Not quite a dancer

Ray's one year dance experience stopped last week, as Ray showed little interest in it. A few bright dancing moments he showed brought him into this dance class but it didn't work out. Ray proposed for art class himself. Soccer class is the second option. OK, we will see how that goes.

Snow fun

We had a serious snow today. Ray's school closed at 1:00PM. Back home, Tony and Ray had a lot of fun.

Round Rock Library

Mom took a vacation for some personal business developement. Dad brought us to RR library. And we also brought a special guest.

Chinese painting

First of all, mixing color is critical. It is a magic that yellow plus blue becomes green and red plus yellow gives you orange. It is fun to know it.

Spiderman

So easy to be a caveman

It is Ray's idea and Ray's masterpiece. We built a cave in our house. Tony was thrilled about it.

Farewell to Aaron

Aaron and auntie moved to San Francisco Bay area. Ray wanted to go with them. On the way back home from airport after we saw them left, Ray was not happy all the time. Ray believed that the reason he couldn't go was he had no ticket. That was why the airport guy stopped him but let Aaron in.

Ray said when he grew up, he would move to San Franciso, work in the office and make money. Mom asked Ray if she could come with him. Ray thought for a while, then finally said:"OK".

Night-story

You can be a storyteller without knowing many words. That was how Ray did it. Tony must admire Ray quite a bit as Ray was 'reading' the book along.

Fearless Ray

Ray asked to take Atlantis in seaworld. Seeing Ray was so eager to take it, dad decided to be his company, though dad was a little scared in truth. Our ride had a short delay as the ride ahead of us has some accident. A girl was so scared after the first part little 'warmup' that she and her dad had to get out in the middle of the ride. This accident made dad a little worried more. Finally, it was our turn. The first warmup was pretty scary. After that, dad was just wishing he was not in the boat. Ray acted norm and seemed nothing happened. And it came the real deal. Or my gosh, dad felt he was almost thrown out of the boat. And he tried hard to hold Ray in his instinct. You can see that in the zoomed in picture. Thanks goodness, it only lasted about 2 seconds. Then dad started celebrating we did it. We made it. It was over. It was cool. It was something. Then dad asked Ray how he felt about it. Ray said:"I like it. Can we do it again?"
Not again.

Seaworld Chrismas Show

Seasame street in sea world Chrismas show. Ray said: These are the real ones!

What are we riding?

A little hint: We are in Texas. This is domain in Austin. Auntie is in town. She cooked some awesome sour-sweat fish we all love so much!

4 years check-up

Weight=45 pounds (>95%), Height=45 inch (>95%). Doctor said Ray is big and tall. Ray couldn't hold his smile even though he really tried hard.

Austin winter duck pond fun

Guys, watch and learn. This is how you pretend like a duck.

A not so great photo

This photo is one of the kinds. I occasionally had facial expression like this. But mom and dad had to put this photo here as they definitely love to see it.

My new hair style

This was my dad's hair style in all his elementary school years and after middle school years. Now he made me his pal.

Ray's 1st year birthday poster

Ray is 4 years now. We feel it was just yesterday when he was one year old. So dig out some old memory and put it up here.

Ray's Holloween impression

Halloween 2009

Yearly Oak Brook community pumpkin patch party

Autumn in Austin

The best season in Austin. Particularly to dad, who has some mountain cedar pollen trouble in winter. Capturing Austin Autumn is not easy as we don't have many deciduous around. Dad will try his best.

4 year old

Ray had a 4 years banana muffin party at school and had a cup cake party at home. Ray got transformer, walking robot, volcano lab gifts. Now Ray is officially 4 years old.
Something to note down: an H1N1 case was confirmed in his class.
Ryan came to sleep over last night. Ray and Ryan are good play buddies now. Today it was Saturday. Dad took them to Olson Meadow park. Excited by great weather, dad ran back home to get soccer ball to start a little soccer training. But boys seemed not very interested. Dad really put a lot of effort into getting them involved.
After we got home, mom just told dad:"A mom told me something she eavesdropped in the park. Before you came back from getting soccer, Ray whispered to Ryan. He said: Don't play soccer. It is boring."
Oh, now dad got it.

Our little teacher

Ray was teaching Ray how to recognize things in cards, which used to be taught by mom to Ray.

"This is a cup. Say cup." Ray said.

"Cup." Tony followed.

"This is a caterpillar. Say caterpillar." Ray said.

"Caterpillar." Tony followed.

"Eh, ...." Ray picked a card which he didn't know what it was.

Instead, Ray said:"This card is too hard for Tony."

Then he skipped this card to the next.

