the Northern Coast, the beach that the helicopter pilot had said has the best snorkeling. His assessment was spot-on! The beach was a nice long stretch of white (beige) sand with calm water and visible fish right at the shoreline. We also spotted a turtle right away and then got a special treat when an endangered Hawaiian monk seal flopped onto shore and rested for the entire time we were there! It was quite cute and seemed to really relish in its sunbathing. The lifeguards were all over that monk seal, though. A few minutes after it came on shore a lifeguard hurried over and planted these stakes all around the perimeter of the seal. A few minutes later another lifeguard came over and did an intricate rope situation to make absolutely sure nobody got within 10 feet of it. We thought it was a little bit of overkill but I guess an endangered species warrants a little bit of paranoia.

In order to hang out with my family, I have been forced to turn into a seeker of shade.  I suppose my skin will thank me when I am 80!

Love this beach. I love the high, green cliffs surrounding it.

Well, hello

Rolling over to tan his side.

This fish was super vibrant. Don't know the name of it, nor any other marine life we saw.

One update: the daily trips to the pool and the forced dunking of their heads seemed to work. They are much better than they were at the start of the trip as far as fear of water. That's not saying much, but at least forward progress was made! Leelee let Dae throw him up in the air and land underwater without too much hesitation and baby no longer cried when he got into the pool by the last few visits. Hurrah!

And now, miscellaneous photos. We were laughing SO hard at this next one. Leelee has been taking photos at every opportunity and, apparently, when we are not aware. As I was uploading photos last night, we found not one, but four variations of these little beauties on the disk.

Dae, in a panic, asked "are you going to put these on the blog?" and I could not resist. I told him as a compromise I would not blow it up to Buddha-like proportions (and at least his stomach is now tan).

Kauai-style bus stops.

Love this photo of a surfer Dae took when we were at the Beach House restaurant.

This guy looooves gnawing on a nice hunk of delicious white bread. Only the best, nutritionally, for our children! By the way, the jar of baby food was totally untouched. Grrr! 

Good old Hippo. Leelee's best friend and iPhone App. Another photo Leelee snuck in while no one was watching. Yes, I think he took a photo of a screen.