More Chess, More Kidney Stones

Actually I should say more chess, same kidney stone again. Poor Dae had surgery on Friday evening to remove the same kidney stone which reared its ugly head again and made him cancel work on Friday (he has never canceled work before). He has been off and on ok this weekend, but still pretty uncomfortable. Hilariously, yesterday afternoon my friend texted me that she heard Olin say the following in her car - "Water is so important. You know why? The other day my dad got this crystal thing near his weenie and had to go to the hospital. So you should drink water"........

Meanwhile, he did make it to part of the kids' chess tournament yesterday which, as usual, was surprisingly fun given it's an 8 hour day spent in an elementary school gymnasium! 

They made it to the State Chess Tournament in April! This year it is conveniently being held in Pasco, so if there was any year for the kids to make it, this is it. Any child who scores a 3 or higher in any of the year's tournaments is qualified for State, so I believe at this point almost every kid who is on the Sagebrush Elementary chess club has qualified. 

Yesterday's tournament (their third). I snapped this picture when I noticed they got seated next to each other at one of their games. They did well yesterday! Christian won 3 and lost 2, for a total of 3.0 points. Olin won 3 and stalemated 2, for a total of 4.0 points.

Olin ended up with the 4th place individual trophy in the K-3rd grade level. 

Sagebrush kids did really well at the awards ceremony. The awards announcer at one point said "Is there something in the Sagebrush water?". haha.

This is a good depiction of us at chess tournaments. Sitting on lawn chairs or various chairs in the gym surrounded by all the coats and bags and snacks for the day, surrounded by kids. 

Yesterday's standings out of 54 kids. I was proud of both of them. 

Ka-Doo List

Olin thinks a To Do list is pronounced Ka-Doo List. I confirmed this when I asked him to repeat himself several times. He said "Mom, can you put on your Ka-Doo list, on Christian's Birthday I want to play the Happy Birthday song on the piano". I said yes, I would put it on my Ka-Doo list.

We had big plans to stay in Wenatchee and ski over the 3 day weekend but our plans were derailed when I was up coughing half the night on Friday, so too tired Saturday to make the trek. And then Saturday the kids fell a few times while rollerblading, no big deal, but a few hours later Olin started saying his thigh really hurt and he couldn't walk. So we carried him to dinner and didn't think anything of it until he crawled to the bathroom and to our room the next morning saying his thigh really hurt. Dae texted Gordon Hsieh and we ended up bringing Olin in to see him and get x-rayed Monday morning at 7:30. No breaks. Just some fluid in the hip likely due to trauma. And he was fine enough to go to Rollarena that Monday and Ninja class that evening so I assume all is well.

At the doctor's office

Rollarena family skate

Couples skate. Only couples (or triples) holding hands were allowed on the rink during the couples skate so Dae and I were forced to hold hands while skating and the kids were forced to hold hands while skating. Ha!!!

Back on the Homefront...

...my mom kept the kids in line and was even totally open to taking them to a Chess Tournament all day Saturday. They did awesome! They both won trophies and each won 3 games, stalemated 1, and lost 1 (total of 5 games). I had fully prepped my mom and told her they could possibly lose all 5 games. So she told me she was quite prepared for pep talks if they lost, but "they kept winning!". haha. She said she had barely left the competition room during the first game when Christian ran out and said he won, doing the 4-move checkmate. :)

They got trophies for 5th place (Christian, 3rd grade category) and 4th place (Olin, K-2 category). Their team won 1st place for K-2!

Get Air with their friend AJ on Sunday.

Ninja class on Monday.

Red envelopes for New Years', stuffed animals, and grandma

Grandparents' Day at Christian's school.

Heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's for $9 for Valentine's Day. haha. A family Valentine's Day topped off by Ninja Class.

Heart-shaped slime.

Came in to our room tonight to see Christian absorbed in a knitting book loaned to me by their piano teacher Onnie.

hahaha. He said there are a lot of stitches he wants to try but 'they look hard'

10 Years and Maui!

We celebrated 10 years on February 8 with a family date, kids invited, at Wine O' Clock in Prosser. I have to say, it was a lovely date! I think the kids were really excited to be a part of our fancy date. haha.

