bonnie & jason

Trip back east

Our annual pilgrimage back east almost didn’t happen this year. First, we weren’t sure we wanted to schlep everyone cross country to begin with. Second, with Amanda being susceptible to viruses, and the whole swine flu thing, traveling seemed a bit risky. And finally, after we had made arrangements to go after all, Alissa ended up with a fever the night before we were scheduled to leave. In the end, we decided that the trip wasn’t going to get any easier, Amanda would be fine and they do have doctors in New Jersey anyway, and Alissa’s fever broke before we had to leave for the airport so off we went.

All in all, it was a great trip. For the first half of the trip, the plan was to stay with Vin, Denise, Henry, and Gunther. While we were there, Jenny visited with her daughter Maddie. Last time we were in town, Jenny was just a few days short of giving birth, Denise was pregnant with Henry, and we just had Alissa. So lunch was a pretty straight forward affair with all the adults and just one baby. How things have changed! Here’s a pic with the babies and most of the adults.

And here’s me with all the babies:

And Henry having his way with Ashley:

Good times.

Part two of the trip was to attend Mary’s wedding. We hadn’t seen Mary in a while and were excited to witness her happy day and to meet her now husband. This is the first trip where I didn’t bring my big camera gear but here are a few pics I took with our point and shoot:

From the wedding, we were supposed to go stay with my cousin Anna but Aidan was just getting over the flu and we didn’t want to risk the kids getting sick so we ended up staying with Geoff and Asha that night. They were very gracious hosts especially considering the last minute situation and the fact that it’s no small feat to accommodate all five of us. Kiran and Alissa got along fine even though he’s a little bit older.

The next day, we went to the Pepsi headquarter’s sculpture garden.

Then it was back to the Chao residence for the remainder of our stay (after a short visit with my cousin… poor Aidan was sequestered 100 feet away). Henry was happy to see us again. More specifically, he was happy to see Ashley and her feet.

That Henry is a character:

So all in all, even though it was a very demanding trip both physically and emotionally, it was well worth it to spend time with the friends and family we don’t get to see very often. Will we do it again next year. Hmm… we’ll see. I should have taken a picture of us trying to wrangle the two infant seats, two strollers, one car seat, three pieces of luggage, and of course, the three kids. Thankfully, we got help from random strangers on both the flight out and the flight back. On the flight out, the person sitting next to Bonnie was a mom to three kids, two of whom were twins. So she was both sympathetic and also took a stint holding Amanda for a while. On the way back, a nice man helped us with our luggage out to baggage claim. He was also a parent of twins. Anyway, like I said, we’ll see.

Amanda and Ashley’s Red Egg and Ginger Party

Two years ago, we hosted a couple hundred people at the Moonstar in San Francisco for Alissa’s red egg and ginger party. This time around, we ended up with mostly the same crowd at the Daly City Moonstar since the San Francisco one closed down (I think.) Also, the Daly City one is newer and nicer, probably a little closer to us in driving time, and parking is much easier.

We did Kit Kat bars along side bubbles for the kids and twin lady bug magnets for every family instead of the Trades Joe’s chocolate bars this time around. (Happy to offer these up for sale similar to how we did the ones for Alissa for those of you who are interested.)

My mom was able to make it out this time.

These are the four pictures we used in a big frame.

Otherwise, we feel very lucky that so many of our friends and family were able to make it out. Too bad it’s impossible to spend as much time as we would like with everyone, but hopefully, we’ll be able to see folks a little more often now that the twins are a little bit older.

I’d write more, but we’re all pretty pooped out. Here’s the rest of the pictures: http://flickr.com/gp/jasonwang/106988

Gorgeous day for an Easter Egg hunt

Hottest day of the year so far was spent in Brisbane with a bunch of little rug rats running around for Easter eggs. The Chan’s needed an excuse to host a mah jong party since Uncle Henry, Aunt Lillian, Vanessa, Dylan, and Avery were in town for a visit and we could not have had a nicer day for it. A bunch of pictures below. Here is the entire album.

Here’s Alissa with her fancy dress and hair do ready to par-tay:

Practicing her kung fu moves in case someone tries to take one of her eggs:

Getting some seat time while daddy jump starts his car since it hasn’t been driven in so long:

Prepping for the hot sun:

Mmm… eggs:
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Eww… eggs:

Eggs? Who cares?

“Don’t touch my eggs!”

Megan, totally prepared to dominate the hunt:

Dylan and his basket of optimism:

Megan has spotted another one:

Alissa is just a hair taller than the basket:

Forget the eggs, Abigail wants to slide:

“Yes, my eyes really are that big.”

“I got the chocolate, you can have the egg.”

