Time Capsule

September 23, 2007

September 26, 2008

September 23, 2009

Holding on to the last vestiges of Summer…

Unwilling to let go of the summer and fall into the fall, the Wongs have resolved to have as many guests in the month of September as possible.

For Emmett's 2nd Birthday, we had the Noritakes, and the Ngs over for dinner in the backyard

Not to mention Goong Goong and Pau Pau

and Mah Mah and Yeh Yeh as well!

Goo Goo and Auntie Serina even came down!

Pictures courtesy of Emmett, who has learned how to use the camera.

Uncle Ben and Auntie Marina came down last weekend, and we chased down the Kogi truck in Brea.

We met the FwuChans there, and Emmett proceeded to put the moves on Avery.

There was a lot of eating.

The Wong's bounty: Kimchee Quesadillas, 3 tacos (pork, short rib, chicken), and 2 burritos (pork, short rib). SO GOOD.

Uncle Ben may have gotten one too many things.

Our guest list continues… this weekend: KAO FOO!  Next week: AUNTIE CINDY AND AUNTIE NAOMI!

Woohoo!

Age 2, and already such a crooner…

MVI_0360, originally uploaded by Emmett’s Parents.

Emmett REALLY likes the Tea Cups at Disneyland

IMG_0223, originally uploaded by Emmett’s Parents.

Emmett saw them and he said “JAH CHE! BUI BUI!” (Driving a Car! Cups!)

So we went. And much fun was had by all.

And I quote, “There is a disturbing lack of posting frequency on this blog.”

My bad.  If you could see the internal guts of this blog, you’d see that I have like 6 drafts waiting to be completed, only to be interrupted by a little man and left on the shelf until they become irrelevant.  (For example, as I was typing that last sentence, he peed on the floor.)  A lot has happened since we last met.

We went to Christabel and Tedman’s Wedding, where Emmett was a big hit (of course):

We moved into a new house the next week:

And Goo Goo came to visit!

And then we went to Kansas City for a few days for the AAFP (American Association of Family Physicians) Annual Conference:

While Christina was conferencing, Emmett and I went to the National World War I Museum:

vases made from old shell casings by soldiers trying to pass time in the trenches. very cool.

The view from the top of the Liberty Memorial, a 217 foot tall tower.  Where are the mountains?

This is the memorial that Emmett and I made and emailed to ourselves.  We will never forget!!!

And the Kansas City Zoo:

We had breakfast with Auntie Steph (aka Bak-Yee):

On our last night there, we went out to dinner with the other PIH residents and faculty to 801 Chophouse.  After all, how could you go to Kansas City and not eat beef?

Tuscan Ribeye.  Perhaps the best I’ve ever had.

Our hotel had a pretty cool light show on the front:

A couple weeks later, the Youds came out to California for a wedding, and they spent a couple days with us!  We first went to an Angels game:

It was Mike Napoli Bobblehead day.  He didn’t even play.  Now I have a Mike Napoli Bobblehead.

It’s a nice stadium.  Not as nice as AT&SBC Bell Park, but it’s nice.

Emmett enjoyed the tossing the peanut shells on the ground.  Some of them ended up in the seats in front of us.  Luckily, the people in front of us were good sports.

From one of the roaming stadium photographers

The Nick Adenhart Memorial outside the park.

And then we went to Disneyland!

We saw this terrifyingly tall woman in line in front of us at the Haunted Mansion.  She doesn’t look so tall here, but…

…but I’m pretty sure that Christina only came up to her elbow.

This last one is Emmett and Christina.  I’ll let you decipher whose score is whose.

And Christina finally caved and got an Annual Pass!

Life has been good as we settle into the new house and attempt to find everything that we packed away.  We have lots of visitors coming in September, so stay tuned (hopefully, I’ll be able to keep up)!

