Our Summer vacation this year is here! We arrived this afternoon to very hot and humid weather. Everyone here is super friendly and very welcoming.

The kids are excited to be in a new place, but also a bit nervous about the unknown.

The view from our room

We took a walk to a local convenience store called Oxxo (like 7-11) to buy water and snacks

Then the kids hit the beach. The water was very warm!

Then they hit the pool.

For dinner, we went to a place called Red Cabbage Cafe, which came highly recommended by a friend. This place did not disappoint! The food was amazing. The owner catered Frida Kahlo’s wedding. The kids even liked the food.

Favorite part of the day:

Nat – buying snacks at Oxxo

Tyler – Swimming

David – eating at Red Cabbage

Me – eating at Red Cabbage

After spending their first week of summer vacation at YMCA Camp, the kids left for LA on Saturday evening to spend a week with Po Po and Gong Gong. They flew on their own and were pretty excited about the trip. I’m glad they are comfortable flying on their own.

Waiting at the airport

“Bye, Mom!”

As soon as they arrived in LA, they went to dinner at Gong Gong’s favorite restaurant, Phoenix Inn. Tyler ordered his favorite dish, roast duck.

Nat turned 14 today! With all the graduation celebrations yesterday and today being a Wednesday, we kept her birthday celebration low key. She invited a few close friends over to our house and then we went to lunch at Gen Korean BBQ. Afterwards, David took the girls out for boba and then they hung out in the pool and called it a day! No family dinner celebrations this year as her friend invited her to spend a few days in Tahoe and they left late this afternoon.

Nat had her middle school graduation yesterday. She was 1 of 3 students picked to give a graduation speech (out of 22 students who tried out). And she knocked it out of the park! David and I couldn’t be more proud. She finished middle school with honors too!

Many of the local aunties and uncles came to watch her speech as well as 3 uncles from LA AND Po Po! I kept telling her how lucky she is to have so much family here to support her.

Here’s the gang braving the heat in 95 degree weather.

Thank you to everyone who came!

Nat and one of her friends teamed up to make these cupcakes for a BFFs birthday. Nat decorated all of these. Amazing right?

Since this is starting to become a thing, I’ve created an Instagram account @_cakesbynat to showcase her work.

Tyler joined Track & Field this year at school. Each student is allowed to participate in up to 4 different events and he was originally going to do 4, but I talked him down to 2 since it would be his first time and I didn’t want him to do more than he could handle. He decided to go with discus and hurdles. Track & field meets are chaotic and I’m glad the season was only about a month long! It was a fun learning experience for him and I’m glad he was willing to try it even though many of his friends didn’t. He made it to the quarter finals for discus too.