Swim Class…

Both kids are still in swim class and both are having fun.  Stacy has moved on from floating and being water safe to putting her head in the water and kicking.   Sadly, she has not grasped the concept of having her head in the water and kicking at the same time.   For now, they are working on getting Stacy to kick:

Jack on the other hand has been kicking for 2 months and they still have him kicking and working on technique…which is not correct in this picture as straight legged kicks shouldn’t be above Jack’s head!

Still it is coming along and Jack is having more fun at swim class:

Rib Company…

A little late, but we got together to ‘remember/celebrate’ the 1 year passing of Aya’s mom.   We got together in Long Beach at the Rib Company for dinner:

I always wonder what people think when they see this picture…are they thinking, “Who are all those white people…or who is that Asian family in the middle?”

Big Eyes…No Eyes…

While it has taken Jack 6 years to even ask for juice, Stacy loves to drink juice.   I thought these pictures were funny because in one picture she has her super big eyes:

In the next picture, her eyes are gone when she smiles:

Sticker-Face…

I don’t know what it is with this girl but she loves to put stickers on her face:

I came into the office and Stacy was playing the iPad with stickers on her face.  What a goober:

Kekoa…

While the kids take on Aya’s eating traits, they also have my trait for not liking animals (although Stacy likes animals…she is just a little uneasy around Kekoa, but I think that is because Kekoa is bigger than her):

Jack is not as comfortable around dogs like me.  This picture looks totally posed for:

This one looked more natural and easy:

Of course the goofy one came out the best:

Taylor’s Birthday Part 2…

Not to be out done by her brother,

Stacy set her record for being in the bouncer:

Stacy loved it…but we paid the price the next day as Stacy was cranky all day long.  Jack likes to get his face painted like Spiderman or Batman but Stacy goes with the girlie-girl face paint:

…a butterfly!!

It must have been popular because all the girls got a butterfly, Stacy and Kailee:

Stacy and Jack:

Of course, Stacy is just like her mom…always wants to be eating!

Taylor’s Birthday Part 1…

I thought Jack might break his record for time spent in the bouncer at Taylor’s birthday:

I think he might have except we had to leave early to go to Grandpa’s birthday dinner…but we were still there for 4.5 hours:

It is amazing because if Jack is in the bouncer for more than 4 hours he is still tired the NEXT day.

Jack with his Batman face:

FOR Week 2…

This was the last week for skills training and Jack did quite well.

Jack is the only one of his Thunder team that can shoot from far:

Will it go it in….

S-W-I-S-H!!

Brandon’s Birthday Part 2…

So I had no pictures of Jack in the bouncer with all his friends from basketball, but I had pictures of Stacy in the bouncer:

Stacy loved being in the bouncer:

Stacy couldn’t be in the bouncer as long as Jack because when it crowded it just got to rough for her, but whenever the bouncer was empty or with less kids Stacy would run to play in the bouncer:

In the end, she couldn’t hang as long as Jack and took a nap on Aya:

Brandon’s Birthday Part 1…

Wow!  I think Jack broke his record for most time in a bouncer.   Jack was practically in the bouncer for 5 hours at Brandon’s birthday party:

It was also the first party where we saw the Mad Scientist.  It was pretty good.  They do science tricks/experiments.  It was educational and entertaining.  I think it could be boring for the parents if you have seen it before, but it was my first time so I kind of dug it.

The Mad Scientist had a burning paper trick.   They poured acid on Styrofoam and made webs…they also talked about being biodegradable.   They do a lot of interaction wit the kids.

At the end the kids got to make their own slime:

All in all, great day with lots of food!

FOR…

I signed Jack up for another basketball clinic, this time it was the FOR Double Dribble clinic:

A teammate from the Venice Pirates also signed up for the clinic and they coincidently on the same team but then Jack was traded from the Jazz to the Thunder so Jack is on his own:

Luckily, Jack is okay if he doesn’t know anyone and he jumped right into the drills:

The drills are the same drills as the other camps but I actually liked it more than the SBY camp.  This clinic as 2 weeks of skill training and then 4 weeks of games.   Hopefully Jack will do well.   I am just happy I can watch and cheer from the stands.  As coach, I never really want to cheer or tell Jack to shoot because I don’t want to show favoritism…but now as a parent I can just yell out SHOOT all the time:

E3 Part 2…

So the guy to girl ratio is totally out of whack the E3 conference.   It is mostly guys that attend…so it only makes sense that they try to attract guys to the booth with girls.   Shoot, who am I to complain?

I think this was Florza:

Capcom:

Tekken Tournament:

Street Fighter 25  Tournament :

E3 Part 1…

I headed off to E3 again this year.  For those of you that don’t know, E3 is the annual gaming convention where game publishers show off the games, hardware and consoles for next year.    Last year I had the Star Wars picture, this year it was Star Trek:

I also watch a lot of G4 tv.  Last year I ran into my favorite cohost Jessica Chobot and I got a picture.   I didn’t really think I would see her again, but I was at the EA booth waiting for a coworker and she started  to film a live segment right in front of me and after her take I got to take a picture:

Highlight of E3 the last 2 years!!

Grandpa’s Birthday…

We celebrated Grandpa’s 66th birthday at Grandpa’s favorite restaurant Sakura:

We recycle the candle and we didn’t have another 6 so it was 65+1 =  66 years old:

It sort of looks like Grandpa has a Statue of Liberty hat on but that is just Bryan’s shirt in the background:

Happy Birthday!!

Science Project…

Jack’s science project was optional for his grade but I just assumed more people would do it, but he only had a few classmates participate.  In any case, and this will totally sound bias, but I thought Jack did a good job on his project:

A few other kids had print out of their project so no writing or drawing of pictures.  They just had to glue it on.  In any case, I told Jack that if he did a good job, I would buy him a new iPad game.   Jack had been wanting Iron Man2 on the iPad for 4.99 but for the last 2-3 weeks I told him we can’t buy it unless it goes on sale for .99 cents because Daddy can’t afford a 4.99 game….so for a job well done, we bought the game for full price!

House Hunting…

This is sort of how Aya and I feel about house hunting:

Aya and I both decided that we will actively look for a new house by the start of the fall school year or we will start to remodel our house and stop our house hunting.   Aya and I have been looking over the years but not seriously.  If there was an Open House and it looked decent we would go.   We also don’t want to remodel our house because we don’t think we will recoup the money back when or if we sell.   The problem is we have been saying this for years so instead of enjoying a remodeled house we just leave it as it.

The past few weekends we have been looking at 5-6 different homes every weekend.   There was one house in El Segundo the entire family liked but there was already a bidding war and it was near the top limit that we wanted to spend so we backed out.  Since that time we have seen other houses we liked but none that we wanted to put an offer on.

We spent Memorial Weekend at our pool and Aya and I both thought it sure is nice having a pool we don’t have to maintain on our own.   Half the properties we look at have a pool.   If it doesn’t have a pool it has a nice view of the city line or out to the beach but it is small with no yard.   It is so hard trying to find the ‘perfect’ place where we can settle down for the next 30 years or so.