Once again, we treated this as a family reunion of sorts and were happy that The Paches made the trip (capitalized since Christian is so tall) as well as the Nas. Grandma was there as well as Uncle Chung who has since actually moved to a house just around the corner from my parents. As always, the other Wangs (my parents and Mike and Jen) were there to serve as our local guides.)

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the photo log of our trip:

Over the course of the week, we spent a fair amount of time at a couple parks close to my parents’ house:
Amanda looking up after a successful slide:

Chloe looking ever more the teenager:

Aidan seeing the sights:

Alissa and Chloe through the looking rock:

Ashley and Amanda flying a plane:

Car models:

Fearless Amanda:

Despite this whoopsie:

Alissa’s first time doing monkey bars:

We also went to the strip…

…to visit the holiday display at the Bellagio…

…as well as visit the M&M store.

The one grown-up night out we did was with Christian, Anna, and Jen to dinner at Nobu. Here are a few of the dishes we had:

It was very yummy but perhaps not blow your mind yummy. Especially considering the price.

Otherwise, we spent a lot of time hanging out at home and enjoying the great chilly but sunny weather:
A little tennis video I made just for fun:

Some Wii games:

Amanda getting her finger prints all over my iPad:

Ashley enjoying a seaweed snack:

Jelly faces:

Of course, we also exchanged some gifts, mostly for the kids. However, Leslie also had the great idea to have a photo quilt made for our grandma who has been dealing with Alzheimer’s. The quilt allowed for 60 images and turned out great. Here she is opening the quilt:

All in all, a great trip. Here’s to 2013?!

Speaking of food… the cupcake factory started up a few days ago and didn’t finish up until late this morning. Bonnie made red velvet, carrot cake, and chocolate cupcakes with either a chocolate frosting or a cream cheese frosting. All from scratch. With fondant flowers. And fancy sprinkles. They were a hit and now I can sort of appreciate how people get away with charging $4 for a cupcake.

Chocolate:

Carrot Cake:

Combined with the Red Velvet in the cupcake tower:

Bonnie also made sugar cookies with a “Happy Birthday Alissa” message imprinted on them.

Needless to say, the Kitchen Aid mixer got quite the workout the last few days. Speaking of working out, I’ll need to hit the gym to burn off all the butter, cream cheese, and sugar that I consumed while doing “quality control” along the way.

As for the party itself, we had almost 80 people between all the friends and family with kids around Alissa’s age. For entertainment, we hired a balloon-ist who played a few games with the kids and gave our prizes. And of course, we had to supply ice-cream to anyone who was interested in more sweets after partaking in the cookies and cupcakes bounty. Otherwise, we had bought the requisite Chinese fried chicken along with a few noodle and veggie dishes.

Of course, I can’t just leave the post with pictures of the cupcakes and cookies, so here are a few others from the festivities:

Next time, I’ll flex my bicep harder. Or wear a tighter shirt.

One of the games the kids played:

Ashley and Amanda enjoying the sweets:

Enjoying the balloons after opening presents:

Bulldog, Eeyore, Butterfly about ready to go trick-or-treat:

Ashley and Amanda looking at the newest addition to the family, Kate, the goldfish:

Amanda and Ashley love their nai-nai:

Walking back from the Chinese bakery:

Ashley thinking something critical about the penguins:

This hippo was huge and kept showing off how big it could open it’s mouth. I wasn’t in position to capture it unfortunately.

Hanging out with grandma:

Kinda depressing chimp:

But super cute koalas:

And prarie dogs:

And meerkats:

Surprisingly, the kids were not scared to pet the animals in the Children’s Zoo:

I always like to watch the gorillas:

Ashley isn’t super impressed:

I was the obnoxious dad with the huge camera/lens combo but none of you should be surprised at that. How else would I get the mediocre photos below?

So far so good… Megan isn’t happy but Alissa seems to be ok with it.

“Why is Megan crying?”

Alissa sort of doing her own thing.

Lots of pink.

