Is not the smartest time to bring home a new puppy and work on potty training. But that’s what we did. World, meet Fred, our newest family member. He is a chocolate lab and is 10 weeks old. He was the most laid back and biggest pup in his litter of eight from a local owner who breeds occasionally but seemingly well.
The girls adore him, but Joe and I are totally in love with the little guy.
Before our trip to Hawaii, I bought the girls each a Tamagotchi (remember those bleeping little virtual pet toys from the 90s?) as one of many activities to keep them busy on the planes and during downtime. They ended up not getting to use them on the plane because of the bleep-bleep noises, which we didn’t want to irritate our fellow passengers over.
Well, they’re still alive and kicking, and this morning I came down to find Julie punching away at both, one in each hand. Struck me as hilarious.
Julie wanted pancakes for breakfast, and it sounded good to me. The pancakes themselves are whole wheat with ground flax seed mixed in. I had a carton of whipping cream in the fridge left over from some amazing mac and cheese I made earlier in the week, so we whipped it up. To top the whole mess, I defrosted some blueberries bought in the freezer section and mixed in a little maple syrup.
Oh. My. Gosh. Yum.
Finishing up a big bowl of bun at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant (Pho 79). Julie is exhausted from splashing in the pool at the gym.
Another weekend is coming to a close all too soon!
Today was a non-stop day, as most of my week days are when school is in session. Today more than usual. I’ll give you a random run-down, followed by a quick photo or two following up on an old knit project.
Up at 8:00 – or really a little bit after that as I cuddled Sophie and checked e-mails on my phone for a few minutes after the wake-up chime. I dressed in gym clothes and cajoled the girls into getting dressed before breakfast – a rule on school days and surprisingly there was little to no fight this morning.
Downstairs to make breakfast – old fashioned oatmeal from the microwave (really, there is no need to buy those over-processed packets when the much-less-processed kind cooks up in three minutes!) and some hard boiled eggs that I’d peeled and put into cute egg molds the night before. The kids love hard boiled eggs this way, and they work really well. Go buy some – buy several sets while you’re at it so you can cook up a whole bunch for the week at one time. What will those crazy awesome Japanese people think up next? I also heated up some soup and stuck it in a thermos for Julie’s school lunch while we were at it.
Suddenly it was time for the bus. Only when we got out to the corner, the bus had already come and gone, and I stood there for a few minutes wondering if a) we missed the bus; b) our neighbor who rides the bus was sick this morning and therefore wasn’t riding the bus; or c) maybe there was really one more day of vacation left and Julie didn’t have to go to school at all today wouldn’tthatbenice? It was choice a. We ran back inside, I grabbed my gym bag and we piled into the van.
Julie wanted to go into the school by herself, but I thought I’d better go talk to the attendance lady since she’d left several voice mails on my phone while we were in Hawaii asking about Julie’s unexplained absence (oops, I told the teacher but not the office!) Good thing I went in and faced the nonplussed-schoolnurse-music because Julie came back to the office moments later fighting tears at being sent back to the office to get a pass from the grumpy attendance lady. I was there to help soothe the nerves and get her back to class for a happy start to the day.
Sophie and I arrived at the gym only 15 minutes late. Down to the childcare for her, drop off my bag in the locker room, race up to the spin studio where I spent the next half hour trying to catch up with my buddies who were there on time and already sweating hard. All last winter, I considered just the 45-minute spin class plenty for a Monday morning workout, but this year my Splasher/Dasher friends have sucked me into an additional part of their routine. A mile on the treadmill followed up by enough sprints around the indoor track to make me want to puke, and then a bunch of push-ups and sit-ups for good measure.
Which put me far enough into my two-hour daily time allotment for the childcare that I would no longer have time for a shower before putting my fresh street clothes on. Ick. Then there was a little mess about getting Sophie to her dance class (also at the gym). It hadn’t been clear to me whether the new session of dance was starting back up today or not, so in my rush to get us all out the door, I’d skipped grabbing her leotard and shoes. I scrambled to get the sign-up form filled out and turned in, then we ran home, got her changed and ran back just in time for class. The lovely lady who puts me through my paces in spinning class also happens to teach Sophie’s dance class, and she does a great job at both.
Whew! Now I had 45 minutes of calm freedom. I ran back downstairs and checked at the front desk for my lost knitting bag (which oddly enough, I had not lost at the gym but had left at my friend’s house two weeks earlier, and which even more oddly, was waiting for me at the gym’s lost and found.) Funny story, but this is going to be long enough so we’ll wait for another day. Then I grabbed a smoothie from the snack bar and found a chair in a quiet corner to flip through magazines in search for nutritious recipes that my family might consider poking at and complaining about, if not actually eating. The plan was to hit the grocery store realquick after the gym.
