SATURDAY: We decided a few months back that it’s time we visited our good friend, Anne Eurose and her family. We woke up at 3am on Saturday morning and was on the road by 3:40am. Brooke wasn’t too happy about this but Aidan woke up alert and naming all the things he sees (Stars! Moon! Light!). They were both up until 4am and fell asleep until 7:30am. We stopped at Harris Ranch for the exotic McDonald’s breakfast, changed the kids out of their PJs and were on our way. On the road, the kids amused themselves with ‘trees’ and ‘mooooos’ (aka cows). We didn’t really need to use the DVD player until the last hour of our drive.

We reached Tracy around 10:30am and Mike took a nap while Eurose and I entertain our kids. They LOVED their Ate Eurose’s house. I have since they coined it as “Abris Daycare”. Completely stocked from a beautiful yard with a playground and toy cars/bikes to a toy room downstairs (of course, well organized). They were super comfortable there. Brooke kept asking to go outside. Once outside, she wanted to go in to watch Nemo. We had lunch and George came by to visit and we caught up and talked about old times until the kids’ nap time. Around 1:30-2pm we left Tracy to continue our adventure to San Francisco.
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In 1998, the family when on a road trip to Yellowstone National Park. My mom decided to bring a notebook and pen to document and log the trip. We all thought it was such a lame idea…until now.

12 years later, Van found the log and emailed it to us. I was tearing up from laughter! Best part is, we still all have the same jerky personalities we did back then! I had to blog about it to keep it somewhere I can go back to read it anytime!

Please enjoy:
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Brooke @ the beach

Not only did we take a vacation from our everyday routine, but I also took a little vacation from WordPress!

We had a great time in Maui with the kids. The flight there was rough since they only napped an hour and we were forced to entertain them for the next 5 hours, but it was okay. Could have been worst. The only major crying fit was our fault. I was filling out the agricultural survey while Mike was tending to Aidan and Brooke rolled right off her seat on to the floor! Poor thing got a big bump on her head while Mommy & Daddy got horrified, judgy faces from the other passengers. LOL. That’s what we get for dropping the ball…or dropping the Brooke in this case.
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Out of the blue, Vil asked us if we wanted to do a group trip to Mammoth, and fairly quickly we were able to choose a date, book a condo and several email threads later concerning the menu for the weekend, we were on our way!

Mommy and Aidan

This would be the first time the kids experienced snow and they…hated it! Hahaha. Hate is such a strong word. At their very young age, all they knew was that the extreme cold and the harsh winds blowing in their delicate little faces did not equate to a “good time.” But we have to try! Maybe they will enjoy it more when they are a little older.

Brookie and Daddy sledding…she didn’t mind it as much as Aidan

I hit the slopes with Hong and Roger. I haven’t snowboarded since 2006…ladies and gentlemen, just let me say, “It’s NOT like riding a bike…you will forget.” LOL. I was so off – didn’t know which foot goes in first (thank goodness for my leash). Mammoth has this awesome deal – $40 for just the beginner lifts. Since I usually stick to just one chair, this was perfect for me. The first run, I was SO nervous. But I did okay. The 2nd and 3rd were much better once I was familiar with the trail. 3 runs – that’s 2 more than I thought I’d do! LOL. I always thought I hated snowboarding but I realized, I enjoy it. What I hate is the crowd I have to deal with. Because of my snowboarding accident in 2003, I have post-traumatic stress when I hear people boarding/skiing up behind me! This was the perfect weekend to go – off-season and Easter weekend…the slopes were pleasantly empty.

Me and Roger on the slopes

The rest of the weekend was filled with great food (we were never hungry), board games and poker, wine, wine, wine and as always, a whole lot of laughing. I hope we keep this as a tradition. It’s a great trip to share with friends.

A friendly game of Scrabble

The sisters and I decided instead of birthday presents to save that money to take a trip together…just a weekend trip and just the three of us. Bao decided where to go (since we let her pretty much decide everything…with the exception of eating at Giacomo’s two nights in a row…) and she chose Boston.

