Walking with Dinosaurs

During the summer I purchased a groupon for tickets to see "Walking with Dinosaurs" at the Tacoma Dome.  Yesterday the time finally arrived for Abe and I to go!  We didn't tell him about it until the day before.  And boy was he excited!

I really didn't know what to expect, but the show was pretty cool.  There was this Australian paleantologist who told the audience random facts about the dinos and a bunch of dinosaurs that were mostly mechanical.  A few of the smaller ones were lifesize puppets.

Abe's favorite part: The dinosaurs fighting!

 The T-Rex!  Unfortunately we didn't get to see the full feature of the performance, because Abe had to go to the bathroom right when he arrived.  But it was pretty cool.  All the kids like hearing her roar at the audience.

1 Month Already!

I can't believe Teddy is already one month old!  Time has gone so fast--and he has grown so much.

We tried to get a picture of the kids together for our Christmas card, but it turns out that they aren't very photogenic--at least not all three at the same time.  Oh well.

Check out those chubby cheeks!  Sorry Teddy, I couldn't figure out how to rotate the picture.

 This week we've been working on making Christmas cookies to give to neighbors and Maryan (they're kind of famous among her family).  Here are a few pics of the adventure in sugar cookie making.  No, it is not bedtime.  Mei Li insisted that she wear her pj's for her nap.

Cutting out the shapes.  Mei Li's favorite was a little hedgehog.

 Sampling the frosting.

 Decorating!

Growing boy

Teddy's doing really well.  He had his 2 week doctor visit this Wednesday and she said that he's growing like a champ.  He's already gained over a pound from his birth weight, which is quite remarkable for breast fed babies.

Abe and Mei Li continue to have moments of enjoying his company.

 Practicing tummy time in his heart jammies.  Check out the cute hedge hog quilt from Great Auntie Nance.

 Cute little santa baby!

Happy Thanksgiving

 We had a good first thanksgiving with Teddy.  Mei Li helped make our pumpkin and apple pies (wearing only a sweatshirt and apron).

We gave Teddy his first bath in the kitchen sink.  He seemed to like the warm water.

 On Saturday we went to a gingerbread making workshop in Bellevue.  It was a pretty fun event.  They had a giant table with a bunch of candy laid out.  We managed to put together a pretty neat looking house, but then just as we were getting up to leave it got knocked on the floor.  Pretty sad, but we recovered by taking home some more candy and icing to re-decorate our now leaning house.

 Here's the final product before it met its demise.  One of our first family photos of the five of us.

Meet Teddy

It took having another kid for us to update this blog!  On Sunday morning we welcomed Theodore Scott HiuZai Hoff into our family.  We're all doing well.  So far Teddy seems pretty low key.  He's a great eater and pooper.  Both Abe and Mei Li seem to be excited to have a little brother.  

 The happy family!

 Teddy was born at 3:33am.  He weighed 8#12oz and was 20 1/2" long.  

In keeping with family tradition here is Teddy's first of many Banjo pictures at 5 days old.  

Clamming

Last weekend we drove to ocean shores to go clam digging.  We all had fun, although no one will be eating clams for awhile.  Everyone who ate them seemed to get sick afterwards.  Mei Li and I were fine--since we didn't eat them.  (I got sick in the fall when we had razor clams, so I already had an aversion to them.)  The weather was fine, and it was fun to run around on the beach.  I think Banjo had the best time of us all.

The littlest clammer:

Christmas is coming!

At least one is looking forward to santa coming!  

More Hawaii

We finally got around to downloading the rest of the pictures from the camera.  Here are some highlights from the second half of our trip.  We stayed at the Grand Wailea, which was quite grand to say the least.  Scott, grandma and grandpa came and we hung out on the beach, played in the hotel's 9 swimming pools/water slides, went on a snorkeling trip on Scott's birthday, and attended a luau where Abe and I learned to hula on the stage.  With the cold weather this week, it sure would be nice to be back in Maui.

 Abe and Neil liked to "ride the waves", which basically looked like this.

 We went to the kula botanical gardens, which reminded us a lot of kabota gardens.

 What's a corn tree any way?--Casper B.P.

 Picnic at the botanical gardens.

 When we arrived at the Grand Wailea we all got greeted with leis.

 Like father, like son.

 Like father, like daughter.

 cute kids.

 Abe actually jumped into the water from the boat.  I think he had a good time.

 Mei Li stayed on the boat for the trip.

 Abe got really into going down the water slides.  Look out Great Wolf Lodge!

 Poor Mei Li didn't have a neck when she wore her life jacket.

Walking through the lazy river.

 Weee!  What you don't see is that at the bottom I somehow got sucked under while trying to keep Mei Li afloat.  Oops.

Luau fun!

Hawai'i!!!

We left for Hawai'i on Thursday night as the horrible windstorm was hitting Seattle.  The flight was fairly uneventful except for the terrible turbulence, the fact that Abe tried (and failed) to poop twice in the bathroom, and that Emily and Mei Li sat in front of Abe because a lady wouldn't switch seats with them.  But we made it to our condo all in one piece.

 Our first day we went to the Maui Ocean Center.  They have an amazing aquarium.  Abe and Mei Li both liked looking at the fishes.

 The first tank when you walk in is gigantic and really cool.  As you can tell it's a little dark inside and Emily left Mei Li by the tank for a second.  Mei Li followed Emily and then a man almost tripped on Mei Li.  Sorry Little Li :-(

 Abe was super excited and running throughout the aquarium.  He really liked it when he saw the sharks.  And towards the end there is this giant tunnel that you walk through and you can see rays and sharks and tons of fish swim all around you.  It's pretty sweet.

 Abe enjoyed his time looking at everything.

 Mei Li tried her hand at feeding herself with a spoon  Not too bad little girl!

 We have a little pool at our condo.  Abe is really into playing in the pool, which is a bit of a surprise to us.  Those swimming lessons are paying off.  Nice work swim teacher Levi!  And Mei Li really enjoyed her little floaty contraption as well.

 On our second day we went to the Plantation.  We took a guided tour of a working farm with tons of different crops (coffee, papaya, coconuts, macadamia nuts, etc.) on a tram.  Since we were on the first tour of the day, there were literally only 3 other people on our tour (a dad and two kids) so the guide made a few extra special stops for us.  Abe and Mei Li got to feed some giant long horned cows (the horn almost nipped Mei Li in the head - sorry Little Li x2 ) and saw how a coconut is schucked.  Fresh coconut is real tasty!

 Before diner we walked across the street to check out the beaches at Abe's request.  I think we'll spend some time there tomorrow morning because it always seems to be real sunny and hot in the morning and overcast and windy in the afternoon (which is when we went to the beach today).

We have been making the most of our condo for dinner by using their grills.  The first night we made some Mahi Mahi.  Tonight we grilled up some New York stakes.  Abe takes after us with his zest for eating off the bone.  I must admit they were some damn fine good steaks.

My halloween flock

We've got chicken on the brain at our house.  For the last week or two we've consistently gotten 3 eggs every 2 days!  All it took was changing to a new type of feed with more calcium.

Here are my halloween chickens--courtesy of Martha (Stewart) and Grammy.  

Abe doing his interpretive chicken dance.

 Check them combs out.

 My little chickie.