Follow the water

That was how we started our hiking this Saterday. I rode my bike and explored brush creek bend side a little bit. A little accident about Tony shortened our hike. I still met a new friend Ryan, who showed me two head skeletons of deer he shot. And he gave one to me! How old is Ryan? 5 years. You believe it?

This is our Texas.

Frank analysis

Tony was playing in his high chair, while Ray was having his dinner. Ray was the last one still working at his dinner as usual. Dad moved broccoli plate a little closer to Ray to urge him eat faster.

Tony saw this and had a yell. Then Tony asked for broccoli. Certainly it was welcome. But while Tony was eating, and he was also yelling occasionally to Ray.

Ray started talking:"Tony doesn't want me to eat my dinner because he doesn't want me to grow big. He wants to eat more so he can grow big."

Kids do pretty down-to-the-earth analysis.

Also at dinner table, Ray talked something about his school day:"We had soccer class and everyone went to the class."

Dad pretended he didn't know it and asked:"Did you go?"

"I didn't go because you guys didn't pay it for me." Ray said with a frowned eyebrow.

Wow, Ray is fairly clear how things work now. And he also can exaggerate it a little bit with saying everyone went to the class except him. The fact is he is going to a dance class and most kids didn't enroll soccer class.

Ray was never interested in soccer though dad set up a nice soccer gate in back yard. Maybe it is different to play in a team. Well, maybe we should try it out.

One thing we need to mention is Ray made a huge progress in throwing and catching a football. Though he is far from as good as Jack next door (Jack is eight years old), dad can have fun with Ray now by throwing and receiving a ball back and forth. Right now we have to keep only six feet distance. Pretty sure the distance is gonna grow soon.

Our first rain flood experience

We got all missed water back in this fall. Today's rain even flooded Olson Meadow. It's quite an eye opener. A stonebridge nearby was completely under water so the road was closed. Weather forcast showed there's gonna be another rainy week coming.

What open house exactly means

Ray's school had an open house yesterday. This was the third time they did it. We attended the first time when the school just opened. It was just a tour of school, so we missed the second as we thought we did the tour already. It turned out it was more than just a tour the second time.

This open house was pretty much a show time. Every kid sat on their seat to show some projects. Ray's projects were 1).counting kindles, 2).bar maze creating, 3).two letters phonics. Mom and dad had a good time seeing what Ray had learned in school. Mrs. Betty told us Ray did well and even helped their Chinese teacher teach his class Chinese.

That is open house all about.

A fan of The wizard of OZ

While dad was flipping all ESPN channels to squeeze out every little bit report on Brett Favre's magic last second go ahead TD, he saw the Wizard of OZ in TNT. That was one of his favorite movie in high school. His exchanged English teacher from Washington played this movie for his class and it inspired a lot of imagination. Dad could't wait to get Ray there. Certainly Tony followed.

Ray loved it, though we really missed most of the beginning part. Dad promised to get a full version DVD for Ray and Tony. However, this movie opened a great source for dad's draining bedtime story lib. The Wizard of OZ was extended into many periods, which made persuading Ray going to bed so easy.

a number mystery

Quite a while ago, Ray's teacher Miss. Betty told us Ray impressed her with counting number up to 20, though Ray forgot one or two numbers. That was a pretty good math development. But Ray always forgot number 13. No problem from 1 to 12, then jump to 14, a little shaky after 14 but the only number he consistently missed was 13.

This really puzzled dad. What is wrong with 13? Dad didn't send Ray to Catholic school. Is it the pronunciation?

Dad printed down the numbers up to 100. Guess what? Ray could go up to 100. But he still needs help on 13. Dad googled around but didn't get any answer. What a mystery!

Gangs of Kettleman Lane

Here we are. Wilson brothers, George, Aaron and me. Not everyone showed up today. But this street has a whole lot more boys than girls. So be careful when you are around.

Move up

It has been for a while we didn't go to Olsen Meadow park, owing to this brutal hot summer. Ray starts thinking about real monkey bar now.

Where was baby?

Ray saw a lot of old pictures with only Ray, mom, and dad. "Where was baby?" Ray asked.

"Baby didn't exist back then. He was not born yet." Dad replied with a plain but straitforward answer.

A while back later. Ray came back and said:"When I was a baby, baby Tony went to baby island. When I grew up to be a big boy, baby came back from baby island." This question was still hanging on his mind. It might be too abstract to let a toddler accept the concept of ethereal existance. Ray had to figure out his own way to make sense of it.

English delicacy

Ray and Tony often fight for toys, books, and anything. A rule set by mom and dad is that you can not take things away from the person who got it first, as two boys have to share many things.

Ray certainly is not happy as the side with more power.

There was once Tony got something fun first. Unhappy Ray made a comment:"We just don't like each other."

Then he sneaked a glance at mom and dad nearby, then said:"But we still love each other."

Our story while dad was away

While dad was away to China, mom took care of both Ray and Tony. She did a terrific job. Not only was the house well maintained, but also she told dad a few fun stories.

Here is one of them.

Mom was blowing a floaty, which could lift Tony in pool. After a few tries, she had little success. It was hard. While she was trying to figure out how to do it, Ray urged for help. What could a toddler help? Mom kept trying without taking Ray seriously. It just didn't work. Meanwhile Ray was insisting helping. Mom certainly was a little irritated by Ray's push. "OK, I will let you do it and see what is gonna happen." Mom thought.

Ray happily took it over and started blowing the floaty. Like a miracle, the floaty started growing and growing. So did mom's eyes. Then it was done. Ray gave it back to mom and said:"Here you go, momy."

This story was not over yet.

Tony saw all this and he was excited to help too. He pulled the two corners of the floaty so hard that the floaty was broken. It turned back to flat like it started.

These are our two boys.

A week in San Francisco

People in New England emigrate to Florida in freezing winter. It makes sense for Texas folks to escape to California coast or New England in hot summer, even just for a week, which we did this year.

Last time I came to SF was January 2007, thanks to dad's conference trip. Now I felt like coming back to see my old friend.

We stayed a condo in San Francisco city, right next to MOMA. The condo was rented by auntie for a month at a special deal. We just took a free ride. It is said regular rent is $3000 per month plus $250 for a tiny parking slot. That is one of the reasons that most of people live in this condo drive BMW 3 series, Merceds CLS/CLK, Porche, and unknown tiny fancy sports car, that are easy to park. I am not kidding. The imbalance of housing price and housing size really make we Texan scratch our heads.

Rental car cost twice much as other cities. People told us sometimes cars were rented out in summer. Forget about price and you should feel luck to get one.

Parking is prohibitive, but we were lucky to get one free. What a luck!

A whole food store is one block away, recommended by people living here. It becomes our grocery store as our mindset are san-fancied, a new word we had to create.

Then it was our start of exciting SF adventure.

Day one:

...

I will let Tony to tell exciting part this time. Please see his blog for coming stories.

Then we were back to Austin. So in a day, we experienced 72F at noon in SFO and 95F at 11:00PM in AUS. But we did appreciate more our spacious streets and housing. In a way feel like a little chicken breaking out of egg shell.

Ray's Baby skill

Tony likes talking and whenever Ray talks, Tony always talks twice much back, though 90% of what he says is not understandable.
Ray knows how to deal with baby talking. Here it comes:

Tony:"aadyuo, jljhljladyfi, adkoqlk, oqakln, qimc, eojojljlagg, bla bla bla ....."
Ray kept his head down, working his stuff and replied:"OK."
Then Tony goes:" kqiuq, aipqhe, dfhloq, gqkjka, ejhkja, bla bla bla ...."
Ray:"Yes, you are right."
Then Tony was satisfied and kept quiet.

Mom is a genius

Mom picks Ray up from school at 2:30PM everyday. Then it is gonna be almost 4 hours she has to deal with two boys herself alone. It is a tough job as one of them is very needy. It is even tougher when it comes dinner cooking time. Cooking dinner and dealing with Tony and Ray at the same time sounds like a mission impossible.
We bought a book named 'How to cut' yesterday. This book taught kids how to make things with scissors. I was so into it and it became my favorite activity. Then it came to mom's cooking time. She came up with a creative idea to let me help her trim sweet bean clean with my scissors. I loved this job and did a wonderful job. You could bet on it as this job took me almost an hour to get it done. We all loved eating beans cleaned by me at dinner.

Oh, my, this Texas summer!

This summer was brutally hot and dry. We did get a few weather forcast with isolated shower of 20% chance of percipitation. But we always got the other 80% chance. Even Olson meadow turned yeallow with its newly installed sprinkler system, as city had to save water. We didn't get much chance for biking or hiking like this.

We met a few big boys in the pond. A boy just caught a fish. Dad caught this moment with a setting of ISO1600, 1/30' and F1.8. We wish the picture could be better, but it just couldn't be, as it's too dark. We need a full frame camera body with an F1.2 for this. That boy said that it was the first time for him to get a fish though he had been fishing for many times. It got to be us to have brought him good luck.

Libray lover

Library is Ray's favorite place. But it has nothing to do with books.