Columbia River Gorge Day 7 (7/23)

Last day of the trip before heading back to SF.  We checked out of the hotel early and decided to go to the Columbia River Gorge before driving back to Seattle to fly out.  According to Wikipedia, "the Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Up to 4,000 feet (1,200 m) deep, the canyon stretches for over 80 miles (130 km) as the river winds westward through the Cascade Range forming the boundary between the State of Washington to the north and Oregon to the south." Besides this description, I wouldn't know how to best describe it. 

We took the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Byway and saw some of the most amazing area of open air.  So refreshing! Although I must say that the pollen here was out of control. Even for someone like me who doesn't normally have allergies, I had a sore throat and runny nose.

Time flies when you're having fun and it was time for us to head back to Seattle for our flight back.  As we drove along the I-205 back to I-5, the view of Mount Hood with the beautiful blue sky as the backdrop still remain so vividly in my mind today. Absolutely incredible.  

I had a lot of fun on this trip.  It turned out a lot better than what I had expected and hoped mainly because Sarah did great.  I was very worried about all the logistics - her food, her naps, her schedule, etc.  But she adapted very well to our schedule & everything turned out just fine.  I am so proud of her! I know this sounds silly, but one thing that I am especially happy/proud of is Sarah's bowel movement schedule! Every morning before we go out for the day, we put her on the toilet (we brought her kiddie seat), she does her business...and then we are poop-free for the entire day!!  It surely made the diaper changes in the middle of the day sooo easy!! Just love it!!  thank you mao-mao, you are the BEST baby in town!!    

Oregon Coast Day 6 (7/22)

On Friday, we drove 1.5 hours west of Portland to hit the town of Astoria, WA.  Astoria is a small, Northwest coastal town at the mouth of the Columbia River to begin our drive down the Oregon coast.  It is famous for their Maritime Museum, which unfortunately, we didn't have time to visit.  Right across from the museum, we ate the most incredible-tasting Fish and Chips.  I am not usually a Fish & Chip person, but these were so delicious because it was made with Albacore Tuna.  Yums... still thinking about it!!   

Sarah's 1st time on the sand and not liking it! 

The drive down south along the coast brought us through beautiful beaches and spectacular scenery.   We stopped by a few viewpoints along the way.  

Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, OR

View from Ecola State Park, OR

We made the trip down to Tillamook, famous for their Tillamook Cheese Factory.  There, we toured the facility and even sampled 3 of their 38 ice cream flavors!  By nightfall, we headed back to Portland for our final night. 

Portland Day 5 (7/21)

 

After the long drive yesterday, we wanted to spend a low-key day today in Portland.  No agenda - just mope around the city.  We went to a Brunch place called Bijou Cafe.  As we were walking there, we noticed a long line of people outside a store.  We later found out that it was Voodoo Doughnuts - and apparently, it is wildly popular with both locals and tourists.  So even after a big brunch at Bijou, we decided to try out this place to see what the fuss is about.  I don't remember how long we waited but I would say at least 1/2 hour. I picked up 3 doughnuts: (1) Mango Tango, (2) Maple Bacon Bar, and (3) Voodoo Doll.  Verdict:  All Gimmick.... maybe except for the Maple Bacon Bar, which actually tastes weird but good.  The Mango Tango is too sweet for my taste and the Voodoo Doll is definitely a gimmick.  It is shaped like a voodoo doll, with a pretzel stick at the heart & raspberry filling (as blood I guess).    

Maple Bacon Bar from Voodoo Doughnuts

Portland's so-called Chinatown is a huge disappointment. There was nothing there other than a handful of Chinese shops. Streets were empty... they don't even attempt to make this place touristy.  We spent 10 minutes there and dashed. 

 

 

Portland's Chinatown Gate

After cruising in the car around town for a little bit, we ended up at Portland's Washington Park - Portland's version of the Golden Gate Park.  Inside Washington Park, there are bike trails, museums, the zoo, and the International Rose Test Garden.  The rose garden here puts GGP's rose garden to shame.  This place is sooooo big!  There are over 550 different species of roses here - categorized by tea roses, hybrid roses, fragrant roses, climbing roses, etc. I find joy in looking for the names of the roses...some are really cute.  The roses were of course spectacular to look at... This place was also FREE, which made it even nicer.  SQ decided to take a nap on the bench in the shade. I must say that it is one of the best places in the world to take an afternoon nap.  

