First Day of School! (Olin, 1st Grade)

Wore his finest (Ninjago t-shirt) for the first day. They both now sleep in their next day's school clothes...

First Day of School! (Christian, 4th grade)

He worked for a couple hours last night making a whole variety of weaponry. Sword, glove-sword, tool belt, two shields. Lots of duct tape involved...

End of Summer

Crazy Asians seeing "Crazy Rich Asians". 

After-movie treats. I opted for candy. Dae opted for mandarins.

Reunited with the kids! Yellow watermelon and scrumptious nectarines from Pike Place.

Discovered quaffles (croissant-waffle mix) at Anchorhead coffee and went back 2x. 

Held out on DTF until we had the kids with us.

Ed Sheeran concert! What a talented guy. Unbeknownst to me (because I wasn't fully paying attention when he described it), he used this loop foot pedal to create every single sound during the concert. So it was just him and his guitar and his foot pedals and he was incredible. Dae hooked us up with some sweet tickets.

Cousins reunited!

Timbers! Covered, obstructed seats. haha. I liked the seats, but the outcome (0-1) was less than ideal.

NYC 2018!

We're on our last day of NYC 2018. We have had a great time and walked a LOT. 

Dinner with the Suhs at Cote Korean. We then hit Comedy Cellar which was hilarious as always.

Dominique Ansel for our second try at cronuts. This time the flavor was Key Lime Dulche de Leche which I was so-so about.

Chai tea Latte for me and Macchiato for Dae at About Coffee

First day...we've been walking and walking and walking...aimlessly at times.... :)

View from Brooklyn. Williamsburg bridge I believe.

Brooklyn Bridge! We walked across it. It is so pretty.  However I had to pee the entire time we were walking across and had no idea it was a mile long. By the end I was practically running to find a place!

Juliana's Pizza in Brooklyn. A big line for pizza, and we waited about 30 minutes. Ordered a margherita pizza with meatballs. Yummy.

Brooklyn Bridge. When looking at this photo I immediately noticed I had food between teeth #10 and 11 :)

Sunset Salsa at Pier 45! Super fun. It was a free lesson and open to the public. A 45 minute lesson (harder than I thought, but I am pretty sure I'm better than Dae. haha)

Citibike-ing in Brooklyn. This time we took the subway to the Brooklyn Heights area and walked the Brooklyn Heights Promenade (views of Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan). BTW I wear this Trouve black jumpsuit pretty much every day now...

Matcha Tea Lattes - Dae got an oolong matcha tea latte and I got a regular matcha tea latte.

We arrived early to the sunset salsa and this was the venue before it filled up. It's a really wide pier in the West Village area with nice views towards Jersey City. It really filled up later (probably hundreds of people salsa-ing)

Comedy Cellar. So funny! We went twice. I am really amazed by these comedians. They are seriously funny. Anyway, you need to make reservations and then show up and it's down the stairs and in this tiny venue with people crammed in at tables. We love it! Thanks to Kelly and Al for introducing us to the idea of going to comedy shows a couple years ago. I was not a believer before :)

Side notes:

• We happened upon the original Tiffany store on 5th Avenue and I realized I've never been in to the flagship store. It was cool to see the store because it looked so familiar from Breakfast at Tiffany (and Sweet Home Alabama!). They have the Tiffany Diamond on display - this huge yellow diamond found somewhere in Africa, I think, and it was absolutely enormous. The lady I asked said there is no value assigned to it but I bet I could Google its value...
• There's this natural make-up store called Credo in SoHo that I had read about prior to coming to NYC so we walked there today and it was great. I got 4 items that I was really excited about.  A foundation, concealer, lip balm and eyeshadow.
• I can't remember walking this much in prior trips. We've just found it more convenient and it's super easy to walk places. Traffic here can be backed up, and sometimes the subway does not go exactly where we want. So we are planning to walk to our dinner tonight, at Wildair, which is a mile away. Walking has been very pleasant because the weather has been perfect - not too hot and not too cold. Around 75-80 degrees.
• We went to Joe's Shanghai the second day and had dinner for a total of $21. Two orders of Xiao Long baos and an order of green scallion pancake. I honestly can't remember the last time Dae and I went out to dinner anywhere for the price of $21. 

