bonnie & jason

Ryan’s first birthday party

Another weekend, another baby birthday party! Today was Ryan’s party at the 30th avenue glen of Golden Gate Park. A good time was had by all with volleyball, badminton, tons of food, football… here’s Ryan:

And here’s Aidan:

And Alissa:

The highlights for her were clearly the corn and playing ball with all the other little kids there. For the rest of us, I think the Spongebob cupcakes probably stole the show.

Rest of the pics here.

Forgotten pictures/videos

Bonnie has had her cell phone for about two years now and I finally got around to pulling the miscellaneous pictures and video off it today. Here are a few of my favorite ones (quality isn’t great) with the whole group here. It’s kinda fun to look back at the random things that were captured. Makes it feel like the last couple years has just flown by.

Alissa’s 18 month checkup

Alissa had her 18 month exam last week and received a clean bill of health along with a few shots. She’s now 20 lbs 6 oz and 30.5″ tall. Still small for her age but nothing to be concerned about according to Dr. Langston. Developmentally, she seems to be doing fine, picking up more and more words every day imitating things she sees us do. One of the funnier things she started doing is feeding Elmo. Not only does she like to give him water, but we’ve also found him lying prone on the floor with what looks like a pound of Cheerios around his mouth. It’s like she suffocated him with the stuff.

Start to a busy weekend

Terry and Catrina are expecting girl #3 in August so a small group of us got together and threw Terry a man-shower. After a round of racing at Gokart Racer and lunch at BJ’s, we ended up at Ching-An’s place for some cake, presents, and swimming/frisbee/tennis.

Here are some pics along with the whole album.

Alissa at the beach

Today was another beautiful day here in San Francisco. As a matter of fact, it was so warm that we were motivated to pick up a shovel/pail/sand sifter set for Alissa for like $2.79 at Babies ‘R Us. (I feel like that’s our second home.) So off to the beach we went!

At first, Alissa didn’t want to sit down in the sand. I’m not sure if she just likes to squat or if she didn’t want to get dirty.

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As you can see, she got over that pretty quickly:

She also decided to play Baby Godzilla and trampled down our sand city:

And to think we had thought about getting her a sandbox for the backyard. Why bother when there’s a whole beach a short walk away?!

The beach was actually quite crowded today with the weather being so nice. I just managed to get close crops or find the right angles to keep most of the crowds out of the pictures. (All images taken with Canon 70-200 2.8 IS.)

Alissa likes dirt

We spent a little time in the backyard today mostly weeding and trying to cover up some dirt patches with bricks. Alissa really enjoyed following us around picking up minuscule pieces of grass or rocks and “helping” put them away in the garbage. Then she spent a ton of time helping me lay the bricks. That’s when she got really dirty. She had dirt in her shoes and everything. Needless to say, she got a bath as soon as we were done.

Old friends, new friends, and soon-to-be friends

It was quite an action packed day today. After spending most of the morning running errands at Costco, Babies ‘R Us, and Trader Joe’s, we ended up at an old friend’s house in Menlo Park.

James Wu (Woozy) and I grew up together and our families have been friends for decades. Even though he was a year older than I, we spent a ton of time together in high school as we were both the token (and model) Chinese students in our respective grades at Abington Heights. (Bonnie reminds me quite frequently that she’s not quite sure how she ended up with such a dork.) Anyway, we had lost touch for the last 12 years or so (still can’t believe it’s been that long) but our dads still played golf together so I’d get periodic updates. Long story short, James (he’ll always be Woozy to me) now lives in Menlo Park with his wife, Joann, and dog, Askr, and we finally got together for lunch today.

I would have taken more pictures but they put together such a nice picnic spread that I got sidetracked with all the eating and catching up. Instead, I just ended up with a couple of Alissa.

Now that we’ve reconnected, hopefully we’ll be able to get out and do some stuff together every now and then.

Anyway… on to the new friends part of this post’s title. After lunch with James, Joann, and Askr, we went to visit Brian, Clara, Reid, and Kira, the new addition to family. Kira is a month old now and is cute as a button. (I actually thinks she looks a lot like Reid.) I took a few snaps in so-so lighting:

I know Alissa was that small at some point, but it’s really hard to remember it at this point. Especially now that she’s such a big girl, eating at the adult table and all:

Finally, our soon-to-be friend isn’t a person at all. It’s our new jogging stroller!

Found it relatively cheap as a closeout! After our cheapo Graco Mosaic stroller lost it’s (once repaired) wheel due to the rough gate checkers at Virgin America on the way to NYC last week, we decided it was time invest in a higher quality one that would not only stand the test of time, but also be maneuverable, comfortable, and versatile. Of course, my intention is to actually go jogging with it… we’ll see how that goes.

