Seasonal Celebrations

Memorial Day Picnic

May 28, 2012 By Misono in Family and Friends, Kitchen Concoctions, Recreational Fun, Seasonal Celebrations, Videos Tags: BAFC, barbecue, BBQ, church, Jinwoo, Memorial Day, Memorial Day BBQ, Memorial Day picnic, picnic

Today we spent the earlier part of the day at Marina Park in San Leandro, picnicking and BBQ-ing with friends. Here are some pictures and video of all the Memorial Day fun! (We forgot to take our camera, so they’re all from my camera phone, but better than nothing!)

Bell bottoms! — Mio sported some fabulous bell bottoms for the occasion.

I baked green tea cupcakes to bring to the picnic…

piped with matcha green tea frosting — Matcha green tea cupcakes with green tea frosting.

Memorial Day fun with friends — Eating at the picnic table.

Mio eating watermelon — Mio chowing down on some watermelon.

Fun on the swing! — As usual, Mio had a grand time on the swing.

JinWoo was pushing around his toy car, when Mio (in her typical bossypants fashion) hopped onto the seat. Luckily, JinWoo was a good sport and pushed her around the picnic area, taking Mio for a joyride. It was quite a cute sight for everyone to see!

The cuteness! — Ohhh I can't take the cuteness!

Of course, the adults had to chase them around to prevent some potentially dangerous crashes…

They're such cute friends! Thank you JinWoo for pushing Mio around!

I’m sad that the long weekend is already coming to an end, but I’m glad that we could spend it in good company with friends! 😀

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May 5, 2012 By Misono in Mio, Seasonal Celebrations Tags: Children's Day, Japan, jinbei, Kodomo no Hi, koinobori

Happy Kodomo no Hi (ã“ã©ã‚‚ã®æ—¥)! May 5 is Children’s Day in Japan, and so I took some pictures of Mio in her jinbei with the koinobori I bought her for the occasion. I’m continually grateful and feel so blessed that our little girl is so healthy, strong, and full of life!

Hanami at Golden Gate Park

April 10, 2012 By Misono in Local Gems, Recreational Fun, Seasonal Celebrations Tags: cherry blossoms, family, flower viewing, Golden Gate Park, hanami, Mio, picnic, San Francisco, SF

On Sunday, we drove out to the city to go to Golden Gate Park, where the cherry blossoms are in bloom by the Hagiwara Japanese Tea Garden. Cherry blossoms are my favorite flower, and I love seeing them come in bloom every spring and this year, Mio got to see the beautiful blossoms she was named after. There were a lot of people having hanami (flower-viewing) picnics around the trees in Golden Gate Park — gotta enjoy them while they are still in bloom! 🙂

We captured some lovely photos of Mio, our own little blossom, among the sakura…

Mio with the cherry blossoms. — Mio with her namesake.

Daddy and Mio eating lunch. — Picnic time!

Attack!!! — Attacking Mama while she dozes...

Mio is really excited to be touching my butt... — Mio is so full of energy that we can't keep up!

For the full slideshow of photos of our hanami, see below! 😀

Easter Eggs

April 8, 2012 By Misono in Creative Corner, Seasonal Celebrations Tags: decorating, decoration, DIY, Easter, Easter eggs, eggs, painting

Happy Easter! My favorite childhood memories of Easter was decorating Easter eggs with my mother and my brother every year. It’s been well over fifteen years since the last time I decorated Easter eggs, but becoming a mother myself brought back those memories and made me want to relive them this year.

As always, Dan was a good sport with my sudden urge to craft, and we decorated these eggs together on Friday night. (I know, we’re such party animals!) We huffed and puffed and blew the eggs out, and then tried a couple decorating techniques.

The first one we attempted was a “gilded” look with some metallic dyes. It didn’t come out quite as clean as I had wanted them too (I wanted them to have more uniform coverage), but as Dan pointed out, you have to have enough dye to dip it in, and we only had enough to paint it on with a brush. Oh well… it has more of an organic, abstract look to them with the painterly texture.

The second method I tried (at this point, Dan had given up and run off to indulge in a Breaking Bad-watching marathon) was one which involved wrapping the eggs in Japanese patterned paper. I was definitely happier with these results! 🙂 It’s a lovely Eastern take on a Western tradition.

The best part about these is that we can keep them around for decoration for a while, since the insides are hollow because we blew them out, and the decorated eggs won’t go bad.

I can’t wait until Mio is old enough to decorate Easter eggs with us! 😀