Outside of NYC:

This is our haircutting set up during summer. My mom took this photo two weeks ago. It looks like I'm about to stab him with the scissors but I think (and hope) it's an optical illusion. haha.

So cute. Olin has been wearing this same outfit for 6 days and 6 nights straight. No shower, no nothing. And I am ok with that. ha! Olin told us via FaceTime last night that he went for the swim test at J-Camp (Jewish camp) of one lap in the pool doing side breathing and he passed! He was very pleased with himself. He said he was "the only one that passed" and then elaborated that this was out of a total of two kids.

They all went to Boeing Family Day on Sunday. My cousin Andrew's son Grayson (blue shirt) was also there, as well as Andrew and his parents (my aunt and uncle).

Ev and I signed our kids up for Jewish Camp on Mercer Island this year. We had heard it was good. My mom is telling me there is so much smoke in Seattle that they have been relegated to indoor activities so I am hoping they are still having a good time! I think if they are with cousin Didi and on vacation with Puo Puo they will have a good time. Plus we keep catching them during "iPad time" when we try to FaceTime them so based on that fact alone I assume they are having a great time :)

Happy 42nd Birth-Dae!

Climbing Badger with the kids yesterday

Just before extracting #E

At the office just after extraction. He is such a champ. Took the anesthetic no problem. Took the pulling of the tooth no problem!

One less tooth.

Milkshakes after extraction. 

Dae turns 42! Anthony's family dinner night.

The cake reads "Happy Dae" :)

Look at this cake Dae's coworkers at the catheter lab made. A more hilarious picture I cannot imagine....

1-Mile

Last time Orange Theory had a 1-mile benchmark challenge my grandma had just passed away (that morning) and I told myself I would push myself to run a sub-7:30 mile in her honor. So, I ran at 8 mph thinking I'd get it, but didn't factor in the 15 seconds in the beginning of my calculation where the treadmill is getting up to speed, and I think I ended up at 7:32. I was so disappointed!

So fast forward to today and another 1-mile benchmark challenge. I am in worse shape than last time, but I pushed myself (near to death! haha) and finished at 7:27 minutes. I am glad that I got it in under 7:30 for her!

Wakesurfing & Tooth News

We visited Trena in Lake Forest Park (north Seattle) this weekend and spent the night. They live right on the lake and we went boating. We all tried wake surfing for the first time. Olin and Christian both tried about 4 times. I give them so much credit for trying and not giving up or asking to come in. It was pretty choppy out (according to Trena) and situating themselves in the choppy water with the board at their feet and hanging on to the rope looked like a challenge. John ended up surfing with Olin which was great. I tried it as well and I got up most of my tries! I managed to stay up and 'surf' for a few seconds but I didn't make it over to the inside wake spot which is the spot you need to stay in to surf. It was so much fun. Their house is really pretty.

Christian (9), Evan (10), Olin (6), Grant (8)

Olin wake surfing with John. 

Little bug

Bros

South Lake Union Block party. It was free, and we got like 5 tote bags, plus an assortment of legitimate junk - coupons, chapstick, an iPhone stand, stickers...

J-shaped Hawaiian ice cream cone

Coach Jake, the best coach in the entire world, is leaving the gym to pursue construction. Major sadness ensued when he told us last night. He makes the ninja class what it is and my kids love it SO much. I am curious if they find someone comparable, and if my kids will still love it without Coach Jake.

Tooth news: Olin's remaining central incisor, #E, is super loose. It has gotten hit around 4-5 times in the last few months just by playing around and at ninja class as well and I can tell it's a goner. So I'm going to bring him in to the office this week, x-ray it, and probably take it out. He said "but I'm not even 7 years old and will be missing another tooth!". He really doesn't want to lose it. I think he is fully aware that he is prematurely missing the one tooth because we talk about it all the time. haha. So he'll be real hillbilly and missing yet another incisor for around another year, if I were to estimate.