Finally, I’ll just leave you with these few images of happy Alissa:

Back from NYC

I had a work meeting in Manhattan last week so we ended up making it the beginning to our annual east coast pilgrimage. While in the city, we met up with a couple friends as well as my cousin Anna’s family. While visiting them (likely for the last time before they move to the ‘burbs), Alissa and Chloe decided to take turns pushing each other in a little doll stroller:

(Speaking of which, our Graco Mosaic stroller broke a wheel after being subjected to the gate check from our flight… this was after I had to epoxy it back on after it broke off the first time after our trip to Laguna Beach so it’s not entirely their fault.)

Alissa and Bonnie also spent some time with Vivian. Here they are in Central Park playing with the water:

After working up an appetite, they stopped for some snacks:

Alissa loved this jam apparently. Don’t report us to child services for feeding our baby what amounts to straight sugar.

Alissa also enjoyed her first pickle which we got from the Carnegie Deli along with a pastrami sandwich about the size of her head:

Then, for the weekend, we ended up at Vin’s place for the annual “Wang’s come to the East Coast BBQ.” Here’s Alissa having her first Oreo cookie sans frosting:

She also had a great time playing with Gunther all weekend:

He basically tolerated her while she tried to ride, stand on, pull on, and pet him constantly.
Alissa also got a chance to try out her big hat at the park down the street:

The only thing I forgot to do is take a group picture of all the folks that were able to make it to the BBQ. Too many people to catch up with in too little time. Oh well, hopefully we can make it back again next year. By then, all conversations will revolve around kids as Vin and Denise will have a little Chao, Kiran and Priya will be inconceivably bigger, Alissa will be even more of a pain in the butt, Ellen and Mike may be able to make it with Natalie and their newborn, and Jenny and Eric will have a little one as well. Damn… talk about population growth!

Rest of the pics here.

Toyota Avalon (1MZ) valve cover gasket replacement

One of the great things about the internet and the many people who use it is the whole sharing of knowledge thing. Like most people, I’ve probably consumed more info than I’ve provided, but every once in a while I like to make a modest contribution. This particular one is admittedly aimed at a niche audience, but so be it.

So, the story is, Bonnie’s dad gave me a job to do while he lives the good life on a cruise somewhere in northern Europe. The job was to replace the valve cover gaskets in his aging but still reliable 1998 Toyota Avalon. Apparently the gaskets are old enough that he’s getting a small oil leak through one of them… a common problem among these Toyota V6’s. I knew it was going to be a pain to get the valve cover off the rear bank of cylinders since you have to remove the intake manifold and a bunch of other stuff to even access the bolts. Then there’s this stupid !#$%^& wiring harness that is like the boss character at the end of a video game that you know you can beat but with no small amount of frustration. Anyway, perseverance paid off and I got the job done with only a little cursing and yelling. Thankfully, no permanent scarring (physical or mental.) Plus, amazingly enough, I didn’t have any leftover parts which is always a good sign. And the car started right back up after I put everything back together. Finally, I haven’t noticed any oil leaks (yet) so hopefully I did a good job. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with these slow leaks… for all I know, the leak is coming from somewhere else since I didn’t really notice as much oil as I would have expected from the old gaskets. Oh well… we’ll see.

So, back to the giving back part of this post… Here are some pictures I took along the way to make sure I knew how to put the darn thing back together correctly. There were so many hoses and electrical connections to keep track of. So for those of you who were too lazy to take these pictures yourself and now need a reference… enjoy! I also added some comments to the pictures that might be helpful for you.

Wii fit is hiilarious

I was one of the lucky ones who pre-ordered the Wii Fit on Amazon before it officially launched so we’ve been playing with ours here and there for the last week or so. Overall, it’s pretty fun. I wouldn’t say it’s life changing or anything but I guess it’s better than sitting on your butt eating bon-bons all night. I’m actually looking forward to what other games come out that make use of the board. Although the actual Wii Fit games are fun, they’re pretty basic following the formula of Wii Play and Wii Sports. I hear there is a Raving Rabids game coming out that will use it so that might be interesting.

Anyway, on to the main reason for this post… embarrassing family. Here are four videos starring Benita (I’m in one of them). She’ll probably kill me for posting these, but oh well. She can write her own blog and return the favor some day.

This next one is funniest at the end since it looks like we’re going into convulsions as we race for the finish line.

This one is the funniest one to me. Benita looks like she’s doing the Elaine dance!

2008 06 01 Wii Fit Benita from Jason Wang on Vimeo.