State Chess 2019

They did pretty well! Olin got 2 wins. Christian got 3 wins and I think that means he qualifies for nationals. Last year they both got 2 wins.

Our school ended up placing 25th out of 100 or so schools, and we were the highest placed school from the eastside! Per usual, the first 25 places were all Seattle area schools.

Both boys were unfortunately riddled with allergies this day.

Bubble tea and poke bowls during the break between 2nd and 3rd games. Christian was having a very bad start, as he lost both initial games. He rallied and won the last 3 so he said he had a 'lucky poke bowl'

Gong Gong came to meet us in Seattle and attend the kids' chess tournament! That was fun to have him there to witness the excitement (boredom). hahaha.

Trophies were awarded to those who got 3+. Medals were awarded to everyone who got 2.5 and below.

Through the window at Crumpet Shop.

Fun Sunday morning meet up with Megan at the Miir coffee shop. They sell cool water bottles, in addition to beer and coffee so I ordered this raspberry beer whose proceeds go back to the raspberry farm and you get to keep this cute little stainless steel cup!

Funny stuff. Olin asked me "Mom does dying hurt? I know dying from lava hurts, but does dying from oldness hurt?"

He has also been saying a lot of "oh, come on!". He'll say that when he's slightly not looking forward to something, but kind of in a joking manner. Like I'll say remember Olin you've got soccer practice tonight and he'll say "oh, come on!"

Boyz Gone Wild

Dae and boys had a seemingly fabulous time at home. The kids were out on the lawn jumping up and down, waving and smiling huge when I came home. It was so cute.

The kitchen was pristine when I arrived home so I jokingly said "oh you cleaned up!". Which translates to the kitchen wasn't used one bit when I was gone. ha!

Playing catcher. He said about a minute after they outfitted him up he started to feel a pinch from the shinguards and therefore "couldn't catch a single ball". Dae says he is now 8 for 8 batting. Woohoo! He told me he fielded a ball from 3rd base to 1st but that "it was kind of easy because the batter ran the wrong way, toward 3rd base, so I had extra time". hahaha. Good old single A baseball.

Shogun sushi after saturday morning's activities. Dae said they were pretty full all day from that lunch and that for dinner Olin asked "Can we have something healthy?" and asked for broccoli. Just the thought of the 7 year old asking the 42 year old for a healthy break from all their eating-out cracks me up.

Original Pancake House for Easter brunch.

Mini Golf and Driving Range for Easter.

Dye-ing Eggs. They also had a backyard easter egg hunt. I put small notes, various amounts of money (ranging from 10 cents to a dollar. haha), some chocolates and some starburst in them. Dae hid them and videotaped for me. He said Christian absolutely cleaned up as far as how many eggs he found so they had to divvy up afterward and Dae had to help Olin find eggs which then resulted in Olin complaining that he only found 2 eggs on his own, without help.....

Wedding of cousin Jonathan and Melody in San Jose

First stop: Turo car rental of a smart car! It was definitely small and good on the gas mileage - we ended up adding a little less than 2 gallons after our entire trip. However, our lack of driving experience in California coupled with a small car wasn't the best combination for cali freeways. It was cute, though. Driving my Mini Cooper home after the trip felt like a huge luxury ride! hahaha

We had a couple of hours before meeting my mom at Aunt May's house so we scoured the Westfield Shopping Mall (Valley shopping mall?) and bought 10 face masks each at the Face Shop as well as some See's Candies. Then we hit In 'N Out. Our tray was chalk full of lettuce.

Front and center is the new Miir mug Ev has been enjoying and she gifted me with one too! Cute little 8-ouncer.

Ev's mom jeans at the price point of $100-$200 (Mal said she looks like puops in them), Citizens of Humanity. Mom's mom jeans at the price point of $29.99, Uniqlo.

Wedding! Cousin Jonathan was the groom. This photo is about half cousins and half significant others. Family are underlined: Hubert, Jason, Thorin, Ben, Hamilton, James, Marina, Melody, Jonathan, Mimi, Trish, Mel, Ev, Jocelyn, Lisa, Laura

PhotoBooth. "Prom"

I don't think my mom can not smile, ever.

