Kisses

L read a lot of books on how to properly raise up children while she was pregnant. One book discussed how it was important for the wife and husband to acknowledge each other first when seeing each other after work as opposed to greeting the child first. This was because children need to see that their parents are in a good relationship and this was one of many ways to make the child feel secure.

Knowing that, I decided that I would give L a kiss sometimes when I got home from work or other opportune times. The first time I did this, k smiled as she watched. And she continues to. Tonight however, while D+L+k were having our group snuggle time. k gently put her hand on my face and pushed it towards L's. So I obliged and gave L a kiss, and k smiled. I guess she does enjoy seeing that L and I have a great relationship. You know, sometimes you can learn things from parenting books.

I remember growing up that my parents routinely gave each other a kiss when my Dad came home from work. But I don't think they ever read that book though.

Rough Night

This is what k's hair looked like when she woke up this morning.

Easter Sunday

Today we dressed in our "Sunday Best" to attend church service this morning. Our church is pretty So-Cal casual (aloha shirts are the norm) so it was a big deal for D to wear his suit. k was able to wear a dress that was given to her last year. Hopefully she doesn't get a big head from everyone telling her how cute she looked!


After service there was an Easter egg hunt. At her first hunt about a week ago, she seemed scared and didn't pick up any eggs. This time, however, she was an old pro, and put them in her basket by herself.



Of course, Easter is so much more than pretty dresses and egg-hunting. Our family rejoices for the resurrection of Jesus Christ and we can't wait for k to fully appreciate this miracle for herself.

NCAA 1st Round

Yesterday I watched 9 hours of basketball at the Honda Center with my brother-in-law. The games that I saw were Marquette vs. Kentucky, Stanford vs. Cornell, Texas A&M vs. BYU, and UCLA vs. Mississippi Valley State. I had never been to the Honda Center, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was so nice. Anaheim does have good sports venues. In all these matches I had a rooting interest.

The first game I was rooting for Marquette since I went to Indiana and we don't like Kentucky. It was a good game that was close until the end. The numbers of fans for each school was pretty even.

The second game I was rooting against Stanford for obvious reasons, but unfortunately they won. It wasn't that great of a game since it was a blow-out. There were a lot more Cornell fans which was surprising given that they had to travel so far and they aren't that good.

The Texas A&M vs. BYU game was the best game of the day. The fans were loud and the arena was packed. The fan turn out was about even. I was rooting for A&M since my friend is an Aggie. I know they travel well for football, but I was a little disappointed there wasn't a bigger turnout of Aggies. The game was really close with the Aggies coming out on top.

The last game was the UCLA game and it wasn't that exciting since UCLA won easily. There were way more UCLA fans which made sense given how close UCLA is to Anaheim. Luckily the Mississippi Valley band was pretty good.

Tomorrow I get to see Marquette vs. Stanford and Texas A&M vs. UCLA. These games should be good and I am looking forward to it. I am also looking forward to eating different Honda Center food. During the 9 hours I consumed a Super All Beef Hot Dog, a Carl's Jr. Super Star, onion rings, a medium Pepsi, a large Mug root-beer, and half a serving of Super Nachos.

She's Crafty

This morning I took k to her first storytime at the library. There were almost twenty kids! The theme was "spring".


k's First Craft--I hope she grows up to like crafts like me and Sasa.

It feels weird that St. Patrick's Day and Easter are so close together. On Monday I "made" corned beef (i.e. I put a pre-marinated hunk of meat from Costco in the slow cooker). It was pretty tasty, especially accompanied by some roasted potatoes, salad and ciabatta. D wanted to know if there was corn in it. No, dear.

Here is my spring tree that sits in our windowsill:

Weekend Fun

Playing catch-up...last weekend we went to Barnes & Noble and Buca di Beppo @ Bella Terra.


k likes to browse the dog and cat books.


We had a coupon for a buy 1 get 1 "mio" sized entree. We would probably never order these single sized entrees without a coupon since the portion size is much smaller, but the price is not proportionately so.

Yesterday we had a productive day:
D ran with k. Check.
L went to the Scholastic Book Sale. Check.
D + L + k went to the post office to get k's passport. Check.
D went to the bank. Check.
D + L + k went to Costco. Check.

This afternoon we met up with my college roommates + one of their husbands at Third Street Promenade.


We ate at Border Grill. It was nice to catch up a little with the newlywed couple, who now live in King of Prussia, PA. (Isn't that a great name?) Actually, I spent most of my time keeping my eye on k. We were seated right by the entrance, and she seemed to enjoy walking towards people and greeting everyone as they came in. However, once any of them became up close and personal with her, she froze like a statute. I guess she has a large radius of personal space.

Urgent Care

Last night I took k to Urgent Care because she hurt her wrist. I was sitting on the couch, and she was standing next to the couch. I got up, and we bumped into each other. I guess her hand/arm was in a bad position because she yelped out in pain and started crying. I wasn't able to calm her down like I usually do when she gets hurt, and she was grabbing her wrist. I called the doctor's office, and the nurse could hear her crying. Since it was 5:30 and the office was closed, she advised me to give k Tylenol and go to Urgent Care. She was supposed to get four x-rays (2 of each arm) but k would not sit still! The tech could only take one, and the doctor wanted a radiologist to look at it since baby's bones are hard to read. Today we had to go back to take another x-ray. There were two techs, so one was able to help me pin k down. She seemed much better today and was using her arm, and good news--no fracture! Scary stuff, this parenthood thing.