45 minutes of freedom really doesn’t last that long, but I did manage to find a couple of promising recipes. Sophie was hungry at the end of dance class, though, and the half a PBJ sandwich it took me five minutes to gulp down took her half and hour to nibble. Then we had to find the bathroom, and then we had to make it out to the car at the other end of the very large parking lot because it is the beginning of January and all the gym members who never come to the gym were attempting to fulfill their New Year’s Resolutions. In other words, there was no longer enough time for the grocery store.
We headed home, I dragged in the gym bag, the knitting bag, Sophie’s sippy cup and who knows what other crap, then changed over some laundry (and let me just add here that I am typing this up rather than facing the four or five loads of clean laundry waiting to be folded in the living room). Oops! Suddenly I had less than an hour to hop in the shower and make it out the door for the next thing in the day.
Joe was off today, but was out running his own set of errands this morning, but arrived just as I was getting dressed (the man has a knack for showing up when I’m naked and in a hurry!) I’d gotten the girls’ swimming bag together earlier, so we had a quick hand-off conversation about how he could make the girls’ first class of the new swimming session go smoothly, and then I headed out the door.
By now it was snowing, and I had a good hour’s drive to get to where I was going. So far, this post has been flip and fun, and I think that is because I’m fighting really hard to gloss over the raw feelings I faced this afternoon. One of my beloved neighbor-friends lost her father to a massive heart attack completely unexpectedly last week. I love these neighbors, and I knew the father a bit, as he was very involved with his grandchildren, and we stood in my back yard on several occasions chatting smalltalk while we watched the kids play. He was a wonderful man, and I will miss him. He should have spent many more of those afternoons with us, and I will think of him when I play with those kids in the yards in the summers to come. Plus, I’m hurting on behalf of my friends, whose grief I can barely begin to contemplate.
I made it to the funeral 15 minutes late – I took a couple wrong turns despite the navigation function on my cell phone. I’m going to blame it on a combination of the snow and the crazy “navigation lady” with her less than perfect directions. I’m glad that I went to the funeral, but I needed a treat on the way home and stopped for a chocolate milkshake at Culver’s.
Back at home, the family was waiting for me to make them some dinner. I boiled noodles and heated up spaghetti sauce – and I’m going to admit that I sliced up three hot dogs and put them in the jarred sauce to count for the night’s protein. There were steamed and raw veggies on the table too, at least. I’d ruined my appetite with the milk shake but ate small servings of everything for show. Tonight’s dinner went down with minimal whining and quite a bit of catching up from the day, so I’m calling it a major success.
The kids are in bed, the kitchen is clean, I still need to finish up the laundry and make Julie’s lunch for tomorrow (well, put together some veggie sticks and clean out her thermos so she can have reheated noodles in it.) I see no knitting in my future this evening.
Alright, one of the things I’ve been wanting to do on the blog is to follow-up on some of my past projects to let you know what they’ve been up to since they were knit. Hopefully this will be the first installment of a series. Back in October of 2008 I finished a lovely little purple beaded shawl out of some yarn I spun myself. Here’s the Ravelry link. Here’s a picture of Julie modeling it for me back then, and oh! my! she was so small and cute.
I wore it quite a bit in 2008-2009, and some in the winter of 2009-2010. It still looks quite fresh and new two years later now, but this was its first outing of the winter this year.
I needed a little something to keep my shoulders warm in this lightweight knit dress – I don’t own much really appropriate in the way of funeral clothes, and this simple brown dress was the best I could do after last year’s weight loss.
This shawl wears really well – I don’t think it looks too frumpy or terribly old fashioned – at least not in the knitterly circles (of which this neighbor and many of her friends belong). I keep meaning to knit another of these at some point, and probably some day I will.
We’re squeezing out every last minute of fun from our extended winter break. Julie has to go back to school tomorrow, but before the party’s entirly over we wanted to go see a movie. Our family had never been to the movies all together before – I’d taken the girls a couple of times, but I’m pretty picky about what we expose them to and movies just aren’t a high priority for us.
The girls seemed to enjoy Tangled, although Sophie was scared and sat in my lap for most of it. I knew most of their little friends might see it, and I wanted them to be able to participate in the Rapunzel talk and play.
Here’s a very dark, very blurry cell phone photo of the girls with our giant tub o’ popcorn. I ate about half of it (urp) and drank my share of the cherry Icee drink.
