2011 Holiday Season

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everybody!

This year, we have all of Mommy's AA friends at work to thank for all of the wine and champagne corks for our Christmas decor. Ella helped with making these cork decors for our green Christmas tree that we got from FUF SF this year.

Thank you for all the gifts!!! Ella doesn't know what to play with anymore.

We went to Great America to check out the Global Winter Wonderland for New Years this year.

Little Foofa fan got the best souvenir of the night courtesy of Daddy's darting skills.

Ella: I had FUN today!

Ella likes to sing

A little Thanks to give

As usual, we had a feast at Thanksgiving this year. While Grandma et al were busy preparing for the big meal, all the little people spent some time in the newly renovated basement movie room.








 


This year's feast was a pot luck. Thanks for making the yummy salmon wraps "kai yea!"



Ella helped mommy make these jam drop short bread cookies.



Finally it was chow time!



We also started our 1st annual Thanksgiving weekend Lord of the Rings marathon. Here are our rock avatars watching the "one ring" marathon.



Ella couldn't exactly sit through the whole thing yet, so she spent some time in her cardboard castle.



And jo jo fits in there too!



Over at Grand Uncle Dominic's house, there was a Santa's workshop churning out these cute little knit booties. Thank you! Mommy is still learning...

Activities for sick and rainy days

We've been kept indoors the last couple of weeks because of the weather and a bout of pneumonia. So what did we do to pass time?

Eating some Chocolate ice-cream. YUM!



Learning to brush our teeth in the morning.



Making some Wii family and friends.

Ella's Busy weekend

It's been a fun filled weekend for us.

Saturday was an exceptionally beautiful day in SF. We were able to catch a flash mob down in Union Square featuring Auntie Ansy (pink top and white shorts) in the front row! Good job!! Ella can't wait for her dancing lessons :)

Then we went down to Sunnyvale to for a delicious dinner with Auntie Mani and the gang for Mommy and Auntie Mani's belated birthdays at Dishdash. The rack of lamb was to die for!

Sunday was a stay at home kind of day with Ethel and Elsie.

                                         

And then Ella helped Mommy made some coconut chocolate cupcakes for her little friends at Daycare.

                                      

Taste testing was part of the job! Yummy frosting

                                      

Then it was time to chow down on the rock cod that Daddy caught earlier in the week.

                                      

Lastly, Daddy carved a friendly face on Ella's first Halloween pumpkin.

                                      

Largest LCD screen

This is evidently the largest LCD screen in the world. Where else would it be but CHINA? It's like the land of WoW

Advertising Chinese style

I've never seen anything so awesome as this Ad in the subway tube!

China, Fall 2011

A month ago, we tested Ella's patience on a flight to Beijing. All of the Dora episodes, colorings, naps, and play kept her occupied for more than 13 hours. Good job!!


All that flying finally got us to Beijing. Here's the new impressive airport. So different from the first time I was there in 1997!



Lao Lao finally got to meet Ella!

Mommy and Daddy finally can begin to sin. Gluttony and Greed!

Here are some delicious duck hearts.

Spicy and Numbing hot pot in Chengdu, Sichuan. Unfortunately, we couldn't find this pot in the stores. Daddy had a sore throat for 4 straight day while we were in Chengdu.


And we had to pass on these chili pepper snacks. Probably a good thing!



Althought we weren't smart enough to pass on Yak sausage at Little Lhasa in Chengdu. Kudos to Daddy who actually could stomach these, cause they reminded me of the the Safari area of zoos (the smell).

 

We also came across Chinese style "Starbucks" and beer houses in Chengdu.




The Chinese easily surpasse Americans in practicing capitalism and shopping there is nothing like it is here. So, when in Rome...

Here are just a few of the things we purchased.

These are "tea pets." I don't know if there's any practical use to them, but super CUTE! You're supposed to pour left over tea on them and keep them watered with tea, so that their coloration will change.



There's also these adorable earrings.

We happened to find an Ella doll!



A pig made of caramel, which Lao Lao thought looked more like a fat rat!



Fabric shopping on this trip was a little disappointing though. The only thing I found was this retro woodland animal print, which I do LIKE very much.



Aside from all of the eating and shopping, we also managed to squeeze in some sight seeing.

Here are the ruins of Yuen Ming Yuan in Beijing.



One of the many Chairman Mao paintings in the capital museum. They were all very George Washingtoneque, which was a little odd...

This was probably the largest museum I've ever seen!

 

This is the famous Leshan Buddha outside of Chengdu in Sichuan. 
 



We were lucky to only have lined up for about 20 minutes to start going down the cliff to see the Buddha. Our tour guide said she's been in line for 2 hours before.



Here's an old couple in their 90s making the same trek we made to see the Buddha! Hope I can still walk in my 90s.



We saw so many temples on this trip. These are the unique temple decor atop of Mt. Emei in Sichuan.



Here's Ella after her prayer session at one of the temples we visited.



We also had the honor of taking this photo with an old monk at the Golden Summit at Mt. Emei.



But her favorite things at these temples were the stone lions .



These stone lions were more interesting to Ella than the little baby Pandas we saw.





Some of the coolest things we saw were not at any tourist sites we visited.

Here's an entire book of the "Art of War" woven in silk!



 Uncle Dominic's garage.



Even dogs in China are stylish!