March Report!

In March or should I say at the very end of February into 1st of March we took a mini vacation down to San Diego since our Zoo passes were expiring at the end of February and wanted to fit in a trip to the Safari Park... The easiness to get to the San Diego Zoo usually prevented us from visiting the Safari Park more often but oh that place is cool:-) Really LOVED the Safari ride, for about 30 minutes I totally forgot we are in a Zoo and not some African wilderness...:-)

This time we finally remembered to bring Madison's camera so she can capture some of the cool wild lives...

 

A huge hot air balloon Madison wanted to ride... I was glad it wasn't free:-)

 

 Since we packed our lunch all we had to do was to pick a bench with a view...

 

The view!!

Some of the cute animals we saw...

 

 

 

 

A special picture for Grant:)

On our way back to our car we even saw a hummin bird enjoying what the Park had to offer...:-)

During this vacation we stayed at a Double Tree in Del Mar, we wanted to earn some good double Hilton points and some before our trip to Japan... We usually find a hotel around the Hotel Circle for convenience but we wanted to explore other part of San Diego so this place was about 20 minutes from Down Town but right off 5 so was really easy to get around to AND look at the pool!! It was such a perfect heated pool for the kids! Even had a 1 foot kiddie pool for Violet:-) AND we got freshly baked chocolate chip cookies when we checked in... 4 Stars!

Violet officially pool debuted and she just loved it! I think we have another fish in the family:-)

View from our room... to the right you can see the cool pool...

then the patio area that extends from the restaurant inside... Can you spot the big flat screen TV in the picture? It was like having two TVs at night especially...

The reflection is weird but at night the pool was lit up so pretty...

I'm writing this post in middle of May so kind of miss the time when Violet could only threat to move then...:-) She got a nice crib for her which was our first time since Madison always slept between us so no need for a crib, well this baby likes her own space and we like our good crib sleeper!

 

At San Diego Zoo the next day we went down a path that is not part of our usual big circle route and discovered and really enjoyed the Cats path that is there until their new cat exhibit path gets completed...

On our way back home we stopped in Enchinitas for some play time for the kids and we kind of fell in love with the area a little... well just the beach/playground part...:-) I think the residents said it's kind of a hidden gem of San Diego:-) And we met the Giant Bubble Guy! We got his business card thinking maybe we will hire him for Madison's Frozen Birthday Party but we decided to try it ourselves and save money... Sorry bubble guy!

On the way home we stopped at Carlsbad to shop at the Crate and Barrel Outlet and noticed the hill right behind the outlet was covered with flowers!! You have to pay to get in so we enjoyed the view from afar but apparently it's a very famous spot in Carlsbad... I wish we could take a better picture though, it was just rows and rows of beautiful flowers!

That's it from our San Diego trip! What's next?
I guess we can focus on our girls to end this months' post...:-)

This leopard PJ was given to Madison first from Aunt Alyson but once again it's proving to be one of the cutest PJs of all to put on our girls... Thanks Alyson!

That's her buddy Giraffe... I seriously think she can't fall sleep without him so they are quite close although Violet pounds him against her crib pretty good when she is bored or upset, so it's more of a love-hate relationship...:-)

On March 18th!? We stood in line at Best Buy to get our hands on the Frozen DVD/Blue-Ray Combo that came with a cool Frozen Chronicle Book...:-) We are sooooo excited!!

In March she became the Trader Joe Coloring Contest Winner for the first time!! She has been working on her color contest for a while and finally hers got picked and we took home a bag of Trader Joe's goodies:-) Wish we got the coloring page back though:-) 

January Update/１月報告

One week after we came back from an arctic East Coast, we headed down to Sunny San Diego to meet up with Robert, Holly, Carter and Grant who had a two day lay over in San Diego on their way to their vacation in Hawaii:-)
とっても寒い東海岸から帰って来た１週間後、ハワイへ家族旅行の途中で飛行機乗り換えのため２日間サンディエゴに滞在するロバートとホーリー一家に会いに行って来ました。

This month Violet started her solids and so far loved everything we've given except Avocado just like her big sister... Only difference is when we gave avocado to Madison her face expressed Yucky! but Violet's face was of a confused look like what did you just put into my mouth!? She liked it after I mixed it with some broccoli puree though:-)

１月からバイオレットの離乳食を開始、今の所口に入れた途端に変な顔をしたのはアボカドだけで、それ以外は美味しそうに食べてくれてます：）アボカドが嫌いなのは誰かさん(マディソン)とそっくり：）

We really enjoyed the warm winter weather here in So Cal while we were sorry the rest of the country suffered and struggled with crazy winter storms... Spent some time on a Tennis court and our little girl is getting better and better with her hits and for some reason really enjoys being a ball girl so Dave and I get to enjoy some Tennis also...