PoTW 07/17/09 – Starting off the weekend with a blaze

We’re up in the Bay Area this weekend to celebrate Christabel and Tedman’s (or Tedman and Christabel’s) wedding!  The plan was this: Christina was at Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) training on Friday, and the hope was that she would be able to get out of the second day (of two days) of training in time for us to get on the road with plenty of time to get on the road to get up to SF at a reasonable hour.

Right out of the gate, we saw a big rig flipped over on the Slauson on ramp to 605.  Not a good omen.  It took us roughly 20-30 minutes to traverse a section of road that normally would have taken all of 3 minutes at worst.  We hit more traffic on I-5 and it took us another 40 minutes to an hour to get out to the grapevine.  Smooth sailing after that, right?  No such luck.  Round about Pyramid Lake, the freeway turns into a parking lot.  This is what we saw:

It took us about an hour to get through the traffic that you see there, and when we finally did, Christina very deftly snapped some pictures to see what all the fuss was about:

Oh. My.  Bus carcass.  We booked it up to SF at the highest, safest speed that we could.  We finally arrived at Pau Pau’s house at about 10:30 PM, having left Whittier at 2:45.  Good Lord, that was a long trip.  After doing some investagative research, I found the following story:

CASTAIC, Calif. — A passenger bus went up in flames Friday on Interstate 5 northwest of Los Angeles but all ten people aboard got off safely, the company said. The blaze sparked a brushfire.

The bus, operated by Coach America, had pulled onto the shoulder of the interstate, a major connector between Los Angeles and California’s Central Valley.

Glass windows broke and several explosions could be heard as the bus burned, and only a skeleton remained after the fire was out.

The vehicle was en route to Bakersfield from the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero in Washington, D.C. said. Amtrak has bus connections in parts of California not served by rail.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

After the nine passengers and the driver disembarked, the fire spread to nearby brush. Northbound traffic was brought to a halt when firefighters arrived on scene. The fire burned about 10 acres.

In the same region, Los Angeles County firefighters were battling a 55-acre wildfire.

More than 200 firefighters fought the Castaic-area blaze, which erupted at midafternoon in medium brush, said fire Inspector Steve Zermeno.

An aircraft painted a line of pink fire retardant across hilly lands between the fire and a neighborhood of homes. Containment was estimated at 70 percent by nightfall.

Geez o peez.  I’m just glad that we finally made it.  More pictures from today’s goings on as they go on.

“…in thousands of sparkling lights and electro-synthe-magnetic musical sounds.”

Disney post!  We brought Ellie to Disneyland yesterday, and we had a grand old time.

Emmett and "ZaZa" on the tram.

corn tortillas from the mission factory!

after lunch, first stop was the king triton carousel

and then over to Mickey's Fun Wheel, the non nausea-inducing car, of course.

If we didn't live in LA, I'm sure we could have seen our house from up there.

Then we went over to Disneyland and saw the All-American College Band, who were forced to wear these ridiculous Globetrotter-looking outfits.

Then we went on the Rocket Ships, where we saw this poor couple struggling to fit into their rocket. He gave her a kiss after they got in. Very sweet.

Then we went on Buzz Lightyear, where Emmett got a personal best

And so did Ellie.

Then we went back over to CA Adventure and were disappointed to find out that the Aladdin show is only playing Thursday through Sunday now. D'oh!

So we went back over to Disneyland to ride the carousel,

and play around at Innoventions (after balking at the Finding Nemo 45 minute wait)

Apparently, Emmett is the beginning of my future.

To kill time before the parade, we went to CA Adventure to the Animation Academy

Where Emmett was the model student.

This is our rendition of Tigger

And then we camped out for the Electrical Parade. 'Twas very nostalgic for me. The old music, some of the original floats. Good times.

Up close, Pete's Dragon is a lot bigger than I remember him.

on our way out, the fireworks were going off in Disneyland.

Everyone stopped in Downtown Disney to watch.

All in all a good trip.  My feet hurt from mistakenly wearing flip flops.  I still hope we can get out there to see the new Fantasmic Dragon.  Rumor is that he is debuting this Monday!  Anyone wanna go?

