Whirlwind of a Vacation

This was our first Christmas that we would have to fly back to Cali and we had 12 short days. We already knew that it was going to be tough fitting everything into such a short time but we didn't realize how exhausting it was going to be. Here's a summary of our wild trip (this is really so I don't forget all of the stuff we did!)

We arrived in Fremont late on Wednesday. Riley was so excited to see his gong gong (grandpa), paw paw (grandma), and aunties that I couldn't get him to calm down to go to bed until after midnight (2 am Texas time!). He still managed to wake up early on Thursday though so he could go to my parents' favorite place for breakfast. Ben had to go to UCSF that day to meet with a collaborator and I had some christmas shopping to finish up so we both spent the day running around. Friday afternoon we headed over to Sac to meet up with Dan, Leah, and Gabe. The boys got along great and had such a good time together. Friday and Saturday was filled with wrestling, Ice Age, yummy food, christmas lights, the park, Leatherby's (yum yum!!), the Eco Station, more wrestling, and just a good time hanging out. This visits really make me miss living close to all of my friends. After Dan made us a yummy breakfast of beignets we had to head back to Fremont. We met up with Matt later that day and hung out. It still amazes me that he's all grown up. I still remember meeting him for the first time when I picked them up from a karate lesson. So long ago! On Monday morning we headed over to Rohnert Park to see Ben's dad. Unfortunately it was rainy and cold so we ended up staying inside all day. Last year when we were visiting for Christmas I had the best fish and chips for lunch and we decided to do it again this year. I was so excited!!! Riley had a lot of fun running around the house and Ben's dad made us a delicious tri tip dinner. The next morning we headed over to Ben's mom's house. We watched one of Riley's many Land Before Time movies and then walked across the street to a restaurant to have a nice cozy lunch. We had a good time hanging out and enjoyed a homemade dinner that Ben's mom made. Even though it was freezing outside we decided to brave the cold and drive down the street to get an ice cream cone for dessert. There's nothing like a little strawberry ice cream with sprinkles!! We left the next morning back to Fremont. I still had a whole bunch of last minute errands to run and we still hadn't figured out all of the snacks and desserts that we needed to make for Christmas. We spent the rest of Wednesday running all over town to get everything we needed. Thursday morning (Christmas Eve) we headed over to Stockton to visit with Dre, Suzy, Zen, and Langdon. It's been awhile since we've seen everyone and I am so amazed how big Zen and Langdon have gotten. Langdon is a little more than a year younger than Riley but he is already a little bigger than him. He is such a big boy with the most adorable grin! We hung out, the boys bbq'd, we opened presents, and just had a good time catching up. Can't wait to see everyone again this summer. We left that afternoon back to Fremont. Like every Christmas Eve, Shirley and Linda came over for dinner and we had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner......homemade eggrolls, crab, and whole bunch of other Chinese dishes. My mom always goes overboard and makes enough food for an army. Unfortunately, Jamie and Ben did not feel up to having the eggroll eating contest they both promised us last year. After dinner we had yummy pie for dessert -- Riley loved going from person to person getting a bite from everyone. Then it was time for presents!! Riley once again made out like a bandit. I swear if there is a dinosaur toy out there we probably own it. The boy got so much stuff. My parents decided to get him a bike for Christmas this year but thankfully only bought him a helmet so he would have a present to open and gave him a giftcard so that we could buy it when we got back to Texas. Packing a bicycle on the airplane would have been really interesting! I forgot to mention that Riley and Ben had been sick up to this point and I was really hoping that it would pass me somehow. Well, merry christmas to me.....I woke up Christmas day with the same cold that they had just gotten over. I felt horrible but since it was Christmas I had to get up and get to it! We spent the morning getting things ready before all of my family arrived. There was rousing game of Apples to Apples, lots of snack eating, a short nap, lots of Riley being crazy and dragging everyone into the hallway. I guess I should explain that a little. For some reason, Riley thought it would be a hoot to drag people one by one into the hallway and have them sit down. By the end he had most of the people in the hallway and if you looked down it looked like the back of some truck with a whole bunch of illegal refugees. My son is crazy!! Of course so is everyone else for letting him drag them into a dark hallway! Again, lots of presents and more food. We had prime rib, turkey, ham, and all the fixings for dinner. For dessert, we made crepes and we had a nice assembly line going!! By the end of the day I was so tired and really not feeling well. On Saturday, I was still feeling awful. However, my sisters and I wanted to go with my parents so that they could pick out the dryer we were going to buy them for Christmas. We went to Sears, picked out a dryer, and then spent over 30 minutes with a incompetent sales person as he tried to ring us up. I swear it was awful. Just as a comparison....when we got back to Texas we went to Sears to go and buy a new fridge for our garage. There is an old asian guy that works there that has helped us everytime we've gone. We literally walked into the store, picked out a fridge, paid and arranged for delivery and were out in less than 15 minutes. He was so efficient! Anyways, we picked out a dryer and then decided to go and get some lunch. Since none of us were starving and when we asked Riley what he wanted he said pizza we decided to take him to Chuck E Cheese. Had some okay pizza and spent a lot of time trying to win enough tickets to get a decent prize. He had a blast! On Sunday, we headed over to Concord to an indoor playground called the Jungle to meet up with Dan, Leah, Gabe, Jethro, Michelle, and Cambria. The Jungle is made up of all these twisty tunnels and slides and tubes that are perfect for little kids to climb and slide around in. Not so much for grown men as Dan and Ben found out. The guys were so exhausted after going around that thing with the boys. We decided to leave and go and have lunch after Cambria woke up from her nap. After lunch we weren't ready to leave yet so we decided to walk around the area in the freezing cold. After we all froze our tushies off we all headed off in different directions. We spent the rest of Sunday in Fremont. Then it was time for us to head back to Texas. We spent the morning packing and getting things ready to go. Cindy did an amazing job of fitting all of our gifts in one large bag and we managed to get everything home without breaking anything! Riley did so well on the plane ride home -- he slept for 2 1/2 hours of the trip and spent the rest watching some Kung Fu Panda.

