Cold hands! Cold hands!

A little over a week ago, Derek came home from work and gave me a big hug. Ok.. hug? No big deal. But it was a cold evening and when I reached up to hug him, his icy hands brushed against my briefly exposed waistline. I squealed... "AHHH!! COLD HANDS! COLD HANDS!". This in itself would not be a big deal, but on no less than 4 occasions since, Juliana has found herself with cold hands (from holding a cold cup, eating apple slices, etc.), snuck up behind me, slid her hands under my shirt to place them on my waist and yell "COLD HANDS! COLD HANDS!" and then run off squealing with delight.

It would be so much easier trying to put a stop to it, if she weren't so darn cute.

Christmas 2009

Do you ever notice that once Thanksgiving rolls around, things are non-stop busy until the new year starts? That's the way it was for us this year.
After getting home from spending Thanksgiving in Utah, we've been busy getting ready for Christmas in California. (No snow for us this Christmas, thank you very much) So over the next two weeks, while I was unpacking, sorting and repacking for our next trip, Juliana was helping out by doing things like getting herself prepared for bed.  One night, instead of putting on her pajamas, she put on a short sleeve sweater, a knit hat and some leg warmers

I'm not showing you the pictures with the leg warmers, since she didn't bother to put pants on.  Mind you, she did have underwear on, but I'm going to save the full-length shot for a special moment... like her wedding day or when she wins a Nobel Prize.

In December, Derek was in the middle of transitioning projects at work, so decided to burn a few extra vacation hours and catch up on some self-education... reviewing some general math, reading some programming manuals, performing experiments on body temperature vs. cranial coverage.  What kind of experiments you ask?

This picture was actually taken the 3rd day after shaving his noggin.  He wouldn't let me take a picture the first day, and I didn't press the issue the 2nd day.  Since he was starting to get a significant shadow on the 3rd day, I decided to snap a picture before it really started to grow back in.  His biggest complaint about growing it out?  Around the 3 or 4 day mark, the stubble was barely discernible by touch, but snagged on EVERYTHING.  He tried putting on a knit hat, pulling shirts over his head... and they all hit a hard stop as soon as they touched his head.

This was less than a week of returning home from Utah, and I told him he better not shave it again before going to California, or he'd have a heck of a time with airport security. :P

As it turns out, there was that terrorist attempt in Detroit just a day or two before he was scheduled to return home from California, so security was heightened that day he flew home. Juliana and I stayed another week, so it was maybe 30 minutes after we dropped him off at the airport that I received a text message from him: "Got to 2nd base with security". That's my hubby!

Anyhow, Juliana had a blast in California. She played hard every day, and it showed the following mornings:

"Lemme finish my drink before you start talking to me"

Don't worry, we're not starting her early on coffee.... it's a very, very, VERY weak tea.

Here's some examples of things that kept her busy:

Pau-Pau has some various fruit trees, and Juliana loved to check them for ripe fruit.  Her favorite tree to check was the lime tree, as there were more opportunities to find ripe fruit with her reach on the lower branches.

"I wonder if I can reach that one up there"

"This one's ripe!"

Moody picture:



made a little moodier:



Learning one way of wearing a scarf from Sahm-Yi:



Learning to play the Wii with her cousin Jadan:

"D'oh!"

Watching the others learn to play a fishing game on the Wii:


Kou-Fu giving it a go:





While the other Kou-Fu reads the manual with his nephew Jadan...


An impressive catch by Yi-Kou-Fu (Jadan's dad, the true fisherman of the family)


Since we never had to leave our time zone, she continued to wake Mommy (read: me) up at the crack of dawn where we watched many sunrises like this:


But the camera was tweaking the color a little on its own with the Sunset setting. In reality, they probably looked a little less red and more like this:


We spent a couple of days visiting family friends and meeting Baby Quinn:



And playing with homemade play dough with Lillia and Miles (and probably the only circular saw and drill I'll let her touch at this age)








And having a play date with Jadan at one of the neighborhood parks:




The day we were to take Sahm-Yi to the airport for her flight home, we stopped by Coronado Island for some lunch.