 

International Rose Test Garden

Seattle Day 3 (7/19) & Mount Rainier Day 4 (7/20)

We spent Tuesday on a boat tour on Puget Sound. As you can tell from the picture, the weather was a bit cloudy, but at least it didn't rain; so we were grateful.  This is Sarah's first boat ride.  We were a bit worried about how she would take it but since we were on a big ship and SQ carried her on the Ergo, she probably didn't feel anything different. She is a lot stronger than we think she is. :-)

An unobstructed view of the Space Needle from the water

  

 

 

  

The next day, we checked out of the hotel and began our journey down South (destination: Portland). But on the way down, we wanted to stop by Mount Rainier National Park.  Mt Rainier is about a 2.5 hr drive from Seattle and according to some geological report, it is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. We took our chance and got to see some of the most incredible scenery as a result!  Mt Rainier National Park has 4 entrances (one on each corner). We took the most popular Southwest entrance at Paradise.   

Along the drive route, we stopped by many, many scenic points and passed by beautiful waterfalls.  This is my favorite, the Narada Falls - the waterfall drops in 2 tiers.

Narada Falls

 

As we continued our drive up the side of the mountain, we began to see snow on the ground. I guess that because of the heavy rainfall this region had in the last few months, the snow hasn't all melted yet.  We came across a family of 3 deer roaming around.  It was awesome to see wildlife in their natural habitat. We also saw a fox along the way.  

We originally intended to only spend 2.5 hrs at the park, but ended up taking over 4 hours because everywhere we looked, the scenery was so spectacular and breath-taking!  As we exited through the Southeast side of the Park, we finally Mt Rainier after the clearing of the clouds. So surreal! 

 

 

Mt Rainier after clearing of the clouds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finally left the park and continued our journey to Portland.  Today was also SQ's 40th birthday.  Because we didn't leave Mt Rainier until 5pm, we ended up celebrating SQ's birthday with a dinner at Red Lobster in Kelso, Oregon....a very random place in a very random town.  SQ said his favorite part of this entire trip was the day spent at Mt Rainier. I'm glad that he got to spend his birthday in such a beautiful, memorable place.   

Seattle Day 1 & 2 (7/17 and 7/18)

This past week, we experienced our "whole lot of firsts."  We took our first vacation with Sarah to the Northwest Pacific region.  Before this trip, we have never spent more than 1 night from home.  So you can imagine, travelling with a baby for a week long trip was somewhat scary for us...we had no clue what to expect.  We decided to bring Sarah's car seat and stroller with us, which fortunately we were able to check them in as baggage for no charge.  Sarah took her first flight on Virgin America from San Francisco to Seattle.  The flight was early at 8:45a. We woke her up early and left the house by 7a.  She did great on the plane!!  She took turns sitting on our laps.  She spent some time pressing buttons, playing with her boxes (we brought those with us), and eating a small snack.  She also napped for a good 40 minutes.  By the time she woke up, we were about to land. Perfect timing. She did not whimper one single sound throughout the whole flight; our neighbors wouldn't have even known we had a baby with us.

We landed in Sea-Tac Airport around 11a and it was raining.  Of course it was raining -- this is Seattle afterall!! Luckily, we decided to spend the extra money to rent from a car rental company inside the airport, which was the way to go, especially with a baby in toll.  We left the airport and went straight to our hotel at the Sheraton Bellevue.  Bellevue is a suburb 20 minutes away from Seattle.  We went out for lunch first and then moped around the neighborhoods before returning to our hotel.  The first day was quite uneventful and not much to rave about.  We drove along some neighborhoods and I was truly amazed at the beauty of the houses in Bellevue and Medina (right along Lake Washington). Actually, shame on me for using the word "house," these were mansions!! estates!!  Each building was masterfully crafted and has a private driveway with perfectly manicured landscapes...(yes, much better than St. Francis Woods or Sea Cliff houses). I heard that one of those mansions belongs to Bill Gates, but didn't know which one.  All of them were so grandiose!