Not doing a great job listening to the teacher. Probably distracted by obnoxious dad pointing a huge camera at me.

Megan listening marginally better than Alissa.

That’s better.

No crying… yet.

Nice point Megan!

Skipping… not all that happily.

“Why is Megan crying?”

“Hmm, maybe I should be crying too?”

“Yes… I should.”

Megan fully recovered while Alissa sits on my lap.

And there you have it. I should probably preface this with the fact that I’m a total tiger dad and told Alissa she MUST be the best ballerina out there if she wanted to eat dinner tonight. Kidding!

This year, we rented a house at Seal Beach which is just north of Huntington Beach and due west of Disneyland by about 15 miles. The house was right on the beach with plate glass views of the ocean from all three floors, a rooftop hot tub, and plenty of room for all of us (6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms).

View from our master bedroom:

(The closet was huge so we made all three kids sleep in there)

The weather varied from pretty chilly to pretty warm throughout the week as you’ll notice from what we’re wearing in the photos. But all in all, a good week to be in LA.

Our house is the leftmost house.

Seal beach is made up of mostly really nice homes (~$1.5M based on Zillow). Some less nice places are interspersed between the fancier ones, but I definitely saw more BMWs and Porsches than Fords and Hyundais:

The beach was pretty clean and seemed popular with kite surfers and a few other random guests as well.
Sadly, this seal (on Seal Beach) apparently was pregnant and not very healthy. Some wildlife officials came and took her away later in the afternoon.

At one point, I counted about 15 kits surfers up the coast:

Apparently, someone had a heart attack and beached their boat right next to our house. The “Baywatch” team showed up along with the “CSI-Seal Beach” team.

Then a big bulldozer came and pulled the boat away:

Even FOX news showed up to take a look:

As for our beach fun, the kids spent their time split between the playground and digging random holes in the sand.

When not on the beach, they were often playing in the water in the hot tub:

Then, of course, we spent a few days at Legoland (1) and Disneyland (2).

Legoland was ok. It seems geared toward a very small age range… like 3-6. So Chloe and Alissa enjoyed it quite a bit, but Amanda and Ashley and the adults were not particularly entertained. Nevertheless, it was a nice park and worth the trip.

Disneyland was about what you would expect except that it was super crowded with the spring break crowd. I have to admit though, they are still very good at crowd control and just putting on a good show all around. A definite step ahead of the Legoland experience. But you pay for it! I think Disney tickets are about twice as much as Legoland.

The standard group shot at the park entrance:


Ashley already has a nice fake smile:

I don’t remember Aladdin looking like Balky from Perfect Strangers:

Alissa was super excited to meet Mickey!

And Minnie!


And three of the princesses:



Ashley enjoyed playing with this twig:

Amanda fit well in Minnie’s lounger:

Alissa and Chloe – inseparable:

Riding the carousel:




Enjoying a mickey lollipop at It’s a Small World:

Amanda sort of enjoyed it:

Again, meeting the characters was a big highlight:

A few other highlights:
Mickey Mouse beignets:

Tarzan’s tree house:

Alissa riding the “Go-Coaster”

Ok, let’s get caught up.

Lots of park days! These are from the Westlake Park in Daly City where I USED to play tennis all the time.

After the farmers market, a walk in the mall:

Cheeky monkey: (on a side note, Amanda is likely going to grow up with the nick name Chi-chi. It started out with us calling her Mon-chi-chi after the cartoon character of the early 80′s but it seems to have stuck. Alissa and Ashley also call her Chi-chi more often than not.)

Chunky monkey: (another side note… Ashley is still a good eater.)

Happy Chinese New Year:

One of Bonnie’s dinner ideas:

…with dessert:

Going or a walk… and digging for gold:

Off to the park again:

Yay park!

Denim is in:

Alissa took these:

Abigail’s fifth birthday party:

Finally, another set of speakers in progress:

2011 01 03 2010 montage from Jason Wang on Vimeo.