"Is this the only drink menu?" 

"Ooo... this looks interesting!"

Yes, he's scowling... but if he's not scowling, he's making one of two hand gestures to the camera, so I'll deal with the scowling.

At least Pau-Pau seems to be in a better mood than Kou-Fu.

And then before we headed off to the airport, Sahm-Yi decided she wanted to treat Juliana to a double chocolate cupcake with a pudding center... I think she timed it so that the sugar rush would hit after she left...


Given that it was only 2:30 in the afternoon, traffic should have been rather light, but it took us forever just to get from the airport to the freeway. When we finally neared the freeway, we discovered the source of the delay...

Somebody hit the water main at an intersection about 2 blocks from the freeway.

This shot above was my over-the-shoulder hail mary shot. We had to speed up through the intersection, so I took a chance to see if I could actually capture anything.

That's most of the trip in a nutshell... Our next travel adventure is probably a week in Portland some time in the next two months and then a week long cruise in April to the Western Caribbean/Mexico.

We can't wait!

"Are you still here?"

My very first movie review

From my previous post, I mentioned that the Taylor women ditched the men and kids left the kids with the dads and had some female bonding time at the movies.  We had it narrowed down to New Moon (the Twilight vampire series sequel) and This Is It (a Michael Jackson "documentary"). We settled on the latter, and I was pleasantly surprised by this film.  Not having seen any advertising for the film (no newspaper subscriptions and our tv, when it is on, is usually on some kid's channel), I really didn't know what to expect from it.  I've had some Facebook friends say it was an AMAZING film, but not being a big Michael Jackson fan, I didn't have a huge desire to see it (but neither was I going to avoid seeing it, if the opportunity arose).  I was expecting it would just be an over-edited film showcasing MJ as the superstar (kind of like a long music video).  What I found was that it showed the professional side of him... the innovative entertainer who loved performing ... working through rehearsals with his dancers, musician and crew to create a show that the fans want to see.  And he did so with respect, humility and an attention to detail that the general public would not normally see.  After this film, I can honestly say that I have a deeper respect for the man and a sense of sadness for all the staff and crew that would never get to perform on stage with him after so much preparation.

Thanksgiving in Utah

A week ago we were in St George, Utah for a Thanksgiving reunion with the Taylor tribe.  We all had rooms in a hotel near Grandma & Grandpa Taylors home (Omi & Pocky) and spent our days at their home.  With a total of 24 in the house (grandparents, 4 sons, their wives and children), there just wasn't room for everyone there... and I'm sure the grandparents needed the quiet at night after all the bustle of the days.

Somehow I became the unofficial photographer of the trip, and ended up taking over 200 photos and a couple of handfuls of video clips.  Some were of the events around the house and some were random sunset/landscape shots from our travels down at back.

It was a total of 18.5 hours on the road each way for us (not including time for refueling, food and restroom breaks), and I was initially a little worried about road-tripping with a toddler.  Rather than make the full drive in one day, we decided to break it up over two days, since we needed to stop by the kids' home in Lehi to pick them up on the way. We wanted to leave the house around 9 in the morning on Tuesday, but didn't really get out the door until 10:30.  And then I got really nervous when, 90 minutes into the drive (we were in the Snoqualmie pass), Juliana let out with her first call of "POTTY!"  I was worried it would be a v-e-r-y long drive with frequent breaks, but luckily we only needed to make two more breaks between there and Twin Falls, Idaho, where we stopped for the night.

