We spent the last two days having fun at The Great Wolf Lodge, a new water resort in Garden Grove. This place is amazing! There is a huge indoor water park that is temperature controlled so you can go all year long rain or shine. This is the ultimate kids resort with themed rooms, kids activities throughout the day, an arcade, mini golf, bowling, and its really close to Disneyland! We went with cousins Kaiya, Sienna, Gavin, and Hunter, Melanie, and Kelsie, but I didn’t get a group photo of the kids cause it was hard to gather all the kids at the same time there. The older kids were too excited and kept on going on all the water slides to maximize their time.

Tyler tried his first cupping experience today at Grandma’s house. He’s been fighting a cold and cough for almost 2 weeks now and Grandma offered to “scratch” his back to help him feel better. When we were in her room, we learned she had a cupping set, so I bribed Tyler try it. At first he was scared but Uncle Tommy offered himself up to show Tyler how it’s done. And then I offered $5 plus Pokemon cards and then he agreed. After the first “cup” he realized it didn’t really hurt so he let Grandma do a full session. Hopefully he’ll show signs of improvement tomorrow.

First, she started by “scratching” his back with some vapor rub followed by a massage

We were over at Grandma and Grandpa’s house mainly to celebrate cousin Hunter’s birthday. Happy birthday Hunter!

The kids started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) a couple months ago in part because David has been wanting the kids to learn some form of self-defense (especially Nat) and because there was a Groupon for a month’s worth of lessons. That 1 month has now turned into a 6 month commitment on our part and maybe longer now. Tyler is looking to graduate to higher colored belts. Nat has surprisingly not rejected the class and is enjoying it for the most part. I think having her BFF Eva in the class with her helps. Tyler is the youngest (and smallest) one in the class and everyone likes to spar with him because he is so small and easy to get.

Here’s a short video of Tyler sparring with his teacher.

David wanted to show Natalie collegiate level volleyball to get her motivated to continue her volleyball play so we gathered a group of her friends that she plays volleyball with and we went to a Stanford women’s volleyball game last night. They played UCLA. It was a close game and fun to watch. Even Tyler said it was a fun game. Hopefully the girls were inspired and will want to play more.

We met for dinner before the game at Gott’s Roadhouse Burgers

The kids had the day off from school today for Veteran’s Day, so David and I decided to take the day off from work so we could do something fun. It’s been awhile since we’ve had an activity free day between jiu-jitsu, piano class, volleyball, and Chinese school. I’ve been wanting to go to Big Sur because of all the scenic views we’ve heard about and seen from friends and social media so we made a day trip down for some hiking and fun. Our first stop was Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. The pictures and reviews online were really good so we stopped here. Only it was VERY foggy and we could barely see the ocean. The hike was still nice though. There was a beautiful waterfall and the kids had fun playing around the water.

Our second stop was Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, just outside of Carmel. Again a beautiful place, but it was so foggy! We plan to come back in the summer when the sun is out and we can see the ocean!

We ended our day having dinner at our favorite seafood restaurant along Hwy 1, Phil’s Fish Market

We had the election coverage on most of yesterday evening watching the results come in. On occasion, I would let out sounds of shock as certain states turned red, slightly scaring the kids. I sent them both to bed assuring them that Hillary Clinton would win. I went to bed late myself, nervous.

David and I both woke up before our alarm this morning to watch the news. Tyler woke up on his own and came to watch with us. The news confirmed that Donald Trump had been elected to be our next president. We were all in shock. Tyler was particularly stunned. “How did he win mom?! Oh my god.” OMG indeed. Lots of questions followed from Tyler. What is the stock market? (He saw me checking my stocks on my phone.) What does impeachment mean? (David mentioned that if a president doesn’t do a good job, he could get impeached.)

Natalie didn’t have much to say about it. Not sure how she was processing the news or if she cares. She took the opportunity to ask for a sword again (she’s been asking David for a sword, or sword fighting lessons. Fencing?) “Can I have a sword now? I think it’s an appropriate time to get one.”

This election will go down in the history books. Am I worried about the kids’ future? Yes.

Wow, Tyler got to add a 3rd suite experience today at the San Francisco 49ers football game! Vanida got two tickets from work, but had no interest in going, so she gave them to David. David isn’t much of a football fan, but my brother is and Tyler has been wanting to go, so we asked if he would want to go with Tyler. My brother bought him a jersey too, lucky kid!

Unfortunately, the Niners lost, but Tyler said it was fun and he got to eat a hot dog and chicken nuggets for free. 🙂

These kids of ours have been lucky enough to attend 2 different professional sporting events in a suite. First it was MLB – SF Giants and yesterday a NBA game – Golden State Warriors vs. Oklahoma City Thunder. David scored tickets again from work and he was lucky enough to get 4, so we were all able to go. Both Nat and Tyler were super excited to go to the game. Nat even borrowed Wileen’s Steph Curry jersey so she could match with her brother.

The game was thrilling and the Warriors beat OKC by a large margin. It was awesome watching Kevin Durant too!

Tyler mentioned that it was a sports filled week since we just came off of watching Game 6 and 7 of the World Series. Tyler and I were both rooting for the Cubs and were very anxious watching Game 7. It turned out to be an awesome game and we’re happy the Cubs won the series.

We had VIP parking and the entrance into the stadium led us here. Unfortunately it was not our entrance to our seats.

Perfect view of the court

This year’s Halloween festivities spanned several days starting with a parade at Chinese school and a Halloween school dance at Nat’s school on Friday, followed by a Halloween party at our friend’s house on Saturday, and then trick or treating fun tonight! Tyler went trick or treating with his buddies this year and David took Nat and her friends out. They walked for over 2 hours and got lots of candy! If it weren’t a school night, they probably would’ve stayed out longer.

This year Tyler wanted to be PAC-MAN. Natalie and Big Uncle made this for him.

There was no stopping these girls to go with a Harry Potter theme

School parade

“Miss Nelson” (Tyler’s 2nd grade teacher)

We took advantage of Chipotle’s $3 Halloween offer for dinner

The loot. Probably the most candy they’ve ever gotten