Getting ready for Halloween!

19 Oct 2011 12:32 am | Category: Sharn

Guess what Eric’s gonna be for Halloween!

One year already?!?!

10 Oct 2011 11:32 pm | Category: Birthday, Ethan

I can’t believe my little monkey is turning ONE!!!!!!! How fast this year has flown by. We had a little birthday party for him last night with Eric’s extended family. Our little house isn’t big enough to fit all friends and family, so we decided to spilt it up and have two parties! That means two birthday cakes!!

What’s a party without yummy food? There was Singapore curry chicken, ribs, potstickers, spring rolls, beef brisket…. It was good, yummy, home cooked food. The curry was my fave 🙂 And of course a birthday party isn’t really a birthday party unless there’s cake!

I’d left the cake out the whole time. I should’ve kept it in the fridge!! The icing on the frosting kinda melted away. Or maybe icing doesn’t stay well on frosting?? The frosting was just whipped cream. The cake was a triple layer sponge cake. I wanted to fill it with strawberries, but there weren’t any strawberries at the store! So we had kiwi and bananas with vanilla pudding filling. It was still yummy. Maybe not the banana, though. It reminded me of banana cream pie.

We sang EJ a birthday song and he was trying to grab at the candles. He was so cute. When we started clapping after we were done singing, he started clapping along. Such a happy baby! Even though it was almost 9:00 p.m. and way past his bedtime!

Then we had him dig in! I’m glad that he was having fun with it. I think he’s learning to share. He would take a few bites, then with a clump of cake in his little fist, he’ll stretch out his hand and offer me some cake. So sweet! Then when he’s done eating, he starts throwing his food onto the floor. I think he’s trying to clean up. Lol!

Opening presents. His first suit!

He also got a lot of books.

More new clothes.

And finally a toy! You can see his eyes growing bigger when he saw the toy! He was so excited!

We had him ‘choose his fortune’. Just for fun. We had four things: a book, a pen, a ball, and the iPhone. Book represents a scholar; pen, a writer; ball, an athlete; and the iPhone, a tech genius. He goes and picks the book! We were so surprised! That wasn’t even his favorite book. I thought the iPhone for sure. He’s always wanting to play with our phones!

He was really pooped out that day. So were we! Ok now to plan for another party this Saturday! This time we’re having a few friends over. More food and more cake!! I’ll go to another grocery store and see if they have strawberries there!

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Go Team Subaru!

30 Sep 2011 10:42 pm | Category: Eric, Sports

This year Eric participated in a Dragon Boat competition. He rowed for Team Subaru. Someone from church works for Subaru and was in charge of this event. He recruited his family and a few people from our branch. Eric was one of them.

It was a first dragon boating experience for Eric. Their team was to race in the novice division. To be considered novice, they can’t practice more than three times. They only practiced twice. Of those two practices, not once was the boat full! (They need 20 people) Some team members hadn’t even rowed before, but just showed up that day and raced!

Considering the very little practice they had together, they didn’t do bad at all! Eric just didn’t want to come in last. They came in second and third in the first two heats. Not bad!! In the Finals, they raced in Heat B (out of six novice heats) and came in 4th (out of six). They were that close to a medal!! It was seriously a photo finish! They lost to the 3rd place by .5 seconds!!

It was an all day event out on Treasure Island.

Eric in the team attire

Cheering on Team Subaru and stuffing his face with a cracker.

Rowing past the finish line!

Eric ready to paddle!

This should be a Subaru ad!

The dragon boat race was also a festival, so while they weren’t racing, we checked out the booths at the festival. Quite unlike other teams who were working out/warming up, etc.

The Sunscreen bar. It’s like dispensing ketchup, but instead, you get sunscreen! Awesome!

Eating an entire packet of fruit rollup. He loves that stuff!! Wouldn’t even share with me!

He didn’t nap the entire day. After the event, we made our way back to the car, he fell asleep in the stroller. He didn’t even make it back to the car. He was super tired!!

Go Team! They did awesome!

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Heartwalk

30 Sep 2011 10:06 pm | Category: Health

A few weeks back we participated in the American Heart Association’s Heartwalk in San Francisco. Eric’s company had volunteered for the event and EJ and I turned up to show our support! Our parking that day was more than our donation!! Yikes!

Had to get a nametag to get into Eric’s office.

A sea of yellow-shirt EY employees.

Nice view along the way

Volunteers for the event making sure we knew where the walk ended. It was more of a stroll, really. There was so many people that it was really hard to walk any faster! We walked from the pier on Embarcadero to the AT&T Park.

EJ chilling in his stroller.

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Sweet Tomatoes!

10 Sep 2011 08:21 pm | Category: Ethan, Food

We went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner tonight. It’s a soup, salad, and bakery buffet restaurant. In another words, carbs, carbs, CARBS!!

EJ was having a blast! He doesn’t really like me feeding him anymore. He likes feeding himself. Of course he makes mess!

Ready….

Stuff my face!!

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Labor Day!

09 Sep 2011 09:06 pm | Category: Ethan, Vacation

Yes, Labor Day weekend was last week. I’ve finally gotten around to posting. We were planning on going away, but we procrastinated in making a decision on where to go, then our friends decided to visit us from out of town and needed a place to stay, so we just hung around.

But not to totally waste the weekend away, we decided to go to the beach! We brought EJ to the beach at the Santa Cruz boardwalk last time, and he loved it! But we weren’t totally prepared, i.e., no swimmers, no towel, etc. So, this time we were!! BUT we were soooo not prepared for the COLD!!

