The Dorm Lunch

Our sweet friend from church invited us to come have lunch with her in the UCLA dorms before she graduated.  A chance to visit our favorite college campus AND hang out with a super cool girl?  (Who I actually thought was already post-college as she seems so much more mature than I was, er, am now.  Ahem.)

Yes, please!

We got there a little early for lunch, but not quite early enough to do the errand Phil was hoping to do, so we did a little walking around first to see all the changes at our favorite Under Construction Like Always campus.

The brand new Pauley Pavilion.  I asked Mikey what he was doing.  He answered, "being cool."  Uh, okay?

My kid who I happen to think is pretty dang cool without his even trying.  :)

And this girl who fills up my whole heart.

Also this girl who is my whole heart.

"Really Daddy?  You can just take as many fries as you want when you come to college?!"  (I think the Freshman 15 is still a thing, isn't it?)

Man, dorm food SURE HAS CHANGED since we were there (why I feel SO OLD??) and I'm thinking my "freshman 15" would've easily been "freshman 300" with all these food choices!  Jo Ana sent me links the night before to check out each dorm's menu for lunch and each were completely different with THEMES and GENRES of food.  Wow, I was actually having a tough time deciding.  Pho! Mussels! Antipasto! White wine something!  We ended up choosing the one with the most kid friendly fare which suited our kids just fine.

Strawberry milk!

This guy, post chocolate milk.

After lunch, Auntie Jo Ana offered to show the kids what her dorm room looks like.  They were endlessly fascinated.

Thank you, Auntie Jo Ana for showing our kids a bit of the college life, the great lunch, and the even better company!

After we said our goodbyes so that Jo Ana could finish her last final (Eek! Sorry we took up so much of your study time!), we swung by the UCLA store so the kids could spend Their Very Own Money that they brought along.  Allie "accidentally" brought a $20 instead of a $10 and so got to upgrade her purchasing power.

It took a bit of time to figure out how much he needed Daddy to spot him.  Thankfully, our cashier was really nice and patient and said we were her favorite transaction of the day.  :)

Thanks again for a great day, Auntie Jo Ana and UCLA!

The Old Ballgame

Time for the Tsais (aka the Angels' number one fans) to attend our once-yearly baseball game!  Woo!

(OK, so this might have taken place before school actually let out (it did) so technically doesn't count as summer fun, but actually still does in my book.  Thankfully it's never been about technicalities around here.)

Our Angels baseball game outing always begins with a stop at Sonic drive-in.  Because it's sort of on the way.  And since it's also sort of on the way on the way back, we stopped here again after the game for their 2-for-1 milkshakes.  This way we avoided paying $6 times 4 in order for each kid to have an ice cream at the game and instead only paid $3 times 2 in order for each kid to have a milkshake after the game.  I love math word problems.  (So not.)

In any case, we had a very happy camper on our hands.  Make that four.

And it was rally wig day!  Except the kids couldn't be convinced to wear the rally wigs.  So we wore them and let them miss out on the fun.

The kids are still too young to be embarrassed by their parents but that day will soon be here.  I plan to be prepared.  (Mikey took this one and the one above.)

Jonna not happy with the rally wig.

In fact, Jonah wasn't too happy with the crowd and the noise and didn't get what all the fuss was about so he stayed like this for the first half of the game.

He's rarely ever this cuddly anymore so I didn't mind his staying parked on my lap one bit.

In spite of all my efforts to not buy anything at the game (see Mommy's Milkshake Math above), they somehow still ended up with these.  I'm fighting a losing battle here, folks.

Because you see, he's no match for two little daughters. 

He was already a goner the day the first girl was born.

See?  Goner.

This also happened that night.

Lost in a sea of rally wigs. Except for Jonah.

The final count.

So did the crazy Tsais and the rest of the crowd make it in to the Guinness Book of World Records?

We did!

She (and he) thought that was pretty cool.

And look, he finally warmed up to the whole baseball experience!

