bonnie & jason

Christmas in Vegas 2011

Back from another Christmas in Vegas. The last time we made this drive, the kids were two years younger with the twins still breast feeding and Alissa barely potty trained. As such, the drive to and fro were both monumental efforts testing our patience as well as our Honda’s payload capacity. This time, we were able to shave a couple hours off the drive both ways and managed to only lose a few months of life as a result vs. the years we surely said bye-bye to last time.

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?!

Davis Livestrong Century

Eric and I rode our first century, a Livestrong event up in Davis. I had been trying to increase my mileage slowly over the last couple months with little success given some knee pain and a bunch of family activities. Then Eric sends me the link to this ride 10 days in advance and we decide to go for it. After all, we had been talking about doing a century for at least a couple years. It was a pretty flat course, so I figured I could muddle my way through it. Anyway, after feeling pretty good after both a 20 mile and 40 mile training ride, the day was suddenly upon us.

The ride started at 7:30 AM so in order to get up there in time to register, get ready, etc, we had to leave at 4:15. Here’s the bike in the pre-dawn darkness while I wait for Eric:

By the time we get registered and lined up (and fix the flat Eric discovered while loading up) the sun is up and we are raring to go after a nice little pep talk by Lance Armstrong himself:

Soon thereafter, we and the other 1500 or so riders were off and riding. Before too long, we’re into the hilly part of the course and Eric is nice enough to beat me up the mountain by more minutes than I care to admit and take a few pics of my struggles.

As it turns out, I got a flat myself after about 3/4 of this first climb. I was able to re-inflate enough to ride to the next rest stop though and have the techs fix me up with a new tube.

Before too long, after a PB&J, we were back on the road again:

As you may have noticed by now, Eric was riding comfortably throughout the day given he’s in so much better shape than I am. So much so that he was able to take a few scenic shots along the way. Here’s the Lake Berryessa Dam:

Unfortunately for me, they changed the course on us and we ended up having to do quite a bit more climbing than I had originally bargained for. Even worse, I didn’t know until after we had completed all the climbing that was on the original course. So after preparing to go downhill for the last 40 miles, I had to switch gears (mentally and literally) and grind it out. Looking back, it wasn’t that big a deal, but in the moment, I was cursing the event organizers.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful with one exception. After 100 miles and 5 miles to go, I got too close to Eric’s rear wheel and ended up taking a header into the ditch on the side of the road. Dinged up my right side pretty good but got up and finished the ride. The medical tent folks patched me up:

Unfortunately, my helmet didn’t make it out alive:

You can’t tell from the picture, but it’s cracked in about four places. It did it’s job though as my head was none the worse for wear. My arm on the other hand…

Not pretty. Still healing up now, 11 days later but it’ll be fine. All in all, a great experience and another bucket list item to mark done!

Gilroy Gardens

Another weekend, another theme park! This time, we went to Gilroy Gardens which, as you might have guessed, is in Gilroy. It was actually a very nice experience. The park was nicely maintained, well-staffed, and it wasn’t crowded so we could actually maneuver our caravan of kids around without the stress of losing one amongst the throngs of families.

The only complaint really is that some of the lines, though short, were slow. Just a function of one-off, one-on setups. But otherwise, we all had a good time as the park was very age appropriate for our girls.

Here are some pics:

Gilroy Gardens version of animatronics:

It was actually super cheesy and the production values were not exactly Disney caliber, but the kids seemed to enjoy it.

Alissa and Amanda enjoying one of the few rides they can go on themselves:

Love Amanda’s royal “wave.”

Caraousel:

A couple random ones:


Mini tea-cups:

Strawberry swings:


(Ashley just up from a nap.)

Train ride:

Race cars:

Alissa took one of Ashley and I on the ferris-wheel:

2011 Family Vacation in the Books

We just got back from vacation so that means I need to take care of the photos and video and blogging before life gets busy again and the memories start to fade away!

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”

Celebrating Benita’s birthday at the beach

We went to Santa Cruz for Benita’s birthday. Spent some time at the beach and did some BBQ. Here are a few pics and a short video:

2010 09 04 Santa Cruz Beach from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Saw a seal pretty close up:

WongWangChiang clan

Dirty, dirty baby:

Babies like roasted corn on the cob:

And Alissa likes chips:

Bonnie made the dolphin and surfboard out of fondant.

Staycation video

I forgot to post this short video of a few parts of our staycation.

2010 06 06 staycation from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Staycation part 2

The second half of the week had us going to the Exploratorium and Fairyland.

We got free passes to the Exploratorium through the Check Out SF Family Pass. It’s a little complicated, but the short of it is you go to the library and “check out” a family pass for various attractions throughout the city. We were originally going to go to Zeum, but that was already checked out but I got lucky and the Exploratorium was available so we ended up there. (By the way, this makes the third free activity as the Randall museum is always free and the zoo was free since it was the first Wednesday of the month.)