Sarah had her own crib and we all slept well on our first night in Seattle.   

We left the hotel around 10a and drove to Seattle's Space Needle. Yes, yes, we did all the touristy stuff since it was my first time to Seattle.  We took the elevator up to the observation deck to view the city.  Thank goodness it was a clear and sunny day so we were able to see a lot of the surrounding areas.  Did you know that the Space Needle was built for the World's Fair in 1962 and it will celebrate its 100 years birthday next year?!

After the Space Needle, we took the Monorail to Downtown Seattle and walked to Pike Place Public Market.  I really like this place, but it was really crowded, even on a Monday.  We stopped by Pike Place Chowder, which served one of the best clam chowder I've had.  We visited the original Starbucks there too.  By 2pm, we met up with our tour guide.  We signed up for a 2.5 hour walking tour in the Seattle neighborhoods.  This was quite an ambitious feat since the walking tour involved some walking on uneven pavement, stairs, escalators, hills, etc so they didn't recommend us to bring a stroller (they told this to us beforehand).  So for the next 2.5 hours, I carried the 23 lb Sarah on the Ergo.  ** I am 200% endorsing Ergo as the BEST baby carrier out there.  At the end of the day, my feet were sore from walking, but my shoulders and my back were absolutely fine! I was really amazed because I was expecting to be sore, but I wasn't at all!!    

The walk took us through Pike Place Public Market, the bubble gum wall, the Convention center, the Public library, Pioneer Square and various Downtown parks. We ended up at the Waterfront as our last stop, at the Olympic Sculpture Park, which is famous for the Alexander Calder sculptures.  I especially love the Sculpture Park, because it's very spacious and peaceful here.  It's the waterfront with tons of green grass to sit, relax, and soak in the sun. 

People playing life-size chess in Downtown Seattle

Seattle Public Library

Crochet poles at Occidental Park

Olympic Sculpture Park at the Waterfront

Google personalized home page

 I don't know how this happened (must have been SQ)...every time I log onto Blogger or Gmail, and then go to Google, I see this picture as my Search page...















Did you know that if you log into a Google program (Gmail, Blogger, Picasa, etc), you can personalize your Google homepage?  I just learned this and absolutely love it!!  But don't ask me how to do it... I don't know!  I love this picture of Sarah! She was about 2.5 months in this picture..and yes, her pinky is still up like a girly girl. I used to call her "Spidy Hands" (as in Spiderman's hands when he shoots his web) for this reason.

A Letter to Sarah at 13 months 10 days

Hi mao-mao,

Recently,

• You are walking all over the place!  I can barely keep up. You walk back and forth, in and out. 
• You say mama and baba indiscriminately, although I don't think you really know what these words mean yet. Regardless, we answer you back every time you say these words. You also say mum-mum, duck-duck, and El-mo!
• Your "fly-kiss" consist of you putting your palm on your open mouth and you saying "ahhhhhh." Your hands stay there...as if your kisses don't fly. They stay with you. :-) 
• You like to point at the light, the clock, and everything in between. 
• Your toilet seat is still working like magic. Every morning, you daddy plops you on the seat and you do your business.  I find it utterly fascinating.
• Every time you enter an unfamiliar place, like a restaurant or someone's house, you need time to warm up. You tend to stick really close by us and not let go.  After a while, then you become more comfortable to roam around.
• We have not been diligent in weaning you off the bottle because you drink so much faster from the bottle. But we will start giving you the straw cup so you can practice more. 
• You are drinking 1/2 formula and 1/2 milk now.  I keep you on formula because I want you to get all the nutrients, longer.  I don't think you eat nearly enough solid/table foods!
• You have a total of 7 teeth right now, 4 on the bottom, and 3 on top. The 4th one on the top is coming out, but not quite yet.  The weird thing is that on your bottom right gum, one of your molars is sticking out. I can see the white part of the tooth already. Weird. I thought teeth erupt in an orderly fashion. Apparently, yours don't!! 
• The eczema on your face is a lot better now.  We haven't used aquaphor or hydracortisone on your face for a long time already. You still scratch your neck and it gets red there.  We still need to apply aquaphor onto your neck.

