Between the New Years...

For the first time , our family of four travelled to San Francisco for a night of fun, and then on Saturday, a celebration with the Northern California FCC for Between the New Years (as in Between our New Year and the Chinese New Year).

Friday night we stayed down by Fisherman's Wharf and had a great dinner and walk around (in the rain). Saturday morning we went to Chinatown for a little walk and shop, and a VERY funny thing happened. We were walking along, and we got in trouble by a Chinese lady for not having a jacket on Austin. She told us it was too cold and he needed to be bundled up. The funny thing about this is, that everyone going to China is told to keep the babies bundled up and in tights all the time with no skin showing or we would be chastised by the Gramma's. Well, it never happened to us there, but it did here. We loved it, and she was probably right!!

Oh, also in Chinatown we went to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. It was so GREAT. It is this little hole in the wall on a tiny alley (Ross Alley) and the woman yelled out "Chinese Girl, very lucky!!" and of course, I get all teary saying how we are the lucky ones....they treated the kids with lots of "flat" fortune cookies, and we bought some for Austin's class.

Off to the event, where we had so much fun seeing all of our friends (you know who you are), and all the children from China! Our favorites were bouncing in the bounce house (Austin's vote), the acrobat, and the Lion Dance. We also got to meet the Chinese Consulate General and some of his staff which was nice because we were able to personally thank them for their help with all of our paperwork during the paperchase. The Consulate in San Francisco is amazingly efficient, and we really are thankful to them. We also met a "waiting" family from Auburn and they were very sweet. It's hard to not get emotional when you think about the wait, and how times have increased. I reassured them (through more tears, sheesh) that after she has her child, the wait won't seem as long as it was. Oh, and we also met a nice woman who just found out that she got a "singles" spot. Very excited for her as well!!!

All in all, a fabulous 36 hour vacation!

Nestea Plunge....

I recorded this a couple weeks ago, but forgot to put it on....

Laughing, Giggling and Grinning

Ryleigh has been sick with a random virus for about 5 days....she's obviously feeling better, though! She was cracking up over NOTHING....


Click on the strip to see the slideshow.

What I did on my 2nd birthday, by Ryleigh

First I got up at my usual time, and Mommy and Daddy sang the birthday song in bed for about 20 minutes....

Then I made my very own cake.....


Then I opened presents..... I wanted to share with everyone because just 2 weeks ago we were celebrating Christmas and everyone got to open presents... my favorite are my stacking cupcakes, and my new dolly shopping cart...




Then we went to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants....

Then we came home and my family sang Happy Birthday to me again, twice. I even blew out my candles....

Then I cut my cake...


and poured myself a little milk (from the very cool little magic milk carton)


Oh, and did I mention that I leaned a little close and singed a little bit of my hair....won't do that again...


My best birthday, ever.

The end.

Roller Skating

A good friend of ours invited us to meet them for Roller Skating today. Our local rink has been here FOREVER, with the same family running it. Austin was VERY apprehensive about going, because he doesn't like to fall doing things, and his last memory of anything like it was ice skating about 2 years ago.

We bribed him with a little Coldstone afterwards and off we went.

We had a BLAST. The place looked exactly the same, the people were the same, the cost was higher, but that's ok! Austin went back and forth many times in the practice area, and made his way out to the "big rink" for the hokey pokey and to play a muscial chairs like skating game. He did great.

Ryleigh skated, too. She was AMAZING! Oh my gosh, she is a natural! I think I might sign her up for lessons at some point. Besides being the tiniest one out there, she was doing great....

Here's a video of our little daredevil on 8 wheels. I'm sorry it's sideways, the videographer (me) forgot that I had to hold the camera the "right" way....haha