アメリカ中過去に起こった事が無いくらいの極寒豪雪気候に困っている中とっても天気の良い南カリフォルニアにいる私達は外に出ていい気候を満喫(すみません...)。マディソンは練習する度にとってもテニス上手になっています、しかもボール拾いも好きなのでデイブと私がテニスする間とっても助かります：）ありがとうマディソン！

Dave's 35th Birthday fell on MLK's day this year so no work, Hooray! So we headed to Sunset Beach to spend a lovely morning together before we came home for our birthday steak dinner and homemade ice cream birthday cake dessert:-)

デイブの３５才の誕生日は好都合にこっちは休日、なのでクライン家はサンセットビーチでのんびりな午前中を過ごし、家に帰ってお祝いのステーキご飯とアイスクリームケーキ：）誕生日おめでとうデイブ！

 

 I wanted to post this picture because if you click on the picture and get a larger view of it you can see Violet's lips forming a perfect heart!

この写真をクリックして大きくするとバイオレットの唇が完璧なハート型になっているのが見えるでしょ：）とってもかわいい。

This month we had to say good-bye to my Grand-pa Iwai in Japan on January 17th. He was 10 days short of his 92nd Birthday... Unfortunately the last time I got to see and talk to him was three years ago when I went back to Japan with 1 year old Madison so it's been a long time.  He was one of those quiet grand-pas that smiles a lot and says very little. He was a skilled plumber and after he retired from that job he became a mail delivery person until he retired the second time. He LOVED spending time in his beautiful flower garden behind my parent's house and yes he had many Bonsai trees:-) A lot of my memory of him takes place in that garden, him and a pruning scissors. The back of my parents' house opens up to the garden, so growing up I would come home from school and eat my snacks from the sunny sitting area and watch him tend to his flowers. Once in a while g-ma would join me and this was the time he was most chatty talking about each flower...
１月１７日にお爺ちゃんが９１才で亡くなりました。あと１０日で９２才の誕生日だったそうです。アメリカに住んでいてなかなか日本に帰って来れないので最後にお爺ちゃんと話したのは３年も前。私のおじいちゃんとおばあちゃん４人の中で一番静かで口数少なく、でもいつもニコニコしている人でした。庭にある花や盆栽の手入れが大好きで、家の窓際に座ってお爺ちゃんが庭で水くれするのをおやつ食べながら見ていた記憶が沢山あります。

Because I've only been told about him passing and how the funeral was, it probably won't fully sink in until we go back to Japan this Summer. I wish I could have been there to say good bye to him, but I was told so many people came to pay respects that they couldn't all fit inside the funeral home... Hearing that gave me some peace during this sad time:-)
やっぱり家族からお爺ちゃんが亡くなった事やお葬式の事を聞いているだけだから、実感は半分ぐらいです。でも、沢山の人達がお爺ちゃんのお葬式に来てくれたんだよって聞いて、とっても嬉しい気持ちです。

This picture was taken for their 50th anniversary and I must say they do look great:-)
この写真はおじいちゃんとおばあちゃんの金婚式の記念の写真です：）

Dave and I were talking about what we can do to memorialize him here and we were going back and forth with the idea to plant some of his favorite flowers then a sweet couple from Church gave us a card and a gift certificate for a nursery we frequent so we can buy his favorite flower and plant it. Wow how so nice of them! so one Saturday morning we visited the nursery and were able to find the Japanese Peony and Azalea in memory of him and plant them in the sunniest spot in our yard.
ちょうどデイブとお爺ちゃんの祈念として庭にお爺ちゃんの大好きな花を植えようと話し合っていた頃に、教会からの知り合いの夫妻が花を買う様にってお金をくれたので、早速その土曜日に大好きなへ植物園へ行って来て、庭で一番日当りの良い所に植えました。
お爺ちゃんの大好きな牡丹とツツジ科サツキです。

 

December Update

Since Thanksgiving happened so late this year we felt like we got pushed into December rather hastily and because we were still working on our dance room we had to wait until mid month to really start enjoying this Holiday season...

