Dan’s cousin Hideaki (on his mother’s side)Â lives in Thailand, and was visiting San Francisco for a couple days, so we had dinner at Dan’s parents’ house the other night. Dan hadn’t seen his cousin since 1999, so it had been 13 years!
Mio showed off more of her walking skills… she’s getting faster and better at it every day!
On Saturday, our little family took a trip to the Oakland Zoo! I’d never been, and had been telling Dan that we should take Mio once the weather got warmer — since Saturday was surprisingly warm, we seized the opportunity to finally go! Our friends Kayo and Sung-kook and their 16-month old son Jinwoo also happened to be free that day, so we invited them to come with us.
I grew up going to the National Zoo in Washington, DC, which is pretty impressive and much larger, but I really enjoyed visiting the Oakland Zoo for the first time. It was very clean, well-maintained, and very child-friendly — there were lots of open areas where children could run around and climb onto animal sculptures, and a petting zoo where they could actually touch some of the sheep and goats. I think the more intimate size of the zoo actually works in favor for parents with young children, because you can get through the whole zoo (or a lot of it, at least), without getting too exhausted but still be able to see all the animals that kids love to see (monkeys, giraffes, lions, tigers, elephants. etc.).
It was of course Mio’s first time at the zoo, and although she’s a little too young to truly appreciate it, she definitely seemed intrigued (and at times, perplexed) by some of the animals at the zoo. Here are some of my favorites from the photos we took at the zoo!
You can see the full set of photos we took on our outing to the Oakland Zoo in the slideshow below:
Today is Dan’s 29th birthday, so show him some birthday love! I didn’t have to work yesterday, so when Dan came home from work, I surprised him with a German chocolate cake I had decorated with a birthday message I knew he’d love! For those of you who don’t know, Dan is a huge fan of the Android OS, and we’re usually a house divided because I’m a big fan and user of the iOS/Mac operating system, while Dan is all about supporting Android. For his birthday, though, I decided to set aside my loyalty to Apple for a day and decorate Dan’s birthday cake with the Android mascot and the pun-ny birthday message, “Happy Birthday Dandroid.” As I expected, Dan loved it — I caught his reaction on video, too!
Happy birthday, Dan! Thank you for being the best husband and father in the world to Mio and I, and for everything you do! Looking forward to all the new memories we’ll make together in the coming year, and beyond. 🙂
Dan surprised me with the unexpected gift of a Kate Spade purse! It’s the Lawrenceville Slim Kenny, and is the perfect black purse!
My first thought was, “Who are you, and what have you done with my husband?” Don’t get me wrong — Dan is a wonderful husband, but I’ve never known him to have such stellar taste in fashion. And then I remembered that I was perusing the Kate Spade surprise sale online a couple weeks ago and that the purse had caught my eye. I had shown it to Dan but he told me that even on sale, the handbag was too expensive and that we needed to save with all of the extra expenses we have with Mio. I was disappointed but agreed, and quickly forgot about it. Little did I know that he went online to order it himself later as a surprise for me. The occasion? None, except that he wanted to reward me for “working so hard, balancing motherhood and work.” I do admit it that I have been pretty stressed out and exhausted lately. I’m just looking forward to going home to Virginia at the end of the year and getting a much-needed respite from it all!
This was a truly sweet pick-me-up and I can’t wait to go out with it! I can see myself using this handbag for years — something tells me this is only the beginning of a long, enduring friendship! 🙂
I can’t believe how lucky I am to have such a thoughtful and loving husband, and the sweetest daughter we could have asked for. This is our first Thanksgiving as a family, and we have so much to be thankful for! 🙂
Happy Halloween! This year marks our first Halloween together as a family of three! Halloween is one of my favorite festivities of the year, and I love thinking of creative costumes every time. I especially like costumes that go together in some sort of a theme and last Halloween, I was just at the beginning of my second trimester so I was pregnant Quinn and Dan was Finn from the TV show Glee. This year, Dan was Mario from Super Mario Brothers, I was Princess Peach, and Mio was… ::drumroll please:: Toad (the toadstool mushroom)! Dan and I had actually thought of the idea of being Mario and Peach for Halloween and had prepared our costumes two years ago, but I got deathly sick that Halloween and so we hadn’t been able to use them! But I suppose it was for the better, because our costume idea was made exponentially better with the addition of Toad Mio!
We had a busy Halloween weekend — on Saturday, Dan and his coworker friend co-hosted a baby-friendly Halloween party in the neighborhood, and on Sunday we drove into the city for an evening of Halloween bowling in the Presidio with our friends from Nakayoshi! Check out all the photos of the Halloween fun from this past weekend…
Bowling at the Presidio Bowling Center with Nakayoshi. (I believe this is the first time we’ve taken Mio into the city!)
Hope everyone has a fun Halloween! Perhaps next year Mio can go trick-or-treating!!! I’m already thinking of more family costume ideas….