With Love, mama

My 2 Loves

Pretty Shoes

Sarah loves her pretty pink shoes. But whenever she wears them, she can't walk properly.  She ends up tripping and falling because they are not like her Robeez. But yet, no matter where I put these pretty pink shoes, Sarah finds and brings them to me so I can put the shoes on her.  

Silly girl, there are plenty of women shoes that look pretty but we can't walk on them.  This is only your first one...!  

She's Baaaaaaack!

After an overwhelming pool experience on Father's Day, Sarah got traumatized by water. She was not liking her baths anymore. The second we put her into the tub, she tries to climb out. For an entire week and a half, Sarah cried through her baths.  What happened to our water-loving baby that loves to splash, splash, and slash? We tried different things to reverse her fear... We let her sit inside the tub without water, let her play with her rubber ducky, and heck, we even let her watch an old video of herself playing in the water.  Nothing seemed to work... I missed her giggles and her laughs and seeing her splish splash in the water.

My sister so happen to be cleaning out her old baby stuff so she gave us some bath toys.  There were a couple of squirt toys. I am not a huge fan  of squirt toys because I read somewhere that they don't usually dry thoroughly so the toys have a high chance of mold and bacteria growing in them.  Yuck! But at this point, I was desperate.  The daily baths were becoming challenging especially when Sarah wouldn't sit down.  So we gave her the bath toys and they worked like magic. They got Sarah's attention and now, she is baaack!! Sarah is back to having fun in the tub.  She is beginning to enjoy her baths again.  Oh, I am soooo glad that her smiles and all her splashing are back!

Cousins

Top Row (R to L): Hayden (5),  Evan (5), Ethan (7)
Bottom Row :Sarah (1), Tyer (2), Kyle (3)

Every Thursday night, my sisters and I would congregate at my parents' house for a family dinner.  It's a day of the week that I always look forward to... not only because I can be lazy and don't have to cook, but it's a time to eat my mom's delicious home-cooked meal, to see my sisters, to catch up on the latest events, and for Sarah to see her little cousins.  They don't play with her much, because all she does is to go destroy their buildings, rip up their paper airplanes, or steal their trucks to play. hahaha LOL  

Here is a rare picture of Sarah and her little cousins (she has older cousins too!)  Missing is in the picture is little Hailey who turned 3 months about 2 weeks ago. 

Sarah turns 13 months old

Sarah the Thinker

This is not Photoshop.  Picture was taken near DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park. It's one of those wooden board where you stick your head through the cut-out hole.  Yes, we stuck Sarah's 95th percentile head through the hole. Note that there were barely any gaps in between... lol

Moments: Mommy, More!

New Addiction: Fashion Story

I know this sounds really silly, but lately, I have been addicted to this game called Fashion Story.  It's one of those free online apps you download for your phone or tablet (I so happen to have it downloaded on both :-))

Basically, you own your own fashion boutique. You are given the essentials such as a couple of clothes rack, dressing rooms, tables, and mirrors to start.  You are also given some coins to purchase some clothes and accessories to start selling.  The items each have different prices and time it takes to arrive, which ranges from 1 minute to 1 day.  The longer the item takes to arrive and be ready for sale, the more units you have and the longer it will take to sell down. When the units are sold out, you will need new items to replace the empty rack/table. The objective of the game is to be in-stock and keep the customers happy.  As you collect more coins from sales, you can expand and upgrade your boutique, buy more tables and racks, etc.  It's really addicting because I constantly want to check if my tables are empty and what I need to buy more in the pipeline because it takes time.  My husband jokes that this is exactly what I do in real life anyways!! hahaha

Ok, now you know my current silly addiction - please don't judge me. :-) 

Busy Weekend

We are usually very low key during the weekends. We often don't leave the house until after Sarah's morning nap, dine out for lunch, do some shopping, and then head home in time for Sarah's afternoon nap.  But this weekend, we had a couple of special events, which made for a rather unusual busy weekend. 