The sunset over northeast Oregon

The next day, Juliana was a little more reluctant to sit in the car and kept calling out for potty breaks a little more frequently (90 min to 2 hours versus the 3+ hour intervals from the day before) until we got to the Lehi area.  We had a good stretch of the legs there, as we made time to sit down for lunch with the boys and their mom.  (Due to our car only seating 5, we didn't have room for all of the older kids in the car, so arranged for Jessica to ride the Greyhound bus from Provo to St George that morning)

The remainder of the trip from Provo to St George was rather smooth, since we had the boys to entertain Juliana (besides the portable DVD player, which did a rather commendable job of entertaining her the day before).  The movie of choice this trip was Finding Nemo... in case you were wondering.  Oh! and some Backyardigans episodes we received from Netflix the day before we left.

We arrived in St George around 7pm, checked in the hotel and made a brief visit to the grandparents' home to say hello to everyone.

Mitch was swarmed by all the cousins and proclaimed "favorite cousin" by three of the little ones.

Thanksgiving morning, we slept in a little (7:30 am... that's sleeping in for Juliana), had a small breakfast and made our way over to the house.  All the grandkids (ranging from 22 months to 18 years) got along pretty well--- some of them meeting for the first time, since our last family get-together was at Derek's and my wedding five years ago.

Initially a little reserved, Juliana loved playing with all her cousins... it didn't matter how old they were.

Emmaline & Juliana

Tyson and Derek spent some time throwing the football with the kids during the day:

Dinner was served around 2pm.  Everyone chipped in to help prepare some food, although Shae (Perry's wife) spearheaded the coordination and prepared the turkey and dinner rolls (which the younger girls also helped with).

Grandma played some "Mensch Aergere Dich Nicht" with the grandkids at night (it's similar to Sorry!):

The next day we decided to take advantage of the whole group being together and take some family pictures.  Scott thought it would be a neat idea to film the whole proceedings, so I set up our video camera to catch the action.  We used a little tabletop tripod and set it on the retaining wall of the vegetable garden.  What we got was about 70% filming of the group, 10% filming of Nikki sniffing at and standing in front of the camera and 20% filming of someone's backside... usually Shae's.  Here's what happened when we hooked the camera up to the TV afterwards to preview it:

"You're going to edit this out... right?  RIGHT???"

I managed to get a candid shot of Jessica smiling as she models a new scarf and hat made for her by grandma:

That afternoon, the Taylor women (Grandma, the four daughters-in-law and Jessica) had some bonding time without the men or children.  We left them all at the house and caught an afternoon showing of Michael Jackson's "This Is It".  (See my next post for my opinion of the film, if you're interested.)

After the movie, we all went to Denny's for dinner and then met back at the house before going out separate ways.  While at the house, Mike and Michelle King stopped by.  Mike was the man responsible for getting the Taylor boys dancing in high school, and had recently moved to St George with his family.  There was quite a bit of catching up, since it has been so many years since they've seen each other.

The next morning we all made our ways home. (Some started out the night before)  Derek and Jonah dropped Jessica off at the bus station and came back to pick up the rest of us at the hotel.  On the way back to Lehi, we stopped briefly in Provo and said hello to Derek's (favorite) cousin Dara.  She's about 7 months younger than Derek, and they used to see each other a lot over the summers growing up.  I've talked with Dara a bit over Facebook for the past year, but it was so nice to finally meet in person.  She is so personable and has a grace about herself that makes her so easy to talk to.  And yet she has a goofy, fun-loving side that she doesn't hesitate to let out ---  as evidenced when I asked her and Derek to recreate a picture taken when they were little:

After our short visit, we drove a short distance north and dropped the boys off at their mother's and continued our drive home.  We made it as far as Nampa, Idaho before settling in for the night, leaving about 8 hours worth of driving before we would be home. 

The last day of driving was the hardest.  Juliana had reached her limit and was continually asking for potty breaks (I think she realized it was more effective than just asking to be let out of her chair) and we were stopping what felt like every 20 minutes. Luckily, after lunch, Juliana fell asleep (she didn't nap at all on the drive down) and Derek got in a couple of good hours of uninterrupted driving.  Once we got over the pass, we stopped by Sahm-Yi's home, had some dinner and picked up the cats (she was kind enough to watch them for us).   Even with all the stops, we managed to get home around 6:45 in the evening).

Whew!  We're so glad to be home again (or at least not in a car for hours on end).


I've only posted a few of the photos here, but if you want to see more, you can visit my Facebook photo album using this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2042037&id=1418475777&l=835293f6b6

It shouldn't ask you to register or anything like that, so if you have your own reasons for not joining Facebook or MySpace, I'm not forcing you to join.  My sister (an avid avoider of the social networking sites) tested the link and says it works fine.

Halloween 2009

So this year was a bit more interactive with Juliana, since she had a better idea of what was going on... and the fact that she's developing quite the sweet tooth.

Since this is probably the last year that I'll get to pick her costume, I decided to go all out nerd-style. That's right... I gave in to the geek side. Given her propensity for saying "Bobba-doo" (Bibbity-bobbity-boo in toddler speak) and waving anything and everything like a wand, I'm sure there will be many opportunities for her to dress up as a princess or a magical faerie.

What I chose appalled Juliana's Sahm-Yi, since I decided to dress her up as a Star Fleet officer. Yes, as in Star Trek. And after a week of sewing little bits here and there each day, I finished a dress that would fit her for all of 15 minutes. Good thing Halloween was only two days away at that point. I should have planned to make it a little oversized if I wanted to get more life out of it, but the material was rather lightweight for any real use in the cold, wet autumns of the northwest. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So, anyhow, I based the design off of Uhura's uniform from this year's reboot of the original series. It's a redesign of the original series' miniskirt uniform, but still exhibiting some of that 1960's style. For those of you who haven't seen the new movie yet, and don't know what I'm talking about, you can do a web search for any/all of the following keywords: 2009 Star Trek Uhura dress Zoe Saldana. There's a lot of costume shop knock-offs, but I thought they didn't look enough like the movie costume, so I decided to make my own pattern.

The biggest thing was that all the ship uniforms on the movie were made with a custom printed spandex (where there were tons of tiny Enterprise emblems all over the material). Yep... no way was I getting a hold of that. And from looking at the ones posted on the web that were made from Spandex, I thought they looked a little too shiny/reflective. On top of that, I found a nice red fabric that had a fine tone on tone lattice texture... and that worked well enough for me. (It's not like she'll fit in this for years and years)

Here's how it turned out.

This was taken at Derek's office Halloween party. It was a rather small affair, especially compared to last year's festivities.. and particularly so when compared to the other office shindig we took her to that day.

Hey look! Alien life forms!

And, yes, I forgot to iron her dress. I couldn't do it while she was running around during the day, and kept forgetting in the evenings after she went to bed. Hey, I'm just being honest with you. I could have photoshopped it out, and you would have never known, but I'm trying to let go of some of my perfectionist tendencies. (Ba HA HA HA HA!..... whew! that was a good one!)

I just love these boots on her.

Rather than fake the insignia on the uniform, I shaped one out of some layered balsa wood (alternating grain directions for strength), spray painted it silver, painted the detail on with ink and coated the whole thing with a clear glaze. And then I mounted it on a magnet, so that it couldn't poke my child or tear the dress. I used another magnet on the inside of her dress to hold it in place. It's now a fridge magnet.

After the visit to Daddy's office, Pau-Pau and I took Juliana to visit Sahm-Yi's work place. It's just a small office complex in Redmond. Apparently last year they had five thousand visitors (not sure if they were only counting children, or including the adult visitors, too) and were expecting over nine thousand this year. That's right.... thousands.

Here's a clue as to where we went:

Wait.. who has the employee badge and who is trick-or-treating?

We lucked out in that we got there at 3pm on the nose, so had no line to wait in and found a parking spot near the front of the building.

The first thing we saw when we got there was a short performance of some of the employees, dancing in unison with the Thriller video playing on the television and screens behind them:

Hey! Is that Gene Simmons in the background? I don't remember him being in the Thriller video...

They performed this at the top of every hour, I think. We only stayed until 4:30, so only knew of one other performance while we were there.

After this, we went and toured the hallways, which they decorated with various themes. They even had an internal competition for best room (I'll tell you which one won later) There was one done up in tribute to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Another was Studio 54 (complete with disco ball and a television screen playing the dancing scenes from Saturday Night Fever). We stuck to the family-friendly halls, since Juliana was with us, but there were some halls marked "Mature" for more frightening themes/people jumping out at you/etc. One of those halls was one with a Pirates of the Caribbean/ghost theme.

One of the halls was modeled after the movie A Night at the Museum:

There were even some people dressed up as Teddy Roosevelt, cavemen and more roaming the hall.

The cowboys and indian area:

A closer look at one of the displays:

Owen Wilson.. are you in there? *tap tap*

The cavemen area

I wonder if they had to sit there for the full time.

*Insert your own mummy/mommy related comment here*

This was (I thought) a rather well-done section. It was a foam mock-up of an Easter Island Moai with a booming speaker set up to talk with the kids. His name was Dum-Dum... and he liked to be fed (what else) Dum-Dum suckers (seen scattered on the floor around him).

If you tossed some in his mouth, he would "chew" them up and then...

blow up "bubbles" and release them to fly/deflate around the area.

Next up was the Under the Sea hallway.

Don't be scared, Sahm-Yi... we're not really going underwater!

Juliana insisted on holding both Pau-Pau's and Sahm-Yi's hands, which left me juggling the camera, her trick-or-treating container (a plastic pumpkin) and her day bag. No one ever tells you this, but once you have kids, from the time they are born until they get to intermediate grade levels, you are their pack animal. Because even after they are out of diapers, you still need to carry around snacks, water, an emergency change of clothes and some toys.

But I digress... where were we? Oh yes, Under the Sea...

One of the more innovative things we came across was Halo's Master Chief spear fishing. I bet you didn't know he did this in his spare time.

And there was pirate booty to be had:

Next up was one of two hallways dedicated to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We're talking the original Willy Wonka with Gene Wilder, not the Tim Burton remake. This first part was based around the beginning of the story where they announce that Willy Wonka is opening up his factory to a few select people lucky enough to obtain a Golden Ticket.

This room we were about to enter won the Best Room award for the festivities..

Every kid I know would've loved to hang out in this room.

Here's a closer look at the bar area to explain why:

Sugar overload!

Hey, buddy! Where's MY golden ticket???

The other side of the room:

Once you left the Candy Shoppe, you find yourself on the "street" with offices made up to look like other storefronts.

I wonder what they are trying to say here:

Before we got to the next Willy Wonka area, we walked past the entry area for the Pirates hallway (remember, it was rated Mature, so we didn't bring Juliana through, and I didn't have time to go through it solo):

Hey! What are you Oompa-Loompas doing outside the Chocolate Factory?
Get back to work!

Speaking of the Chocolate Factory, that was our next stop:

There were some people dressed up as various characters from the story... the VP was Willy Wonka and one lady was a plumped up, blue Violet Beauregarde. I would've taken her picture, but we were rushed past and she was sitting in a rather dimly lit area.

Juliana enjoyed this feature, never having experienced Scratch-n-Sniff before:

The shrinking room:

Look! We're on TV!

On to the Great Glass Elevator:

I don't remember a Free Candy dispenser being in the elevator in the story...

This was the view below when we finished touring all the family-friendly halls:

The line went out the door and a good 20 yards further (if not more) around the time we left. And it only got longer... The event was scheduled to run from 3pm to 7:30 pm, but ran to almost midnight. There were so many people still in line just waiting to get in when 7pm rolled around and they didn't want to send people away.

What a day!