Below are some videos and pics from our trip. If you click the last picture it will bring you to a very large album of pictures from the holidays.

Feeding the hungry elephant with Auntie Cindy and Gong Gong

Tumbling with Gabe

The infamous takedown that Ben is so proud of

Click on the picture below for pictures from our trip

Getting Ready for the Holidays

Once again we decided to forgo turkey for Thanksgiving and instead did the prime rib and all the trimmings. Two of Ben's buddies from UCLA (Steve and Rafe) came out to Texas to join us for Thanksgiving. We started off Thanksgiving by going to the tree lot and picking out our Christmas tree. It was great....there was no one around and we had the pick of the whole place. I think we may have started a new tradition!! We spent the rest of the day hanging around the house, relaxing, eating, and relaxing some more. Very nice!!

I spent the rest of that long weekend getting the house ready for Christmas. I was on a tight deadline since we were having Ben's lab party the following weekend (we were only going to be in Houston two weekends in December so we had to have the party earlier than later). Riley helped me decorate the tree. He loves to go up to the tree and point out all of the different ornaments and tell me their colors. His favorite is a red and green birdhouse. He keeps looking in the peephole for the bird!!

Ben's lab party was the following weekend and can I just say that our son is not shy at all. He had a blast running around the house and talking to people. At one point during the party everyone was sitting in the living room and chatting and Riley proceeded to jump up onto the couch and commanded everyone's attention. He had everyone saying "shark in the water" for the rest of the night. He is nuts!!

We're off to California tonight for the holidays. Can't wait to see everyone!!

Here are some pictures of Thanksgiving and getting our house ready for the holidays.......

Fun Things to Do Around Texas....

Now that the weather has started to cool down we've started to explore Texas and some of the fun things to do around here. The city is definately kid friendly and there are lots of fun places to go and explore. Hint hint to all of our friends with kids out there or those of you that are kids at heart! Here are a few (click on each of the pictures to see more pictures from our trip to these places):

Breakfast with the Elephants: The Houston Zoo recently had a fundraiser event where you could go and have breakfast with the elephants. Since Riley adores elephants we thought this would be a great chance to see them up close and personal. The thought of eating breakfast around a whole bunch of elephants was not too appealing but in the end we had a great time. We got to watch the trainers have the elephants do some exercise, play around in their sleeping quarters and see all of their toys and things they eat, give one of the elephants a bath, and make new friends with the zoo volunteers.

Natural History Museum: Riley has hit that age where he is fascinated with dinosaurs. We took him to the natural history museum on a Sunday morning and we literally had the whole place to ourselves. We let him run wild and crazy in the dinosaur room and he had a blast stomping and roaring!

Old MacDonald's Farm: I don't remember exactly how I found this place but I'm sure glad we did. You pay a flat rate to go into the farm and that rate includes unlimited pony rides and train rides which is a good thing because Riley ended up going on the pony ride at least 10 times. They had tons of animals that you could get up close and personal with. The only thing we didn't get to see that day were cows (they are usually there but were missing from their pen) which Riley would have loved since he loves cows!