On Saturday, we went to my friend, YW's daughter, EW's Red Egg and Ginger party in Emeryville. We had a great time, eating and catching up with kids' talk at our table.  After Sarah had her meal, she was eager to release some of her energy.  And after she had the yellow balloon in her hands, she went on a little sugar high. She walked around and around - falling down and then getting up.  She was having a lot of fun with friend CF.      

Sarah and her Yellow Balloon

Because it was time for her afternoon, we left around 2pm and Sarah quickly fell asleep in the car.  She was tired.  Since we don't go to the East Bay often, we decided to stick around the area for a little bit.  We drove to Berkeley, Telegraph Ave/College Ave area.  SQ went to school in Berkeley so he did a little reminiscencing of his college years there (which is a long time ago!)  Later we drove up to Tilden Park. I've heard about the Steam Train there, but have never been. So we decided that it would be fun to go there since the weather was beautiful.  

By the time we got there, the train was about to arrive for the next ride so we quickly woke Sarah up (she had napped about 1hr by that time already) and hopped onto the train.  It was such a beautiful ride! The weather was perfect as the train went through the forest park.  Couldn't have asked for a more gorgeous day to be on the train.  Here is a picture of us as we came out of the tunnel. Sarah's expression on the picture is simply priceless. 

Daddy and Sarah pose in front of the Steam Train at Tilden Park

On Sunday (Father's Day), our family had a party at Rinconada Park in Palo Alto. We had a Hawaiian-themed party.  The Hawaiian dress that Sarah got as a gift from my sister was still too big for her, so she had to wear another dress.  She was walking on the grass but once she fell down, she didn't like using her hands to get up (the grass was too prickly).  

This park has an outdoor swimming pool, and since the temperature was in the high 80's on Sunday, it was a perfect day to introduce Sarah to the pool. She got suited up and ready to go in the water with Daddy.

Unfortunately, even though Sarah loves taking baths**, she was not happy to be in the water.  She whined and whined ~ she just didn't like being there!! So after a few minutes, we took her out.  We left the park around 5pm and Sarah finally took her afternoon nap.  Because it was so late in the day already, I woke her up after 1/2 hour so she can still sleep at night.  

** Don't know what happened... but maybe Sarah got traumatized by the pool, she is not liking her baths these few days. Every time we put her into the tub, she wants to get out.  Oh no, what happened to my bath-loving, water-splashing baby Sarah??  Hope this is only a phase!! 

Happy "Da-da" day!

A Letter to Sarah at 1 yr 10 days

Hi Mao Mao!!
Boy, you've had so many new developments this past month! You're ONE and you're a big girl now!

1. You now have 6 teeth! The 2 upper ones grew undetected for a while. Whenever you smile, only your 2 lower ones would show, so I didn't even know you had upper ones already... but now they are clearly visible out of the gums.  You also just grew out 2 additional lower teeth!  they are about 30% out right now.  With more teeth, you can eat more things!
2. You love to play with the nesting cardboard boxes.  They are hand me downs, but you love them regardless.  You absolutely LOVE IT when I stack them up in a tower and you in turn knock the blocks down!  No matter where you are in the room, the minute you see the blocks towered up, you come to destroy them.  You laugh hysterically afterwards!  
3. You are now walking steadily! You know how to get up from your knees to your feet without support. You walk everywhere now...even though you continue to do balance checks and periodically fall down on your butt! 
4. You love to dance! Whenever you hear music, you bounce your legs up and down (if you're standing) or you sway right and left (if you're sitting). I love it when you do that!
5. You are constantly curious of everything around you.  You love to touch everything and examine the object with intensity. 
6. You understand the word, "no."  When you're about to touch something I don't want you to touch, I say "no." Although I can see how much you want to touch it, you understand my direction and walk away.
7. I want to start to wean you off the bottle, so I've been practicing with you during dinner time with regular milk.  I haven't been able to find a good straw cup for you yet, so I just use a small milk bottle and a regular straw. You are able to suck the milk out of the straw just fine (you've learned this a while ago). So far, you're only have the patience to drink about 1-1.5oz of milk from a straw.  With practice, you will soon be able to drink a lot more.
8. Not sure why, but lately, you've been throwing up at night around bedtime.  We can't figure out why.  We've tried giving you your bedtime formula earlier, giving you food instead and foregoing the formula altogether - but nothing seems to work much.  The doctor doesn't seem concern since you're gaining weight, which means you must be getting enough nutrients.  We'll continue to try other things. 
9. Your favorite word is 'doh-doh.' Every time you see something interesting, you point to it and says, 'doh-doh.'
10. We always carried you up and down the stairs to and from the garage but never attempted to let you crawl by yourself.  So it came as a surprise that you were able to crawl up the stairs by yourself without practice.  I guess you learned it at daycare??  Don't know.  Right now, we're trying to teach you how to get down from the sofa / bed using your feet first.  You haven't quite mastered it yet, so more practice, my dear!

