School Assembly

Barely one month into the new school year, we were hit with a pleasant surprise. Hickory Elementary gave us notice that Casey was being presented with an award at the year's first assembly. It's always good to hear you child is getting an award, but I'm especially proud of this award, mainly because of what it stands for. He was given an award for "Helping Others"... Way to go, big boy, Mommy and Daddy are very proud of you.

Helping Others Award

Award Winners

Doesnt He Look Thrilled

Sydney is Happy for his Brother

3rd Grade Winners

Mother's Day 2017

For Mother's Day 2017, Da Wang boys made gifts for Mommy and Nai Nai. It was an adventure... Trying to make concrete garden stepping stones for the first time. The idea was to celebrate Mother's Day while simultaneously commemorating the 3201 Onrado house. Daddy and Da Boys snuck over to the Onrado house and mixed the cement and poured it into the mold. It hardened to the point where Da Boys could add stones and personalize it. Mommy's read: I love you. You're the best XOXO. Love, Casey and Sydney.

Da Boys repeated the process for Nai Nai's stone. This time, instead of handwriting the messages, they used stencils. It read, "Thank you, Nai Nai and Yeh Yeh" . It was a way to thank them for all the help and support and to have a little piece of them in our new house.

Da Boys Making Garden Stones

Mommy's Garden Stone

Presenting Nai Nai with her Stone

Basketball 2017

Casey just finished another season of youth basketball; Jr. Clippers at the YMCA. He played in the 7-8 yr old division. Daddy was his coach. It was so amazing to see his improvement. He is now watching basketball on TV, discussing strategies, and imploring the professional players to 'rebound the ball' and 'play some defense'.. He's really gettin it!!

Two blurry game videos, featuring Casey (#40 in black)

Rebound and basket

YMCA Basketball 2017 from p wang on Vimeo.

Coast to coast for the layup

YMCA Basketball 2017 from p wang on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday 2017

We recently celebrated Da Boys birthday, 2017. They are now 8 yrs old and 6 years old! Oh my, where does the time go? This year, we had separate play date celebrations in Hickory Park. Each rather low key affairs, they invited friends to play and.... EAT DONUTS!!!

Casey's Crew

Sharing a Moment

DONUT!

Sydney's Crew

Da Boys had their choice for special birthday dinner. Of course, they could not agree on where to go. Sydney wanted McDonalds, while Casey wanted rolled tacos. Sensing a 'teaching moment' in logical thinking, we presented Da Boys with a choice... Option #1: Pick up McDonald's and take it to the rolled taco store... OR... Option #2: Eat at McDonald's one night, and the rolled taco store the next night. The logical thinking was... option #2 allowed for TWO special dinners. It took some convincing, but they finally bought into the logic. We had McDonald's one night, and the next night, we had 'McDonkey'... You see, the local rolled taco store is called El Burrito Jr; and it's logo is a donkey. Somehow, in all the conversations, McDonald's and McDonkey became a thing...
The night culminated with the most decadent chocolate cake ever. It was a chocolate cake lined with Kit-Kat bars and topped with M&M's... Severe chocolate overload!

Mario Decorations

Decadent Cake

Family Shot, with a Thrilled Daddy

Snow Day 2017

We had a spur of the moment snow adventure in Jan 2017. The Han's and the Tung's joined Da Boys in the snow at Mt. Baldi. We did some sledding, built snowmen, and had a snowball fight.

Our adventure started out with Daddy and Casey trying to "Go Big" on a steep sled run. Well, we ended up crashing, and Casey blamed Daddy. He got out of the snow throwing stuff at Daddy and hitting poor innocent Daddy. In his defense, after viewing the video, it was clear he slammed his face in the snow pretty hard...

Mt Baldi Jan 2017 from p wang on Vimeo.

Snow ball fight! Da Boys re-purposed sleds as shields; they hid in their bunker...

Various family pix...

The Han Boys and the Wang Boys...

Holiday Season Part 2

Part of the holiday season was spent catching up with, and spending time with friends, both old and current. I had the rare opportunity to introduce Da Boys to perhaps my oldest friend. (In the sense that her and I have the longest friendship, not in the sense that she is old as dirt) She and her family were visiting So. Cal, and I was fortunate enough to catch up with them twice; once in San Diego, and once near Disneyland.

We took this photo at Downtown Disney. Her two boys and our two boys. To me, the contrast in size is a powerful reminder that it all is going so fast. It seems that in a blink of an eye, Casey and Sydney will be as old and as big as Alex and Owen...

We rang in the New Year with the Nakamura's. As usual, all four boys played so well together. For the first time ever, Da Boys stayed awake until midnight!!! Quite the milestone...

Legoland Hotel

For our first adventure of 2017, we choose the Legoland Hotel. Sydney has mentioned that he wanted to stay at the Legoland Hotel; we decided to make that happen.

First, a little back-story. For two years now, we have had Legoland annual passes. It has worked out great, since Legoland is located in San Diego County, we tie visits in with trips to Nai-Nai's house. That said, for Da Boys, its always a special treat to stay in a hotel. Our plan was to maximize the hotel experience, even at the cost of neglecting Legoland resort itself. (We figured that we could goto the resort anytime)

Upon arrival, our first activity was the hotel pool. It was pretty much like any other outdoor hotel pool, except it came with floating Lego bricks!!

One thing Da Boys really enjoyed was... A TV in their bedroom!!! A definite highlight was for them to be able to be in their bunkbeds and watch TV until they were SO tired, they couldn't even keep their eyes open.

Another highlight for Da Boys was the treasure chest. They had to complete a scavenger hunt to decypher the code to the locked treasure chest. Each parent took one kid to separately do the treasure hunt. We all met back at the treasure chest so Da Boys could open it together.

The hotel also featured a castle play area. Da Boys made Lego guns (oh yay), and played shoot 'em up with other hotel patrons.

Toward the end of the trip, Da Boys rated the Legoland Hotel as "The Best Hotel Ever".

PS: They had so much fun at the hotel, we didn't even set foot in the Legoland resort...

Holiday Season 2016: Part 1

We had an action packed, adventurous holiday season. It started with a trip to San Diego during the week before Xmas. We visited Nai-Nai, and baked holiday sugar cookies.

Da Boys surprised Nai-Nai with a Christmas gift.

We had a slumber party in San Clemente with the Mirski family. All the children got along so well. Nicole taught Casey how to makes eggs for breakfast.

We returned home on Christmas eve; left Santa a note...

Apparently, Da Boys were good (enough) throughout the year, because Santa came, and even left Da Boys a return note... And ate the cookies and milk we left for him.

I guess Da Boys didnt think they were all that good all year long, because they sure were surprised on Christmas morning, once they realized the Santa visited. The big gift from Santa this year was the Nintendo 3DS!