I love our New Year’s Day traditional lunch at Joe’s mom’s house. Korean new year soup Duk Guk is delicious and goes down easy on tummies still upset from the previous night’s excess.
There are tired but happy faces all around this afternoon.
Hi, beloved readers. I know. You thought I left you behind for good. I mean, hello – July. That was the last time I posted. I’ve been having a little blogging crisis over here behind the scenes. I mean, I have lots of great stuff going on that I could be blogging about. It’s just that I’ve been too busy doing it – and, well, sleeping – to cruise on over here and type it up. And then after a while I kind of forgot how to jump in and do it.
But here I am missing the ole blog. I like writing about our little suburban lives. I like recording the great things we do around here every day, both large and small – they are mostly great. Of course, there is a LOT of little drudgery and crap that goes on around here too, and I’m going to be honest when I admit that holding back on the desire to rant on some of those little things has bottled me up a bit. But this space has always been a place where I’ve tried to focus on the positive, and I want to keep it that way.
So, I’m going to try to blog a lot more regularly in 2011. I have WordPress on my fancy phone, and I’m going to try to post on something like a daily basis, and to be satisfied with that even if it is just a photo snapped on my phone camera with a quick caption. Surely capturing those small happy moments that happen each day is better than nothing.
Meanwhile, I’d like to share a few highlights from the last half of the year.
The garden was a major project and source of entertainment for the girls and I all summer long. Once we had it built and planted, there was not much left to do but the occasional watering, and pulling a few weeds here and there. I spent hours and hours, if I were to add up all the minutes stolen here and there peeking at my growing plants, watching the fruit develop, hoping for results, and picking the nice little harvest. There were good and bad results – about a third of the space in the main bed was spent on broccoli and brussels sprouts which in the end yielded nothing. We’ll do that a little differently net year – planting those plants earlier and where they cannot take over the other poor pets. We had volunteer tomato plants sprouting out of the compost pile, which I found hilarious. Here they are not long after I first noticed them, but by the end of summer they were practically taking over the lawn.
This picture of the garden caught me off guard when I spotted it in the files – the plants all look so small here, compared to the mass we ended up with in August.
We had huge crops of kale, lettuces, cucumbers. There were a few beets and onions, those which were not overshadowed by the dreaded broccoli plants, quite a few delicious potatoes, which I thrilled at digging up – it was like a treasure hunt! We had a good number of tomatoes and peppers and carrots too. The pea plants yielded well, and most of them were eaten straight from the garden between games in the yard.
Julie became a true master at riding her bike this summer. It just clicked for her after a few tries this spring, and they spent many hours riding up and down our quiet street.
Sophie tagged along with her training wheels. There were also a few excursions to the local library on the bikes – the first time Julie rode her bike while I ran along with Sophie in the jogging stroller, but after that Julie and I rode bikes with Sophie in the trailer behind me. I was (am!) so proud of my big girl. We’re looking forward to next summer when we’ll be able to ride the greenway trails to local lakes, parks and restaurants. Now that the new overpass is open nearby, we have great access to lots of bike paths and will even be able to bike to Target, the grocery store and local swimming pool.
We did make it to the swimming pools quite a bit this summer, but there was plenty of water play in the back yard as well…
In August, I reached a huge goal. I trained all spring and summer for my first triathlon, and I not only finished, but did so in a time that made me proud. I had a great cheering section – you can’t really see it in this picture, but we are all wearing special t-shirts we made for the day. It was incredibly hard work, but I really focused on setting a good example for my girls and I am planning to do an Olympic-length tri in 2011. Fitness has been a big part of my life this last year, and I feel great – but I will admit that it takes a lot of my time and energy, some of which is stolen from things like blogging and even fiber arts. The friendships I’ve made at the gym are priceless, though, and fitting into size 8 jeans again is almost unbelievable.
The girls and I took our annual trip to the State Fair in August. I had a few things entered, and won a few ribbons, albeit nothing monumental. I did enter handspun yarn for the first time, and got a second place ribbon. The girls got their faces painted (which I love having them do as much as they love having done) and we ate ourselves silly.
September came around and Julie headed to first grade. Sophie was very sad in this picture because she was losing her playmate and didn’t get to start school till a couple weeks later. They play together so very well, but both have been enjoying school – and Sophie will be headed to Kindergarten on the bus with Julie next fall.
Julie’s birthday comes close on the heels of the start of the school year. This year she chose a party at a local painting joint called Simply Jane. They provide the canvases with pictures for the kids to fill in, and all the materials to do it plus some instruction. Very fun! And now she’s seven!