Manzanar

On our way home from Mammoth we stopped at Manzanar. Most people probably just whiz by Manzanar, as it is really out in the middle of nowhere. The closest real town is Independence. For JAs, however, it has major signficance, since thousands of them were interned there during WWII. Now there is a little museum, along with a gift shop. The museum also has the cleanest public restrooms you will ever find near a highway, so it is worth a stop, even if you are not JA. They also show a twenty minute movie which is well done. There is a huge wall with the names of everyone who was interned there, so it was interesting to find the names of my relatives, including my grandparents and my dad.

Mammoth

On Sunday, I went to Mammoth by myself. I felt bad leaving my wife and daughter at the condo, however I knew that this was the only chance I had to go skiing this season. I grew up going to Squaw, Heavenly and Northstar and wanted to see if Mammoth would match up.

I got there at before 8 a.m., which was before the ticket windows opened. And I was the first one in the main lodge to get a ticket. I started at 8:30 and it was really cold. I noticed the open bowls at the top, and they groomed most of the runs. There was plenty of snow, however it was about a week old. Mammoth is better than Squaw because Mammoth's peak is higher (11,000 ft vs. Squaw's 9,000) and Mammoth is better for beginners (Squaw's greens are mid mountain and there is no bunny slope to get to it). The higher peak is important because that means the snow at Mammoth is drier and the beginner area is important if you go with beginners and children.

Mammoth is a little smaller but has a longer vertical drop. Unfortunately, I was not able to get to the top of the mountain, where most of the double black diamonds are, becasue of the high winds. However, I was able to go down one double black diamond and blacks. Chair lift 5 has some nice snow and good runs.

The one thing I do not like at Mammoth is that the village is not walkable to the slopes. You have to take a gondola to get to one of the bases of the mountain. And Squaw is definitely a close second. I look forward to going back to Mammoth and Squaw. My three favortie in CA are Mammoth, Squaw and Northstar. Heavenly is for the tourists. I was surprised how fancy Mammoth was. The mid-mountain restaurant was pretty fancy, and the base lodges are fancy. They have a pretty large children's program and there is a definite international flavor.


After I finished skiing we returned to the village to look around.


The architecture reminded us of Whistler, but Whistler's village is much bigger.

Laugh of the Day

This video clip, sent to me by Tiff, is entitled "When a Baby is Born in Japan".

June Mountain

Since there were three people in our group that wanted to learn how to snowboard, I thought it would be a good idea to go to June Mountain instead of Mammoth for our first day ($85 v. $150 for the beginner package). I had read that it is a lot less crowded, which was also good for me, since I am still very much a beginner.

We arrived at the slopes nice and early, but to our dismay, they were not selling lift tickets. The night before there were howling winds, and they had persisted into the morning. We waited in the lobby for a couple of hours to see if they would be opening. Thank goodness they did, at 10:00, and we were first in line.

To get to the main area where there are rentals, lessons etc., you have to take a crazy chair lift. It was seriously scary...good thing the winds had died down. It was SO steep, there is one metal bar holding two people up and no safety rail. It is also a very long ride, giving you a lot of time to think about how high up you are.


This picture does not even begin to convey how scary the lift was. On the way up, I did not want to risk fumbling around with my gloves and camera to try to take a picture. This was taken more than halfway down the mountain.


The scenery was beautiful, though.


D took a picture of me on the way down.

It had been quite a while since I had last skied, so I was definitely rusty in the beginning. For some reason, I could not pick myself up after falling--D had to help me. Too bad we had to leave right when I was starting to feel better about the whole thing.

If you are wondering where k was, she was nice and warm in the condo with her grandparents. D can't wait to take her out for her first ski lesson. Hopefully she will pick it up faster than me!

Mammoth Road Trip

We left early Friday morning for Mammoth. It was kind of refreshing to veer off of the 5 and take a new route (14 to the 395) instead of our usual trip all the way up the 5. D was excited to see Joshua Trees in the desert.

Somewhere in the Palmdale/Lancaster area we stopped off at McD's for breakfast. We tried the McSkillet burrito--a bit too much flavor going on for breakfast for us. We also had a mocha. At about a dollar less than Starbucks, it was a good deal, but all of the chocolate sank to the bottom. It was a pretty upscale franchise--WiFi, etc. AND it had a Western theme. Fun.

Yes, that is a horse on the balcony.

Our next stop was Bishop. We bought sandwiches at Erik Schat's Bakery, "Home of the Famous Sheepherder's Bread". The roast beef is recommended over the turkey, which was kind of dry. The sandwiches come with a pickle and a cookie. I also picked up some jalapeno cheese bread, mini chocolate covered macaroons, and a loaf of sheepherder's bread. The weather was so nice that we ate outside.



On our way out of Bishop we also stopped by at Mahogany Smoked Meats. We picked up some beef jerky and bacon, which I had read about. Pricey stuff (the jerky is like $35 a lb.!), but it was good, although maybe not $35 a lb. good. I just bought a little of the teriyaki and western flavors.

We then headed on towards Mammoth. My brother in law hooked us up with a condo and it was big enough to house our party of nine with beds to spare. Since we were the first to arrive, D had to remove a bunch of snow/ice that had piled up near the front door and garage. He got a good start, but my mom spent the rest of the weekend chipping away at the ice. That's her idea of a good time. Seriously.

After settling in, we took k out for her first time in snow:

She didn't enjoy it much. In fact, she was quite scared. Since the snow wasn't packed, we sank in over a foot several times. Considering we weren't wearing snow boots, this was not too enjoyable. We took turns going down the hill a couple of times before we became winded.

We're Back

We spent a long weekend in Mammoth and just returned this afternoon. We'll give you a full recap, of course. For now, just enjoy the beauty...