A dream come true

3 years ago, when my neighbor suggested that we band together and build a playground in the neighborhood, I was skeptical but hopeful.  20 months after speaking at city hall to help over-turn the ordinance that prevented a permanent structure from being built at sue Biermann park, I can't believe we have a gorgeous playground built 2 blocks from our apt (see video).

This past weekend was the carnival opening hosted by zynga. The kids LOVE the new playground. It cost $900k and is completed funded by private donors, grants and nearby businesses like Zynga, SalesForce, Bay club etc.... Can you believe it took at least a year for us to convince the government to let us donate a playground to this area?


 We are glad to be part of history and you can find a little plaque on the side of the playground honoring our minor participation. We all got up early to help set up the festivities. Now we can go everyday. Lets PLAY!.

Lei

Agnes' Birthday celebration

Happy Birthday Agnes!!  She came up with a great idea and we and my sister in law's family (Em, Roy, and Gabby) all spent the day at Antioch water park

It was an awesome 88 degrees in Antioch and surprisingly not crowded. We had yummy pork porchetta sandwiches from the ferry building. The girls (Isabel, Lexi, Gabby) had a blast in the water and on the kiddy slides. While the adults also had a blast on the bigger slides. I even tried to the lily pad challenge - not easy at all but I made it (see video). The drive back was surprisingly easy - no traffic. Took only 55 min. We ended up having a decadent dinner at Osha Thai - lemongrass seabass, a lamb dish with egg on top, crispy ponpano, crab and chicken fried rice, papaya salad. YUM YUM AND YUM :-)

Now Jaime will take Agnes out for some drinks so they can both celebrate their birthday. Jaime's birthday is tomorrow - July 14. I am pooped and am off to bed with the kids. Thanks Agnes for all that you do for us. I hope you had a blast on your birthday today. I know we did. :-)

A Very Happy Birthday to Me :-)

I was surrounded by good friends and family.  It was a nice, breezy 88 degrees in Burlingame on July 4 - perfect weather to hang out and watch the kids play in the backyard. The BBQ cooked by Brett was divine - tri-tip, sausage, corn, zucchini - all SO GOOD.  Kerry made the best Guacomole - we finished it in no time.  Thank you both!  It was nice to also have Roy finally move to CA.  Everything was right that day.

Finally we had a chance to fully put the huge backyard to good use.  The inflatable pool was the perfect size for Gabby, Isabel, Alexis, Riya, and Sloane to play in.  They had a blast.  The adult also played sling shot water ballons and ballon toss.  All in all, a perfect 4th of July and birthday celebration.

Thanks honey for pulling it together;  Thanks Brett and Kerry for leading the charge on the BBQ; Thanks mom and dad for letting us having it at your house and the very funny bday card and nice gift.  Thanks sis for another great card and gifts.  I will need more help from you as your card suggest, as July should be a month of bday celebration. :-)  You know what I am talking about.    Thanks to Rain, Shai, Ronen, Asha, Mel, and Riya for making it although it was so last minute.  Finally the patriotic cupcakes from Em and Roy were awesome.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching Alexis devour a whole one all by herself (see video).  She loved it.

Ling is feasting at Delancey

I love the way she eats.

Reno Family Trip - June 2013

Even though Jaime calls Reno the "armpit" of ..., we managed to have a great time there with the family. Here are the photos and highlights