 I am so proud of you! You are developing so fast and learning things everyday! You continue to amaze us with all your new "tricks!' 
 

Sarah 12month checkup

I brought Sarah for her annual check up this afternoon.  The minute I drove into the parking structure, Sarah began to cry, as if she was afraid of something. I wasn't sure if she was just afraid of the dark winding parking structure or did she have a previous memory of that place, knowing that it led to the doctor's office? Can't be the latter, right?  She's too young to have that kind of association, especially it was 3 months ago since I last brought her to the doctor's!  Sarah continued to cry more in the elevator.  She seemed to be very scared of the confined space especially when the doors closed.  Even when I took her out of the stroller & carried her, she cried hysterically.  She finally calmed down when we got to the waiting room. So when it was time for her measurements and for the doctor's visit, she was fine.  

weight 21 lbs 9.5 oz (57%)
height 30.25 inches (82%)
head circumference 18.7 inches (96%)

Overall, Sarah is doing just fine. She is right along the growth curve, maintaining her weight, height and head circumference for her age.  She is also developing on path.  After the doctor's visit, it was time for Sarah to get her vaccinations.  We waited a while until the nurse called us in so Sarah spent her time walking around the big waiting room.  Then the 3 shots.  She cried and cried and this time, she didn't stop for a long time.  Previously, she stopped crying after the shots came out.  This time, she cried longer than normal... then of course, we had to go into the elevator to get down -- so more crying.  And of course to make matters worse, Sarah had to get her blood drawn to test for her blood count and lead levels.  I had the option of taking the blood test today or at 15 months.  I thought mind as well get it all done.


At the lab, I had to hold Sarah down and basically pin her legs inside my thighs and hold her really tight.  Of course, she resisted. Of course, she was besides herself.  Tears rolled down her cheeks like waterfalls - her face turned beet red.  The nurse had to solicit another nurse to hold her down because she had to prick a needle into Sarah's vein for the blood draw.  And boy, silly girl was STRONG!  Thankfully, the nurse was successful finding her vein the first time around and after a few minutes, it was all done. After a distraction by her blocks, she finally stopped crying. She was so tired from all the commotion that she zonked out in the car on the way back home.

Sarah examining the bandage on her arm from her blood test

June 13

2 things of significance : June 13 was Sarah's original due date but she arrived 8 days early.  June 13 was also the day I checked back into the hospital with a 103 fever and diarrhea. I went into the ER thinking that they will give me some anti-diarrhea medicine and some Tylenol for my fever and I would go back home in a few hours, but I was wrong. I ended up staying in the hospital for the next 24 days.  The doctors thought I had C-difficil, which is a type of infection when the antibiotics kill not only the bad bacteria but the good ones too.  after a couple days of stool samples, C-dif wasn't the problem. the problem was a whole bunch of abscesses have grown in my abdomen due to an infection during my c-section. Although I am well now, I think I will always remember June 13, the morning of, the route we took to the hospital, the time spent in the ER that day....