Simpsons in Seattle

Happy year of the rat! Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Being a PNW kid means knowing how to ski! Scott and I want to get the kids comfortable on skis while they are young but haven't been able to commit to weekly ski lessons mainly because it's such a big time commitment. Since we had MLK day off, we figured it would be a good weekend to drive a bit further out and try Mission Ridge, a new-to-us ski hill where the girls could take a few lessons over the course of the weekend. Unfortunately, the kids classes were super booked and we only got the girls in 1 class each, but I think it was still a good trip!  Evie's taken a few classes in the past but finally got on a chair this time. She was loving it so much that after her morning lesson, Scott took her up a few more times and even got her to do a blue run! I"m so proud of her - I don't think *I* have even done a blue run before! Nora hit a milestone too - she tried out the tow rope for the first time. That thing is super tricky and everyone was falling all over

The girls had their dance recital last weekend and guess what? BOTH girls made it on stage and did great. HOORAY! We are so happy about it because the last time Nora had to do a dance recital, it didn't go so well . She also has been super finicky about going to class the past few weeks. She will cry and cry and refuse to go in, so much so that she missed so many classes we weren't sure she'd even know the routine. When she IS in class, she does great and plays with her friends (there's at least 2 girls from school there, including one of her close friends). In any case, boy were we relieved when we saw her on stage in her cute little ladybug outfit! She mostly knew the routine too but of course was watching the teacher the whole time. Evie did great, as usual. She loves dance and has requested that she does more classes! Bummer that they didn't let us take videos of the performance to be able to share with you all! Side note, we tried a new dance studi

Our friends invited us over to their house to celebrate Lohri , a Punjabi festival to celebrate the end of Winter. It is typically celebrated on Jan 13 but because of the snowstorm, we had to move out the party to this past Friday night instead. We enjoyed awesome homemade indian food (bonus that it was all vegetarian!), lots of talking and laughing with one another, and then capped it off with a "fire ritual" where we chanted the Gayatri Mantra around a small bonfire and then threw in rice, nuts and pennies to feed the gods. It was a fun, interesting experience and I'm happy that Evie and Nora were exposed to it.  Warming up circling the bonfire Feeding the fire

Our little Nora just cracks me up! She can fall asleep anywhere like at Costco or in her closet  or under a chair . But what's even funnier is how she sleeps! One of her favorite positions is with her little tushy in the air. We were playing monopoly the other day when we were snowed in and we took a break for something (I think I had to make dinner) and guess what happened? Nora decided to take a nap! 

The weather system that was predicted to come in this week started Sunday night and dumped enough snow here that school has been cancelled for 2 days now! The girls, of course, have been ecstatic. The first storm brought in a few inches that started to melt away, but then today it snowed lightly but steadily from early AM to about 1pm and added a few more inches.  The last storm hits tonight, but supposedly will be a little more north of us so we aren't expected to get as much snow but temps will stay below freezing. This wasn't anything like the epic snowmaggedon we got last year (see here , and then here , and lastly here ) that lasted in total about a week, but it's still been a fun start to the season! Checking out the snow outside We walked over the park but it was kinda slushy and muddy Evie was such a good sport pulling Nora on the way back from the park. The view from our bedroom window this morning The girls had to keep themselves occupi

Evie had flute and then a birthday party for a friend who moved way out in the stix so while Scott shuttled Evie around, Nora and I were on our own. It's not much of a date, but she joined me doing a bunch of errands, including a couple of returns to some stores in the mall. We stopped and grabbed lunch while we were there. Nora wanted a smoothie/icy drink and after some debate, we settled on trying a new-to-us burger place and got a chocolate shake to go with it. Here's her happy face while eating lunch. And yes, she kept her jacket on her head the entire time we were at the mall! 

Ha, I envision there will be a lot of "first" posts in the next few weeks since we just started the new year. We just got our first snowfall at our house this morning, and that reminded me that I hadn't yet posted about our first snoeshow/snowplay afternoon from the weekend! We bought snowshoes for the girls last year and t hey loved stomping around in the fresh snow  so much they couldn't wait to go again. The mountains near us finally got some decent snow so we were out of the house by 8am to beat the rush to Gold Creek Pond, a super popular, family-friendly snow shoe walk. It's an easy half mile walk from where you park to the pond, and then about 2 miles around. Ordinarily, this could be done in an hour or two but the way these kids just HAD to stop every 50 feet to romp around in the fresh snow made it impossible to do the whole walk. Seriously, it took us about an hour to get to the pond! Then we took a snack break and didn't go more than a few hund

2020 has really started off at a slow crawl. I got sick the last day we were in LA, and then must have passed it on to Scott and Evie because they both came down with something and were out of commission on the 30th and 31st. Our NYE was spent lounging on the couch watching a Star Wars documentary.  Luckily, both felt good enough for a low key New Years day outing to the Science Museum in Seattle. We really wanted to go sledding but the weather was too warm (read: lots of rain!) for it to snow so we opted to stay dry and revisit a museum we haven't been to in a while. Turned out to be a great option for us because we ended up spending almost the entire day there and visited exhibits we hadn't seen before and watched an IMAX about extinct animals.  The 2010s was a wonderful decade that brought in tons of changes into our lives - 2 kids, 2 new houses, 4 new jobs (more on that in another post!), 2 new cars, lots of trips and activities but mainly a surprising love for the

Just like in years past, after opening presents on Christmas morning at Grammie and Grandpa's house, we headed over to the Yu house on Apollo to spend the second half of our vacay there. By 5pm that night, the house was filled with lots of noise because everyone came over for Christmas dinner. We were missing Ashlin but Cameron's girlfriend Catey joined for the first time so that was a nice new addition.  The rest of the holiday was spent seeing old friends, celebrating Goong Goong's 80th birthday and then just vegging around the house while the kids played with their new toys. Unfortunately, I got super super sick on the last day we were there so I missed Eleanor's 1st birthday party as well as our annual hot pot night! Now that I'm all well, I want a do-over!  Hope you all had a wonderful holiday! The kids getting ready to open their piles of gifts Visiting with our old friends Stuart and Sayo, and their kids. We visited our friend's ne

Whew! December flew by in a flash and now we're already into 2020! How the heck did that happen?!  Our holidays were spent, as usual, in good ole LA where we had plenty of fun hanging out with family and enjoyed the lovely sunshine. The first half of the trip was spent with Grammie and Grandpa at their house in Sierra Madre where we filled our days with exploring the neighborhood, had a nice outing to the California Science Center (pretty neat!) and then got ready for Christmas. Here's some quick snaps of our trip!  Oranges galore! Soon they will be ready to sell at the market! We tried a new-to-us brewery in Sierra Madre called Route Rogers. This is the Guava and Raspberry ale. Evie didn't want to go so it was just Nora that hung out with us at the brewery. We let her try "unicorn bao". The pink was filled with bbq pork and the orange one had mushrooms and eggplant.  Grandpa showed us all his neat photos from when they first got married a