School, teeth, birthdays (but not in that order)

The place is a little noisier again, but for some reason I find that comforting. Jessica isn't too excited about school starting next week (but really, how many kids are?). We still have a few things to pick up before the 3rd, so we've got some things to do this weekend. She has an aquatics class this term and needs a new swimsuit, some basic school supplies are needed and perhaps a new backpack/messenger bag. Also, her birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and she's still not sure what she wants to do.

And the baby's first birthday is shortly after that. And I need to start the baby's Halloween costume... Eeek! Deep breath. (*exhale*) One thing at a time.

Oh yes, I also had my *mumble*th birthday.

Juliana's tearing through the place now, forsaking any crawling, unless it's to go under some piece of furniture. And these last few days, she can hardly be found without one of two things: a doll of Tigress (from Kung Fu Panda that the boys gave her at the beginning of the summer), or her rubber ducky bath thermometer. One is soft and cuddly and half of her total body size; the other is about half the size of her head alone, smooth, rubbery and has a pacifier in its mouth and a bottle under the wing. I'll let you figure out which one is which.

She loves to give Tigress hugs and then proceeds to hold the doll over her head by one paw and run around the place. It's a rather funny picture. I'll try to capture it on video, but no guarantees. Whenever I pull out the camera, she immediately notices and scrambles over to make a grab for it. Is this a sign that she will be a gadget-freak like her momma and da-da? Only time will tell.

Speaking of Da-Da... he's had quite the week, himself. Late last week, one of his fillings came out (upper back molar that was filled when he was quite young). Since he hasn't been to a dentist in years, he thought he would make the time to have a cleaning done as well. As it turns out, he discovered that he must have a bit of deep-rooted anxiety about dentists. Just before the appointment, he broke out into a sweat and was shaking. They couldn't clean it all in the time booked, so he has to go back next week to get the upper teeth cleaned. As for the filling, it was rather deep, and they had some concerns with the caries reaching the nerve. So yesterday morning, he had to see and Endodontist and had a root canal. Yikes! And now he has to make a new appointment with the dentist to crown the tooth.

Om Nom Nom Nom

So Jessica flew back yesterday after spending a month in Utah with her mom. On the way home, Jessica was feeding the baby some Cheerios in the car. After a while, Juliana would take the food, but instead of eating it, she would shove it into Jessica's mouth while saying "om nom nom nom". Cracked me up. I was laughing so hard I was having some difficulty driving straight (luckily not too much and there wasn't a lot of traffic around at the time anyways).

For those of you who don't know, "Om nom nom nom" is used a lot on (american) websites to denote eating sounds. I think it's onomotopaea for the mouthing parents do when they first start feeding their kids table foods. If you've watched the Incredibles lately, picture the scene where Elasti-Girl is feeding Jack-Jack and Dash says "you're making those faces again, Mom". Now speed up the faces she's making, add some vocalization and you get what sort of sounds like "om nom nom nom".

Anyhow, sometimes Derek and I will make that noise when feeding Juliana, and apparently she's picked up on this. It was so hilarious to see/hear her doing this while feeding her big sister.

Constantly amazed

These days I find myself constantly amazed by the things that Juliana does. Yesterday, she pulled down the cushions from the couch so that she could stand on them and reach things on the coffee table and the couch that she wanted to get. And then, when I set her on the changing table, I handed her a comb to distract her (she'll try to twist and turn otherwise). She looked at it quizzically, so I took it back and demonstrated how it runs through her hair. When I handed it back to her, she ran the comb through her own hair! It was so cute!

The boys flew home two days ago, and the place seems so quiet with only the baby around. Five more days until Jessica returns. And then I'll have more things on the brain than just the baby.

Video!

Filmed this little bit of Juliana nodding her head with Jonah. One of Derek's friends said we should speed up the shot and make it look like she's headbanging. But I think she needs longer hair for that. Oh wait! We can photoshop the images! Just kidding... for now....

Two weeks worth of news for the price of one

I can't believe it has been almost three weeks since the last update. Time sure flies by fast when there are kids around. And there's been one less since that last time, since Jessica flew to Utah to spend some time with her mother.

I've finally uploaded the pictures from the cameras from the past few weeks. Let's just keep things chronological and start with the oldest ones.

The weekend before Jessica left, we made a family trek to the Seattle Waterfront where we saw a lot of interesting things... a giant octopus, seagulls diving for french fries and a group of 40 nudist cyclists riding through Pike Place Market. While I don't have pictures of the two latter things, I did get a shot of the family by the giant octopus at the aquarium.

If you look closely, the octopus is trying to escape its tank. And if you look behind Derek, you can see the acrylic tank of the jellyfish where the water current sends them drifting around the ring (which you can walk through). Neat!

I just love the brilliant colors of salt-water fish. Not sure I would want to maintain a salt-water tank at home, though. Besides which Jojo would just try to eat whatever fish was in there, anyways.

