Tyler has this plastic roach that he’s been planting around Vanida’s room to scare her. The first time she saw it, she screamed from across the room and asked me to kill it. He got her a few times, but I think she’s getting use to it now. He’s gotten me a few times with it too.

This morning, Tyler asked me what time Vanida wakes up and what she does in the morning. I told him she wakes up and goes to the bathroom. So he schemed and taped the roach to the bathroom wall hoping to scare her again. (She said she wasn’t scared.)

We ran the San Jose Rock n Roll 5K today. It was a first for all of us! Coupons was sponsoring the registration for employees so we decided to sign up. We woke up at 5am to get to the race for a 7:30am start. Surprisingly the kids didn’t really struggle waking up so early. Natalie and I were running buddies and she did a good job keeping up. I’m really proud of both kids finishing with really great times: Natalie @ 39 mins and Tyler @ 40 mins.

Our race timing tags

Getting Tyler to practice piano is always a struggle. I usually have to say “10 minutes” in order to get him to agree. Most of the time, I find a way to stretch it. Toward the end of his “10 minutes” today, I decided to record him. He was determined to have me get the right video, so we took about 6 attempts. The song he played wasn’t new to him, but I think he was a bit stage fright, so his nervousness kept causing him to make mistakes. After several more minutes of practicing, we got a good take. He’s good when he focuses.

Shortly after dinner this evening we received a knock on the door from our (new) neighbor. “Oh hello, I’m your neighbor. By the way, THERE’S A GIANT TURTLE IN YOUR FRONT YARD!” Me, Tyler, and David rush out to the front to see and sure enough a big tortoise was walking around on our drive way. Somehow it escaped from one of the neighbors who live 4 houses away and made its way to our place. Another neighbor came by and gave Tyler a celery stick to feed the tortoise. I’m not sure if it’s even a tortoise. Could be a box turtle? Who knows. It was one big turtle. Not long after, the owner came to pick it up. That was the highlight of our evening.

Auntie Diana and Uncle Steven and their families came to stay with us over the holiday weekend. 7 of them rented a Tahoe and came up together. We managed to squeeze everyone snuggly into our little home 🙂 The kids always enjoy a full house of people especially when it’s their cousins staying with us.

They arrived on Saturday just around lunch time. We had a light lunch and then some of us went shopping while most of the boys stayed home to relax. In the evening, we drove up to San Francisco to have some fun at Fisherman’s Wharf. The weather was perfect! The evening was warm and fog free! We had a very nice dinner at Fog Harbor Fish House on Pier 39. We were luckily seated right by the window and we were able to watch the sun set while we dined. It was a really great view.

The view. (From Natalie’s seat)

On Sunday, we hosted a small birthday party for Meliya since her birthday is coming up. All the Kha cousins came by and we had a BBQ and the kids jumped in the pool. After sunset, the kids got to make s’mores too!

Natalie said it was fun having everyone over and she was sad when everyone left this morning. Hopefully we’ll get visitors again soon.