Recent Outings

Last weekend we checked out Pioneer Park in Tustin Ranch. It has a Western theme and there were three "covered" wagons. It looked like a nice place to have a birthday party (and someone was having a party when we visited).




There are also two pretty tall/steep slides. I screamed when I went down with k.

Yesterday we went to another birthday party at a gymnastics center. The party was for two brothers, a one year old and a four year old.

"Airplane Arms"


k liked this little trampoline, but didn't want to try the big one. She also didn't want to jump into the foam pit. However, she seemed to have fun just running around on the bouncy floor and n did too.


Two cakes for the two brothers.


D the gymnast (with a black mouth).

Bible Study Fellowship (5 yrs)

Lessons from BSF that are memorable or changed my thinking...

1st year (Genesis)
Submission to God results in promises and blessings.
(Abraham's faith more than his skills set him apart)

2nd year (Romans)
There is a triangle that shows the following...
Jesus --- Propitiation --> God (Left side)
God --- Justification --> Us (Right Side)
Jesus --- Redemption --> Us (Bottom)

3rd year (Matthew)
I always thought that in the parable of the hidden tresure, the tresure is Christ Himself. But another interpretation that the "man" throughout the parable is Christ and the treasure is Israel. God in the Old Testament often described Israel as His treasured possession. For this tresure, hidden within the world, Jesus gave everything to redeem the whole world.

4th year (Life of Moses)
Reading the Bible to children during the first three years of life is very important and something they take with them through out their lives.

5th year (John)
Five tests of Assurance:
The Test of Obediance
The Test of Fidelity to the Apostles' Teachings (False teachers cannot sway true believers away from the apostles' teachings. Granted by the Holy Spirit)
The Test of Moral Purity
The Test of Love
The Test of Faith
That second test one was really interesting.

Three more years of BSF to go, with Isaiah coming up...

Tanaka Farms: Visit #4

So today I took the kids on our annual trip to Tanaka Farms with my moms' group. This was the first time that n went on the tour and ate strawberries with us, though.

Although the tour has remained essentially the same all four years, there are little changes. For instance, they now have the saying, "Bottoms on Benches!" when the wagon is moving. I think that is a new one. Also, I learned that only two ears of corn grow per stalk. Interesting.

Cornfield

The farm rotates their crops so as to not deplete the soil. So, where we picked strawberries last year, they are now growing cabbage:



The tour guides must eat a lot of vegetables!

k wasn't too keen on eating the celery, bok choy, and green onion that they offered along the way. She did, however, enjoy the carrot.


But, of course, we were all looking forward to the main attraction: the strawberries!

I'm not sure if this is true, but the strawberry field that they let us loose on for 15 minutes of all you can eat strawberries seemed a little more "picked over" than in years past. I think these tours are getting a lot more popular. There were still plenty to eat, though, and all three of us certainly got our fill. This was the first year that k picked her own strawberries (I still took off the stems for her, though).


Strawberry mouth!


After all that healthy eating we went to Chick-fil-a for dinner to redeem our coupons. Peach shake...yum! Yes, that is n wearing a UCLA shirt.

Distance to Sports Stadium/Arenas

I was thinking the other day about all the places I have lived at least a year and how close I was to professional sports stadiums/arenas (excluding Windsor, Ontario which is by Detroit).

Closest by Sport:
Baseball
Angel Stadium is less than 8 miles away from where I lived in Anaheim (4 yrs) & Tustin (1yr)
Hockey
The Honda Center (Anaheim Ducks) is less than 8 miles away from where I lived in Anaheim (4 yrs) & Tustin (1yr)
Football
Oakland Coliseum (Oakland Raiders) is less than 13 miles away from where I lived in Berkeley (4 yrs)
Basketball
Oracle Arena (Golden State Warriors) is less than 13 miles away from where I lived in Berkeley (4 yrs)

Berkeley Dog

I credit living in the Bay Area for seven years for turning me into a foodie. As in all college towns, there are certain institutions that every student must visit. One of these places in Berkeley is Top Dog.

Last week I read that there was a place called "Berkeley Dog" that was opening in Mission Viejo. Although not officially affiliated with Top Dog, it is endorsed by, and supplied by the same people as Top Dog. They were giving away free hot dogs on Saturday, so we decided to try it. D and n wore their Cal shirts to show our school spirit. When we arrived, D chatted it up with a guy who seemed like the owner/manager, who is a Cal alum, and he gave D a card for a free sausage on another visit. I think we arrived at a good time (around 4:30) since there was no line and we were able to find a seat. I guess earlier in the day the line was out the door.

