End of blogging

Since all our friends are on facebook, we are discontinuing our blogspot blog because it's too much to keep up with. With our lives changing and getting more busy, we'll just be updating our facebook pages with updates and pictures. Thanks for reading!

RV Road trip - update 1

We are back from our rv road trip up the CA coast. It was a tiring trip, but well worth it to experience it with our son. He enjoyed crawling inside the rv and seeing all the beaches along the way. The above picture is one of the many stops we made along the way up. It was right off the highway 1 that we camped out in our rv. It was also the night of the meteor shower. The stars were brilliant and abundant that night and we could see it very clearly, but we accidentally slept through the time when the meteor shower was supposed to occur.

Wedding weekend

Orion attended his first wedding celebration this weekend. It was his aunt's marriage in a courthouse ceremony and a dinner reception the following day. He wore two ties. The lighter one for the daytime and a darker one at night. He shared in some of the 10-course meal the adults had, but with just 2 teeth, we had to be careful what he could digest.

His two teeth still stand alone in his mouth. They popped out at 7-months of age and nothing else has come in since then. He just can't wait to get teeth so he can eat all the adult food he can get his hands on.

Bad Water Experience

It was Orion's first beach experience and he was fine as long as he watched the waves from a distance. Once daddy put Orion's feet in the water, he cried! The water was not warm like bath water. After that, he seemed to be traumatized when going in to get a bath. He used to love bath time. Now, it seems like he is scared of the water and cries. He also tries to climb out as he's crying and we have to pick him up out of the bath and hold him. This has been happening for the past 3 days so I hope he'll get over it. Otherwise, it'll be very painful to give him a bath every night.

Our 4th of July Weekend

The San Diego Fair wasn't one of our favorite places, but this year it was more enjoyable because Orion was there. He loved to people watch and see all the colorful banners, stuff animals hanging off the carnival games, and live animals. Everyone enjoyed chowing on the turkey leg, polish sausage, and famous funnel cakes topped with bavarian cream, whip cream and strawberries. The night before Amy went to see Transformers with a bunch of friends will Allen stayed home to fix the rv for the upcoming road trip. He's really excited to fix the rv and it's coming along nicely.

This picture (below) is our favorite's at the fair. It was taken during the piggy races. They sold these snouts for $1 and we had to get one. Orion kept pulling it away from his daddy's face and everyone around was worried for Daddy because it would have been very painful for it to snap on his nose. Orion seemed to enjoy himself very much here.

Here is our friend, Brian with Orion at the fair. Brian tagged along with us.

On Saturday, we headed up to LA to visit Mai-anh. We had shabu shabu and then played 7 games of Settlers of Catan, Cities and Knights. There is a running tally of who wins the most in 2009 as that person will be champion of 2009. Amy was the champion in 2008. She has 7 wins over the 2nd place person so far. Can she be stopped? The games get pretty heated at times as everyone is pretty competitive. Here is a picture of Orion and his aunt, Mai-anh at her house in LA.

Lil Boy

Time is going by so fast. Can someone please slow it down? These pictures look like he's in preschool eventhough he's only 8 months old.


So family life is pretty mellow these days. We take our little one to the park on the weekdays, zoo or wild animal park on the weekends and try to squeeze in some vacation time twice a year. We don't take big trips anymore, just little ones within the U.S. Next year, we may go to Hong Kong/China with Amy's mom, brother, aunts, and uncle from Norway.

Our adorable son is 8 months old this week

Welcome to the gun show

Bear had a visit at his friend, Aiden's house. Aiden is 22 months old and just had a baby brother so we went to visit them. Look at their guns. Bear can take Aiden!

Aiden was really nice to Bear. He shared his toys (all but his one favorite toy) and kept on trying to give him kisses. Bear got a little annoyed at the end and tried to keep crawling away from him, but Aiden can walk so he caught up!

A trip to the Birch Aquarium

Bear loves fish so we decided to take him to the Birch Aquarium. He couldn't stop looking at the different tanks and following the fishies with his little eyes.

Above: he has a look like, "Why am I holding this?"

Above: Little bear and mommy

Before & After

The bear got his first haircut. All the curly little hairs were cut off. He looks like a marine now. Here is his BEFORE shot:

AFTER:

Wild Animal Park

Weekend at the Wild Animal Park

Mother's Day

We went to church in the morning before heading back to cook for 14 people at our home. We had hot pot! Sorry, we didn't take any pictures, but there was a spread of food for hot pot (shrimp, octopus, squid, fish, tofu, beef, mussels, veggies, 3 types of mushrooms) and spring rolls for dessert.

Orion was up all day without much napping. He always gets too stimulated to sleep or eat when people are over. The below picture is after the festivities were over. The picture also represents how Amy felt at the end of the day too!

Not sure why he slept like this, but he was rolling and rolling until he found this comfortable position to stay in. Cute.

I hate spinach

Why did mommy have to feed me spinach!!!

Zoo

Orion's first trip to the zoo and he loves it! He especially loved being in the baby bjorn. He feels like he feels like he's driving and in the mix of things. It seems like his favorite exhibit is the orangutans. Although we went on a Monday, the zoo was quite packed for some reason. Doesn't anyone work these days?

Although we were only there for a few hours, it was perfect. We have a whole year to enjoy both the zoo and wild animal park with our annual memberships.

Playdates

Orion had many playdates this past week:

Susan and Marian (pictured below) are members of our small group. Their babies are a couple days apart. Susan has a baby boy, Caleb and Marian (wearing blue) has a baby girl, Alexandra.