She wanted a fairy theme to her party, so I did my best to make fairy cupcakes. At least they tasted yummy.
Here we are later in the month showing of a new pair of knee-high socks. There have been several other projects in the works – I’ll probably show some of them off along the way, but you can always go check out my projects in Ravelry if you’re dying of curiousity. Of course, now that I mention it, that’s not very up to date either. <sigh>
One of the people I swim with twice a week is a firefighter named Phil. He invited us to come tour his station, and we took him up on it in October. I don’t know if they enjoyed the ride around the block in the big pumper truck…
Or spraying water from a real fire hose more. But it was super-cool to go on the tour, and Phil showed us *everything*. He even put on his whole suit of gear, pulled out the jaws of life for us to try and lift, showed us the infrared camera, and took us down to the basement when Julie asked what they had down there. (Turns out they have a place to park their cars, a gym to work out in between calls, and a laundry room for cleaning sooty gear).
Also in October, there was a “fun meet” at the swim school the girls go to. They both participated and did their best while we cheered them on. Swimming is something that we really enjoy doing together as a family, and another sport that I’ve been doing my best to model an interest in.
Joe and I got all fancied up to go to his 20-year high school reunion. I have a funny look on my face because my mother-in-law was trying to use my fancy camera and I was trying to get her to just push the right button. I felt quite glamorous in the red dress I borrowed from one of my gym friends. I loathe shopping for clothes, especially dressy ones, and she rescued me after I’d done my best at the mall and come up empty-handed. I really don’t think this picture does the look justice. All I wanted was to make my man proud, and I think I did okay.
Halloween rolled along, and we had our usual fun. Sophie wore a hand-me-down monkey costume, and Julie and I put together a Blossom-the-Powerpuff-Girl costume for her. Yes, I knit the hat and the sweater. The hat is a Hallowig with a big bow attached to the top.
My brother-in-law Dave and his fiance Jinnie finally got serious about getting married (long story!) so we headed over to the sculpture garden at the Walker Art Center one beautiful November day to take some pictures for their engagement. Jinnie wanted to send the pictures to her parents in Korea. I took a ton that day, and it was super-fun playing photographer with them in their fancy han boks and doing fun poses.
Before Thanksgiving, Julie got an assignment from school to decorate a turkey picture by gluing small objects to it like seeds or noodles. We went with cut-up bits of yarn, and I made a copy for Sophie to use. It was fun, and messy, and I got to finally use up a teeny bit of the solid sock yarn scraps I’ve been hoarding.
oh – here’s another finished project – I made a pop-tab purse for my MIL for Christmas. I think this is my favorite pop-tab bag so far, and I should totally write up the pattern for this shaping. She’d pretty much asked me for one, and I think she liked it when she opened it on Christmas. I’m curious to see whether she actually uses it or not.
And then – then we all flew out to Hawaii in the middle of December for Dave and Jinnie’s wedding. We yanked the kids out of school for 10 days right before winter break (it’s going to be a shock next week when they start back up!) and it was totally worth it. They traveled SO well, and this is a trip that they’ll always remember. Here they are doing their thing quietly on the plane. I packed a ton of books, music, coloring, craft activities, and yes, even video games and a netbook with videos for them to watch. But they did not make one inappropriate peep on any of the six! flights we took coming and going.
The whole extended family – including Jinnie’s parents and brothers – stayed in one big house together, and I was very nervous before hand about how that was going to work out. I’d even packed a secret stash of chocolate so I could go hide in the bedroom and let out some frustration. But my worry was completely unnecessary. We all got along famously, it was wonderful to get to know Jinnie’s family while we were there (even though we don’t speak a common language, we managed to communicate with lots of smiles, a few crazy pantomimes on my part, and some translating help from the bilinguals in the group). The girls loved being with their grandparents the whole time, and I loved watching them play together for long stretches.
We hiked up a mountain past a lighthouse, and I carried Sophie on my shoulders most of the way up and back down. It was beautiful, and worth it if you include the bragging rights.
There was much fun on the beaches, including snorkeling and wading through amazing tide pools.
The girls were obsessed with climbing this palm tree…
oh, there’s the amazing tide pool – it was on the north shore of Oahu, and we saw lots of fish, hermit crabs, sea urchins, and beautiful coral all while wading around in nice sand and still, warm water.
One of the best parts of staying all together in a house was the big group meals. We ate a lot of Korean home cooking, but I cooked steaks and baked potatoes for everyone one night.
