2014 - Time Flies

Well, the reality is I have very limited time (our fave term at work is "in your copious spare time") to update this blog and not sure who actually looks at this anyway. That said, I always love to hear from folks - while I'm rarely on social media, I'm always on email. Anyway, 2014 has seen the explosion of "Let it Go" being sung at record levels in our household.  Kids are doing well in school, time is flying.  We had a nice recent visit to Santa Cruz, stopping by several places to do fruit picking...in fact, the picture above is at a strawberry picking farm right off Highway 1 on the Pacific.

2013 Check In

Well, I'm home sick today and in between naps.  I was looking through the site and noticed the "photo" blog template was out-of-date (many gadgets broken) so decided to go with a vanilla blogger template, so voila!  What's been happening?  I'll try to get some pictures up from 2012 and early 2013 - not much travel other than Disneyland again (added post below but here are pics).  We've (Heidi moreso) been the human taxi-cabs for all the kid's activities.  Kensi just finished preschool and Garreck is wrapping up kindergarten in the next week or so.

Despite my best efforts to get him into ice hockey like me, he loves his basketball and baseball leagues the most.  He's still in swimming over at Kings Swim.  Kensi was in soccer (Kids Love Soccer) and swimming at BAC.  We'll see how the summer goes!

(The picture here is us hiking San Bruno Mountain)

2012 Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Crazy as it may seem, we had never hung out at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (link to pictures).  It's old school - the food reminds me of the fairs and visits to Cedar Point as a child.  Texas sized donuts, sno-cones, giant funnel cakes.  Basically all the major junk food groups, but good times nonetheless.  We hung out at the beach for a couple hours afterwards.  There was a neat "tunnel" under the rocks that connected to another beach that Garreck and I checked out as well.

Picture Link:  2012 Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

2012 Disneyland, Legoland, and San Diego Zoo

Our summer 2012 trip was back down to Southern Cal - Disney, Legoland and the SD Zoo (Picture Link).  Overall, great fun.  For Disney we elected to stay at the Candy Cane Inn - great prices, clean, no-frills, and most important - a 10m walk from the Disney entrance.  Last time, we were at the Embassy Suites (iirc), nicer accommodations, but about a 20m walk.  I also bought a subscription (5 bux) to touringplans for Disney - it tells crowd levels, how busy rides are, etc.  Definitely worth it since we targeted days that were not crazy busy.  It does drain your mobile battery so I would not use it to log ride waits (I did that the first day and it zapped my battery by 1PM).

For San Diego, we actually stayed at the West Inn Suites in Carlsbad - awesome hotel at very reasonable rates.  I highly recommend it.  Legoland is great for smaller kids (I'd say 6y old and below) and not too big to walk.  Lines aren't too bad but they have some VIP package you can get for like $80/person to let you cut in front of lines.  Sealife Aquarium is so-so, not nearly as good as Monterey Bay but still worth it.

Finally, the SD Zoo is huge.  I didn't realize it before hand and did not get the bus passes - I'd do it next time because there is a ton of walking up/down fairly big hills.  I don't think you can do the entire zoo in a day.  Still, it was definitely worth the visit and much better than Sea World (which we visited last time).

Here's the piclink:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/18019129@N00/sets/72157633934378042/

2012 Lake Tahoe and Gilroy Gardens

We finally decided to take the kids up to Tahoe this winter (Picture Link).  We chose Granlibakken Lodge based on a few recommendations from my coworkers.  It didn't disappoint, we originally wanted a room in the main lodge but ended up with a room in one of the newer "mini lodges" that had a little patio.  The kids could go out back and play in the snow.  Granlibakken is great for kids since they have a small sledding and ski hill along with all the rental equipment.  They loved it, even after taking a couple of wipeouts and a few snowplows in the face thanks to me (note: don't use your boots to slow the sled down if a kid is with you :)

We paid a visit to Squaw to check out Olympic Village and ride the supertram up, which the kids really enjoyed.  It was windy as heck though.

The other pics I added were a visit to Gilroy Gardens - we haven't been there in a couple years so wanted to take Kensi.  They actually had a special where you could get a free membership for the year so we might head back at some point, though it's a bit of a haul from the peninsula. Rides are probably best for 3-5 year olds.

Picture Link:  2012 Lake Tahoe and Gilroy Gardens

2012 Kensi's 3rd Birthday

I took the day off to celebrate Kensi's b-day with the fam (picture link, also below).  We let her play with some presents early - new pink Hot Wheels "street machine" (which was too big), a pink scooter (which she loves), and a pop-up "princess castle".  Next, we headed over to Hillsdale Mall to the Build-a-Bear Workshop.  Kensi opted for the red Hello Kitty, which she named Mimi (Kensi already has a regular Hello Kitty).  Mimi happens to be Hello Kitty's sister "in real life Hello Kitty world".  Yes, I know all the Hello Kitty characters.

We got her a birthday cookie cake as her treat.  Finally, we decided to convert her crib into a daybed.  She actually never really wanted to get out of the crib but figured she's already three.  A very Happy Birthday indeed!

Pictures:  Kensi's Third Birthday

Early 2012 Pics

Finally posting some 2012 pics and video (yes, it's supported on Flickr finally).  With Garreck getting into basketball this year, we went to a Harlem Globetrotters game at Oracle Arena in Oakland.  We also were able to hit the San Francisco Auto Show to check out some of the new cars - Garreck liked the sports cars :)  Finally, I got the kids interested in learning to ice skate - there's a few photos and two videos.  Garreck got pretty good so I found a pair of ice skates for him - he actually had a lot of trouble with them since I got them sharpened.  Anyway, I still think he prefers hoops to hockey; oh well...

2012 Family Pic Set 1 - Globetrotters, SF Auto Show, and Ice Skating.

2011 Pics Finally

Wow! It's been a while since I've posted here, sorry. The family has moved around a bit and I've changed jobs a couple times as well. By my count, between temporary/corporate/forced-moved housing, I have lived in 6 different places myself the past two years (only 4 for Heidi, Garreck and Kensi). Anyway, big yikes. The net is:

• We're living in northern California, just outside of San Francisco.
• Garreck is 5 and Kensi is 2 (will be three in late Jan).

You can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn or email cpchong.at.gmail.dot.com. Would love to catch up so drop me a line.

I've posted a stream of 2011 pics at Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18019129@N00/sets/72157628493451569

--Chris

Lemos Farm Visit - Oct 2009

Added even more pictures. These are from our annual visit to Lemos Farm in Half Moon Bay, CA. The kids enjoy it and we can also get our pumpkins for Halloween. It can get pretty packed there on the weekends but they have ample parking.

Lemos Farm Visit Oct 2009

Time to eat more turkey.

New Pics Posted Finally

Happy Thanksgiving! I have been pretty behind on posting pics and such. We've been very busy and also finally sold our condo in the city and are happily renting again at a place off the Embarcadero/Brannan. Anyway, still not up-to-date but here are 3 more picsets:

July 2009 Family Pics - mostly pics from a visit to Gilroy Gardens. I highly recommend Gilroy Gardens for toddlers over 36". Garreck absolutely loved it. The place can get very hot though in the summers!

Garreck and Kensi - random pictures from August and September 2009.

Garreck's 3rd Birthday and SF Giants Game - we did not do a party or anything, but did take Garreck out to Superfranks in Pleasanton (pretty good and had great pepperoni pizza!).

Garreck and Kensi Oct 2009 - misc pics from Oct 2009.

I have also added them to the picture stream up-top. Thanks for visiting!