A sample text widget
Etiam pulvinar consectetur dolor sed malesuada. Ut convallis
euismod dolor nec pretium. Nunc ut tristique massa.
Nam sodales mi vitae dolor ullamcorper et vulputate enim accumsan.
Morbi orci magna, tincidunt vitae molestie nec, molestie at mi. Nulla nulla lorem,
suscipit in posuere in, interdum non magna.
|
I like hockey. The boys like hockey. (Sucks that the Sharks couldn’t get past Chicago in the Western Conference Finals this year!) As we walked through the game area at Great America, we walk by the hockey shooting game. You get 5 shots to get it into the goal. The goals at the bottom corners are worth 1 point, the ones in the top corners are worth 2 points and the one in the middle is worth 3. Ryan saw people trying to shoot goals and wanted to give it a try. I was hesitant at first because it was $5 and I saw some adult players who couldn’t even make one goal. But in the end I gave in (like I always do) and let Ryan give it a try. He made 3 out of 5 goals! And won himself a San Jose Sharks teddy bear in the process. Good job future NHL’er Ryan! We missed the first shot in the video, but trust us, it went in.
Wow, I’ve been really bad about blogging. It seems like there are so many activities that are lumped into the last few weeks of spring and into summer that we’re just too busy to write about them all. I’ll try to catch up in the next few days (or weeks).
At the end of April, Lisa and I ran in the Mission City 5K Fun Run. As part of the run, we received tickets to get into Great America since they sponsored part of the run and the course wound through the park. This was the first 5K we had run in years but we both finished better than expected.
 
After the run we took the boys to Great America. Some friends gave us two extra tickets so we asked Amy and Seina to come along with us. Everyone had fun on the rides and enjoyed all of the junk food. It actually wasn’t too busy and the weather was nice so it turned out to be a wonderful outing. I compiled some photos and video clips and made the mini video below. I’m starting to really like my Macbook Pro. = )
We finally got around to putting a photo and video slideshow of our trip to Lake Tahoe together. I’m still working out the integration of multiple songs so it isn’t so abrupt, but here’s our first pass at it. Hope you enjoy! (Keep an eye out for the little snippets of video.)
One of the projects that 2nd graders complete is their family tree. So James interviewed Grandpa on my side and Grandma on Lisa’s side to get information to complete the family tree. He learned a few new things that I had not heard of previously and incorporated those facts into the speech he had to give. He always does a good job of giving his presentations as long as he likes the topic he’s talking about. Hmm, I wonder where he got that from?
We had two entries for this year’s Science Fair. James worked on his theory of how large animals like dinosaurs were able to hold themselves up. And we had Seina working on trying to figure out if color affected which M&M melted or dissolved more quickly. They worked well together for about 45 minutes and then ran off to play. And they also ate quite a few M&M’s in the process! James and Seina did well explaining their projects the night of the Science Fair. And of course Seina’s booth was a big hit with the kids because she was handing out M&M’s!
 
Couple of videos of James and Ryan from ice skating day at Cupertino Ice. The one with James is about an hour and a half into the public skate session. It was super crowded that afternoon so we were using the people as an obstacle course to skate through.
James took some ice skating lessons in late spring/early summer of last year. He seemed to like it OK but didn’t really ask me to take him again. Ryan however, was asking me to go ice skating every week. And since it’s hockey season and we watch a lot of Sharks games, he has been wanting to go ice skating more and more. So last weekend I finally got a chance to take the both of them.
James got his ice skates on and picked up where he left off and was skating around the ice with ease. Ryan was a different story. He would not want to stay up on his own and kept having me hold him up. I kept telling him to use his own legs for balance and to just “stand” on his own. This went on for a good 30 minutes before he actually started using his own legs to stand on. My arms and back got a good workout!
Once Ryan started using his own power to stand and skate, he started to get the hang of it. It will take some more times on the ice for him to really get the balance and pushing himself off, but he really enjoyed being out there. He’s already asking when we can go ice skating again. = )
 
We have always talked about going to the snow during the 2 week holiday break off from work and school. In year’s past, it was all talk and we never got around to booking anything or making any attempt to get to the snow during the break. Before James started school, we could go anytime in the month of January or February. This always worked out well because it was less crowded and we generally had better snow conditions. Well, this year we finally booked Tahoe during the winter break. We actually stayed there over the New Year’s Eve long weekend.
The drive up was smooth with no issues as there was no rain or snow on the roads. We spent a full day snowboarding on Thursday and it was amazing to see James do so well with having only taken one snowboard lesson. Heavenly wasn’t crowded at all either. There was rarely a wait to get onto the lifts that day. Here he is cruisin’ down the mountainside with me attempting to follow. James and I had a great day on the slopes!
While James and I were boarding on down the mountain, Lisa and Ryan went site seeing and ended up at a nearby park where there were lots of kids sledding. Lisa will tell you the full story, but in essence, she almost let Ryan slide down an icy, perilous set of stairs! Here’s the picture of the infamous stairs.
We went back to the same park the next day and had a fun afternoon sledding near the lake. We didn’t bring up any sleds with us, so we had to stop by the local Rite-Aid and picked up some $12 sleds. The hills were steep enough for the saucers to pick up some good speed. Here’s a shot of James catching some air and Ryan flying off the saucer. (Ryan got right back up though! Although he didn’t want to ride by himself after that first run.)
Before heading home on Saturday, we went out to Emerald Bay to take in the beauty of the lake and to take some pictures. It was a great trip even thought it took over 3 1/2 hours to get down just the mountain part of Highway 50!
  
We did our regular Christmas celebration. We first start off on Christmas Eve by going over to my parents house to celebrate. My brother, sister, her husband and our family friend were there to help us start the Christmas holiday celebrations. This is the start of the Christmas present opening marathon for the boys. We try to instill the idea that Christmas is about giving and spending time with family and friends, but somehow the message gets lost in the opening of the piles of presents.
 
 
On Christmas morning, we make a nice big breakfast and then have Lisa’s Mom, Grandmother, and brother over. Before that though, we have the boys open their presents from Santa. For now, Ryan still believes in Santa but James is starting to have his doubts. I think he continues to go with the idea though for the extra presents. And then after breakfast, we dig into the pile of presents under our tree. This year, the Zhu Zhu Pets hamsters were the prize gift. James’ favorite gift though was a Star Wars Lego book that listed out every single Star Wars Lego set ever made. He’s already starting to gather ideas for next Christmas!
 
After a bit of a break in the afternoon, we head over to Lisa’s aunt’s house for Christmas dinner, the Secret Santa gift exchange, and the white elephant gift exchange. It’s a bit of whirlwind 24 hours but we get to visit family, friends and enjoy a lot of wonderful food
We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New 2010!!
|
Friends
|
