bonnie & jason

Jason’s baby pictures

Some of you may remember the slide show from our wedding reception a few years ago. In that slide show, we had just a few baby pictures. Recently, however, I collected a number of old photo albums from my parents before they moved to Vegas with the intention of scanning in all the images for a digital backup. Well, here’s the first installment of that digital backup with a few teaser images below. Of note… I really look like a girl (ie Alissa) in some of the pictures and my mom used to wear verrrry short skirts. Even around the cold weather of Christmas time.

Memorial Day BBQ with Bonnie’s cousins

Most of you know Bonnie has a ginormous extended family. As such, sometimes it’s tough to see everyone on a regular basis as folks are busy with school/work/family/etc. So, as an excuse to get together, we had a BBQ down in Mountain View today (kudos to Vivian for the idea and Deeann for the park). It turned out to be a great day! Not too hot, not too cold. Great food. Some fast and furious frisbee/football/tennis action. (Vicki Chan and I have Vivian Chan and Calvin lined up for Double Trouble Part Deaux at the next BBQ.) And the never ending entertainment that toddlers provide. Anyway, here’s an illustrated review with my usual running commentary. The entire album is here.

Deeann, queen of the soy/ginger chicken/steak.

Said soy/ginger chicken. Looks good, doesn’t it? We also had ribs, burgers, sausages, corn, two fruit salads, potato salad, smores, rice crispy treats, and a bunch of different drinks.

Alissa and Megan have similar “backpacks.” Alissa has the monkey, Megan has the doggie. If you didn’t notice, the “tails” act as leashes. I prefer to call them “safety restraints.”

Girl Power!

Kissing cousins. Alissa likes to kiss everyone, especially kids, these days. It’s to the point now when we’re out in public and there are other little kids around, we have to pull her back. She also likes to hug and pet kids’ heads. Hopefully this phase will pass quickly.

Alissa may be turning into a bit of a ham.

Alissa managed to get the monkey off her back. (HAH!)

And apparently, this signaled that she was the dominant toddler and ready to feed Megan to which Megan apparently agreed?! These have to be the funniest pictures I’ve ever taken… it was even funnier in person. Especially with Vicki’s commentary that Megan won’t let her or Tony feed her.

The now dethroned dominant toddler literally up in arms with the new regime. She took her aggression out on the adult empire later in the afternoon with what can only be described as Lollapapoopa.

Tony can throw a Frisbee really well. Hitting a tennis ball is more of a developing skill.

Look at that extension!

Karate chop!

Such balance and grace! (And mega-cool awesome sunglasses that exude sex appeal.)

It’s all about the follow through.

More good follow through.

Less good follow through.

Good times, good times.

P.S. For anyone interested, these were all taken with a 20D and 100mm 2.8 macro lens.

Back from Laguna Beach: The real Orange County

We just got back from a week in Laguna Beach. Yes, that Laguna Beach. It’s not so much that we wanted to see where Kristin Cavawhoever hangs out, more that we wanted a place that was close to the beach, in between LA and San Diego, and affordable for my side of the family. So we rented this place.

I have to say, I didn’t have high expectations as most web sites make the place seem better than it actually is. However, in this case, the web site was underselling the property. First of all, the place was huge! No “wide angle lens” tricks here. The bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, even the hallways were humongous. Second, the house was very new and all the furniture, decorations, etc. were still fresh without any of that “rental house” feel that sometimes happens over time. Third, everything was very high end. From the bathroom fixtures to the light switches, it was clear that this house was built to luxury standards. Finally, everything was very clean and well stocked. We didn’t have to go scrounging for bathroom tissue or bring our own towels. All in all, we were very happy with the accommodations, especially given that the price wasn’t bad as we were at the tail end of the off-season.

I’ll put up a more detailed trip summary later this weekend as it’s kinda late now. For the time being, here are a few pictures that I liked: (Edit: Added new pictures and commentary below. Also, here’s the link to the full album.)

Alissa loved the stairs. I guess they were a novelty as we don’t have any at home that she can use. So she spent the better part of most days going up and down, up and down. She did enough so that she can actually go down the stairs forwards while hugging the wall. She’s not super reliable at this technique though so someone had to be there to catch her in case she fell. But between the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, Alissa got pretty much her fill of things.

We spent one of the days at the San Diego Zoo. It was a super hot day but worth the trip. Here’s a picture of the baby panda. He was just hanging out in this tree. Didn’t look all that comfy to me, but he seemed to enjoy it. If you look at the pictures in the whole album, you’ll also notice that he enjoyed showing the crowd his dirty, fuzzy butt.

Here’s Aidan at the petting zoo. I love the hat. I think he had just as much fun playing in the dirt as with the animals.

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Christian and Chloe on the deck at the house. The sun was nice and low so I got warm, even light. And Chloe obliged with a big smile!

Bonnie and Alissa on the Carousel at the zoo. Alissa didn’t really know what to make of it until the second time we rode it.

Papa, Mama, and baby monkey. Literally hanging around looking at the people looking at them.

Lions and tigers and bears (two kinds) oh my!

At the San Diego Wildlife Park, the animals had much more room to run about. It was cool to see the different species occupying the same large space.

Alissa’s first dippin’ dots. Only $4.50.

Can’t have a good day as a kid without swings!

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy mother’s day to all the mom’s out there. We went to Golden Gate Park this afternoon to take some mother’s day pictures… if there is such a thing. Alissa was very interested in pretty much every little thing from twigs, rocks, pigeons, water, to leaves, you name it. It took her about 10 minutes to walk 10 feet in the botanical garden because she was so curious about everything. Also, she wasn’t really interested in being held to take pictures but we managed to get a few ok ones I think. I’ve included a few below. Here’s the link to the whole album.

Handbags already!?

Apparently, Alissa is already into handbags… and sunglasses. She carried this one around the house for almost an hour. I guess it was bound to happen, I just didn’t think it would be so soon.

Here’s some video of some of Alissa’s fairly new verbal skills. Some of her words are really only distinguishable by us (like ‘thank you’), and she still can only sign ‘please’ vs. saying it. Also, she knows where the ‘A’ is on the playmat but only sometimes correctly identifies the ‘O.’ All in all, I guess she’s making progress. I have no idea if she ahead or behind the curve, but it doesn’t really matter all that much at this point I guess.

Here’s some more of Alissa’s “communication” skills.

Alissa and Megan

We went to dim sum with a bunch of Bonnie’s cousins today and I snapped this picture of the two Vickies, Alissa, and Megan (apparently, Megan wasn’t happy with the dan tat or something).

It’s funny how differently babies develop. Megan is a few months younger than Alissa but she has pretty much all her teeth already whereas Alissa still just has four with the others mostly poking out (finally.) On the other hand, Megan just started walking whereas Alissa started walking relatively early on. One thing they have in common, however, is that they are both already solving differential equations and writing epic poems in iambic pentameter. Must be those fancy prenatal vitamins.

Anyway… Bonnie also came across this random picture of the two geniuses so I thought I’d share this one as well. It’s from the annual Wong superbowl party.

This is one of those pictures that we’ll look back on when they’re like, 14, and realize how amazing it is that they ended up going from innocent little babies to pain in the ass teenagers.