I took the red eye Thursday night and landed at Logan airport at 6 in the morning! Bao and her friend (who I have no clue how to spell his name) picked me up and we ate at the very Bostonian authentic, IHOP (I heard Lincoln ate at the one we were at). Van arrived around 8am and the fun began! Instead of a play-by-play of our entire weekend, I’m going to just give short reviews of all the places we visited:

Sights
Boston Public Library – beautiful and it opens early and the price is right – free!
Prudential Center – probably would have been cooler if we went into the building but we just hung out at the mall.
Boston Public Gardens – they were redoing this so it wasn’t at it’s best.
Faneuil Hall – we pretty much just took a picture with the Sam Adams statue and continued our way to Quincy Market.
Quincy Market – so fun and can be overwhelming. We ended up at Boston & Maine Fish Co for a cup of clam chowder and a pint of Sam Adams for Baoby.
Harvard Yard – gorgeous; you feel smart just standing on campus.
Freedom Trail – so much fun; everybody should do this especially if it’s your first time in Boston.

Eats
Atlantic Fish Co. – a scratch kitchen, meaning everything is made from scratch! We had 2 dozen raw oysters and the clam appetizer. All was delicious!
Mike’s Pastry Inc. – we made the mistake of ordering one of each of their cannolis which turned out to be 9! They’re huge. One a person is more than plenty. We shared 2 whole ones took a bite of each and had to through it away since it will get soggy overnight. Fabulous though. One of the best cannolis I ever had. Our favorite was pistachio.
Giacomo’s Restaurant – Bao’s favorite place by far. Pasta is handmade and delicious. There’s always a line so get there when it opens at 5pm. Cash only.
Boston & Maine Fish Co – Had a cup of clam chowder that was the perfect lunch!
L.A. Burdick – Famous for their truffles shaped like mice and their hot chocolate. We had their hot chocolate which was like drinking a liquid chocolate bar and a few of their French macarons. Small but delicious.
Fugakyu – Best sushi ever! Try the ladybug maki. So refreshing and the restaurant is cute too!
Finale – This is fun to experience but I thought it was just ‘okay’. The idea of it is fun but the desserts aren’t anything special. If I had to choose one (luckily I didn’t), I rather go back to Mike’s Pastry for a cannoli.

We flew out to Washington DC for the Ngo/Oberly wedding. After many, many months of being nervous, it wasn’t so bad!

On our flight there, Jackie and Khoa flew with us and we luckily had empty seats by us so we had more room and the help of our great cousins. The babies did great. Very little fussing so that made us happy. The worst part was put car seats into the rental car while it’s raining heavily on our Californian a**es (we were wearing shorts and flip flops of course.

After the wedding, we flew out to Florida to visit the Hogans and their newest addition, Madeline. At take off, the kids were both fussy and wanted Mommy! I was able to get Aidan to fall asleep then I traded him for Brooke and got her to sleep too. It was smooth flying after that since they slept the entire flight to Florida!

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Me at 18 weeks

Ritz sent me to Seattle for Amazon’s CE Summit 2008. Babies got their first trip without Dad & got to ride on their first boat.

we had an awesome and very relaxing vacation for labor day weekend. bao, thanh, mike and i went to mazatlan and stayed at an amazing resort. the service was incredible (bao’s special delivery flan) and the people were so nice! it was always a party (they give away alcohol like it’s tap water)…

highlight of the trip:

thanh’s tequila shot at el capitano

photos:

running into jason at LAX

riding the pulmania around town

$20 tour of all of mazatlan

basketball in the pool

happy hour at 11:30am

and more pictures…

we celebrated mike’s 30th birthday (as well as linh’s 31st & jason’s 30something…haha).

pictures from all the festivities are available for your viewing pleasure!

we’re back from our 2 week winter vacation in europe. overall, it was great…but the worst part was probably not being home for the holidays…

highlights::
* oh, you’re staying…
* the guy from Lost
* vil’s backpack
* the best picture of “thi”
* creepy hand guy
* horizontal eyes
* bird bombing
* “you’re an asshole”
* pate, for breakfast?
* are you serious?! … i’m dead serious
* photographer of choice, linh le
* french perfume on a 8 hour train ride

pictures: