Birthday Hike 2011

I think this is the third straight year that I've embarked on this hike from Idyllwild to Palm Springs on my birthday. Although Abby really doesn't like hiking a whole lot, she joined me on my birthday hike. I think that says a lot about her character.

Oooh, pine cone! Abby says. So funny because we live where there are pine cones EVERYWHERE.

Overlooking Suicide Rock.

The ferns had all leafed out, the greenery was really pretty.

Break time.

Willow Creek. We had several water crossings which really helped us deal with the heat. Wet bandanas feel really good.

Lunch.

Hidden Lake. A good sign that we're almost there.

Riding down the Palm Springs Tramway. A nice little reward after a 8.1-mile hike.

Abby's 10th Birthday

My baby is now in her double digits. How time has flown. This little girl has so much character, she cracks me up daily. We started the day early, waking at 4am to drive Daddy to work. After dropping him off around 6am we headed over to Denny's to claim her free b-day meal only to find out we were supposed to print something from the website so we struck out there. Abby ordered herself some cinnamony fried pancake balls.

Licking the syrup like cats. Being in public didn't stop them from acting goofy and laughing their heads off. ^_^

Abby's choice of birthday gifts usually aren't typical for someone her age. This year she wanted some Tevas and a Snowball plant. Home Depot didn't carry the snowball plant so she chose this beautiful hanging plant instead.

We had some time to kill before meeting up with Jiji and Baba so we checked out the Oceanside Pier, the longest wooden pier on the West Coast. The girls and I each had a camera and were taking a bunch of pictures, we must of had TOURIST written all over us.

A little souvenier from the pier gift shop... a heart shaped stone.

This year she wanted to go strawberry picking for her special day. I think the last time was when she was really little but she had seen pictures and wanted to do it again. So we headed over to Carlsbad's Strawberry Fields.

Carlsbad's only 30 minutes from where my folks live so they came out and joined us.

Grandparents always mean we get to eat out so we went to Coyote in Carlsbad. They had really good Chipotle salsa.

They got her a Pillow Pet. I know they are a gimmick item but they sure are cute. She named it "Mitsu" after her uncle.

Headed over to the beach after lunch. We caught some sand crabs, Sage dug a huge hole in the sand, and Emi just slept.

Met up with Daddy after he got off work at the Saigon Noodle House. Her b-day dinner request was the crunchy noodles topped with stir-fry, spring rolls and some Thai Tea.

She also wanted a can of whipped cream so she can do this whenever she wants. The can did not last long.

B-day cake... angel food cake with fresh picked strawberries and whipped cream.

Hope you had a good birthday!

The Many Faces of Abby

Abby is such a crack up, it was more entertaining to watch her face than to play Jenga. ^_^

Sage's First Bike Race

My boy is growing up. Sage raced his first mountain bike race at the Idyllwild Spring Challenge this year. He raced in the junior mens 11-12 category, a 7-mile course. Despite being sick the weeks prior to the race and not training much, he did really well, finishing in 1:09 hrs and coming in at 6th place.

He even got his race pic in the local paper. ^_^

Raisin Tree

The other day Sage was reading the box from my Raisin Bran when he read somewhere that their raisins are made from the best grapes. What??? Raisins are made out of grapes??? Yeah, what did you think they came from? A raisin tree. (chuckle from the rest of us) You're kidding, you really didn't know? No, they never taught that at school. Well, that's because everyone already knows that. I didn't. Yeah, obviously. But it was cute. Moral of the story... common sense is not so common.

Abby's 1st Clarinet Recital

After three years of piano, Abby wanted to try a different instrument so she tried the clarinet this year. She already had an edge over the other kids cuz she already knew how to sight read. She initially wanted to try the sax but was told her hands are too small. Maybe next year.

Children's Day 2011

Life's been so busy I've been forgetting to celebrate certain days. This year I totally forgot about Girls Day (March 3rd) till the day and so it turned out to be just a regular day. And I almost forgot about Children's Day (May 5). It was too late to pull out the decorations, I had forgotten to ask Sage what he'd like for dinner, and we had a orchestral recital later that day for the girls. It was starting to look like nothing special was going to be done. Emi says I been forgetting to do anything the last several years, which I proved her wrong by pulling up an old blog post from two years ago (^_^) but I had forgotten to do anything last year. So today, after I picked them up from school I took them to the Candy Cupboard for a little treat. Emi and Abby chose frozen chocolate covered bananas, Sage got a snow cone. Even took a picture, for the record.

Emi's 1st Shirt

Emi designs and screenprints her first t-shirt. A quote by Keltie Colleen:
"We Hurt
We Heal
And we prove to
ourselves that
we can survive."

Pancake Love

My 11-yr-old son made these for his sister, Emi.

Abby's 1st Quilt