Recreating Dancing with the Stars photo we took with Maks and Val

Laura and Lisa took us to 3 food places in quick succession: 1) a pandan waffle place (the waffles are kind of chewy like mochi. very good. There was a green one and a black sesame one and the green one was better) 2) Bonchon Korean fried chicken place. The chicken is good. It's wings and tenders with different sauces on them 3) Happy Lemon (again) where we got a mango matcha smoothie (yum), a matcha milk tea with tiramisu salted cream (good but the salted cream was a little too heavy 3) the original lemon drink (good) and a milk tea with puffed cream in the middle (good). I like how Happy Lemon lets you customize the % Sweetness and ice you want.

Nightly sleeping arrangement.I didn't think to put up my head covering until after our stay was over. Would have helped with the low temperatures we encountered during those evenings! Ev packed both sleeping mats and her sleeping bag in to her carry on. I just had one sleeping bag. But we made it work!

Borrowing Aunt May's asian visor.

Princeton and Asian visor. Laura said we "fit right in in Saratoga"

Ignore un-cropped portion.

Most fun wedding I can remember in a long time. Probably 250 guests, open bar, excellent DJ. I really couldn't ask for anything else, purely from a guest's/selfish perspective that is. haha. People were really dancing, and by people it was all ages, like Uncle Chi's 60+ year old friend who was getting down and was more nimble than we are. Ben (fromt right, glasses and suit) is actually in some dance group and he's really good.

Chinese dinner the day after the wedding. These are all cousins + bride Melody in the front jean jacket. The one cousin not in the photo is Jocelyn who had to fly back to DC. We were really in to serious face this weekend.

Olin's Happenings

He had a big day with:

1) His first going-out to the library with Joaquin. He said it was "awesome"

2) First coach-pitch baseball game. They lost 11-9 but he said he had a great time and he bat 4 for 4 so he was really happy.

Waiting at the Richland transit center for their bus back to school

Aquaponics

Dae and I won the aquaponics system (fish tank) at our school's auction this year. I am not sure how I missed the information, but I had no idea that actual fish were involved. I just thought it was some sort of water filtration/cycle that involved using water in a fish tank, live plants, and a cycling of nutrients.

Anyway, I caught on pretty quick, and we went to the fish store yesterday, got our tank situated and warm enough, and then went back today to purchase our actual fish. Kids of course (and Dae!) wanted all sorts of add-ons: frogs, a puffer fish, snails. They told us that each different species requires different types of food and I know with 100% certainty that I would be the one schlepping to the grocery store to purchase this food so I 86'd anything more than the bare necessities, which was 3 cardinal fish. One other fish actually snuck in to our bag when he was giving us our water lettuce so we got 4 fish for the price of 3. haha.

Hilarious that the fish store carried the torii gate as a decoration. We had to get it.

Two of them. I think the kids decided all the fish are going to have the same name since they can't tell them apart.  I think the fish will live a couple of years, hopefully, and will grow to 1-2 inches or so.

Olin's first going-out is this week!

Jetlag

Jet lag hasn't been terrible...the kids have been able to go to sleep in the evenings without any problem or melatonin thankfully. However, little guy has had difficulty waking up in the mornings. This past week, I have been waking him up about 5 minutes before we have to get in the car. Ha! I change his clothes while he nearly falls asleep, I bring their breakfast in the car and I have been packing their lunches. These spoiled children. Of course, Christian has still been up and pretty perky about an hour before school starts, although he is getting up at 7am rather than his usual 6am.

To exacerbate the jet lag issue, school now starts 30 minutes earlier for the rest of the year to try to make up the days we missed for snow without having to tack on extra days in the summer.

Tuesday 7:26am

Wednesday 7:44am. We leave for school at 7:50am.

Japan Wrap-up

I loved the blues of the second night's kimonos. I thought they complemented the kids' coloring well. haha.

Great Torii during high tide.

Dae liked these flower blossom snacks. They were filled with green bean, red bean, and maybe lotus or taro, not sure.

Train. They weren't asleep but were laying.

On our last day we finally purchased drinks from these machines. They had some good juices.

Kids slept during the entire flight #2 home, pretty much, but Dae and I didn't get as much sleep.

Lots of older Japanese ladies clamming during low tide.

2nd night's menu

Baby conger eel. Not disgusting, but not wonderful.

Sea Bream was tasty. Kids were grossed out by the fish head and eye.

Christian feeding Olin second night dinner. I opted for a green kimono the second night, after my pink on the first night.

We traveled over quite a few connections on the way home, but we made it and are doing pretty well. It's 8pm local time and the entire family gets melatonin so we can go to sleep and wake up at a hopefully normal hour for school.