Jessica reluctantly acquiesced to having her picture taken while we were at the aquarium, so we took some of all four together: (Shhh! Don't point out the fact that she's in the shot above with the octopus)

Mitch is looking at the camera, Juliana is looking at Daddy and I have no clue where the other two are looking. Hey look! A bird!

Shortly after Jessica left, the baby and I took off for a week in Hawaii. The oldest son of Pau-Pau's college roommate was getting married on Maui (we sort of grew up with their kids - they lived in Vancouver BC, about 3 hours north of us) and Pau-Pau invited us along. It gave Derek a chance to have some male bonding time with the boys. Mostly they "caved" and played Guild Wars together, although they did surface for food and to catch a showing of Hellboy 2.

Pau-Pau, Kou-Fu and I took Juliana around the island. We caught a hula dance performance at the local mall, which Juliana seemed to enjoy. She would even wave her hands about like the dancers.

After the shopping adventure, we took Juliana to the beach for her first foray into the Pacific Ocean. She thought the sand was a little too warm to go crawling out on, but she was fascinated by the sound of the surf. She doesn't like wearing the hat, but she quickly realized it served a purpose when we were out in the sun, so left it on. Just don't try to put it on her head while she's indoors.

I took her over to the water and let her work her way slowly into deeper water (well, deep for her). She kept picking her feet up off the wet sand (too squishy?) and squealed a little when the waves lapped over her feet. Eventually we got to a point where the waves would reach up to her waistline when they came in. Not having a firm footing, it swept her feet out from under her and she made a nervous "Uhhhhh..." sound. So we trekked back to the beach towel and dried her out under the sun.It was a short trip to the beach, since there wasn't a lot of shade available and we were starting to get a little hungry.

The next day (Monday) was the day of the wedding. Coincidentally, it was also Derek's and my 4th wedding anniversary. You would think that it's a bit early to start spending that day apart, but Derek called me up and all was right in the world again.

The wedding was a casual affair. Everyone in attendance was asked to wear a Hawaiian muu-muu or aloha shirt. The bride and groom were planning on wearing them too, but the bride's parents hand-carried a bridal gown from Japan for her to wear (they didn't tell her). So the groom had to get a tux at the last moment.

Here's Miyako in the gown, talking with a photographer:

And here's Joseph in his tux. As you can see, everyone else is very casual
The couple taking their vows.
You can't tell, but they stood in a ring of leaves and flowers on the grass. There was also a gentleman behind them playing a Hawaiian wedding song on the guitar.

It was a nice day (although the rain threatened throughout the day), but very windy. You can sort of tell from these photos that it's windy. All the other shots of me had my hair flying about my face something terrible. But we managed to capture one of us with Pau-Pau and Kou-Fu that wasn't so bad:

Notice the shoes on Juliana. Those were from Sahm-Yi and Juliana never tried to kick them off once. Ralph Lauren. Lambskin uppers with sueded soles. And satin ribbon ties. This kid has some expensive tastes already.

The rest of the trip went quickly enough. Kou-Fu and I went to a luau with Gunter (Joseph's youngest brother) and his wife Caroline, while the two grandmothers watched their granddaughters. (Gunter's daughter, Madison, is four months older than Juliana)

While we were in Hawaii, Juliana spent a lot more time walking instead of crawling, which (I guess) makes her a toddler now. Wahhhh! She's growing up so fast! Oh well... I'm still going to refer to her as my baby... even when she's 30. :P

Shortly after our return to the mainland, it was time for the Seafair hydroplane races and air show. Every year (on what we call Seafair Sunday), we head down to Mercer Island and hang out at a friend's house to socialize and watch the Blue Angels perform. Their house is on the water, just south of the I-90 bridge, so while we can only see the rooster tails from the hydroplane races, we have a front row seat to the air show. The house even gets buzzed a few times during the course of the performance.

Juliana was so brave. She flinched and hugged me hard on the first fly-over, but then only walked over to hold on to my leg when she heard them approaching the house and wandered off again when they had passed.

Mitch and Jonah got to see the Blue Angels flying for the first time, but I think they really enjoyed what happened afterwards. Before and during the Blue Angels air show, boat traffic is prohibited underneath the flight show. Once it is over, though, boats pour into the area, where they have to travel under I-90 right by house. Every year, it is a tradition to have water cannons and water balloons ready to lob/aim at the parade of boats going past. Now this is not as mean as it sounds, since over half the vessels have water cannons/super soakers/etc and happily open fire on the people on the docks.

Let me apologize in advance for the blurriness of the pictures below. I took these photos from inside the house with the zoom almost maxed. It just didn't sound to appealing to me to take pictures on the dock and make myself a water target.

Here, you can see Mitch preparing himself for battle:


As you can tell by Jonah's stance below, there was as much horseplay between those on the docks as there was between those on the water and land.
If you ask me, I think Jonah looks a little too comfortable with that water cannon in his hands.


All in all a fun day was to be had by all. Maybe a little too much fun for some. And a little too much sun for others.Derek says he's like Neapolitan ice cream. His face and neck were red and he had the "Farmer John" tan going for the vanilla and chocolate effect.