The Exploratorium was a little too advanced for Alissa but she seemed to enjoy some of the hands on stuff. I’m sure we’ll be back many times in the future when I’ll be able to forcibly imprint my dorkiness on all three of my offspring. Even that sentence sounded uber dorky. (“Uber” inserted for dork-effect.) (Parenthetical comment inserted for dork-effect.) (Call out of parenthetical comment… you get the point.) We didn’t take many pictures, but here are a few random ones:

Yesterday, we tried out Fairyland, which is a small, quaint, somewhat run down amusement park for toddlers.


Basically, they have rides and displays that are all based on traditional fairy tales. Furthermore, scattered throughout the park are these little boxes that tell a short story if you insert and turn a “magic key.” (Available for just $2.)

In total, I think there are only four “rides.” Alissa didn’t want to go on the jolly trolly or the little 15 foot tall ferris wheel. And she was too short for the normal carousel. (I love the expression on her face.)

But we were able to talk her into the little carousel for which she was just barely tall enough. (Much happier in this picture.)

After lunch, we sprung the twins loose and let them walk around the Western Town a little bit.

And by then, we had pretty much seen the entire park. Besides what I already mentioned, there were a couple slides and live animals integrated into some of the attractions. And I think they had some puppet show type stuff that we had missed.

I think we were there for about 2 hours total including a bit of lunch. It felt like just about the right amount of time given the size of the place and the logistics of three kids, nap times, etc. All in all, a worthwhile trip considering tickets were only $7. And although I said it was run down, it’s not really like things are falling apart. But there were things that could use a fresh coat of paint and other sections that probably could use a little modernizing. On one hand, it was nice to have something small and less overwhelming than something like Disney or one of the other major parks. On the other hand, the top of the little carousel was practically rusted through. It’s all good… as long as you have the right expectations.

Whew… what a trip!

We got back late last night from our family reunion of sorts in Vegas centered around my parents’ place. Growing up, we used to do this many times a year with my mom’s side of the family in Pennsylvania. Of course, it’s a little different now with my cousin Anna with a family of four (plus their au pair, Linda… who speaks six languages BTW!!!), my brother and his wife Jen, and my party of five. Nowadays, we’re spread across the country with ever increasing demands on our time and resources so I was happy to see everyone make it together. Also, my grandmother isn’t getting any younger and frankly, her memory isn’t what it used to be so I hope we can continue to get together at least once a year and spend as much time with her as possible.

Anyway, we spent time doing varying things from buffet to shopping to watching football to the “traditional” Christmas hot pot meal. And of course, with three young kids of my own plus Anna’s two, we all had our hands full most of the time. All in all, a very nice trip. Although we will likely not be making that drive again any time soon. Of the 1200 miles roundtrip (~25 hours), about 1000 of them were uneventful. But the remaining 200 were painful enough that we may be scared of driving any farther than the San Francisco Bay Area for quite some time.

Anyway… without further ado, here are a bunch of pictures that I took over the week:

Ashley and my grandma got along just fine. As a matter of fact, Ashley fell asleep in her arms for like 2 hours! (The stuffed pineapple was a big hit too.)

Amanda also was a big fan of her great-grandmother.

And they were both fans of the center of this tall swivel chair:

We re-celebrated Alissa’s birthday while we were there with a little cupcake:

Ashley didn’t take long to explore the entire house.

BTW, she’s standing on her own quite reliably now (if not happily in this particular instance).

Amanda can stand as well and has surpassed Ashley in outright crawling speed. Here she is getting ready to take in some calories to fuel that speed.

Mmm… lip smackin’ good bananas. Ashley’s calories are not for speed but rather for her thighs.

Babes with their newest toy.

Amanda in laundry with a rare “good” smile.

… and with Ashley.

Alissa and Chloe putting sprinkles on cookies:

Ashley and Amanda tucked in their car seats at the Green Valley Ranch district shopping area.

This does not bode well.

With grandma.

and with cousin Katherine (whom I remember being an infant herself…)

Stopped at the Mad Greek on the way home to feed and change and eat. Ashley is here hanging out waiting for Alissa to come back from a pee break.

Here are a few pictures from Christian’s camera:

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.

Random Alissa pics

Alissa’s hair is long enough to put in a pony tail… sort of. It stayed up pretty well because it’s been hot the last couple days and Alissa is getting over a cold so her sweat and boogers acted like a kind of mousse. Nice, huh?

Alissa’s glamorous shades. We went to Tiburon this afternoon with Jeff and Xiao-Yi. After sitting on a bench overlooking the bay eating dim sum,

we headed over to the Windsor Winery tasting room and tried to not get drunk. They actually had a bucket of toys that kept Alissa busy as well.

Afterwards, we went to the Gelato place on the corner where Alissa modeled Xiao-Yi’s sunglasses.

She also “wore”a chocolate gelato goatee.