A cooking show was on the TV by our table, which captured the kids' attention for the entire dinner. That, and Christian's knitting that he brought with him to dinner. :)

The next day, Harmony, Alaina, and another OTF member and I won the team challenge with 4581 meters rowed! (I later checked and learned we were beat by a team in the afternoon that logged over 5000 meters, which I can't imagine)

Two days later, we took off to Maui for a few days! My mom came and watched the kids (what a plus). Dae and I had a great time. We had our nice buffet breakfast every morning (included), he golfed in the mornings while I:  1) took a Pilates class and had a facial, followed by laying at the beach and reading 2) got a body wrap treatment, took a walk up Wailea and Makena and looked at the beachside mansions and then laid at the Serenity (adults') pool and 3) laid at the beach and read more. Then we'd hit up various poke and fish taco trucks for lunch. After that we'd lay at the beach and snorkel or hit up the adults pool for more relaxing, then go somewhere fun for dinner. We tried Ka'ana Kitchen at the Andaz hotel (pretty good), Humble Market Kitchen (good), and Morimoto at the Andaz (very good - they had this fish bibimbap that was good). Then we'd relax and watch Olympics for a couple hours.

Following are lots of pictures of ourselves.

Humble Market Kitchen happy hour

Every morning I really enjoyed taking my pick of tropical fruits and Dae enjoyed an Asian breakfast of miso soup and rice and such. 

South Maui Fish Co. was really good. We had the poke and fish tacos. Poke was delicious, fish tacos were ok. I really wanted to try to fish curry but wasn't hungry enough to order 3 dishes for the two of us.

On the golf course

Pool at Four Seasons Hotel

Morimoto

We met these ladies seated next to us. One of them scampered off to take sunset photos and came back with some good ones, so she forwarded a few to me. 

Looking at whales. Our last day, we checked out at 4pm and our flight didn't leave until midnight (red-eye) so we were pretty much aimlessly driving around (and making all sorts of wrong turns) while putting out calls to see if we could get tickets for Warren and Annabelle's show, or a dinner cruise of some sort - any sort. We scored with this dinner cruise departing from Ma'alaea at 5pm - we seriously bought our tickets by phone 5 minutes prior to check-in time, and they were booked except one couple hadn't shown up so we bought our tickets and hightailed it back to the harbor. The cruise was awesome! It was so calm, and the lighting was so pretty since it was overcast. Plus we saw lots of whales. And there was unlimited food and drink. 

This was the lighting all night on the cruise. So pretty.

Since I don't like to zoom, you'll just have to squint to see the whale fin. This whale was playing around and would shoot up its fin, its tail, and its actual head, too.

A Mile at Orange

At OrangeTheory Fitness today we ran 1 mile timed and I ran it in 7:37. That's by far my personal record! I was aiming for 7:30-7:45 and at the end I felt like I could have gone a (very tiny) bit faster.

Highwaters and Happenings

All of us in highwaters, although not totally obvious on this photo on Olin. 

Olin asked for me to take a picture of him as the "happy scuba diver"...

And the "dead fish"

Happy

Contemplative

Christian working the robot at Pacific Science Center

Olin working the robot

Owl butterly. We discovered this whole other section of PSC comprised of insects, lizards, rodents and butterflies. Christian did not want to leave. They really enjoyed that section.

Can't remember the name of this butterfly. Pretty. 

This was a nice live photo Dae took of Olin trying to stay still while this very social butterfly flitted all around him.

Moth. We were shocked to learn that moths emerge from cocoons and butterflies emerge from chrysalises.  Had no idea butterflies did not emerge from cocoons.

Quite fun to meet up with Megan, Ross, and Tate at FOB poke and then hang out at our condo for a while and walk Pike Place.

Hamster wheel at PSC. I am trying some of the VSCO filters on my really dark photos.

Totally cocooned. Look at his little hands peeking out under his lips.