Hermann Park: I've posted pictures of our trips to Hermann Park before but we visited a new area this time. Ben's mom was here for a visit and the weather was beautiful so we decided to head over to our old stomping grounds for a nice walk after breakfast. We took our time and walked by the fountain, played with some geese/ducks, and then headed over to the Japanese Gardens. There were lots of bridges everywhere and Riley loved standing on them and watching the Koi swim around.

Pumpkin Patch at Dewberry Farms: This place was fantastic. It kind of reminded me of the Roloff's farm from the show "Little People Big World". This farm had so much stuff to do and Riley had a blast going from one thing to another. By the time we left all three of us were exhausted!!

Halloween: This was Riley's first year of trick-or-treating and he had a great time! We went with our neighbors and it was a blast watching Riley and Nolan run up to each house. They both kept trying to go into people's houses but they were both very polite and great with their "thank yous"!! They only made it up and back one block but they still made out like bandits! It's hard to tell from these pictures but Riley was supposed to be a dinosaur. Not sure why the dinosaur has frog eyes!!

A Trip Back to Cali

After 9 long months away Riley and I made our first trip back to California since moving to Houston. We were so excited to have such a great excuse to go back - Rhys' first birthday party! It's always hard to get the whole gang together but we came close this time - we really missed Ben, Yolanda and Allan and their whole gang. I was a little worried at first making the trip by myself with Riley but he was a real trooper and did fantastic on the plane. We had a little incident when he decided that he wanted to run and play when we were in the security check line but other than that it was smooth sailing. Note to self: it is much easier for a little 2 year old to run around under all of the roping than for a grown person with a giant backpack! We took the last flight out of Houston so I thought he would be exhausted by the time we landed (it was almost 11:30 pm our time) but as soon as he saw his two aunties he was all smiles and full of energy. The rest of the trip was non-stop - we went to visit my grandparents in Stockton, went to dinner with my cousins to celebrate my dad's birthday, went to Rhys' first birthday party, hung out with everyone and had a great time at the playground, went to dinner with my sisters, went to the Oakland Zoo (where one of Riley's shoes now resides with the buffalo since he decided that it would be great fun to kick it off when we were on the sky ride -- warning that ride is a little too long and a little scary with a 2 year old), went to dinner again to celebrate my dad's birthday, and then came home. I swear Riley gained at least 5 pounds on this trip. Riley and my parents have a routine - every morning Riley gets up, goes to play in their bedroom and drinks his milk, then after getting dressed and ready they go to my parents' favorite restaurant for breakfast (a Hong Kong style cafe) and he pigs out. As if that wasn't enough he would then come home, play in the backyard or in the house and have some of the apple pears that my parents grow in the backyard. The boy ate and ate and ate. It was amazing!!

Riley was quite sad when we got back and kept looking for everyone. The morning after we got back he woke up and asked where his paw paw and gong gong were (he was ready for his morning ritual!). And that same day after I picked him up from daycare he kept asking for his Auntie Cindy and Auntie Mimi (this is what he calls Jamie!). To this day when we drive home each day he likes to tell me that Auntie Mimi is at work and Auntie Cindy is at school. He is too funny! We definitely miss California. We can't wait until our trip back during the holidays!! Click on the picture below for some pictures from our trip.

Baking with Mom

I found a recipe for S'more Cupcakes awhile ago that I have been dying to try - graham cracker crust, chocolate, chocolate cake, and a toasted marshmallow cream frosting - but haven't had a chance to make them. We recently went to a BBQ at one of our neighbor's house and I thought this would be a great opportunity to make them. They were a great success!! Riley decided that he didn't want to be left out when I was baking so he jumped up onto a chair to help! Everytime he sees a cupcake he thinks its a "Happy Day"!!

Way Behind....

I am really behind on my postings for the blog. I promise I am working on them but in the meantime here are some pictures from the past couple of months that I kept meaning to post...

Swim Lessons this Summer

A Trip to the Museum of Natural History (he loved all of the dinos)

Teaching his T-Rex how to dance

Yum!

Under the Big Top

We took Riley to his first circus and he had such a great time. Between the animals, clowns, snacks, and all the people he didn't know what to do with himself! The pictures say it all....

Daddy and Riley at the Circus

Snowcone.....very bad idea...Ben and I ended up getting soaked!!

The animals

Enjoying the circus and watching the acrobats

You can't go to the circus and not have popcorn and cotton candy!