We took a trip to the aquarium in Honolulu, and it was really cool. They had a nice self-guided tour that kept the girls busy for well over an hour.
Let me just say it was FREAKY spending December in Hawaii. I mean, we missed out on a 20-inch snow storm while we were gone. And the juxtaposition of palm trees and Christmas trees just blew my mind. Also, I had all the presents bought and wrapped before Thanksgiving, and had a bunch of cookies in the freezer at home before we left too. Because I had four days to get the house and dinner ready for sixteen of our closest family when we came back.
Here’s Jinnie’s mom with Joe and Dave’s mom cooking dinner on the second night we were there. Cooking and eating together is a great way to bond.
And on the wedding day, we cleaned up well. The girls were flower girls, Joe was best man, and I was just there to enjoy myself and take pictures.
It had rained the first couple of days we were there, and was raining hard the morning of the wedding, but it cleared of perfectly in time for the beach-side ceremony.
And here is our side of the newly formed family – Joe’s parents, Jinnie and Dave, Joe, me, Julie and Sophie.
Here’s the wedding couple at the Pae Bek ceremony – a korean wedding tradition.
A few more vacation highlights – eating at a roadside chicken stand. We were caravanning over to the other side of the island for a tour of the Polynesian Cultural Center, and we passed this place that smelled so good I got on the cell phone and hand the other cars turn around with us and go back for lunch. Totally yum!
There was a pool in the yard at the house we rented, and the girls and I swam a bit every day. The water was pretty cold, but felt fine once you got in and swam around a bit. Joe’s dad braved it with us a couple of times, as did his mom. I think Joe got in the pool once, but he was kind of a baby about the cold water. 
And finally, I purchased a new bikini and wore it in public for the first time since before Julie was born. Joe thought I was hot, and that’s all that matters. Yes, I am a silly goof.
Whew! That barely scratches the surface of the tip of the iceberg. But you’ve had a few highlights. Now I can move forward with the day-to-day minutiae.
It’s a good thing I took a picture immediately after the nice lady from the gym daycare painted their faces, because Sophie’s was ruined by the time we got home. Major hissy fit over not wanting to eat lunch at home.
Things are going that way this summer – we’re having lots of fun and learning lots of lessons, some the hard way. I have lots of pictures and details to put up when I get to them…
I mastered the challenge. Today I swam in my first open water race. Two miles at local Lake Harriet. I went into this race confident in my ability to swim two miles, pretty sure about my ability to swim two miles in open water, even with weeds and wind; and hopeful that I could make it within the hour and fifteen minute time limit for the race. All I wanted to do was finish.
Joe and the girls left the house extremely early for a Kang-family weekend and came down to the beach with a picnic breakfast to see me off. You can’t see it in the picture, but the paper Julie is holding is a sign reading “Go, Mommy Go!” (with the Gs written backwards).
There I am in the water right before the race, pretending to be confident. In actuality, I was trying to ignore how cold I was and convince myself that I was really going to do this.
Joe was in charge of taking pictures today, and while I was out in the water the kids amused themselves on the beach. I hear that there were a couple of dead fish involved, but my girls were only observers in that part of the entertainment.
The actual swim itself was fine. The first leg was a little – not scary, but I was nervous. All those people bumping bodies in the water, settling into my stroke, getting comfortable with trying to sight the buoy. Once I turned that first corner, though, the crowd had spread out and I settled into the swim – one stroke at a time. I’d swim thirty or so strokes, then pop my head up with a couple breast strokes to check my path. It’s not exactly easy swimming in a straight line when you’re not staring at the black line on the bottom of a crystal clear pool. I never did get too far off course, and pretty soon I was past the second buoy, then the next.
There was only one point where I was swimming against the wind and swallowed a giant lungful of lake water when a wave caught me right as I came up on a breast stroke. The thought going through my head as I coughed it up was not “I’m going to die” but “I hope the safety people in the kayaks don’t see me coughing and come over to drag me out.” And then I turned the last corner and came in for the homestretch and it was all downhill from there. At that point I felt like I could keep swimming all day.
And when I came up on the beach, I was so happy to finish feeling good that I did a little happy dance to the finish line.
There were a bunch of high-fives, hugs and general celebration. In this picture I’m surrounded by three of the women I swim with at the club, all Jennifers, one of whom swam in the race and the other two who showed up to cheer us on. How cool is that?
Here we are again – the Jen on the right is our coach – her kid is the one who touched the dead fish!
All this before 10 in the morning. The family and I headed home, I showered off the lake schmuck, and we all went out for brunch. Which was awesome. And then I came home and took a very long nap. The End.