Celebrating our nation’s independence by looking at some animals

Goong Goong and Pau Pau are in town!  Christina was on call (again), so the rest of us spent the afternoon at the zoo!

Emmett's preferred mode of transportation today.

Everyone looking at the sea lions. Note Pau Pau's cool new Zebra visor. "Very comfortable", she says.

The Komodo Dragons were straight up muggin' for the camera.

As my dentist used to say, "Open reeeeeeeal wide..."

The bears were out and walking around for a change.

and the tortoises were under a heat lamp when it was 83º outside... weirdos.

So... wrinkly... so... dry...

Walking with Pau Pau

Taking a break. Actually, he saw me crouching to take the picture and copied me.

I know that the posts to this blog have been few and far between, but we’ve been pretty busy what with getting ready to move and everything.  I’ll get back into rhythm after we move in August.

Quick update on what’s going on:

• We’re moving! (Just across town)
• We’re going to Kansas City!
• Christina is no longer an intern!  She’s a SECOND YEAR resident (everybody with me, “ooooOOOOoooo.”)
• Emmett is learning to talk!  (I’ll get a video up soon.)

That is all.

What happens when the magic has technical difficulties?

After a day of packing and moving some things (and a couple other things), the Poppywongs, Emmett and Daddy went to Disneyland to see if we could see the “new” Fantasmic that is part of Disneyland’s new “Nightastic” celebration for this summer.  It opened this past weekend, and clearly, there are some kinks to be worked out.

First things first.  When we got there, the parking garage said “Disneyland: Filled to Capacity“.  Not to be turned back, we decided to go to the park to see if they would let us in.  Lo and behold, people were filing into the park as per usual.

They had some Honda Insights in the entry plaza, and Dad and I took a look.

Once we got in, the parade was about to begin, so we watched it again.

waiting for the parade to begin

clapping with the music

Straight away to the carousel

He waved at me!

over to small world

Then over to Buzz Lightyear

Where I got a personal best

... and so did Emmett!

After that, we went over to the Rivers of America to wait for the 9:00 showing of Fantasmic.  We had quite a lot of time to kill, and we had to turn away a lot of people who were eyeing our table.  Dad even got asked if he was leaving… in TAGALOG.  I guess all the sun is making us look Filipino again.  At any rate, to kill time during the wait, we:

Practiced saying names with Mah Mah

Tried on a Woody Hat

A Mickey Mouse Club cowboy hat

And a Davy Crockett coon-skin cap

we finally settled on this one because they could monogram it. The back says "Emmett"

We drank some coffee for some energy boost

So, after waiting and waiting and waiting, 9:00 finally shows up and then 9:01, 9:02… after about 5 minutes, we hear them announce that there is are “technical difficulties” that are delaying the beginning of the show.  At 9:20, we see the workers rolling up the ropes that mark off the seating area, and everyone was saying that the show was cancelled.  They finally made the announcement shortly after that, and we decided to stay for fireworks instead of brave the angry crowds right away.

Emmett and Mah Mah were noting how the "Sing-Sing" were going BOOOOM!

It was a pretty cool show

We overheard that the technical difficulties had been overcome and that the scheduled 10:30 and 11:30 shows were still going to happen, but we couldn’t stay any later than we already had, so we left and resolved to send a strongly worded email to Disneyland about how our Fantasmic experience was ruined by a non-cooperative dragon.  We’ll see what happens.

PoTW 6/6 – 6/12

Yesterday, we met Auntie Julie and Avery at the Aquarium!  This week’s Picture of the Week is when Emmett decided to ponder life and general existence in front of one of the exhibits.

We saw the seals/sea lions get their lunch

we saw the octopus for the first time in four visits!

The "Sea Dragons" are very cool.

A very cool looking fish that I don't remember the name to.

This eel was mocking me. I can feel it.

Emmett and Avery look at the seals

And our last stop was to look at the lorikeets.