Mei and Jeanine were memebers of my old church. We had a playdate with their kids. Jeanine has 3 girls and 1 boy. Mei (not pictured) has 1 little boy named David who is the same age as Orion. He is pictured in blue, sucking on Jeanine's arm.

Of course, here is Sofia, Camlinh and Roy's baby girl who is also born the same month as Orion. Orion seems to like her very much here! Orion and Sofia have a date at the zoo this coming week.

Our Easter

On Easter Sunday, Orion got all dressed up to go to church. He was a happy camper that morning because he knew Jesus has risen!

One more picture before heading off to church . . .

Service was outdoors that day so he had an opportunity to wear his cool shades again. Daddy always wears his shades so father and son matched that day.

The message was so exciting and stimulating that it really taxed him. He fell asleep in daddy's arms.

Little joys

No one understands the little joys and excitement parents go through unless they are parents. Orion slept a continuous 8.5 hours last night (9pm to 5:30am). It was so wonderful. Before bed, mommy fed him some rice cereal and then he gulped down 5 ounces of milk. We think the rice cereal did the trick because we thickened it more than usual. We started feeding Orion solids this week and at first he made these awful faces like we were feeding him poison, but he got a hang of it and welcomed the challenge of "chewing" his food. Chewing = using his tongue to push the contents against his upper mouth and then swallowing it. He was also able to sit very well on his high chair to eat all the rice cereal. High chairs are great and keeps them in place. If only they have handcuffs attached to them now :)

It's also very exciting to see his personality come out. He's such a little fella right now, but has a huge personality already. We think he'll be very charming and witty and very good at communication. We want him to be humble and that is why his chinese name means "humble" and "abundant." So abundantly humble?

The other night, Orion was sleeping in bed with us and mommy heard him pee, which is a weird occurance, but then understood why she heard him pee. It was because his diaper was off and he was peeing in bed. She felt the flow right away. Apparently, little Orion pulled off the tab that held his diaper together during the night. We caught him doing it again on his new diaper so knew instantly what had happened. Eversince then, Orion does not get to sleep without shorts or something that goes over the diaper so he won't be able to pull anything off. We underestimated his ability! After that incident, we decided it is time to purchase a king sized bed. We are looking into a memory foam bed because we heard great things about them. The king size will also give us more room if the whole family wants to sleep together, which is becoming a frequent occurance.

Too sexy for these shades

It was a bright day so we decided to put some shades on our little guy. He ended up keeping them on the whole day when he could have easily pulled them off with his little hands.

Last night, I heard Orion chuckling in his sleep and then I looked at him and he broke out into a huge smile. He must have been dreaming about being tossed up in the air and having fun.

Too cute for words

Orion's first boat ride

Orion went on a whale watching trip this weekend with his pal, Aidan (along with the mommies and daddies, of course). He was fascinated with the water. We think he will love swimming or water polo since he loves the water and he can kick and jump like no other 5-month old. Unlike mommy who got seasick, Orion was energetic and all smiles! The whale watching trip was overrated. We got to see some whales, but the boat ride back and forth was very long and grueling for 10 minutes of "whale" watching. The dophins were great and we saw a school of them passing by, which didn't make the trip a total disappointment. If it wasn't free, we would never put ourselves through that again. We can go to Sea World and see a killer whale jump and do tricks instead :)

Going backwards to Friday, Orion went to his first story time at Barnes&Noble bookstore. He was the youngest boy there, but was the best behaved. He was more interested and fascinated with other kids than listening to the story teller. At the end of story time, they ran a bubble machine and all the kids tried to pop the bubbles. That was Orion's favorite part too. He looked up at the bubbles and his eyes tracked them as they fell to the hands of little kids. We think we'll be taking him on a weekly basis from now on.

Melts your heart

Orion developed a habit of caressing mommy or daddy's face while trying to fall asleep. After caressing our face, he'll put his palm under our chins and once in a while he'll open his eyes to make sure we're still there and then he naps. He's been napping better with the ipod playing lullabyes. Before we bought an ipod speaker/dock, he would wake up in 20 minutes from a nap. Now, he finally sleeps for 1 to 2 hours which is a huge improvement. I guess he either likes music or it just drowns out all the other noises that can startle him.

We also bought a toyota rv. This rv is old and needs some of the furniture replaced inside, but it only has 80,000 miles and the important things are in working order. We will take our first road trip in August with baby bear.

Watch out Yao Ming

At Orion's 4-month doctor's visit, we are pleased to report the below:
Length: 95 percentile
Weight: 50 percentile
Cuteness: off the charts

Orion's upcoming public appearance:
03/06/09 - story time at Barnes N Noble
03/21/09 - whale watching at the San Diego Harbor Cruise

Me and grandma in Stanley Park in Seattle

4-month baby bear update

This is his "not so happy" face

Some developments from our baby bear at 4 months old:

1) Learned to flip from his back to his stomach all on his own.

2) Says "mam" or ""mom" randomly through the day. It starts and ends with an "m" so not sure if he knows he is saying "mom" or if it's just another random babble word of his.

3) Understands "nai nai" which means milk in Cantonese

4) While someone is balancing him under his arm pits, he can jump and throw his whole weight into the air and then kick his feet.

5) Kicks REALLY hard and splashes a lot during bath time

6) Can see and recognize familiar faces across the room and break out in a smile

7) Has a 6 hour stretch at night, which allows mommy and daddy to not wake up as often

More pictures of Seattle trip with mommy: