today was the second annual sports day event organized by wipeout cancer.  last year, i participated in the obstacle course with some of my friends and we all had a really fun day.  this year, not only did i want to do the obstacle course, but i also wanted to do the bike ride with mommy.  the bike rides started in the morning, and my wave for the obstacle course started in the afternoon.  the timing was perfect.

we chose the 10K family fun ride.  it was the shortest and easiest of all the courses, but it was still way farther than i had ever ridden before.  mommy was pretty sure that once we got to the 3 mile mark, i would be done with it.  and then she would have to carry my bike 3+ miles back to the start, while walking her own bike.  but i kept insisting that i wanted to do it, so we signed up.

luckily, there were some last minute changes to the 10K route, and it ended up being a short loop through a campbell neighborhood with skills stations (and more importantly, snack stations) along the way.  we rode with logan and auntie cheryl.  mommy led the ride and auntie cheryl brought up the rear.  they did all kinds of funny stuff like making hand signals at turns and calling “car back” or “car up”.  it was the first group ride for me and logan and we had a lot of fun.  we especially liked yelling “car up!” every time we spotted a moving car (even when it was nowhere near us and not moving in our direction).

at the end of our ride, i estimated that we went 4.7 miles.  logan guessed 100.  i was closer.  we rode 5.24 miles.  not too bad for a couple of 4yos and some old ladies, huh?  i wanna go riding again.  and i also want to get a biking shirt like mommy’s that has a pocket at the back of it.  i thought that was so cool.

after the ride, we ate our lunches.  we had a lot of extra food because mommy ordered 2 extra lunches for daddy and sienna, but they ended up not coming, and kai-kai and his mommy ended up not coming either.  so gung-gung ate one of the lunches, and mommy ate 4.  when we finished eating, we had about an hour and a half before the start of my wave for the obstacle course.  so mommy left to go pick up some goggles at sports basement (a couple of miles away), and returned less than 30 minutes later.  when she returned, i was already running through the course.  we started early!

mommy was so upset.  she ran to me and was able to watch me through the course, but she felt like something just wasn’t right.  for one thing, i was wearing my flip flops.  (why didn’t anyone think to tell me to put on my shoes?)  my flips flops kept getting caught on the strings in the string trap.  and why did i start on obstacle #6 and not at #1 with the rest of the kids?  (mommy saw me start there while she was parking her car.)  i finished the course, but i felt gypped because i didn’t get to do the first 5 obstacles.  so i ran it again.  barefoot.

the obstacle course was fun.  some of the obstacles were the same as last year, but there were a lot of new ones, too.  one of the new ones was a water-filled ball and a series of long tubes.  we were supposed to place the ball into the tube, lift tube to make the ball roll to the other end, retrieve the ball, place it into the next tube, and repeat.  i quickly figured out that i could just roll the ball really hard so that it exited the other end of the tube, and then i didn’t have to lift that long tube so high.  i’m so smart, huh?  (but not smart enough to figure out that you can pretty much army crawl under the lowest strings in the string trap.)

it was a long (and HOT) day, but we had a great time.  i can’t wait for next year.  sienna is super excited because she’ll be old enough to participate next year, too!

happy birthday to sienna! 

she turned 3 years old today.  in keeping with our new tradition, sienna celebrated with her friends at school, then mommy sprung her from school early and took her to play at the park.  here are some photos from their afternoon together.

here’s what she’s been up to.

daily schedule:

her schedule is still the same as mine.  she still naps every day though.  i rarely nap.

things she’s good at:

• using the potty.  sienna has been potty trained for several months and rarely has an accident.  she still wears a diaper/pull-up at night, but usually wakes up dry.
• dressing herself.  she gets dressed by herself every morning.  sometimes she wears crazy outfits, and mommy and daddy allow it.  they call it self-expression.  i call it lack of fashion sense.
• sleeping.  sienna has suddenly become a good sleeper.  she used to be such a light sleeper that mommy would have to tip toe and hold her breath when going to check on her at night.  and half the time, sienna still woke up.  but almost overnight, sienna has become a much better (heavier) sleeper.  but that’s not to say that she doesn’t still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and try to crawl in bed with mommy.

things she’s working on:

• identifying numbers.  she can correctly identify most numbers, but sometimes she get one wrong and just starts to guess.  mommy and daddy never noticed this because we don’t work on “academics” at home, but her teacher pointed out this issue during her parent-teacher conference a couple of months ago.  i wonder if she’s dyslexic.  i’m pretty sure i knew all my numbers well before i turned 3.
• putting her shoes on the right feet.  she still puts them on the wrong feet sometimes.  i don’t get it.
• sharing.  sienna is not very good at sharing, even when i ask very nicely.  she is a mean girl.  not all the time, though.  sometimes she is very sweet and affectionate, but only when she feels like it.

favorite indoor activities:

• stamping.  she got some new stamps for her birthday and is having a blast with them.
• pretend play.  she especially likes to play restaurant where we take orders and serve pretend food that we prepare on our pretend grill.
• stickering.  is that a word?  she loves to play with stickers.  whether it’s a sticker activity book or just decorating things with stickers, sienna is all over it.  good things she doesn’t put stickers on the window of mommy’s car any more.  mommy didn’t like that very much.

favorite outdoor activities:

• sliding.  that’s where you’ll find her on any playground.
• biking.  she getting pretty good at riding her run bike.  she already wants to get a pedal bike!
• jumping.  since she is also a climber, this is a little scary.  she likes to climb up and jump down.  i hope she doesn’t hurt herself.

favorite book:  goodnight moon.  (that’s funny, because she chooses “brown bear” to read more often than any other.  she has the animals memorized but doesn’t always get the order right.  so when she “reads” the book, she guesses at the animal on the next page.)

favorite TV show:  super why

favorite song:  twinkle twinkle traffic light.  (that’s what she says, but she sings “let it go” all the time.)

favorite mobile app:  leo’s pad.  it’s a series of interactive learning stories.

favorite foods:  pasta, bread, cake… anything made of wheat.  sienna recently starting eating wheat, so this opens up a whole new world of foods for her!

favorite character:  little mermaid

favorite animal:  dog.  just like koda!

favorite color:  pink

one of the things that mommy and daddy’s volleyball team likes to do when they’re not playing volleyball is eat.  so a couple of times a year, we get together at  auntie lanny’s house for a BBQ.  and when i say BBQ, i actually mean cooking with swords and fire.

we always meet at auntie lanny’s house because, well, her house is awesome.  she has 4 kids, so there are plenty of toys to go around.  and her tri-level backyard has a deck, play structure, plenty of bikes and scooters, and an amazing pool.
in addition to the kebabs in the photo, we ate tri tip, corn and rice soup, citrus soba salad, dungeness crab ceviche, cucumber salad with shrimp and avocado, zesty lemon cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and more.  no, this was not your typical hamburger and hot dog BBQ (although there is nothing wrong with hamburgers).

after everyone was done eating, it was time for the pool party!  sienna didn’t get into the water because she took forever to finish her lunch.  the rest of us swam around, paddled around in an inflatable boat, and had a water fight.  that’s me with the water gun sitting on uncle greg’s shoulders.  you like how he helped me wage an attack his own family?  uncle greg is the best!

thanks to auntie lanny for hosting another fun volleyball team get-together.  we can’t wait for the next one!

my friend murci turned 4 last december.  her birthday is on christmas eve, a day when people are often out of town or at family parties.  so, instead of having her birthday party in december, she had it today.  (i’m telling you, these very belated birthday celebrations are a thing.)

murci’s birthday party was at a nearby park, right here in windemere where we live.  most of the other kids there were her neighbors, and we didn’t know any of them.  that’s okay though, because she also invited a guy and his 13+ animals to her party.  there were all kinds of animals, including a parrot, a tree frog, a baby chick, a turtle, a bunny rabbit, a tarantula, and even a scorpion!  the guy introduced us to all of his animals, and he was pretty funny.  he was nice too — he let us pet some of his animal friends, and we even got to hold a big giant snake!  the man said it was called a
boa constrictor.

after the animals left, i played in the playground by myself for a little while and sienna just hung out by the food table with mommy.  all of the other kids were playing together but i didn’t want to play with them.  i told daddy that i like murci but i didn’t like her friends.  we were being anti-social and not very good party guests.

sienna and i sort of wanted to leave, but we were excited to sing happy birthday to murci first.  but guess what.  there was no singing.  murci just walked around and passed out cupcakes.  apparently, she doesn’t like it when people sing to her because she doesn’t enjoy being the center of attention.  i don’t get that, but okay.  i really liked my cupcake.  i liked it so much that when our family posed for a photo while daddy had a cupcake in hand, i leaned over and took a huge bite of his.  sorry, i don’t have that photo to show you. 😛  [8/20/2014 UPDATE:  murci sent me the photo!  whaddya think?  did i do a good job describing it?]

happy belated, uh, 4 1/2 birthday to murci!

we celebrated sienna’s 3rd birthday today.  she wanted to have her party at athan downs park  because she remembers how much fun she had playing there with caylie, and today is the only day this month that the park is available.  sienna really wanted to have a hello kitty themed party with a hello kitty jumpy house, but it turns out that the city of san ramon does not allow jumpy houses in any of  its public parks.  so much for that idea.  we had to go to plan B.

as sienna’s friends arrived, we got the party started by playing in the park’s awesome playground.  sienna and her girlfriends also entertained themselves by collecting sticks.  the grown ups sat around the picnic tables, chatted amongst themselves, and ate food.  and there was A LOT of food to eat.

when the mermaid arrived (oh, did i mention that we ended up having a mermaid party?) she captivated all of our imaginations with a puppet show.  the grown ups were so surprised but sooo appreciative of the rare free time that they got to enjoy while someone else was entertaining their kid(s).  us kids loved the show.  we got to meet a parrot, a bunny, a dragon, and some mice on our journey to find sienna’s birthday gift.  all of us kids were so enthralled by the puppet show — we were glued to our seats.

after the puppet show, the mermaid painted pictures on all of our faces.  while she was setting up her paints and glitters, i organized a sponge race.  not everyone wanted to play but the kids who played had a lot of fun, and everyone won prizes (beanie babies provided by auntie mimi!).

after the mermaid left, we all sang happy birthday to sienna, and we got to eat cake.  there were two kinds of cake — and there was a lot of it — so mommy cut the pieces really big.  everyone got ginormous pieces of cake.  everyone except for me and sienna, that is. 🙁

after cake, some friends started leaving to go home. the rest of us migrated back to the playground and played until it got dark.

sienna’s party was so much fun that we shut the place down.  check out the photos from the party!

for my birthday this year, i want to have a party just like sienna’s.  same park, same puppet show, and even the same sponge game.

happy birthday to my sister!

what’s wrong with these pictures?  well, besides the fact that our pillows do not match our blankets.  give up?  sienna and i switched beds.

it was a silly idea that i threw out there, not really expecting it to happen, but nobody objected.  so sienna and i slept in each others’ beds tonight.  (we used our own pillows and bunnies.)

sienna’s bed is a little small for me, but i was comfortable.  and sienna got a kick out of sleeping in a big kid bed.  i think we’ll do it again some time, but not on mondays.  i want mommy to know where i am when she comes home from volleyball and checks on me.

we had an action packed day today.  first, we met up with the lims (matthew and jeffrey) and the fungs (claire and bella) at fairyland.  we really liked fairyland the first time we went there, so we’ve been looking forward to going back.  and we were especially excited to go this time because we were going to get to see a puppet show.  (thanks for the tip, auntie di!)  it was perfect because sienna and i just saw our first puppet show a couple of months ago, and loved it.  and the puppet show at fairyland was “jack and the beanstalk”, a story that we recently learned.  perfect!

while we waited for the puppet show to start, daddy saved our seats while sienna and i took turns exploring the attractions in the immediate area.  sienna rode alice’s wonder-go-round a few times (a carousel for little kids), but all i wanted to do was read books in alice’s reading room.

once the show started, we were glued to our seats.  auntie di thought we might be scared by the giants, but we weren’t — we enjoyed the whole show.

after the puppet show, we made our way around the rest of fairyland.  sienna loved the big dragon slide. my favorite was the alice in wonderland tunnel and the giant card maze.  all day long, sienna and i fought over our one magic key.  i actually liked turning the key to hear the talking storybook boxes, but sienna just liked holding the key so that i couldn’t have it.

after a couple of hours, we all started getting hungry.  i guess we really worked up our appetites on the jack and jill hill.  we walked a few blocks to the korean place that we found last time we went to fairyland.  yummy!

sienna fell asleep on the drive home from fairyland.  so when we got home, we dropped her and daddy off at our house, and then mommy and i went to uncle ritchie and auntie margaret’s house for a pool party!

there was so much food there, but we were so stuffed from our late lunch.  so we went straight for the pool.  i changed into my swim clothes and applied sunscreen on myself.  don’t you think i did a good job?

i tried riding around on the giant inflatable nemo, but that ended up being not very fun.  i had more fun shooting uncle ritchie with the water cannon.  i was swimming around with a foam water noodle while trying to negotiate a water cannon that was about as big as i am.  at one point, the  noodle got away from me while i was in the middle of the pool.  i was struggling to swim while holding on to the water cannon, so mommy started yelling to me from the pool deck.

mommy:  let go of the water cannon!

me:  *glug glug glug* why? *glug glug*

no way was i going to let go of that cannon.  don’t worry.  i didn’t drown.  we had a really fun day.  and after dinner, i practiced shooting that water cannon.  next time, i’m gonna get uncle ritchie good!

last year on july 4th (which i now know is also called independence day) we barbecued at home and kai-kai came over to light sparklers with us.  this year, auntie barbara was in town, so the whole tanaka family came over to our house.