My full review can be found here.


She's drinking lemonade, not soda! (n can officially drink out of a straw now, too).


Love the bun.

More Fun in the Bay

Saturday we packed in a lot of activities. In the morning we met up with D's parents at Country Way the Original in Fremont for breakfast. The building is in the shape of a Swiss chalet or Weinerschnitzel, take your pick. D's parents had huge omelets, which they shared with us, and we had blueberry pancakes and french toast.

After breakfast we went to D's brother's new place in Fremont, which we hadn't seen before. Our friend Janelle's boyfriend happens to live in Fremont, too, so they stopped by despite their busy schedule.



k playing with her only cousin.



After they left, D's cousins came over. We talked a bit and then we walked to a Chinese restaurant nearby. There was a lot of food, including this lobster:


We went back to the hotel and everyone was able to take a (much needed) nap this time. Our next activity was a birthday party for the three year old daughter of one of my friends from college. It was at Gold Star gymnasium in Mountain View. I wasn't sure if k would participate, but she did!



k's favorite: the rope swing!
(Note to self: Don't dress k in jeans the next time she goes to a gym! I don't know why I didn't think about that.)


n had fun too. I think he'll be the type to really enjoy these kind of places when he's a little older. He is already showing daredevil tendancies.


I think D was the only parent that participated too. He is truly a kid at heart. Later told me he wanted to do a backflip on the trampoline but thought better of it. I'm glad. :)

For dinner we met up with D's cousins again, this time in Sunnyvale at a Mediterranean restaurant called DishDash. D had beef kabobs and I had a chicken schwarma salad. We also shared the mixed appetizer plate. k liked the falafel. Probably the best Meditteranean restaurant we have been to. If D had a Mediterranean category on his list, it would be on there. When we got back I looked it up on Yelp and there are 742 reviews (4.5 stars)! There must be more Yelpers in Northern California. I don't know of any restaurants in OC that has that many reviews. It was also nice to be able to talk more with D's cousins, whom we don't see too often.


So that was our trip. We made it home in six hours!

A Visit to the Bay Area (500th Post)

We just returned from a quick trip to the Bay Area. It was a nice little vacation and good to spend time with family and friends. And of course, good food.

First of all, we borrowed my dad's GPS, and I'm so glad we did. That will definitely be our next purchase. It was so helpful since we were going to a lot of different places in (somewhat) unfamiliar territory. Yeah, we missed a few turns and heard the dreaded "Recalculating..." but it saved us a lot of hassle and arguments, I'm sure.

We drove up at 5:50 a.m. on Friday morning. First stop was Porto's, a Cuban bakery in Burbank. We ordered the egg & chorizo sandwich on cuban bread, a medianoche sandwich, a mango smoothie, guava cheese pastry, chocolate croissant and raspberry mousse. We've been here a few times, and it never fails to impress. It isn't surprising that there was a line, even before 7 a.m.

We made two more stops and arrived in Fremont at 12:20 p.m. The kids were OK--not too bad, but not too great, either. I'm not complaining about 6.5 hours, though. That was pretty good.

We had lunch at Sala Thai, a Yelp find.
We ordered the pad see ew and crispy garlic fish. Very flavorful. It made D's List!

Then we checked into our hotel, the Hilton in Newark/Fremont, which we booked through Hotwire for $55/night (around $65 with taxes). Although you can see it from I-880, I couldn't hear the freeway from our room. As D noted, it served a very "eclectic" clientele. After D checked in, I was carrying n and k was walking in front of me, and one of the hotel clerks called out to me, "If you're interested, there's a Chuck E. Cheese next door!" I thought that was funny.

After unsuccessfuly trying to take a nap in our hotel room, we picked up D's cousin in Santa Clara. She is visiting from Singapore, and is the main reason we made the trip up north. It was the first time I had ever met her, although we've hung out with her brother before. We warned her we wanted to eat early and casual because of the kids, and she was game. We ate at Lawrence Plaza food court in Santa Clara, which is located in a Little Korea. I ended up ordering teriyaki chicken and japchae from BBQ Town (not very Korean, I know, but I was sharing with the kids, so I didn't want anything too spicy, alhtough it did come with kim chee), while D had bimbimbap and his cousin had spicy tofu soup from the stall next door. D's cousin had stopped in New York before coming to the Bay Area, and brought some gifts for k & n. k liked that she walked with them after dinner. It was nice hearing about all of the sightseeing she had done and plans to do and hearing about D's other relatives that we don't see too often, if at all.

There's a dessert place with funky seating. We decided to take pictures there.