Olin is a Full Day Student!

Olin has been very scared of being a full-day student. He has told me several times over the past two days "I am scared. What if I can't do it?". And I am not sure what he can't do, since it's the same teacher, same students, same school! I think the transition to full day from morning student signifies a big milestone for him. So today he was all worried and even said he didn't want to go to school. But of course once he arrived he was very happy and went right in, didn't even kiss or hug me goodbye! I had to go after him for a proper goodbye.

Dae asked me what I'm going to do with myself now that I have all this leisure time.  I told him I'm going to become a lady of leisure. To keep with that theme, Alaina and her daughter Annie took me to lunch for an early bday celebration today at Frost Me Sweet.

I was making dinner yesterday and the kids were outside entertaining themselves, which is a rare treat. haha.

Olin doing who-knows-what up there, in his new Petit Bateau boxers that we got on sale in LA.

In order to offset my 'leisure' days, I have been toying with the idea of: 1) learning another piano piece (maybe the Liszt one I am really intimidated by), 2) learning Spanish so I can actually talk to my patients, 3) volunteering somewhere, perhaps non-tooth related.  I will update...

Christian in Second Grade!

He was so excited to go to school. This morning he said "I am really excited for a lesson. I am sure we are going to get a lesson from teacher Samantha today because it's our first day of second grade". When he arrived at school he was very happy, and very friendly with teacher Samantha. (Olin's first day is tomorrow...)

40th Birthday festivities for Dae at Dupus Boomers (new restaurant in Richland! Finally opened!) with the Safranskis on Monday night.

Boating with the Bonds. We have come full circle - as kids, we used to go boating with the Bonds and now my kids are going boating with their grandson Andrew!

Rick let the kids 'drive'. They were so excited.

Olin sings his Africa song from school like this: "Egypt, Olivia (Libya), Tunisia, Algeria, Borocco (Morocco)" and I laugh every single time. It is so funny how he has an Olivia in every continent. Bolivia and Libya are both "Olivia".

Dae Turns 40!!!

Dae turned the big 4-0 on August 17, last Wednesday, so I planned and surprised him with a trip to LA for 5 days. We had the kids with us the first half of the trip  and then Gong Gong and Grandma Joanne were nice enough to drive over and meet us in South Pasadena to make the hand off for the last half of the trip.

At Pasco Airport

Peninsula Hotel - was SO nice. Talk about service. They had this little spread out for Dae's birthday on our arrival. Look at Olin and Christian's names on their little s'mores pops! 

I ordered Sprinkles cupcakes for his birthday night. The red velvet was to die for. Surprisingly, none of the other flavors did anything for me (vanilla, s'mores, green tea, coffee, chocolate)

We got a breakfast credit through Amex when we reserved the hotel, so we indulged and let the kids order room service. Hilariously, our limit was $60 which amounted to pretty much one breakfast and an extra juice. ha! It was plenty for the four of us actually. Kids were living in a lap of luxury...

They each got their own robe and slippers. They even had a smaller pair for Olin and a mid-sized kid pair for Leelee.

Rodeo Drive entrance. Also this photo showcases a haircut I got recently. I'm really confused by this haircut. The person seemed to really know what she was doing, but the layers are seriously the weirdest layers I've ever had. Extremely choppy, and somewhat blunt ends. It almost looks like a weird triangle when my hair is down. Therefore, I've been wearing my hair up.

Santa Monica Pier bumper cars. 

Beach at Santa Monica. The beach was huge.

Santa Monica was cute. The third street promenade was really cute but we didn't have time to stroll it since we were on a mission to get to In 'N Out as fast as humanly possible.

We inhaled this lunch in about 5 minutes.

Traffic, traffic, everywhere in LA. Traffic was worse than I had imagined. That was the only thing I could complain about this weekend (and boy did I complain!)

Liquid Nitrogen ice cream!

We met up with Peter and Lani for dinner and liquid nitrogen ice cream...

And their kids Kellen and Alexis. We get to see them once a year or so and it's always fun.

LA looks so nice in the background here!

At the Griffith Observatory. We did multiple selfie-stick selfies to try to get a good shot of the Hollywood sign but it was not meant to be on this day.

The kids, particularly Olin, are really in to crazy face photos right now. We always do one normal, one 'funny' and one 'crazy'. I am not sure what the difference between funny and crazy is.

Not amused.

Amused.

Meeting up with Bridget! She looks unsure about the boys.

Ramen shop in South Pasadena for the kid hand-off.

Our adult-only weekend commenced with a journey to the Kardashian salad place also known as Health Nut in Woodland Hills, California. Yes I was willing to fight traffic for a taste of the chef's salad + avocado and the mango greentini. 

Dae asked if I wanted a photo of me shaking my salad as they do on the show and of course I said yes. And of course I got my salad to go because I wanted to shake the container, even though we stayed at the store to eat! Or I should say I ate and then we drove to In 'N Out for Dae's fix.

Korean restaurant which was jam packed every night in Koreatown. We finally got in!

First time at Staples Center - first Adele concert! She sounds amazingly exactly like she does on the radio. 

FaceTime with Olin's missing tooth

80's Boys

I play all sorts of music in our house, and today I put on one of my favorites, 'We Belong Together', by Pat Benator. Olin goes "Oh, I like this song"....

We made a day trip to Seattle to get Audi brakes replaced, get haircuts for me and Dae and meet up with my mom and Rong for a nice lunch!

Din Tai Fung on Monday for an early 40th birthday celebration with Puo Puo and Wang ye-ye

Happiest place on earth..Din Tai Fung

Dae has expanded his ear-cleaning clinic to include adult patients now. I have to admit, his movements are quick and precise. Unfortunately my ears were not very dirty, so it was an unproductive session.
(Check out the Husky visor with the kids' dollar-store headlamp attached. And his total look of concentration. He takes his job as head ear-cleaner very seriously in our home.)

This cucumber balancing act was pretty impressive. 

The search for a perfect front rack for my new bike continues. This one arrived (after I had searched high and low) and not only was it missing a part, it didn't fit...Also, the instructions were completely in Dutch so I had my laptop out typing in all the Dutch words to get translation for Dae. Thank goodness for the internet!

Too short

My new pot of succulents. Hopefully I won't kill these guys. I hear succulents require little attention (watering). Just what I need.