auntie barbara told grandpa to wear red, white, and blue for the occasion.  he wore pink.  hot pink.  that was worse than the independence-ish day cookies that i helped mommy make last night.  they were supposed to be red, white and blue, but they came out looking more like pink, cream, and turquoise.  and that duck face that grandpa is making in the photo?  i don’t even know what to say about that. =P

grandma and grandpa also brought presents for sienna’s birthday, so of course, we had fun playing with our — i mean, sienna’s — new toys.  we spent a fun evening hanging out with family and eating a lot of yummy food.  a LOT.  last year, i said that the 4th of july is all about food, friends, fun, and fireworks.  well, we had food and fun, but no friends and no fireworks.  we didn’t even bother lighting the fireworks that we have leftover from last year.  but that’s okay.  at least daddy got an excuse to fire up the grill.  i think that’s all he really cared about.

after i got ready for bed, i looked out my window to see if could see any fireworks (like i did at our old house).  there were none.  but really, the disneyland fireworks show pretty much ruined all fireworks for me anyway.  nothing else will ever be able to compare.

when sienna started independent swim classes (swimming without mommy), she started in the yellow starfish level.  she had a male instructor that she really liked, and she progressed really quickly.  she passed the level the very next week.

when she started in the green dolphin level, she did pretty well at first.  she got through all but the last 2 skills, and then she got stuck.  i know what you’re thinking, but it’s not because her swim skills had plateaued.  it’s because her instructor left and was replaced by a new female instructor.  sienna did not respond well to the new teacher.  she refused to do her skills and was not a good listener.  that teacher only lasted a few weeks (maybe sienna had something to do with that!) and was replaced by another new female instructor.  sienna didn’t respond well to her, either.

mommy tried really hard to figure out what the problem was. did sienna not like the teacher? did she need to take a break from swim lessons? was the issue that she wanted to do the skills the other kids in her class were doing (two levels below her)? what was going on?

then one day, a male instructor (whose students no-showed) came over to help out with sienna’s class.  sienna wasn’t listening to her female teacher, but as soon as the male instructor stepped in, sienna started swimming like a fish.  what was that all about?  sienna said that she only liked boys, not girls.  i’m pretty sure she was only talking about swim instructors, but we’re all afraid that this is a sign of things to come.

so mommy put sienna on the wait list for other classes with male teachers, but in the mean time, we tried to make the best of it.  fortunately, we’ve had some fun activities planned for after swim class these past few weeks, and mommy and daddy are not above bribery.  (e.g. “sienna, you need to listen to your teacher if you want to go to the birthday party after swim class.”)  that worked.

it took her 4 months, but sienna finally passed the level (and got to ring the bell!).  she is now a blue jellyfish like me.  and more importantly, she is now an intermediate swimmer!  that means that she is going to start working on real swimming — arm strokes and side breathing and everything.

less than a week ago, our swim school started awarding medals to students for passing the the major categories (beginner, intermediate, advanced), so sienna got one.  mommy was able to negotiate a medal for me, too.  it’s a good thing, because it wouldn’t have been fair if i didn’t get one just because i passed before sienna. i’m gonna hang this medal with the rest of them. 😛

over the past couple of years, some of my friends have had birthday parties months after their actual birthdays.  i thought it was weird.  but it seems to be a thing, now.  this weekend, we went to logan’s birthday party (3 months late) and kai-kai’s birthday party (5 weeks late).

saturday was logan’s race car themed party in the park.  there was a tournament for all the kids to see who had the fastest car.  sienna and i almost forgot about it, but we grabbed whatever cars we could find lying around on our way out the door.  one of them had wobbly wheels and wasn’t even a hot wheels car.  we didn’t stand a chance.

i think the girl that ended up winning was one of logan’s friends from school.  but really, we were all winners at that party because of the taco catering!  the tacos were so yummy — sienna and i each ate 4.  daddy ate 12!  i want the taco guys to cook tacos for my birthday party, too!

on sunday, kai-kai had a pool party to celebrate his birthday.  the party was at his grandma’s house in santa clara.  we headed over there straight from swim class, so we were starving when we arrived.  we were not 100% sure if we were going to get into the water, but after we ate some food, in we went.  being the warm-water creatures that we are, we opted to stay in the hot tub and avoided the cold pool water.

after sienna and i finished swimming laps in the hot tub, it was time for cake.  and just as we finished singing “happy birthday”, the balloon lady arrived.  apparently, she is really really talented and specializes in life-size balloon creations like motorcycles and famous people.  we watched her make some cool things for other kids, like heart bracelets, ladybugs, and butterflies.  sienna wanted none of that.  she wanted a sword.  i asked for a bow and arrow.  the balloon lady had obviously never made weapons before, but she gave it a shot.  what do you think of sienna’s sword?  mommy and auntie victoria joked that maybe the balloon lady does bachelorette parties.  i have no idea what they were talking about.

we had fun at logan’s and kai-kai’s parties, but it felt weird wishing them a happy birthday because their birthdays were so long ago.  so instead, i’ll just say:  thanks for inviting us to your parties, logan and kai-kai!