Good to be home again

Now that we’ve been home for a few days, things are getting back to “normal.” Amanda is still eating well on her own and our pediatrician was happy with her weight gain at our last appointment. Assuming everything continues on track, he’ll take the tube out at our next appointment on Tuesday. I’m trying to make up for lost time in the photos department, so here are a few.

We’re all sick

Alissa got sick a number of days ago and proceeded to get the twins and Bonnie sick. I thought I had caught it and summarily kicked it away a few days ago, but I’m a little sniffly now too. The lack of sleep and a bit of a stressful week at work probably didn’t do me any favors in that regard.

Despite the plague, stress, sleep deprivation, and other “life stuff” going on, I figure it was time to post to the blog. I told myself that I would not be any less prolific with the arrival of the twins, but now I realize that was an unrealistic expectation. At least in the short term, while they are feeding every three hours 24 hours a day, it seems that my camera and my computer will have a bit of a respite.

That being said, I do have a few pictures to share today. As many of you with kids know, when the house is quiet for more than a few minutes at a time, you can be sure that nothing good is happening. Well, this afternoon, after one of said quiet times, I went hunting for Alissa, the #1 trouble maker and discovered this:

She had gotten into Bonnie’s purse and helped herself to some Burt’s Bee’s lip something or other. I guess she was feeling a bit chapped.

Abigail turns three!

We schlepped all three kids (I still do a double take sometimes when I realize we have three kids) to Abigail’s birthday party Sunday and had a nice time as we always do at Calvin and Deeann’s events. They are always on top of food, entertainment, party favors, and lucky for us, we even won a Target gift card with a raffle ticket!

Of course, I didn’t get away scot free as I donated my photography “skills” to capture some of the moments during the day. I figure the images are worth about 2 or 3 of the yummy fresh spring rolls I wolfed down.

Personalized party favors:

So much food!

Devyn ate most of it:

It’s nice to have a NICU nurse in the family:

Megan, the porcelain doll:

The scary clown that Alissa wasn’t sure about:

It was all good after he gave her a balloon though:

Daddy entertained by clown, Abigail, not as much:

Abigail is all about the Wiggles:

Alissa chased Megan around in circles for quite a while:

The best part about family parties… lots of volunteers to hold babies:

Here’s the link to all the pics.

Family dinner for Bonnie’s birthday

We had a bunch of Bonnie’s family over to help celebrate Bonnie’s birthday today. I can’t believe how big the family has grown. Between myself, Tony, and Calvin marrying in and then Abigail, Alissa, Megan, Amanda, and Ashley (and Yau girl #2 on the way), the immediate crowd has practically doubled in the last five years. Anyway, here’s most of the crowd in our living room:

And then Alissa helping Bonnie with the cake. She even blew out the nonexistent candles.

Alissa’s second birthday party

We just had a small group over for Alissa’s birthday party this year. Bonnie made a request for chicken cacciatore and a Panormous Pizza Hut Pizza. So I got up early and threw all the cacciatore stuff in the slow cooker for four hours and picked up a not quite ginormous panormous pizza after picking up the cake.

Here’s my attempt at making the pizza look bigger than it actually was:

Here’s Alissa enjoying my chicken cacciatore:

The Elmo and Big Bird cake from Lucky:

Annual Holiday Huey photo session - 2008

Alissa and I went over to the Huey’s with white backdrop in hand for the annual holiday photo session. Although we added Devyn to the mix this year, things went pretty smoothly and I think we got a lot of keepers.

This one is definitely one of them:

And here are some more with the backdrop in play.

For those of you out there who are interested, this is just a large white sheet from Joann Fabrics doubled up and sewn together at the seams. (I think I bought a 10′x20′ piece.) I used to use this with my professional lighting and backdrop kit which I have since sold. But as you can see, a couple tripods and natural light from a large window does a pretty decent job as well.

Happy Thanksgiving, 2008

No Wangsgiving this year, but I did make an apple pie (from scratch thank you) to bring over to the family get together later tonight.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d put a short list of things we’re thankful for this year.
1. First and foremost, we’re thankful that we’re healthy and that Alissa (and the twins) are developing just fine. Along those lines, our ultrasound appointment yesterday revealed that Bonnie’s bedrest is working very well so that makes us feel less nervous about pre-term labor.

2. Especially in these economic times, we’re thankful that I still have a good job that I like and is flexible enough to allow me to spend time with my (growing) family.

3. Finally, I’m thankful that we have such a strong support group of family and friends to share all of our experiences with.

I’ll close with a picture of Alissa from last year:

Next year, Thanksgiving will be very different with an almost three year old and two nine month olds at our feet. Ai-ya!

EDIT: More pictures from Thanksgiving day.

Alissa spent some time chasing and making bubbles:

At Bonnie’s cousins’ house, it seems the kids will soon outnumber the adults: