Cutting some shapes

Andle restaurant

Crescent moon tortilla

Honey bee

Costco

Lauren feeds the Goats

From Laugh with Us...

Split Pea soup!

We made some excellent split pea soup today with the ham bone from our 20 pound Thanksgiving ham. This was the juiciest, tastiest ham we've ever had. We think that not getting a spiral cut ham was the key. Spiral cut ham may save some time, but it lets out the juices!

The brand of the ham was Farmer John's from Smart and Final. Highly recommended!

Skyping thanksgiving morning. Gobble gobble!

Visiting Ben's Work

The princesses. They had a Halloween party at work for the families.


How many people can fit in Ben's cube?

We had a great visit with Ben's Grandparents and Aunt Debbie this past week and a half. We will miss them! We'll have more photos soon, but here's a couple from Ben's phone:

Brunch at Hobbee's:





Carmel by the Sea, our first time to the beach this year!

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Bright Beginnings

Weekend fun

Growing Fast

Bumbo fun

Some quick updates:
1. Lauren is doing very well at potty training. She is running anywhere from a 50 to 100% success rate with pee-pee. Saturday night she put her first poopie in the toilet! Whoo hoo! Lauren is a super duper pooper, (from a potty training video we got at the library).
2. Sophie is now eating rice cereal and Kix cereal. She loves to practice eating solid food. We'll post a video of Lauren feeding her soon.
3. Sophie can roll over onto her stomach! Then she gets stuck. But she's growing fast!
4. We were eating at PF Chang's not long ago and had Sophie sitting in the Bumbo on the table, watching us enjoy our dinner and mouthing some kix herself. One of the waiters recognized the Bumbo and said he saw it in a youtube video. Check it out:

Ben's work

If you want to learn more about where Ben works, it is a company called Telegent Systems that is a 4 year old startup. They make chips for mobile television. If you want to learn about the company and see some demos of their products, there is a bunch of videos of news clips and demos on their youtube channel. Check it out!

Great America

We went to Great America, a theme park here in the south bay, on June 27 as part of a work summer party event. Nicole and I had a rough morning getting out the door, but once we got there we started the enjoy each other again. It was Lauren and Sophie's first time there and it was our first time with kids obviously. Unfortunately, they didn't have very many rides for toddler's Lauren's age, but they did have a merry-go-round, which is her favorite ride of all time! (If you look closely, Nicole and Lauren are on the top level of the merry-go-round above).

Lauren was also fascinated with Dora, and the star fish character from Sponge Bob (the pink guy below). They have a large water park there, too, which we will have to explore next time we visit.

Deep Sea Fishing

Ben went fishing on the ocean for the first time in several years for his birthday/father's day present on Saturday 6/21/08. It was a calm, beautiful morning on the water. He went fishing on a charter boat out of Half Moon Bay for rock fish. The limit is 10 per person and Ben caught 9, but one was too small and another was an endangered species. There were 14 fishermen on the boat, most people caught 5-7 fish and some caught the prized ling cod, which supposedly taste very good and must be over 24" long. You can keep up to 2 per person. The guy in the middle of this photo caught the most fish at 18, and the largest fish at 28", so he won the pot which was worth about $50. What a day!
There are lot of variety of rock fish. There are olive, china, gopher, black, copper, and many more species. Here is what Ben caught:



Lauren was very curious and interested to see the fish and touch them when I brought them home! We steamed all but 3 so far over the course of a couple meals. They all taste good and not very different from each other. I think I like the orange and white one the best so far.

Back Trouble

Nicole has suffered from chronic back pain since high school. She was in a car accident when she was in 10th grade where she was hit by a motorist while she was crossing a main street for a pool class during the middle of the day. It was not an official street crossing, but it was a place where all the students crossed. After being struck by the car, she fell on her backpack and was very upset with the driver. He offered to take her to the hospital but she told him to get lost. They didn't have health insurance, and her parents didn't know what could be done or what resources were available to them, so she just dealt with it. She was in serious pain at dinner that night. Her mom took her to the Chinese doctor who gave her some stinky medicine to put on her stomach, but unfortunately that didn't take away the pain.

She has gone to several chiropractors over the years who have helped somewhat, but no real change to her condition has occurred. She just lives with some aches all the time, not sleeping as well as she could, and it sometimes affects her mood as well.

At the Sunnyvale Art and Wine Festival we ran into a chiropractor who uses the most objective means we have seen by a chiropractor to analyze the spine. She made an appointment on Thursday last week, and he took xrays and did some other tests. He has sent us a copy of the xrays of her neck and spine, along with what a normal neck and spine look like. The first image below is what a normal spine looks like. The second one is Nicole's spine. Look at the symmetry and alignment - you can see the doctor drew straight lines through the aligned segments:


Nicole's spine:
Obviously, her alignment is bad and her spine doesn't support her weight the way it should.
Below is an xray of Nicole's neck (left) and a normal neck (right):


Here again, the spacing between vertebrae is not even, causing the discs to wear unevenly and could lead to grinding.

We have prayed a lot about this in our home fellowship. Hopefully this chiropractor can help bring some real healing to Nicole.

Father's Day

Today was my 3rd fathers day! It is a lot of work being a dad of two little ones but the rewards are smiles and lots of laughs (most of the time). I think Lauren still said happy birthday to me once or twice today - maybe when we had frozen yogurt at Costco?