Dave wrapping the lights around our pine tree... Totally forgot to take pictures of our outdoor lights this year but it really turned out great!

Let's start with our home improvement report:-) Before Violet started to crawl we wanted to replace the dog pee stained(previous owner's fault) carpet in the addition with laminate and at the same time planned on moving the bed and a dresser into the office/Madison's work space... Let me tell you the whole process took FOREVER! like a month and a half to be exact. Anyhow we painted the new bedroom wall, we put up crown moldings and replaced the ceiling light with a new and modern ceiling fan with a remote... We found out that caulking is your best friend and experience we got from trying to replace ceiling fan ourselves is priceless. Especially the first one we got was broken but of course we didn't know that and thought we did something wrong until our friend Ron who is a contractor came to our rescue with his handy machine and declared the receiver broken:-) After this experience replacing much bigger ceiling fan in the dance room was completed with much more confidence:-)

This was a picture from when the house was listed... Since we moved in we've updated it by removing the panels and painting the wall to be used as our office but I guess we never took pictures of it...

We were so happy when we were able to fit in our huge platform bed and a dresser in here...

Our first crown molding job! Dave did all the measuring and cutting and it was trial and error but he did a great job:-) 

Once we were able to move everything out of the dance room Dave got busy ripping up the carpet and I started priming the walls during girls' nap time which was never long enough... It was so much to paint but relaxing at the same time so I really enjoyed it...

Since we walk through this room after using the pool and since it was the cheapest option we decided to use laminate and we were able to get everything under $500... And help from our friends was a must! It took them about a day and a half to finish:-)

As soon as there was a finished space Madison wanted to bring her toys there and nest... Very cute:-)

We originally planned on painting the ceiling too but we couldn't fit it in within the time we had before our xmas party so we will probably hire someone to do that down the road BUT we did replace the ugly ceiling fan with a modern ceiling light:-) Also priming the wood paneled walls was all we could fit in so we will probably tackle that this summer!

Can't start the Christmas celebration without the ginger bread house 

"A ginger bread house on a gummy bear lake":-) 

Tried the ginger bread house kit from Trader Joe's this year... Probably go back to the Wilton brand next year so I don't have to prepare the frosting...

Around mid November Dave came home with an opening statement and pretty good arguments to convince me that we should get back on the Disneyland wheel and get the cheapest annual passes so I can take the kids during the week but still have our Summer and Holiday times free to do whatever Southern California has to offer... I lost but in my defense I was caught off guard... I guess this will be a good use of our money since we will have some place to go and run around during the week(Yes, I know we have regular playgrounds and parks to do the running around but you never run into Mickey and friends there...:-) and since Dave gets home around 3:30 we can spend plenty of time at the park on those days... Madison has been missing Disneyland sooooo much that we wanted to surprise her somehow, so we wrapped up our 3 passes and hoped her bright little mind can put the two and two together... Here is a video...:-)

We found this out with the Xmas present from Santa that she has some what low key, kind of shy reaction to things she really wanted so that's what we got...

 As I previously mentioned, we went to see Frozen in Downtown Disney on Black Friday and afterwards Dave sneaked over to the ticket booth while I distracted Madison with shopping and renewed our passes and we had to keep that a secret until Dec. 7th when Dave was "slightly under the weather" and we got to go to Disneyland and celebrate our getting back on the Mickey wheel...:-)

Oh how we missed you Midway Mania!

That day we had one and only goal to achieve... A Christmas Family Picture!! We dressed the girls in matching white lace dresses and grabbed Madison's princess dress to change into later and we were off:-) The place was same as how we left it and the fast pass line to the Cars Racers as long as before, nothing had changed... We were back!

On the 11th, we hosted the Christmas Party for families with kids mostly 7 and under... It was a lot of fun and we were so glad for the space we have to host a party like this:-) We decided to do "Minute to Win it!" games as the entertainment and it was a hit! Kids got into it and even more the parents! We have a surprise rubber band shooter among us so watch out:-)

Since we were going to be out of town for the actual Christmas, our Christmas took place on the 21st. Madison and I made the cookies for Santa and now that she really understands what is happening this might have been the first year she had trouble falling asleep:-)

Madison got the Elsa dress and Violet got the Olaf stuffed toy from Santa...:-)

Our happy mess!