• We stopped by Sac on the way up to break up the drive.   Drive up to Reno after ward was only another 2.5 hours
• We went to Funderland which was great.  a small place with a ton of rides just for small kids.  What's great is you can pay a la carte instead of one entrance fee.  So we played there for 90 min and had lots of fund
• Lunch at Akebone nearby Funderland in Sac - I highlight recommend.  Great Tonkatsu Chashu ramen and sashimi as well.   It's 4 stars in SF standards which is high praise
• We stayed at the Peppermill Casino and it was okay in general but we loved it because
• I was able to get a cheap rate - We had 2 joining rooms for $260 for 2 nights + lots of hotel comp credits and free arcade play.  It was very good value.  
• 3 pools and perfect depth for the kids to play (Pool food was good just pricey.  good thing we had comp credit)
• arcade was very modern - we spent hours here - morning are the best as there are not a lot of people.  so much so Isabel won almost 1500 tickets to get a new princess backpack.  I love the motorcycle game here, Jaime played football and Agnes / Isabel played everything
• beds were super comfortable, comparably if not better to Westin's heavenly beds.  We stayed at the Peppermill tower and it was fine.
• club edge is in the hotel - it was an okay club.  we went to ladies night where there were free drinks for me until Midnight.  can we say another Mandarin tonic pls? ;-).  Music was really good even though the crowd was somewhat trashy.  The funny thing is Jaime knew the DJ playing that Friday night.  They haven't seen each other for 15 years.  We get this a lot in SF as Jaime grew up there but what a coincidence for Reno.  Best part is it's so convenient
• Don't need to go through casino to get to the pool.  Jaime doesn't gamble and I don't really so it was nice we don't have to trek through there to get to Pool, Arcade, or Club.
• Not smoke filled - we stayed on a non-smoking floor and it was great.
• Duck house and Naan & Kabob outside the hotel are where we ate for dinner Friday and Sat night.  Food at the hotel was rated overpriced and subpar by Yelp so we yelped and found two 4 star ones outside.  Duck house is Chinese and nothing special.  Food was decent enough.  We got fried rice for late night hungers.  Naan & Kabob was quite yummy. My seabass was pretty divine and so was the Safron ice cream dessert :-)
• Circus Circus - good old reliable entertainment.  We drove and spent 90 minutes there.  I think the adults had more fun trying to get the stuffed animals for the kids.  We all loved placed the race games whether it was shooting water or rolling a ball into a set of holes with numbers.  We ended up with 6 more dust collectors, I mean stuff animals - a fuzzy ball that Ling loves to throw, a fish called Lori by Isabel, a Minion, a shedding dog, and two others. 

Will we be back?  Not sure.  the drive back was a little bad.  5 hours due to two traffic points. Jaime drove the whole time except for the last 40 minutes.  Thanks honey.  We will definitely visit Funderland and Sac again as that's only 1.5 hours away.

Lei

Our PV Zip line Adventure

This is what I posted on TripAdvisor + photos just for the family blog

We really enjoyed this adventure and will definitely recommend it to others. I will tell you the few hiccups at the end. Here are the highlights.

1. Fun begins right away. Unlike other adventures where the fun doesn't begin until you get to the destination, our fun started right away with the fast boat ride starting at the marina terminal. The boat was truly fast. I felt like I was in Miami Vice racing toward Havana 
2. Transfers were quick – no long wait. Our transfer to the 4 by 4 was super quick and after another 20 min was by base camp. Then we were on our Mules after getting all the gear and first set of photos taken. Whenever we transferred, we never felt like we were waiting forever 
3. We loved the many varieties of adventures – fast boat, mule ride, ziplining upright, upside down and propelling off the cliff wall along the water fall, rope bridge walk, and the final waterslide were all exhilarating. Both hubby and I love the varieties we were got in one adventure 
4. Took shorter time than expected – We left at 1:30 and got back to the Marina by 7pm. I love that even though the website said 6.5hours which would make it 8pm. Getting back early meant we had the whole evening still to enjoy and have fun. 
5. Accommodating guides – We are not allowed to bring anything on the 2.5 hours adventure in the mountains but I mentioned that I have low blood sugar and they carried a small snack for me in their back pack. 
6. Divina – I initially talked to Divina about the adventure. She is very responsive and helpful and always can be reached by email. They even moved the Tour for us by a day since we discovered a conflict once we arrived in Mexico. 
7. WE felt very SAFE – all the guides knew their stuff well and we felt safe at all times. I will definitely recommend this adventure to others.

Here are two areas where they can improve

• Guides could have interacted with the adventurers more - While the guides all knew their stuff – not all of them seem outgoing and comfortable interacting with the adventurers. It was a little strange to see them joking with each other but not with us. I have done zip lining once before 7 years old. On that tour, every guide was very intent on entertaining us all along the way and knew how. Vallarta Adventurer guides seem very trained on the safety stuff but was less trained on making small talk. At one point, we were transferring from one repel line to another zip line and all of us were kind of lost as to where to go. None of the six guides stayed with us. They were either ahead or behind. When 3 of them finally caught up to us, they were just joking with each other in Spanish. It was kind of weird. 
• Rash guard should be optional - We were all made to wear their rash guards for the ziplining etc… They smelled a bit and frankly I would have liked to wear my own if they told us beforehand it was necessary. I think they do this for their marketing as well since all of them say Vallarta adventure on them. Their website photos didn’t indicate this either as everyone looked like they wear their own t-shirts. I disliked forced over-marketing at the expense of the adventurers.