Happy 8th Birthday, Lucas!

Lucas is 8. How is he 8?!

Birthday morning

Yes, he doesn't look like he's fully awake yet. I needed to take a quick picture of my birthday table creation before his sister destroys it. DIY Lego Table FTW!

It's now become tradition for the birthday kid to spend special time with Mommy. Luckily for Lucas, he's a summer baby which means that I'm on summer break and have all the time in the world! He wanted to try something new, so I suggested pedal boating at Shoreline. But before Shoreline, we had to fuel up at his favorite... McD's!

Breakfast burritos

Ready to pedal around the lake

A very tiring hour together

After our adventure, we met up with Dad at Apple. Lucas wanted pizza for lunch... so pizza it is!

 His typical olives and pineapple pizza

 Behind us is the new Apple campus

The birthday boy got to choose his dinner of choice with his family. He wanted... (take a wild guess) PIZZA again! So off to BJ's we went!

 Surrounded by his two crazy sisters

Grandma wanted to treat Lucas out for his birthday as well. So we had a huge Chinese feast!

 All he wanted was fried rice

As you can probably tell, his favorite food is pizza. He can eat pizza every single day. The boy enjoys building/creating things and wants to become an architect and world traveler when he grows up. I approve of both those career choices. He's shown an interest in sports now and can't wait for our basketball hoop in the backyard when we move back home. Lucas wishes he had two brothers instead of sisters. He doesn't like being outnumbered by girls all the time. I just tell him he's lucky to be surrounded by such beautiful ladies. He's too old to have this symptom, but I think he might need a hearing aid. He never hears anything I say unless I start yelling at him. Yup, that's Lucas for ya! 

 Happy 8th birthday, Lu-Lu

Summer Vacay-cay 2019

It's tradition for us to go on vacation the day after Memorial Day. Pretty much all the other students are still at school, which makes wherever we go much less crowded. This year, we decided to fly down to So Cal and visit... 

Great Wolf Lodge!

Whole family shot of GWL

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures in the waterpark because I didn't buy one of those waterproof phone holding lanyards. Believe me when I say this though, we had a blast! The lines were very short (if any) and we just went up and down the slides the entire time. I can't wait for the Manteca one to open next year! 

 Evangie loved the characters

Char thought they were okay... nothing too special

Lucas thought he was too cool for them

But when there's no lines, you take picture with whoever you see!

Evangie spotted "ah strawberry" (aka ice cream)

Just hangin'

Boba shop around the corner

Lucas's fake enthusiasm

Good bye GWL! 

(Note: 2 days and 2 nights is probably the perfect amount of time to be there.)

After we checked out of GWL, we headed to downtown Disney. No, we did not make it into Disneyland. Due to the housing project and me not being paid over the summer, we gots no money! However, the kids were perfectly fine not going to Disneyland. It was also the opening weekend of Star Wars Land. I think Dan was more disappointed than the kids. 

 Finally had good pizza @ downtown Disney

Matchy matchy

Char really loves matching with me. I will take it as long as I can! Evangie is at that age where it's still hard to find clothes that match us. One more year, Evang...

The child that looks most like me, I guess?

 The ladies found some Friends

 Goodbye So Cal

Another note: I purposely had us decked out in Warriors gear while down in So Cal. It was also game 1 of the Finals (and the Warriors got embarrassed!). It was a bit embarrassing walking around with our Warriors clothes when not in the Bay Area after a bad loss... 

Another Kinder Grad

Two years later, we have another Kinder grad. I learned that Charlotte is silly (based off what all her teachers wrote about her in her yearbook) and always smiles. Hmm... I wonder where she got that from.

 Congrats Char Shinn

 We left Evangie at daycare

Char & Daddy

Me & my baby

Graduation signifies the beginning of summer! What better way to start summer off than...

 iPad time!

 ... and cherry picking!

Hello, Summer 2019! The summer where I don't have a backyard to throw the kids in before and after dinner. The summer where we don't have central A/C. The summer where our house is just a piece of land right now. 

Our House

We handed over our keys to our contractor on January 8. Since then, we've obsessively driven by/stopped by our house pretty religiously. We've seen the entire demo process (it's completely different from demo days on TV). We've seen the important (but boring) work of laying down the proper foundation. Right now, I'm just waiting for framing to be done so we can FINALLY see the skeleton of what our future house will look like. I keep telling myself that although the process is tedious (and I have wanted to kill someone every once in a while), it'll all be worth it when we move back home.

One last picture in front of our house till it's not ours for the next year

Everything was taken apart from the inside out

Remnants of our fireplace

Walls slowly being stripped away

Char dancing through our former living room

Almost bare... roof = gone

Our (dead) front lawn and (disgusting) driveway... destroyed!

Destroying everything bit by bit

Our cheap and not-so-functional roof... gone!

This lot will become something beautiful in a few months

And there you have it... our former house

Lots of digging for the foundation work

This house lived a good life for the past five years. However, as time went on, more and more things were coming apart. Our biggest pet peeve were the unleveled floors. A Hot Wheel car can easily slide towards the backyard without any pushing. With our new solid foundation, we will no longer have this problem. 

Containing the children while I look at house stuff

 How the entire family is entered while I look at house stuff

I'm still crossing my fingers that we can move back home just in time for the holidays. 

February 2019

I honestly forgot what happened in March. I guess I was busy with work and school and once again... life in general. Sorry, March 2019. You got shafted.

February was more special because both girls turned a year older. How is my baby no longer an official baby?! 

 The birthday ladies - birthdays are 13 days apart (I couldn't get it to be exactly 2 weeks)

 Save the cheerleader, save the world

 Two year old nerd alert

 Kissy kissy

 Celebrated Char's family birthday at OSF

 My little prodigies 

 Loves HK and girlie stuff just like her sissy poo

She has a love for shoes

 1/3 of what you see was what she got for her birthday

The third child got the biggest shaft birthday-wise. We didn't have a party or a special celebration dinner for her because... she doesn't care! As a veteran mother, I know she'll care by the time she turns three. So, I'll waste my efforts on her birthday next year. Till now, I'm still riding the wave of not officially celebrating anything... yet!