We had a long night that started with Sophie having gas or being otherwise uncomfortable and crying for an hour or two. I think we went to sleep by 1 AM. So... we had a relaxing morning at home cleaning up, reading bible, and then some shopping at REI and Costco. Lauren didn't seem to want to lay down for a nap in the late afternoon so I took her for a jog in the stoller and she was out in 10 minutes. It is a sure fire way to get her to nap these days, and it is great because I get a workout in. Nicole was pretty tired when I got back (with Lauren still snoozing) so I took Sophie out front with me and read the paper while holding her and watching Lauren nap in the stroller. That way Nicole could rest and have a little time to herself. Then I watered the plants and gave them some miracle grow - looking forward to some tomatoes! We have some little limes getting started too:


We also have a improved Meyers Lemon tree that Nicole picked up at Osh. Mmmm.... improved lemons!

We ended the day with a home cooked dinner filled with stimulating conversation. I'll part with a sample:

Happy Birthday Ben!

Today is Ben's 34th birthday. We went out for a free lunch at Todai and celebrated with Thomas and Tanya, Alise and Adrian, and Grant. Unfortunately Todai seems to have increased their prices a bit and no longer serves crab legs or shrimp in their all you can eat buffet. :( We realized it is only a good deal if we just go as a family. If we bring friends and it isn't their birthday too, it can get expensive.

After lunch we bowled a game at the fairly new Cupertino Strike bowling alley in Valco mall. Lauren played her first game ever today! She was acting scared/tired at first, but once she got over some of the creepy cartoons they were playing on some of the big screens, she had fun! There was one stretch where we all got strikes one after the other, including Lauren! (she was using a bowling ramp and bumpers, but a strike is a strike!). It was very convenient but is also not cheap at $40/hour/lane.

For dinner we got to enjoy dining at Country Gourmet in Mountain View with our neighbors Cindy, Adam, and their daughters Jasmine and Lilly. Jasmine is 3 years old and Lauren loves to play with her. We like the food at Country Gourmet, and they have a nice separate wing with a table with toys for the kids to play at and a small book shelf full of kids books. Its a great place where we can all sit and enjoy an entire meal!

Already Saturday?

Well - it is Saturday eve and another week has blown by! How about some highlights?

Last weekend (Sunday) we visited with Steve and Melissa up in Sacramento - about a 2 hour drive for us. Getting out of the door was a challenge, but we left after lunch and both kids got a good nap in on the way up so they were ready to play. We also planned it so we could visit my long lost cousin Allie who now lives in New Jersey. She was in Sacramento for the weekend covering a rowing event. We don't see her much now that she moved away from home in Iowa. It was so cool for her to finally meet Lauren and Sophie!



Here is what Steven and Melissa look like with a baby girl (only a few months away for them!) Congratulations again guys!




Thursday night Nicole made some corned beef and cabbage. Mmm! Alise Drury brought some of this wonderful dish over for our final post-partum delivered meal and it was delicious. We had to make it for ourselves. I'm looking forward to enjoying the leftovers the next few days.

We borrowed a Bumbo from Nicole's friend Sharon and it is great that Sophie can sit up and look around! She loves it and it gives us a chance to eat dinner at the same time!

Busy weekend

We had a busy Saturday starting with breakfast (coffee cake, egg casserole, and gourmet coffee!) at the Okamoto's, then on to the Sunnyvale arts and crafts fair for kids on Saturday, back at home for a nap, then off to our first arena football game to see the Saber Cats at the HP Pavillion! (Thanks to the Pitigoi-Aron's for the extra tickets!) Lauren didn't care for the cannon they fire after every touchdown, which happens every 3-4 minutes in fast paced arena football. In fact, that is the first time we have seen her somewhat scared of loud noises. We had to cover the kids ears through most of the game. Sophie still fell asleep during the 2nd quarter though. They put our family up on the big screen for a few seconds after we grabbed some snacks at half time, too! We had to leave after the 3rd quarter to get the kids to bed, but all in all we had a great time. It was fun to get out to an event after feeling like being around the house or running errands most of the time.

Lauren kept saying "too loud inside" as we walked out. I don't think she will forget her first arena football game.

Sunday we didn't make it to church after a long night with Sophie getting up. She has a cold and wasn't comfortable. Sunday night was better after putting her in the most excellent baby swing, where she slept for about 10 hours. I love that swing! Unfortunately, one of our smoke alarms decided to go on the fritz about 6 AM, and then again at 7 AM and 8 AM. I managed to find the user manual on line after pulling down from the ceiling and finding the manufacturer and model number. Looks like they should be replaced every 10 years or so. They are 9 years old, so maybe it is time.

Sunday morning we played some guitar and sang some worship songs as a family. It was a great experience, and Lauren jumped right in. She started by pulling up her chair right next to me and shaking a tamborine like toy she has. Then she pulled out her toy guitar and she sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as we sang worship songs. It was so cute. We plan to sing more!

Sophie pics

Here are some photos showing off our newest family member!

Good morning!

Sisters hanging out

Take me over that way, Dad! (Out on an after dinner family walk).

Sophie is smiling a lot these days! She loves to coo and be talked to!