OK, so we only made it through the seventh inning stretch of what ended up being a scoreless game, but was still a whole lot of fun memories for us.

Thanks Angels and see ya next year!  :p

Here we are at last year's game.  We didn't make it the year before that since Jonah was just born and all.  But here's the year before that.

Post Script

I almost forgot the kids' favorite part!

Grandpa had this set up in the garage when we got there.

Please notice the sign.  Spelling has never been my dad's strong suit.  Then again, he spells way better in English than I can in Korean... or any other language for that matter.  :p  Allie noticed it right away but said, "No big deal, I can add the missing letters."  And she did.  And I love everything about this sign.

The girls were pleased as punch with their very own tent.

There was also another sign for the boys on the table behind this tent along with another tent all ready to be set up.  But Grandpa hadn't yet done it because he said he needed "Mikey's help to build that one."  (Read: teach Mikey how to put up a tent.)  But Grandpa was shirtless (because it was HOT) while they were setting up the boys' tent so no pictures here of that (you're welcome).

Mikey was pretty pleased with himself after putting together the boys' tent.

Jonah, too.

After playing in their tents all afternoon, they decided they wanted to sleep in there, too!

All ready for bed...

Now they just needed to fall asleep.

It kind of took a while though.

Because sleeping in tents in the garage at Grandpa's house is about the Best Thing Ever!

But they finally did manage to fall asleep and were up again at the crack of dawn.  Groan.

Which is why this kind of stuff only happens at Grandpa's house.

Vacation, Leg 3 (cont'd)

While we were away, the grandparents were keeping the kids plenty busy and entertained with a trip to the beach complete with In-n-Out for lunch, regular feedings of the goats outside, visiting Lily the dog, exploring and conquering a large rock pile, and you know, fun summer stuff with the g'rents.  Along with healthy doses of cartoon movie watching.  Can't quite put my finger on why exactly, but they sure do love being at their grandparents' house.  ;)

So once again, my dad shooed the four of us away to go out and do something for the day.  They were planning to take the grandkids to this aircraft museum and "didn't have time to hang around the boring old folks" as my dad put it.  So we found ourselves with one more day with free time on our hands (I love my kids' grandparents).

What to do... what to do...

The four of us piled into J & J's fancy new car and were off!  Was fun seeing these two up in the front seats again.  Just like old times.  Only it was Phil's little white Saturn or James' little black Honda back then.

At Mira's suggestion, we ended up here.

Wow, that's quite a ceiling.

Wow, that's quite a dining table.

Wow, that's quite a... lamp? sconce? holder of the light?

We headed outside and were amazed by the detail in everything.  Look, there's even faces looking down at you from way up there.  Kinda freaky.

It was a lovely, albeit HOT, day.

A picture of James taking a picture of the lovely Jami.

Like I said before, it was HOT (Paso was 113 that day!), so some of us tried to cool off in the shade by the pool and thinking how nice it would be IN the pool.

While other of us attempted to find out for sure.

Since Plan A was most definitely frowned upon by the many security guards around us, this was his Plan B to cool off.

Silly my hubs.

Wow, that's quite a view.

Wow, that's quite a Roman pool.  Now, THIS pool would've felt good on such a hot day.

But it would have been such a shame to mar that beautiful reflection on the perfectly still water.

A beautiful castle to be sure, but still, there's no place quite like home.  Which is where we were headed the next day since our vacation week was coming to an end.

But not without a quick stop in the Firestone Brewery first.  The guys were there to do a little beer tasting.  Jami and I were there to revel in the wonderful air conditioning.  Ahhhhhhhh...

Cheers!

And so ends one of my favorite vacation weeks ever.  Time to relax, time to have fun with the kids, time to get away for a bit, time to eat some really awesome food, and time to enjoy with our friends.  Thank you Lord, for vacations and providing us this time to truly enjoy some of your wonderful blessings.  It was refreshing indeed.

And THANK YOU, James and Jami for coming up to spend a few days with us.  We really loved having you guys there and hope we can do it again soon!