We went to the Half Moon Bay State Beach. Half Moon Bay’s always cold, but we were hoping it won’t be that cold since it’s the summer. We brought sweaters just in case. Thank goodness for the sweaters!! The wind was so strong and the water was freezing!!

All dressed for the beach!!

We mostly just laid around on the beach. EJ was happily playing in the sand.

EJ was exploring the beach all by himself. 🙂 Of course under our watchful eye. He was crawling everywhere. At one point, he was heading towards the ocean! A couple of times he did a face plant and had a mouthful and nostrils full of sand. Yikes! He even tried eating seashells he found in the sand. Lol! Seriously, that kid puts everything in his mouth. (Even though he doesn’t eat much food!!)

The family that was playing right beside us let EJ play with their seashell sand mould. We didn’t bring any sand toys. We don’t have any sand toys! Lol! Anyway, it was really nice of them.

The water was freezing!! So we only went in right before we were about to leave. Actually I didn’t even touch the water. Lol! Eric took EJ in. We have a water loving baby!!

EJ heading out to the water by himself 🙂

There was seriously sand everywhere! We cleaned EJ up from the trunk of our car. When I removed his diaper, it was filled with sand! Lol! We had to wash him off with a water bottle since there wasn’t a shower. Poor bare-bottomed EJ getting hosed down with a water bottle in the parking lot! Quite a sight!!

After the beach, we went to Half Moon Bay’s famous Flying Fish Grill where they have the best fish tacos. We found that they’ve moved from their hole-in-the-wall restaurant, to an actual full size restaurant! Sadly, Eric and I both thought that the quality of the fish tacos went down 🙁 EJ enjoyed his mini corndogs, though!

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Growing up

04 Sep 2011 12:04 am | Category: Ethan

The last time we gave EJ his haircut, it took over an hour. And while I was somewhat satisfied with the end product, I thought it might be better to take a very wriggly, active, and mobile baby to the professionals for his next haircut!

The place is catered towards kids. They’ve got toys, lollipops, and even Dora playing on the TV. Even more exciting, were the mini toy cars the kids could sit on while they were getting their hair cut!

There was a three-year-old boy getting hid haircut right before it was our turn. The whole 15 mins was just tears and screams for mommy to get him out!! I was so worried that little EJ would be the same! Thankfully, he was the complete opposite. Maybe he’s still young, still doesn’t really understand what’s going on. But there were no tears, no screams. He just sat there, playing on the toy car. I wouldn’t say he was completely oblivious, because there were a couple of times he tried to push the hairdresser’s hand away, but he was cooperative, very much to my relief!

Pretty cool salon! $16 for a baby boy’s hair cut, though. Almost as much as what Eric pays for his! But I guess it’s less of a hassle for us!

Rockin’ out his new haircut with his lady friend 🙂

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Can you see that?

30 Aug 2011 04:44 pm | Category: car, Sharn

See that? Not sure what you’re looking at? Let me help you.

See that black dot the size of ant? Yeah. I opened my car door while putting my baby in the car and accidentally nicked this other person’s car. So happens, this lady was right there. I was buckling EJ up, giving him some water, wiping his hands. Then here she comes, rapping on my window. When I opened the door, she asks where was my mom! Lol!! I guess I still look like a teenager? I don’t know if I should be flattered or not?! Then she starts yelling at me about how I scratched her car and how that’s gonna cause her car to rust…. Blah blah blah. I used a baby wipe and wiped off most the plant residue left from my car door. What can I say? I did it. But the yelling wasn’t necessary!! I’ve never met such a petty, calculating, and rude person in my life! Guess I haven’t seen much of the world, huh? Most of her yelling was gibberish, ie, I couldn’t understand her through her thick China accent. But basically she wanted to take out an insurance claim. I gave her my insurance agent’s name and phone number. My insurance agent told me to take a photo of the ‘damage’, take down her name, and year and model of her car. She kept saying “It’s a BMW, it’s a BMW.” Yeah… Obviously. Hello? Year and model?? It’s a 2001. It’s a 10-year-old car!! Really? The wear and tear on the car is worse than that little dot! Is it really worth all your time and effort to go through the whole insurance process, take your car into the shop, and all the flurry over a tiny black dot? Whatever, in the hands of my insurance now. I hope this better not affect the rate of my insurance next year! Over a little black dot!!

Anyhow, I was super upset after the incident. I hadn’t been yelled at like this since I was a kid by my parents. I felt stupid, should’ve been more careful. I was just balling my eyes out as I was driving home. I thought I was tough. But not so much, I guess. Over a stupid incident. Then as I was waiting at a stop light, there was this homeless man, holding up a sign, asking more help. I’ve never given money to homeless people on the street like this before. I decided, this will be my first time! So, I gave him $5. I figured, service makes you happy and feel better about yourself, right?? $5 is not much, counted as a little service, right? I hope he doesn’t go and buy cigarettes or alcohol with it. Yeah, but I did feel a little better about myself.

Lessons learned:
1) Be careful when you open your car door
2) There are petty, calculative, and rude people out there, even in San Jose
3) Service brings a smile.
4) I can still pass off as a teenager!

🙂

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And he claps!

18 Aug 2011 08:33 pm | Category: Ethan

Pasta-face-hand-clapping baby 🙂

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Happy 46th Singapore!

14 Aug 2011 11:09 pm | Category: Celebrations

Can’t say that I’ve ever celebrated Singapore’s National Day quite like this since coming to the States. But thanks to our fellow Singaporean friends, it’s another excuse to get together and have some good food!

Nat showing us how to kill a crab. You can bet we got fresh crab! Thank you dear crab for sacrificing yourself so we can have a good meal!